Blood and Royalty (9 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Zahrellion didn’t see Richard’s mudged when it came up from underneath them and jolted her and her frost wyrm to the very marrow of their bones. She lost the sword, then. It fell from her hand, and the sudden lack of power, and the harsh heat of the half-mudged’s lightning breath, left her and Crystal dizzy.

Luckily, Crystal’s wings didn’t fold as they glided into the hillside, just beyond the edge of the city.

Zahrellion opened her eyes as the sensation of Crystal’s magic tingled over her, and then she could only think of one thing: getting Jericho’s sword back.

Only as an afterthought did she bother to look back and see if Rikky and Pascal had made it clear.

They had, but she was after the sword now. The relief she felt was only fleeting, as she used her druidic magic to ward herself from any similar surprise attack.

She was lucky Crimzon and Clover engaged Richard, too. Had he had the time when she was unconscious to get to her, he could have most likely ended her and her dragon both.

Crystal sensed the blade, and then Zah saw where it was lying. She urged Crystal to come down on the mudged feeding there and snatch it, but one of Richard’s cronies must have seen her drop it. He was an older-looking, dark-complected, bald man, and was going after the sword now, too.

He came to a hover, and the mudged on the ground opened up a circle around the blade for him. He casually dismounted, glaring up at Zahrellion, and picked up the weapon. She laughed when she saw his disappointment. He’d hoped to gain the power he’d just seen her wielding, but it wasn’t there.

The blast of icy spew Crystal sent at them spread around the spherical field surrounding him and his mudged, and that irked Zahrellion. There was little she could do but prepare for a battle in the sky with them, and the threescore mudged that were now coming down from the broken ranks above.

Her heart fell, for the man was flying away with the greatest weapon a kingdom could have. She was about to give chase, but the riderless mudged engaged her and kept her from it.

She was crestfallen and sickened, and all the fight was about to slip from her. Then the sky beyond the rider opened up, and Marcherion and Blaze, covered in claw and bite wounds and dripping blood, came through and, just out of sheer luck, crashed hard into Richard’s crony.

It fells again,
Crystal hissed.

I saw,
Zahrellion replied.
Pretend to flee, then turn and fly ‘round to it.

Yesss,
her dragon responded, the wyrm’s hope clearly restored again, just as hers was.

*

Marcherion was as glad to see Crimzon as anyone ever had been, and he guided Blaze right through a devastating gout of the greater fire wyrm’s breath, letting it fill them with heat and heal them.

By no means were their wounds fully restored, and they both felt weak and helpless, but they were alive.

March had teleported out of the mudged swarming him, just as they went down into the city. It was the only thing he thought could save him.

After bathing in Crimzon’s fire, his first thought was Rikky and Pascal, and he was relieved to see them all on Silva’s back as the pewter-colored wyrm went undulating away east toward Clover’s castle.

He needed to go with them, but his will to fight overcame his exhaustion and he went to help Clover watch over Zahrellion, for that is all they seemed to be doing since Richard had suddenly disappeared.

You can go rest, Lord Commander,
Zahrellion voiced, as her dragon dipped down into the city and came pulling up sharply with something shiny in its claws.

It took Marcherion a moment to realize she was talking to him, for he’d sort of thought Jenka’s giving him a title was a jest or some such. He was about to ask what they were doing, but then he saw Crystal stall so swiftly with her frosty wings that her hind end came under her, and she tossed a sword up into the air.

As if she’d done the maneuver a hundred times, Zahrellion reached out and caught the blade by the hilt. It was amazing to see such graceful flight, but what happened next was even more amazing.

Three speeding blasts of crackling blue energy shot from the end of the blade, each out toward the larger concentrations of mudged in the sky. Then he nearly shit his britches, for he and his dragon both felt the following trio of concussions in their guts. The sound was so loud, he could hear nothing, but he saw nearly half the wyrms in the sky go flinging away from each epicenter like straw dolls.

He knew it was the sword he’d brought here, the sword he and Brendly had found when they’d killed that wyvern back home, but he’d never imagined it held such power, and he wondered if it wasn’t meant to be Zahrellion’s all along.

Then he thought of Desira. He needed to go rest and heal up, then teleport there and ask her if she would come back here with him. It wouldn’t take much time, for finding her would be easy, and a yes or no was all he needed from her.

He sighed, because another realization hit him then. There were still more mudged following Richard than they’d killed, and they hadn’t been able to end even one of the mudged-riders who were controlling them.

Like a flock of birds being startled from a tree, the mudged feeding in the city all leapt into flight and fled south at the sound of Zahrellion’s blasts. Then March saw Richard and one of his mudged-riders in the distance, leading them away.

He wondered if they were going straight to Three Forks, or if they would even bother with it. If he were trying to take over this land with Richard’s army, he would burn all the ships in the harbors and eliminate the need to even bother with the islands. For without goods and produce from the Mainland, those people wouldn’t have the option to resist.

Chapter Twenty

The teleportal opened up over a deep blue sea. Jenka and Jade were high above the surface, and hopefully a few minutes ahead of the Nightshade and its new rider. Jenka pondered the Nightshade for a while. Had it come here with the vessel, or was it a demon, like Mysterian and all the others had told them?
Could
it have come with the vessel?

No, Jenka decided; it knew this world far too well, and thrived off of the suffering of humanity. It had probably been here all along, and Jenka regretted granting Richard the thing’s life when the Dragoneers banished him to the island. He wondered how the Nightshade had healed itself, for one of its wings had been almost torn off. It would have had to regenerate the limb, for he knew enough about healing to know it had been ruined beyond repair.

Maybe it knew of the Leif Repline fountain, too? Maybe it really was some hellborn demon, with enough power to regrow a wing? His alien knowledge showed him a handful of possibilities, but he could be sure of none of them. He thought of Richard, the Prince Richard he’d seen before a joust in a stadium on King’s Isle. That Richard had been as good a man as ever there was, but Gravelbone, and then extending Royal’s life with the power of his teardrop, ruined his mind. His dragon, Royal, had been awesome to behold, for there was nothing like watching a pure-blooded blue wyrm in the sky. He then remembered Richard’s message to Rikky.

It didn’t surprise Jenka when he learned that it was Herald who’d beheaded Royal’s twin. Herald had never liked being around the dragons. Ever. Not even after he was carried on one of them, and even healed by their magic. Hell, Herald had hated magic, too, but Jenka’s mind went back to something then.

Royal had been a twin. This might not even be the same Nightshade they’d fought before. Couldn’t there be more than one of them? Of course there could. His alien thinking told him there could be colonies of them, hidden in the nooks and crannies of the planet, or just a few. Jenka decided, if that were the case, the eldest dragons would know of them. Then he saw the Nightshade he was about to kill, and the terrifying Sarsaraxus riding so perfectly on its back.

Jenka knew somehow they were meant to be together. Maybe they were someone’s willborn? Or maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe the Sarsaraxus had just shapeshifted, as the other alien was able to do. After all, the thing had been in a crate for a few hundred years. From Amelia’s memory, he felt the slippery thing. To her, it had registered as some sort of slug, but Jenka had once had to cut the tongues out of the stags Master Kember was dressing. To his senses, that’s what it felt like. The idea that he could feel in his mind what his daughter’s hand had touched almost caused him to drift away again, but Jade didn’t let him.

The Nightshade and the Sarsaraxus were nearly under them, and it was clear they didn’t know he was waiting.

*

When Blaze approached Clover’s castle, his ire spiked enough to give Marcherion pause. There were two dragons lazing on the ground, near the base of the structure, and they were both clearly pure-blooded and old. One was a few shades of green darker than Jade, and the other a lighter shade of blue. March thought that on a clear day, it might blend so perfectly with the sky as to render the mighty wyrm impossible to see from the ground. It looked as if Silva was being cautious, too, but Golden spoke to them soothingly.

They’ve felt Errion Spightre’s call.
Golden’s ethereal voice was sort of sung, just like her rider’s. The yellow-scaled dragon was clearly relieved that Pascal was there. March could sense it. March hoped Aikira was recovering, for he understood just how spell-weary one could get. He was that way now.
There are more High Draci coming.

How many more?
March asked hopefully.

What the hell is Errion Spightre?
Rikky asked at the same time. Then,
You’re alive?
Rikky almost broke his own neck trying to look back at March.

His grin was so wide, Marcherion saw it from across half a mile of sky.
I hoped you’d find a way out of that nasty swarm.

Come, Uncle Rikky.
Amelia’s voice sounded her age, but her tone and the way she continued, spoke of the confidence the child felt, and of her strangeness.
Lord Commander, please come and let us heal your wounds. They are worse than you think. After I try to reach my father, I will meet you all at the table. There, I will explain everything.

Chapter Twenty-One

Jenka watched the unsuspecting pair of sleek, black-skinned, creatures as they soared toward him in hyper-speed. Since he was in hyper-speed too, the ocean below them seemed like a slab of deep cobalt marble. The surface was moving so slowly as to be almost imperceptible to his eyes. The big, rolling waves were like sparkling hills. He even saw a bird suspended over a darker area of water where swam a school of baitfish. It was probably hunting them, for it was frozen in a dive with its beak slightly open, as if it had its target fully in its eyes. For a moment, he felt as if he were in a painting.

This had turned into a coffin chore, for seeing the bird told him they’d come near the islands. The Sarsaraxus’s pollen might already be reaching the Mainland on the wind. This had to be done here and now. He was no longer thinking about the complexity of the waves, or lost in thought.

He called out to his daughter, for she was the only one who could speed herself up enough to hear him. Once she was responding, he told her what to tell Rikky and March. Then he told her he loved her and her brother dearly.

He was glad she seemed to understand. He let her, and everything else, go then, and thought about how he’d killed that mad priest’s great minataurian creature when he was trying to save Clover from her imprisonment. He was certain these dark creatures were warded from any typical magic attack. He decided he would just sacrifice himself and let the natural forces of the planet and inertia end these two. It was the only way he knew he could get past their defenses. He wasn’t foolish enough not to ward himself and Jade as best as he could beforehand, but he was doubtful it would do any good. This was going to be a nasty mess, if he pulled it off. None of them would survive.

He watched and calculated in his alien mind, trying to estimate how time and space would affect his move, then he flashed away.

He teleported himself to a point he judged to be right inside the bodies of both the Nightshade and its rider, just before dropping back into real time.

Jenka misjudged by just a few feet and appeared right in front of the big creatures. The Nightshade hit Jade’s side headfirst at a rate of immeasurable speed, nearly tearing itself in two as its body was suddenly being twisted around Jade’s by its own momentum. The impact was so intense that Jade was knocked unconscious immediately by the Sarsaraxus’s knee when it was thrown over them. As Jenka fell from his saddle, spitting out the pieces of teeth that broke in the crash, he saw that the thing he had tried to kill had been launched over them, headlong at hyper-speed. It was taken out of that mode by the crash just as he was, though, and it was now slowly becoming visible and falling closer to the sea as it went.

Jenka was falling, too, but he saw that, even though the Sarsaraxus didn’t have wings like the smaller Sarax, it had skin that ran from its hip to its elbows, and now it was stretching its arms wide, gliding swiftly toward a speck of land in the distance.

Jenka thought it might be Serpent’s Isle, or even Gull’s Reach, but it didn’t matter; the Sarsaraxus looked as if it would make it.

Jenka hit the water then, and after a few moments of gathering himself, and shaking off the shock of the cool liquid, he focused his attention on his dragon. Using his alien knowledge and the dour from his dragon tear, he brought Jade around fast enough for the green dragon to start paddling in the water. The growing dragon looked like a big green duck.

Jenka started swimming toward his bondmate, glad that they were alive. He didn’t see the Nightshade; he thought it had sunk into the sea, which was good, for even though the Sarsaraxus had glided all the way to that land mass, he didn’t think it could leave there, not of its own accord.

He was almost to Jade’s side and about to grab onto his saddle straps, when he felt sharp pain in his legs. The water around him clouded red with his blood, and it was all he could do to gulp in a breath of air before he was yanked underwater by whatever had hold of him.

*

Amelia stood there looking at Marcherion’s wounds, thinking that they were all her fault. Each bite and tear had happened because she hadn’t killed the thing in the box. Deep inside, she knew that wasn’t the case, though, because her uncle’s swarm of mudged had caused these wounds.

March was sitting there with his eyes closed, thinking about the girl he left back in Copperton Valley. Amelia just knew these things, and sometimes felt guilty, even embarrassed by what the people around her were thinking. She could read the thoughts of everyone save for Linux, her brother and mother, and her father, though sometimes her father’s thoughts were her own.

Rikky was still in love with their mother deep down, but he’d long since given up on her ever loving him back. He was still in love with Clover, too, even though he’d never admit it, or try to be with her again.

Clover saw everyone as prey, especially the boys. Whether for carnal desire, treasure for Crimzon’s horde, or just for food, she was always on the hunt.

Aikira just wanted to forget the wizardry and raise her son with her husband, but she loved Golden so much, and was dedicated to Clover’s cause because Clover’s son had been her teacher. Amelia was as glad as Aikira that her brother and Pascal were both in hiding now, with Linux and the ogres. All of them were pleased that the igniting of the sword’s magic had drawn several High Dracus to the castle, who were willing to defend the land against King Richard’s mudged.

“So, the sword is ancient, and Zahrellion’s great, great grandfather was King Phen III, part elven and a descendent of Pavreal himself.” This was from Rikky, who was the only one paying attention to what Amelia had learned from the high dracus.

“Even though King Phen III was a terrible man, the first king named Phen was a great king. His child was half-elven, and his hair as white as snow, just like my mother’s,” Amelia went on.

“Once we’ve gathered ourselves, we will have to make a better plan,” Clover said as she joined them. “We need Jenka to dismiss his insanity and come join the battle.”

My father will be here when he can, Clover.
Amelia gave the older woman a sharp, knowing look but didn’t respond out loud.

“Rest and heal, for in just a few hours, we will have to go fight again,” Rikky said.

Amelia was suddenly being drawn into hyper-mode by her father’s calling. No one around her was able to see her crying after he ended the conversation, because she gathered her wits before she let herself back into real time. Then she told them all what her father had just told her, that the real enemy wasn’t Richard at all, but the giant Sarsaraxus that was now riding the Nightshade, bringing with it the end of humanity on the Mainland.