Riders of the Realm #3 Read online

  “Look at me,” her mother said, dragging I’Lenna back to the present.

  She raised her eyes. Queen Lilliam nudged her winged stallion closer and leaned over his neck. “You want to be like me, don’t you? To sit on my throne, command my armies . . . control my treasury?” She dismounted, cooing at her princeling son. I’Lenna’s baby brother mewed and stretched in his sling. “Leave us a moment,” Lilliam commanded the guards, wiping her hand as if to erase them.

  The guards and the Borla stepped back, allowing Lilliam and I’Lenna their privacy. Lilliam lowered herself to I’Lenna’s face and whispered to her daughter, her expression softening. “Renounce your claim, Len, and I’ll release you from this trial by dragon. You can leave for Daakur today.”

  I’Lenna’s heart snapped in half. By Granak, what no one understood was that she loved her mother and her clan! Everything she’d done had been to protect them both.

  She stiffened, deciding it was time to confront Lilliam. “I know you give half our tithes to grandmother in the Second Clan,” she whispered. “I’ve witnessed the secret handoffs. If the Fifth Clan finds out, they will kill you.”

  Two bright spots of color appeared on Lilliam’s cheeks.

  I’Lenna continued. “I’ve kept your secret, but you have to stop stealing. You’re ruining this clan, and if they find out, they won’t stop at you. They’ll feed all the Whitehalls to the dragon.” She glanced pointedly at Prince K’Lar. “Just go, return to grandmother in the Second and leave the Fifth to me.”

  Lilliam hunched, working her jaw. Her voice hardened. “What do you think Tavara will do to me if I lose this throne? I can’t go home. I can never go home.”

  “But you can’t keep robbing this clan,” I’Lenna argued, desperate. She understood why her grandmother had orchestrated the fleecing of the Fifth. The Second Clan was shamefully poor and jealous of the others, but it had to stop before a larger war broke out between them. The clans had never fought one another before; it would destroy their society.

  “So no one knows about the stealing but you?” Lilliam summarized.

  I’Lenna realized she’d backed herself into a corner and shook her head in dismay. “If you tie me to that Sunstone and call the dragon, I will tell on you.”

  Lilliam blanched. “Our family has a good thing going here, I’Lenna, and the Second Clan is no longer starving. If you tell, and anything happens to your sisters and brother, it will be on your head. Think about the ramifications of what you’re doing.”

  “What I’m doing?” I’Lenna sputtered.

  “Enough,” Lilliam said, swallowing hard. “You’ve disappointed me, Len. You’re disloyal to your family. You spy and steal from the clan.”

  “What—”

  Lilliam shushed her. “I know you take candy and medicine and give it away for free. You think you’re better than me.” She scoffed. “You are me.”

  Tears welled in I’Lenna’s eyes. In a different life, perhaps she and her mother could have been friends. But that was not to be. Tears slid down her cheeks, as hot as blood. She’d been bluffing anyway. Telling on Lilliam would put her three siblings at risk, just as her mother had said.

  Lilliam leaned over her a final time. “I gave you a chance to renounce the throne and you did not. I cannot change Clan Law.” She withdrew and called for her Borla. “Granak will judge my daughter.”

  “No!” I’Lenna cried.

  Without a backward glance, Lilliam boarded her stallion, secured K’Lar’s sling, and flew away, her red robes fluttering behind her.

  The Borla spoke to the gathered clan. “I’Lenna Whitehall has lost her challenge for the throne. Clan Law requires I place her fate upon the Father of Dragons.” His eyes searched the jungle, as if Granak were there right now, waiting for the dinner bell to clang. Then to I’Lenna he said, “If you survive three nights, you will spend the remainder of your life in exile. Be thankful your mother is merciful.”

  The villagers exhaled in a collective gasp. “She is just a child,” one woman argued. The Borla ignored her.

  The guards snatched I’Lenna’s arms and lashed them to the Sunstone.

  Stunned and helpless, the villagers wrung their hands. The Sunstone was cordoned off and no Sandwen would be allowed near the princess until her sentence had passed. Three armed soldiers guarded the perimeter.

  I’Lenna faced the sky, her back pressed against the rough stone. A warm breeze tickled her nose and her gut seethed. How was she supposed to get past three armed guards? How was she supposed to get free at all?

  As the Borla’s apprentices began beating the drums, calling Granak from the jungle, I’Lenna watched the golden sun vanish, leaving the Fifth Clan settlement in darkness.

  4

  The Warren

  RAHKKI WOKE TO HOT GORLAN BREATH IN HIS face and four sets of blue eyes blinking at him. “Sa jin!” He tried to stand, but his fractured ankle screamed in complaint. He felt for his dagger. It was gone. He and the mare Rizah had been recuperating for three long days inside the medical tent.

  The four young giants staring at him pushed closer, shoving one another, and Rahkki recognized the siblings—they were Prince Daanath’s offspring. They’d traveled to his clan with their sire to attend the parlay. Rahkki braced when the smallest one leaned into him, her big face a hand’s breadth from his.

  “Ay, there,” he greeted in Sandwen.

  The giantess chuffed. A neat row of baby teeth lined her black gums, and he spied a gap where two had recently fallen out. Her immature tusks were thin and sharp, like fangs. Rahkki swallowed, his heart speeding. The four young giants, one girl and three boys, were each taller than he. The biggest one reached for him.

  Rahkki raised his fists.

  But the Gorlander merely slid him a bowl of warm soup. “Eat,” he signed. Small bones pierced the young male’s eyebrows and earlobes and, like all Gorlanders, he was barefoot. A half-filled skin of goat’s milk dangled from his waist.

  Recognizing hospitality when he saw it, Rahkki signed back “Thank you,” and this caused the children to growl happily. Then a rapid conversation ensued as their fingers danced in their language. Rahkki became transfixed, but he understood so little. They needed to slow down. He reached into his memory for words that would explain he didn’t understand them. “I . . . I stupid,” he gestured.

  The giants roared louder and their snarling blast rippled through Rahkki’s bones. Their breath reeked of goat’s milk and the delicious soup, a nauseating combination.

  “No, not stupid,” Rahkki corrected in Sandwen, shaking his head. He’d learned that word from Brauk. His older brother had used it often when they were kids. Rahkki tried again. “Talk slower. Please.”

  The tallest male, whose rounded muscles and sprouting chest hair indicated he might be a teenager, nodded his comprehension. Rahkki smiled, flashing his own small teeth, and this set the kids into another fit of terrifying Gorlish laughter.

  When they finally settled down, the little giantess spoke to Rahkki, signing as slowly as she could, “If you eat, you’ll feel better.”

  Rahkki lifted the bowl, and the soup’s delicious scent made his belly clamor. The healers had also fed him soup, but he still felt guilty eating it. The Gorlan kids flicked their eyes from Rahkki to the broth and then back to Rahkki. They reminded him of Tuni Hightower’s mother, Kashi. When Kashi served her customers at the trading post, she watched with great anticipation until they took their first bite.

  Pushing away all thoughts of what might be in the soup, Rahkki tipped the bowl and drank. As happened each time, contentment washed through his body like a warm river of chocolate, making his belly sing greedily as he lapped the broth. When Rahkki finished, he felt energized and the throbbing pain in his ankle had subsided. “Good food,” he signed.

  The oldest of the siblings, a teen giant with red hair so light that it looked pink, introduced their names. He was Drake. His brothers were Krell and Fallon, and their little giantess sister was named Miah
.

  Rahkki didn’t know the signs for his name, so he shrugged and threw up his hands. To his chagrin, that shrug and hand gesture became his Gorlish name. Each sibling used it to say hello to him, and Rahkki couldn’t help but laugh.

  Howling now, the four Gorlan children charged out of the tent, knocking into one another as they each fought to be the first outside. As they exited, a breeze whooshed through the tent flaps, ruffling Rahkki’s hair. It smelled of trees and spring water. Three days of sitting around was driving him crazy. He tried to stand and wobbled on his good leg.

  The male healer chuffed and brought him a carved wooden crutch. “Use this,” he signed. “I made it small for you.”

  Rahkki accepted the crutch and leaned on it. It fit his height perfectly. He limped forward a few steps, a grin curving his lips. “It works.” Then he pointed at the sleeping mare, Rizah. “Will she live?”

  The healer shrugged and then bent to check on a wounded Gorlan warrior. Feeling dismissed, Rahkki angled toward the tent’s exit. No one stopped him and he emerged into the sunlight. All around the Highland Horde camp, Gorlanders ceased what they were doing to watch. Rahkki expected reprimands from the adults—angry snarls, cuffs to the back of the head—but they didn’t seem to care that he was loose. Small, wounded, and weaponless, he posed no threat to the Gorlanders. A few adults tracked his movements, but otherwise, the giants went back to what they were doing.

  Rahkki took the opportunity to study the encampment. A combination of hard mesa and softer fields spread between four mountain peaks. He knew that Great Cave Horde lived across the pass on the western side of the mountain. There they raised their saber cats. The soot-smudged Fire Horde giants lived north, close to the volcanoes. They trapped and trained burners, the tiny colorful fire-breathing dragons.

  This horde raised elephants. They rode them into battle and used their hides to make tents, their ivory to fashion weapons, and their strength to pull huge wagons. When not in use, the beasts themselves roamed free. Rahkki heard them crashing along the heavily treed slopes, chomping on leaves. Others trumpeted to one another as they lingered in the well-grazed meadowlands.

  Surrounding the Highland camp loomed the jungle. It gaped at him like a dark mouth full of tree-shaped teeth. As Rahkki limped about the stone mesa, he noticed that at least one adult giant had eyes on him at all times. A daytime escape would be impossible under their watch, which left the night. But drooling dragons, monstrous insects, panthers, boars, and snakes hunted in the dark. Rahkki doubted he’d make it all the way home alive, not traveling overland anyway, and not with a fractured ankle.

  He needed Rizah. If the mare recovered, he could fly her home. He returned to the medical tent to check on her. The Gorlan healers had redressed her wounds while he was gone and she continued to sleep. He crawled to her side and peeked beneath her bandages. Her injured flesh was pink and raw, but not swollen or festering. Impressed with the healers’ skills, Rahkki sat and smoothed Rizah’s gold-edged pink feathers.

  Later that evening, after Rahkki had finished another bowl of the amazing soup, Prince Daanath entered the tent and lifted the boy off his furs. “Hey,” Rahkki protested. “I can walk on my own.” He snatched his satchel and crutch before they were out of reach.

  The prince rumbled softly and strode outside with Rahkki. There, the boy spotted an envoy of ten elephants and several calves. They stood ready, packed with saddlebags and ridden by Gorlanders. Drake sat on his small-tusked juvenile. Miah, Krell, and Fallon followed aboard their calves; and each young elephant held the tail of the one in front, creating a chain.

  The prince placed Rahkki carefully atop his bull elephant’s head and then climbed aboard behind him. An adult giantess opened the door of a fireproof blackwood cage and a flight of bat-sized fire-breathing dragons, at least thirty of them, erupted from it and swarmed the sky, trailing smoke and electric white flames. Their glittering red, orange, and yellow scales reflected the moonlight.

  With the burners lighting the way and the giants packed and ready to go, Prince Daanath roared and tapped his elephant. The envoy walked forward, and a few minutes later, Rahkki was leaving the Highland Horde camp behind and entering the jungle slopes.

  “Where we going?” Rahkki signed. He pointed at the vanishing medical tent. “I stay with horse.” He made a flying motion to indicate he meant Rizah.

  The prince grunted. “The horde meeting is at the warren.”

  The warren? Only Fire Horde lived underground, which meant they were traveling to the volcanoes in the north. “But my horse?” Rahkki couldn’t leave Tuni’s Flier alone.

  “She can’t travel yet,” answered the prince. “She must stay.”

  Rahkki faced forward. He would memorize the path, and as soon as he could walk, he would break free, collect Rizah, and fly home.

  Hours passed as the Highland elephants traveled between the peaks of Mount Crim, lumbering toward the volcanoes. Rahkki drifted in and out of sleep, his body swaying in rhythm to the march.

  Of the thirty or so tiny dragons that escorted the Highland prince’s envoy, one stood out from the rest. His entire body was golden in color except for his spiked tail barbs, the ridges over his eyes, and his webbed frills, which shimmered in mixed tones of aqua, emerald, and scarlet. Rahkki studied him, curious, and the creature soon took notice of the boy.

  Without warning, the dragon suddenly swooped down and landed on his shoulder. Rahkki froze. The creature angled his head and stared into Rahkki’s eyes. His jaws parted, revealing sharp piranha-like teeth.

  “Shoo,” Rahkki said, waving him off. The little dragon recoiled and then lifted off to join his flight, but the other dragons hissed at him and chased him away. He returned, landing again on Rahkki’s shoulder.

  “You don’t fit in with the others, do you?” Rahkki whispered.

  “Crawk,” screeched the rare golden dragon. He lifted his tail and loosed droppings all down Rahkki’s neck and chest. They smelled like rotting eggs.

  “Ah, gross!” Rahkki cried, and Prince Daanath grunted at both of them to be silent.

  The dragon, a creature worth a thousand dramals in Daakur, blinked at the dung that had pooled in Rahkki’s lap. Then he issued a soft chortle and blasted the pellets with red-colored flames. They exploded, covering Rahkki in odorless ash.

  Wiping his eyes and coughing on dust, Rahkki shook his head, but the dragon grew content. He snuggled against Rahkki’s skin, humming softly. Rahkki reached up and cautiously stroked his golden scales. The dragon blinked at him and Rahkki noticed that their eyes were the exact same color.

  The creature pressed closer and Rahkki sighed. “All right, I won’t drive you off like they do,” he whispered, glaring at the dragons swooping overhead. “I’m going to name you Tak.” Tak meant “sun” in Talu, the language of the Daakuran Empire located on the other side of Cinder Bay.

  The Highland caravan traveled north all night. The elephants marched with tireless grace, their trunks swinging. Rahkki dozed, but when awake, he studied the giants’ language. The longer he watched their hands, the more bits of Gorlish he remembered.

  He stretched and sat up as an arc of light finally appeared on the horizon, warming the cool-gray sky. Below him, the elephant’s feet parted the mist as they trudged up the winding jungle path. Around them, the forest creatures inhaled the deep predawn breath that preceded sunrise.

  Three active volcanoes steamed and shuddered ahead. They’d arrived at the blackrock ranges in the north, the home of the Fire Horde giants. Rahkki glanced back to see Drake, Krell, Fallon, and Miah still following on their smaller elephants. Miah waved her clawed fingers at him, grinning her ferocious grin.

  The flight of dragons, all except Tak, rushed through the trees, happy to be home. All burners belonged to the Fire Horde giants, but sometimes the reclusive Gorlanders lent their flights to the other hordes. Rahkki guessed that Highland Horde was returning this group.

  Prince Daanath grunted and abruptly halted his ele
phant. A line of Fire Horde giants had gathered to greet the caravan. Shorter than the Highland Horde beasts, they averaged ten lengths. Thick red hair hung in long plaits down their backs and their pale skin was stained gray from mining gemstones deep beneath the volcanoes.

  This horde lived in an underground warren. They tolerated sunlight but avoided it, and now they shielded their brows as the blazing sun rose in the east, casting their hunched bodies in a yellow glow. They studied Rahkki as closely as he studied them.

  Prince Daanath dismounted to greet the Fire prince, who was wearing a half wreath of luminescent gems around his neck. They spoke rapid Gorlish, and then the Highland prince set Rahkki on the hard ground and handed him his crutch.

  “Thanks,” Rahkki signed, leaning on it.

  The Fire prince inspected Rahkki. “He’s small, even for a Sandwen.” He gently pressed on Rahkki’s teeth, testing their sharpness, and squished Rahkki’s wiry muscles. The boy submitted to this inspection with a racing heart.

  Then Prince Daanath retreated to his elephant’s saddlebags and returned with Rahkki’s blowgun and darts. The two leaders examined the weapons, careful not to touch the darts’ tips.

  “How did you kill and then unkill our warriors?” the Fire Horde prince asked.

  Rahkki lifted his fingers, trying to answer. The trick was simple enough, if he only knew the Gorlish words to describe it. He’d soaked his darts in poisonous dragon drool after first boiling out all the toxins, leaving only the anesthetic properties intact.