The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga) (6 page)

Lemmy remembered seeing a skull once, on a farmer’s cart, well east of Delton. The man said he found it at the back of his field. It was a trollish skull with stunted antlers growing out of it. He’d never thought about that until this very moment, and his mind suddenly wrapped around something he could barely believe.

Lemmy understood the sketches in Clover’s study now. He understood them well enough to know that they were all in far deeper than any of them could have imagined. Gravelbone hadn’t been an anomaly. He was just the first of his kind, or maybe the second, to morph out of the cocooned pupa stage of metamorphosis. The Sarax were the caterpillar, eating their fill of human meat so that they could cocoon and change into foul ivory-horned vermin masters like Gravelbone. This idea was hard to conceive, but he sensed it was the case.

Suddenly there was a troop of trolls being driven by a huge ogre wielding a whip formed of silvery blue lightning. They were passing on an unnoticed trail, less than a pebble toss away. The falling snow must have been dampening the sound of their passage, because now that they were close, the beasts were as noisy as could be. The ogre’s enchanted whip hummed and hissed and cracked in long statical spurts. Luckily, Lemmy grabbed Jenka and pulled him into a crouch then almost dragged him backwards on his arse under the skirt of a huge pine.

They were huddling there waiting for the band of trouble to pass when Lemmy spotted a pale spider the size of a girl’s fist dropping at Jenka from the branches above. He wanted to whisper a warning, but had no voice. He grabbed Jenka and shook his arm violently to get his attention then pointed at the thing, all while the ogre driver was lashing and yelling in some strange dialect of ogrish just a few yards away. Lemmy gave up that tack when Jenka shushed him with a glare.

Lemmy drew his dagger. As casually as he could manage, he waited until the thing landed on Jenka’s shoulder. Then, as quick as a flash, he stabbed it without poking his friend. Jenka turned to look at him with a mixture of anger and disbelief showing plainly on his face, but when he saw the big, wiggly, white spider on the tip of Lem’s dagger he almost swallowed his tongue. It had a stinger the size of a rose’s thorn on it, and it was dripping a milky clear liquid as it writhed and squirmed.

Lemmy grunted and looked up sharply. Jenka followed his eyes and saw maybe a dozen of the creepy-looking things skittering around a complex web that had been built in the shelter of the upper branches. Another was starting to descend to investigate the intruders.

No sooner were the trolls and their ferocious driver past, than Jenka and Lemmy both rolled out from under the tree and put a distance between them and the spiders’ nest. Jenka started toward the temple, but Lemmy caught the sleeve of his coat and pulled him another way. He wanted to see the ruined cocoon again. It was close enough that the trolls and the ogre should have smelled it. They were probably too occupied trying to stay ahead of that wicked weapon the ogre was wielding. That, or the smell wasn’t strange to them.

When Lemmy stopped at the now cold mess of fluids and flesh, he took a moment to put the stilled spider in a drawstring leather pouch. Then he knelt down, trying not to inhale the air coming directly off the corpse. He used his dagger to cut open the ill-formed thing while there was still daylight left to see how its vitals grew.

Jenka wanted to be off. He wanted to let Zahrellion know that she wasn’t alone. He wanted to be sure no patrol of ogre-driven trellkin had found where his unhealed dragon was resting over the ridge. He was hungry, too, but only until he watched what Lemmy was doing for a minute. “I don’t care how well you char that meat, Lem,” he deadpanned. “I’m not eating it for supper.”

Marcherion and Rikky were half drunk. They were listening to Herald’s recounting of having a chunk eaten out of his arse by the goblins that overran Mainsted. The old King’s Ranger would growl and bare his arms in a silly pose as he told of the goblins themselves. Everyone in the room was smiling, save for Rikky. A goblin had eaten his leg. He might have been in a better mood if his mother hadn’t found him in the keep’s main hall earlier and started scrubbing his neck and ears with a dishrag like she had when he was a little kid. It was embarrassing. He was glad to see his mother, though, so he took the jeers and let her baby him. In truth, he was feeling more at home than he had since he and the hunters of Crag had first ridden south. The pitch smoke and sweat, the smell of spilled ale and baked bread, all intermingled with the fellowship and gave him a base sense of peace.

Herald had a new plan. The rangers were marching in the morning, straight through the ice and snow, to the Temple of Dou. Herald said they would demand the release of King Blanchard and Zahrellion. Either the druids would comply, or they would fight. Of course, Rikky and March had already pledged themselves and their dragons to the cause of getting Zahrellion out of the temple. While the rangers marched, Rikky was going to watch over them. Marcherion would return to Clover’s castle to get Jenka and Aikira. Herald said that in just a handful of days the tale would be told.

Tonight’s celebratory gathering was a ranger tradition. Before a battle, or the beginning of a long bitter march toward one, the rangers always drank a few toasts and told a few tales. For some of the older rangers this was an odd war toast, as most of the previous ones they had attended had come before a dragon hunt. This time dragons, and their riders, would fight with them.

Captain Polk was starting into a story about some trolls that had been pilfering Swineherd’s sows a few years ago, when Mysterian and two of her witches suddenly appeared in a wavering “hissss!” and a shower of glittery sparkles.

Herald had been leaning back in his chair and went over with kicking legs. A few daggers were drawn, but it was quickly clear by the alert and fierce temperament of the spell-ready witches, that they could have decimated the whole keep if they’d wanted to.

“It’s about fargin’ time you came around,” Herald growled from his back. One of the captains helped him to his feet.

“It’s good to see you too, love.” Mysterian was searching the room and started to look worried until her eyes found Rikky. She let out a visible sigh of relief and then started shooing the frightened rangers out of the common room and off to their bunks.

“You’ve three days of clear weather to make your march,” she told them. “Get rested and make your peace. It’s no small battle we’ll fight when we get to the Temple of Dou.”

“You’re fighting with us?” Rikky asked.

“All of us that can teleport are.” Mysterian gave him a wink. “They have one of them Sarax in the depths of that temple. We need to see it, to find out how the druids have managed to control them. We have to find out how to locate and destroy the cocoons.”

“They have Zahrellion and King Blanchard, Mysti,” Herald said. “We have to... What? What cocoons?”

“Them Sarax feed for a while, a few weeks I’d guess. Then they roll up into cocoons in the dirt. They stay that way until they hear their queen’s drumming call.”

“What happens to ‘em then?” Rikky asked.

Most of the rangers and foresters had gone to their quarters as ordered, but a few stood still where they were, waiting for the old witch to answer.

“You shanked the second pupa in the streets of Mainsted, Rikky Camille.” She wrinkled her nose and cast her narrowed gaze slowly across the room, making sure that everyone would hear her plain. “Gravelbone is what they become, or just like him. And there be hundreds of ‘em, maybe thousands that heard that drone while the crystal encasement was breached in the fall. King Richard has killed three of ‘em. Before long they’ll start gathering the mudged and the goblins. It’ll be too late then.”

“You’ve spoken to the Crown Prince?” Herald asked dutifully. “That crazed boy ain’t no king.”

“Herald dear, King Richard has already started the evacuation of the entire mainland. Each ship that sails has been ordered to make three trips from Mainsted Harbor to the islands. The people who don’t make it onto those ships will be left here to fend for themselves.”

“Not even half of the people will get to go,” a ranger said.

“What about them folks over in Port?” asked another.

“Has he gone mad?” Herald barked and finished shooing the men out. Only he, Captain Polk, Rikky, March, and the witches remained in the long hall. “How will they defend themselves?”

“He is completely mad,” Mysterian cackled disappointedly. “But he says that the Sarax can’t fly from here to the islands, and that the seawater combustiates them. He also told me to tell Rikky Camille to make the things climb in the sky over and again and they will tire quickly enough.”

Rikky and March were both listening intently now.
Seawater?
Rikky already knew they tired easy. Silva was so fast that she had no problem outdistancing the vicious creatures. The idea of seawater harming them was intriguing, but he had no idea what combustiating was about.

“We need to make short work of them druids, love,” Mysterian told Herald as she eased over and gave him a hug. “We witched the weather well enough to give you three clear days.”

“We’ll be there in two and a half,” Herald boasted.

“Get there in two and a half days and you have to fight them lash-wielding ogres without us.”

“I’ll be there with them,” Rikky said.

“The rest of the Dragoneers will be right behind you,” Marcherion added.

“Some of them old druids are as powerful as power itself,” Mysterian warned. “You’ll do well to use caution when you face them. Now, if you’ll excuse First Ranger Herald and me, we have a few matters to attend in private.”

The eager boyish grin that formed on Herald’s face was enough to move the others along.

“Tell him I am not some damsel,” Zahrellion whispered to the shimmery essence of Lemmy hovering in her cell. It was strange because the chamber was warm, almost hot, and the image was shivering and exhaling breathy clouds of steam.

Her world had been a blank slate of empty nothingness for the last few days. “They only removed the damping hood a day ago. We have to be discreet or they may sense us.”

I can’t tell Jenka anything,
Lemmy’s magical voice sounded as part of the spell he was using.
I can’t speak, and the ethereal is nothing but an angry buzz.

“You can use an inquiring spell that responds to touch and just put your hand on his shoulder,” she told him with a snarl at his lack of creativity. She scowled fiercely as she thought about her situation. “Tell Jenka that I am well enough for now. Tell Crystal that… that… that I miss her. King Blanchard is in the cell across from me. I thought it was Lanxe trying to deceive me at first, but King Blanchard busted one of Linux’s front teeth out so that we could recognize him. Lanxe may be insane, but he hasn’t the stones to inflict that kind of pain on himself.”

Is there a chance you can get free?
Lemmy asked.
Can you get outside?
He already knew the answer was ‘no’, but he asked anyway. They would have to take this place by force, it was clear. He could only hope that Zah and King Blanchard could find a way to stay alive if it came to that.

You need to start searching out weaknesses,
Lemmy went on.
If we attack, you have to stay alive. If Lanxe threatens you, remind him that he can leverage you. Find a way to get yourself and the king outside where we have the advantage. Try to find out what Lanxe is feeding the Sarax, too. Find out all you can about them.

“I’m sure they’re feeding them a spell. I know the Sarax only obey the druid that feeds them for a short time. They were arguing over it while I was under the hood; something about stages of metamorphosis.” She heard a sound, paused and peeked out of the barred window in her cell’s door. It was just King Blanchard moaning across the corridor.

“How long, I’m not sure yet.” She turned from the door and continued in a whisper. “There’s an open altar in the center of the main temple. Have Jade carry you high above and you’ll see it. If I can break from this cell, I could get there, but that’s a big if.”