The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle (4 page)

The Zythian whore riding Prince Russet’s cock was as beautiful a creature as he had ever seen, save for her eyes, which she was keeping closed now because of his discomfort. Her satiny blouse was splayed open and her apple-sized breasts jiggled instead of bounced. Coin-sized areola with jutting strawberry-colored nipples made his mouth salivate for the taste of her. She was long and fit and her skin was like hot silk. She leaned back and squeezed his ankles and he felt her body squeezing his manhood too. A soft moan of pleasure escaped her, and when she bucked and licked her lips he couldn’t contain his seed any longer. He exploded inside her.

The prince owed Sir Earlin one now; that was certain. The knight had insisted he sample the true delicacies of the island. Since they might soon be part of a pile of dragon shit, his argument hadn’t been all that strong. Now as he approached the table where the others sat he felt himself flushing with embarrassment and more than a little masculine pride as well.

“Ya think he’s absconded, then?” Sir Earlin asked Captain Willington over their fifth or maybe sixth mug of honey fire.

“I’ll wager not!” the captain said confidently.

“As will I!” Trevin said before realizing he had no coin to his name to wager.

Darbon slapped a small pouch of silvers down on the table with a clinking thud. “I’ll put all I’ve got to my name that he’s not run off!”

There was a long silence then, each man eyeing the other in turn. No one, it seemed, was willing to put their money up that Vanx had abandoned the quest.

“He’s visiting a friend, perhaps, or gathering information,” Prince Russet said with only the slightest bit of doubt in his voice. He resumed his seat and drank deeply from the goblet in front of him. “We all saw that the barmaid knew him by name.”

“That’s what’s got my hackles up!” the captain slurred. “He’s got old Nepton’s blood in his veins, so he’s apt to be as slippery as a ribbon eel, mind you. He’s got the dark blood of the Northmen and this heathen blood in him, too.”

This got a cross look from several of the Zythian fisherfolk who had wandered in throughout the course of the afternoon.

“He’ll be along soon enough!” Trevin snapped at the table. “He didn’t have to come as far as he has on this, and you’ve no right, none of you, to doubt him now. Even if he’s walked away, he has earned the right!” Trevin’s eyes bored bravely into Prince Russet’s for a beat or two. “Parydon chains mean nothing here!”

“If Vanx Malic wanted to deceive you lumps in any way, you’d be deceived!” This came from a tall Zythian with long, golden hair wearing the well-worn doeskin pants and hard boots of a seasoned wanderer. His arms and upper body were covered by an open jacket that looked like a sparkly sapphire jester’s top. A coiled black leather whip was at one hip and a narrow dirk, nearly as big as a sword, hung at the other. Strapped directly to his back were a bow case and quiver as tall as any of the men at the table had ever seen. “In fact,” the Zythian continued after plucking a crimson morsel from the platter at the table and crunching it, shell and all, with his pearly teeth, “if Vanx wanted you all to just vanish from existence it would have already transpired.”

“Ah, mighty Dragon Bait himself, and before the sun’s fully set, no less!” Hannalee snarled as she approached the table. “You’ll have to forgive these lumps, Zeezle, they’ve been tiltin’ the stout stuff all afternoon while waiting on you!”

Sir Earlin was glaring at Zeezle with his hand gripping white-knuckled on his sword hilt. A threat to the Prince of Parydon, even the subtly suggested one that had been spoken, was enough for him to bloody his steel over. Only Prince Russet’s hand, forcing his arm still, had kept the knight’s blade from sliding free of its sheath. None of this was lost on Zeezle, but it didn’t seem to faze or frighten him in the least.

“Vanx is most likely tossing tearblooms to Nepton to honor his Da.” Zeezle pulled a chair away from another table, one that was occupied by a pair of ancient-looking seamen. Neither of them met Zeezle’s hard, ochre eyes. He sat in the chair backward, his long legs splayed wide around its back as he faced them.

“That or he’s in the Shrine Garden. I doubt very seriously he’s trudging up the road to his ghostly hut in Malic. It’s about as boring a place as ever existed.”

“You must be Zeezle Croyle?” Trevin ventured. The sparkly glittering of Zeezle’s gaudy jacket was distracting. It was hard not to stare at the fascinating prismatic sensation it created.

“You’re the loyal one, and you?” Zeezle indicated Trevin and then Darbon, with a nod of his head. His voice broke the trance into which his wardrobe had drawn them. “You spoke up for Vanx. So it’s the two of you I’ll ask why I was sent for.” Zeezle looked over his shoulder as if suddenly remembering something. He motioned for a young preteen boy who had been peeking in the doorway to come over. “You,” Zeezle spoke to Prince Russet with only a slight smirk for Sir Earlin on his face. “You owe this boy some coins, I think.” Then dismissing the Crown Prince as if he were a beggar, Zeezle Croyle returned his gaze to Trevin and waited for an answer.

In the Shrine Garden, Vanx sought a state of peace and called out to the Goddess. The tears he cried earlier, after tossing the wreath into the sea, had dried on his cheeks and he could still feel them there. He was pleased to hear the sound of the crickets brushing through the grass, and the faint ruffle of a nearby owl’s feathers rustling as it preened itself with its beak. The numbing of his senses that occurred while he’d been at sea was gone. When he looked into the sky he found that he could still see the love of his mother’s eyes twinkling in the faint stars. The scent of each particular bloom in the Shrine Garden found his nose, and he was so reassured by his emotions that he found he didn’t need to seek advice or ask the Goddess for direction.

He was following his heart, and she had already blessed him with plenty.

It’d be wiser to jump ship

than to pull him from the helm.

A witch’s get, he knows the deep

don’t cross Captain Saint Elm.

– Saint Elm’s Deep

T
he voyage to Dragon Isle passed swiftly. Captain Willington used a variation of the wind summoning spell that Vanx had used to blow away Coll’s poisonous fog, and kept their sails full the entire way. When Vanx asked him about the added potency his casting blew forth, the captain somberly chuckled. “A day of a captain’s life is worth thrice, if not more, than a day of a regular man’s, but a few days off the end of either is worth far less than a day of a young girl’s life every time.”

Vanx spent the morning of the first day of the voyage reminiscing with Zeezle, but after a few hours of exchanging stories, they ran out of things to say. Thirty-plus years of familiarity rendered normal conversation unnecessary. The two of them had been close friends growing up, and became even closer after Zeezle’s brother, Dorlan, had been killed.

Zeezle did get interested when Vanx began the tale of how he ended up in his present dilemma. Vanx switched from Azaryth to the Parydon trade tongue that he had been using for the past two years because Trevin, Darbon, Prince Russet, and a good third of the
Sea Hawk
’s crew, including Captain Willie, had eased within ear shot. By then all of them had heard the rumors of Vanx’s relationship with Duchess Gallarain and how Duke Martin had tried to have him killed, but only Trevin and Darbon had heard the story firsthand. When Vanx was finished, Zeezle went into the story he’d been telling everyone about how he had killed the young blue dragon whose scales he now wore as a jacket. It was an exaggeration, Vanx knew. Zeezle had just told him the truth, that the young blue had gotten wounded in a scrap with a fire breather and had crashed into the rocks. Zeezle had killed the beast—at least that part of the story was true—but out of mercy and with no resistance whatsoever. Zeezle had also told Vanx that he knew where they would find the dragon they were after.

That was good to hear; the bad part was that it would take most of the time they had before the first moon of Aur to get to the location. They would have to traverse a swampy section of jungle, and then climb a rocky ridge where every nook, cranny, and cave was either home to a dragon or one of the various beasts upon which the great wyrms fed. The valley beyond that ridge was where they would find their great fire wyrm. One end of it, Zeezle said, was open and rank, devoid of all but the hardiest of plant life. Half-digested skeletons of devil-horned ram, the partially crunched exoskeletons of huge basal beetles, and the indigestible scales of a plethora of sea creatures who swam too close to the surface decorated the decaying piles there. Some of the dung heaps were as big as cottages. Zeezle had said, “For at the other end of the valley lay the hole from which mighty Pyra crawls from her lair to do her business every other day or so.” Zeezle hadn’t gone into detail about who Pyra was just yet, but Vanx knew that she had to be a formidable dragon and a fire breather by the nickname his friend had given her. Zeezle’s voice betrayed the respect and fear he held for the wyrm, too.

It was later that night, the night before they dropped anchor, that Zeezle, in the prince’s overcrowded cabin, told them all about Pyra and her valley.

“She’s the queen of the island,” Zeezle said. “A hundred strides from tip to tail at the very least, with a wingspan as big as her attitude.” Zeezle held his arms out wide to demonstrate. “All the dragons use the valley to defecate… the sizable ones, anyway. It’s something to do with the scent of the waste. That’s where we will have a chance to bleed her. Pyra, though, is the only one whose lair opens on the place. None of the other dragons will dare feed in her territory, but they drop their scent there, especially the males, each with hopes of catching her attention with the strength of their stench.” Zeezle caught Vanx’s eyes and laughed nonchalantly, but Vanx knew by the look that his friend wasn’t exaggerating this time. He was speaking the truth.

“Once we’re in the valley we shouldn’t have to worry about being attacked so much,” Zeezle continued. “But let me tell ya, between the beach and the valley we might face half a dozen beasts, from limb lizards to hornets the size of cucumbers, to spiders and possibly even a tree orc or two.” Zeezle stopped to let that all sink in and nodded approval at the silent intensity on the faces before him. “I’ve made the trek twice now and I know the way, but I was alone, and it’s easier to stay hidden when you’re…,” he looked at Vanx again, “…well, when you’re Zythian and alone.”

“We can be quiet,” Sir Earlin said, showing only a slight bit of his unease, and maybe a sliver of dislike for the Zythian.

Zeezle chuckled openly at that, causing the knight’s face to bloom brightly. “I assure you, sir, in your full armor you couldn’t stand still and remain quiet to my Zythian ears, and a dragon hears far better than I do.”

Sir Earlin started to reply but Prince Russet stopped him with an upraised hand. “He’s right, Sir Earlin,” the prince said, nodding. “Listen to him and try to keep personal feelings out of this. It’s not about you or the uncanny abilities of our friends from the Isle of Zyth. This is about saving Gallarael and nothing else.”

“Yes, Highness,” Sir Earlin said, dropping his chin, somewhat stone-faced. “I apologize, Sir Dragon Bait. Please continue.”

“It might be better if I go to Pyra’s valley alone,” Zeezle said after a pause. “I can get in and out and save you all a lot of trouble.”

“If we weren’t so pressed for time, Zee, I would agree. But suppose something happened to you?” Vanx asked. “None of us know the way. We’d lose the edge your knowledge gives us.”

Sir Earlin raised a hand, hoping to speak again, but didn’t open his mouth until Prince Russet gave him a nod. “We’ve got battalions worth of weapons and gear and the six of us and as many more of the ship’s crew to go ashore. We have armor, crossbow bolts tipped in poison, and blades. I don’t see how…”

The shaking of Zeezle’s golden hair stopped the knight mid-sentence.

“No, Sir Earlin, you don’t see,” Zeezle said, trying hard not to provoke the man again. “If we are set upon by a dragon, one, a young blue for instance, a beast no longer than ten paces tip to tail… if that happens, maybe two of our well-armed dozen might survive, and those two would be myself and Vanx, because of our extraordinary senses.”