The Dragon Sands Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by C. K. Rieke

  On this side of the tunnels there were many splits and chambers with multiple offshoots, but Roren never hesitated about which to take; he only continued at a fast pace, and always upwards. Eventually the air began to warm, and it felt drier. Lilaci felt as though they were getting closer, and she then fully believed that he knew the way out of those dreary caves.

  “We’re almost there,” he called from in front. Those were the first words he’d uttered since they left the dragon egg. She didn’t reply.

  Then, after another twenty minutes of running, it appeared— the soft, warm glow of the sun. She’d never yearned for the sands so much in her life. At least once they were back in the desert, she would have a sense of direction, and she’d regain her power. She wouldn’t be at the mercy of dark rock anymore. This surely won’t be the end of these tunnels though. One day we’ll return, with Kera, and she’ll somehow awaken that baby dragon, and that beast will one day wreak havoc upon the crowns and heads of the gods.

  As the light of the sun streaking in from the mouth of the exit of the tunnel grew brighter, a strange sight began to form outside of the cave, and Lilaci’s run turned to a cautious walk.

  “Wait—” she called out to Roren, who hesitated to slow his run, but did so and turned back to look at her. “Where does this exit out to? This isn’t— one of the Great Oasi? Right? I mean— we’re so far away from them.”

  “No, not one of the Three.” He turned back and began his walk to the exit of the cave. “Come and see.”

  She continued wearily after him, the sun now burning her retinas, and she had to pull her hood back over her brow to block the bright sunlight. As she stepped out of the darkness of the cave after him, and after her eyes had adjusted to the sun, just overhead, she reached out to touch one of them, to see if they were real. Flowers. There were thousands of lilacs, sunflowers, and red daffodils in a sweeping arc around them. She felt the soft velvet touch of the lilac between her fingers and leaned down to sniff its sweet scent.

  Lilaci looked around to find not a single cactus, but vividly green shrubbery and trees with large, hanging leaves. At the center of the flowers was a large, clear pond of warm water. On the outsides of the circular garden, were the high walls of the sands.

  “What is this place?” she asked in awe.

  “I got to calling it the Hidden Garden,” he said. “Clever I know.”

  “Does anyone know of this place?” she asked.

  “Not sure, but not a single person made it down to the egg in my time down there.”

  She looked up at the high sand walls surrounding the area. A cool air hung in the gardens. “It’d be impossible to find this place on the sands, unless you accidentally walked into it.”

  “This is where the baby worms leave the caves under the cover of night— they’re hungry and ferocious. I guessed this place was a trap. Anyone who tried to stay here probably would end up their first meal.”

  “What a way to go, in your tent being eaten in chunks by those slimy things,” she said. “Shall we continue?”

  “Hold on one second,” Roren said, putting his hand on the hilt of his sheathed scimitar.

  Lilaci looked at him cautiously, she was ready to move to a defensive position the second he made any aggressive behavior. Yet, she stood straight up, and calmly. “Yes—?”

  “Kera said you’d come, and she even told me your name,” he said with an inquisitive look. “But she didn’t tell me . . . you’d be one of them.”

  It took Lilaci a moment to gather what he was referring to. It felt like so long ago that she killed Foro, and essentially quit the Scaethers, and bowed out of the favor of the gods. “I know I look like one of them, but I’m not . . . Anymore.”

  “So, you were one of them?” he said. “You were one of the ones hunting her? You were one of those evil Scaethers? Your group killed innocent families. They’ve done it for hundreds of years. Thousands even.”

  She could see he was tightening his grip on the leather hilt of the scimitar at his side, his fingers and knuckles twisting on it, leaving a slight hum in the air.

  “Yes, I was one of them. That is until I finally met her. My whole world has changed, and now I’m surely one of the hunted.”

  “Why should I trust you? How do I know this isn’t a trap for me to help you find her, then you kill me? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t cut you down here and now.”

  “Firstly, you’d die trying.” He gave an angry eye at her. “Secondly, my family was taken from me just like hers was from her.” The spell of the mages shot into her mind again when she said that, and she nearly fell to her knee, gripping her head. “Kera is my only family now. If you want to help me find her, that’s great. If you don’t, that’s great too. Either way I’m going after her. I’m going to help her do whatever she needs to be safe, to be free.”

  Roren seemed to ease his grip on his sword. “I’ve heard you Scaethers aren’t the best liars.”

  “There’s no need to lie in their group,” she said, returning to her proper stance. “If anyone doesn’t like what you say, then you end their life. Plain and simple.”

  “Did . . . Does Kera trust you?” he asked, appearing to wait to judge her response.

  “She did, yes.”

  “Did?”

  “I failed her,” Lilaci said sorrowfully. The one I was with, led me into a trap, and took her. Fewn is her name.

  “Is she one of you? Fewn?”

  “She’s a Lu-Polini, yes. She’s a Scaether.”

  “Did Kera trust her?” he asked.

  Lilaci hesitated to respond, but eventually said, “Yes.”

  Roren spit on the ground. “I hate your kind. I really, really hate them.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’ll go with you. We’ll find her together, and for whatever its worth, I want you to make a promise to me. In my people, a promise is a binding contract. We have honor, and pride in our group. You make me a promise, and you keep it.”

  “I will make you a promise if you wish.”

  “Promise me when we find her— if we find her in time— we protect her. There’s no taking her to the gods. And if you lie, I promise upon the fire and wrath of the returning dragons you will burn.”

  Lilaci stood straight and tall. “I promise, to you, when we find Kera, I’m going to protect her from all harm.”

  “Alright, I believe you,” he said. “Shall we go?”

  “Hold on, one thing,” she said. “I want you to promise me one thing . . .”

  He seemed taken aback. “What’s that?”

  “If you try to harm her or take her from me when we find her, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Is that a question? You want me to promise for you not to kill me?”

  “No, I just want you to know clearly what’s going to happen if you turn on me.”

  “Fine. Can we go?”

  They both ran over to the sand wall and climbed up to find themselves in the barren desert, no mountains in sight.

  “You know where we are?” she asked, scanning the horizon.

  “The western part of the Dakaran Desert. We’re in between the Gí-Donlan and Golbi-Isac Mountains.”

  “We’re further away from Dakaran and Voru?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to move.”

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “There’s one more thing you should know,” she said. He stopped hesitantly.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “If you see any men in black hoods with staffs,” she said. “You should probably hide.”

  “What does that mean? Are there sorcerers after you?”

  “Something like that . . .”

  “Anything else I should know about you?”

  She thought for a second. “Well . . . The gods are probably going to send assassins like me after us.”

  “Oh? Is that all?”

  “. . . The gods are probably after me too.”
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  He sighed. “You’re going to be a difficult partner, aren’t you? I hope you’re a good fighter. Shall we?”

  She nodded, and they both began their long journey back east, to find the girl they both swore to protect: one, a man of the Order of Drakon, a mysterious figure who seemed to have good intentions, but had lived in the shadows for a year, waiting; the other, a girl born into slavery, tortured and trained to become the most prized assassin in hundreds of years, a weapon of the gods— then together for one single purpose: save Kera. That was all that mattered to them in all the Arr. Their only passion, their only desire, their only purpose in this life. Save Kera.

  The End

  Revenge Song

  Part I

  Family Strife

  Chapter One

  1443 Sisen Era, The Arr, Dakaran Region

  An aching pain like a twisting dagger tore through Lilaci’s soul— her heart was truly broken. The last person she’d deeply cared for and loved was taken from her, and Lilaci only blamed herself. Her dreams had turned to nightmares of cold sweat and fear for Kera’s safety.

  A cool breeze glided over the rolling hills as small grains of sand nestled their way down the flowing dunes. The sky was lit with thin, stretched clouds that held a beautiful red glow, laying its hue across the vast land. There wasn’t a mountain or tree in sight. In the early morning light, just before the break of dawn, the air was warming ever hotter with every second that passed. The sun was eager to shed its golden light upon the lands, bringing with it another day of inescapable heat. Yet, in the lands of the Arr— to those who walked the sands— anything else would be . . . An act of god.

  As the breeze rustled the thin blanket she held tightly over her shoulder, she tried to shake off the wretched dreams she’d had of Kera being presented to the gods like a lamb going to slaughter— and Lilaci pulled the rough blanket tighter against her. She had to pull it up over her eyes to shield the warm light, slowing fading from the color of crimson to the bright white that brought with it the heat she was all-too-familiar with. She tried to remember being with her family— long lost when she was taken from them— kicking and screaming as a young girl, faded as the light of the sun peaked over the long-rolling dunes in the distance. The sun’s ray had already begun to heat the sands beneath her and she opened her eyes. She saw nothing, nothing but the desert all around her, that— and Roren as he slept two yards away. She’s only just met Roren, a man of the Order of Drakon, the group charged with Kera’s safety.

  Roren and she hadn’t been traveling long together, only a handful of days. As she looked at him, lying on his back with his blanket thrown aside, he took long breaths in his sleep, causing a slight wheezing sound as he inhaled. She stared at him, imagining his life before he’d found her back in the caves. After all, she was on the brink of death after her fight with the giant sandworms when he appeared before her. He was told to sit down there by Kera, in the worm’s tunnels, until Lilaci came. How had he not gone mad from the isolation of waiting over a year in such a horrid place, even with- the egg.

  As he lay there sleeping, and with his shadow ever-shortening as the sun began to rise, she noticed that his normally cleanly shaved head began to grow black hair across his dark skin, and a beard was beginning to grow as well. He was older than her, but not by much, maybe ten years or so, but Lilaci didn’t know her own exact age. She’d been taken as a young girl and trained in the ways of battle, and death. Taken by the Scaethers, and trained back in Sorock to become a master assassin, she was eventually trained personally by Veranor, commander of all like her in Sorock. All that was behind her now though. Lilaci had not only broken her vow to Veranor, but to the six gods themselves. The gods had given her the magic of the Sanzoral, and asked only one thing- their one wish- they wanted her to bring back . . . Her.

  “Kera,” Lilaci whispered to herself, and sat up quickly, causing the blanket to fall to her side. She reached her hand up to wipe the sleep from her eyes, then ran her fingers through her long black hair, rustling the sand from it. She felt the widow’s peak on her forehead, and then ran her fingers back through one last time and wrapped it into a bun at the back of her head. She grabbed the thin wooden pick from her side and slid it through the bun, the rest of her hair landed softly on her back. “Kera, where are you?”

  Roren wrestled to pull his blanket over him to her side. “Argh, its blazing hot already. I was just dreaming of being back in the shadowy caves, nice and cool they were.” He lay on his side, trying to gather a few more moments of rest before the sun was high enough that there would be no avoiding it.

  How can you dream of such a monstrous place? But, we may look back at the worm’s mating caves a bit differently. Kera had told him to stay there, waiting by the dragon egg, for me to come. I, on the other hand, was lured there by Fewn, and trapped in the worm’s nest to die, so that Fewn could take Kera back to the gods herself, after lying to me that she would help protect her. Fewn- next we meet, I’ll show you a vengeance you couldn’t imagine. All I care about in this life is her, Kera. I don’t care that she is prophesized to usher in the return of the dragons to the Arr and battle the contemptuous and corrupt gods. I don’t care that my life has become forfeit in the eyes of all that I know, and I don’t care that every single creature in these lands seems to want to kill me. She’s the only thing that makes me feel normal, feel loved. I can’t let Fewn make it back with her to Voru, back to the king and queen there. Kera will die if she enters the city’s walls. I have to stop Fewn, I can’t let Kera down, not her, not this time.

  Just then, Lilaci noticed something odd. As she looked past Roren, as he struggled to capture the last fleeting moments of rest, she noticed something different about the sand. Just on the other side of him, fifty paces out, the sand was shifting, and beginning to pool in spots, three spots to be exact. She leaned back slowly, reaching back and grasping the leather hilt of her sword, and with a smooth motion, began to draw it from the scabbard.

  “Roren,” she whispered over to him briskly. “Roren.”

  “Just a little longer, it’s so damned hot.”

  “Roren!” she said more forcefully. Lilaci gripped her sword tightly in her hand. The three spots of sand behind him began to grow and started to rise from the desert floor. Something unnatural is coming from the sands. Something, or someone has found me again. Will I never stop being hunted? She stood up quickly and kicked him in the side. “Get up!”

  She saw him open his eyes and look up at her, wanting to lash out at her for kicking him, but once he saw the look in her eyes, holding her sword out he looked over quickly to the three growing mounds of sand, and he jumped to his feet with his sword in hand.

  “What now?” he asked.

  Lilaci watched keenly at the three mounds, all equally spaced from one another, eventually rising waist-height in the near distance. She watched as the three mounds stopped at that height, and then began to angle up from the front, like a chest opening up, but she soon saw they were no chests, but three men bending to stand up straight. Three men of sand, all three with long staffs with twirling sand at their tips. They all stood up straight, and as their bodies turned from that of rough sand to a more detailed male form, their eyes shot open in unison, illuminated by a wicked green glow.

  “Reevins,” Lilaci said. “More Reevins have come to take the Sanzoral from me.”

  “Will they ever stop coming?” Roren asked.

  “I think not, they think it will empower them for a hundred years if they take it from my body.” A violet haze began to form in Lilaci’s hand, and it quickly grew to a bright purple flame, like crackling and snapping fire. “But what these wizards don’t know is that I won’t accept death until after Kera is safe. The only death they’re going to find— is their own.”

  Within seconds, Lilaci realized the battle wasn’t going to be as easy as she anticipated. The three Reevins had turned from their sand forms to three men dressed in long black cloaks and capes, all with weath
ered, dark skin and long beards, two of white and one blond. They hissed as they wove their staffs around them, sand dancing in the air in swirling orbs about their tips. They’d conjured up tall creatures of gray rock from the desert floor before them. The creatures stood two times Lilaci’s height and each of them held a heavy, sharp club of stone, hefted before them. They had small black eyes, and wide, down-turned mouths under their rocky and sand-filled beards. Lilaci looked up at them with their wide shoulders and strong arms of rock as they walked towards Roren and her.

  “What in the Eternal Fires are those?” Roren asked.

  “Golems, the Reevins brought stone golems with them from the south,” Lilaci said.

  “You really know how to keep every day interesting, Lilaci, I’ll give you that. Our weapons won’t be able to pierce them, you have any idea how to fight these things?”

  “No. But I do know this. All that matters is that they are in our way.”

  One of the golems rushed in with a furious, unexpected speed and Roren jumped to the side, just out of reach of its mighty club as it crashed into the sand and rock where he had been standing. It shook the ground with a violent rumble. The golem growled with a sound like breaking, crumbling rock down a mountainside. Lilaci thrust in quickly with her sword, its tip bouncing off its stone hide with a dull clang.

  It turned to attack, its club hefted back in its hand as it swung at her with a heavy whoosh through the air. She ducked below its mighty arc quickly and swung her sword at the knees of the mighty golem, and again, her swords bounced off harmlessly. She looked up at the golem’s rocky face, its beard cracking as it stared down at her with its dead, black beady eyes. It swung down on her again, as the other two golems rushed over.

  Lilaci leapt back, staring out at the three Reevins, chanting with their raspy voices, twirling their staffs in the air. “Kill the Reevins, and these walking statues may return back to the sands.” As she said this over to Roren, who had returned to his feet, he began to run towards the Reevins, but was met with a golem standing directly between them.