Ranger Rising: Claire-Agon Ranger Book 1 (Ranger Series)

by Salvador Mercer

  “No need for bluster, Ulathan. We will respect the situation as it is for now, though I fear I am wasting my time when there is need to pursue my feud,” Khan said.

  Targon looked him in the eye and then put his hand out in a gesture of greeting. Khan looked at it for a long moment and then grabbed Targon’s elbow in his palm and returned the gesture in true Kesh fashion. “I thank you for saving the lady’s son Cedric. For that, you have my gratitude. Now help us to rebuild and you will have my respect,” Targon finished, withdrawing and nodding. Khan simply nodded in return and then, without another word, turned back to his task at hand. Dorsun eyed Targon warily and, with one last look at his master, knelt back down and continued his work as well watching Targon walk away.

  “He looks very much like his brother,” Dorsun whispered, continuing his work. “Do you think he knows?”

  “You mean about his brother? If they are the same Terrels, and they very much look alike, then I would say he still does not know,” Khan said, looking to see if they could be overheard amidst their duties.

  “He won’t be happy when he learns that his brother is a traitor,” Dorsun said, his tone serious.

  “Indeed he will not, and I am not sure his brother will be pleased to learn that we took his family either. Not if he survived,” Khan whispered back.

  “Best not to be at that family reunion,” said Dorsun.

  “Agreed,” Khan answered, renewing his work in the garden without saying more.

  Targon waved farewell to his companions and promised to return within two or three days, not being real sure how far he had to travel, but he knew it couldn’t be outside the forest, which meant not more than that amount of time to make his journey and retrieve what Elister had left for him. Marissa accompanied him as far as Bony Brook before she turned back, and Targon found himself passing his old oak tree he had used for firewood, and it brought back memories of his family.

  Core led the way, often looking back to make sure he was following closely because the trees soon got dense, and Core headed straight into the heart of the forest.

  They took no breaks, and Targon didn’t complain. Nightfall came, and the bear stopped to allow Targon to sleep. Core curled up between the roots of two large cedar trees, nestling himself amongst the pines on the ground. Targon ate an apple and some dried veal from his earlier success and drank plenty from one of his two flasks before he lay out his blanket and, using his pack for a pillow, fell soundly asleep.

  Core had awakened well before dawn and had roused Targon from his slumber. Targon was used to getting up early on the homestead, but he swore it was more like the middle of the night, but he didn’t complain and gathered his pack and only drank from his flask before continuing on.

  They only traveled till about noon when Core seemed to stop and smell the air. Certain he was near, they continued into a forest meadow where before there had been nothing but dense trees. The meadow had yellow Arella flowers along with equally bright yellow sunflowers and tall green meadow grasses that grew abundantly in the soft sunlight. In the middle of the meadow, Targon saw a huge hill, like a large mound a few hundred feet high, and the top and sides of the hill were covered in trees. Oaks, pines, cedars, and adler brushes grew all around it like a woodland crown on the head of a forest king.

  Core never stopped and headed right to the hill’s base. At first, it wasn’t visible, but as they were almost to the base of the hillside, Targon’s sharp eyesight saw the stone arch made of grey and black granite over a set of double doors made of ancient dry petrified wood and bound with iron hinges and latches. The huge doors were closed, but there was a latch that was made of a hoop of iron, and it was sticking outward invitingly.

  The bear grumbled and swayed its head at the door. Open. Targon heard again the child’s voice he had heard the day before. He looked intently at Core and just nodded, understanding somehow the communication but not wanting to question the details of why he was hearing this wild animal use human words within his own head. It wasn’t just the fact that this was happening but that if he were to imagine any human voice associated with the extremely large ursine, he had imagined it to be a deep voice like that of Will or a captain of the king’s guard, not the voice of an innocent young child. The spectacle humbled him in ways he had never imagined.

  Targon took grasp of the iron ring and pulled. The door swung outward much more easily than he had expected, considering its size. He peered inside as Core stood motionless. He took this to mean the bear would not enter further, and so reluctantly, Targon entered the short corridor alone.

  The corridor ended at a large room which was illuminated by natural sunlight coming through small stone shafts set at angles against the hillside. The room was spartanly furnished: a couple of wooden chairs sat around a small table. A cupboard stood against one wall with wooden crockery and utensils scattered on it. A painted picture of a woman sitting on a rock near a waterfall surrounded by trees hung from over a stone hearth. Targon marveled at the painting, which was very lifelike, and he had only heard of such things residing in the large cities to the south. It seemed almost out of place within Elister’s cave home.

  In the middle of the table lay another piece of parchment similar to the letter he had read the day before. It was laid out at the corners by tiny knickknacks the old man had lying around: a small vial of ink stoppered with cork at the end, a cup stained with tea inside its rim, a small book, and a piece of pottery shaped like a horse rearing on its hind legs. Targon took the items and moved them away so he could pull the paper closer to him, and began to read.

  Oh dear. You’re reading this, so things have indeed gone poorly for me as I much feared. We have no time for pleasantries, so I’ll be quick about this, Master Terrel. The people who took your family you call Kesh, but they are more than brigands and outlaws. They were once a civilized society that ruled many lands and traded as a cultured and well-mannered people. If not for a bit of pride and an occasional tad of envy, we could have always called them neighbors, but that was long ago and things have changed.

  You’ll be wanting to free your family, and I understand that anything I could ask of you would not have the same sense of urgency nor priority as this one desire you hold dear to you. After you free your family, I have need of your services most likely for the rest of your life, but if you don’t complete your first desire, there will be no room for mine.

  Therefore, I have decided to assist you with your first desire. In order to face the Mages of Kesh, you must be better prepared and with more than just your courage, bow, or axe. I urge you first to seek the Shield of Ulatha that once belonged to Uthor, the rightful Duke of Ulatha, ruler of its capital, Ulan Utandra, Defender of the North, when he ruled kindly and justly under the good king Roarwell of Tyniria in the realm also known once as Akula.

  The shield was enchanted with the ruins and hieroglyphs of the ancients, and was proof against offensive magic and dragon’s fire. It is priceless but has been lost to our knowledge. The duke was rumored to have given it to his nephew, Andrew, before the great cataclysm of Dor Akun after the Great War.

  The historian Diamedes may have learned where Andrew took it, and it may be found in his book of Ulathan history that was located in Korwell. The book had a red binding gilded with copper and decorated on its cover with the sygil of Diamedes. Your young friend Cedric may have seen it if it survived after all these years. Search there first and recover the shield. Without it, you will be vulnerable to the sorcery of the Kesh and unable to secure the release of your family. Find it and free them.

  Finally, for my task. The guardian sleeps, and my spell will allow her to sleep for another summer and into winter, but she must be managed and this can only be done by securing the ancient Draconian Rod of Agon. I have left a small book on this table, and it contains my notes on where this is located. Do not wake the guardian and do not tell anyone else of her presence. With th
e rod and her proper name, you can command her. Her true name is secret, ageless it was, and yet deadly. Utter it not without the rod, for she will hear it in her sleep and it will command her to awake. Destroy my letter after you memorize it and again, utter it naught without the rod. Her name is Ariella Zaloynaya Drakona. Now, waste not time and save your family. I am with you in spirit if not body, young master Terrel.

  Your friend, however brief that was,

  Elister.

  P.S. Sorry I referred to her as a he, but you’ll understand soon enough.

  Targon looked at the note in the smooth flowing script Elister scribed and felt a pang of guilt at all that had transpired so far. He wondered at the events and understood the world was a much bigger place than he had imagined, and what of this guardian Elister wrote of so sinisterly? Targon put the letter down and proceeded to the back of the room and the lone door there, opening it. There was a tunnel that delved down deeper into the hillside but was darker than night. No shafts illuminated it from above. He grabbed a brand from the hearth, and it burned faintly as he proceeded down the tunnel as quietly as he could. Soon, he sensed the tunnel ended with a large boulder almost blocking the exit.

  He edged by the side of the huge rock and entered into a large cavern that must have been hollowed out right under the hillside, but it was pitch black except for the faint illumination of his brand that just barely lit the area but enough for Targon to gasp at what he saw. There, lying in the middle of the cavern, eyes closed, head between its massive front legs, wings tucked into its side, was an enormous sleeping green dragon.

  Targon gasped for air, the sound echoing in the dark chamber, and he cringed at the loudness of his own breathing. In shock, he was only able to mutter two words. “Bloody hell.”

  Sultain skulked as he reviewed the situation at hand. He had no word from even the messenger birds on events happening in Ulatha, and Am-Shee seemed mired down in a fierce battle of attrition with the Rockton partisans. He had waited too long to be thwarted now by these rag-tag fiefdoms bordering Kesh. No, when Father Death, Dor Akun, arrived, he would be ready to retrieve the Staff of Alore and with it, he could dominate all of Agon. The ancient artifact wasn’t created for that purpose, but as the High-Mage had learned many years ago, it could be bent to the will of a powerful wizard, and Sultain imagined himself to be that individual.

  First, however, he had to have the necessary magical tools to make the leap from Agon to Akun when the two planets were closest. It was still risky, and more than one Arch-Mage had made the attempt and failed, but where they had met nothing but defeat, the great Sultain would succeed. He was sure of it. He needed the scrolls and information they contained within, however, and those were either located in Ulatha and Rockton or the information to obtain them was located within those two realms.

  Decades ago, the Kesh were too weak to launch any assault more than just a pillaging raid or a hit-and-run attack, but Sultain had seen to it that the wizard ranks had grown. Less of his order met with untimely fates and accidents, and the ranks of the brigand caste was swollen with captured slaves and orphaned children of all races of Agon.

  Sultain would recruit the barbarians of the North, as well as having already signed a pact with the master assassin of Balaria and his guild to work toward this one common goal. The stone trolls were proving useful if hard to tame, and he would soon have the aid of the clerics of Akun, death worshipers and fanatics of destruction.

  Indeed, the worst was yet to come for the haughty realms of Ulatha, Rockton, and the rest of the miserable fiefdoms littering the once proud lands around and near Kesh.

  Sultain smiled.

  Ready to read Chapter 1 of the next book in the Ranger Series, The Dead Druid? If so, the excerpt is at the end of this ebook, keep reading to find it!

  Mailing List

  If you liked this book, please feel free to sign up for Salvador Mercer’s mailing list to receive news on new releases with special discounts, as well as information about the world of Claire Agon. Sign up in one of three ways:

  Click here if your reader allows the hyperlink.

  Go to my website here: Salvador Mercer. Or put http://www.salvadormercer.com/ in your web browser, and then click on the red link near the bottom to sign up.

  Finally, put the following MailChimp link into your browser, and because it is cAsE sEnSiTiVe, make sure to use lowercase letters: http://eepurl.com/benueb.

  As always, your email address will never be shared with any other entity and MailChimp makes it easy to unsubscribe at any time. I hate spam mail too, so my use of the mail list will be both relevant and judicial in nature.

  Reviews

  This book is an independent work, and because honest reviews are critical to the success of an independent book, I’d be grateful if you would consider leaving one on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you picked it up from. Thanks in advance for your honest feedback and critique.

  Contacts

  If you’d like to contact this author for any reason, and I’d love to hear from you, then you can reach me by the following means:

  By email: salvador@salvadormercer.com

  On Facebook: facebook.com/salvadormercerauthor

  On Twitter: @Salvador_Mercer

  On Goodreads: Salvador Mercer

  Salvador Mercer loves to read. Having read the works from Tolkien, McCaffrey, Donaldson, Asimov, Burroughs, Crichton, and many others, the desire to write took over the once sane man and now he finds himself immersed in telling tall tales and intricate fables from this world, and across the stars to many others.

  His stories are inspired by past author greats, but written and moved forward by Mercer who sincerely hopes that the stories delight and entertain the reader. He invites you to enter the worlds and realms of his books, and hopes you share with him your experiences there.

  Salvador Mercer is fluent in English, Russian and Spanish, having served in the US Army, 750th Military Intelligence Brigade as a Russian Voice Intercept Operator, works in the field of Public Transit, loves languages, history, reading, boating, traveling, and science. He lives in Ohio with his three boys, a baby (elf), toddler (hobbit), teenager (orc), and wife, Masha.

  Claire Agon is the second planet orbiting Tau Ceti, located just less than twelve light years from our own planet Earth. It circles its star in the habitable zone, just over two-thirds of one AU, or astronomical unit, which is the distance of Earth from the sun. This places it in orbit about the same distance around Tau Ceti as Venus is to Sol. It has an atmosphere similar to Earth’s, but it is different in composition, because the inhabitants of Claire Agon are silicon-based life forms, not carbon-based as on our planet.

  Claire Agon has two companion moons about half the size of Earth’s moon, but circling the planet much closer, four times closer, in fact. The two moons are tidally locked to Claire Agon, each showing the same face to the planet. The two moons in the common tongue are called Tira and Sara, in that order. Tira rises first, followed a few hours later by Sara. Both moons are named for Claire Agon’s daughters in Agonian mythos. Lunar eclipses are not uncommon due to the close orbits of the two moons to the planet, and a full lunar cycle occurs approximately every nine days. Both moons are much like small Agonian worlds, and their blue, green, and white cloud-tipped atmospheres can clearly be seen from the surface of Agon.

  Claire Agon, or simply Agon in the common tongue, isn’t the only planet circling Tau Ceti. Recently on Earth, astronomers have detected up to five planets circling the class G star, which is similar in type to our own Sol, but it masses only four-fifths that of our own sun. The astronomers are almost correct insomuch as the system actually has six planets. One planet, however, they could not have imagined; it circles Tau Ceti in an elliptical and eccentric orbit, tilted at thirty degrees above the solar plane. That planet is the size of our own Neptune, but instead of being a gaseous planet, it is a rocky planet, with a
huge mass relative to Earth and an atmosphere and magnetosphere in a class unto itself. Agonians call this planet “Dor Akun,” or “Death World,” though the term “Father of Death” is also used, depending on the culture.

  Dor Akun orbits Tau Ceti once every two hundred years, and when it approaches perihelion, or its closest approach to the star, it actually comes within the orbit of Claire Agon. In addition to this, Claire Agon is also pulled by the gravitational force of Dor Akun, to the point that it, too, reaches perihelion and does so at the same time as its bigger mate, Dor Akun. During this time Dor Akun is a mere million miles from Claire Agon, and it reaches perihelion exactly on the solar plane where Agon orbits Tau Ceti, thus eclipsing Agon as it transits from perihelion and begins its slow, arduous journey up and back to its aphelion, to begin the cycle all over again.

  The eclipse lasts an entire Agonian month, and its tidal forces pull mercilessly on the smaller Agon, flexing its crust and creating huge tides and displacements of waters both great and small. Agon is cast into a cold, dark, month-long isolation, suffering immense damage to life there.

  Fortunately for those who live on Agon, the event occurs only once every two hundred orbits of Agon and once every orbit of Dor Akun. Where the two planets actually cross orbits, the larger planet, Dor Akun, is inclined by several million miles, and so the paths of the two planets never cross.