The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga) Read Free

feed then flee,
Lemmy answered. He and his travelling companions covered a lot of ground and gathered information from creatures all through the Lower Orichs.
They say Prince Richard and the Nightshade are actually defending the kingdom. They call him the Warlock King.
    “What if Herald finds King Blanchard?” Rikky asked. “Will we have to fight a war with the Warlock?”
    “Jenka says it’s none of our concern,” Zahrellion said matter-of-factly.
    “Speaking of Jenka,” Aikira excused herself, “I won’t expect you until midmorning, Rikky. Visit with your friend.”
    “I’ll be there at dawn,” he promised. He hated it that the girls always treated him special, as if he were a needy child. So what if he only had one leg? In the air he was the fastest of them all, and probably the smartest, too.

    Jenka was pleased that Lemmy had come. There was a stair that spiraled the huge central column of the rotunda down from the dragon landings. Jenka kissed Zahrellion on the lips when he stepped off of it. He then spent several hours talking and drinking with Lemmy, Tkux, and the other Dragoneers. Jenka told the story of the time their friend Solman had wiped his arse with poison sumac. Lemmy laughed his strange nasal laugh, and Rikky rolled around on the floor. Eventually Zahrellion informed them that dawn was breaking, and Rikky hustled off on the new, floor-thumping peg-leg Jenka had carved for him in his spare time. It was made out of a straight piece of dragon bone Jade had gone alone and retrieved from somewhere. Jenka shod it with a silver cap.
    Lemmy and the ogres were shown to a gathering hall that was big enough for them to sleep comfortably in, and Jenka was left with Zahrellion and the letter Herald had written him. He wasn’t eager to read it. He held no real loyalty to the kingdom, especially King Richard’s kingdom, but for King’s Ranger Herald Kaljatig he would do most anything.
    “What does it say?” Zahrellion asked as she led him by the hand into the apartment directly under her dragon’s landing.
    “I haven’t broken the seal yet,” he answered.
    She kissed him quickly and decided that she had to know what it said. “Read it, then. Tell me what our favorite King’s Ranger has to say.”
    Reluctantly, he broke the wax and unrolled the vellum. He could sense Zahrellion’s anxiousness, and teased her by deliberately acting as if he were reading to himself. When she elbowed him he said, “What? Let me finish.”
    He was smart enough to expect the slugging flurry of girlish punches that peppered his shoulder.
    “Read it to me.” She pouted then, and he found he couldn’t resist her. He’d noticed how much less alien she looked with the triangle formed in her forehead the color of blond wood instead of sparkling silver. She had ascended to a higher level of reception, or some such. If she were still a druida of Dou, she would be wearing a blue robe now. Jenka was glad she wasn’t. Outside of her and Linux, he’d never met a druid he liked, and as far as he knew, Linux was dead.
    “Come on, Jenks.” She punched him good this time, getting all of his attention.
    “All right,” Jenka laughed. “You read it.”
    She snatched it from him and held it unrolled where they both could see the obviously professionally scribed words.
    “He has a personal dictition now, our Herald,” Zahrellion joked.
    “Read!” Jenka put a hand on hers to still it.
    The text read:
    Jenka,
    If you hear from that fargin witch, you tell her to flash her arse to the keep afore spring. Otherwise, I’ll be expecting you and them other Dragoneers to help me get King Blanchard’s mess straightened. Right when the thaw starts proper, you hear? No matter the situation with Richard, King Blanchard deserves better than to be a prisoner of them ogre-slavin’ dung nuggets of Dou.
    The weather breaks, you come see me, you and Rikky both. His mother is driving me mad with her worry, but she makes the best venison stew