Rise Of The Dragon King (Book 5) (11 page)

“Go, then.” Clover put a hand on the wall and sucked in air. They had been trotting hurriedly through the passage since Jenka had heard Rikky. “Take Crimzon with you. I’ll be able to sense what is happening through him.”

Jenka stopped and met her eyes.
He isn’t fast enough
.

Clover gave him a confident smile, but the way she looked away betrayed more than anything that he was inside her head, too. Then he was moving down the cavern at a normal clip, while the world beyond him became a blur.

In a matter of moments, he was watching Jade back-flap his half-grown
body to the ground, and then he was running across a field to climb into his wyrm’s saddle. Crimzon was following somewhere behind them as they sped north and west across the sky. After they crossed half the continent and slowed enough that he was able to see where Rikky should have been, Jenka saw instead Golden, battling the colossal that carried the strange wizard who had threatened him before.

Jenka’s blood was boiling, and he let the fact that he didn’t see Silva or Rikky anywhere, much less Aikira, drive his rage.

He and his dragon were suddenly moving with hyper-speed again, but when the wizard on the colossal saw Crimzon approaching in the distant sky, he started gesticulating a spell. He and his beast flashed away, just before Jenka could strike.

Theress
, Crimson hissed into the ethereal.

When Jenka found what he was looking for, his heart fell. Aikira was thrown like a potato sack over a wizard’s shoulder, and now the wizard and another of his ilk were scrambling away through the woods.

Jade arced around to cut them off, and Crimzon dove in to block any retreat, but by the time the dragons were in position, the wizards found a small clearing, and after a rapid bit of arm and hand movement, they shimmered and disappeared, taking Aikira’s broken form with them.

The only thing more terrible than the way Aikira’s limbs looked as she was roughly toted along, was the sound of her wounded dragon’s roar when she was no longer there with them.

The expedition was planned and ready, but the whole of harmless little Vikaria was still abuzz about the wedding and the way King Richard so gallantly handled his bride, her father, and the crowds.

He spoke to them with the newfound confidence he was feeling throughout his whole body and soul. The crowds loved it, and the ladies all swooned. At one point, he decided that this is what his life would have been like at home, had Clover’s Confliction not fallen on them to fight. She possessed the largest dragon tear known to man, after all. She and her fargin dragon were rumored to have mountains of gold hidden away. She should have ended the alien thing long before their time. She and his blasted brother Jenka, and that ungrateful shit Rikky, were the reason he was having to pretend like he was Prince Goodheart all the time. Once he had a dragon collared, and a small army of loyal riders with collared dragons of their own, he would go take back what was his. Until then, though, he had plenty to occupy his mind. Things like how he could kill King Chad, or, even better, how he could force a dragon to shed him a teardrop?

Richard and his wife had been consummating the union since the door to their newly constructed apartment had closed behind them. Richard relished the way she felt, and knew she was worthy of him, for she had led her most competitive sister right up to a beehive in the orchard, knowing a bite would swell her like a melon.

In fact, even before that act, he had decided it would be her. He still couldn’t remember her name. Then it came to him: Xawyn Azar; but her eyes were the one thing he could single out about any of them. Those dark, almost malicious, orbs gave her away every time.

“Again?” she asked half-heartedly, as if any answer would do.

“Again.” Richard rolled over and met her eyes, remembering to play like Prince Goodheart. “I could never refuse a chance to lay with you, lady. Only a fool would do so, especially on the eve of such a dangerous expedition.”

“What is it you and my father are after?” Her eyes were pleading, and her hand found him. A glance down and a lick of her lips were as tempting to him as anything ever had been. “You have to tell me now, I mean now that I am the queen of the New World. You are going to reclaim your throne from those Dragonites, aren’t you? Tell me what you and he are up to.”

“All in time, love.” Richard grinned and grabbed a handful of her hair. She
didn’t even resist as he forced her head down.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

U
se
your dragon tear
, Silva’s calming voice spoke into Rikky’s frantic mind.
I could possibly fight a way through, but not with you in here with me. It is up to you
.

The longer Rikky was in the magical orb, the more panicked he became. He wasn’t sure if it was part of a spell, or if he was just that afraid of being closed in, but either way, he was terrified. He was so distraught he wasn’t thinking clearly, and now that he could see Aikira laid across the cavern floor like a broken doll, his heart was hammering in his chest, and he was glazed with sweat.

Close your eyesss and concentrate, child
. Silva soothed.
Draw on the dour and work usss a way out of thisss sshell
.

Rikky tried, but every time he forced his worry away and began to taste the dour from his teardrop, he would think of how his feelings betrayed Jenka, or how those same feelings seemed just right when he was with Zahrellion. Or how he hadn’t been able to save Herald from Richard and his Nightshade. Every time he came close to finding that place, his mind rejected it.

It isn’t supposed to be like this
, Silva said.
The dour should overcome the effects of this spell with ease. Rikky, it is your fear, the fear inside you that is
keeping us in here
.

Just keep talking to me, Sil
, Rikky managed.
Just hearing your voice is good. Tell me a story
.

Hmmm. I suppossse the distraction will do youss good
. Silva resituated her bulk against the fully supporting magical walls of their spherical prison and began.
There once was a rogue named Savvy who wanted to ride a unicorn ssso badly that he paid an enchantressss to make him look like a unicorn ssso he could get clossse enough
.

What? What happened?

Well, Savvy ended up getting ridden. The enchantress made him a mare, and the unicorn he’d spied in the forest was hung like, well, like a horse
.

Rikky was so shocked by his dragon’s brash tale that he laughed out loud.

Try seeking the dour now, Rikky
. Silva’s voice was a little more commanding this time.
Hurry, now, while I tell you another tale. This one is about a dragon named Cobalt who once snatched a whole ship full of treasure right from the sea
.

I am coming your way, Silvastricanias
, Clover told Silva in an ethereal voice that Rikky could hear.
Save Cobalt’s tale for my ears, for I met the ghost of a dwarf once, who told me of the same happening, but I thought he was a raver
.

It was good to know that the others knew their location so quickly, but
Clover’s sending once again caused Rikky to lose concentration. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder how she knew his dragon’s real name and where they were.

Aikira is busted up bad
, Rikky said.
If I can get out of this shell we are spelled in, I can attend her, but right now I can’t even tell if she is still breathing
.

So, she is here?
Clover asked, her ethereal voice betraying both relief and anger at the same time.
I am almost to the cavern you are in. Where is she? Is that wounded beast still in there? Tell me what is happening, for I’m closer than you could imagine
.

It is, and it looks hungry
, Rikky responded. He was feeling less shaky now that he knew help was on the way. It occurred to him that he may have been frightened as much by being separated wholly from the other Dragoneers as he was by being stuck in the not-so-roomy orb.

Its left hind leg is chained to a ring set in the floor
, Rikky said.
It can’t even take a full stride right now. I watched the wizards set another ring just like it. I think it is for Silva, but maybe not. There was another colossal here and a few more of the wizards, but most have gone with the weird-looking leader
.

By the gods, no
, Clover said.
It is bad, Rikky. Can you see Aikira? I am here beside her, but invisible. I am going to take her to the dwarf’s fountain, for it is the only way I know to save someone this broken
.

No
. Rikky shook his head. He felt Silva’s ire rise as she noticed that his fear was suddenly gone. It had been replaced by determination.
I can save her, if you get us out of this shell and lend me your dragon tear. Every time you jostle her body, the marrow leaks into her blood. She wouldn’t survive the--

Cover your eyes, boy
. Clover wasted no time,
Silvastricanias, curl tight around him
.

There was commotion from down the cavern as the wizards sensed Clover using her dragon’s tear, then an orb of fire the size of a wagon wheel appeared. Rikky saw Clover’s outline shimmering from the heat, but he still couldn’t see her. Then she let out a roar and sent the infernal concoction right into the chained colossal’s side.

Rikky was enveloped by Silva’s wings then, and the concussion that followed left him reeling. He felt himself being jarred and jostled around; then he was drenched in dour magic. His pains melted away, and his mind became clear. He didn’t even pay attention to the battle Clover and his dragon were fighting around him as he hurried over to Aikira’s side and dove deep into her essence. All he knew was Clover’s huge dragon tear was in his hand and he wasn’t even sure how it got there. It was filling him to the brim with dour magic though, and he understood that if he didn’t hurry, Aikira would be dead or crippled.

CHAPTER NINTEEN

J
enka asked Crimzon to escort Golden back to the castle. The glittering yellow wyrm’s wing was twisted but workable. She could fly, if slowly, but there was no way she could defend herself if she was attacked while doing so. The wounds were bad enough that even she knew she had to be healed before she could go find her rider. She doubted Aikira was alive, for she’d seen her go tumbling into the trees and bramble as they crashed. Golden remembered doing everything she could just to keep from crushing her, and had managed to avoid it, but Aikira smacked one trunk, then another, and came to a tangle-limbed halt in the thorns just before that grimy little morsel of a wizard grabbed her.

She was hoping that Crystal or Crimzon would lend their dour in healing her once they were in the protective field of the castle, but they found that only Linux and some rangers were left there. Zahrellion had taken the children, even Pascal, on Crystal’s back and fled without telling anyone where they’d gone.

Golden, who doted over Pascal just like his mother did, was distraught at best. She was glad she didn’t have to tell the boy what had happened to his
mother.

Linux offered to tend to the wounds, but Crimzon did the healing after he ate a pair of elks the rangers offered. Golden ate one, too, but only after her stretched tendons were healed.

Linux gave some orders to Captain Willian, and to Brawn. Then he climbed on Golden’s back and they were off, following Crimzon through the ever-darkening sky.

In the grottoes, battle was raging. Rikky chanced a glance and saw that Clover was no longer invisible, or at least the spell’s effect was fading, for he and the enemy seemed to be able to see her well enough. The handful of wizards hadn’t been expecting any sort of attack, and they were caught off guard.

Had they loosed their great creature, they could have kept him from healing Aikira, and probably trampled all of them, save for Silva. As it was, they were just now protecting themselves with spells. Rikky knew that if Clover had her teardrop, she could have ended the fight right then, but she didn’t, and he needed every bit of the energy it was emitting to stave off a Dragoneer’s death.