48. Dragonrider in green
48
DRAGONRIDER IN GREEN
“Eannis,” Jaemeh muttered. “How can they stand living like this?”
Gwydinion gave the former dragonrider a look. “They” could only be Deepers, and Gwydinion and Jaemeh had yet to find any. The green jungle canopy spread out under them, a soft, nubby pile resembling lichen from a distance.
The air thickened noticeably as they descended—that was likely what Jaemeh was complaining about.
Gwydinion agreed: it was unpleasant. He hadn’t been able to stop whining about it the first time: it had felt like breathing through a wet towel even with Kaibren’s inscribed clothes. This time was more bearable since Kaibren had improved his design, but…
He needed to stop thinking about Kaibren.
“I don’t think they have a choice,” Gwydinion said.
“No, I suppose not. Poor bastards. There’s no way I could ever live down here,” Jaemeh said.
“Anahrod says you get used to it.” He paused. “Said, I mean.”
Jaemeh’s mouth twisted, but he ignored the slip.
A dark shape caught Gwydinion’s attention. He pointed. “There! That has to be it!”
“That’s what you said the last three times, kid,” Jaemeh muttered, but steered the flyer in that direction.
Gwydinion was certain that this was the area where their group had been forced underground. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten an important point: the targrove trees were resistant to the fires that spread easily through the area. So, while the trees were blackened and stripped of leaves, they were otherwise strong and healthy.
They didn’t have a clear place to land.
“Do you think we could tie the flyer off to a tree and climb down?” Gwydinion asked.
There had to be an air dock in the Scarsea lands for Sicaryon, but Gwydinion had no idea where he’d find it. He would’ve had to pretend ignorance even if he had known.
“I guess I didn’t think this one through,” Jaemeh admitted. “If we’re careful to pull up near a larger tree—”
An enormous boom, like a thunderclap, split the air. A second later, the entire flyer bucked violently, slamming Gwydinion against the side. Jaemeh fought to hang on to the steering controls. A loud whistling sound screamed behind them.
The blood drained from Gwydinion’s face as he looked over his shoulder, at the back of the flyer.
Because there was no back. The aft section of the flyer was gone .
“What the hell—?” Jaemeh glanced back and began swearing. “Someone’s casting spells at us.”
“Land!” Gwydinion shouted.
Not that they had a choice. The flyer didn’t have enough structural integrity to keep them airborne.
“I don’t—” Jaemeh abandoned his protest and instead jumped out of the gaping hole.
Gwydinion swore. Jaemeh hadn’t even pretended he gave a damn about what happened to Gwydinion, had he?
Gwydinion activated the bracelets on his wingsuit and jumped.
He dodged around the gigantic trees, coasting down low enough to roll into a landing. He felt bruised, but otherwise uninjured.
Definitely a win.
Gwydinion paused as he heard the flyer crash through the trees. Somewhere ahead in the targrove swamp, he thought.
He made a point of remembering that for later—Jaemeh had abandoned all the folding boxes full of diamonds when he’d abandoned the flyer.
He also didn’t see any sign of Jaemeh, however, which was more worrisome. Gwydinion wasn’t such an optimist as to think the man dead—he assumed dragonriders learned spells to slow their falls.
Animals moved nearby, but it wasn’t easy to distinguish type. Hopefully he’d sense any dangerous predators in time to do something.
If he was being honest, he hoped the Scarsea captured him. They’d keep him safe.
Then he heard a strange, crackling, buzzing sound. He couldn’t identify it at first, and then paled when he did: electricity.
“No!” He started running toward the lightning. “No, Jaemeh, stop attacking! Stop attacking them!”
The foliage gave way unexpectedly. Gwydinion saw Jaemeh, three Scarsea warriors, and three rock wyrms. Two rock wyrms, technically, because the third had collapsed on the ground, dead.
“We surrender!” Gwydinion yelled in Sumulye. “We have food!”
A Scarsea spotted him, leveled a spear, and said something too fast for him to decipher.
“I don’t speak Sumulye,” Gwydinion told the warrior, keeping his hands raised. “We surrender. We have food.”
The man gestured at Jaemeh and asked a question. Gwydinion had a pretty good hunch that if he understood Sumulye, it would’ve translated as something like: Oh yeah? Then why is this asshole still trying to fight us?
“Jaemeh!” Gwydinion yelled. “If you kill these people, we won’t get to see the king because we’ll be dead!”
More noise came from the nearby foliage. This time Gwydinion identified the animals: more rock wyrms.
They were being surrounded.
“They can try to kill me, but I won’t make it easy.” Jaemeh lifted his hand, again crackling with hot-blue energy.
“No!” Gwydinion told him. “Sicaryon won’t forgive you if you kill his people. Surrender!”
Jaemeh threw him an annoyed look, but he lowered his hand. The timing was perfect, because a few seconds later more harnessed rock wyrms sprang from the bushes, along with more purple-painted Scarsea soldiers. None of them looked friendly. In fact, they looked less friendly than the group already pointing weapons at them.
“We surrender!” Gwydinion called out. “We have food!”
Jaemeh scowled. “I thought you said you don’t speak the language?”
“I don’t,” Gwydinion protested. “I learned how to say a few phrases.”
“Please tell me you haven’t been asking for directions to the bathroom.”
“Nope,” Gwydinion said. “I’ve been telling them we surrender, and that they don’t have to kill us because we brought our own food, so we won’t be a drain on their resources.” The boy shrugged. “More or less.”
One of the Scarsea started yelling an interrogative at Jaemeh.
“Tell her ‘I don’t speak Sumulye,’” Gwydinion suggested. “It means you don’t speak their language.”
Jaemeh dutifully repeated the phrase. He tried, anyway.
The Scarsea started laughing.
Jaemeh scowled and turned red. He wasn’t used to being laughed at. “What did I just say to them?” he demanded.
“How should I know?” Gwydinion said. “But their language is tonal, so it definitely wasn’t what I said.”
“Kid, I swear I’m going to kick your ass so hard—”
Gwydinion turned to the guards and said, very carefully, “My blood sister is Anahrod, whose sword-brother is Sicaryon. I call on you to deliver me to the brother of my sister.”
The jungle was never quiet, but the Scarsea all stopped yelling or talking or whatever they’d been doing to stare at Gwydinion. Someone asked a question; Gwydinion repeated the phrase, and prayed he’d got it right. It would really suck to find out he’d just threatened to assassinate the king or called his mother ugly or something.
The Scarsea fell to talking among themselves, with someone periodically pointing at Gwydinion. At no point did the archers ever look away.
“What the hell did you just say to them?” Jaemeh looked around at the people.
“I… uh… I think I told them I’m Anahrod’s brother and I want to see King Sicaryon? At least, I hope that’s what I said. That also officially exhausts all the phrases I know.”
“That one sure seems to have caught their attention.”
A Scarsea led a rock wyrm to Gwydinion. The warrior then bent down next to it and cupped his hands into a U shape.
“What’s… what’s he doing?” Gwydinion asked.
“Looks like he’s offering to help you up into the saddle.” Jaemeh snorted. “Whatever you said must’ve worked.”
“Right. Okay, yeah. Sunshine.” Gwydinion let the man help him up and didn’t protest when the same man settled into the saddle behind him. It’s not like Gwydinion knew how to ride a rock wyrm.
A different Scarsea warrior pointed at Jaemeh, and then gestured forward with what was clearly an “after you” meaning.
Jaemeh raised an eyebrow. “What, I don’t get a ride?”
A warrior stepped in behind Jaemeh and shoved him forward.
“Stupid trolls—”
“Don’t fight!” Gwydinion ordered. “Just go along with it. We’ll get it all sorted out once we reach King Sicaryon’s court. I’m sure someone there speaks Haudan.”
Jaemeh grumbled as he started walking. The former dragonrider seemed to be regretting all his life choices, which made Gwydinion smile.
At least on the inside.
As they traveled, just how many Deepers lurked nearby soon became obvi ous. Lots of rock wyrms, too, now identifiable as tame by their harnesses and decorative hide paint.
Jaemeh glanced uneasily at all the soldiers around them. He called out, “Would they really have killed us if we didn’t have our own food?”
“I don’t know,” Gwydinion said. “Might be one of those cultural things that’s just polite now, when it used to be a matter of life and death? Anahrod—”
He stopped talking.
When they arrived at their destination, Gwydinion didn’t realize at first. He stared at their captors (or escorts or whatever they were) with obvious confusion when everyone stopped, so the rider sitting behind him took pity on him. He grabbed the back of Gwydinion’s coat and pulled until the boy’s head tilted up.
Even then, it took Gwydinion a moment. What he noticed first was not the evidence of his eyes, but the noise and the smell, which didn’t fit his previous experiences in the Deep. Instead of the wet, clean smells of humus and vegetation, he smelled woodsmoke and cooking food, the scent of human habitation.
Gwydinion’s brain finished interpreting what his eyes saw: this was a village. It was just a village that had been strung up among the trees rather than sitting on the forest floor.
Calling it a village was unfair, he decided. This was a large settlement, even if he couldn’t judge the full scale. For all he knew, it stretched a hundred miles in every direction—the trees blocked his view.
“Zavad’s balls,” Jaemeh said. “They’re using inscriptions.”
They were indeed. The inscribed lights were the easiest to spot, but Gwydinion also saw inscribed platforms being used to transfer people and goods from the jungle floor to the village level and back again.
Gwydinion stared. Inscriptions had been carved into the trees themselves. And while using inscriptions on living beings was frowned upon because of shortened life expectancy, the damage might be negligible if the living being was massive enough.
These trees qualified.
“Hey, cut that out!” Jaemeh snapped as a guard pushed him forward. Gwydinion’s kidnapper looked on the verge of doing something rash, with spell, sword, or both.
“They can’t understand you,” Gwydinion reminded him.
“Really? I hadn’t figured that out yet.” Jaemeh scowled. “I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea.”
Because just like Tiendremos, you’re not as smart as you think you are. Gwydinion knew better than to say it out loud.
Soldiers escorted them farther into the complex. Each time they were handed off to new soldiers the old ones would point at Gwydinion. After which their manner changed to something polite, even deferential—but only in their treatment of Gwydinion.
This only had to happen twice before Gwydinion wished he knew enough Sumulye to tell them to cut it out, because Jaemeh was becoming suspicious.
“Why are all these trolls treating you like some long-lost prince?” Jaemeh snapped.
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. This seemed a bit much.
The soldiers escorted them across several bridges from tree to tree. The buildings were made from wood with clever, elegant construction techniques.
Gwydinion knew Sicaryon, of course, but that had been back in the Skylands, with Sicaryon doing his best to blend with Skylander culture and customs. These people seemed inhuman, which Gwydinion was pretty sure couldn’t possibly be true.
None of the structures—not one—had any areas open to the sky. Everything was roofed, covered, barred. Because even if the larger predators of the Deep couldn’t reach them in the trees, plenty of threats still could: blood crows, night flyers, all sorts of horrible insects.
Gwydinion also started seeing Deepers who weren’t wearing body paint, or rather, were only wearing body paint artfully, rather than as a survival necessity. This was likely only possible because the interiors were so much cooler—almost certainly the result of inscriptions.
Eannis, he thought. It was little wonder the Scarsea had been rampaging over every other tribe, village, and holler in the Deep. Sicaryon probably hadn’t even needed to use violence, just show how people in his new country could live.
Without their camouflage, Gwydinion noticed other differences, strange enough to make him wonder if there might be some truth to the idea that Deepers were a different race. The Deepers came in every shade and color, from pale to darker than any Skylander. He saw a lot of unnatural hair colors—bright blues and vivid greens, fiery reds and strong purples. If they were back in Seven Crests, he’d have assumed someone had invented some new dye formula. Here, though? He didn’t know. Maybe he was being prejudiced, automatically assuming that anything good in the Deep had been stolen from the Skylands.
He reminded himself how often it was the reverse.
Another point of weirdness was how no one—not a single person yet encountered—had body hair. Eyebrows, yes. Hair on their head, yes. But he hadn’t spotted a single beard or hairy chest, not even the stubble that Jaemeh sported after a night without shaving. Everyone’s skin was perfectly smooth. The more Gwydinion looked, the less human that skin seemed.
A sharp voice broke his contemplation.
While he’d taken the time to examine those around him, the Scarsea led them to a large floating courtyard supported by four enormous trees. A man waited for them.
He wasn’t Scarsea. His decorations were different—green instead of purple. His head was smooth except for a circle of hair at the top, which had been grown long and braided in the same frizzy ropes that Anahrod had sported when they first found her in the Deep. He wore what Gwydinion had initially assumed was a robe. When he moved, however, the robe was revealed to be nothing but ribbons sewn together at strategic points. In theory, the ribbons hid nothing, but in practice they never gaped enough to show anything interesting.
Still, he seemed very… fit.
“Cool breezes to you who come into our house.” His Haudan was thickly accented, but he had a pleasant voice—all dark and velvety—that more than made up for it. “Follow in my footsteps.” The man turned and entered the large double doors behind him.
Did he mean literally put his feet in the spots where—no. Gwydinion was overthinking it. He ran to catch up with Jaemeh, who had strode after the man without hesitation.
The room was large, although not by dragon standards. What looked like a wide, shallow firepit rested in the center, but he suspected it was something else. It didn’t look like it’d ever held a fire, nor like it should, given the wooden construction and general temperature. Inscribed lights had been placed in a spiral leading up the pitched ceiling toward the apex. Artwork decorated the chamber—all different in color and style.
Then Gwydinion made the connection. Each piece of art likely represented a different culture or people, now absorbed into the Scarsea.
The impression of many peoples and many cultures was further emphasized by all the different styles of the people gathered.
The crowd parted as the guards brought Gwydinion and Jaemeh forward, revealing what had been previously hidden: a throne.
It was a large chair, anyway; wooden, and beautifully carved. Someone had set it on a dais, though—Gwydinion suspected that made it a throne. The dais wasn’t so high that a person sitting in the chair would be visible over the height of the assembled people. That’s why Gwydinion didn’t realize that the chair wasn’t empty until everyone moved out of the way.
The man on the throne wasn’t wearing much, although that was true for everyone except Gwydinion and Jaemeh. What he did wear, however, was unusual even by Scarsea standards.
He wore a short jacket that was wrapped around his arms and left his chest bare. Blood crow feathers had been sewn into the fabric in a convincing imitation of artificial wings. Gemstones caught the light along his arms. The conceit had been continued with the man’s hands, where he wore elaborate gauntlets that formed sharp metal talons at the end of every finger. The talons extended a good two inches and looked wickedly sharp.
Claw would be so jealous, he thought.
His body was… Gwydinion swallowed. Musculature aside, strips of the man’s pale skin caught the light with iridescent flashes, like it was something other than human skin, something…
Scaled. It had to be body paint, and if that wasn’t the truth then Gwydinion was just going to ignore it, because he had more important things to worry about.
The man wore a golden mask, made to look like a blood crow skull. Then the man raised his head from his chest and Gwydinion realized it was a helmet, but the man had been bending his head so far forward only the top of his helmet was initially in view. He wore little else: a loincloth and sandals, although both were embroidered and jeweled.
This had to be Sicaryon’s stand-in, someone who took his place, so no one ever knew if the king was really at home or not. Gwydinion thought it clever, even if he wasn’t sure how to take advantage of it.
The ribboned man who’d escorted them crouched next to the throne and spoke with the “king” for a moment. Then he stood and called out, “Gwydinion, brother of Anahrod, you are welcome here. You may take of our food and our protection.” The man turned to Jaemeh. “But who are you who comes to us, and what do you offer?”
Jaemeh rubbed his face and stepped forward. He looked tired, physically and spiritually. “My name is Jaemeh. And I’m here to request asylum. As for what I can offer—” He glanced at Gwydinion and scowled.
Jaemeh had meant to offer him, Gwydinion realized. He’d probably figured that if the king had offered a reward for Anahrod’s capture, he’d also give one for Anahrod’s brother, who could be used as bait.
Except he’d misunderstood their relationship, and “King Sicaryon” had removed the option by claiming Gwydinion as his own before Jaemeh could even speak.
Jaemeh reached into his knapsack and removed the Rampant Stone. “I offer a way to cause dragons to go rampant, crazed. They won’t dare attack you if they know you can do this.”
The ribboned man acted as translator, whispering to the king again. When he straightened, the translator said, “A rampant dragon destroys everything in its path, Skylander. Forcing such a state on a dragon who is already attacking does us no favors. If that item works as you say, it is not a deterrent nor a defense. It is a tool for sowing terror, and nothing else.”
Jaemeh sighed. “Then have your people take it up to the Skylands and use it on the dragons there. Then make your demands.”
The ribbon man looked disgusted. He didn’t even check with the faux king before replying: “You are a Skylander, yourself. You would unleash this evil on your own people? Have you no—” He quieted as the king reached out and touched a claw against the other man’s arm.
Jaemeh ground his teeth together. “If you don’t want to use it yourself, then ransom it back to them. I just need…” He shook his head. “I just need food, safety, and a place to hide out for a while. What do you need from me? A vow of loyalty?”
The king started laughing.
Gwydinion’s head snapped up. He knew that laugh. He’d been mistaken: this wasn’t a stand-in at all.
The king raised his head fully, revealing Sicaryon’s features. His eyes glittered like the sky peeking through storm clouds.
“Oh, Jaemeh,” the king of the Scarsea chided fondly. “A vow of loyalty from you, a man who murdered his own dragon and betrayed his team, means less than nothing. If you want to offer me something, let’s start with the rest of the diamonds.”