Free Rise Of The Dragon King (Book 5) by M. R. Mathias

safe?
Zahrellion’s voice held enough concern to draw him back to the moment.
    Who?
    Jericho and Pascal, of course
.
    Crystal lurched ahead of Silva, but with two quick wingbeats, they were side by side again.
    They are fine
, Rikky told her honestly.
The castle is magically fortified, and nearly two hundred rangers have taken up residence in the valley
.
    I wish Marcherion were here
, she said, and the words stung Rikky. He understood, though, for March was the most defensive and protective-minded of them all. If he was guarding the children, it would be one less thing for them to worry about.
    Rikky was about to ask her about a funding issue that needed resolution so that the rangers could continue expanding with the populace, but what had appeared all along to be a huge boulder near the shore was now a massive, leaping colossal. And a roiling mass of flame, thrown by the wizard sitting on its back, was heading right for Crystal’s underbelly.
    Rikky didn’t see the other beast, but Silva felt it as it narrowly grazed her hind section.
    Get higher
, he heard Zahrellion’s voice. Then she and her wyrm were tumbling away. They’d tried to dodge the fireball, but only managed to avoid the brunt of it. Crystal roared out in agony, for her icy scales were more sensitive to heat than other dragons’ were.
    Rikky saw that Zah’s wyrm wasn’t going to crash, and then Sliva pulled them into a steep climb. A moment later, they were diving, and Silva was adding the thrust of her speedy wingbeats to their momentum. They leveled out and banked around the colossal before them. A streak of red-hot magical force shot past them. Rikky felt his hair curling from the proximity and was glad they avoided the blast. To the creature’s surprise, Silva kept banking, causing it to have to twist and turn to keep them in its sight. Then, when it was about to stumble, she turned sharply up, coming to a near hover a few hundred feet above the thing.
    She didn’t expect it to leap up at them so swiftly, but it played into her attack, for Rikky’s dragon shot a blast of her molten pewter spew straight down and then simply pushed herself out of the creature’s way with one casual wing-thrust.
    The colossal was scorched down its side, and the wizard riding it, half-melted as it slowed its rise and then started back down toward the ground. For a full heartbeat, Rikky felt confident, then he saw Crystal and Zahrellion fumbling around on the ground where they’d landed. Zah was defenseless, and it was plain that he had to get there before the other monster did, or she was done.

    “So, with the amulets, we will be able to control the dragons we collar?” King Chad asked as he looked over the dusty crate holding a pair of newly made, and recently enchanted, dragon collars. Richard was familiar with them because his grandfather had used them on the dragons he fought in the pits on King’s Isle. Royal’s twin had fought there, and after attacking his grandmother, had been beheaded by young Herald Kaljatig before a cheering crowd. The thought made him seethe, but he didn’t show his emotion to the king.
    A little bit of studying revealed that the devices could be made easily enough and then enchanted with certain charm and binding spells by a capable wizard. Richard had tried, but couldn’t manage it. He had a knack for the destructive magic Vax Noffa and his Nightshade had taught him, but not much else. Luckily, the king was in league with a clutch of wizards who cared not why they were making the items, but about how much the king was donating toward their attempts at establishing a trade agreement with Zahrellion. Richard doubtedthat was what they were doing with all the coins the smaller kingdoms were donating to them, for Zah would readily agree to anything fair and reasonable. Giving a bunch of aligned wizards gold seemed like a foolish thing to him, but they ensorcelled his collars with minimal fuss, and he was thankful for that.
    Richard