The Royal Dragoneers: 2016 Modernized Format Edition (Dragoneers Saga) Read online

  Chapter Seventeen

  To understand magic, and to actually cast a spell, were obviously two separate things, for Jenka could grasp the concept of thoughts having actual weight and impacting the world uniquely, but he couldn’t so much as make a spark when he tried to make simple fire. It wasn’t that it was a complex spell; two sharp words and a flicking of the finger, but no matter how hard he tried, Jenka just couldn’t manage it.

  Zahrellion was so practiced in the arcane arts, that the insubstantial image she was projecting into Jenka’s cell could cast the flame spell as if her real body were actually there. She could make the steel doors melt away if she wanted to, or blast them out of the walls, but she wouldn’t. “I think things are going as planned,” she told him. Then she added, “Don’t forget to go through your Forester drills in the morning. We need to keep ourselves ready and fit. Prince Richard will let us know what to do, and when.”

  “Why is it so hard?” he asked her, a few days into his endeavor, still unable to produce a spark.

  “It’s a mindset, Jenka. It’s a place other than reality, but almost exactly like it. You have to find the way into it. It’s inside you. It will happen if you practice.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Think on this question: you tell yourself what to do with your brain, but do you always do what your brain tells you to do?”

  “No, uh…I, uh…”

  “Yes!” Zah snapped sharply. It startled Jenka. He decided she was far, far, older than the little girl she appeared. She was more than just a little elvish, Jenka felt sure of it. Like Lemmy, she was slow aging, and she took every advantage of that gift.

  “Even when you stop yourself from doing what your thought wanted you to do, it is still a thought that stops you,” she was saying. “Your reasoning is what tells you an action is wrong or foolish. Your sense of pride and honor, or the lack of either, does not define what your gut reactions are, but your brain starts altering your instinctive reactions the instant they become substance.” She forestalled his question with the palm of her hand. “For example: a man is startled by a troll in the forest. The gut reaction is fear and surprise. A coward runs, while a mad man charges. The question is what determines the choice. A soldier might not run because he is afraid of letting down his fellows, even if he is utterly terrified inside. A coward might lash out like a cornered beast.”

  She took a breath before she continued. “Imagine being a slave, or even in a strict military order such as the Walguard or the King’s Rangers. Imagine having to do as someone ordered, and not being able to question that order. People do it all of the time. Imagine if a horribly intolerant, power lusting, half-primal predator was in charge of it all. Now imagine that predator; that corrupt Supreme Commander of that strict military order; that all-powerful slaver; the complete and utter master who controls everything you do, is really just you.” She paused, giving Jenka’s mind a moment to wrap around the idea.

  He was silent for so long that she was about to withdraw back into her own body and leave him to his contemplation. But just before she did, Jenka looked up, spoke two words, then flicked out his finger hopefully.

  To Zah’s surprise, and to Jenka’s mild disappointment, only the tiniest of a sparks flared to life on his fingertip. He heaved out a long, frustrated sigh, and grinned, despite himself. He had felt the tingle of power inside him, if only fleetingly. It was heavenly nectar in his blood. He quickly started working himself back into that deep, contemplative trance to find more of it.

  Zah was pleased that he was starting to grasp the delicateness of the arcane. She went back into herself, drank deeply from her cup of water, and let her body rest so it could finish healing.

  Jenka slowly slipped back into the deep, dreamlike daze. He soon found himself traipsing through a cold, foggy, forested valley. In his mind’s eye, the towering pines and their blue and gray-needled cousins still held snow. One side of the valley was a rocky, frozen cliff face that thrust up into the hazy blue sky. The cliff was somehow buffering the wind, lessening its gusting force. Out away from the protected area, it was blowing ice and snow in torrents.

  Perhaps the valley floor he was walking on had once been level with the land atop the cliff above. He considered this as he trudged along. Maybe the land had come apart and this half had sunk away, not the other way around.

  The ground was mostly ice-covered dirt, with chunks of crumbled granite mountainside strewn about the scattered pines. In his humid and sticky cell, Jenka’s breath came out in clouds, and his skin began to grow chill and goose-pimpled. A harsh, and somehow loving growl came from ahead of him, and the roiling fog parted, revealing the source of the sound.

  It was a gigantic, emerald-scaled dragon, the biggest Jenka had ever seen. It was so huge that it radiated its own heat, causing the cool air to steam and condense into the misty cloud that surrounded it. Its iron-hard claws were covered in flies and gore, but the fact that they were as long as Jenka’s legs wasn’t lost on him. Its tail was thick, like an ancient tree trunk, and its slick-looking green scales were the size of shields. The giant dragon’s eyes were milky and fading as it lay there, its gaze locked with its offspring. It was busy communicating with Jade.

  Jenka peered closer at Jade’s mother and saw that the massive dragon had been bleeding profusely for some time. She had been torn open across the underbelly and gnawed on in several places. She lay on a wallowed bed, formed of nothing but the decimated carcasses of the trolls she had killed defending herself. Her wounds were mortal, and she was busy spending the last bit of her existence imparting vast volumes of knowledge into her young hatchling as swiftly as she could manage.

  Worry struck Jenka like a hammer blow. He darted through the pines toward the mound of troll bodies, knocking snow from the branches and sobbing as he went. He was worried for Jade. Worse, he was feeling Jade's powerful sorrow, feeling Jade's pain. There was a flaring inferno deep inside the infantile dragon, a fire burning of rage and hatred for the things that had attacked and killed his mother, but there was a longing, too. Jenka recognized the feeling, for he felt it inside of himself. He and Jade were drawn toward each other. They bonded.

  Jenka didn’t think trolls could have made the long deep gash across the dragon’s underside. He figured that only another dragon could have done that, or perhaps the hellborn nightshade that Gravelbone rode.

  The hulking, emerald dragon turned her gaze upon Jenka then, and held it there. For a moment, Jenka’s mind went blank. Then a kaleidoscope of images began streaming through his mind’s eye. Images of land formations, of vast open seas, geometric shapes and strange symbols etched in tablets made of stone. All of this impacted his brain in strobe-like fashion.

  “Do not be afraid to turn loossse of it, Jenka,” a deep, yet distinctly feminine voice hissed into his mind. “If it wasss meant to be yoursss it will find itsss way.”

  Jade readjusted the set of his wings and stepped into Jenka’s line of sight, breaking the enchantment. They shared a look that spoke of untold sorrow. Jenka’s mind felt hot and electric, and his perceptions were so keen and alien that he was almost lost in their intricacies. Something understood passed between the two of them, and after the huge emerald dragon said a few heartfelt words to Jade, the young dragon leapt into the sky and began winging his way south.

  Jenka saw a tear form in the old dragon’s eye. The amber liquid pooled, and then tumbled over a filmy, upraising, lower eyelid. Jenka watched it flow down hard-plated facial scales and then drip off of a ropy, finger-thick strand of beard tentacle. The golden liquid plopped down on the dragon’s scaled forearm, and should have burst, but it didn’t. It bounced, as if it had frozen on the way down. It then rolled over and fell. The piece of crystallized tear thumped and rattled among the troll carcasses like a dropped stone. Jenka realized that the tear wasn’t liquid any more. A glimmer of reflection from it caught his eye, and for some strange reason he marked its location firmly in his mind.

 
Jenka didn’t want to watch the mighty green wyrm slowly die, so he pulled his mind out of the entranced state he had fallen into. He was down deep, tangled in layer upon layer of finely woven thought strands, all submerged in something as thick as molasses. Like a man swimming to the surface from the depths of an amber lake, he slowly ripped free of the tapestry and rose up and almost out of his reverie.

  He stopped himself just beneath the surface. He was in the other reality that Zah had been speaking of, and he knew it. He had to try and light the flame.

  With eyes squeezed shut in full concentration, he spoke the two words and flicked his finger. He opened his eyes and was momentarily blinded by the flaring green flame that erupted from his fingertip. It took him the span of five full heartbeats to realize that the fire he had created was burning his flesh.

  “I did it, Zah!” Jenka exclaimed, trying to shake the fire away from his burning finger. His voice was loud, and it echoed through the stony dungeon to her cell. “I made fire!”

  Her smiling vision reappeared in his cell almost immediately.

  “Jade is coming for me,” Jenka went on to tell her. “They killed his mother. The Goblin King and his horde.” He stopped to suck on his blistered finger for a moment. “My dragon needs me to temper his anger, or he will destroy himself seeking vengeance. This isn’t about the kingdom of men or the trolls any more for me. This is about my bond-mate.”

  Zahrellion was dumbfounded, but she couldn’t argue the reasoning, or the sentiment behind Jenka’s sudden change of motivation. She felt as strongly for Crystal, and she somewhat understood. “I’ll help you then. Crystal will help, too. I’ll tell her to go look out for Jade.”

  “Where is Linux?” Jenka asked. “Can you communicate with him? I would ask his aid, too.”

  “I can try,” she replied and disappeared back into her body.

  After literally dropping Rikky and Jess, from tree-top level, behind the Great Wall near Midwal, and then having to dodge the worst of the arrows that had been loosed at them, Prince Richard and Royal were flying north on heavy wings. Their destination was Crag, and then Kingsmen’s Keep. The big dragon was tiring and he needed to feed, but the trolls had scared most of the game deep into the forested hills. Troll meat would do, but Royal was content to be hungry and patient. He hoped to spot some stray cattle instead of actually having to eat the filthy trolls that he loved to kill so much.

  Prince Richard was tired as well. He had been riding, straddled between two triangular spinal plates, his legs bowed wide, for two full days now. They hadn’t rested at all after the long, excruciating flight over the sea from King’s Island. They had swooped on Three Forks and spent a few hours fighting the trolls now running amok in the emptied Stronghold, but the battle was pointless. When they started away, Royal spotted the trolls converging on Rikky and Jess at the wagon. The sparkling blue dragon had gotten the scent of warm human flesh, and had conveyed that perception to the prince. Of course, Prince Richard dutifully went to rescue the survivors.

  Before the sun fled and left them flying sluggishly through the chill moonlight, they had spotted band upon band of trolls, ranging southward through the fields and forests. There were packs of goblins, too, and even a few of the bigger, barrel-chested, pig-snouted orcs loping along with the hordes. It was a terrifying sight, and Prince Richard was starting to feel like the odds against them were a lot heavier than anyone could have expected.

  The few other dragons they had seen in the sky had stayed well clear of Royal. He was a pure-blooded dragon. Not only was he far more cunning than any of them ever hoped to be, he radiated a potent life-force that warned them of his superiority. To the mudged strains of dracus, he reeked of power and magic. They were terrified of him.

  The village of Grove was a rank, smoldering ruin; inhabited now, mainly, by buzzards and crows. Some cattle had settled down near a grassy tree line out by the Strom River. The prince gladly dismounted and let his bond-mate go hunt. Royal promised to bring back some fresh meat for Richard. Then, with a weary groan of exhaustion, the dragon leapt back into the sky to go find a meal.

  Prince Richard was sniffing at a pail of water he had just pulled up from the well in the center of town, when he heard a snuffling noise. He whirled around and was startled by a huge troll. It was bloated and overstuffed from gorging on the abundance of rotting human flesh. It belched out long and slow, then hefted the half-eaten thigh it was holding as if it were a club. Richard took a long deep draught from the water pail and discarded it. He then drew his gleaming long sword from the scabbard at his hip and started forth. In the faint starlight and eerie crimson glow of the smoldering town, it looked like his blade was already covered in blood.

  The troll bellowed and charged, brandishing the human limb high as it came. Richard went low, but at the last moment the troll did, too. The prince’s sword only slightly sliced into the beast’s thick hide. Richard caught the meaty part of the troll’s grim weapon across the neck and went rolling away hard.

  The lanky beast wasn’t as overfilled as Richard had first thought, and it came at him hard and fast. Blow after thumping blow rained down around him as he rolled away as deftly as he could manage. He took a few pounding impacts, but his custom armor deflected their potency well enough. He finally rolled to his feet and spun low again, bringing his blade around in a wide, slicing, ankle-level arc. The troll hopped over it, but came down in an awkward ankle-snapping jumble. Prince Richard stumbled away backwards then. He was glad he did, for the blast of scorching dragon’s breath that Royal bathed the troll in left nothing but an ashy lump, that soon crumbled into a pile of cherry embers.

  The sound of several other creatures, be they troll, goblin, or orc, could be heard trampling and scurrying into the night, away from the blue dragon’s rage. The thankful prince found his pail and drank some more. He found the chunk of bloody meat that Royal had brought for him, and after washing it in the water, found some wood and fanned a fire to life.

  Royal curled up into a mountainous ball, letting his body rest and digest the scant meal he had eaten. After the prince ate some of his meat, he crawled up into the crook of the dragon's forearm and closed his eyes. He didn’t open them until he was tumbled out of his slumber by Royal's sudden panicked movement.

  The big blue dragon hissed out furiously at something, and when Prince Richard found what it was in the darkness, he wanted to crumble up into a fetal ball and sob.

  The slick, black nightshade loomed over them. Its long, snaking body didn’t have scales like a dragon, and its eyes glowed softly, like the dying coals of a campfire. It was similar in size and form to a dragon such as Royal, but instead of exuding strength and regal might it radiated hatred and fear. It was larger than anyone had described, nearly as big as Royal. Worse was the thing sitting confidently atop the nightshade like the grotesque ivory-antlered monarch it was. It was Gravelbone, the Goblin King. His stealthy hellborn mount had crept up on them while they were sleeping, and the evil demon was grinning a mouthful of yellowed fangs over the pleasure it was feeling over simplicity of the feat.

  Instinctually, the prince reached for his sword, but as his long steel blade came ringing free he heard the demon laugh hysterically. The world flashed lavender then, and a nearly invisible fist of magical power the size of a barrel-keg hammered Prince Richard back against Royal’s scaly side.

  Royal roared out angrily.

  Prince Richard thought he saw the nightshade take a cautious step back, but was blinded and deafened by the next series of concussions that erupted over and around him. The prince was knocked aside and unable to tell if the powerful magic concussions were coming from Royal or had been directed at his bond-mate. The next thing he knew, he was being jerked violently into the air by a huge claw. Richard knew immediately, by the less than gentle nature of the thing that had a hold of him, that it wasn’t Royal. When the gripping claw squeezed him so tightly that he couldn’t draw breath, there was no room left for doubt. The nightshade had go
tten hold of him.

  As Prince Richard slipped into a haze of oxygen-deprived darkness, he wasn’t worried about himself at all. He was worried for Royal and the people up in Kingsmen’s Keep that he had intended to save. Blackness soon engulfed his consciousness, but by then none of it seemed to matter any more.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jenka had paced back and forth in his musty little cell for what might have been an entire day now. He was anxious and irritable, and the fact that he had to turn around every three paces was compounding his frustration. He was so filthy that he felt like he had a layer of slime coating his skin, and his hair was an itchy, tangled, knotted mat. He was worried out of his mind for his bond-mate. Seeing Jade’s mighty old mamra dying like that had touched him deeply. It made him fear for his own mother. There was nothing he could do to help any of them, though, and that made him feel even less substantial. Jade was probably frightened and sad, out there all alone amongst the mudged and the trolls. Jenka was reasonably certain that Lemmy and the King’s Rangers had aided his mother, but Jade was another matter.

  Jade was inexperienced and young, and the trolls and the mudged were many. There was no way for Jenka to know if the yearling dragon even had enough sense to feed and rest before he attempted to fly across the ocean from the mainland. It was a long journey over nothing but the open sea, and there was no doubt that Jade was going to try to make it. The young dragon had spoken into Jenka’s mind when they had shared that look up in the frigid peaks. “I am coming for you.” The hiss of the words reverberated in Jenka’s skull even still.