by LeRoy Clary
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Here, There Be Dragons
1st Edition
Copyright © February 2017 LeRoy Clary
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Editor: Karen Clary
Books by LeRoy Clary
The 6th Ransom
Blade of Lies: The Mica Silverthorne Story
Here, There Be Dragons Chronicles
Here, There Be Dragons #1
The Mage’s Daughter Series
The Mage’s Daughter: Discovery
The Mage’s Daughter: Enlightenment (Coming Spring, 2017)
Dragon! Series
Dragon! Book One: Stealing the Egg
Dragon! Book Two: Gareth’s Revenge
Dragon Clan Series
Dragon Clan: In the Beginning (Introduction)
Dragon Clan #1: Camilla’s Story
Dragon Clan #2: Raymer’s Story
Dragon Clan #3: Fleet’s Story
Dragon Clan #4: Gray’s Story
Dragon Clan #5: Tanner’s Story
Dragon Clan #6: Anna’s Story
Dragon Clan #7: Shell’s Story
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TABLE OF CONTEXT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
“Talk softer, or shut the hell up,” Tyler hissed between clenched teeth. His eyes remained fixed on the three dragons sitting in their nests a hundred feet below. The nests had been constructed on the face of the granite cliff.
The nests were on a shelf of outcrop near the top of the mountain. Another lip of granite concealed Tyler and Bender, but even so, they’d placed a few shrubs torn from the thin dirt between them and the dragons, to help hide behind. That had been days earlier.
Bender shrugged slightly and ignored the advice to talk softer as he said in a hoarse whisper, “Listen, Lieutenant Fenton will promote both of us for finding these, right? We should just take the information back and be done with it.”
Tyler slowly shook his head, trying to make his friend stop talking, as he ignored the perfectly logical and reasonable suggestion to return to the King’s Army as heroes and receive promotions.
Dragons have only fair hearing abilities, so the argument could continue. But their eyesight is exceptional; good enough to spot a lamb or a goat while flying so high the dragons disappeared as they flew in and out of clouds. Neither man moved as they quietly argued.
Tyler knew the idea dragons can’t hear well is what people on the ground believe, but who could know the truth? Or what they saw? What he did know was that one wrong move or sound, and the three female dragons would be feasting on a pair of young soldiers this fine, sunny morning.
“I still want to try and grab an egg,” Tyler mouthed, barely loud enough for his ears. All three dragons were prime Blacks, larger than the more common Grays, and smaller than the Blues and Reds. Blacks were the right size for fighting and possessed the intelligence for use by the army.
Blacks in the wild had to work hard for their meals, and that had resulted in increased intelligence, at least that’s what Captain Torrie said in one of his lectures to the foot soldiers. Of course, he oversaw the Dragon Corps and was more than a little prejudiced about his prized fighting beasts. Besides, Tyler didn’t believe all Captain Torrie said because, after all, he was a Unity Army Officer and all officers lied to lowly frontline troops. Everyone knew that.
Tyler let his mind wander as he checked the empty sky for the tenth time this morning, making sure no other dragon drifted past in the clear sky and spotted them lying on the edge of the cliff. He returned his attention to the three dragons nesting below.
Bender mouthed as he made a funny face, “Today’s the day.”
“Shut up,” Tyler warned again, making almost no sound while holding back a chuckle.
His attention focused back on the dragons, and he studied their options. The problem with rating the Blacks’ intelligence was that by using the same argument Captain Torrie did, the smaller Grays should be even more intelligent than Blacks, but that was not true. Grays tended to cluster into small flocks, and what one of them did, they all did, including fighting against any larger dragons they encountered, like wolves attacking a buffalo.
Bender slowly turned to glance up again. Keeping watch on the empty sky kept him busy for a time, and Tyler relaxed.
Captain Torrie said that while size matters in one-on-one fights between dragons, two or three aggressive Grays are a challenge for any Black. He also said that half a dozen Grays willingly take on Blacks, even Blues or Reds. They often win the encounters because of their quickness and numbers, not intelligence. The information seemed conflicting.
Beside him, Bender shifted positions again, sending a few stones rattling down the rock face. Bender muttered, “Oh, shit.”
Three dragon heads turned as one and watched the top of the cliff where the men hid. The dragon on the left end stood and moved a step closer along the ledge, peering almost right at them. Neither man moved. Tyler shifted his eyes without turning his head and saw the sweat pop out on his old friend’s forehead, despite the morning chill of the air in the high mountains. His dark hair grew damp. His wide brown eyes showed terror, but he held still.
Tyler had known Bender since they were five or six, and they shared the same color eyes, brown hair, and dark skin, but while Bender’s features were sharp and hawkish, Tyler’s were softer and more rounded. Bender didn’t scare easily, but he was scared now, and with good reason. Tyler waited for the dragons to calm, knowing they had short attention spans.
Eventually, two of the dragons faced away and again wa
tched the valley spread out below, a river twisting down the center. The third dragon still peered in their direction as if it suspected they were hiding there. But, if she knew they were there, the nasty creature would attack in a fury, protecting her eggs with a flurry of anger, claws, and slashing teeth.
The dragon sitting on the nearest nest was the one that kept an eye on the place where they hid. She tilted her head up and sniffed, much like an old dog Tyler had when he was young. The nose twitched, and the eyes watched, but finally, she lost interest and turned away.
“That was too close,” Bender whispered in an emotional voice, now speaking barely loud enough to hear.
Good, Tyler thought. Maybe now Bender’s scared enough to shut up and stop risking our stupid lives.
That thought would hold more truth if they were not perched on the top of the rock face risking their lives for a chance to raid the nests for an egg—like twin idiot children trying to steal cookies from a watchful mother. Locating the nests and climbing the mountain days ago, up to where the snow seldom melted had been hard enough, the subsequent lack of camp fires to warm them on cold nights more so, and the constant dangers of being spotted by a dragon flying above made it a mission for fools.
Aside from their military orders to simply locate a dragon nest, the rewards for finding one were great, but the risks greater. While the Army didn’t reveal the small odds of success, Tyler had been keeping track during his five years of military service, all the way from private to corporal.
Dozens of men were ordered out into the wilds every year. Only one man in memory had returned with the location of a nest with a sitting dragon. Even then, the soldier had exposed himself to the dragon, and the Black had followed him back to his camp. The camp had been attacked five or six times by the furious animal, men dying with each swoop. They said the few survivors were assigned to other companies because there were too few left alive to rebuild the original one.
Tyler and Bender could have avoided the assignment to find a nest. And they should have saved their monthly pay instead of blowing it in town on wine, women, ale, hard cider, gambling, and more women. They also could have returned to their unit after their two-day pass ended instead of staying there five full days and nights that were mostly lost to memory. Being sent to locate a nest in the mountains was their punishment.
Tyler said, “No matter what, we’ll sneak out of here tonight and go back and make our report.”
“Just like we should have done before.”
Bender was right, of course. Besides the possible promotions, rumor said a foot soldier who located a nest could sometimes barter for reassignment to the Dragon Corps. Most Dragon Masters, the elite men who bonded with dragons in the Army, had managed to steal an egg after a foot soldier found a nest. They sat, ate, and slept with their egg until it hatched. The baby dragon would hatch and imprint on the new Dragon Master, forever believing him to be its mother, much like ducks and geese, and therefore it would become trainable by that single man. Tyler planned to become one of the select few Dragon Masters, with Bender at his side. At the very least, he wanted the reassignment to the rear, where they didn’t join in the battles.
To complete his plan, Bender needed to gather an egg in defiance of his orders. “Find a nest and live to report back,” had been the Lieutenant’s exact words. “Captain Torrie will send some of his best men back for the egg.”
All three Blacks had now turned their heads to look down the side of the cliff at the valley again where most of the threats would naturally originate, their eyes flicking from one place to another in wary watchfulness. A ground squirrel darted across the boulders far away, and Tyler barely caught a glimpse of it, but all three dragons had turned as one and watched the hole it dived into.
The running squirrel may have resembled a rat to them at that distance, or perhaps a fox or mink, all dangers to dragon eggs. Sitting dragons are easy targets for vermin because they are awkward and clumsy on the ground, and they leave their nest unprotected to hunt. But their eggs were feasts for small animals that were clever, fast, and daring enough to make a dash for one. The two men were not the only creatures waiting their chance at grabbing an egg.
The three dragon hens were on high alert now, and Tyler hoped that Bender understood the increased danger, so he didn’t move again, nor mention it. Neither of them spoke, and the itch on the back of Tyler’s neck went unscratched.
Bender had always done a lot of talking, ever since they’d been boys in a remote village of the empire up near the Pinnacles where Spirit Lake lay. His constant mindless chatter had become reassuring over the dozen years they’d known each other. But, one more outburst today and Tyler would order him down the mountain and back to their unit, in shame.
But for all his faults, Bender had one favorable trait that rose above all. His loyalty could never be questioned. Tyler glanced at him from the corner of his eye. The two friends and comrades looked similar but were opposite in so many other ways. Tyler stood short and thick around the chest and upper arms, while Bender’s thin frame appeared as if he missed every other meal. Their dark skins and straight brown hair were alike enough to tell others they were from the same family.
Tyler knew the man at his side would die for him. Bender had proved that in their first year of service when Tyler had been knocked defenseless to the ground by a charging warhorse, the rider swung a huge sword at his head. Bender had leaped in front of Tyler and used a broken spear to dismount him. Later, in the same battle, when two sword-wielding natives of Clarion charged Tyler, Bender had appeared at his side, his long knife slashing the air in his left hand, the broken spear shaft still in his right.
Bender had stabbed the man on his right with the stubby spear while slashing wildly with the knife in his left hand and somehow cut right across the charging warrior’s stomach. Tyler climbed to his feet and easily finished off both with his war ax, while Bender fought off another enemy soldier. He never forgot that Bender placed himself in mortal danger to protect him.
He drew his mind back to the present and watched one of the dragons stand and shake her body as she relaxed stiff muscles. She threw her head back and spread her wings at the same time. Then, with her head facing forward again; she leaped off the shelf and caught the updrafts without flapping her wings more than a few times. She soared away, with never a look behind at her unprotected eggs lying in the warm sun.
A second dragon immediately stood and followed her, leaving only one dragon behind. Tyler held his breath. Come on, fly. He silently tried to project the idea into her head.
Lieutenant Fenton had dispatched them to locate a dragon’s nest, and that thought continued to gnaw at him. But as Tyler saw things, if they returned to their unit with the information, they might receive a promotion to light-sergeant, with slightly better duties. But they’d still be on the front lines in any engagements, therefore, one of the first to die, but they’d do it with an extra stripe on their sleeves.
However, if they managed to deliver a dragon egg from a Black dragon to the army, and to Captain Torrie, they could name their assignment, which would be a reassignment to the Dragon Corps, the elite part of the army without the drudgery and mindless obedience of the common foot soldier. If they managed to get assigned to the Dragon Corps, they’d fight from the rear while sending the dragon forward into battle, and they’d probably live to be old men, something foot soldiers in the Unity Army seldom managed.
He and Bender had talked about finding an egg for years. They’d hunted for nests, seven times since joining the army, and only once they’d found an abandoned nest and watched it for over two years, hoping a dragon would return, or a new one would arrive and claim the nest. But this trip they’d found three nests! Three, all with eggs, and they intended to make the most of it.
Fly, he again silently commanded the last of the Blacks, but she remained sitting on the eggs as if she couldn’t understand the thoughts he projected her way. He groaned at the absurdity of the idea of
a dragon hearing his mental wishes, but tried harder.
A coiled rope lay at his side; one end was already tied off to a sturdy tree. A slip noose on the other end waited for Bender to put it around himself for the descent to the nest. It had been waiting there for four cold days. Four days of going hungry. Four days of anxious anticipation while the dragons sat on eggs waiting for their chicks to hatch.
Eating so near the nest might draw a dragon’s attention to the smells of food, or the chewing sounds might be heard, so they had gone without food except in the darkness of early mornings when dragons slept. During the daytime, one of the men stayed awake to nudge the other before a snore woke a dragon. By nightfall today, they would leave their hunt and climb down the mountain, eat, warm themselves, and sleep. Then they would head to the valley floor and rejoin their company and lie to their lieutenant again.
“She’s going to fly,” Bender hissed. “I can feel it.”
As if hearing him, the last of the three Blacks shifted her weight and stood on massive hind legs. She looked out over the valley and came alert, hissing, and growling, probably from hunger. She’d spotted something down there, perhaps a sheep or deer. After at least four days of hunger sitting on the eggs in her nest, and with the weak spring sun warming her eggs, food became a priority.
She turned away from the valley, her long tail wrapped around the clutch of three eggs, and she began to settle down again, but then stiffened, her head jerking around and its eyes now fixed intently on the bend of the river. She didn’t leisurely stretch out her wings, flap and leap into the air to gain altitude, as the other two had done. Instead, she leaped off the edge of the nest into the air, her wings beating furiously, and then she folded her wings against her body and dropped faster, as if attacking.
She skimmed over the treetops in a controlled fall, and when she unfolded her wings, a deer bounded from the brush at the side of the river and bolted, leaping and running from her. She landed right behind it, and with one snap of her mouth, raised the limp body of a deer into the air. She began tearing into the deer like she hadn’t eaten in weeks instead of days.
