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

there is. Remember your lineage, boy. There may come a day when you are all the kingdom has left.
    Respects, First Ranger, Captain Herald Kaljatig
    Jenka was laughing so hard that he missed Herald’s hidden message, and never read the last part, which would have spoiled his mirth. Any thought about his mother, and who his real father was, sent him into a dark mood. Luckily, Zahrellion wasn’t amused with the colorful language and picked up on Herald’s intended plan.

Chapter 3
    “He wants us to help the rangers attack the temple when the Strom first rises out of the Gulch.” Jenka explained to the others the details of the hint Zahrellion had pointed out to him. There was an old saying:
The thaw don’t start proper till the Strom fills the Gulch. After that it’s spring.
Who Herald was trying to deceive with the hints, Jenka couldn’t imagine.
    Zah was currently on watch, and Jenka was up next. He wanted to have an idea of what the others thought about it all so that he would have something to ponder while he and Jade were posted in the cold darkness all night.
    “What’s the Strom?” asked Marcherion.
    “A river,” Rikky and Aikira both answered at the same time. Rikky glanced at her sideways.
    “How do you Outlanders know so much about the kingdom?” he asked. Then to Jenka, “We have to honor Herald and King Blanchard, if only because of Master Kember’s loyalty.”
    “With due respect to your Master Kember,
we
don’t have to honor anybody we never knew,” Marcherion offered in a respectful, but firm manner. “Let those who owe that loyalty honor it. The others have to guard the star ship from those hungry munchers.”
    “We have to face it, Jenk,” Rikky said. It was clear that he was a little miffed at Marcherion’s attitude. “We can’t stay together all the time like Crimzon said. When the skies clear, we have to start hunting Sarax. We should probably be hunting them now.”
    “All we can do in this weather is get white-blinded and crash into the rocks,” Jenka replied, as if he would change it if he could.
    “The ogres will guard the encasement,” Aikira offered. “We’re more than eager to go terminate some of those sky bugs right now.” The ‘we’ she was referring to was her and Golden. Her dragon, after taking several wounds from the Sarax in the cavern battle, was always eager to exact some revenge. Her rider, Jenka decided, wholeheartedly shared the sentiment.
    “There will be a Dragoneer in range of the star ship until it, and everything inside it, is destroyed,” Jenka said flatly. “We cannot risk any less ... Can we?”
    “It’s something to ponder, Jenksy.” Marcherion patted him on the back, as if he didn’t envy him. “I’ll watch over the Sarax and the ogres while you and Peg-leg go save your bodiless king from those freakish druids.”
    “He’s not my king,” Jenka declared for the hundredth time. But as with every other time he spoke the words, he knew it wasn’t true. By some strange act of witchy design, the king was his father. It was a fact. He couldn’t forget that, or the implications of it. “I suppose, then, whoever wants to aid Herald and the rangers will begin the planning on the morrow with me,” Jenka finally decided.
    “Ahh!” Marcherion held a finger up. He and Aikira shared a conspiratorial look that had them both on the edge of something close to laughter.
    “You’d better check with Zahrellion first,” Aikira chuckled sarcastically. “Isn’t she the chief?”
    “We all know she’s the mother hen,” joked March. “You’re just a rooster.”
    “Nah, you got Zah wrong.” Rikky gave them a look that conveyed the power of the memory in his mind. He was picturing Zahrellion and her blood-streaked, white-scaled dragon diving heedlessly on a sea serpent to save his life when they were a long, long way from home. “She’s a Dragoneer first. Maybe the best of us. She’ll do what Jenka says.”

    Zahrellion looked like some