by C. K. Rieke
Assassin Born
The Dragon Sands Book I
C.K. Rieke
Contents
Also by C.K. Rieke
Map of The Arr
I. Taken, Trained and Tormented
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
II. A Kiss, and a Bitter Goodbye
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
III. The Gift of the Gods
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
IV. Return to the Sands
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
V. The Dragon's Breath
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
VI. Into the Darkness
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Sign up and Review
Revenge Song
Author’s Notes
About the Author
Also by C.K. Rieke
The Path of Zaan Book I:
The Road to Light
The Path of Zaan Book II:
The Crooked Knight
The Path of Zaan Book III:
The Devil King
A Path of Zaan Tale:
Man of the Arr
The Dragon Sands Book II:
Revenge Song
This novel was published by Crimson Cro Publishing
Copyright © 2018 Hierarchy LLC
All Rights Reserved.
Cover by C.K. Rieke and Heather Brantman.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Part I
Taken, Trained and Tormented
Chapter One
1430 Sisen Era, The Arr, Unknown Desert Region
In the desert lands of the Arr blood flowed freer than water most nights.
Silver stars in the dark sky glittered down their soft old tales. Tales of wise men long lost, dragons sweeping through the sky with cringing roars that echoed for miles, and of gods who ruled with the might of a great mountain. Cool winds whipped over the rolling dunes of the sands, with a dull whistling pitch.
At the base of the largest of the dunes, under the sharp crescent moon that loomed directly overhead, emitted a warm glow from a fire. Encircling that fire were a ring of tents, warmed by the golden glow. The wind rustled the tents slightly, and as the bite of the wind grew chill the men and women huddled around the fire swept into their tents. One by one the tents lit up with the faint glow of candlelight. The animals surrounding the tents rustled themselves in a tight group, letting out soothing neighs.
To the small caravan the night seemed serene, but there was always a tension within the people of the caravan. They knew the danger of being out upon the open sands, but it was all they’d ever known. This night, however, it wasn’t only the winds that would sweep down from the dunes onto the caravan.
In one of the tents was a young girl who lay awake as her family slept soundly. She let her fingers drift over the light of a lit candle that sat next to her, watching their shadows glide along the top of the canvas tent. They rolled along the ceiling like the rippling of cool water in a small pond. The girl smacked her lips from thirst. A gust of cool wind blew under the front flap of the tent, and tiny pebbles of sand jostled along the lavishly colored tapestry on the floor.
Then, curving her fingers she made a shadow that resembled the two humps of an Iox, an animal with four curling horns on its head and the two humps on its tall back. The girl giggled as she watched the Iox as it bounced across the canvas.
“Lilaci,” she heard her father say in a gruff voice. “What are you doing up still?”
“Father, I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“Come,” he said. She stood up and walked over toward her father’s cot, she looked at him then, his face was clean, washed before bed. His skin was dark, his hair long and thick, and his eyes were a soft brown. Lilaci stepped over her sister and brother who lay asleep next to their father, and she crawled in next to him.
He wrapped his arm around her and Lilaci snuggled in next to him. “Why are you awake, my daughter? There’s plenty of time to be awake under the hot sun in the sands, and we begin our walking tomorrow again—”
“I don’t know father, my mind won’t slow tonight. Sometimes I have trouble shutting away my thoughts.”
“Hmmm,” he said. “What are you thinking of this time of night?”
“I was wondering how long we have to walk the sands. Will it have to go on forever?”
Her father looked up at the top of the tan, canvas tent, and dipped his fingers by the candlelight, they cast long shadows onto it. “I don’t have the answer to that question.”
“Is it because of me?” Lilaci said in a soft, sad voice. I can’t help but feel a guilt in my heart. A guilt that my brother and sister have to walk the sands because of me. They just want a home with their family, as I do. Maybe they could have a house of stone in one of the cities if it wasn’t for me.
Her father’s hand turned from outstretched fingers to a soft fist, and he brought his hand back down to his side. “Listen, why don’t you go back off to sleep? You’ll feel better in the morning, I promise.”
“What’re you two going on about?” Lilaci’s mother asked from the other side of her father.
“Nothing,” her father said. “Lilaci was just going back to sleep.”
“Everything okay?” her mother asked her. Her eyes were delicate and kind.
A tear rolled down Lilaci’s cheek and her lips quivered. “I’m sorry. It's my fault we have to walk. I wish my brother and sister could live in one of the great cities, full of fresh water and food. It’s my fault.”
Her mother sat up and gently wiped the tear from her face. Lilaci looked into her mother’s loving dark eyes, with her graying, black hair dipped in from of them. “Don’t you say things like that. You know we are out here with the others, because we are a family, and we need to stick together. The rest of the Arr doesn’t understand that you’re just a girl— just a normal girl. Just because you were born— different— from the other children.”
Lilaci noticed her father looking at her with a somber gaze. “Your mother is right, you’re our daughter, that’s it, so we’ll sti
ck together. And you wait, you’ll see, that someday we’ll find a place to call home. The Arr is a big place, Lilaci.”
“You mean it?” Lilaci said. “You think we’ll find a home that my little brother and sister can rest?”
He nodded with a smile and embraced her. Lilaci closed her eyes, felt the love of her father towards her, and her mother leaned over and wrapped her arms around the both of them.
Then, with the fury and quickness of a searing lightning strike, they came . . .
Lilaci heard the blood-curdling screams, the pleas for mercy, and the ringing of sharp metal as it found its way into soft flesh. She watched as her father leapt to his feet and unsheathed his sword from its scabbard that rested at his side. Her mother brought in Lilaci and her siblings, clutching them in tightly. Her father looked back at her mother with eyes that burned into Lilaci. I’ve never seen his eyes like this. He’s afraid. I’ve never seen fear in my father like this. I feel like my life is being sucked out of me. I can’t breathe, my heart is beating out of my chest. My mother is holding me so tight, I can’t move. I’ve never been so afraid in all my life.
Then a man shot in through the front flaps of the tent like a bitter wind. His eyes were dark and his white teeth shown as he smiled a wicked smile. Lilaci’s father’s eyes darted back towards the man, and he lunged forth with his sword. In a swift motion of thick steel reflected in candlelight, Lilaci watched as her father’s sword fell to the ground. He lunged towards his attacker, but he was thwarted by a sword thrust into his chest. “Father!” Lilaci screamed in panic. Her brother and sister wept in terror.
Blood rolled down his back, with a growing crimson stain on his shirt. He turned just enough to look into his wife’s eyes, and then he fell to the ground with a thud on the tapestry. A light puff of sand rose as he did so.
“Father, no!” Lilaci tried to go to him, but her mother, who was crying and screaming uncontrollably, held her back.
Lilaci looked up to see the man who’d killed her father. He was tall and slender, with white skin like the color of the moon, he had a black widow’s peak that ran down his forehead, and he held a long dagger, now covered in blood. His eyes were dark, not dark in color, but in spirit, as if he had no soul.
He looked at Lilaci, not paying mind to the rest of her family. “There you are,” he said with a menacing grin.
She stood up, “Take me, but leave my family alone. Please don’t hurt them anymore.”
“Lilaci, no!” her mother cried.
“We are going to take you,” he said. “. . . We’re going to take whatever we want.” With that, two other men walked into the tent’s flaps. Lilaci could hear many other screams from the rest of the caravan, it sounded like a slaughter outside.
The man grabbed Lilaci by the shoulders, and ripped her from her mother’s arms. Another one led her two siblings out of the tent violently.
She fought, but she couldn’t match the strength of the men that came into her tent. Lilaci was bound and put atop the back of one of their Ioxi easily, and she endured a worse torture than the grasp of death could have given her. She sat there, bound and blindfolded, gushing tears, having to listen to the slaughter, unable to help her family. Worst though, were the wales of her mother back in the tent. The men ravaged her for what felt like a lifetime to Lilaci. Her mother screamed for help, and plead for mercy, but she received neither. Please, if there are any merciful gods left, please help me. Help my family. Make this all a nightmare that I may wake up from, and hold my family tight, and tell them I love them one more time. Let me help my mother in her torture, let me lift a sword with my father and fight off these marauders. Let me grow old with my siblings so that I may protect them. Or— lay your pity on me, and let me feel this pain no more. If I don’t perish from this, be merciful, and take me now. I can’t take any more of this.
Lilaci screamed until her voice cracked and broke. She fell off the Iox, landing on the hard dirt ground, and sand rustled into her hair and mouth. “Mother, please don’t hurt my mom anymore . . . Don’t hurt my—"
The gods may have heard her plea, because just then, her mother’s cries stopped . . . and she would never cry again. Lilaci heard the men leave the tent as its front flaps rustled. She listened, and heard her little brother and sister enter back into the tent, and they sobbed and cried over their motionless and breathless mother.
Strong hands grabbed Lilaci and put her back up on the Iox, and then with a clap on the Iox’s rear, she felt them moving. The men that’d killed her parents were taking her with them.
“Elka, Darig!” she cried back. “I love you, please forgive me. It’s all my fault.” She heard her brother and sister’s voices back in the caravan, but they grew fainter as Lilaci drifted further away from them.
Lilaci fought at her bindings, trying to free herself and run back to her family.
“Stop it girl,” a rough voice said. “Keep fighting and I’ll head back there and cut their throats.”
That was enough to make the six-year-old Lilaci stop. Through the night, she went on with her captors, going through frantic spurts of sobbing, and times of unshakable pain, anxiety and fear. That was the night Lilaci wished she could forget, she hoped it was all only a bad dream. She prayed that her mother and father were still alive, and that she would be safely back in their arms as she cried, and they told her that ‘everything was alright, just go back to sleep, and when you awaken, we’ll all be together again.’ Unfortunately, in the Arr, things rarely worked out in favor of the weak. That night, another young girl was taken from her murdered family, ripped from their arms like a calf from the herd. Out on the sands that night, under the crescent moon that had darkened to a haunting red hue, no one but her captors would hear Lilaci’s screams for help.
Chapter Two
Ten years later.
1440 Sisen Era, The Arr, The Great Oasis Noruz, City of Voru
“Move your feet, Lilaci! Don’t’ let her strike so easily on that side. Keep your staff up.” Elan yelled from the sidelines. Lilaci was trying to deflect the other’s girl’s blows with the staff in her hand, but the girl attacked with more ferocity than she anticipated. She could tell Elan, her instructor, was getting frustrated. She always got mad when Lilaci fell on the defensive.
Lilaci had the smooth, wooden staff firmly in her grasp, but her opponent had grown quick. Lilaci had more strength than the girl, and she’d beaten her almost every time, but she’d obviously been practicing, and Lilaci was caught off guard.
“Move your feet!” Elan yelled again. “Don’t let her open you up so!”
She moved her feet and their staffs clacked and knocked swiftly. Neither could land a blow on the other, but Lilaci was getting worried. It only took one shot to the body to end the round, and as she was the Oncur of their group, or the most-winning, it would only take a one round loss to push her down in the ranks. However, she’d have to beat this girl two rounds to win.
The girl’s eyes showed more fire this fight than she’d seen before, and as the staffs swirled and thrust, Lilaci had to dig down deep to push through the girls’ speed. She dug her heels into the dirt and shot forward in a burst attack, using her power to overwhelm the girl, and in that second, the girl was caught off-guard. Lilaci used that opportunity to drive the staff hard onto the girl’s thigh. She didn’t cry out, but Lilaci was sure she wanted to.
She tried to hide her limp as she walked back to the outer part of the circle. The other girls from her barracks were standing on the outside of that circle, watching. Elan, in her dark-blue robes motioned for them to spar again. This time Lilaci wouldn’t hesitate, as now she’d found a weakness. They started again in the fight. The other girl came in with the same swiftness, knocking her staff against Lilaci’s from side to side, pushing her back. But, within seconds, Lilaci spotted a momentary opening, and thrust her staff at the same point on the girl’s thigh, and she fell hard to a knee.
Lilaci turned, walked back to her side of the circle, and bo
wed to Elan, who didn’t bow back, that wasn’t customary. The Lu-Polini, or pale-skinned, as they were known, respect authority and seniority over all else. She’d won, and her only reward was that she remained as the Oncur. It was ingrained in her mind that the most valuable thing to possess, was that— the status of being the Oncur. The other girl stood as best she could, and bowed to Lilaci, who didn’t bow back.
That night, in her barracks with many other girls her own age, she stood up from her bunk and walked over to a ceramic basin to wash her face. It was nearly twilight and candles flickered in the light breeze that flowed through the clay barracks.
She dipped her hands into the flowing cool water in the basin, and lifted it to her face. As she pulled her hands down she looked into the small mirror, like she did every night, but this night she felt different. She saw her own pale, white smooth skin and her black-haired widow’s peak drifting down towards her nose. Moving her head closer in, she looked into her own violet eyes, seeing a faint memory of herself, but it was fleeting. There was a faint memory of a frightened woman’s eyes, a woman clutching her children in tightly as she wept. The thought was so brief and distant, she shrugged it off with a sigh.
