Rise Of The Dragon King (Book 5) (18 page)

Xawyn Azar made it clear that she loved him even more for putting her father in his place. She took a firm hold over the political situations that Richard had no time to deal with, and she began to rule the kingdom that was once her father’s. She was as eager as Richard to reclaim the New World for their own, and she tactfully started gearing the entire populace toward preparing for Richard’s war.

Bruiser wasn’t cast aside. He often flew alongside Richard and the Nightshade, and would only allow Richard to mount. Bruiser turned out to be stronger and wiser than Richard expected, and keeping the wyrm around gave him a sense of security, for if the Nightshade disappeared again, he wouldn’t be
without a wyrm to ride.

Richard gave Baru, Dinaqu and Kovin wyrms, but no one else was allowed to ride. His three henchmen were issued collars and amulets, for they didn’t have the control he did through the Nightshade, and he sent them to gather information and to purchase spells and artifacts that would help them win the coming war. Richard was no fool. He knew the Dragoneers were capable, but he also knew they wouldn’t be expecting him.

The rise of the Dragon King was complete, and all that was needed now was the proper kingdom over which to reign.

I told you to never underestimate a wizard
, Clover told Rikky, Zahrellion and Jenka, who were flying toward the wizard’s enlarged form in a loose formation.

Say the word, Jenk
, Rikky said.
Let Aikira loose
.

Sssavesss the treasuress shipsss
, Crimzon roared into their heads.
Do not let it sink
.

Just then, Jenka sang out the word Aikira had taught him.

“What do you mean your people didn’t drink the poison?” the wizard growled, his expression showing his sudden unease. The look on his face went even wilder when the ship he was actually standing on came bursting apart under
his feet. What was just a slow-rolling wooden structure was now an undulating golden-scaled creature with an ebon-skinned rider on its back.

The wizard stopped his enlargement spell instantly and was suddenly standing on the deck of the ship that held his two colossals. He sent a ray of arcane force up at the Dragoneers, and it grew in size as it threatened to envelop them.

The Dragoneers and Clover broke their formation then, all of them going in separate directions. And then each of them, save for Crimzon and Clover, attacked the wizard’s chosen vessel all at once.

Rikky let Silva spew forth her molten pewter breath and watched as Crimzon banked around and started a long, slow glide just over the wave tops.

When they had devised the plan to give the wizard the treasure and sneak Aikira and her wyrm aboard his ship as a miniature statue, they had also informed the crewmen and picked the ships specifically for what was about to happen.

Had the wizard allowed Golden’s statue to be loaded on the treasure ship, the boat would have been top-heavy and floundered, and they knew the colossals weighed as much as all the gold. His was the only ship that could carry it. But it was the treasure ship that had been handpicked by Clover and her giant wyrm.

Rikky marveled at the way the grimwielders aboard the treasure ship started
knifing the wizard’s underlings. Then the sails fell, and two huge ropes were pulled taut from the bow and stern up to the mainmast. When Crimzon came skimming over it, he latched his claws onto the ropes and was almost forced head first into the sea, for the ship was so heavy.

A cloud of steam erupted where the water touched the fire wyrm’s scales, and the great red dragon let out a roar.

Silva had to dodge a streaking scarlet burst of energy coming from one of the lesser wizards below, but Rikky looked down to see first Golden, and then Aikira, sweep over the craft, and then Jenka and Jade followed.

Jenka sent forth a blast of lime colored energy at Dakterra Pyane, but the wizard disappeared, and that ship, too, started breaking apart. The colossals were going mad, and within minutes they were free of the wreckage they had created and swimming off in the same direction.

Rikky looked back at Crimzon then, and was elated to see that he had lifted the ship out of the water and was starting to fly toward home.

Where did the wizard go?
Aikira asked into the ethereal.

I didn’t see
, Rikky had to admit.

I will say it one more time, Rikky Camille
, Clover said.
Never underestimate a wizard. Any wizard. Ever
.

I can heal people and cast spells, Clover
, Rikky reminded her.
So can you
.

Look
, Aikira pointed at Dakterra Pyane as he crackled back into sight and fell a few hundred feet like a smoldering husk, only to be snuffed out by the sea. The trail of ash and smoke that fluttered around the body was clearly caused by Jenka’s last blast for it was as green as his alien eyes.

Jenka, Zahrellion and Aikira all left for the Leif Repline fountain by way of Aikira’s portal spells, but Rikky and Clover stayed behind.

She allowed him to see Crimzon’s full hoard and help return it all to order. Then she proceeded to remove any trace of his desire for Zahrellion with all of her relentless vigor. It worked, too, because by the time the other Dragoneers returned, he found he was smitten with the younger-looking, but older-minded woman.

Clover, in turn, was delighted that Rikky might be faster than the rest of them on his dragon, but in her bed, he was never in a hurry. She decided she wanted to spend a lot more of her time getting to know him. And in the summer the two of them took Prince Jericho and Pascal on the adventure that had been previously interrupted.

Oddly it was Clover who was smitten with Rikky in the end, for he allways
went out of his way for her and she relished every chance she got to show him how much she appreciated his extra effort.

Jenka felt the power of the fountain’s water try to erase the taint of the alien that had made him so much more powerful than the rest of humanity, but it couldn’t, because it had become a part of him. The wizard’s poison was cleansed from him and Jade, though, and they learned a great deal from the ghost of an over-talkative drunken dwarf, but more importantly, he found Zahrellion’s heart again, and this time, he was determined not to lose it.

To Be Continued…

Before the Dragoneers there were

CRIMZON AND CLOVER

Please enjoy this complete short story

Crimzon & Clover I

Orphaned Dragon, Lucky Girl

Copyright 2009 by Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

All Rights Revserved

A narrated read along version is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OryaG-ONiRw&feature=youtu.be

CRIMZON & CLOVER

By M. Mathias

The week-old hatchling nudged its horny head against the cold, lifeless bulk of its mother. Getting no response again, the puny male dragon whined pitifully. Instinctively, he reared his weary head back and squeaked out a high-pitched wail. The sound would have brought a living mother dragon raging home from a hundred leagues or more. A living mother dragon would have stopped at nothing to feed her hatchling’s hungry belly. This hatchling wasn’t so lucky. His mother was dead. After a long, sorrowful time of nudging and wailing, the song of misery finally ended. Mercifully, the starving little dragon fell into an exhausted slumber.

Being highly intelligent creatures, dragons are taught by their mothers the skills they'll need to thrive in the ever-dangerous world of men. This particular hatchling's mother was now four days dead. She was once the proud and ferocious high predator, and undisputed queen of the small, but very active, range of mountains sheltering her nest. Sadly, her reign had ended.

Years ago, she summoned a mate. His seed readily quickened inside her. She laid her eggs in this remote cavern high up in the rocky passes. Then, as all female
dragons do after laying their eggs, she began warning away every living creature that might threaten the welfare of her unhatched young. It wasn’t long until every beast in the area, great and small, understood what valleys, caves and streams to avoid, and what the consequences were for not doing so. She then returned to her nest and spent a full year tenderly and methodically incubating the eggs.

When the day of hatching finally came, she proudly coaxed her two little ones out of their shells. She fed them their first meal of red meat from a valley stag she slaughtered. The two baby dragons devoured it greedily. She beamed as they began growling and tumbling with each other all around the gravel-strewn cavern floor. They were working their tender muscles and fluttering their wings awkwardly. Every now and then, one would pause to shriek at the wonder of life and belch out a puff of smoke. More than once a thin tendril of flame accompanied the swirling gray clouds that left the hatchlings' toothy mouths.

On the second day after the hatching, she left them to hunt their next meal. She didn’t know how horrible a mistake she was making. She hadn't considered the small group of men traveling through the neighboring valley a viable threat to her nest. Her valley was much higher in elevation, and no man had ever dared venture into it.

In her campaign to warn off possible threats to her eggs, she attacked and
terrorized several nearby human towns. She scorched a human dwelling or two, and plundered their animal herds. She devoured a few humans as well. Humans aren't very high up on a typical dragon's preferred sustenance list, but to keep the rest of them frightened and wary of her nest, more than a half dozen men ended up in her belly. In her long life she had been lucky in her dealings with the pesky humans, but her luck in that area, as well as the luck of her two rambunctious hatchlings, was about to run out.

The men came a short while after she left to hunt, and they came with murderous intent. The male hatchling woke to see his nest mate being roped by the angry men. He lashed out at them in a feeble attempt to save his sibling. He clawed one man to the ground and lashed another to the floor with his whip-like tail, but he was too small to do any real damage. Ultimately, he ended up tangled in a throw net the clever humans had brought. The humans paused to argue whether the two young dragons would be taken and sold or killed on the spot. If the mother dragon hadn’t returned during the argument, the latter is exactly what would have happened to both of them.

With a single blast of her noxious breath, the mother roared out her anger at the intrusion, scorching several of the men to cinders. Then she unleashed her true fury on them. A purplish-turquoise blast of prismatic dragon magic erupted
from her claw and pulverized the bones of two more of the attackers. A blade slid between her scales, but the pain only angered her further. Relentlessly, she went about destroying the men who violated her nest.

The battle that followed was swift and bloody. Though she managed to slay all of the men and save the life of one of her precious young, she took several wounds that couldn’t be healed with her magic. Some of the wounds were mortal. She lived just over two days, and in that time she used her remaining energy to try and instill everything she could think of into her surviving hatchling's mind. She wanted to increase his severely slim chances for survival any way she could. She named him Crimzathrion. He was only two days old when the men came, so he understood almost none of his dying mother's melodic ravings, but she wisely cast a spell on her words so they would come to him again and again as he grew. It was all she could do to help him survive in a world full of ignorant men. He would have to find a way to prosper as a hunter while often being hunted himself.