The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga)
Read The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga) Online
Authors: M. R. Mathias
The Dragoneers Saga Book III
By M. R. Mathias
Copyright © 2011 by M.R. Mathias
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to mrmathias.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A complete map of the Dragoneer’s realm, as well as info on the other Dragoneer’s novels and novellas, is posted at
http://www.mrmathias.com/Dragoneers.html
.
I would like to thank Derek Prior and Kristi for the edit and proofread, and my fans for continuing to read about these misfit dragon riders and their wyrms.
Thanks to Jennifer for the inspiration and Mom for the patience.
A special thanks to Gary V. Tenuta of
www.BookCoversAndVideos.webs.com
for the Dragoneer emblem design and cover art.
I would like to thank James Hunter-Shortland of
fantasyinmotion.wordpress.com
for making the map.
eBook formatting & layout by
MrLasers.com
: [email protected]
Contents
The Warlock King
In the early winter, King Richard was flying on the back of the Nightshade, over the long arcing wall that protected the Mainland Peninsula. He was visiting each and every stronghold along the length of the barrier, making his presence known, and establishing the authority that had been lost. Gravelbone’s madness, the confusion surrounding his father’s death, and the recent Sarax attacks in Midwal had everyone on edge. To the good people of the kingdom, it was as if all the old lore and legends from the wild Frontier were coming to life to drive man back to the islands where they’d washed up.
Gravelbone’s madness was nothing compared with what was coming,
Richard thought to himself. He could feel something malevolent, something horribly unnatural behind it all.
The Nightshade hissed a response into its rider’s head.
Your madness nowsss.
They had no familiar link established, and they didn’t communicate through the ethereal like the Dragoneers. Theirs was a bond of a darker sort. It was a link that connected on a whole other plane. The Sarax hadn’t yet been able to disrupt it.
Getting the people to rally behind him wasn’t an issue. The Sarax came and ravaged the settlements along the wall at will, sometimes attacking in groups of two or three. They were terrible creatures, with a head that was more maw than anything; cold, lifeless eyes set in thick hide, wide agile wings, and a short stumpy tail, all attached to a two-legged mannish form. They destroyed homes and violently consumed the people they caught. Then they disappeared back into the open frontier as if they’d never been.
Once a Dragoneer, riding the magnificent blue drake, Royal, the people all along the wall knew Prince Richard by sight. He was the king now, and even in these grim times, they cheered his coming and going. They rumored that, since Royal was dead, their new king had made an unholy alliance with the foul demon beast he rode, just so he could protect them. His presence made those rumors truth. They were thankful for it. So far nothing but the young Warlock King and his hell-born wyrm could so much as irritate the vicious creatures that had them all so terrified.
Back before the Sarax emerged, the Goblin King had taken Richard captive. He’d been forced to witness countless acts of violence, and was often made to do one thing or another that would determine the order in which innocents were tortured and killed. He’d been to the edge of madness and found that he could stomach the worst of it, while ignoring the rest.
Even though Gravelbone had done a proper job of corrupting his mind, Richard had a strong will. He had little desire to cause mayhem. He was determined to get a firm grasp on the people of his kingdom and get them ready for what was to come. He had men training in the yards, and the armory forges burning all hours. He was no fool. He was once the best of the Dragoneers. He knew a greater confliction was upon them. There was more than the Sarax out there to worry about. He could feel it.
What he didn’t know was that he was being stalked. The Sarax swooping down at him from above might as well have been invisible as it prepared to attack.
The Nightshade sensed the Sarax at the last moment, and a collision with the toothy, dagger-clawed thing was narrowly avoided.
Richard could see Outwal ahead. He urged the Nightshade south along the coast, trying to lead the Sarax away from the populace. As soon as Outwal was behind them, he banked out over the sea and headed straight at the setting sun. He hoped the intensity of the glare impeded the creature’s vision, but the brightness had no effect whatsoever.
The Sarax dove at the Nightshade again and attempted another strike, but the hell-born wyrm was able to slither and slide through the air, leaving the pursuing Sarax frustrated and angry.
Eventually, the sun sank into the water leaving a peachy gray light reflecting off of the clouds, and still the Sarax followed. Richard knew the Nightshade could carry him for days if it had to. The Sarax, on the other hand, seemed to be growing weary.
Since he had the advantage, Richard decided to taunt it. He had the Nightshade power them higher into the sky, forcing the Sarax to climb after them if it wanted to follow. Then he dove past it and used one of the few spells he had been learning from his should-be-dead father’s feeble old wizard on King’s Island.
A modest pulse of magical force swelled on his hand, and as if casting a stone, he slung it toward the Sarax. The pulse impacted and fizzled across the thing’s skin, only irritating the beast. Then it tried that much harder to catch its prey.
Again the spellsss,
the Nightshade hissed.
Richard looked back as he spoke the words and felt the energy responding by building up like slime on his hand. The Sarax was falling behind. They curved sharply, coming hard around, and were suddenly speeding back at it.
Now,
hissed the Nightshade, and Richard threw his magic forth.
For a moment nothing seemed unusual, but as the stuff left his hand, the Nightshade’s infernal magic combined with Richard’s and the blast was magnified tenfold in strength. It exploded away from them in a rippling wave of kinetic energy and impacted the Sarax with a bone-crunching thump. Richard marveled at how the alien beast was bashed out of the sky as if Thundar had swung his hammer. To his amazement, the Sarax went tumbling down and splashed into the sea. It writhed like it had landed in hot oil, and tiny jagged veins of blue lightning flickered all over its skin. Then, in a violent flash of hot yellow static, it exploded.
As Richard had the Nightshade bring them around again, all he could see was a dark stain slowly fading in the sea.
Interesting, yesss?
hissed the Nightshade.
Very interesting,
Richard agreed. On the return, he took special care to gauge how far out over the water they had come.
Linux was so ashamed of what he’d done that he’d nearly killed himself twice. They weren’t attempts to get attention either. His essence wasn’t in his, or King Blanchard’s, body-core anymore. Attention wouldn’t do him any good. He was feeling so guilty and cowardly that he really did want to end it. He’d hanged himself from a rafter in the barn at the Mainsted palace, but was cut down by a stabler before the slack even pulled taut. The other time, he concocted poison using basilisk venom he purchased from the harbor traders. The mislabeled saliva was actually a psychedelic toad secretion, and instead of dying, Linux had taken his newest body on a binge of mind-bending insanity that still had him reeling.
The essence of Rolph, the Royal Guardsman, had been forced into King Blanchard’s dying body. Linux took over the innocent man’s core, literally murdering his soul. He couldn’t forgive himself his selfishness. And now, after tripping through the cobbles throwing daisies with the local whores, Rolph the unemployed, and now wifeless, disgrace was trying a third time to end his life.
The protected harbor at Mainsted is shaped like a dagger. The water is the blade that cuts up between two cliff-like sides, deep into the land. Mainsted sits on the dagger’s tip. The outer protective wall that rings the city ends in a narrow suspension walk that spans the three-hundred-foot gap a few hundred feet above the crowded harbor. Linux, in Rolph’s body, was out near the center of the icy, windblown crossing, about to let the sea take him.
Looking away from the bay, and the few cheering sailors who were watching below, he took a deep breath and asked the essence of Dou to reclaim him so that his future might have another chance at goodness. Then he clenched his eyes closed and jumped.
Curiously, after he fell a moment, he heard voices near to him. He opened his eyes to see the mast and rigging of a huge sailing vessel passing before him. Men were busy unfurling sails and gawking at him as he fell. Then his feet tangled and sent him spinning into a sail that was being raised. The canvas grew hot with friction and peeled off some of his skin. He tumbled head over heels again and slid, landing hard on the deck not two paces in front of an angry-looking captain with ebon skin and a fine collection of finger bones hanging around his neck. Then the pain of a broken leg took hold of Linux and he went swirling away into a welcome haze of darkness.
