The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga) (2 page)

When he opened his eyes he found that he was in a cramped wooden room that smelled of brine and tar. By the way his hammock was swaying he knew they were cresting the larger waves of the deep rolling sea. It was strange being in the gruff, mostly fit body of the hairy guardsman after being inside King Blanchard’s huge, uncooperative bulk for so long. He swung into a sitting position and thought for a moment.

Since the vessel was sailing out of Mainsted, he figured Kingston was their destination, and wasn’t pleased. Not only had he murdered selfishly, and destroyed an entire family’s reputation, but he had been unable to absolve himself with death. As if fate meant to taunt him, he was now stuck on a ship that might be sailing to the last place he would ever want to go. The situation was infuriating enough that he completely forgot the condition of his leg when he jumped down to go find where they were headed.

The pain of his landing sent him into unconsciousness again, and when he finally opened his eyes, it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. His leg was splinted, and he was restrained; chained to the hard plank bench he was lying on.

“Am I a prisoner?” he asked the filthy, three-toothed man who was sitting by a porthole looking through the grime at the ever-swaying roll of the world outside.

“Can’t say,” the man replied. “But we’ll be findin’ out when we get all these nit-picky witches to them Outlands.”

“Witches?”

“The Warlock King banished ‘em, and them marked-up druidoo’s, too.” The man spoke in a gossipy whisper. “We’re taking ‘em witches all the way to Avlron.”

“Avlron?” Linux couldn’t help but feel a twinge of something akin to excitement flare inside him. He’d studied the Outlands at the temple. He’d even been to Indale on occasion to trade with the Outlanders and the ogres. The pain of his leg stole his thoughts away, though, and deep feverish slumber took hold.

Jenka spotted movement in the snowy distance. He was on watch at the entrance to the star ship cavern, and was the only Dragoneer awake at this late hour. Whatever it was he was seeing, it was at ground level. Even in the thick flurries, the Sarax traveled in the air. He grew alarmed when he realized there was more than one thing moving down the valley slope toward Clover’s castle. Then the flakes thinned for a time and he saw that it was a pack of ogres. He grew excited when he saw that they were being led by Lemmy, the golden-haired mute. Jenka wanted more than anything to go greet his lifelong friend, but he was on duty. He let them go unmolested, knowing that if Lemmy was bringing ogres around, they were trustworthy.

Soon his shift would be over and Aikira and her yellow-scaled wyrm would relieve him. He liked Aikira. She was girlish and fierce at the same time. And her voice was a thing of utter beauty. Her ebon skin and golden helmet lent her a majestic look that the form-fitted girdle and boots she favored only accentuated.

To Jenka, Aikira was pretty, but Zahrellion’s otherworldly beauty owned his heart. While he waited and scanned the skies for Sarax, he thought about a farm and tow-headed children, about stew slurped around an oak plank by a hearth fire in a home. Jade kept intruding into the visions, though, reminding him that he was a Dragoneer, and as much as he and Zahrellion loved each other, those dreams were just dreams.

They could never be.

The Dragoneers welcomed the visitors well. For Rikky especially, it was an exciting break in the monotony of guarding the star ship from all the Sarax that had gotten loose. It was also good to see Lem. The reunion was cheerful, and a century-old cask of the finest Outland wine was carted up from the well-stocked cellar and tapped.

There were six ogres, and Tkux was the alpha of the group. He moved about the high-ceilinged rotunda mingling with Aikira and Zahrellion, who both could speak gruffly in ogrish. The other green-skinned creatures stood and watched the humans from a tight-knit group near the huge hearth fire that was roaring. Rikky marveled at the fact that there was actually leather armor and packs made that fitted them.

“Outlanders and ogres have traded for decades,” Zahrellion told him when he asked. “But apparently these ogres have learned to work the leather themselves.”

Tkux has offered to craft the saddles we were working on,
Lemmy said into the ethereal.
The dragons can hunt the hides we’ll need. The ogres will also take on the terrible chore of removing all those carcasses from the star ship crater. It needs to be done while it’s mostly frozen. They’ll use the crater to pickle and cure our leather, and then work the materials. This will allow you time to hunt the Sarax. The ogres will be on guard while they work.

“Why would they do that?” Marcherion asked with the raise of his brow. He was very protective over the castle. While Jenka was bedridden, he had taken it upon himself to formulate the watch system they were using.

Rikky didn’t like March questioning Lemmy, but he was curious to hear the answer to the query, so he didn’t voice his complaint.

There are two paired mates, and a younger female that Tkux will eventually take as a mate among this band,
Lemmy explained.

Rikky saw that his friend was happy to be able to use the ethereal. Out away from the castle it was crushed under the deep thrumming noise the Sarax generated. They couldn’t even communicate with their dragons beyond the castle’s field. Being a mute, this meant that Lemmy was reduced to hand signals, primitive grunts, and calls, unless he was here, inside the structure.

The radiating protection of this structure covers a large mountainous area,
Lemmy continued with the only voice he had.
Tkux would settle here and work to protect the castle and the crater while crafting the saddles some of you seem to desperately need.
He looked at Rikky when he said the last. Then he noticed that the other often unseated Dragoneer wasn’t about.
Where’s Jenka?

“It’s his watch,” Zahrellion said, as if it were her place to answer. She was wrapped in a thick furred robe, and huddled so deeply you almost couldn’t see her. “I bet he didn’t even see you arrive in that thick stuff.” Since Jenka had recovered from the Dou burnout he’d suffered after encasing the star ship, they had been intimate. It made the other Dragoneers uneasy, but so far both of them were happy and easy to get along with. “Any news from Kingsmen’s Keep or the temple?” she asked hopefully.

Lanxe is mad.
Lemmy shook his head.
He had some of his collared ogres drive a score of orcs and trolls south toward the keep to attack. They ended up caught in that recent storm and all froze to death. It’s a shame he didn’t go with them. And Herald ... Herald will most likely burst his pumper if Mysterian doesn’t show herself soon. He’s planning a raid on the temple for spring because he thinks King Blanchard is a hostage there. I have a message about it for Jenka.

“I’ll be relieving him soon,” said Aikira, her hairless head sleek and perfectly formed. She had her golden helmet under her arm. Her slightly gap-toothed smile was infectious. The dark thigh-high boots and the gauntlets she wore over her tight-fitting doeskins gave her an intimidating look. “Any news from Indale?”

The Sarax have attacked cities in the kingdom and the Outlands several times over the winter, but they seem content to feed then flee,
Lemmy answered. He and his travelling companions covered a lot of ground and gathered information from creatures all through the Lower Orichs.
They say Prince Richard and the Nightshade are actually defending the kingdom. They call him the Warlock King.

“What if Herald finds King Blanchard?” Rikky asked. “Will we have to fight a war with the Warlock?”

“Jenka says it’s none of our concern,” Zahrellion said matter-of-factly.

“Speaking of Jenka,” Aikira excused herself, “I won’t expect you until midmorning, Rikky. Visit with your friend.”

“I’ll be there at dawn,” he promised. He hated it that the girls always treated him special, as if he were a needy child. So what if he only had one leg? In the air he was the fastest of them all, and probably the smartest, too.

Jenka was pleased that Lemmy had come. There was a stair that spiraled the huge central column of the rotunda down from the dragon landings. Jenka kissed Zahrellion on the lips when he stepped off of it. He then spent several hours talking and drinking with Lemmy, Tkux, and the other Dragoneers. Jenka told the story of the time their friend Solman had wiped his arse with poison sumac. Lemmy laughed his strange nasal laugh, and Rikky rolled around on the floor. Eventually Zahrellion informed them that dawn was breaking, and Rikky hustled off on the new, floor-thumping peg-leg Jenka had carved for him in his spare time. It was made out of a straight piece of dragon bone Jade had gone alone and retrieved from somewhere. Jenka shod it with a silver cap.

Lemmy and the ogres were shown to a gathering hall that was big enough for them to sleep comfortably in, and Jenka was left with Zahrellion and the letter Herald had written him. He wasn’t eager to read it. He held no real loyalty to the kingdom, especially King Richard’s kingdom, but for King’s Ranger Herald Kaljatig he would do most anything.

“What does it say?” Zahrellion asked as she led him by the hand into the apartment directly under her dragon’s landing.

“I haven’t broken the seal yet,” he answered.

She kissed him quickly and decided that she had to know what it said. “Read it, then. Tell me what our favorite King’s Ranger has to say.”

Reluctantly, he broke the wax and unrolled the vellum. He could sense Zahrellion’s anxiousness, and teased her by deliberately acting as if he were reading to himself. When she elbowed him he said, “What? Let me finish.”

He was smart enough to expect the slugging flurry of girlish punches that peppered his shoulder.

“Read it to me.” She pouted then, and he found he couldn’t resist her. He’d noticed how much less alien she looked with the triangle formed in her forehead the color of blond wood instead of sparkling silver. She had ascended to a higher level of reception, or some such. If she were still a druida of Dou, she would be wearing a blue robe now. Jenka was glad she wasn’t. Outside of her and Linux, he’d never met a druid he liked, and as far as he knew, Linux was dead.