The Royal Dragoneers: 2016 Modernized Format Edition (Dragoneers Saga) Page 10

  Their destination, Outwal, sat just this side of the Great Wall. It would take every bit of the day to get there, but this part of their journey wasn’t going to be made on horseback.

  Though he was exhausted from his all-night adventure with Zah, the excitement and promise of the day's travel gave Jenka enough energy to get the carriage loaded. After that, he slept, his head bobbing in the corner of the once plush, but now dingy and overused, hard-topped buggy.

  Herald was riding boltman up on the box with the driver, so Jenka had his legs stretched out to the side, taking up the entire width of the seat across from Zah and Linux. Zah was asleep for the first part of the trek as well, her tattoo-covered, but otherwise pleasant, face scrunched and slobbering in her bald-headed companion’s lap.

  They were awakened when the driver suddenly pulled the wagon to a halt. Herald spoke excitedly to a group of men outside. No one was alarmed. Though they were still outside the Great Wall, they were in the heart of civilization. There were ranches and clusters of homes, even larger dwellings, where multiple families lived all under one roof, all around them. Travelers and herders passed by constantly, and every few miles there was a well-manned Kingsmen’s outpost, or a tavern room that served as the same. There was no danger of troll attacks or dragons here. There were bandits, but they would have little interest in a carriage full of people. They would be after cargo or coin, not common folk. Herald still insisted on riding guard and manning the crossbow, and this gave the passengers a little more comfort and confidence in their safety.

  By the conversation outside, it sounded like a group of Herald’s fellow King’s Rangers were trying to sort the gossip and rumors they had been hearing from the truth. The stop was short, and the carriage was quickly jerked back into motion and picking up speed. Jenka couldn’t sleep after that, and he gladly accepted a bread roll, stuffed with ham and cheese, that Linux produced from a basket at his feet.

  After he ate, Jenka drank from a canteen, then began to think about what Zah’s dragon had said, and what it had shown him in that vision. More vivid than a favorite memory, the scene had been so perfectly clear, as if he were actually living that moment. Crystal had said that the other dragon of the three had bonded with their future. What does that mean? Jenka wondered to himself as he looked out the small, dirty portal at the strange, progressing world outside.

  They were continually passing amazing feats of human ingenuity and constructions beyond anything Jenka could have thought possible. There were mechanical plows, with dozens of steel-forged moving parts, working the fields, and an intricately-carved marble statue of Lady Herron — the firstborn of the realm — that stood a dozen feet tall. There were spiraling towers built at the corners of some of the prouder buildings, which were topped with roofs of hammered copper that shined like molten, golden spear heads in the sun. Flamboyantly-dressed jugglers entertained in an open pavilion on a busy intersection of roads, and a silver-haired man dressed in black robes blew flames from his mouth as if he were part fire drake. Some of the carriages and wagon carts they passed looked streamlined, and they were constructed and painted so cleverly that Jenka thought the gods themselves might have had a hand in their design.

  As they neared Outwal proper, the congestion and proximity of the growing structures became so dense that it felt to Jenka as if they were passing down a long, high-walled corridor. The sun was leaving the sky, and the landscape ahead of them fell away towards the sea, giving only the slightest hint at the size of the protected peninsula that lay beyond the Great Wall. They had a hilltop view of the kingdom lands all the way south to Port, and the sea coast to which they clung. Jenka held the carriage door open rather than enjoy the sight through the grimy glass. On one side of the city called Port was the sea, but on the other was nothing but wide-open landscape that stretched east and south as far as the eye could see. The view shed some perspective on all the overcrowding, reminding Jenka that, crammed and busy as the cities were, there were still thousands upon thousands of miles of open land and forest out there that hadn’t been touched.

  Just then, Jenka caught his first sight of the formidable Great Wall, and he was taken aback. The stone block monstrosity rose up over forty feet above the ground and stretched its way across the land in a gentle arc until it disappeared into the eastern horizon. There were towers spaced every so often along its length, and men moved about between them on the wall top. The western end went right into the sea and ended a good distance out in the bay with the great octagonal tower of a light house. Beyond the light house, the fading, rose-colored sky looked to be brewing the makings of a summer storm.

  Late the next morning, the sky looked ready to empty itself, but they were lucky and stayed ahead of the impending downpour. They came to the well-guarded gates of iron-banded wood that stood open, leading to the tunnel that would take them under the Great Wall. Jenka found that he was feeling claustrophobic, and more than a little afraid. Zah didn’t like all the people and the lack of openness either. Linux promised that all the congestion would be forgotten soon when they were out beyond sight of land in a ship on the open sea.

  Herald called out “Here we go!” and into the tunnel they went.

  If the lantern-lit world under the gigantic manmade barrier weren't so intriguing, Jenka would have closed the curtains and huddled inside. He did close the door though, just to keep out the stale smell.

  The wall, built in thousand-foot-long sections, was completely filled with tunnels, passageways, and wide-open rooms, explained Linux. At the end of each section was a tower that rose some distance above the top of the wall. From the tower tops and along the wall, the Walguard stood watch over the frontier, protecting the kingdom from intrusion. Linux told them there was supposedly a lane where a wagon could cross the entire peninsula inside the wall.

  The idea that men had built such a fortification, Jenka decided, was a testament to their desire to survive. Again, it was hard for Jenka to imagine that, just a few hundred years ago, there had been only the Dogma’s handful of survivors, washed up on the shore of Gull's Reach.

  The inside of the tunnel was a world unto itself with trading houses, taverns, and guard barracks. There were huge, torch lit corridors, teeming with wagons, people, and animals, all moving to and fro with a purpose. Jenka marveled at it all. Against all the odds, humanity had exerted its dominance over nature’s treachery and had flourished in this land, above ground and below.

  Jenka was tired of the noise and hubbub all the people made as they got along through the seemingly-endless, smoky, and suffocating passage. He was tired of not seeing grass and trees and the open sky. The only life here that wasn’t human were the rats, the skinny, yapping dogs that chased them, and the filthy carrion-bats that sometimes came sweeping by the window out of nowhere. Some of the people looked as haggard and worn down as Jenka felt, as if the world below was sucking the life right out of them. And the smells. Sometimes it was mouthwatering, like when they passed a busy bakery, or a spice gallery, or an open pot of stew. Sometimes the aroma was sickening and putrid, when they passed an open refuse pit or the rotting corpse of something dead in a darkened corner, but always an undertone of musky sweat and filth permeated everything they came across.

  It was a longer tunnel than Jenka had imagined it could be. Jenka couldn’t see the trolls ever getting past an obstacle such as the wall that rose above his head any more than he could imagine them rising up with the mudged strains of dracus to even attempt it. Then again, he could picture them working together, flying in swarms over the wall, rendering the boundary impotent. This sudden image caused Jenka to realize why their journey to King’s Island was so important. Gravelbone didn’t have to take the lands beyond the wall. He could drive man back behind the barrier and besiege the islands just by holding the frontier.

  All of this, this civilized way of life, the luxuries and customs that men were growing used to in the long-tamed lands, all the wondrous contraptions, and all the resources used to
build them were about to be threatened with extinction. Everyone who didn’t get behind the wall might be slaughtered but that, Jenka decided, was only a small bit of the populace. It was the people of the islands, and on the mainland peninsula; the people who had no inkling of where their meat, fur, wood, and grain came from. The people who depended on the resources that came from the frontier that were really about to be put under siege. Jenka saw it all coming to pass, as plainly as he had seen himself soaring on the back of a dragon through the sky, toward an impossibly tall castle with Zah and another rider. None of it seemed real to him, yet the fact that it was really happening kept asserting itself into his mind. He was left in a state of confused enlightenment, deeply stained with the bleak and dismal truth of things. If they didn’t intervene and stop the demon-troll called Gravelbone, then the fate of humanity on this land would take a drastic turn.

  They emerged from the hot, loud tunnel into the kingdom proper, and Jenka saw the city of Port and the mighty sea again, this time from a much lower perspective. All coherent thought emptied from his ever-contemplative mind at the sight of the ocean. The vastness of the sea made him feel small. The realization that he, the dragons and the trolls, and this Gravelbone, might all just be unimportant parts of existence, assaulted his brain. Was humanity, or even life itself, that significant in the grand scheme of things? Wasn’t humanity's survival directly related to nature's decline? Jenka didn’t have the answers, only more questions. He was glad when they stopped, and when his head finally found the pillow that evening. He was tired of worrying, wondering, and thinking. He slept like a rock.

  The morning's travel brought with it the smell of brine and the screaming of gulls. Port was as crowded and overbuilt as Outwal had been, but Port had the endless open sea to gaze upon, and the warm breeze to keep the foul air from lingering. Just as they were coming into the city, there was a stretch of road that Jenka found improbable beauty in. The green, hilly fields were exceptionally rocky, and the salty moisture kept the larger trees from growing, leaving a few miles of unmolested, open terrain between the road and the pounding sea shore. Birds spiraled and frolicked all about the area, and a rabbit went streaking from rock cluster to rock cluster before diving back into its hole. That stretch of wild land, because of its stubborn rockiness, had been left to its own devices, and that made Jenka smile.

  A forest of ship masts with white and yellow sails decorated the harbor. Jenka had never known there were that many kinds and sizes of ships. He had only ever seen drawings of them Lemmy had made a long time ago. Some of the ships had four or five sets of sails, and others only a tall, wide triangle of canvas. Jenka could see how the wind carried them over the water, but not how they steered askew of the direction it was blowing. They intrigued him, and he watched out the glass the comings and goings of several different vessels as the buggy bounced them closer to the docks.

  It was late afternoon when the carriage finally came to a halt near a dock house. It sported the spread-winged falcon of the realm on a huge banner rippling above the building. Above it was another banner, this one boasting the anchor and wheel of the King’s Fleet. Jenka was glad to be out of the carriage because the last mile or so of the ride had been over a dock of planked wood, and his teeth were numb from the jarring of the iron wheels on the rough surface.

  The earliest ship they could take, the Serpentina, was to leave Port with the late-evening tide, which gave the travelers just enough time to wash off the road grime and enjoy a hot meal in the King’s Fleet Commons. The barracks' bathhouses were clean, and the launderer efficient, and in less than a turn of the glass, the men were sitting round a table laden with bowls of steaming clam stew and mugs of watered ale. Zah had chosen to use a private bathhouse rather than bathe in the presence of the men, and she had taken the carriage to do so.

  On a podium in the common room, a pair of colorfully dressed musicians performed a sort of story song. It incorporated spoken dialogue over a plucking lute, but the men went quickly and often into a rambunctious chorus and everybody there, save Jenka and Linux, knew the words and joined in.

  A uniformed man, clean-shaven, with three brass bars of rank pinned to his collar, slid up next to Herald and poured a thick dollop of liquid from a silver flask into the grizzly ranger's mug. After a short bit of conversation, he eased out the door, and Herald followed. Jenka ate his stew and drank deeply from his mug until the slight, but welcome, feel of the ale began to warm his blood. He listened to the performers and even picked up the words and joined in on a chorus or two, but in the back of his mind he was still thinking about demon-trolls and friendly dragons. He also began to wonder what was happening with Rikky, Stick, and Master Kember. Had they learned about how Mortin had lost his mind yet? Had they captured or killed those bandits? Did they ever make it to Three Forks?

  His concerns evaporated into a cloud of lavender aroma that reached his nose as Zahrellion came around the table and slid onto the bench beside him. The triangle on her forehead glittered yellow gold as its silver surface reflected the lantern light, and her flowing white hair shimmered with an uncanny pearlescence. Her eyes sparkled scarlet, and her smile was slight yet wondrous. “It’s going to be all right,” she reassured absently. His grin of a response made her smile come to life, which lifted his heart in turn.

  His long, brooding face had been worrying Zah since they had spoken with Crystal, but now a bit of sailor-song had seemingly broken his funk. She would have interrupted his carriage ride broodings sooner had there not been such a bright, constant gleam of intelligent reasoning shining in the depths of his eyes. She could tell that he was starting to see the subtle complexities of the situation, and she was also starting to feel that tingly simmer in her belly again. He wasn’t the foolish boy she had first thought. Her mind screamed for her to wall the childish and foolhardy attraction in, to deny it, but she just didn’t want to. Nor did she think she could resist temptation if it presented itself.

  Luckily for both of them, a steamy, three-day shipboard romance was averted by fate. The two of them spent their entire first night at sea hugging the ship’s rail, vomiting their guts out. The rest of the voyage was no better, for they were miserable with seasickness and couldn’t keep anything they tried to consume in their bellies. By the time they were in sight of King’s Island, Zah had no desire left to be Jenka’s lover. The idea that her druidic gods were punishing her for her lack of resolve had taken strong root in her mind, and she never wanted to feel this ill again.

  The sea swells were fifteen feet high, and rough, when the ship neared rocky cliffs thrust up out of the sea, so high you couldn’t see the tops of them, but after they passed a certain point, the northern extension of the island dampened the ocean's flow, and the water smoothed off considerably. The Captain kept the cliffs to the right of the Serpentina as day slid into night, and when Jenka woke, the gull-infested cliffs were still there. Jenka fought to keep down the sea biscuit he had braved earlier, and stayed above to watch them put ashore. He was glad he did. At the royal harbor at Kingston, rising up around the turquoise sea was King Blanchard’s glorious castle fortress of white marble. It was nothing short of amazing and bordered on miraculous to behold.

  Jenka had to keep reminding himself to breathe as they approached.

  Rikky didn’t get to Three Forks conscious, but he got there. Jenka, Herald, and the druids had long since left, but once Rikky’s identity was learned, he was taken immediately to a private chamber, where Spell Master Vahlda looked him over. The mage called for a field surgeon, and the two of them spent most of a night removing the leg and fighting the infection that had set in.

  Rikky survived another night, but only because of the powerful potions that Master Vahlda had poured into him. He woke long enough the next day to tell them all what he had seen and what had happened to Master Kember. He never once thought that he would be believed, but to his surprise, nearly a score of men had reported seeing the big black dragon and its horned-headed rider.
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  Commander Corda listened to young Rikky’s tale personally. He promised that Rikky’s mother would receive his pension as if he had died a fully fledged Forester. He honored Rikky’s request to have a scribe come and take down a message for him, and even offered a bird to fly it to its destination.

  Rikky vowed never to forget the kindness and respect Commander Corda showed him while he was lying there staring into the face of death. Rikky was glad for the comfort the man’s assurances gave him, but he had no intention of dying just yet. He was determined to live so that he could spend his days trying to kill the fargin Goblin King.

  He was unconscious when the first reports of the massacre at the village called Grove came in. According to the riders, the whole place had been destroyed and most everyone killed and eaten by the trolls and goblins. Later in the night, when Rikky was wide awake and fighting back a fever, Swinerd’s bunch came thundering into the Stronghold calling out about Crag.

  Rikky’s screams of anguish and sorrow were long and loud, and they left him exhausted. Before he collapsed back into unconsciousness, he managed to send a man to stop his message from flying. He now needed to add another passage. Along with his own mother and a good portion of the people of Crag, Jenka’s mother and Lemmy the mute were believed to have been eaten alive by the horde of goblins that started pouring out of the mountains. It was only right that Jenka be told of his mother’s probable fate, and Rikky kept himself conscious long enough to add the news to his missive before telling the man to let the bird fly for King's Island. After that, depression and sorrow took hold. The empty blackness of the place Rikky found himself slipping was welcome.