Rise Of The Dragon King (Book 5) (16 page)

Crimzon called out for what may have been only hours, but might have been a full day; for once his chant gained its rhythm, the world around them began to swim. Then a presence of power so potent that it made Clover’s skin prickle and her hair stand on end eased into their proximity.

The conversation was beyond her, but the response was to Crimzon’s liking. Now they were racing to the dam site, Clover on Crimzon’s back, the formless elementals straight through the earth. As Crimzon carried Clover through the narrower sections of the cavern this time, they opened wide enough on their own, and the dragon never had to slow.

When Clover saw what was transpiring near the river, how the dam was giving way, her heart fell. Jenka’s new form was being twisted and folded over on itself as water poured over the top. Even as they swooped down to help Zahrellion and Linux up to the higher ground Rikky and Aikira had found, the whole of Jenka’s dam came loose, and the tainted water went rushing through the gulch toward the lake’s now dwindling headwaters.

Clover had Crimzon set Zahrellion and Linux down and saw that Golden and Crystal were already latching onto what was once their beloved Jenka. There were bloody places, tears and breaks, and even elongated protrusions of bone
and tendon visible where the force of all that water had broken him. Neither Clover nor her wyrm could find his head or mouth, and the dragons carrying him didn’t want to lay him across the ground wrong and suffocate him. Then the idea that he might have long been drowned assailed Clover, and that part of her that loved him deeply, the part of her that longed for him, went into a panic.

Rikky took Zahrellion’s wet hand as they watched Crystal and Golden lay Jenka’s form across the higher field. Clover watched them, hoping to see some sign of hope shine forth on their faces, but there was none. She saw that Linux was watching the poisoned water as it raced away toward the people of the kingdom. Not only had the dam failed, but they had failed, too. Clover sighed as she teleported to Jenka’s side on the ground.

Crimzon roared out in anger, and then Clover had her powerful teardrop in her hand and was using it to probe the terrible-looking thing lying still before her. She had to choke back tears, because at that moment she would have wagered that Jenka was dead, and she never lost a bet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

R
ikky heard Linux, Zahrellion and Aikira all at once. Aikira’s sad song separated itself from the jumble, and then the masculinity of Linux faded as well.

“Go to the castle and get all the gold in that vault!” Zah was screaming. “Go, Rikky, now. Take Crystal and Golden, and get it all to Port.”

“I’ll go.” Linux shoved past Rikky and started toward Golden.

“I will give him cover, Zah,” Aikira said sadly. “I’m not fit for much else.”

“Ride Crystal, then, Dou Master,” Zahrellion offered with a slight bow of respect, which reminded Rikky that Linux was the one who’d trained her.

She looked at Rikky, and tears welled up in her lavender eyes. Instead of the embrace he half expected, she turned then and climbed up onto the shelf where Clover was attending Jenka.

Rikky let out a frustrated yell, summoned Silva, and then leapt out over open air where there had just been a huge lake. His fall only lasted a moment, for his speedy wyrm was right there beneath him, undulating her body downstream toward the swell of poisoned water. He could see the beginnings of the lake
beyond it, and his heart shifted into his throat. Not only would he not be able to get there before the tainted flow, he had no idea how to stop it if he could.

He looked back to find Crimzon flying right above and behind him. The huge fire dragon had his eyes locked on something in front of them. Rikky looked ahead, following that line of sight, and then Silva was suddenly pulling up so hard that everything went fuzzy, and Rikky’s head began to swim. He felt his dragon graze some field of force that felt as solid as a stone wall when they brushed against it.

Silva had to twist over backward and then dive away and gather her own wits to avoid the head-on collision.

Crimzon stalled his glide with two powerful wing strokes and hovered there.

Rikky saw that the water wasn’t flowing further anymore. It was held back by an invisible wall that he was still trying to wrap his mind around.

Watch thisss
, Crimzon hissed, looking over his shoulder and indicating an area back upriver.

Rikky watched as the earth crumpled inward in a slow-moving line about three hundred paces west of the Strom River’s course. He’d seen such a thing before, when the elementals helped them destroy the alien shapeshifter in the Confliction, and he now understood the nature of the wall into which they had
almost crashed.

The gorge being forced into the ground was deep. It looked like some invisible ship was sailing across the land, leaving a wake that never flowed back together. Only a few dozen yards behind the head of the cut was the Strom River’s flow.

Rikky could only assume that the water he could see was coming from a point upriver from where the poison had been introduced. He figured it out as the cut moved past the wall and entered the lake’s main body a good distance west of them. He realized then that the flow of the Strom was suddenly restored and the tainted water sectioned out.

Rikky wasn’t surprised when the earth behind the invisible wall began to build up into a substantial dam of rock and mud and boulders.

Knowing that they had saved the people eased his mind enough for him to remember that Jenka needed him, and Silva was already flying back in that direction.

He didn’t hesitate to snatch Clover’s teardrop right from her hands when he ran up and started his dive into Jenka’s anatomical essence.

The days turned into weeks as Richard spent his time flying over the
mountains in the north part of Vikaria. He relished the feeling of it, and when he first introduced Bruiser to elk meat, the wyrm and his small pack of cronies went crazy for it. Bruiser had never eaten anything but cave rats and other mudged, and only the occasional bit of half-rotted game that survived those wyrms who crowded the openings, but Bruiser’s thoughts told Richard in no articulate way that it would serve him forever, as long as he helped it hunt for fresh red meat. In turn, Richard filled Bruiser’s mind with images of massive herds thundering through the valleys of the Mainland, and of the great feasts of moose and tungler bear that both Royal and the Nightshade had enjoyed.

It wasn’t long before Richard started thinking about his new wife and the few nights they’d shared before his adventure began. He wanted to see her. After being alone so long, her touch had struck him deeply.

He had taken the vows, and as one of royal blood, he always kept them. Even in strange situations like this one.

His father had once said, “Honor, not relation, is what really separates royalty from the rest of the people. A butcher can live like a king if he has honor, and so a king can live like a fool if he has none.”

“But you told me the other day that honor can be purchased. Are you saying that a position of royalty can be purchased, too?” Richard remembered asking the
question as if it were just yesterday.

“If your Great Uncle Sholvig hadn’t given me those three ships last year, he would not be the Lord of Cut, but he has
some
honor, more than most.”

For a while, as Bruiser lazed in the sun digesting his latest meal, Richard stayed lost in that youthful era. As always, his mind took him back to his dragon, Royal.

What is beyond the Confliction is unknown
, the old blue dragon said into Richard’s mind.
But there is something here not from this world, and it must be removed. That is what the Confliction is ultimately about. After you have succeeded, you will have to make your own future, as will the other dragon-riders who will come and fight with you
.

You talk as if you know you won’t survive it
. Richard formed his question as a statement, but he already knew Royal’s answer.

I will not survive it. I may not survive the wait for the others, if you don’t quit making so much noise when you sneak back in at night
.

Bruiser let loose a long, slow fart that stank so badly Richard had to get up and jog upwind before it left him unconscious. He took a few deep breaths, cleared the foul air from his body and sat back down.

Was he himself honorable? Rikky Camille didn’t think so, for he’d killed
Herald, but in Richard’s mind, he was avenging the death of Royal’s twin when he did the deed. Admittedly, it was coming a few decades late, but it was justice just the same.

Or was it?

Had he done such a thing out of spite, or jealousy, or just plain rage?

He decided he didn’t care.

“Honor to one man is treachery to another,” he recited a saying he’d read somewhere later in life. After his father and mother had shown their lack of honor in the way they treated his brother Jenka, he knew it to be true.

If he were Jenka, he would still be angry at having to grow up in a hut in the foothills, while his real family ate roast pig with gold utensils on plates hand-carved from coral.

Moress
. Bruiser managed one of the only words he knew. The sated wyrm didn’t even budge or bat an eyelid as he thought about more food.

No, Bruise, we are going to visit my wife and her father, and see what kind of mess we can stir up
. Richard sent the thoughts, even though he knew the dragon didn’t understand them. It wasn’t Bruiser he was speaking to, though; it was a bright blue high dracus that was about to sacrifice his existence to save the same lot of humanity that had chopped off his twin brother’s head in a fighting pit.
To Richard, that was honor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

C
lover left Rikky and called her dragon. The water sectioned out of the river’s course was now making a new stream that flowed shallow across the plains. Crimzon came back-flapping down, sending her strawberry hair across her teary-eyed face, and she sniffled.

Zahrellion was there now, sobbing her love for her husband. Clover saw how this almost cost Rikky his concentration, and an understanding dawned on her then. She wondered about Jenka’s children, and jealousy struck her like a whip crack. Jericho and Amelia would grow up with their mother, and her son had not. It only stung until Rikky brought his and Clover’s teardrops together and used them to locate Jenka’s dragon tear.

Suddenly, a deep green ray began to form between the teardrops, then the ray spread wide and enveloped Rikky, Jenka, and Zahrellion in a bright explosion of raw, lime-colored dour magic.

When Clover cleared her eyes and saw that Rikky had turned Jenka back into his natural form, she had to choke back a sob, for he was broken as badly as Aikira
had been, if not worse. Then there was Jade. The young green-scaled wyrm was conscious, but barely. Crimzon looked him over and nudged a place here and there, sending bright scarlet bursts of his powerful dour into the crumpled emerald wyrm. Clover watched as Rikky gently pushed Zahrellion back and started bending and twisting his friend’s limbs and neck into their normal positions.

Rikky then hovered over his friend for a long while. A light yellow radiance was emitting from his hand as he worked his healing magic. Clover realized then that she had no real feelings for Jenka as a lover, for they’d never done the deed.

Rikky loved Zahrellion, though, and once this was all finished, Clover decided she would help him get over his tormenting emotions. After all, Rikky wasn’t married and probably needed a lesson or two in love.

Only when Jenka heaved in a breath and Rikky stood and stumbled toward her did Clover feel relief. The look on Rikky’s face showed that Jenka would live, but the youngest Dragoneer’s visage was one of pure rage and frustration.

“Let us find this wizard and give him his gold,” Rikky growled as he limped past her. His peg leg looked to be paining him as much as his heart. “Jenka is poisoned, and he will die without the full cure.”

“We should find Aikira and Linux and make a plan, then.” Clover gave Zahrellion and Jenka one last look over her shoulder as she followed Rikky.

Zahrellion’s love for her husband was plain, and Clover knew that Rikky was feeling it, too. She was relieved, but unsure why her instinct had been wrong about Jenka’s life.

“My teardrop,” she said before Rikky could get too far away. “The wizard has one, too.”

“I saw it dangling at his neck.” Rikky tossed her dour-laden jewel back to her and started climbing awkwardly onto his wyrm. “But where are we going to get a hundred chests of gold?”

“Let us worry about that, Rikky.” Clover shook her head. Crimzon raised up and turned to look at her. “A hundred chests of gold is not so much as you think,” she said as she started silently easing Crimzon’s sudden concern over his vast hoard.