The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga) (7 page)

I will return in three days,
Lemmy said as he was suddenly being pulled away from his spiritual presence.

“Tell Jenk—” her voice snapped off as Lemmy came to in the freezing cold darkness. He was surprised to find that he was enclosed in a dome made of snow. Jenka was sitting there in a huddle, listening to the world around them intently. Lemmy took a few moments to calm himself and gather his wits. Then he did as Zahrellion had told him, and cast an inquiring spell that activated on touch. When he grabbed Jenka’s ankle, Lemmy nearly jumped out of his skin. Jenka yelled out in surprise, then hushed himself and Lemmy, too, as they both fought to keep from laughing out loud like two little boys.

Lemmy grabbed Jenka’s forearm, and then used his mind and Zah’s spell to speak.
She’s all right. King Blanchard, too. But we can’t just rush in after them.

“Have they hurt her?” Jenka asked. “Could you see her?”

She isn’t hurt that I could see, save for her shoulder,
Lemmy said.
I told her we would return in three days with news. Let’s get back to Jade, fly over this place so we can see the layout, then make for the castle.

“Did she say anything else?” Jenka asked before Lemmy broke the contact.

She said that she’s not just some damsel, and that King Blanchard busted one of Linux’s front teeth.

“That’s it?” Jenka looked disappointed. “She didn’t say—”

She loves you, fool. It doesn’t need to be said.

Jenka wanted to ask more, but Lemmy began digging his way out of the snow dome he’d built. Jenka was sore, and he knew drawing his sword would be a painful chore, so he carried his blade and stayed ready to use the power of the teardrop, not the steel. He followed Lem slowly out of the temple valley, and was aggravated the whole trek that he couldn’t ask his friend a hundred questions about Zahrellion.

Jade was waiting and eagerly took flight. His wounds hurt. Jenka could feel his dragon straining as they flew. Still, Jade was determined to work away the pain. Even though it was bitter beyond words outside, they took the time to fly over the temple a few times and assess the layout.

Jenka remembered seeing the open garden once from the inside. He’d walked in on an ogre being whipped by a blue-robed druid with black eyes. He shuddered at the memory. He was surprised that each time they flew over the temple they saw a few more Sarax lingering near the structure. They also saw several of the ivory-antlered trolls Aikira had mentioned. They were picking through the frozen dead. None of them were doing anything more than pillaging, though.

After they were finished, Jade carried them up above the clouds. The air was so cold it was like ice on the riders’ skin. Strangely, the unhindered sun warmed their blood on the inside. It wasn’t so bad as they rode over an endless field of rolling cottony mist, under a bright clear sky.

They had to dive back down into the bitter gray gloom soon enough, but they were feeling the warmth of knowing that a huge fire was surely blazing inside the castle before them. Then Jade was back-flapping awkwardly down to land on his pad. The riders went shivering their way through the snowfall and down the spiral stairway into the warm, welcoming rotunda below.

Marcherion and Aikira were waiting impatiently for them. Marcherion looked angry.

“Is she all right?” Aikira asked before March could speak.

“She is for now,” Jenka said flatly. “What is Herald’s plan?”

“Your Hazeltine witches are in it now,” March informed. “We are expected to attack the temple with them tomorrow. The rangers are camped just beyond the ridge, resting and readying for war. Rikky is with them. They will be moving just after midnight, and won’t stop until the battle is over.

“Won’t they be buried in the snow?” Jenka sighed a bit of relief. He was pleased that he didn’t have to lobby anyone for help rescuing Zahrellion. It was an inconvenience that he and Lemmy would have to get back and warn her before the attack started, but he had to let her know. King Blanchard deserved to know, too.

Rest, Jenka,
Lemmy said. It was clear he enjoyed being able to use his ethereal voice again.
We will have to be up early, you and I. I’ll be in Clover’s study inking the temple and the grounds as we saw from above.

“Make two copies, if you can, Lem.” Jenka gave his lifelong friend a pat on the shoulder. “I’m sure Herald and Mysterian would like one, too.” He knew Lemmy didn’t need sleep like a full human did. Lemmy once said he could stay awake for days.

I will, but after I check on Tkux and his band of ogre-kin.

“They’ve made a mock saddle for sizing already,” Aikira said. “It looks like it will work great on the smaller dragons, but Blaze and Crystal nee—”

“Crystal needs to be told, too!” Jenka said suddenly.

“Sleep, Jenksy,” Marcherion insisted. He still looked angry, but it seemed he was glad to have something to do. “Blaze and I will go find Crystal.”

Relieved, Jenka put his head in his hands and fell asleep.

The Temple of Dou

“These horn-headed creatures are big and strong like Gravelbone was, and they are thinkers,” Mysterian told Herald and some of the rangers as they trudged through thigh-deep snow toward the Temple of Dou in the dull blue moonlight. “They ain’t Gravelbone, though. Gravelbone is a demon. He was just using one of them horn-headed bodies.”

“So we’re not up against a horde of demon-trolls then?” Herald asked sarcastically. “Just regular metamorphulated ones, ogres with whips of lightning, and winged threshers that can shock the hair right off an old man’s nards, is all?”

“Don’t forget the druids.” Mysterian shook her head at him.

“Nor the orcs and goblins,” Rikky added with a stifled laugh. He was struggling to move through the deep drifts with his peg-leg, and worse than that, he was hungry. “We are almost there, and I need to gather the Dragoneers.”

“Be off then,” Mysterian said. “Keep the Sarax off of us and we can prevail in this.” Her eyes held Rikky’s a moment. “You tell Jenka I said that. Tell the Dragoneers to keep the sky clear of them larvae. We witches will get Zahrellion and King Blanchard out of there.”

Rikky’s stomach growled audibly as he nodded that he understood. “Watch your arse, Herald,” Rikky said as he started hobbling away from the small clanking army of chuckling rangers, foresters, and bundled-up witches. He could hardly wait to get back to the castle and eat something.

Sylva was watching over him, and came immediately down out of the sky to land smoothly in an open area of undisturbed drifts. She put her long neck near a tree. Rikky used the tree to help him mount the pewter-colored wyrm and they started up into the snowy night sky toward home.

When Rikky came down into the rotunda, he could smell something savory: meat, he decided, is what it was. He learned that Jenka was asleep and Marcherion had gone, searching for Crystal. Aikira and Lemmy were looking at the sketches Lemmy had made of the temple. Rikky said hello and picked up one of the drawings. On the back, there were older drawings of some strange-looking contraption. “What’s this?” he asked Lemmy with genuine curiosity.

Lemmy looked at it, and after a moment realized that he had drawn on the back of one of Clover’s drawings by mistake.
I’m not sure what it is, Rikky. A bladder bag with a tube to drink from, maybe, but the map I drew on the other side is for Herald.

“It’s almost time for the attack,” Rikky said. “I’m going to wake Jenka. Mysterian said that the witches would get Zahrellion from the temple if we kept the sky clear of Sarax. She claims to know the temple well, and she and some of the witches are with Herald, but still, I’ll take this to them before we fly into battle.”

I can’t fly,
Lemmy said.
I need to be let off near where Jenka and I crept up…here.
He pointed out the place on the map he’d drawn.

“If we leave after I eat, I can get you there, and toss this map to Herald before it all begins.”

“We’ll leave together,” Jenka said from the doorway. His hair was a tangled mess, but he was moving about as if he were well rested and ready for what was to come. “We’ll keep the sky clear and get Zahrellion back this day, with or without the witches and the rangers.” His tone conveyed his conviction well. “We’re going after one of our own.”

“No sense in me coming all the way down then,” Marcherion called from a place high up on the stair. “Crystal is here. All five dragons are on their pads and waiting.”

“Let’s go get the white dragon her rider back then.” Aikira dropped a clanking satchel on the floor, then started pulling gear out and strapping it to her lithe body.

Rikky was ready, so he went to the kitchen and found a pot of stew made from roasted elk, but now he was too excited to eat. While he waited on Jenka and the others, he forced a few bites down and was thankful for the sustenance.

Jenka followed Rikky and Lemmy, who were both riding Silva. The pewter dragon landed near the temple, and Lemmy slid off, just as the battle broke out elsewhere. Jade landed and Jenka slid to the ground, too.

“Lemmy, you take care of her as best you can,” Jenka pleaded.

Lemmy dropped his eyes in a look that Jenka took as ashamed. It stunned him when Lem reached over and put his hand on his shoulder.

I deceived you most of your life, and I failed to keep your witchy mother alive at the keep, Jenka
. Lemmy had tears in his eyes.
I won’t fail you again, my good-hearted friend,
the half-elvish mute voiced into the ether, before he turned and disappeared into the not so empty orchard.

“Mount up!” Rikky yelled as Silva darted in a flap-stepping run to meet the band of orcs and trolls that a huge whip-bearing ogre was driving at them.

Jenka turned and started toward his mount. Jade leaned down in anticipation, and Jenka saw for the first time a ferocious looking dragon instead of an awkward young wyrm before him. Jade was eager for battle.

This observation was further reinforced when Jenka mounted and was nearly whirled off of his bond-mate backwards. There was no running start, no two hop-stepping lurches this time. Jade took to the sky in one powerful leap.