Cold Hearted Son of a Witch (Dragoneers Saga) (8 page)

Jade helped Jenka heal the two men and then urged Jenka to climb onto his back so that they could scout ahead. Before long the wheel was fixed, and the whole seven-wagon train was moving north again.

Due to Swineherd’s urging, the caravan moved well into the evening, and they didn’t stop until they made the man’s huge boarded-up farmstead.
 
The travelers were glad for it, especially when one of Swineherd’s sons shafted a big wild sow that was roaming the pens and put it on a spit over the common rooms pit.

Jade was also pleased. He found himself a fat pig, too. He carried his off into the woods east of the farm to feed.

Jenka didn’t mingle with the rangers much. He never did. They all thought of him as Jericho De Swasso’s son. He didn’t want to hear fireside tales, or toss coins with people who didn’t know who he really was. He just wanted to know if Zah felt the same way about him as he did her. He also wanted to find Lemmy. The task of taking the elvish mute to the druid’s temple held a modicum of excitement about it. The prospect of seeing Lem was also tempered with the memory of his mother’s death. He had to see to that, too. Maybe the sorrow that sometimes showed in his expression allowed him to be left alone most of the time. Whether that was the reason or not, he couldn’t say, but the others didn’t bother him much.

For their whole existence, exterminating dragons had been the King’s Rangers’ business. Now the son of one of the greatest rangers who ever lived was a dragon-riding hero. Many of them gave him a smile or a nod of respect. Some of them looked as if they felt guilty for hating dragons so freely for so long. Others still despised the wyrms, despite the fact that they had saved the kingdom from annihilation. Jenka couldn’t blame them for their strong feelings. Mudged dragons were savage, unreasoning bastards, especially the darker-colored ones. Luckily, the inbreeding had stunted their growth as well as their intellect. For the most part the mudged were not much bigger than Jade was now. There were exceptions to that rule, though. Massive reds, as large as a modest stronghold, sometimes appeared in the sky. Using a clever spell, Jade had once killed one that was twenty times his size. The skies had been relatively clear of them as of late. Whether from the Dragoneers asserting
themselves
along the wall or for some other unknown reason, they had seemingly fled the lands south of the mountains.

The next day things started moving along. The rangers were anxious. Commander Stark, who had taken Commander Brody’s place as the head of Kingsmen’s Keep, formed up a twelve-man mounted party. He wanted Jenka and Jade to escort them the rest of the way without the slow wagons. The men were heavily armed and they worked their way north with precision and haste. Jenka was able to fly over Crag, but couldn’t tell much because he was at an altitude that allowed him to see the rangers, too.

When Lemmy and the ogres evacuated Kingsmen’s Keep, several dozen men, including Lemmy, were forced to stay behind. The ship could only hold so many. Seeing what had become of those left behind was of paramount importance to the new commander. Jenka liked him; he was a sturdy man, and easy to get along with, in the sense that he said what he intended to say and went about his business. He practically charged the group north to the stronghold, keeping well east of Jenka’s childhood home. This was all right, because Jenka’s mother had died in the keep. If she was buried, it would be near there, not in Crag. Still, his heart ached to look down and see the only place he’d ever known as home in shambled piles of char.

The air coming off of the mountains was freezing and reminded Jenka that autumn was upon them. He would get a cloak from the keep before he took Lemmy north. He wasn’t sure Jade could carry him and Lemmy at the same time. Jade was still immature and sometimes had trouble keeping
himself
in the sky. But they would try it. Jenka wasn’t even sure he would be able to find Lemmy. He remembered then that Lemmy could speak in the ethereal even though he was a physical mute.

Lemmy!
Jenka called out with his mind.
Lemmy, can you hear me?

I can,
a somewhat cheery voice responded with surprise.
There are rangers at the keep that need aid. I’m looking for gaxil leaf for Mother Camille’s poultice. Are you alone? Besides Jade, I mean?

No, I’m escorting the new commander and twelve rangers to the keep. There are more down at Swineherd’s.
 
Jenka felt a strange sense of normalcy talking to someone he had never really had a conversation with before. He and Lemmy had roamed the foothill forests with Rikky, Grondy, and Solomon for most of the last ten years, but Lemmy couldn’t speak, so they’d never gotten to know each other.

The area is safe enough,
Lemmy said.
The ogres cleared away what trolls you didn’t kill that night. Only a few strays have ventured near the keep since. The men that are wounded holed in a nasty orc a few days ago. We still need to clear it out of the cave it’s taken over. Maybe you and Jade can
help,
or the rangers? There are needed stores hidden there. How is Zahrellion? Is she well?

She and Rikky are on a quest to a distant island. Rikky lost a leg to trolls, but he bonded with a silver wyrm, and wears a peg-leg.
Jenka swallowed hard. The small talk was done, but the lump in his throat was the size of an apple.
What about my mother? Is she... Is she buried proper?

She is.
Lemmy’s tone showed that the deed had been taken seriously.
I’ll take you there in the morning. I’ll find you at the keep. We have to go on foot, so be rested.

Linux asked me to take you to the Temple of Dou,
Jenka told him.
There is a missive explaining what he’s after. Can we make the journey in a day?

We cannot. Even on Jade’s back it will take us two days at best. Is that what you wish to do?

It is, but only after the new commander says he is done with me.

Get the rangers to the keep tonight and I will see you on the morrow,
said Lemmy.
Mother Camille will want you to tell her all about Rikky.

I will,
Jenka replied, as he urged Jade to bank around into a position directly over the rangers so that he could tell them the rest of the way was clear.

Chapter 9

Kingsmen’s
Keep
looked much as it always had; thick block and mortar walls built into the side of a great forested hill, with heavy timbered tables and doors, and thick dusty tapestries hanging along the walls. There were a handful of elderly folk roaming around the cleared grounds outside. They were the villagers that had been in no condition to flee through the night from Gravelbone’s raiding trolls.
A pair of uniformed foresters were
sparring with dulled swords amid a small crowd of noisy onlookers. Even in the late evening, no one seemed afraid to be outside. In the village of Crag people never used to stay outside after the sun went down.

Jenka waited until the King’s Rangers were welcomed by their peers. He then had Jade land a short distance away from the others. He sent the dragon off to hunt and tried to avoid the greetings taking place in the torchlight outside the keep as he slipped inside. He wanted a hot meal and a bath, and then he wanted to try and call out to Zahrellion in the ethereal like he had with Lemmy.

He found a bowl of venison stew in the kitchen and then was led, by a farmer turned attendant, to a tiny semi-private room. There was a man snoring on one of the two beds, and no matter how hard Jenka concentrated he couldn’t get Zah to hear him calling her. He fell asleep, though, and woke to the sensation of falling as Lemmy shook his foot by the big toe.

Lem’s long, golden hair was pulled tight against his sharp-cheeked skull. He had seen over seventy years and still looked no more than twenty-five. Even though his eyes were full of sadness, he had a genuine grin on his face.

“I’ll have to watch myself around you,” Jenka yanked his foot from his friend and pulled on a boot.
If they see me talking out loud, carrying on a conversation with you, they’ll think I’ve gone mad.

That armor makes you seem twice as wide as you are
, Lem laughed, as Jenka pulled the shoulder plate over his head. The well-made piece had been a gift from Linux. It was lined with steel, and it formed an exaggerated triangle from each of his shoulders down to his navel. The tri-coiled Dragoneer emblem had recently been branded into the center of the chest, giving Jenka not only a more substantial-looking frame, but an air of otherworldly authority as well.

Impressive,
Lemmy joked when Jenka was ready.

“I need food,” Jenka said. “Then I need to see my mother. I think Jade might help Commander Stark remove the troublesome orc while we hike. If he does, then when this is done, we can fly to the temple.” He turned them from the hall into the kitchens. “Once the orc is taken care of I’ll be free to take on the duties Linux gave me. Here, take this.”

Just before they entered the wonderful-smelling dining hall, Jenka handed Lemmy the scroll the Master Druid had written. He filled his hands with the offered fare of the morning and shoveled pieces of the hot, buttered cinnamon bread into his mouth while Lemmy read.

After drinking a half-tin ration of fresh milk, Jenka followed Lemmy out of the keep and into the woods. They made their way up a winding path and eventually emerged in a well-planted grove of perfectly rowed fruit trees. At the far end of the orchard, where the flat of the valley floor started steeply up again, there was a stone table carved into the rock. Lemmy sat Jenka there and showed him the view with a sweep of his hand. Down and away, along the ends of the tree rows, were smaller rows, these made of small carved headstones. There were a lot of them. Lemmy pointed out the one that marked Jenka’s mother then slipped away and left him for a time.

***

A short while later, Jenka and Lemmy decided that if they helped Jade and Commander Stark
get
rid of the holed-in orc, they could be off to the temple that much sooner. Jenka explained that he had to eventually go back to Midwal and escort Herald’s group through the troll-infested lands. He couldn’t afford to dally.

They came out of the trees into the group of King’s Rangers near the cavern and were nearly pin-cushioned with arrows. Had they been trolls, they would have died, but they could have loped in and killed three of the rangers before a single shaft was loosed.

Commander Stark’s
embarrassed
grin betrayed his respect for the two of them being able to just walk up on the group. He then started chastising the men who were supposed to be watching for that sort of thing. They were all hunkered nervously around the cavern mouth, waiting on Jade, who had crawled inside alone.

Jenka just nodded at the commander before he pulled his big sword from over his shoulder and crept cautiously inside. Lemmy was right behind him.

“That’s a nasty bastard in there, Dragoneer,” a ranger called out a serious warning. “Your wyrm’s been down there a while.”

The cavern was musty and probably would have smelled worse a few weeks ago, before the weather turned cool.
 
Where are you?
Jenka asked Jade. After a moment of silence Jenka’s heartbeat started racing through his chest.

Once they were deep enough that the rangers couldn’t see them, Lemmy called forth a hissing sphere of light. Jenka had seen the druidic spell worked before, the night he met Zahrellion for the first time. That night he’d been filled with a milder sort of dread than he was feeling now.
JADE!
He screamed into the ethereal.
Answer me, Jade!

Yusss,
a weak response came.

“Come on, Lem,” Jenka broke into a cautious jog. His shadow leaned long ahead of him as he followed the tug of the bond-link he and his dragon shared.
 
He rounded a bend and was relieved to see Jade well and whole. It was an odd situation, he saw, when Lemmy’s light finally found the scene. Jade had a big female orc’s neck and shoulder clutched in his jaws, but hadn’t finished the bite. It was a standoff of sorts. There were three man-sized adolescent orcs huddled against the cavern wall. One of them suddenly hissed and darted at Jenka.