I launched my spear into his leg. The man let out a cry of pain as he tumbled to the ground.
I ducked as a spear whizzed past my face.
“Charge!”
I hoisted Fang over my head and said, “Stop! I surrender!”
No one moved, every eye intent on me.
The commander shouted from the back, “Drop your sword, then!”
Slowly, I lowered my arms. But I had another plan. I’d use Fang’s magic to blast back my enemies as I’d done in the tavern.
“What are you smiling for?” The commander moved forward.
“I’m just glad to put an end to the violence, is all. Oh, and you might want to hold your ears.”
“What for?”
I banged the tip of Fang’s blade on the stone corridor’s floor.
Ting.
Nothing happened. I tried it again.
Ting.
Drat!
“Fang, what are you doing?” I shook my sword.
The commander was not amused. “You going to drop that sword, or not?”
I was flat-footed now with nowhere to go but out. I grasped my sword in both my hands and pulled it in front of my face.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to fight you all. To the death!” I let out a battle cry and charged forward. All of the soldiers hunkered down. In stride, I pivoted on my right foot, twisted the other way, and dashed outside the busted doorway into the rain.
I was drenched the moment I made it out into the river of mud that was supposed to be a street. I heard a horse nicker nearby and dashed that way. Brenwar, my horse in tow, was galloping down the road, hooves splashing in the water.
“Run, Dragon!”
The heavy boots were trampling behind me as I sprinted alongside Brenwar, grabbed ahold of the saddle on my horse, and pulled myself up.
“Great timing,” I yelled up towards Brenwar as we began our gallop away. “I couldn’t have done better myself—ulp!”
Something that burned like fire slammed into my back. Another spear sailed past my head, followed by another. The pain was excruciating as I galloped onward with a spear in my back, holding on for dear life.
***
It was dawn before we stopped riding. I could barely keep my head up, and I swore I’d black out any second. We didn’t slow, not once, taking trails little known to most. I'd been that certain our pursuers were many. I was restless when we stopped along a silvery stream and gave the horses a moment to drink.
“Finally stopping are we? Think we lost them?” Brenwar said.
I slid from my saddle, grimacing.
“What’s the matter with you, Nath? You look like … Egad! Is that a spear in your back?”
He hurried over and inspected my wound.
“Ouch! I don’t need speared again, Brenwar!”
“Why didn’t you say something, you fool! You could’ve bled to death.”
“It’s not that bad,” I gasped. “Only a javelin, right?”
“Sure, and I’m a fairy's uncle. Still, it’s a small one. Not barbed for hunting. It’s wedged between your armor and your back. Hold this.” Brenwar put my horse reins in my mouth.
“What for,” I tried to say.
“Just bite down. I’ve got to pull the spear out.”
I shook my head.
Brenwar yanked out the spear. I screamed. It felt like my entire back was pulled out, and I fell to my knees.
“I’m going to need to stitch that up. And quick. Are you sure you are feeling sound? That’s a dangerous wound. Another inch it’d be inside a lung.”
It hurt, but I’d been stitched up by Brenwar before. Besides, I had some salve that would accelerate the healing.
“All done,” he grumbled as he poked his finger in my face, “and next time, tell me something.”
“Thanks, Brenwar.” I rolled my shoulder, and my back still burned like fire. At least the rain had passed.
“You sure you’re feeling well? You don’t look well.”
“I’ve been recently skewered. I’d assume that's it.”
“Pah … Yer fine, I guess,” he said, walking away.
The sun, warm on my face, a feeling that normally gave me comfort, gave me none. Brenwar, usually full of boasts after a battle, was quiet. I picked up a stone and skipped it from my side of the stream to the other.
“Another dragon saved,” I said. “A fairly powerful Ruffie, at that.”
“Aye,” Brenwar said, refilling his canteen. “Some fight, too. Works up the ole’ appetite, it does.” He thumped his armored belly with his fist. “How about I snare a rabbit or two?”
“I’ve got my bow.”
“Are ye daft? Ye didn’t bring yer bow,” he argued, his busy face widening with worry.
“What?” I said, “You look like you just swallowed a halfling. Brenwar …”
The world wobbled beneath me. Bright spots burst in my eyes: pink, green and yellow. Brenwar’s arms stretched and stretched and stretched toward me, beyond me. His face spun like a pinwheel and was gone. Silence. Blackness. I fell, I think.
***
Finnius stood alongside the high priestess of the Clerics of Barnabus with a nervous look in his rodent eyes. He’d seen men dead before, but not so many, not like this. He couldn’t imagine how Nath Dragon had done all this, but the witnesses, the ones that survived the horror, assured him he had.The arena beneath the Troll’s Toe in Orcen Hold looked like a battlefield. A battle that they had clearly lost, not to mention losing a dragon as well. The high priestess, however, didn’t seem worried. Arms folded over her chest, a dark twinkle in her eyes, a smile cropping up from the corner of her mouth, she said, “It won’t be long, Finnius. Nath Dragon will be mine.”
CHAPTER 13
It was dark. I smelled burning wood. Meat roasting over a fire. My eyes opened to a brilliant starlit sky, and I felt whole again. I rolled over to where a campfire blazed and Brenwar kneeled, turning rabbit meat on a spit.
“Dinner time already?” I got up and walked over.
Brenwar looked at me like I’d come back from the dead.
“What? Has it been a day or more? You look like I’ve been sleeping for a week.” I stretched my arms out and yawned. “I must admit though, it feels like I’ve slept for a week, maybe longer. I guess saving dragons is bound to catch up with you.”
“Or turning into one,” he said. At least, I thought that was what he said.
“Brenwar, is that some kind of joke?”
I looked at him, the sky, and the moon before turning back towards the stream that was no longer there. A very bad feeling overcame me, like a part of my life was missing.
“Say, how’d I get here? Where’s the water? Brenwar, how long have I been out?”
He mumbled something.
“Louder,” I insisted.
“Three months! Three months, Nath Dragon! And I’ve been out here counting daisies and trapping furry little animals.” He rose to his feet and poked me in the chest. “Now, three months isn’t long for a dwarf, but it’s not short by any measure, either.”
“Why didn’t you wake me, then?”
He jumped up on his feet and yelled, “Don’t you think I tried? I could’ve set you on fire, and you wouldn’t have moved! I should have let the harpies carry you off.”
“Harpies?”
“Pah,” he said, waving me off.
I raked my fingers through my hair and checked the beard that had grown on my face. I scratched it with my nails that were unusually long, on my right hand anyway. I held my hand out and stared. Brenwar’s downcast face stayed down, kicking at the dirt as I looked at the black scales on the fingers of my dragon-like hand.
“Gagh!” I said, jumping away from myself.
I looked at my other hand, the left, and it was fine, but my right—black glimmering scales and thick yellow claws like my father's—was a thing of beauty. A rush of energy and excitement went through me as I jumped high in the air and screamed with delight.
I felt like a child again.
“I can go home again, Brenwar! I’ve gotten my scales! Or some scales.”
I ran my new and old fingers over my face.
“Brenwar, is my face unchanged?”
He nodded.
I was relieved, but I wasn’t certain whether I should have been or not. I shed the blanket from my shoulder, and everything but my right arm was fine, or human at least, and I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I checked behind me.
“Do I have a tail?’
“No!”
“Why so glum then, Brenwar? I’ve gotten scales!” I said, marveling at my arm.
He shrugged and said, “Don’t know.”
He was being stubborn, naturally, but something bothered me.
“What?”
“I ain’t seen no man become a dragon before,” he said, taking the rabbit from the spit. “Hungry?”
I gazed at my arm, its diamond-like scales shimmering in the twilight, like broken pieces of coal. I could feel power, true power, like I’d never felt before. I swore my right arm was twice as strong as my left, and my left was already stronger than most men’s.
“Come, then, Brenwar! I can’t wait a moment longer. It’s time to go see my father!”
“So be it then, Nath.”
***
The trek through the Sulfur Marsh at the bottom of the Mountain of Doom had never gone quicker as Brenwar and I made our way through the secret passageway. Most of the time, when I came home I was either half-dead, which had been the case the last time, or filled with dread because I had not gained any scales. Despite my father's and my disagreements over the past two centuries, I never wanted to disappoint him. This time, however, I had the upper hand. I had my scales, and my days as a man were numbered.
I took a moment to pause in reflection as I stood outside my father’s chamber doors. The detail in the doors and the rest of the caves and tunnels appeared to have a greater meaning to me now. The brass framework interwoven in ornate patterns on the wooden doors said something to me. The symbols carried power.
“So,” Brenwar’s gruff voice interrupted my thoughts, "are you goin’ inside, or are you going to stand there and gawk? It’s a dwarven door, you know. You’d think you’d never seen it before.” His thick fingers were playing with his beard. He seemed nervous, if that was at all possible.
“It’s fine work. I just never noticed before. Do you think I should knock?”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
True, in all my years, I hadn’t bothered to knock before. I wasn’t certain why it was different this time, but it was. This time, of all times, the little things seemed to matter.
I looked down at Brenwar’s face, then at the door, and lifted my fist to knock. Both doors swung open on their own.
“ENTER, SON, AND MY FRIEND THE DWARF.”
I led, my chin held high, like the time I’d saved my first dragon. I felt like a boy again, new and refreshed, a spring in my step because the hard feelings at failed efforts were gone.
My father, the grandest dragon of them all, sat on his throne, his eyes burning like fire. I’d never seen such an expression on him before. Fearsome. Deadly. Secrets as ancient as the world itself protected beneath the impenetrable scales and horns on his skull. His voice was like a volcano about to erupt, turning my swaggering gate into a shuffle.
“COME CLOSER.”
The gold pieces piled up were slipping like shale, and the entire cavern seemed to shake. I was thirty yards from the foot of his throne when I opened my mouth to speak; my day of glory had come.
“STOP!”
I froze. Something was wrong. Brenwar dropped to a knee beside me, head down.
My father sat there, monstrous claws clasped in his lap, a side of his razor sharp teeth bare.
“REMOVE YOUR ARMOR.”
“With great joy, Father,” I said, unstrapping the buckles on my chest plate. Certainly, he had to have noticed my dragon’s hand at least, yet he said nothing. Perhaps, there was to be more of a ceremony with the full showing. I tossed my armor and garments aside, standing with my naked chest out, my incredible black scaled arm up high.
My father sucked his breath through his teeth, his face smoldering with fury, and roared so loud I thought the mountain had exploded.
I fell to the ground, holding my ears, crying out and pleading for mercy. I couldn’t think or focus; I just screamed as I felt like the entire world was going to end. A sharp cracking sound exploded nearby as one of the marble columns fell. The room filled with heat so hot I could barely breathe. My whole world had gone wrong. I’d never been so terrified.
Somehow, I rose to my feet despite all the feeling in my legs being gone. My hands were still clamped over my ears as I watched my father continue his angry bellow. Brenwar was almost covered in treasure, his face devoid of expression, eyes watering like he’d seen a horrible ghost.
I yelled out, “What is wrong, Father?”
His roar stopped, but my ears kept on ringing.
His voice was lower now.
“What have you done?”
I stood, shaking, stupefied, and gawping.
“What have you done?” My father asked again, the rage in his voice gone, but the molten steel tone remaining. “Have you ever seen a black scaled dragon?”
I looked at my arm, shook my head, and said, “No.”
Then, I realized something must be horribly wrong.
“The Ruffie you saved has been here and told me what you have done. I hoped that it was not true, though I knew that it was. Did you even realize that you killed so many?”
The truth was, I didn’t have any idea how many I killed at all. I hadn’t even thought about it.
My father looked down, and I felt like it was the last time I’d ever see him again. My heart began to sputter in my chest as I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks, and begged, “No, father, I’m so sorry. Let me fix this.”
“It’s too late for that. You have cursed yourself. You are no longer welcome in Dragon Home. You’ll take no swords, no gold, no magic … not anything. You are on your own. If there is any hope left, you’ll have to find it on your own. I’ve told you all I can. Now go, to never return unless those scales are a different color.”
My father gave me one long lasting look with nothing but sadness and disappointment in his eyes. I’d failed him, I knew it, for the last time. I felt smaller than the tiniest coin in the room as he turned, walked away and disappeared back into the mural.
Alone, I wept my way through my father’s throne room, never looking back, through Dragon Home, through the Sulfur Marsh, until I wept no more.
***
Bearded and lonely, I sat inside a cave at least a hundred leagues from my father, as another season passed while I contemplated my failure in self-pity. No men killed. No dragons saved. My cursed black scales remained.
If there is any hope left, you’ll have to find it on your own, my father had said.
He’d said many things, and it was time I put them together. I rose from the crag where I had stooped and bellowed the fiercest bellow I could muster. It was time to figure out what I must do to become a dragon, a very good one, at that. Like my father.
From out of nowhere, Brenwar showed up and tossed a beautiful sword at my feet. It was Fang.
“Brenwar! How did you get this?” I asked in alarm and jubilation.
“Yer father only said you couldn’t take anything from his cavern. He didn’t say anything about me.” He winked and added. “And that isn't all I got, either.”
Thus begins the Chronicles of Dragon.
From the Author
The Hero, The Sword and The Dragons is my 8 published work and my 5 fantasy novel. I wanted to take moment to elaborate on where this new series is headed. This first introductory book is a novella (20,000 words), but future books will be twice as long (around 200 to 250 pages). My intent is to write a series of books appropriate
for all ages but designed with younger (tweens), newer readers in mind. One of my goals is to encourage people to read, and I think lengthy and wordy books can be intimidating. I know when I was young I had trouble finding books that I could handle. Not every kid can dive into Lord of the Rings, but you can build up to that. So, I want to offer something that young readers will find exciting and easy to follow.
As for COD (The Chronicles of Dragon), the plan is for this to be a long running series, and I should turn out three or four 200-page books per year. Like my other fantasy series, The Darkslayer, these stories will be fast-paced and action-packed, but COD will be less, er, mature, and loaded with more magic and many, many dragons. Despite the PG-rated content, I think this series will still have something to offer for people of all ages. Thank you for reading this first book. I’m grateful.
Do good always,
Craig Halloran
About the Author
Craig Halloran resides with his family outside of his hometown, Charleston, West Virginia. When he isn’t entertaining mankind, he is seeking adventure, working out, or watching sports. To learn more about him, go to: www.thedarkslayer.com
Other works by the author
The Darkslayer: Wrath of the Royals (Book 1)
The Darkslayer: Blades in the Night (Book 2)
The Darkslayer: Underling Revenge (Book 3)
The Darkslayer: Danger and the Druid (Book 4)
Zombie Day Care: Impact Series: Book 1
Zombie Rehab: Impact Series: Book 2
Jerk of All Trades: It’s not him; it’s them
In the works by the author
The Darkslayer (Book 5)
The Chronicles of Dragon: Dragon Bones and Tombstones (Book 2)
You can learn more about The Darkslayer and my other books at:
Facebook – The Darkslayer Report by Craig
Twitter – Craig Halloran
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
The Chronicles of Dragon: The Hero, The Sword and The Dragons Page 6
