The First Dragoneer by M.R. Mathias

Copyright 2010

Smashwords edition

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1

“So what are you gonna do? Have you decided yet?” Brendly Tuck asked his best friend.

They had known each other all seventeen summers of their lives. Brendly hoped that since he didn’t have the option of getting out of Prominence Valley as March Weston did, that his best friend would decide not to leave. It was a small hope though, because Brendly couldn’t remember March ever talking about anything else. March was always asking him things like, “Where should I go?” Or “What should I try to become? Should I go downriver to Camberly? What about up North to the borders? Maybe I could hire on as a guardsman, or maybe go down South to the coast and work a ship?”

Brendly loved his friend dearly, but as the finality of their last summer together grew closer, the gnawing sense of loss, and feelings that bordered on jealousy, were growing inside of him. If March kept rubbing it in, Brendly thought that he might just have to give his best friend a good ole thumping to take with him when he left.

Wondering now why he had asked the question, Brendly stopped on the woodsy game trail that they were traveling and waited for the answer that he didn’t really want to hear.

“I don’t know yet where I’m gonna go, or what I’m gonna do,” March replied. March could sense Brendly’s discomfort so he added, “But I sure wish you could come with me.”

“So do I.” Brendly dropped his head with the weight of the words to look at his scuffed up leather hunting boots.

“Well, let’s make the best of it till midsummer, when I’m to leave. We can worry about it then.” March forced a grin and started back up the trail. Brendly waited only a moment to follow, but March had already disappeared under the thick canopy of the woods causing Brendly to have to quicken his step to catch up.

“We won’t even get a rabbit, much less a stag. Not if we keep skulking about thinking of that stuff,” March called back over his shoulder. “Come on, it’s getting late.”

Remembering that they were hunting, Brendly caught up with his friend and let the worries of the future slip away.

They were hiking their way up toward Cander’s Ridge. It was a little farther from Prominence than they usually came to hunt, but not so far as to cause concern. They were still easily in the kingdom’s border, at least as long as they stayed on this side of the slope. Topping the ridge would only invite trouble though.

A pack of dark skinned, pointy eared, kobles had been spotted recently. The feral humanoid creatures could best be described as two legged dogs. They weren’t very dangerous alone, but if you ran into a pack of them you could be in serious trouble. They seldom ventured across the kingdom’s established border, which meant that they weren’t completely void of sense. Only the hungriest of them ever hunted in the protected lands of Prominence Valley, and though a few had killed villagers and hunters in the past, those were usually hunted down and killed. The dead then hung up in the trees, to draw carrion, for their violation.

This side of the ridge was kingdom territory, and not even the huge dark skinned wood trolls that roamed the foothills dared to trespass. King Timothy’s border guard patrolled the boundary well and often. The border guard was feared by even the giant Karsithian warriors, who sometimes ventured too far south out of their high mountain territories.

The game trail the boys were following led them to a clearing that held a small pool. When they stopped and looked around for tracks, they both noticed the valley spreading out below them. The rich, dark shades of the green tree tops flowed down the mountainside on their way out into the lower slopes of the valley. The trees thinned into large clumps, only to disappear completely in the valley floor. There, squares and long rectangles of brown, gold and russet took over. Some of the greener fields were speckled with the black and brown dots that were livestock, but most were empty of life save for the rows and rows of crops. The silvery-blue thread of the Prominence River wound its way through the pastures and crop-fields, splitting the valley into two misshaped halves. The river was speckled with dots, but those were the fishing boats and cargo ships that used its flow as a source of bounty. It was a view that neither of the boys had seen before. They were entranced by its overwhelming beauty.

“Let’s make camp here,” March whispered as if his voice might disturb the tranquility of the valley far below.

“Yup,” Bren replied simply, not taking his eyes away from the sight before him.

They made a circle of rocks and started a fire inside it. Then they went about setting up a makeshift tent by draping an oiled sheet of canvas over some low hanging branches and stretching it wide at the bottom. They fastened the corners of the canvas with wooden stakes so the breeze couldn’t flutter it away.

They had planned to be hunting for at least five days, or until they got a fat, late spring buck, or some other sizable game that they could carry home and parade proudly around town. Neither of them got in a hurry over anything.

They both knew that this was a goodbye hunt. In only a few short weeks March would set off to find his fortune. His father, and two older brothers, would take care of his mother and sister, and the family farm. It was the unspoken duty of a third son in a struggling family to move on and make his own way. March didn’t mind. He had been dreaming of leaving since he found out that he would someday have to.

Brendly had no brothers. He did have four sisters that he and his father would labor to care for until they were eventually married off, but even then Bren wouldn’t be free. He was destined to take over the family’s herd of horses, and the small farm where they raised them. It wasn’t likely that he’d ever escape the boring, yet ever growing village of Prominence.

Prominence was at the eastern most edge of the kingdom. It was originally a river stop for the copper miners that had once swarmed the other side of the valley. As time wore on and the veins in the mountain dried up, farming and ranching had slowly taken over the area. A large reservoir, up in the eastern foothills at the head of the river, was rich in krill and whisker fish. If you had a net boat, you could fetch a fair share of coin in Camberly, a city that was a two day float downstream to the west.

Prominence sat at the base of the large jagged mountain range known simply as the Teeth. Throughout the Teeth, wood and rock trolls roamed, as did kobles, and many other unfriendly creatures. Brendly and March had both heard the myriad horror stories that their parents had used to keep them close to the home fires when they were little. They both knew that the stories weren’t just wives tales either. Much blood had been spilled over the years to make the kingdom safe for humanity. King Timothy’s border guard was one of the main reasons for the sense of security.

As the sun disappeared and the moon washed them in a pale silver glow, they were content to sit by their small fire and listen to the symphony that the forest provided. The woods could be frightening at night, but both Brendly and March felt comfortable. They were men now. They had been on many a hunt, both with their fathers, and without. They felt safe inside the borders of the kingdom.

“When I was looking for firewood by the bigger pool upstream I saw fresh tracks,” March said quietly. “If we can get up early enough, we can find a spot near there, and maybe get a shot at something coming to water at daybreak.”

“Yup,” Brendly replied half heartedly. He was thinking about March leaving again and wondering who he would hunt with after his best friend was gone.

“You can’t be a sad-sack till I go, you know!” March jested.

“March, I don’t want to be stuck in the valley all my life,” Brendly responded passionately. “I don’t want to be a horse rancher. I want to go on an adventure like you.”

“Bren, you're gonna marry Canda Shilling, or Deanda Bargery, and have a family, and a good happy life!” There was more than a little envy in March’s voice. “It’s going to be a lot of boring days and nights without my friends and family for me, no matter where I decide to go. It won’t be all fun and exciting like you think.”

“But what if I went with you?” Brendly lit up at the thought, as if he would really run off in the night and leave his structured world behind. “You’d have a friend with you, and we could make our fortunes together.”

“Your ma would hunt us both down, and then strap you all the way home. I can’t let you come with me!” March laughed.

Bren laughed too, and after a long awkward silence said, “I’m sure gonna miss you.”

“I’m not gone yet, Bren. Let’s get some sleep so we can get up to that bigger pool before daybreak.”

2

When the sun broke the horizon, they had a perfect view of the tracks by the pool. Each of the boys was at one end of a thick heavy shrub that hid them well from whatever might come to drink the cool crisp water. Yet, they weren’t so far apart that they couldn’t communicate silently with the hunter’s hand signals that their fathers had taught them. The air was cold and charged with anticipation. Birds were just starting to chirp their good mornings to the world. The forest was coming to life, bringing with it the promise and blood tingling excitement of the hunt.

Brendly, sitting there alert with an arrow ready to loose, had forgoten his sadness for the moment.

March was feeling alive inside. He was anxious to see what would show up to drink on this most perfect of mornings.

The moment was broken by the distant, yet clear, sound of dried wood cracking. The boys looked at each other excitedly. Whatever it was, it was moving noisily toward them. Both of them began to scan the tree line across the pool for any sign of movement. Instinctively each raised his bow toward the area of the noise.

Bren was trying not to breathe too loudly. It was always a chore for him to keep calm and contain himself when this moment came on a hunt.

March just wished his nose would stop itching. It seemed to him that every time he was in a position that he couldn’t scratch his face, it began to itch. As the sound of the approaching animal grew closer, the discomfort got so bad that he decided that Bren could have this one and he silently relaxed his draw so that he could scratch his face.

“Whew!” Bren exhaled rather loudly. March turned and looked at him with alarm. Bren glanced toward him, and whispered, “It was only a wild sow -- or a little-- uh.”

His words abruptly stopped as a new sound carried toward them. It was a snort, a loud one. It was accompanied by the sound of rattling branches.

Bren instantly went back into firing position; alert, prone and ready. March gave his nose a last second scratch as he re-aimed his arrow. The soft sound of Bren’s excited breathing was the last sound he heard before he tuned the world out so that he could focus on the tree line.

First it was a small doe, a yearling, March thought. Two fawns and another larger doe appeared. With nervous darting eyes, the biggest of the four deer lowered its head and began to drink. Slowly the others followed suit. March was thrilled. He hoped that Bren would be patient. A buck was sure to present itself eventually.

Bren almost loosed his arrow on the larger doe, but at the last second thought better of it. He wanted a buck to show off to his dad. His restraint however was mostly due to the two awkward moving young fawns frolicking near their mother.

Suddenly, all four of the deer rose from the pool and froze in alarm. In a flash of movement, a big cracking sound erupted from behind them. They were off in a series of leaping bounds that carried them instantly out of sight and back into the forest.

Here he comes, March thought. He expected a wide heavy rack of antlers to emerge from the trees, announcing the leader of the herd. Instead, the creature that showed itself nearly stopped his heart.

As silently as he could, Brendly took in a deep breath as the magnificent beast stepped out of the tree line. Cautiously, it moved into the clearing and looked around.

It was a white stag, majestic and awe inspiring. Its antlers were long, and only slightly curvy. They twisted and forked only thrice, and in perfect symmetry. The stag’s chest was thrust forward showing its dominance of the forest, and its short white fur was clean and glossy, like frozen snow. It strutted toward the pool with kingly grace. Its large black eyes didn’t dart around as the does had. These eyes were full of confidence. There was only the hint of the creature’s natural caution showing in them. Throughout this forest of paupers and peasants, this creature was royalty. As far as non predatory animals went, this was the undisputed king of the forest.

March dropped his aim slowly. He wanted to look and see if Brendly was about to take the shot, but he was afraid to take his eyes off the rare beast that stood before him. Thousands of camp fire stories ran through his head, all of them about this legendary creature. He was taken by its beauty, and suddenly he didn’t want Bren to take its life. This was the moment in time that he wanted to remember when he thought about his home and his friend. No matter how far away he traveled, or what his situation might be, he wanted to be able to close his eyes and know in his heart that this creature still roamed the valley around Prominence. He would live his life knowing that he and Bren had been graced by its presence.

Brendly’s heart was trying to pound out of his rib cage. Instinctively he began to calm himself enough to steady his aim. What a reception they’d have if they returned to Prominence with such a kill. His father would beam when he told folks of his son’s bounty. All the other hunters would envy him and March forever.

Brendly took his time and lined up the shot perfectly. He wanted to hit the stag’s heart. He carefully checked the range to determine the slight arch he had to consider to place the arrow where he wanted it to go. It wouldn’t do to let this creature suffer. He finally got the white furred buck sighted. He knew his shot would swiftly end its life. With a sigh of resignation, he let out his breath and made to let his shaft fly.

Suddenly, March jumped from the bushes, waving his arms like a mad man. “Run away!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Brendly’s arrow went astray, flying well over the stag and disappearing into the forest. The stag raised its head from the pool and snorted its disapproval over the interruption. Proudly, the magnificent animal strode out of the clearing, disappearing as if the two boys were of no concern.

“Don’t stop running!” March yelled. “Don’t ever stop.”

“Why March?” Brendly asked. He wasn’t angry, but he was far from pleased. He had his shot lined up perfectly. He could already see the look of pride in his father’s eyes at the sight of such a kill. He could even feel the congratulatory pats on his back from the other hunters. Then March had jumped out and ruined his moment. He looked at his friend with a questioning glare.

“Promise me Bren,” March started with a look of wild elation. “Promise me that you’ll never kill that stag! I don’t care if you see him a thousand times after I leave.” March waved his arm around stupidly causing Bren to laugh and lighten his mood. “You can’t ever kill such a majestic and beautiful animal!”

“You’re as crazy as a bald-eyed giboon,” Brendly said as the tension fell completely away from him. “I had him, you know!”

“Yes, I know. That’s why I scared him away.” March’s smile was wide and infectious as he walked over putting his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Just think, if you’d killed him, then we’d have to pack him back down into town and our hunt would already be over. This way you can live all of your days, knowing in your heart, that you had the white stag in your sights but chose to let him live on.”

Brendly thought about that for a moment, then laughed at March’s cheer. “So what do we do now?”

“Let’s go back to camp and eat a bite, then go exploring.” March was feeling electric. His blood was charged. He felt immortal. “Let’s go all the way up to the ridge!”

“To the ridge?” Bren questioned, with only a hint of alarm in his voice. He too was feeling the invincibility of youth coursing through his veins. He was now bound and determined to make the best of what was sure to be the last hunt he ever had with his best friend. Adding a little danger to the kettle only seemed to make the idea of it all the better.

They ate and then broke camp. Neither of them was able to sit still for any length of time. To make it to the ridge before nightfall would be easy, but to find a safe place to camp up there might take hours. They moved with intensity and purpose as they gathered their things and loaded their packs. Neither of them wanted to have to search out a place to camp in the dark, and building a fire too close to the ridge would only serve to alert the wilder things to their presence. As adventurous as they felt, there were things in the Teeth that they didn’t ever want to cross paths with, and they both knew it.

The climb grew more laborious the higher they went. With every step the air grew thinner, the foliage thicker, and the ground less agreeable to their soft leather boots. When they were finally forced to make camp, the ridge was still a quarter mile above them. It was getting dark and they were relieved that they could make a fire. They were still well within the kingdom’s patrolled boundary. They didn’t have to worry about anything attacking them. This would allow them to sleep without watches. This way they would be able to explore the ridge in the morning, in the daylight.

The colder, higher altitude demanded that they keep warm, and they wasted no time using the dusky light that was left to gather wood and get a blaze started. They strung their canvas on a rope between two pines at the edge of the tiny clearing they had chosen, and settled in for the night.

Unlike the previous night, there was no glorious view of the valley below. Pine trees, shrubs, and boulders spread out in every direction, as far as the eye could see, which was only about twenty paces. They sat and ate dried beef from their packs as the last of the sunlight faded from the world. After a time, March started rummaging through his pack, with a wicked grin on his face.

Noticing this, Brendly spoke up. “What is it?” he asked.

“I was gonna save it for after we got a kill, but now seems like a better time.” March handed something to Brendly.

It was a silver flask. Brendly could tell by the weight of it that it was full.

“It’s Master Beryll’s strongest plum brandy!” March informed before he snatched it back from Bren. He pulled the stopper, took a long pull, and then nearly spewed it back out of his mouth as the burn of the fiery stuff hit his throat.

Laughing, Brendly took the flask back from his red faced friend, and took a few small sips. “You sip a brandy, March,” he said knowingly, before the burn hit his throat as well. “Whew, you could burn green wood with this stuff. This is raw brandy hooch, not plum brandy.” He passed the flask back to March.

They each took a few more sips and agreed to save the rest for another day, but they’d each had enough to get them warm and light headed. Around them, the night song of the higher altitudes began to sound, reminding them that they were close to the boundary.

“Do you really think I’ll marry Canda Shellings?” Brendly asked after the long silence. He was trying to take his mind off of the eerie sounds of the night.

“Her, or Deanda,” March teased. “They both giggle and blush, and carry on when you pass them.”

“No more than Jeana Hallin does you,” Brendly returned defensively. He noticed an immediate sadness take hold of March at the mention of her name. “What does she think of you leaving?”

“She’s so perfect and understanding sometimes, but lately she’s hard to be around.” March sat up quickly. He was determined not to let his good mood slip away. “All in all I think she’s just another sad sack, like you.” He punched Bren lightly on the shoulder. “She’ll get over it.”

“It’s not that I’m a sad sack, March. I just--” He looked around the camp searching for the right words as if he might find them roosting in the pine trees or hiding in the thicket. “Who’s gonna help me terrorize Quinton? And who is gonna race me to the short dock when the krill begin to spawn?” Bren forced a laugh. “And who’s gonna come out here and traipse through the woods with me and scare the white stag off when I have the perfect shot lined up?”

March smiled broadly at his friend. “He was magnificent, wasn’t he? Did you see his antlers? They looked like flaming ice.”

“Yup, he was amazing.”

“I won’t ever forget that moment as long as I live Bren, the way he snorted when I jumped out of the bushes. I think he was laughing at us.”

“He wouldn’t have been laughing if you hadn’t jumped out when you did.” Bren smiled at the thought.

“I don’t think you’d have done it,” March’s voice turned serious. “When it came time to loose you would have balked, or missed on purpose. Not even you, the great Brendly Tuck, could have killed such a creature.” March stood and yawned as he stretched out his arms.

“Maybe not,” Brendly conceded. He wondered if March was right. He lay awake a long time after his friend was asleep, wondering about just that.

3

Bren woke with a shock as icy cold water splashed across his face. March’s hysterical laughter filled his bewilderment. The sun was already up. The sounds of the birds chirping and whistling filled the cool air between March’s deep belly roars of mirth.

March handed Bren a pan full of scrambled grouse eggs that he had collected and cooked earlier. With a grimace of friendly disapproval, Brendly took them and woofed them down with his fingers. After that, they put their bulky packs under the canvas shelter and checked their gear. They each tested the sharpness of their long skinning knives and made sure that they had plenty of arrows between them. They put enough water and dried beef for the day in their belt pouches and left the things they didn’t think they would need. March pushed his head, and one arm, through a coil of rope and checked to make sure he had his tinder box. They were both accomplished hunters and had learned from experience not to go off unprepared. Bren even went as far as putting a small wood ax in his belt.

It took longer than they thought it would to reach the ridge. When they finally got there they were almost disappointed not to see hoards of kobles and wood trolls gathering on the other side. What they found was a small valley, very small compared to Prominence Valley. The dense forest continued down the steep terrain to the valley’s floor some three hundred yards below them. There, a small stream could be seen through the treetops winding its way down the hill.

Not far below them, the trees gave way to a rocky outcropping that looked interesting. Without a thought, March started down toward it with only a smiling glance back at Bren’s hesitation.

Swallowing his nervousness, Bren hurried to catch up. He nearly tumbled over his feet as the steepness of the slope was revealed. By the time he reached March’s side, he was out of breath, and more than a little worried.

It only took them a few minutes to get to what turned out to be a flat shelf of rock that protruded out over the tree tops. On either side of the shelf, the trees and the undergrowth were as thick as thieves at a festival, but for this one small area, about a hundred paces wide, the rocks prevailed.

March eased out to the edge to look down at what he was sure would be a cliff like plummet into the sea of tree tops below. Bren stayed back and nervously waited for March to tell him what he saw. After a few moments, March stopped his cautious approach. He then pulled the rope he was carrying back over his head and began uncoiling it.

“I’m going all the way out to the edge to look.” March looked excitedly back at Bren then threw him one end of the rope. “Hold this in case I slip. I don’t want to go all the way over.”

“Here I was worried about you leaving,” Bren joked sheepishly. “You’ll not live to set foot out of Prominence Valley.”

March grinned as he tied his end of the rope around his waist. “You’re a bald-eyed giboon, Bren,” March laughed. “We're not even in Prominence Valley anymore.”

“Oh. Yeh.” Bren swallowed hard, remembering that they were also beyond the kingdom’s boundary.

“Now come on, gibber lips,” March chided. “The ropes not long enough for you to stay way up there.”

Bren eased close enough so that March could lean out over the edge. He found a depression in the rock where he could dig in his heels and create leverage if it became necessary. When he saw March get to his belly and began crawling out, he dug in any way.

“Don’t fall, March!” Bren yelled out as his daring friend got to the edge and looked over. “What is it? What do you see?” His curiosity was drowning his concern.

March quickly scooted back and stood up. A giant smile had spread across his face. When he saw how eager Bren was to know what he’d seen he purposely kept from saying anything.

“Come on, March. Spit it out!” Bren yelled. “Just tell me!”

“There’s a cave down there!” March was beaming. “A big ole cave!”

“You wanted to go on an adventure, sad sack. Let’s go on one!” March said moving back up the hill on one side of the rocky shelf. “There’s a way down over here,” he pointed.

Bren quickly pulled all the slack out of the rope and nearly yanked March off of his feet. Between laughs he said, “At least—untie yourself first, you big giboon!”

March blushed realizing that in his rush to get down to the cave he had completely forgotten that he had a rope tied to his waist. He gave his end a good yank, pulling it free from Bren’s hands. He yanked it hard enough to give Bren a burn in his palms. Even though he was the one laughing now, it took him only seconds to untie himself. He coiled the rope back up quickly, and then shouldered it.

The descent proved to be tedious. The ground was loose and rocky, and the trees were in all the wrong places. They ended up going away from the shelf, out into the forest where the grade seemed a little better. They had to backtrack twice and ended up going too far down slope. When they finally realized this, the cave was above them, looming up the slope like a hungry maw. Climbing back up to it, they began to feel the humidity of the forest. The sun was directly overhead now. The trees shaded the ground well, but the canopy was so thick that it held in the ground moisture. It wasn’t long before both of the boys’ woolen shirts and leather pants were soaked with sweat. To make matters worse there was no breeze to be felt at all. The trees kept it from reaching them.

The dark mouth of the cave grew as they approached it. They could see that it was deep. What hid in those depths was the mystery. The only thing about the hole that was inviting was the knowledge that inside the cavern they could cool off and take a short rest.

The natural opening was easily ten paces wide and half again that tall. The rock formation seemed out of place sitting there by itself in the middle of the dense forested greenery. Scattered here and there up along the cliff-like face were clumps of mossy growth and a few patches of vines that bloomed with brilliantly colored little blue and yellow flowers.

March didn’t hesitate. Just inside, out of the sun, he plopped down on a piece of rock and began rummaging through his pack for food and water. Bren joined him, already sipping from the deer skin canteen he carried at his hip. Both were winded from the climb back up to the cavern so neither spoke for a long while. They ate and sipped cool water and let their bodies rejuvenate. All the while the endless possibilities of what could be hiding down in the cavern kept culminating in their imaginations.

After a while Bren whispered, “I wonder how far back it goes?”

“We’ll find out soon enough, won't we?” March laughed confidently. “Why are you whispering?”

“This is a big cave,” Bren answered seriously, his voice still a whisper. “Something big could live back there.”

March hadn’t thought of that. His mind began to race through all the creatures he knew of that were big enough to do them harm. He turned to Bren dropping his tone and volume to match his friends. “We’ll be quiet and go really slow.” He turned back and peered into the darkness of the tunnel-like shaft that the cavern formed. He couldn’t see very far at all. “We’ll have to make a torch.”

March stood and began looking around the lighted part of the cave. He found a length of dried wood as big around as his thigh, and after feeling its weight, he quickly discarded it. Bren was rummaging through his belt pack so March headed back out into the woods to seek out a better prospect. He returned with a piece of green wood nearly four feet long and about as big around as his wrist. It was heavy but it would be handy as a club if the need arose. He noticed that Bren had strung his bow and had moved his quiver of arrows from his back to his hip.

He’d never tell Bren, because it would swell up his friend’s melon head, but he thought that Bren was the best archer he’d ever seen. The thought was comforting. He’d once seen Bren shoot a gobbler out of the air. Bren had fired two arrows in rapid succession and both had hit their mark. It was improbable to have hit a bird in flight even once. Bren had hit it twice back to back, and with lightning speed. March was sure that Bren hadn’t been lying when he had said that the white stag had been lucky.

“How are you gonna make a torch out of that?” Bren asked.

March just shook his head. How could such an accomplished hunter be such a giboon, he wondered? He sat back down near his friend and cut an arm length of rope from his coil. He tied it tightly around one end of the limb. Then he took out the silver flask of Master Beryll’s brandy hooch and poured a few dollops over the rope until it was saturated with the liquid. He offered Bren a sip from it, but Bren refused it. March took a good sized swig though, and then put it away. With a red faced grimace, he held the limb out to Bren for inspection. “Torch,” was all the sting of the liquor would allow him to say.

Bren was uneasy, almost scared, about going deeper into the cavern. He would never let it show though, not to March. He had said he wanted an adventure. Now here he was, across the ridge in the unprotected Teeth, about to venture into a cavern big enough for a bear, or a family of rock trolls, or even a small dragon to call home.

Not that Bren really thought that there was a dragon here. The mighty dragons hadn’t been seen in the area for dozens of years. Even when they had, they were seen from great distances as they flew overhead, doing whatever it is that dragons do in the sky. Still, the possibility of what might reside deep in this cavern was unnerving.

In between his short bouts of fear, Bren found himself terribly excited. He wondered how March could remain so calm. Maybe March was scared too. Maybe March was just able to hide it better. Or maybe March was just that confident.

March didn’t look terrified, but he was. It wasn’t easy always taking the lead. Bren had wanted an adventure, and March wanted to have a hunting trip that they would both always remember forever, so here they were. He wished that Bren hadn’t said anything about something living in here. Up until then he had only been excited. Now, he was truly afraid. But he couldn’t let Bren see it. He told himself that this was just going to be an old empty cavern and did his best to swallow his fear.

“Are you ready?” March asked quietly. He took out his tinder box and prepared to light the makeshift torch.

“Yup, just stay to my left, and keep the torch flame up high, so it stays out of my eyes.” It took great effort to keep his voice from trembling as he added. “I want to have a good clear shot if we run into anything hungry back there.”

March lit the torch and then handed it to his friend while he put the flint and steel back into the tinder box and put it away. He unsheathed his skinning knife and took the torch back from Bren. With the brightly flaming brand in one hand and the long blade in the other, he started moving deeper into the cave.

The flickering light of the brand allowed them to see about twenty paces ahead. The flames caused exaggerated shadows to dance around the tunnel like ghoulish specters. Beyond the shadows, the thick blackness swallowed up the light like a hungry beast.

There were webs deeper in the cave. Some of them spanned the entire width of the shaft like forgotten fishing nets. More than a few fist sized spiders scurried from the noisy brightness of their approach. After only a few hundred feet, March was forced to get in front of Bren because the shaft began to narrow.

“Don’t get too far ahead of me, March!” Bren whispered nervously. Even at a whisper his voice reverberated off the rough rocky walls.

“I won’t,” March joked. “I don’t want an arrow in the back when one of those spiders drops on your fat head.”

“Not funny.” Bren wasn’t laughing. His attention had been drawn up ahead of them. He gripped the semi-drawn arrow with the index finger of his bow hand so that his right hand was free. He reached forward and tapped March on the shoulder with it. When he had his friend’s attention he pointed up ahead at what he saw, then drew back his arrow again and stepped around March.

“What is it?” March asked. He had to squint his eyes to block out the glare from the torch flame. “Is it a rock?”

“Only if the rocks in here grow fur!” Bren said as his arrow loosed at the thing.

The arrow struck with a thump and sunk deeply into the creature. Before March could take a breath, Bren had another arrow ready to fire.

“It’s not rock,” said March moving toward it cautiously. “And it stinks!”

“It’s not alive,” Bren stated the obvious. His arrow was still trained on the thing though.

They were relieved to see that it was just a dead deer. That relief faded quickly when they saw that it was only part of a deer. Half of it had been torn away, leaving a puddle of thick black muck that was littered with pieces of broken bone. A trail of splotchy red and black led from the carcass into the blackness.

“Pretty fresh kill,” March commented after kneeling and examining it. “The stink is from the curdled blood, not the meat.”

“It’s time to get out of here, March,” Bren said sternly. “Something bit off the whole back half of that doe. I don’t want to meet it!”

March wasn’t listening. He was already moving further into the cave. He’d seen something else and was heading toward it. Bren hurried after him, and was just about to yank his friend back by the shoulder and haul him out of there when he saw what March was after. He gasped loudly.

It was the skeleton of a human. It was whole and still encased in rusty ringed mail armor. At the side of the body was a dusty, but wicked looking sword. Several small packs were attached to the dead man’s belt, and a large leather backpack was still strung over his shoulders.

“Hold this,” March said as he thrust the torch to Bren. Reluctantly Bren took the brand even though holding it meant that he wouldn’t be ready to fire an arrow if trouble came. He looked on in horror at what March started to do next.

“You can’t steal from the dead, March!” Bren said rather loudly. The word dead echoed around the cavern and down the tunnel like an ominous warning.

“It’s not stealing,” March justified as he unlocked the sword belt and fastened it over his shoulder. “This isn’t digging up a grave. This guy has been here a long time.” He rolled the skeleton over and almost jumped out of his skin as it broke apart in his hands.

“All right, but hurry! I don’t like this one bit.”

March pulled the leather backpack free, causing the skull to roll over and look up at him as if it were still alive. He took a deep breath and repositioned the body in a more comfortable looking position. “Rest peacefully whoever you were,” He said softly.

He slung the pack over his shoulder and was about to reach for the torch, but a glittering sparkle underneath the dead man’s neck caught his eye.

Bren, seeing his friend reach back down to the body, yelled out in frustration. “COME ON!... On... on.” His voice echoed down the cavern.

“Just a moment,” March growled back up at Bren’s impatience.

He groped through the dust where he’d seen the flashing reflection and found a small chain with his fingertips. As he pulled it out from under the dead warrior, he could feel the substantial weight of something that dangled from it.

“Light, Bren!” He ordered. Bren sighed and held the torch forth so that he and March could both see what it was.

The firelight reflected so brilliantly off of the thumb sized gem mounted in the dirty medallion that it nearly blinded them.

“Wow,” March gasped, turning to his friend. “Its--”

His voice was drowned out by the sudden angry growl of something very big and very close.

March pulled the medallion’s chain over his head and grabbed the torch back from his friend.

“Let’s go!” Bren yelled again. His bow was instantly drawn and his arrow trained at the area of darkness where the sound had come. “Now!”

March gave no argument. He immediately began backing through the cavern towards the entrance, holding the torch out toward the sound they had heard. They awkwardly tried to stay side-by-side as they continued moving backwards as quickly as they could.

They heard the thump of heavy footfalls pounding rapidly towards them from the darkness. A strong alien scent filled the air. Whatever it was, it was four legged, and it was closing in on them.

A deep rumbling growl began and quickly turned into a screechy roar. It was right there, just outside of the torchlight. March could see several glistening reflections in the darkness, all of which were at least a head taller than he was. He was sure it was eyes and teeth, or maybe scales that he was seeing.

“Loose, Bren!” March yelled. An arrow thrummed by his ear from his friend’s bow.

A viscous screech filled the cavern then, and the head and wing claws of a snarling young wyvern charged into the torchlight. Its scales were pale, almost pink. It was dragon-like, but not nearly as large as even a young wyrm was rumored to be. It’s long sinuous body was the size of a small horse, or a big tree cat, and it’s toothy serpent head was already lunging. Two huge fangs curled up from its bottom jaw and jutted above plum sized nostril holes. Behind them, eyes that looked like cherry walnuts glowed with indignant rage. Menacingly, the strange reptilian creature roared at them and crouched to strike. The arrow Bren had fired protruded harmlessly from creature’s shoulder. Bren didn’t hesitate to fire again, this time aiming for the vital chest area between the creature’s stumpy forelegs. The arrow sank deeply, but didn’t even slow the bursting charge. A huge raking claw lashed out at March and though it barely missed his flesh, it hung in the thick leather sword belt he had taken from the corpse. He, and the torch, were slung violently into the cavern wall.

Bren fired two more arrows at the beast, but the force and speed of the attack on March, and the way the torch had gone flying across the air, had been dizzying. Even still, he had struck the sun starved creature well enough to stop it in its tracks. The dying torch was behind the wyvern now, near where March was stirring. The creature was perfectly silhouetted and Bren went to fire another arrow. Reaching in, he found his quiver empty. He looked down at it in shock. He never retrieved the arrow he had loosed at the white stag. At that very moment of realization, a razor sharp claw ripped down his hip tearing his leg wide open.

He crumpled to the ground without a sound. When he looked up, he saw stars swirling around the blackness. Then there was nothing, nothing at all.

With a lustful triumphant roar the wyvern’s serpentine head lunged toward Bren’s limp body. The victory growl was cut short though. The sound quickly turned into a horrid pain filled screech as the smoldering end of the torch came down on its pink scaly back. The brand sizzled and popped back to life, flaming hotly before it rolled off and hit the ground. The torch rolled to a stop just under the raging beast’s underbelly. March instinctively reached to his belt for his knife, but it was not there. He had dropped it when he was smashed into the wall. He didn’t panic though; instead he reached back over his head and grabbed hold of the ancient sword’s hilt in an effort to pull it from the scabbard. At first it wouldn’t come free, but with his second try, it did. The heavy metal hand guard cracked him in his ear and sent him stumbling head first across cavern floor towards the creature. The razor sharp blade sliced across his scalp, cutting him to the bone as it slipped free. March had to grab the sword by the blade to turn it around so that he could hold it correctly. He cut his palms open in the process, but not so badly that he couldn’t grip the hilt.

March looked up to see the slithery beast fighting to turn around and face him. It was trying to avoid the torch flames that were licking its tender underbelly. March’s heart hit the floor when he caught a brief glimpse of Bren’s torn and bloody body crumpled against the wall. He saw Bren’s thigh-bone fully exposed, and the huge pool of blood surrounding his friend. He feared Bren was dead.

A deep rush of anger fueled adrenaline shot through his veins. He gripped the sword with both hands. The grip wasn’t very good due to the blood leaking from the wounds in his palms, but it was good enough for him to raise the blade over his head and charge recklessly into the range of those horrible, finger-long fangs. At least the albino beast was easy to see in the muted torch light.

March was getting dizzy, and he could feel his warm blood sluicing down his back from the head wound. Luckily, his rage took over as he brought the gleaming sword down into the exposed flank of the turning creature. He felt the blade slice deep into flesh before it was yanked from his hands.

The wyvern bucked wildly, slamming March and itself into the rocky wall. Then it hopped backward into the darkened cavern. It was too late for the wyvern though. The slam, into the unrelenting surface of the wall, had driven the sword deeper into its vitals. With a series of deep, guttural moans that resounded with a hissing wetness, the creature curled and thrashed until it finally stilled.

March reached for the back of his head. His wound was bad. He could feel his bare skull. But, he quickly forgot his pain when he heard Bren’s familiar voice moaning from across the cavern. Stopping only to retrieve the still smoldering torch, he went to Bren’s side.

A finger deep gash ran from Bren’s hip to just above his knee and a fat purple knot was forming on his cheek, from where it had impacted the rocky floor. He had lost a lot of blood, but was slowly regaining consciousness. March pulled the old pack off of his back and gently put it under Bren’s head. He then tore off his shirt. Using Bren’s skinning knife, he cut the cloth into wide strips. He wrapped the strips around Bren’s thigh, pulled the wound closed with them, then tied them tightly. Only after he was sure that his friend wasn’t going to bleed out right there on the cavern floor did he use the last strip of cloth to tie around his still bleeding head.

When that was done, he poured a generous dollop of the brandy hooch along the length of Bren’s wound.

“No… no,” Bren said weakly as the burn of the liquid shot through his leg like a length of forge heated steel. After a moment of wincing and clench jawed groaning, he hissed, “Drink.”

“Here,” March tipped the flask to his friend’s lips and let him take the last of it.

March shook the flask over his hands and let the last few drops sting the wounds on his palms. Then he rubbed them together. He cut off a piece of Bren’s shirt and tore it into two strips which he then tied around them.

“You’re a damn giboon,” Bren said quietly. He adjusted his upper body and pulled a fist sized stone from under his arse.

“Well, if you’d have been a better shot, maybe we could have avoided the ruckus,” March forced a chuckle as he staggered to his feet.

“Is it dead, or did it just run off?” Bren asked with worry. He started to roll over to look, but his wounds kept him from turning.

“It’s just down there resting,” March answered seriously. “I’m gonna go get wood for a fire. Just yell as loud as you can if it comes back.” He then started off into the darkness.

“March! Hey, don’t leave.” He choked as he rolled over despite the pain. He stopped yelling when he saw the albino wyvern’s pale lifeless bulk at the edge of the torchlight. Four arrows protruded from the thick, pinkish-white scaled body. The blood covered hilt of the sword March had pilfered protruded from the thing, as well. Below the sword hilt there was a gash big enough to crawl into, and a massive pool of black thickening blood. The creature would have been ten or twelve paces from head to tail if it was stretched out.

Relieved, Bren lay back, closed his eyes, and slowly slipped into blackness.

4

March could never in his life remember being as relieved as he was when he finally saw the daylight shining at the mouth of the cavern. By the look of the sun, it was still only early afternoon. What had seemed like a day long ordeal had actually lasted less than a turn of the glass. Thankful to still be alive, he grabbed the rope and his skinning knife, and began to gather up pieces of dried wood. The medallion hanging around his neck gleamed brightly in the sunlight. He was compelled to pause a moment to examine it.

It was palm-sized and disc-shaped, formed from a heavy metal that he had never seen before. Not gold or silver, but easily as shiny and as beautiful. It was finely worked with runes and symbols that he did not recognize. In the center, a thumb sized, teardrop shaped, diamond was mounted. Turning it over, he saw that both sides were identical and that the jewel sparkled with a million prismatic colors. The chain appeared to be made from the same metal as the medallion. When he tucked it into his shirt he found that it hung perfectly below his collar between his pectoral muscles. It felt as if it had been fitted for him. He decided that it would be his good luck charm since he’d worn it while defeating that slithery beast. It could be magical like the artifacts from the old world he had heard about. If not, it was surely worth its weight in gold. Enough to buy a small farm he figured. Silently he swore to never sell it, or give it away. He also vowed to try to find the meaning of the markings on its surface.

The scream of a distant predator bird pulled him from his musings. He still had to get his badly injured friend home. It wouldn’t take the wolves long to pick up the scent of all that blood, and Prominence was a long way away.

After gathering some wood he started back into the darkness of the cave. He could see the dim torch flame flickering ahead and he carefully continued in that direction. His arms were full, so it was hard to step over the lifeless lump of the dead creature, but he managed. He marveled at the size of it. It was easily three times as long as Bren. Maybe he would cut off the head and some claws. He could make himself a trophy, and make Bren a necklace with the teeth.

“Marcherion?” Bren called out weakly. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be, you big giboon!” March laughed. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a tumbler at the fair.” Bren smiled broadly, but he gasped and turned a sickly pale color when he tried to sit up. Through clenched teeth he said, “My leg is pretty bad off, March!”

“We will get you home,” March reassured. “If I can get you back over the ridge to our camp before dark, I’ll have you back in your bed by tomorrow night.”

March talked on as he built a fire. “Getting back over the ridge is gonna be hard on you.” He looked at Bren seriously. “But if you can grit it out that far, we’ll be home free.”

“I don’t think I can stand,” Bren said with more than a little worry in his voice. He knew the way the wolves had tracked and attacked other groups of hunters when they hadn’t gotten their fresh kills into the lower valley fast enough. He also knew that he smelled like a fresh kill, and that the wolves would surely come for him. March was a great hunter, and a superb woodsman, but no match for even a small pack of hungry wolves.

“I wish I had something to make a splint with,” March muttered. Then he cursed himself for letting the medallion dazzle him from his wits while he was outside. He was about to start back through the cave when he noticed the sword’s scabbard lying on the cavern floor. An idea struck him then, and even though the cuts on his hands hurt badly, he went over to the white scaled wyvern’s side and struggled to pull the sword free. He screamed loudly as his hands slid roughly off of the hilt. The sword hadn’t budged and the cuts on his palms were reopened. He stood there grimacing, with his palms held to his chest, as fresh blood trickled down his arms and dripped from his elbows.

Bren positioned himself to where he could see March. He saw the blood soaked band around his friend’s head and watched him wince as he wiped his bloody hands on his pants. Bren started to worry. They wouldn’t stand a chance if they got stuck in the woods in the dark. With both of them lame and smelling like a feast, all sorts of hungry things would come sniffing. He felt little relief when March tried again and grinned proudly after finally pulling the sword free of the wyvern.

March searched the cavern for something to wipe the sword’s blade clean. His gaze finally landed on Bren, who was staring straight back at him with true fear in his eyes. March disregarded the look and walked over and pulled the dead man’s pack out from under Bren’s head. He opened it, and luckily, right there on top was a rolled up woolen cloak. It was exactly what he needed to save his friend. As he pulled it free, a fat leather pouch fell out of the roll. It chinked to the floor just beside Bren’s ear. Bren struggled to grab it while March went about rummaging through the rest of the backpack.

“March look!” Bren said excitedly. He rolled to his side and poured a pile of shiny gold coins onto the floor. “We're rich!”

March found a wine skin and was sniffing the spout to try to see if it held water or wine. It turned out to be some sort of liqueur. It probably had a fruity aroma at one time, but now it smelled of nothing but pure grain. He braved a small sip as he turned to see what Bren was carrying on about and nearly choked. Whether from the strength of the drink or from the sight of the pile of golden coins, he would never know. He forced himself to swallow and felt the burn of the liquid all the way down his throat and into his belly. He nearly choked again when he saw that Bren had only dumped out a small portion of the contents from the pouch. Bren was holding the heavy bag of coins in his hand and grinning ear to ear.

Without hesitation, and with the eagerness of a small child reveling under the Giver Man’s tree on full winter’s morn, March dropped down to his knees and began rummaging through the rest of the contents. To his disappointment only two items remained. Neither was as glamorous as the bag of coins.

“What’s left?” Bren asked excitedly.

“Only an old book and a scroll tube,” March said flatly. “It’s all for nothing if we can’t get you back home. The wolves don’t take bribes.”

He regretted saying it as soon as it came out of his mouth. It wasn’t right for him to scare Bren like that. It would be hard enough to get Bren over the ridge, even if his idea worked, and all the harder if either of them panicked.

After giving Bren the skin full of the liqueur, March laid out the cloak and began cutting it into strips. After that, he gently took off the blood soaked pieces of the shirt he had tied around Bren’s leg. The cut looked like a long black gooey line. March wished he had a way to stitch it up, but the nearest needle was back over the ridge with their other gear. He thought about leaving Bren here and making the trip alone, but thoughts of what could happen to his friend lying defenseless in the cave made up his mind for him.

“You pouring, or me?” March asked, pointing from the wine skin to the gash.

“I’ll pour it,” Bren sounded reluctant. “You have to hold my leg still so I don’t pull it all back open if I jump.”

“All right,” March couldn’t help but laugh. “But you’re such a giboon. I ought to just leave you here, take all this stuff and go buy myself a castle.”

Bren tried to laugh, but the anticipation of the pain to come kept him from it. March put one hand on Bren’s knee and the other on Bren’s hip. Then he nodded that he was ready. Bren took a big swig from the skin. Then, before he lost his resolve, he poured a generous amount of the liquid down his thigh just as he swallowed.

To March’s surprise Bren just looked at him stupidly. It seemed as though he wasn’t feeling any pain at all. Then, Bren’s face slowly flushed pink. It quickly graduated to a bright reddish color. Soon it looked as if Bren’s head would burst. Then the scream came.

It was long and loud, and it was followed by several quick sharp huffs that sent spittle flying from Bren’s mouth in every direction. He looked pleadingly at March and started to scream again, but mercifully his eyes rolled back into his head as his body succumbed to the pain.

March wasted no time. He first padded the wound with a folded piece of the cloak. He bound it once more with strips so that it wouldn’t pull open on its own. Then he bound it again with a second layer of strips. After putting the sword back in the scabbard, he laid it along Bren’s wounded leg. He made sure that the ball of the hilt was jutting just past the bottom of Bren’s boot heel. He was glad to see that the tip of the sheathed blade was above Bren’s hip, nearly at his armpit. He strapped the sword to Bren’s leg with more strips of the cloak and some lengths of rope. He tied a fancy knot around Bren’s foot and the hilt, so that the sword couldn’t come sliding out of its scabbard. Finally, he slipped the thick leather sword belt under his friend’s waist then buckled it tightly around Bren and the sword’s blade. He hoped that most of Bren’s weight would be on the tempered steel and not on his leg.

March took a moment to rest after his labors. He wanted desperately to be back over the ridge and in their camp before dark. He rounded up everything he could find, including the coins from the floor of the cavern. He put them all into the backpack. He strapped Bren’s bow and quiver around his shoulders, and took the time to remove three of the arrows from the body of the beast. Then he decided to take some proof of the kill. With his skinning knife, he cut the fore claw off of the creature, and after wrapping it in what was left of the cloak, he forced it into the pack. He shouldered the load, and after a quick look around to make sure that he had gotten everything, he went to wake Brendly.

It was a slow tedious climb. The sword splint was awkward, but it worked. Bren was more or less just stumbling from tree to tree. He clung to the lower branches and used his muscled arms to keep himself from falling all the way down.

March was carrying the packs and finding that keeping the bow ready was a chore all by itself. His ruined palms wouldn’t close around the grip correctly and even the slightest squeeze of his hands caused extreme pain. To make things worse, he could feel the icy burn of his skull where his scalp wasn’t covering the bone anymore. He would have just fallen down and cried if it weren’t for the heart wrenching determination Bren was showing by just keeping himself upright.

Ever so slowly they continued the journey upward, fighting their pain as they climbed. They stopped to drink from the wine skin and to eat some dried beef but found that it was a mistake. The short reprieve allowed their bodies to relax but caused their wounds to stiffen. Bren felt far worse than he had when they had started from the cave. March didn’t feel much better. The strong content of the skin, that the skeleton had so generously preserved for them, did very little to ease their suffering, but Bren found himself wanting more of it. March let him finish what was left before they started back up the mountain.

They climbed some more and eventually the ridge came into view. Bren used the sight of it to strengthen his resolve. He used all that he had left in himself to get there.

March wasn’t far behind, but blood loss had him feeling dizzy. He was sure that the sticky wetness that he was feeling running down his back was as much blood as it was sweat. A glance at the sun told him that they probably wouldn’t make it back to the camp by nightfall, but since they would be within the kingdom’s boundaries, and traveling downhill, he felt that their chances were good of getting there alive. That is, if he could keep from passing out. He was sure that Bren was having a harder time of it. It amazed him that Bren hadn’t done much more than grunt and wince on the way up. Bren had to be in incredible pain. March’s wounds were superficial in comparison.

“Well that was the hard part!” March managed to say between breaths as he gained Bren’s side at the top of the ridge.

Bren was holding desperately onto a branch to steady himself and he was gasping for air. He managed a grim smile.

March plopped down heavily onto a rock and began rummaging through his pack until he found his water skin. After taking a long drink, he handed it to Bren’s trembling hand. Bren finished it off then he playfully tossed it at March before he started down the mountainside.

“We're not stopping here,” Bren called out over his shoulder. “And you’d better hurry up and lead, because if it’s up to me, we are going straight down into the valley.”

March reluctantly got to his feet and started after his friend. He was completely amazed at the way Bren was handling the pain.

It was dark when March finally found the camp. He wouldn’t have found it, if not for the many tracking and hunting lessons he’d learned from his father and two older brothers over the years.

The stars weren’t very bright this night, but the moon would be up soon. He’d use its light to check Bren’s wounds.

Bren was in a bad way. Several times, on the last portion of the trek, he had stumbled into trees and shrubs. Once, when his tired arms wouldn’t hold him up any longer, he had fallen into a stiff-legged heap on the forest floor. He was stretched out now, under the shelter March had made for them the previous night. March made him drink the remainder of their water, and then helped him eat some dried beef before letting him pass out.

As soon as he got a fire started, March was going to range out in the darkness and find the pool of clean water where they had seen the stag. He had to be sure that the fire wouldn’t burn out while he was gone. If it did, every hungry creature in the forest would be after Bren like ants on a piece of sweet candy. All they would have to do to find him was follow the blood trail they had left throughout the day. The fire would also help March find his way back from the pool. The fire roared to life, and while stoking it to the size he needed it to be, March felt its warmth sink into his aching bones. He fought, but to no avail. Before he could leave, he too fell into a deep, much needed sleep.

March woke to the sound of Bren’s agonizing moans. Somewhere beyond the mountains, the sun was breaking the night, giving him just enough rosy light to see by. The morning sky was glorious and filled with color, where it could be seen peeking above the mountain tops. March couldn’t enjoy it though, because he knew they desperately needed water.

The air was thick with a sense of urgency. Bren was fever stricken. His tired body was now fighting infection. What Bren really needed was the care of an herb master. March was tempted to make a litter and drag his friend down the mountainside. He wondered if the time he spent going and getting some water would allow the infection to get into Bren’s blood. He’d seen that happen once when a copper miner who had been cut on the arm had stayed in the mine too long. The Herb Master had had to cut the arm off, but the miner eventually died anyway. All of Prominence Village had been forced to endure his screaming torment until he finally died.

The gravity of their situation weighed heavy on March. If he made the wrong decision it could cost Bren his leg, or worse. He was so concerned with Bren that he completely ignored the pain of his own wounds. He made the decision to make the litter and drag Bren to the stag’s pool with him. There he could wash the wounds, and boil water to clean the bandages.

Methodically he went about making a litter out of the oil cloth they had used for their shelter and some limbs he cut from nearby trees. He had made several litters in his life. It was the easiest way to get a big buck down the mountain. He and Bren had used them a few times when they were younger, before they were strong enough to spit a carcass and shoulder it down.

The sun was above the peaks by the time he was done making the travois-like device. He was weak and dehydrated, but he packed all their gear onto it with Bren and then gripped the two poles. His split hands were still bleeding and raw, but he started off anyway. Inside March there was nothing left except sheer determination and love for his friend.

It was midday and the sun was high and hot when they finally arrived at the pool. March spent a few moments picking the splinters and dried bark out of the gashes in his palms while cleansing them in the cool water. Then he focused all of his attention on Bren.

By nightfall, he was a little more confident in Bren’s chances. He had thoroughly cleansed away the dirt and grime from his friend’s wound. He had forced it to bleed and then opened the cut wide enough to cut away all the yellowing pussy sections that had formed there. He even stitched it in several places but he wasn’t sure if he had done it right. They still had a long hard journey ahead of them. March could only hope that he had done enough.

The wound was staying closed, but Bren still had fever. March hoped that his condition would change if they rested through the night. He had made a broth by placing the last of their dried beef in the pot and boiling in some gable roots he found. Bren woke just long enough to drink a good portion of it. He was pale and weak from loss of blood and couldn’t manage the strength to speak. He did manage to drink most of the aromatic liquid down. Then he was off again, back into a fitful slumber.

March figured that if he rested for a while he could get them down into the valley by the following afternoon. There he would break apart the litter and burn it before the sun went down. If a farmer or shepherd didn’t respond, he would run like the wind and return with a cart or a wagon. He was determined to have Bren in Prominence proper by dawn. It was a sound plan and it relieved him to have at least that much.

While Bren tossed and turned, March fingered the medallion he had found. He wasn’t certain, but at one point he thought that it might have been causing his palms to tingle. It wasn’t long before he too fell into slumber. He slept heavily and had vivid dreams that eluded him when the sound of a curious scavenger woke him in the predawn light. When he reached over to shake Bren awake his heart slid up into his throat. Bren had died in the night. His body was cool and stiff.

5

“By the Gods, NOOOOO!” he shouted at the still darkened sky. A cluster of startled birds exploded from a nearby tree and sent his heavy heart to hammering.

“There’s a way to save him,” a small steady voice said from behind him. “All you have to do is pledge your soul to the Confliction.”

March whirled around and saw the impossible. The white stag was standing there looking at him, its dark eyes plainly visible against its luminescent white fur. It wasn’t the stag who had spoken though. Sitting on the stag’s back was one of the fabled elvish. The fair skinned, silvery haired, creature seemed to be slightly unsettled by the fact that March was twice his size, but he met March’s gaze with his wild amber eyes.

March’s emotion surged. “You’ll save my friend if you can, or I will-- I’ll--”

“You’ll do naught other than pledge your soul to the fighting of the Confliction,” the little man said flatly. He was wearing a sort of cloth that looked to be made out of tiny rings of the same strange metal as the medallion. And, what March had first mistaken as fear had suddenly turned into snarling defiance. “You’ll swear to fight against the Confliction, or I’ll take that medallion. Then you can drag your friend’s corpse home to his mother.”

March was so stunned and confused, and welling with grief, that he couldn’t form a cohesive thought. For a long time, he was silent. Finally, he asked the elf the only question that would come. “You can save him?”

“You can save him,” the elf replied, “but only if you hurry.”

“How?”

“Use the medallion to call your dragon. When it comes, it will know your heart and use its magic to restore the life of your companion.”

“There are no dragons around here,” March looked around. “If there was, why would a dragon do such a thing?”

“There are no elvish in this valley either I’d guess,” the elf shrugged. “Either way, you should get to calling your wyrm before it’s too late for him.” The elf nodded at Bren’s corpse.

“What’s this Confliction you speak?” March asked as he crawled to his feet and pulled the medallion out of his shirt.

He was feverish, and the world was swimming in and out of focus, but somehow he knew that this was no fever dream. He was about to pledge his life to something he didn’t understand so that his friend would be saved.

“It cannot be explained,” the elf sighed. “There will be more of you. There will be five dragoneers in all. Some are already trying to bond with their wyrms. But they are far from here, in another land that lies across the sea. It is a place that your people do not know of. You must call your dragon, and then go to them. Together the five of you will stand against the storm.”

The elf glanced up at the sky as if he were searching for something. The light of dawn was only a few breaths from breaking the horizon.

“Don’t let the sun rise and burn his soul away,” the elf nodded at Bren again. “Do this thing. Call your dragon. Go find the dragoneers and face the destiny you’ve chanced upon. It will be a great one, I think.”

The stag pawed the ground and snorted his agreement. It tilted it’s antlered head slightly and gave Bren a look that conveyed volumes. Inexplicably, March suddenly knew that he had to do this. There was no other choice. “How?”

“Take the Medallion in your hands. Yes, like that.” March cupped the silvery disc as if it were a precious egg.

“Kiss the tear stone,” the elf instructed. “Now pledge within your soul to fight the coming Confliction. Only then will your dragon come.”

“I don’t care about the dragon,” March mumbled. I’m doing this for Bren.

As soon as he kissed the tear shaped jewel, and told his heart that he would see this thing through, he felt a chilling tingle flutter through him. His skin prickled and his mind began to clear. He had made the right decision, and he knew it. His blood was turning into liquid fire and his breathing grew erratic.

“That is the Dour that makes you feel that way,” the elf grinned. He patted the stag on the shoulder and leaned toward its ear. “You were right my friend. This was the one.”

“What’s Dour?” March asked. Whatever it was, it felt fantastic in his veins, as if he were full of lightning.

“It will fade. That dragon’s tear is old, the amber Dour has been leaking from it for a century or more. See how clear it is? The dragon that let it fall died long, long ago.” The elf lightly heeled the stag into a turn and looked to be about to trot away.

“Wait,” March pleaded. “What about Bren? What about my family?”

The elf gave a nervous chuckle. “Your dragon is coming, and you were going to leave anyway. Just go.” The stag shivered and looked to be growing nervous. “I’ll not want to be bumbling around when your wyrm gets here. After you’ve gone, I’ll return and keep the scavengers from badgering your friend. I’ll make sure he gets where he needs to be.”

As the stag bounded away, March heard the elf chuckling.

March looked at Bren and dropped his head. He hoped he hadn’t been a fool. He hoped—

Suddenly, the trees swayed violently. A near silent blast of air wafted across the camp. Before a thought could form, another gust came, this one kicking up leaves and sending a dusty whirl of debris into the thicket. Then the dragon was there, directly behind March, looming it’s long neck up over the camp as it pulled in its leathery wings. The connection happened instantaneously. They bonded, and a single shared consciousness was born.

The dragon’s name was Balazerahdadicol and he was the rarest form of pure blooded High Dracus that existed. Since March’s human tongue couldn’t pronounce the name correctly the dragon spoke a single word into his mind. “Blaze.” Blaze was a pure blooded fire drake. March somehow knew this, and other things that he never imagined one could know. It was overwhelming.

March turned to take his bond-mate in with his eyes. He found that save for its neck and head, the dragon was nearly invisible in the pre dawn shadows. What he could see was nothing more than a sinuous crimson silhouette in the lightening sky. The dragon was not huge, nor was he small. Substantial was the word that March decided upon, probably twenty-five paces from tip to tail. Through the bond they shared, a wealth of knowledge was opening up and starting to flood into March’s eager mind. Had it not been, his instinct to flee would have already taken hold.

A pulse of magical energy rippled through the fabric of the world and March knew in his heart of hearts that Blaze had just filled Bren’s body with powerful healing Dour. Bren would wake soon and the elf would watch over him until he could make it down into the valley. March, however, knew that he had to go. The land he and Blaze were going to was far far away. It would take them a full season to fly there, most of the journey over the sea.

Blaze leaned down and created a step with his fore claw. March hurried to his bedroll, grabbed the pack, his bow, and a quiver of arrows. Then, after saying a silent goodbye to his friend, he climbed onto the wyrm. He left the sword and the gold for his friend. He wished he could stay and explain what he was doing, where he was going, but he wasn’t even sure about those things himself.

Blaze took an awkward lurching step. Then a few neck yanking, exhilarating wing strokes later, they were above the forest and flying.

The first of the dragoneers had bonded and the wheels of destiny had been set into motion. The saga of the dragoneers had begun.

Thus ends the prequel novella:

The First Dragoneer by M.R. Mathias

Enjoy the following free preview of “The Royal Dragoneers” It is available in ebook and paperback formats. To find out how to get your copy or to see the map of the land where March and Blaze are headed, then please visit: http://www.mrmathias.com/Dragoneers.html

The Royal Dragoneers By M. R. Mathias Copyright 2010

Part I

The Frontier

Chapter One

Jenka De Swasso peeked through the thick leathery undergrowth he was hiding in. The forested hills were lush and alive with late spring growth. The birds and other small creatures were busy making their symphony of life. It was a welcome cacophony, for Jenka was on the hunt, and it masked the noisy sound of his breathing.

Jenka was trying to see which way his prey was going to move. The ancient stag, once a beautiful and majestic creature, was now past its prime. One of its long, multi-forked antlers was broken into a sharp nub near the base. The other antler was heavy and looked to be weighing the weary creature’s head over to one side. All around its grayish-brown furred neck were scars from the numerous battles it had fought over the years defending its harem from the younger bucks. A fresh gash, a dark trail of blood-matted fur leaking away from it, decorated the stag’s shoulder area. Since there were no does moving about, Jenka figured this old king of the forest had lost his most recent battle, and his harem as well.

Jenka was sixteen years old, and he moved through the shadowy glades - between the towering pine trees and the ancient tangle limbed oaks - with the speed and dexterity of well-fit youth. He was dressed in rough spun and leather, brown and green, and when he stopped still he blended into the forest like a bark-skinned lizard on a tree trunk. His face was well-sooted and the shoulder-length mop of dirty-blond hair on his head looked more like a tumbleweed than anything else.

Like any good hunter who aspired to be a King’s Ranger, he was determined to get close to his prey, to get a good angle, and to make sure that his arrow went deep into the stag’s vitals. A creature as undoubtedly experienced in surviving as this one could probably travel for a day or more with any lesser wound. Jenka knew that if he didn’t make the right shot the creature would bolt away and not slow down. If that happened it would end up getting dragged down by trolls or wolves long before he could catch up to it.

Jenka shivered with a mixture of excitement and sadness. If he could kill the animal, then he and his mother could eat good meat for the rest of the spring. He could also get a handful of well-needed coins for a shoulder haunch from the cooks at Kingsmen’s Keep. It was a better death for the noble creature than to be stalked and shredded by hungry predators anyway, at least that was what Jenka told himself as he drew back on his bow to take aim.

The stag stopped in a small canopied glade carpeted in lush, green turf. The area was well illuminated; several slanting rays of dust-filled sunlight had managed to penetrate the leaves and branches overhead. The stag wearily bent its head down, pulled a mouthful of grass from the ground, and chewed. A pair of tiny, lemon-yellow butterflies fluttered away from the intrusion, their wings flashing like sparks as they flitted through one of the golden shafts of light.

Jenka had the stag perfectly sighted in. He was about to loose one of his hard-earned, steel-tipped arrows when the old animal looked up at him. Their eyes met, and for a fleeting moment Jenka could feel the raw indignity the creature felt over having lost its herd to a younger male. The stag beckoned him, as if it wanted to meet its end, right there, right then. Jenka took a deep breath, resolved himself, and obliged the animal.

The arrow flew swift and true and struck the stag right behind its foreleg. Jenka squinted as the animal went bounding away. He saw that only the arrow’s fletching was protruding from the stag’s hide. It was a kill shot, and he knew it. The arrow itself would grind and shift inside the stag’s guts as it fled through the forest, bringing death that much swifter.

The hunter’s rush came surging into Jenka’s blood then, and after marking the first crimson splashes of spilled life and the general direction that the stag had fled, he had to sit down and work to get his shaky breathing back under control.

Hopefully the animal would fall close; he would have to call for help as it was. It would take four grown men to haul the meat back to Crag after it had been quartered. Not for the first time today, Jenka wished his friend Grondy were there to help him. Normally Jenka and Grondy hunted as a team, but Grondy had recently been bitten by a rat while working in his Pap’s barn. His hand was swollen to the size of a gourd melon. Jenka would have to track this kill himself, then run back to Crag and round up some help before the sun set and the scavengers came out to feed.

The first step was finding where the stag went down. Jenka took a few deep breaths and tried to drown his excitement in the reality that there was still a lot of work left to do this day.

Groaning, he got back to his feet and set out to follow the blood trail. It wasn’t hard to see; the splashes were large and frothy. Even the tinier drops were a bright scarlet that stood out starkly against the forest’s myriad shades of brown and green. That the stag had been able to keep moving after losing so much blood amazed Jenka. It amazed him even more that the stag had fled upward into the deeper foothills instead of down towards the thicker growth around the valley stream. If the stag went too far into the hills, Jenka might have to give it up. Little gray goblins and bands of feral, rock-hurling trolls had been ranging down from the higher reaches of the Orich Mountains as of late, and Jenka wanted no part of that. An ogre had been seen just three days ago by a well-respected woodsman from Kingsmen’s Keep. There were also wolves and big tree-cats that hunted the area, but they were growing scarce as the troll sightings increased.

Jenka was an aspiring King’s Ranger and knew he was already far enough up into the hills to warrant paying a little more attention. Heaving from exertion, he was none too pleased when he finally found the stag’s broken body. It was lying at the bottom of a shallow, but steep, ravine; the creature had apparently staggered right over the edge and fallen into a heap at the bottom of the rain-washed gully.

Jenka had wasted far more precious daylight than he had wanted tracking the hearty animal. Now he had a choice: hurry back to Crag for help, or stand guard over his kill for the night. Jenka was torn.

Had he the energy left in him to run all the way back to the village he probably would have, but he was exhausted from the long, uphill trek. If he left immediately and had the luck of the Gods on his side, the help he gathered still wouldn’t make it back before full dark, not even if they returned by horseback. If he started looking now, however, Jenka was certain that he could round up enough deadfall to keep a fire blazing through the night. That would keep the chill of the higher elevation off of him, as well as keep the predators away. He wasn’t all that keen on spending the night way up here in the hills, but he wasn’t about to let the vermin have the meat of the once proud and mighty animal he had worked so hard to kill. Diligently, he went about rounding up sticks and branches and tossed them into a pile down by the stag’s carcass.

While he searched for firewood, he let his mind wander. After pondering the shape of Delia the baker’s daughter’s breasts, and weighing that curiosity against the size of her father’s well-muscled arms, he decided that he should worry about something else for the moment. That was when his mind wondered to the subject of ogres. More specifically, he thought about terrible old Crix Crux. Now he was glancing up every few heartbeats, scanning the area for the mythical, flesh-eating creature. Crix Crux was an ogre who was supposedly bold enough to venture down close to the villages built in the lower foothills around Kingsmen’s Keep. He was responsible for the disappearance of at least six people that Jenka knew of, and probably dozens more from the other towns built along the base of the mountains.

Master Kember, Jenka’s mentor, once told him that Crix Crux wasn’t real, that the fabled old ogre just got the blame when someone went missing. Most of the time, he said, being killed swiftly by a hungry ogre is a better death for the family to think about than the truth might be. Someone freezing to death because they fell asleep at their fire without building it up didn’t make for good gossip. That, and the ‘Crix Crux tale’ was good for keeping young boys from wandering too far away from the villages. Jenka laughed at himself. Crix Crux wasn’t lurking in the thicket.

At least he hoped not.

At the last bit of daylight, Jenka climbed down into the gulch. He gutted the stag, dragged the pile of innards a good way down the gully, then hurried back to the carcass and used his tinderbox to start his fire.

Darkness slid over him like a tavern-wench's flattery while he struggled with his small, inadequate belt knife to cut himself a hunk of meat to roast. He tried not to think about all the wild and horrifying campfire tales he had heard over the years. It was no wives' tale that many a man had met his end in the Orich Mountains. Jenka knew all too well how treacherous and inhospitable these hills could be; his father had died up here. But if he ever wanted to be a King’s Ranger he had to master his fear and learn to deal with the danger. Spending days at a time alone in the foothills was part of the Forester training he would someday have to take.

By the time he had his hunk of meat cooked, he was so scared that he had no appetite, and by the time he finished forcing the food down his throat, he was fighting to stay awake. Luckily, he remembered what Master Kember had said about Crix Crux, because it reminded him to throw some more wood on the fire before he fell asleep. The added illumination the new fuel lent the area allowed him to catch a brief glimpse of something gigantic moving about out in the shadows.

It might have been an overlarge tree-cat, because its movements were sinuous and silent, but Jenka couldn’t say for certain. A visceral knot of fear had clenched tight in his gut. He was far too terrified to think now, and he had to fight the base instinct he was feeling telling him, quite plainly, to flee. The slithery thing had amber eyes like windblown embers, and they danced with the fire's reflection. They hovered at a height close to his own, yet the thing had been moving hunched over on all four limbs like a bear or a wolf. Whatever it was, it was huge, and uncannily quiet. Reaching for his bow, Jenka swore that if it came any closer he would try to shaft it. He just hoped a mere arrow would be enough to deter the thing.

Eventually, the beast slid back into the darkness, leaving Jenka to wonder if he had really seen anything at all. Needless to say, he wasn’t sleepy anymore. He built the fire up even higher, and once again wished that Grondy, or Solman, or any of the other young hunters from Crag were there with him.

Jenka’s mother was Crag’s village kettle-witch, and she would be worried to death about him by now. Amelia De Swasso didn’t have much coin, and a lot of people were a little afraid of her, but she had the respect of the other common folk. Nearly everyone in Crag had come to her over the years for a healing salve or a potion of one sort or another. Jenka knew that she would have Master Kember, Lemmy, and all the other hunters rousted out of bed before the sun was even in the sky. She might even send to Kingsmen’s Keep for help from the King’s Rangers. They wouldn’t dare refuse her. Jenka’s father had been a King’s Ranger, and when Jenka was very young, his father had died in these hills saving the Crown Prince. A painted portrait of him hung in the keep’s main hall alongside paintings of Captain Renny and Harold Waend. All three had died on that terrible Yule day hunt, saving Prince Richard from the band of ferocious trolls that had attacked the group. Because of his father’s sacrifice, everyone that knew Jenka went out of their way to look out for him. If it got out that he didn’t come in during the night, it wouldn’t surprise him if half of the village and a half dozen rangers came looking for him.

Jenka didn’t let his guard down. He knew in his heart that the creature was still out there in the dark somewhere, lurking, waiting for him to fall asleep. He divided most of his remaining wood up into three even piles, until he felt certain that he would have fire until well after the sun came up. He lit one end of a remaining branch and tossed it down to the other end of the gully. He then took the wood that he hadn’t put in his three piles and heaped it onto the flaming brand, so that he and the stag’s carcass had a fire burning on each side of them.

Being that he was in a somewhat narrow gully surrounded by earthy ravine and fire, Jenka felt reasonably sure that he would survive the night. He sat to rest from his exertion and his exhausted body come crashing down from the rush of adrenaline he had been riding. He was just starting to relax when a sleek, scaly beast came lurching down out of the darkened sky.

It was a dragon, Jenka realized, and he turned and bolted. He ran as fast as he could go down the gully into the darkness. He managed to grab up his bow as he went, but the primal urge to be away from the thing kept him from even considering using the weapon. He ran, and ran, and ran. Only after he stumbled over a tangle of exposed roots and went sprawling into some leafy undergrowth did his mad flight come to an end.

While he lay there heaving in breath, he considered what had just happened. He couldn’t believe he had just seen a dragon, but he had. It was a small dragon, maybe fifteen paces from nose to tail, but he was certain of what it was. Master Kember had taken him and a few of the other boys out with the King’s Rangers one afternoon to look at the carcass of a dragon that had crashed into a rocky prominence during a storm. It was considered an honor to be invited on such a trek, and Jenka had gone eagerly. The dark, reddish-gray scaled dragon had stretched forty paces from tail to nose, and had a horned head the size of a barrel keg. Its teeth were the size of dagger blades and twice as sharp, and its fist-sized nostril holes were charred at the edges from where it breathed its noxious fumes. Master Kember had guessed its age at about five years, which made Jenka think that the dragon he had just seen was probably little more than a yearling. He decided that if he could master his fear, he might be able to sneak back and kill it. If he did, he could claim the long-standing bounty that King Blanchard paid for dragon heads, as well as bring himself to notice so that he could begin his Forester apprenticeship sooner.

Jenka crawled to his feet and hesitantly looked around. It was dark, but the trees up here in the hills weren’t nearly as dense as they were in the lower forest. Enough starlight filtered through the open canopy for him to see. He started back the way he came, and when he neared the hungry young dragon, he dropped to his knees and crawled as quietly as he could manage, until he could plainly see the scaly thing feeding in the firelight.

It was amazing. Its scales glittered lime, emerald, and turquoise in the wavering light as it ripped huge chunks of bloody meat from Jenka’s kill. Its long, snaking tail whisked around like a cat's as it raised its horned head high to chug down the morsel it had torn from the carcass.

Jenka decided that he couldn’t kill it with his bow and arrow. He probably couldn’t even wound the thing. Further consideration on the matter was rendered pointless when a heavy, head-sized chunk of stone suddenly crashed into the young dragon’s side. It screeched out horribly and flung its head and body around just in time to claw a gash across the chest of a filthy, green-skinned, pink-mouthed troll as leapt down from the gully’s edge into the firelight.

The troll fell into the smaller of Jenka’s fires, sending a cloud of sparks swirling up into the air. Another troll bellowed from the darkness, and from another direction a second rock came flying in.

The dragon leapt upward and brought its leathery wings thumping down hard. It surged a few feet up, and then pumped its wings again. It was trying to get clear of a troll that was leaping up to grab at its hind legs. The dragon wasn’t fast enough to get away.

Like a wriggling anchor weight, the troll began trying to pull the dragon out of the air. As hard as the young wyrm flapped its wings, it could do little more than lift the clinging troll a few feet from the ground.

Jenka wasn’t sure why he did what he did next, but it was done. He loosed the arrow he had intended for the dragon at the dangling troll. The shaft struck true, and when the troll clutched at its back, it let go of the dragon and fell into a writhing heap. The dragon flapped madly up into the night, leaving Jenka dumbfounded and looking frightfully at not two, but three big, angry trolls.

He turned to run, and actually made it about ten strides back down the gully before one of the eight-foot-tall trolls appeared from the darkness to block his way. It laid its doggish ears back and gave a feral snarl full of jagged, rotten teeth. Jenka whirled around to go back, but found another of the yellow-eyed trolls waiting for him. He started a mad, scrabbling climb up the side of the gulch, but found little purchase there in the rocky, rain-scoured earth. He clawed and pulled with such terror and urgency that the ends of his fingers tore open and some of his fingernails ripped loose, but he couldn’t get away. He was cornered.

More of the huge, well-muscled trolls were leaping down into the gully now. Their filthy, musky-scented bodies were silhouetted by the dancing flames of the fire and they threw long, menacing shadows before them as they came. Not knowing what else to do, and as scared as he had ever been in his life, Jenka put his back against the gully wall and turned to face the grizzly death that was closing in on him.

He saw that his bow was lying back where he had dropped it. His knife wasn’t at his hip either. Beyond the flames, he saw the shredded remains of the stag’s carcass. The dragon had torn half the meat away in only a few seconds. The trolls would have the rest of it, he figured. After they had him.

A fist-sized rock slammed into his chest, knocking all of the wind from his lungs. Other stones followed, and the primitive troll beasts soon went into a frenzied ritual of howling and savage fighting over feeding position. Luckily for Jenka, a well-thrown chunk of stone bashed into the side of his head and spared him from having to see himself being torn to pieces. All he could think of as he slipped into unconsciousness was that he would finally get to see his father, and he hoped his mother would never have to gaze upon what the trolls left of his body.

After that was nothing but blackness.

Chapter Two

In the swimming world of liquid darkness where Jenka found himself, he felt like a tiny fish caught up in a powerful current. He had no memory of how he had gotten to wherever he was, or how long he had been there. There was a fleeting terror still lingering in the back of his mind, but he had no inkling of what the source of his fear might be. All he knew was he was tumbling helplessly through a vast, serene emptiness.

After some time, he opened his eyes and was shocked back into reality by the blood-dripping, horn-headed visage looming down over him. Slick, iron-hard scales sparkled like emeralds as they reflected in the fire’s dancing light.

Like some curious, amber-eyed child, the young, green-scaled dragon leaned over Jenka’s prone body, locked gazes with him, and then spoke.

“Thank you,” it hissed in an unnaturally soft and slithery voice. “The trellkin almost had usss. They almost had usss, but we have besssted them.”

Jenka’s temples pounded and the world spun crazily with his effort to accept what was happening. His eyes closed for a moment, but he didn’t let the dark current pull him back under just yet. “How are you speaking to me?” He asked the dragon. He didn’t remember much of what happened, but here he was, somehow speaking to a wyrm that had ribbons of torn and bloody troll flesh dangling from its pink, finger-long teeth. It was incredible.

“I just am.” The dragon responded, more into Jenka’s mind than audibly. “I’m not supposssed to go near your sort. My mamra says that, though you are small and tasssty, you are a dangerous lot. She says that you like to kill our kind. But I wasss drawn to you. You saved me from the trellkin, ssso I saved you in turn. That makes us friendssss, doesss it not?”

“Friends then,” Jenka agreed, thinking with perfect clarity that such a friendship could never be. King Blanchard hated dragons. Everyone in the kingdom hated them. The wyrms had been completely eradicated from the islands. Now, out here in the mainland frontier, when a herd was pilfered or a lair was found, the King’s Rangers always went hunting and tried to find and destroy the creature responsible. Jenka figured that it would be that way until the entire frontier, the Orich Mountains, and even the Outlands were cleansed of the deadly creatures.

“My people are wary of your kind as well,” Jenka said matter-of-factly. His head and side hurt terribly and it was anguishing to speak. “Make your lair deep in the mountains where men cannot go, and don’t ever get caught by the King’s Rangers, because they will try their best to kill you.”

The dragon nodded his understanding with closely-knitted brow plates, and then snorted out two curling tendrils of acrid smoke from its nostrils. “Nor should you ever wander too far into the peaks. I have a feeling that we will sssee each other again. Thisss happening was no coincidence. I will be pleased when that time comes, but other dragons, the wild onesss, will feast on your flesh, ssso be wary.”

“Do you have a name?” Jenka asked with a shiver at the thought of being eaten. “Mine is Jenka De Swasso.”

“My name is impossible for you to sssay, but you can call me Jade. It isss the color the sunlight makesss when it reflectsss from my scal…”

A savage roar echoed through the night from a great distance away and caused the young green dragon to look up and give a call of its own.

“That isss my mamra calling,” Jade explained. “If I don’t go, ssshe will come looking. I must leave you, my friend, for both our sakesss.” The dragon stepped away from Jenka and poised to leap into the air. Before he went, Jade gave Jenka a curious look. Yellow, jaundiced eyes flashed first to amber, then into cherry-red embers. Jenka felt the dragon’s gaze tingling over his skin. Then he quickly sank back into the peaceful and painless current of liquid darkness from which he had just come.

*** * ***

“Jenka! Jenkaaaa! Where are you?” a familiar a voice called over the angry chirping and indignant cawing of several feasting crows.

Jenka’s face felt warm and slick. He tried to pull himself free of the clinging emptiness that still gripped his mind, but he couldn’t quite get loose of its grasp. He felt something small and hairy crawling across his chest and a pair of fat, black flies kept buzzing around his nose. The air smelled coppery and sweet.

“Jenka! Jen … ” The voice was closer now, and it suddenly stopped in a sharp, gasping intake of breath. “By the Gods, man! Look at this!” The man paused a moment, then started calling out with a more vigorous urgency. “Over here! He’s here, Lemmy, he’s alive! It looks like he’s killed a half a dozen trolls. Hurry man! Hurry it along!”

The excited voice belonged to Master Kember. He was a former King’s Ranger who had taken a crippling injury to his thigh in a fall several years ago. He was now the village Crag’s Head Huntsman, and the unofficial mentor and Lesson Master to Jenka and a few of Crag’s other miscreant boys.

Marwick Kember had known Jenka’s father well. He’d been there when the trolls had gotten hold of him. Jenka thought that maybe Master Kember had pledged an oath to his father to watch over Jenka, or to protect him, or something of the sort, because Master Kember did both efficiently.

Jenka was glad he could register who was yelling for Lemmy. It meant that his mind was starting to work again. He only wished he could find the strength to respond, or at least to brush the little crawly thing from his chest. He hoped it wasn’t a scorpion, or a blood ant.

He tried to open his eyes and was rewarded with a searing pain that flashed from his eyeballs deep into his brain. It was bright outside - mid-day he guessed. He squinted and saw Master Kember back-sliding himself gingerly down into the gully. A fit of coughing overtook Jenka then, reminding him of the heavy stones that had smashed into his head and ribs. He rolled to his side and vomited. All of the exertion caused his head to pound with powerful surges of more sickening pain.

“Don’t try to think, lad,” Master Kember said as he knelt next to Jenka and went about inspecting his wounds. “Lay it back. Your head's been bashed in, and your arm bone looks bent.” The look on the old huntsman’s face graduated from attentive concern to pure pleasure after he saw that Jenka was in a survivable state. Looking around at the carnage the dragon had left behind, the old hunter shook his head in wonder. “How, by all the Gods of devils and men, did you survive what happened here?” Then he looked directly into Jenka’s bloodshot eyes. “What did happen here, Jenk?”

“It’s a long story, sir,” Jenka managed before another bout of heaving overtook him. When the debilitating fit subsided he said, “I think my cage is cracked.”

A heavy clod of dirt came thumping down near the two of them, causing Jenka to reflexively curl up into a fetal ball. It wasn’t another troll attack. It was only Lemmy trying to get Master Kember’s attention. Lemmy was nine or ten years older than Jenka, and he was a mute. All of the women in Crag seemed to marvel over his wheat-golden hair and his easy manner. Though he seemed like a dunce a lot of the time, Jenka knew that he was as smart and able as they come.

“Lem, go find Solman and Rikky, and point them our way,” Master Kember ordered. “I’ll throw some green on them coals over there and make a smoker to mark the way. Then you take a steed and you ride back to Crag and figure a way to explain to Lady De Swasso that her young dragon is alive and well enough for wear. Let her know that we’ll have him home by dark fall.”

Jenka heard the words “young dragon” and most of the previous night’s terror came flooding back into his brain; the stag he had killed, the trolls, and Jade. How he knew the dragon was called Jade he couldn’t quite work out, because the conversation they’d had seemed more like a wishful fever-dream than any sort of reality, but the memory of those magical, amber eyes was vivid enough.

After Lemmy grunted acknowledgment of his orders and loped off to carry them out, Master Kember stood and better took in the scene around him. Here was a troll torn completely in two, both halves ripped open where savage claws had gripped it. Down the gully was another troll that had no head, and only one arm. Lying half-scorched in an exhausted fire was a troll that had been ripped open from shoulder to groin, and right beside that one another with one of Jenka’s expertly fletched arrows buried deep in its back. Master Kember knew the Fletcher’s work because he purchased the steel-tipped arrows himself down in Three Forks every fall. He awarded them to his young hunters when they achieved the goals he set for them. Jenka had earned quite a few of the good shafts. The decimated remains of a sizable stag lay shredded and strewn amid all the gore, and upon closer examination, Master Kember found another of Jenka’s arrows. He walked around, shooing the noisy crows, and studied the scene a bit longer. Then he stopped altogether and cocked his head. He saw something glinting emerald in the sun. The retired ranger paced across the gulch, stooped and pulled the object from one of the troll’s clawed hands. Looking closely at what he had found, he let out a long, low whistle.

“You, my young pupil, might be the luckiest boy in the entire kingdom,” the old hunter started. “Killing that troll by yourself is certainly a feat of notability, but surviving the battle that took place after is simply amazing. Did you see it? Did you see the dragon that finished them?”

Jenka started to say yes, that he had even talked to the creature, but common sense bade him do otherwise. He didn’t want everyone to think he had lost his mind, and he certainly didn’t want a bunch of the King’s Rangers up here trying to hunt Jade down and kill him. “I’m not sure what happened after I was hit in the head,” he replied flatly. “I thought I was done for.”

“You should be troll scat right this very minute, boy,” Master Kember scolded. “What were you thinking, following that old stag all the way up into these hills? You should of ran back to Crag and found me or Lem.”

“It was too late in the day,” Jenka groaned as he slowly sat up and brushed the irritating bug out from under his shirt front. “I didn’t want the tree-cats to have it. It just … ” He leaned to the side and went into another bout of coughing. After he spit out a mouthful of mucus and blood, Master Kember grimaced.

“Lay it back down, Jenk. Be still.” The older man moved in to hover over Jenka and began feeling roughly along his sides. “Looks like you did crack your cage. Maybe a rib’s poked a hole in your gizzard. You’re gonna be a long while healing from this, but by the Gods, boy, after killing a troll single-handedly, and surviving a dragon attack, you’ll make Forester this year for certain. You’ll be a King’s Ranger before you know it!”

Before you could become a King’s Ranger you had to be a Forester for two full years. Outside of performing a “rare feat of notability,” -- one that was worthy enough to find the king’s ear -- the only way to make Forester was to place in the archery competition or to kill the stag in the hunt at the annual Solstice Day festival on King’s Island.

Jenka tried to smile. He had been training for both events most of his life, he had just never had the coin to get himself ship’s passage across to King’s Island. This year he had finally saved enough, but now he probably wouldn’t need it. This was definitely a “rare feat of notability” and since it involved a dragon, the king would most likely hear about it. Since Master Kember had helped save Prince Richard from the trolls the day Jenka’s father died, the king would listen to anything Master Kember had to say.

Jenka decided right then and there that if he was going to keep a good part of what really happened here to himself, then he might as well lightly embellish the rest of the story to protect Jade. “I think I got the dragon in the brow,” he wheezed. “The trolls tried to scavenge my kill. I tried to stop them, but the dragon came tearing through. It was as dark as the forest itself and fast as lightning, but I think I got lucky and got it in the eye. Tell the Rangers to look for a black-scaled wyrm with only one eye.”

“That’s my boy, Jenk.” Master Kember praised proudly as he used a kerchief and water from a canteen to wipe some of the gore from Jenka’s face. “I bet you did get it in the eye. I bet that’s why it fled, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Jenka coughed some more. “My head hurts, and I can’t remember everything that happened. It’s all jumbled up in my mind.”

“Just rest, boy. Don’t try to talk, or even think right now,” Master Kember spoke soothingly. He saw that the wound on the side of Jenka’s face was already healing, but he paid the unnatural phenomenon no mind. “We’ll get some hands to haul you up out of this ditch, and a travois to drag you home so that your witchy mother can fill you full of her herbs and her horrible tasting potions and whatnot.”

While they waited for help, Master Kember went over the scene again. He saw that something heavy had stepped on and smashed Jenka’s long bow. He decided that maybe he would take the boy down to Three Forks and help him pick out a new bow. He figured Jenka was growing and needed a heavier draw now anyway. He then decided that as soon as Jenka healed a little bit he would take him all the way to King’s Island. There he would get an audience with King Blanchard and tell him firsthand of what happened here so that the gossipmongers didn’t get the tale stretched out too far. A knot began to form in his gut telling him it might not be the right thing to do, that he had some heavy decision making to do soon. Jenka’s father probably hadn’t wanted his son to be a mere King’s Ranger. It was a short-lived profession for most, but a well-paid one. Either way, it had always been Jenka’s dream, and Master Kember was sure that Jenka’s father would have wanted him to be happy. He would think on the matter, and he and Jenka could talk about it later.

“Master Kember!” a distant voice shouted. Jenka figured it was Solman and probably Rikky too. Grondy wouldn’t be with them because of his hand. Jenka knew Grondy would have tried to come look for him with the others, but his ma would have corralled him in the farm house, and then thumped him good for the effort. Jenka started to chuckle because he was certain that he was right. Grondy was probably locked in his room this very moment, rubbing the knots on his head and wondering if Jenka was all right.

Jenka was surprised that it didn’t hurt when he laughed. He poked at his scalp where he had felt hot blood pulsing out of him the night before and was further surprised to feel nearly healed scar tissue where a fresh raw scab should be. His fingertips were healing too. A vague memory of Jade’s eyes flashing crimson and the tingling of his skin under that intense gaze made him wonder. Had Jade magicked him? His mother might know.

Master Kember heaped an armful of green, leafy foliage onto the ashy remains of Jenka’s larger fire. Nothing happened at first, but slowly smoke started rising up and branches began to pop and crackle in the heat. Soon a billowing pillar of smoke was roiling up and out of the gulch, only to be sheared off by the wind when it rose above the treetops.

“Spotted!” Rikky’s distant voice called out proudly. Of the small group of hunters that Master Kember looked over, he was the youngest. At thirteen summers old Rikky was probably going to end up being the best of them all.

Jenka and Grondy were born the same year and were the next youngest. Solman was the oldest student, but Lemmy was the oldest of the group save for Master Kember himself. Lemmy was more of an assistant than a pupil, though. He earned a wage, and he tracked as well as anyone in the whole frontier. Every once in a while, the King’s Rangers would come over from the keep and ask Master Kember or Lemmy to help them with something or another. Unlike the village folk, the King’s Rangers favored Lemmy for some reason. They treated him with the utmost respect, which had always piqued Jenka’s curiosity. The King’s Rangers had more or less accepted Lemmy as one of their own, which, in the past, had sometimes made Jenka a little jealous. Even though his father’s picture hung in the keep's main hall, the Rangers were never partial like that to Jenka. They made sure that he and his mother were well fed, but they treated Jenka like any other village boy. He would have asked Lemmy about it, but it embarrassed him watching Lemmy struggle to convey a message without being able to speak.

Things got bad for Jenka for a while. Solman and Rikky were anything but gentle when they half hauled, half dragged him up out of the gully. The long, bumpy ride on the travois was even worse. Though he shouldn’t have felt as confident about it as he did, he decided that he probably could have just ridden one of the horses, but the idea that his friends -- and his mentor -- might shun him for having been magicked by a dragon caused him to keep his returning strength and vigor to himself.

He felt his head wound again, and he was sure that he was feeling partially-healed scar tissue now. By the time they finally made it into Crag, Jenka was starting to think that the dragon really had done something to him. Jenka’s wild, gray-haired mother came hurrying out into the street to greet her son, but was waved off by one of the young rangers gathering around his travois. Without a thought, she shouldered the King’s Ranger who had waved her away to the side and, after kissing Jenka on the forehead, she poured a vial of foul-smelling liquid down his throat.

“You killed a half dozen trolls, then?” Captain Brody, the head of the King’s Rangers, asked over the worried mother's shoulder.

Two of the other rangers were razzing the one she had just bullied aside, but stopped cold when they heard their captain’s words.

“Here,” Master Kember handed something that was green and shimmering to his former commander. “The boy said it was a black, but I found this. It was dark.”

“Dragon scale,” Captain Brody took it and gave Jenka a dubious look. He reached out and touched the pink scar under Jenka’s blood-matted hairline and, after glancing down at the discarded vial of kettle-witch potion, he gave a short snort of disbelief. To Master Kember he said: “I’ll send a message by swifter hawk to Commander Corda down in Three Forks. He’ll get a message to King Blanchard that will be on the next boat to King’s Island.” Then in a more commanding and enthusiastic tone he said: “Digger, you and Balkir go round up the Rangers. We’ve got us another dragon to hunt!”

Chapter Three

The King’s Rangers combed the area around the carnage, but they never found Jade. They did find another dead troll over the ridge. There was a pinky-sized piece of broken dragon claw stuck in its wound. The young Ranger who had tried to hush Jenka’s mother had it drilled and put on a leather thong for her as an apology. She scoffed at him, but didn’t hesitate to put it in her pocket. It would fetch a pretty penny down in Three Forks in one of the hawker’s lots.

Jenka played the wounded young boy as long as he could fake it, which was only about four days. He limped around and groaned a lot, but since the morning after they had dragged him home he had been feeling better than he ever had in his life. Because of his seemingly quick recovery, several of the rangers were buying potions from his mother now.

One day, Jenka came in from helping the baker chop down a bothersome tree and found the small table he and his mother shared laden with meat and savory smelling vegetables. He thought that she had just decided to splurge until she turned from her iron pot and started swatting at him and urging him out to the trough to get cleaned up for dinner. It turned out that they were going to have guests at their table this night.

It was only Master Kember and Lemmy who were going to dine with them, but they were as welcome in the modest, thatch-roofed hut as the king himself would have been. The old hunter had come to ask Amelia De Swasso’s permission to take Jenka to Three Forks and then on to King’s Island, where they would spend a few weeks in an inn and attend the Solstice Festival, and hopefully get an audience with King Blanchard. He explained that Lemmy would be staying behind and would come by and take care of the heavy chores so she wouldn’t be inconvenienced too much by Jenka’s absence. He told her that Solman and Rikky were going with the group to compete in the contests. “We will be travelling in a well-armed group. It will be a safe and informative journey for Jenka, I assure you,” Master Kember finally finished.

“I’ll let him go, Marwick Kember,” Jenka’s mother said harshly. “But don’t you tell me them roads is safe and all that. I know better. Don’t even try to pull the wool over my eyes or I’ll shrivel your stones with a hex. Them trolls are getting riled up ‘bout something, and there’ll be sneak-thieves and Outland bandits betwixt Three Forks and Outwal, and pirates once you’re out of the harbor at Port. I was born out on Freemans Reach and I spent my middling years on King’s Island brewin’ potions for a Witch of the Hazeltine. Any fool who thinks a journey across the frontier is going to be safe will pay their price. Now you tell that handy dimwit of yours to keep me stocked in cut wood, meat, and bear scat while Jenka’s away, or when you return I’ll … ”

And so it went until the table was cleared. Master Kember was happy to be on his way. He wasn’t used to being scolded and harped at, and it showed plainly that his patience was worn completely through.

During dinner, Lemmy seemed to fade into his own shadow and did a good job of staying unnoticed, but within minutes of the serving dishes being removed from the table, he had the horses ready to go.

To Jenka, the prospect of the journey was more exciting than anything he could have ever imagined. The group was to leave at the end of the week on horses the King’s Rangers would provide. An escort made up of two green Foresters and one seasoned old Ranger named Herald, who Master Kember always spoke highly of, would ride with them to Three Forks. That would take about four days. From there they would hire a wagon and travel for another day with an armed caravan until they were on the other side of the Great Wall that separated Port and Mainsted from the wild, mainland frontier. In Port, they would board a ship and sail to King’s Island. Then there was the audience with the king, and the Solstice Festival to look forward to. It was all Jenka could do to keep still. His only regret was that Grondy wouldn’t get to go with them.

The morning before the group was planning to leave, Jenka walked out to his best friend's farm to tell him goodbye. Grondy’s hand was healing nicely, but his father needed him on the farm. They had gotten a contract to grow hay and corn for some ranchers down in Three Forks. Grondy’s destiny, it turned out, wasn’t with the King’s Rangers. It was behind an ox and a thresher in one of the foothill’s golden valleys. Jenka didn’t want to taunt his friend with what he would be missing, so he held back with his description of the coming journey. Even so, Grondy confessed that he wanted to go more than anything. It was a sad parting, and Jenka spent a few long moments after he got down the lane from the growing farm studying the trees and wiping the dust from his eyes.

Later that afternoon, a group of King’s Rangers came riding into Crag all bloody and raving about a kill. “We got that dragon!” they bragged. “Felled him way back in Calf Horn Valley.”

They had come to fetch Master Kember and Lemmy, but when they stopped by Jenka’s hut to purchase some healing potions from his mother, they drew Jenka into it too. He was lucky that Master Kember waved him over and handed him the reigns of the horse intended for Lemmy. Lemmy was nowhere to be seen, and Jenka was too worried that the rangers had just killed Jade to care about anything else. He mounted the offered animal and followed Master Kember and the rangers out of Crag and up into the hills. They rode until dark, then the rangers lit torches for them to see by, and they rode some more. Jenka figured that they were already deeper into the foothills than he had ever been before.

The group came out from under the sparse trees and topped a ridge overlooking an open, starlit valley. Off to one side of the open space, along what appeared to be a washed-out stream bed, there was a cluster of softly glowing yellow flowers. The petals were bigger than any Jenka had ever seen before, almost as big as bed sheets. It would have been quite beautiful had there not been the long, broken-winged body of a small dragon lying sprawled across the earth nearby.

Jenka’s heart was thudding in his chest and the lump in his throat was the size of a gourd melon. The dragon was the right size to be Jade, but Jenka wasn’t close enough yet to be able to tell for certain. As they drew nearer, the dragon's scales began to shimmer a deep, greenish color. Jenka’s chest clenched with sadness, but then Captain Brody stepped up out of nowhere and quickly said, “Hurry! Close your eyes until after the flash.”

“Whimzatta,” a faint girlish voice spoke with a tongue-tangling inflection. Suddenly, a sphere of stark, white light the size of a man’s head was hovering in the air a dozen feet above the dragon’s twisted corpse. The air became full of humming, popping static and took on the clean smell of the sky right after a lightning storm. Several of the rangers shied away from the orb as if it were contagious. The dainty, hooded figure underneath the magical globe seemed to think that was funny.

This was the first time Jenka had ever seen anyone use High Magic, and it was a little bit disconcerting. He had never seen one of the secretive druids that the rangers sometimes spoke of either. The Order of Dou supposedly had a monastery or a temple somewhere deep in the mountains. Some folks said they were elvish, but Jenka wasn’t sure he believed that. Due to their common interest of the forest, the druids sometimes helped the rangers, but they had no sworn allegiance to King Blanchard or the kingdom.

Jenka cringed when he saw a pale, tattoo-lined feminine face peering out from under the hood directly at him. The druida’s gaze cut right through him, and he felt his scalp tingling as if his hair were standing on end.

“Is that the one?” Master Kember asked. He put his hand on Jenka’s shoulder, breaking the spell he had fallen under. “It’s still got both of its eyes.”

Under the bright magical light, Jenka saw that the dead dragon’s scales were the color of a deep, blackish-blue bruise, not green. He knew instantly that it wasn’t Jade. He was surprised at how relieved he felt. He hadn’t expected to be so worried about a creature that he had only spoken to once. Sure they had saved each other’s lives, but the truth of it was they were supposed to be natural enemies. Nevertheless, he was glad that it wasn’t his friend lying dead in the glade.

“Maybe I missed?” he shrugged. “It’s almost black.”

The druida’s magical light suddenly disappeared. In the momentary blindness everyone experienced while their eyes adjusted to the darkness, she moved impossibly fast and slid up close to Jenka’s side.

“Liar,” she almost purred the word into his ear, causing his blood to tingle with both fear and arousal at the same time. Her breath smelled of cinnamon and ginger, and she radiated a soft inviting heat like a woodstove.

“Master Kember, I would like a word with our young troll-slayer if you please.” She gave a respectful head bow to punctuate her request.

Master Kember’s expression showed the unease he felt at being this close to the eerie -- yet exotically beautiful -- tattooed girl. On the islands, and in Port and Mainsted, the practice of the arcane was more commonplace. There were witches and charm-makers on every corner, but out here in the frontier it was rare - and sometimes shunned. Jenka’s mother used magic of a sort, and he saw how people were afraid of her for it, but it was nothing like the High Magic that this druida had just been using. Master Kember gave Jenka’s shoulder a compassionate squeeze and hurried away, leaving Jenka and the druida alone.

“It’s all right, Jenka De Swasso,” her voice was sweet and liquid, and it dripped into Jenka’s ears and flowed into him like honey. She looked surprisingly young; barely a woman. She had four thin, blue-green lines running diagonally across the bridge of her nose. There was an intricately-decorated circle on her right cheek, a similar square on her left, and on her forehead was a silvery triangle that pointed down at the tip of her nose, giving her brow a permanently sinister look. A few tendrils of snow white hair trailed out of her hood. Her eyes, though. Her eyes were pools of sparkling lavender that were so deep a person could drown in them.

“My name is Zahrellion, but you can call me Zah,” she said. “Why did you lie about the dragon?”

Jenka was answering before he could stop himself. “Because Jade saved me from a certain death at the hands of the trolls. I can never forget that.”

“Jade? You know its name? You spoke with this wyrm?”

“Yes I did, and I don’t care if you believe me or not. Just don’t tell … ”

She cut him off. “Oh, I believe you, Jenka.” Her eyes grew wide with a girlish excitement that she deftly quelled the second the emotion showed. Looking around to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation, she hooked her arm in Jenka’s and led him away from the dragon carcass. “I’ve talked to a dragon too, way up in the icy peaks. They choose to aid people every now and then when things come to a head. A time like that is at hand. Crystal told me that something evil has awakened in the hills. Most likely, you and Jade will meet again.” Her brows narrowed as the direction of the conversation took a sour turn. “We have a common enemy, dragons and men. The trolls don’t like the humans, and we are spreading and populating the frontier like field mice. King Blanchard won’t make the move, but he has planned it all out for his son. When Prince Richard takes the throne, the kingdom seat will shift to Mainsted, here on the mainland, and once that happens, there will be no hope for the trollkin.”

The word trollkin was a slang term that included the little, gray-skinned goblins, the larger, black-skinned orc, and of course the trolls themselves. After hearing Jade call the trolls trellkin, he decided that maybe it wasn’t a slang term after all. Ogres, Jenka had deduced, were another sort of creature altogether.

“They are starting to figure this out,” Zahrellion continued. “Already they’ve been forced into the higher reaches where the ogres and dragons reign. Soon there will be nowhere left for them to go. The dragons, on the other hand, can always nest out of man's reach. Only a very few of the most foolish wyrms get their selves killed, those are usually the mudged, like this one. There are hundreds of dragons in the deep of the mountains, Jenka. Some of the wyrm are older than you can imagine.”

Jenka stopped her and shook his head to clear it. He had lost her words in the feel of her dainty hand on his bicep, in the warmth of her smile, and in the conviction of her voice.

“I’m telling you that we have to find a way to make King Blanchard or Prince Richard understand.” Her voice showed that she was becoming agitated, if not a little angry.

“Understand what?” Jenka asked stupidly.

She jerked her hand away, let out an exasperated girlish huff, and clenched her fists at her sides. “That the dragons want to help us when the trolls start their war! They’re in the hills gathering and planning as we speak.”

“War?” Jenka didn’t understand. “Is it the Dragons or the Trolls who are in the hills planning right now?” Jenka had no idea what she was talking about. He was entranced by her very existence though, and couldn’t get his mind to focus on anything other than her beauty.

She stared at him for a few long moments. “You’re daft,” she finally said. Her eyes were brimming over with tears of disappointment as she turned and stalked away.

Jenka stood there, slack-jawed, staring at the darkness until Master Kember came over and started speaking to him. “Fargin women’ll twist your thinker till it pops.”

“What?” Jenka asked.

“Never mind, boy. What did she say to you?”

“That the trolls are gonna start a war with us. That the dragons want to help us prevail, and that King Blanchard has to know about it so that we don’t keep killing wyrms.” Jenka couldn’t believe he had retained all of that, but ever since the beautiful druida had stalked away, Jenka had been thinking more clearly.

“That’s nonsense,” Master Kember shook his head with disgust. “Fargin trolls can’t fight with any sort of form or muster. They end up fighting each other. By the hells, they’ll stop fighting to feed on the dead while you’re cutting them down. I’ve seen it. You didn’t tell her we were going to King’s Island, did you?”

“No, sir,” Jenka answered. “Is the kingdom seat really going to move to Mainsted when Prince Richard takes the throne? I mean, I sort of understand the expansion and all, but where did we come from before the Dogma wrecked on Gull's Reach? No one ever talks about that much.”

“That’s a good question,” the old hunter nodded. “There’s an age-old saying about it. It goes like this: Don’t worry about how you got here. You are here, and if you want to survive you have to keep doing everything that needs getting done.”

“What does that mean?” Jenka shrugged.

“It means that only a few historians even care where we came from, boy. A few dozen people survived a shipwreck that washed up on Gull's Reach. From that meager beginning, we populated all three islands and set up the strongholds on the mainland. Then we built that fargin wall to keep the wilderness out. Now we are trying to tame the land between the wall and the mountains so that we can grow more crops and build more cities and towns. We have achieved everything you know about. We’re not going back. We’ve been here two hundred twenty some-odd years. We are going to settle this frontier, and the trolls and dragons can be damned if they oppose it.” He let out a tired sigh and changed the subject. “We’ll have to postpone our journey for one more day. It’ll be dawn by the time we get back to Crag.”

Jenka was only mildly disappointed by the news of the delay. He was busy pondering Zah’s beauty and what she had told him. The ride home was wrought with anxiety and excitement. Several times he started to ask Master Kember a question but caught himself. The idea that Zah might be right, that the trolls would defend their homeland, couldn’t be purged from his mind.

He fell asleep back in his mother's hut as the sun was just starting to paint the horizon, and he dreamed that he was flying high in the sky on the back of an emerald-scaled dragon. They flew across the oceans, over mountains, deserts and plains, until they found the mother land. It was crowded and noisy, and a haze of filthy air hung over the people like a cloud. There were no forests or fields, and the river that turned slowly through it all was clogged and thick with muck. Even the sea around the land was black and shimmering with an oily sheen. There were factories, and shops, and buildings, and so many people that Jenka couldn’t stand it.

Jenka wasn’t befuddled with Zah’s beauty when he woke up late the next day. He was contemplative and distant. He could imagine Crag a hundred years from now, all crowded and busy, and he wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of it. He finally forced all the negativity from his mind, like he sometimes did when he was hunting, and was decidedly the better for it.

Beyond being as tired as he could remember, he was also beside himself with a giddy, childish glee. He was about to go on a grand adventure, and after being invited with the King’s Rangers last night, he felt he would make Forester this year for sure. He had just decided that things couldn’t possibly get any better, when he learned that beautiful Zahrellion and another of the Druids of Dou were going to be traveling to King’s Island with their group. After hearing that news, Jenka spent the rest of the evening floating around as if he were on a cloud.

Master Kember was none too pleased about the unwanted additions to his group, but he kept his opinions mostly to himself. Captain Brody had asked him, and ordered the King’s Ranger named Herald, to escort the druids as a personal favor. He also asked that Master Kember help them gain King Blanchard’s ear. Master Kember didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all, but he was willing to do it for the captain. Crippled or not, he was still a King’s Ranger at heart.

Jenka said goodbye to his mother early in the morning, and promised to deliver a written message to her former employer on King’s Island. Visiting a true Witch of Hazeltine wasn’t one of the things Jenka had planned to do, but he loved his mother and couldn’t possibly consider refusing her simple request. After those tears were dried, he went and found Solman and Rikky at the stables. They both had their long hair chopped at the shoulders like Jenka’s, and they were doing what they could to help the two Foresters get the horses ready.

As the sun was coming up and losing its battle to light the sky, the group of nine travelers gathered outside the stable in a light, dreary drizzle. They all had their hoods pulled up high on their heads and their cloaks fastened tightly. Not even the inclement weather could dampen their spirits though, especially Jenka’s. He had been assigned the pleasant duty of personal attendant to Zah and her older male companion for the journey.

“Starting a journey is always such a thrilling feeling,” Master Kember said optimistically to his three students and the two young, uniformed Foresters. Jenka, Solman, and Rikky all cringed, expecting one of Master Kember’s windy proclamations. They were saved from a lengthy discourse on the beginning of journeys by the grizzled old King’s Ranger, Herald. He harrumphed loudly over Master Kember’s voice, spat a wad of brown phlegm from a slit in his dark tangle-shrub of a beard and snorted, “It’s just the possibility that we might not ever make it back home that makes it thrilling, Marwick. Now let’s get this cavalcade moving before the buzzards fly down and eat us where we sit.”

With that, they started out of Crag moving south toward Three Forks.

Chapter Four

By midday, the late spring sun had burned the clouds away, and though the lightly rutted road was soft under the horses' hooves, there hadn’t been enough precipitation to make it muddy. Birds fluttered about and called out merrily from the thinning copses of tangle oak and pine trees that dotted the roadway, and a light breeze kept the travelers from getting too warm. The chink and jingle of the tack and the occasional whinny of one of the well-mannered horses provided a constant and steady rhythm to their passing.

“I’m Zahrellion, but you can call me Zah.” The white-haired, tattoo-faced druida said to the two young uniformed Foresters. When they didn’t respond, she continued. “This is Linux.” She indicated her fellow druid. “What are your names?”

Linux was tall and thin, with a cleanly shaven head and a dark, well-trimmed beard that came to a sharp point a few finger-widths below his chin. The tattoos that marked his pale face were very nearly the same as Zah’s, save the triangle on his forehead wasn’t silvery. It was a darker color, like deep stained mahogany.

“Mortin Wheatly from Copperton, ma’am,” the bigger of the two Foresters eventually replied. He had short-cropped, carrot-red hair and looked like he had never missed a meal in his life. He was thick necked, thick armed, and looked as if he might be a little thick headed too.

“They call me Stick,” the other Forester said quickly, then heeled his horse away from the two druids. He was dark skinned and had short, straight hair as black as pitch that looked like a helmet on his head.

“They call him Stick because he’s thin like a stick,” Mortin explained for those who didn’t get it.

Jenka, Solman and Rikky all introduced themselves, and soon a light conversation about the qualities of different types of field rations ensued. Mortin and Rikky both swore that dried venison was the best because you could boil it into a pot of greens and water to make a warm stew, as well as munch it dry when you were on the move. Zah agreed that dried meat was a good choice, but claimed that sea biscuits were better because they would keep for months and could be made with special herbs that revitalized a person’s body faster. Her argument made even more sense when she threw in the fact that ship captains had been using sea biscuits, not jerked venison, as the crew’s main staple for as long as anyone could remember.

“We en't eatin’ neither of ‘em tonight,” Herald, the King’s Ranger, chimed in robustly. “Tonight we’ll be pullin’ pork till the stars come out. That’s the only reason I like making this fargin trek.” He was a big, gruff, unkempt man of a sizable girth. He didn’t look like much, but there was no mistaking the ease at which he sat the saddle. And if you happened to make out the embroidered emblem on the breast of his filthy tunic, you’d know to beware, because the star of the King’s Rangers was the unquestioned law of the frontier.

The hills smoothed out a bit as the day wore on, and the slow, rolling plains spread away ahead of them like plush, green waves frozen in time. Behind them, the mountains rose up, sharp and intimidating, but ahead of them the world was alive and full of the promise of spring. Multi-colored clusters of shrubbery and wildflowers sustained a plethora of busy insect life. This kept the scenery along the way from becoming mundane. As the sun sank low in the sky, they saw a thin trail of chimney smoke in the near distance. Herald repeated several times, for the sake of those who didn’t know yet, that the smoke was from a lodging house and pig farm owned by a barrel keg of a bastard named Swinerd.

Jenka recognized the name and quickly put the big, scruffy man’s face to it. Swinerd and his three sons often sold pigs in Crag, and sometimes stopped to purchase a liniment or a salve from Jenka’s mother. Once, Swinerd had gotten into an argument with one of the King’s Rangers and a brawl had ensued. Jenka remembered how excited the entire village had gotten over the conflict. Wagers had been made, and old Pete had opened a keg of stout for those who had the coin to buy a drink. Swinerd had pounded the poor ranger half to death, and Jenka didn’t remember seeing either man back in Crag since.

As they neared the formidable and well-constructed looking log building, the smell of swine refuse, pungent and ripe, filled their nostrils to the point of gagging. The lodge was off the main road a short way, and beyond it was an even bigger, open-sided building. Under that gray tiled roof were rows of pens, each full of squealing piglets and loud, grunting sows. A young man, probably one of Swinerd’s sons, looked up from his labors and saw the group approaching. He immediately took off running. A moment later, big old Swinerd was stalking across the turf from the lodge, trying to hold his big splitting axe high with one hand while fastening his cloak around his neck with the other. He couldn’t quite manage it, and that only seemed to further agitate the intimidating-looking man.

The cloak was discarded after about ten paces. Swinerd’s fierce scowl showed that he was no longer concerned with the garment. One of the sons was coming out behind his father and scooped it up as he came.

“You fat dirty bastard,” Swinerd snarled and started charging. Herald cursed and then spurred his horse ahead while drawing his sleek long sword. He raised the blade up high and heeled his steed into a full charge at the other man. The two Foresters looked at Master Kember for instruction, but the old hunter was intently watching the two men and ignored them.

It was odd to look upon; two grizzled men charging at each other, one in drab gray and green ranger’s garb, riding a well-trained horse. The other clad in rough spun and animal hides, running on his booted feet.

“Why in the world are they … ” Rikky started to ask, but his voice stopped flat when the two men simultaneously let out very similar, primal roars.

Jenka could do little else but watch, slack-jawed and confused, as the scene unfolded before his eyes. He wondered why Linux or Master Kember wasn’t doing anything other than watching, and decided that if they weren’t worried, then he shouldn’t be either.

Swinerd swung his axe and sent Herald’s sword flying away in a twirling glimmer of polished steel. But big old Herald leapt from his horse like some obese tree-cat and tackled Swinerd by the collar. They went tumbling into a tangle of arms and legs that looked like it would have been fatal for a lesser man. The two men ended up lying in a cloud of dust, side by side, head to foot. After a short, but tense silence they began laughing hysterically like two rambunctious young boys. Realization hit Jenka then: Herald and Swinerd were brothers.

The old King’s Ranger hadn’t been exaggerating. They were fed enough roasted pork to fill a small battalion and they were welcomed as if they were the king's own retinue. The lodge’s common room was clean and empty, save for one of the hands that labored for Swinerd. He was at a plank-wood table near the ale keg, hovering over a plate of food. The log walled, plank-floored space boasted a large, stone fireplace at one end and three shuttered windows on the wall facing away from the pig barn. Swinerd’s wife was an excellent cook, and she was as nice as she was round. She hummed and sometimes sang the words to a trio of old folk songs as she floated about the table, keeping the tankards full of dark stout that had been brought there all the way from King’s Island.

The younger men and boys listened closely, as Swinerd recounted the tale of how he and his sons had very recently saved a group of herbalists from a pair of roaming trolls. The herbalists came this way from Port and Three Forks every spring to gather their wild growing wares. They had chanced upon the wrong berry patch this year, though. Swinerd and his sons had been letting the sows fatten in a thayzle-nut patch down by Demon's Lake a few weeks back and had been able to frighten the gangly beasts away before they killed anybody.

Zah suggested that those trolls could be scouts gathering tactical information for their coming attack. Three of the four men at the table, Master Kember, Herald, and Swinerd, shook their heads and agreed that was foolishness. They didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of trolls they had fought over the years. They spoke from experience, which had come at a grim price for a lot of men.

“Trolls don’t reason,” Herald insisted. “They can’t think or plan beyond their instinct to hunt and eat. It’s that simple. Wolves are ten times cleverer than trolls.”

Linux never entered the conversation, but Jenka saw a look pass between him and Zah. After that, she held her tongue when she didn’t agree with the men. Her face showed her displeasure, though. A light tension hummed through the air, save for when Swinerd’s plump wife was there to smother it with her lovely musical voice.

It turned out that Swinerd was just a nickname, which seemed obvious to Jenka now. Their mother had named them Herald and Gerald, and Gerald had been selling pigs to the rangers up at Kingsmen’s Keep just as long as Herald had been a ranger. Kaljatig was the name their father gave them both, and his long years of working the Great Wall gave it some weight. The Yule pig at the king's own table had come from Swinerd’s farm the last seven years running, and he was proud of it. Swinerd also sold his hogs to the good folk up in the other foothill villages, and two or three times a year he sent a herd down to Three Forks. The anger he had displayed at his older brother earlier was over just such a journey that had ended four days ago near Demon's Lake when road bandits got away with a score of his pigs. Herald had promised to come down with a few of the rangers and escort the herd safely to Three Forks, but the king’s business had kept him from keeping his word. Swinerd’s oldest son had gotten knifed trying to defend the herd. The boy had survived the chest wound and was out in the bunk house healing. Swinerd had just been venting his anger over the situation, and the animosity was almost already forgotten.

Zah offered to look at the boy’s wounds, but Swinerd refused her as politely as his rough manner would allow. Herald tried to explain that it would be good for the boy, but there didn’t seem to be any sway in his brother’s superstitious stubbornness.

Solman, Rikky, Mort, and Stick were put up in the bunk house. Since Jenka had been assigned the position of personal attendant to the druids, he was assigned a room in the main house with Linux. Linux had already politely requested that a hot bath be filled for him, and as soon as Jenka finished his meal, he went about getting the water heated and hauled.

Zah, being a young lady, was given her own quarters. Jenka had to haul a bath for her too, but that chore he did happily. When the work was done, he was too tired to haul a bath for himself. Master Kember and Herald each got a private room, and though they were all the way at the other end of the hall, their thunderous snoring kept Jenka awake most of the night. It was during a lull in this nocturnal nasal symphony that Linux spoke to Jenka for the first time.

“You have a destiny, Jenka De Swasso,” his voice was eerily deep and his tone somewhat grave. “Zahrellion does too. What that destiny is, I am not certain, but the dragons seem to sense it. That’s why they have approached you two. I think that your path leads somewhere other than to the King’s Rangers. I believe that there are more of you, and I believe that your destiny is far greater than that. I also believe that the trolls are far more powerful than the King’s Rangers believe, and this is troubling.”

“Are you and Zah human?” Jenka asked the first question that came to mind. “Or are you elvish, like the village folk say?”

Linux chuckled. “That is not the correct question to ask, Jenka, but it’s a good one.” There was a flash as a small flare of sapphire druid’s fire burst forth on the wick of the candle sitting on the table between the two beds. After a beat, the blue color burned from the flame, leaving a typical yellow glow. Linux grinned at Jenka’s unease. “You should ask me if I have descendants that washed up on Gull's Reach after the Dogma was swallowed by the sea. Now that is the proper question.”

Jenka looked at the strange man for a moment. The pointed beard made Linux' head look unnaturally long, and his eyes were a clear liquid blue that rivaled the depths of Zahrellion’s lavender orbs. But other than that, and the tattoos, he looked perfectly human to Jenka. Jenka shrugged. “Well?”

“Yes, my ancestors were on the Dogma, and so were Zahrellion’s, but neither of us are completely human. Nor are you. There were a handful of the elvish on the Dogma, and a few of the little folk, if it is to be believed. It’s true that some of the members of our sect have a touch of high elvish in their blood, but it is thin in most of us. A few, though, are still more elvish than human. There are smatterings of high blood in a good portion of the kingdom’s people, but if you tell anyone about it, I’ll be forced to spell you into a tree-sloth or a mud busker.”

Jenka met the strange druid’s gaze and was relieved to see a wide, toothy grin spread across Linux' eerie, tattooed face. Jenka wasn’t sure about how much of what he had just been told was true, but he didn’t doubt any of it. He was quickly finding out that the foothills and forests around Crag and Kingsmen’s Keep were only a tiny little piece of a gigantic world, full of far greater concerns than his meager hopes and desires.

“What are we supposed to do to convince King Blanchard that the dragons don’t need to be killed? Ridding the Islands of the deadly wyrms had to be a long and bloody business. Master Kember says that it’s a grim sort of work, but it has to be done. He says that killing dragons is part of our heritage, that by conquering the dragons and trolls we are displaying our dominance over the frontier, like the leader of a pack of wolves does over the others.”

“Ah, eliminate the competing predator before it can eliminate you,” Linux shrugged helplessly at the foolishness of it. “Men are not as primal as most species, but they are animals, Jenka. I’ll not get into that argument with you, though. Zah seems to think that she has a plan. She hasn’t told me what it is yet, but she is a clever, clever girl. She said that you were a dimwit,” the suddenly juvenile-seeming druid chuckled. “I’ll save you some trouble, Jenka: That means that she likes you.”

*** * ***

Morning came far too swiftly for Jenka. Linux felt sorry for him, and saddled his and Zah’s horses while Jenka and the other boys went through their morning exercise drills with the two Foresters.

The day was pleasant, and the first half of it went by fairly swiftly for Jenka. He spent most of his time turning over stones of thought deep within his skull, while enjoying the wide open carillon sky and the vigorous life that flourished in the world. Zahrellion’s beauty, and the idea that she liked him, kept him wondering. The complexity of what she wanted him to believe, and how it affected his future, kept a brooding look on his face. But every now and then he would catch Zah giving him a curious look. After that, he would beam for a little while. Once he caught her staring at him from behind a fist-sized gourd nut she was sipping. She held his gaze when he caught her.

A little after midday, the road eased up next to the Strom River. The Strom came out of the Orich Mountains up near Crag, but it wound away to the west before turning its flow southward toward the sea again. A man with a strong arm could probably throw a stone all the way across it, but it ran swiftly and looked fairly deep. The rutted road would follow the river’s general course the rest of the way to Port.

“We won’t get to cross the Strom until we get almost to Three Forks,” Mortin, the carrot-haired Forester, said to the other boys. “Tomorrow we’ll pass by Demon's Lake. That’s where Crix Crux used to hole up before the pilgrims and the Kingsmen ran him up into the hills.”

“How do you know?” Rikky asked in disbelief. “If that’s true, then Crix Crux has to be older than water.”

Jenka and Stick both chuckled at the young hunter’s sound reasoning.

“It’s called Demon's Lake because the wind makes a deep groaning sound where it passes over the grottos, not because of the Crix Crux fable,” Zah informed them. “When our ancestors first left the Islands and started settling here on the mainland they feared the place because of the sound and called it Demon's Lake.”

“That’s true, lass, about them howlin’ caverns, but that en’t why it’s called Demon's Lake,” Herald heeled his horse over and added to the history. “Way back when they was building the Great Wall, a 'fore any pilgrims ever dared to venture farther inland than the coastal strongholds, they came a 'hollering that a lake monster had slunked up out of the caves during the night and snatched a man and the cattle he was watering. After that, it went and killed and ate a dozen caravan men who had just filled the king’s water wagons at the lake.” He paused and spit a wad of phlegm off to the side. “A group of Kingsmen went down into them grottoes and found some cattle carcasses, and half a man’s body too. Then, after about half of them got roasted to ash they realized that they had holed in on an old fire wyrm. They went back to the construction settlements, where the wall was going up, and got reinforcements with lances and crossbows. They came back to kill the savage red bastard, but by the time they returned it had killed most of the troop and fled for the peaks.”

“If that tale is true, then those men got what they deserved,” Zah said with a touch of defiant anger in her voice. “How would you feel if some strange creatures came and violated your home and tried to kill you?”

“How would you feel if you was one of them innocent farm folks that fire breathin’ bastard was a' eatin’, miss?” Herald’s expression was a study in indignant righteousness. He spat another wad of dark phlegm. Then he spat his words. “I lost a fist full of friends and a few kin to them scaly fargin wyrms over the years. If you ever knew the truth of things, about how them dragons nearly killed off our first ancestors and ended us, then you’d have a different bit of reasonin’ in your pretty skull.” He huffed away some of his ire and glanced around at the group. “When the survivors of the Dogma first washed up on Gull's Reach, they had to fight the dragons just to get from the sea shore into the thickets. Learned druid or not, you haven’t read all the books there is, miss. There’s a bundle of journals wrote by them survivors. I read some of them back when I was stationed on King’s Island.” Herald’s grizzly expression softened a bit as a fond memory intruded on his anger. “My betrothed was a scribe there. She’d been markin’ copies of old manuscrifts to preserve them.”

“They are called manuscripts,” Zah snorted. “And I am sure it was hard those first years out on Gull's Reach, but we washed up in their land. We are the ones who … who … um … ” She faltered and mumbled something else but no one heard what it was.

Everyone was suddenly sitting still in the saddle and holding their breath. Even the horses had seemingly frozen in place. All eyes, including Zahrellion’s, were now staring at the dark, sinuous thing in the sky that had just completely eclipsed the sun as it passed over them.

It was a dragon, a big old red, and it was looking back and down at them. Curls of dark smoke streaked out of its snout with its slow exhalation, and its scales glittered scarlet and ruby in the afternoon sun. It was an intimidating beast, and it was banking around for a closer look.

Jenka scanned around in a panic. There wasn’t a tree or a sizable bush in sight. Besides the swiftly churning river, there was absolutely no place for them to run for cover. Solman and Mortin panicked and charged their willing horses away from the group. Master Kember just managed to catch Rikky by the saddle and stopped him from joining them.

“Stay together!” Linux and Herald both commanded at the same time. Herald added, “Mind your horses now! Don’t let them get away from ya!”

Jenka pulled on his reigns and his horse backed up close to Master Kember and Rikky. He looked around for his fleeing friends, and his heart dropped to the grassy turf. Solman and Mortin had almost made it over to the river, but Zahrellion was by herself, about halfway between them. A glance at the sky told Jenka that if the dragon wanted to kill her then she didn’t have a chance. Then, to make matters even worse, Zah’s horse reared up and tossed her from the saddle. It instantly rolled itself back to its hooves and tore off in a mad dash, away from the flying death that was now streaking down from the sky.

Before he could stop himself, Jenka found himself spurring his steed forward in a valiant gallop out to save her.

Behind him, Master Kember let out a long desperate, “Nooo!” But it was already too late.

Chapter Five

Jenka charged his horse towards Zah, which put him directly in the dragon’s path. Over his thundering heart, he heard Master Kember screaming his name and the loud, low hissing the dragon made as it drew in the breath that would probably roast him to ashes.

In front of him, Zah rolled herself to her feet. She managed to give Jenka an irritated but appreciative snarl, then raised her chin defiantly at the closing wyrm.

Jenka was almost to her now. Her eyes were sparkling like chips of maroon-colored glass as she waved her hands around in quick, frantic gestures. Pink light seemed to trail from her fingertips, and it began to look as if she were writing in the sky. Jenka chanced a glance back, and his heart nearly stopped cold in his chest. The dragon’s wagon-cart-sized, horned head was right there on them, and those slavering jaws were showing him a mouthful of terrible-looking teeth.

Jenka actually clenched his eyes shut and scrunched himself down into the saddle in anticipation of the crunching inferno that was about to end him.

“Jenka! Nooooo!” Master Kember yelled again, but it was too late.

As the dragon's jaws came snapping down at Jenka, Zah raised her hand and held her palm out, as if that might stop the streaking beast from having her next. With fierce determination, she called out a sharp, commanding word. A thundering blast of sparkling, yellow power pulsed forth from her open palm in an expanding wave that rippled outward through the fabric of the world.

Jenka felt the heat of the dragon’s foul breath and could hear the horrifying roar that came along with it, but only until his guts were jolted. After that, everything was absolute silence, even as his horse stumbled and fell, throwing him headlong into the rough ground just beside Zah.

To find out what happens next visit http://www.mrmathias.com/Dragoneers.html and treat yourself to a copy of The Royal Dragoneers. A map of the realm can be found there as well.