Dragon Approved Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 13): A Middang3ard Series

by Ramy Vance

  Chapter Ten

  She was in a blank place that held neither time nor space nor gravity. It was at once flat and filled with depth. Her feet were wet, and when she looked down at the water, it was pale green, as if it were a parody of life.

  Calling. She was calling or screaming, but the intention was true. Someone had to find her. This wasn’t where she was meant to be.

  Chine was somewhere. His voice was loud but far away.

  Alex took off running. She didn’t know how or to where but she sprinted into the blank whiteness that stretched farther than her eyes could comprehend. The only sounds in this flattened non-reality were her footsteps and those of Chine, invisible somewhere in the whiteness.

  Then the color shifted. Alex could see there was a deep-red sky, with black clouds filled with lightning. Everything else was a sickly green that crept into Alex’s mind as she tried to focus on Chine’s voice in her head.

  Dustling. Dustling.

  Alex was sinking in the water. She struggled as it sucked her down. There was nothing to hold onto, nothing to breathe.

  She shot out of the water into dryness and leaned forward, retching. Something slid out of her throat. When she looked down, it appeared to be a small snake, but instead of a snake’s head, it was hers, eyes cracked and red, tongue lolling out like a tired dog’s.

  Alex slapped the obscene thing away as she stumbled to her feet, the world around her shifting and spinning. Chine’s voice was still somewhere in the madness, but now there was another—a louder voice coming from behind. She had no desire to find out what else was here and took off toward the dragon’s voice.

  There was no measure for how long she ran, but she eventually came across Chine. The dragon was resting on a rock in the middle of a lake.

  Alex swam out to him, and he picked up his head and stared at her. I wasn’t sure if you were here as well, he thought.

  Alex climbed onto the island and looked around. Above, there were thousands of moons and thousands of planets clustered together in the shape of a question mark. Where are we? she asked.

  Chine pointed to the question mark. Your guess is as good as mine. Someplace not too different than the meteor, I’m assuming.

  Do you think we are dead?

  Chine pressed his hand down into the ground he rested on, watching how it separated so he could touch the water. No, I do not think so. This is not what dragons who have passed through the veil and returned have described. This is something else. What, I do not know.

  “It is not death,” a voice rang out.

  Chine and Alex jumped to their feet. Walking on the water was the pale child wearing a deer-skull mask. As the child strode toward Alex and Chine, something rose from the water.

  The thing was tied to a tree that stretched up and far out into the infinity of the sky, its branches bare and weary. It seemed to be a person, unlike anyone Alex had ever seen before. Its skin was alabaster-white, and Alex could see veins and blood and muscles moving beneath it.

  The thing’s single eye was black, and she could not bring herself to look into its face. Its legs melded into the bark of the tree, its arms shaking as it coughed up black sludge and wailed in agony. Its torso pulled as if it were trying to escape from the tree. “Alex,” it growled.

  The child continued walking, ignoring the monstrosity leering behind it. “Alex,” the child said. “I am so glad we found you. I’ve been trying to reach you for—”

  Alex grabbed the kid, suddenly remembering everything that had happened in the meteor, everything she had tried to block out and forget. “What are you doing here? Is that him? You… We saved you! Why are you with him again?”

  The child slipped from Alex’s grip without any obvious movement. “That? That is not the Dark One, only a shade. One of millions, much like me. And we were wrong. I can never get away from him. Not completely.”

  Chine had maintained his calm, and he took Alex up in his hand as wildflowers sprouted across his scales. “Why have you brought us here?”

  The child knelt in the water, watching his reflection. “I did not bring you here. This was a lucky coincidence. You both were near the veil and got caught up. It’s the only time I’ve been able to speak to you without Vardis listening in.”

  Alex leaned over Chine’s claw. “Vardis? Why are you trying to avoid him?”

  The thing hanging from the tree moaned loudly, its body convulsing as it shouted, “Liar! Liar!”

  The child looked at the thing on the tree for a moment before turning back to Alex. “He is not to be trusted. You and I have the same aim—to rid ourselves of the Dark One. Vardis’ aim is less clear, but his means are false. The weapon he promised is not meant to destroy the Dark One. It is meant to destroy all of existence.”

  At these words, the thing nailed to the tree with roots that stretched through the stale water began to speak in a language Alex had never heard before. It tried to hold itself upright but failed and its head collapsed into its chest, the tree sucking itself in as well.

  Alex climbed out of Chine’s hand. “How can I trust you? Aren’t you just a piece of the Dark One? A piece that apparently can’t get away?”

  The child stood up, its fingers still dripping from the lake. “The only way I will know release is through the Dark One’s death. All I can do is warn you. What you do with that warning is up to you.”

  The child melted into water, leaving only the deer-skull mask.

  Alex climbed back into Chine’s hand and curled into a ball. “I hate this so much.”

  Chine opened his wings, flapped them twice, and rose.

  As Chine flew into the brightness in the sky, Alex saw a green flash, and everything disappeared.

  Alex woke up, gasping for air. All of Boundless surrounded her, Chine’s wings over them all. Jim grabbed Alex and held her tightly. “Oh, my God, we didn’t think you were going to make it!”

  He helped Alex to her feet while Chine pulled his wings back to give Alex space to move. “What happened?”

  The dragonriders looked at each other. “We don’t know,” Gill said. “We saw the flame vortex. In space. That shouldn’t be possible. It must have been magic, or something else. But whatever it was, once the flames died, we came through. Both you and Chine were covered in black fire. Chine’s breathing apparatus was broken, and we assumed yours was too. You were both unconscious. Then his came back online, and you woke up.”

  Gill handed Alex her dragon anchor, and she slipped it back on. An alert said she was at a dangerous level of draconic fluid. “I-I think I used the draconic fluid without the anchor. Straight from Chine.”

  “Maybe that was enough to jump-start the whole system. But who cares how it worked? You’re alive.”

  As the dragonriders crowded around Alex, she saw Vardis walking toward them. He held a red rod in his hand, not very different from the black rods that had been used to disable the dragonrider’s anchors earlier. “So, you got your weapon?”

  Vardis held it up for everyone to see. “Yes. We do.”

  Alex reached out. “Give it to me so we can get going.”

  Vardis halted, looking from the stone to Alex. “What do you mean?”

  “Boundless was tasked with getting this. You were supposed to lead us to it. We’re the ones transporting it for safekeeping, so it should be with me, right?”

  Vardis handed the rod to Alex. “That seems right.”

  Alex took the weapon and her anchor absorbed it. She looked around the moon’s surface. “Let’s go. I’ve had enough of the moon for a lifetime.”

  No one from Boundless disagreed, but Alex could see Vardis was still watching her as if he expected her to give the rod back. She didn’t, instead leaping onto Chine and rising into the sky.

  Boundless swooped around the moon and headed for Earth. Alex wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but she knew Myrddin needed the rod as soon as possible. He also had to hear what had happened.

  Jim’s voice came over the comm. “Ok
ay, guys, we have a real big problem. Incoming bogies—”

  Before he could finish speaking, a portal opened a few thousand miles from Boundless. Vrosks and harpies flew out, followed by a black cloud that distorted space around it.

  A deep voice screeched through Alex’s mind. Judging by the scream of her teammates over the comm, they all heard it as well.

  “Alex Bound, you heard what my master said. Will you help me destroy the weapon, or will I have to kill you to keep it from destroying all of reality?”

  There was silence as creatures poured out of the open portal.

  Alex stared at the sheer number of creatures coming through the portal, at the mass of tendrils and tentacles stretching out. Something like a ship that seemed to be more flesh than machine was making its way through.

  The portal grew, stretching to accommodate the living ship, a cylinder covered in all things that creep and crawl through the worst dreams humans could create. It was from a place beyond madness, and the voice was coming from it.

  Alex stared into the blackness of space, quickly filling with dark creatures, and watched the tendrils of the Dark One extending toward her.

  “I have come for you, Alex,” he said.

  Alex could barely hear his voice over Boundless’ screams. The movies were wrong. You could hear screams in space.

  Author Notes Ramy Vance

  May 2, 2020

  It finally happened. Dragons in space!

  And that’s how this whole thing started to begin with. Michael had asked me what I wanted to write about and the first thought that came to mind was: Dragons in space.

  Damn… I just love saying that: Dragons in space. It doesn’t get old. And seeing the wide image of this just blows me away. Jake Caleb – the cover designer for ALL the Middang3ard books – really broke the mold with this one.

  As soon as lockdown is over (we’re in the throes of Covid-19 for those of you reading this down the line), I’m going to print shop and turning this into a poster for my wall!

  Which brings me to my next point – would you also like a high-rez image to make your own poster? Well here you go, loyal fans!

  CLICK HERE to get the image

  You don’t have to do this, but we’d really appreciate if you helped us get the word out about the series. Post the image on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – you’re local community board. Add #DragonsinSpace on the post and a link to Book 1 in the series. You’d be doing us – and Team Boundless – a solid!

  Thank you!

  And thank you, Michael Anderle! We did it. 10 months and 9 novellas later, we did it!

  Dragons in friggin’ space!

  Author Notes Michael Anderle

  May 3, 2020

  THANK YOU for reading our story!

  We have a few of these planned, but we don’t know if we should continue writing and publishing without your input.

  Options include leaving a review, reaching out on Facebook to let us know, and smoke signals.

  Frankly, smoke signals might get misconstrued as low hanging clouds, so you might want to nix that idea…

  And that’s how this whole thing started.

  Ramy’s author notes: “Michael had asked me what I wanted to write about, and the first thought that came to mind was: dragons in space.”

  Now, dragons in space are cool. Dragons are cool. You could put dragons in the frozen tundra, and I’m going to think “cool.”

  But, Dragons in ‘xxx’ is like peanut butter and chocolate. Unfortunately, Ramy tried his next idea on me, which was “Samurai vs. Vampires.” I had to say no. He continued to pepper me with efforts to persuade me. I said no again.

  I might have said, “Hell, no.”

  Instead of trying to push the effort, I think he implemented a guerrilla warfare tactic and started peppering my virtual office with sexy gnome concepts. He even put my video images to Amazon sexy gnome products.

  I finally figured out his deviant plan. He is trying to get me to be so disgusted with his next few ideas that samurai and vampires seem plausible in comparison.

  Sorry, Ramy, the answer (for anything gnome) and the Samurai / Vampire options are a hard…

  No.

  Keep trying, Mr. Vance.

  Ad Aeternitatem,

  Michael Anderle

  The Beginning of the End

  Dragon Approved™ Book Eleven

  Chapter One

  Alex stared in horror at the yawning portal resting above the Earth, from which emerged an ensemble of horrors. Vrosks with their mangy feathers, bizarre technological experiments hanging from the creature’s beaks. A ship that stretched back into the portal, a horrid thing that looked to be made of flesh, covered in windows that might have been its eyes. Tendrils adorned its bow as if it were some perverse squid shot out into the dark, uncaring black of space.

  The dragonriders had stopped in their tracks. They couldn’t move forward, not after having seen the abominations crossing into their plane of existence. All they could do was stare in growing terror, a terror that was radiating from that ship as if it had been weaponized. “What the hell is that thing?” Brath shouted.

  Alex would have answered, but she felt like her head was splitting open. A familiar voice had wormed its way into her head—the Dark One. He had spoken to her once before, aboard the meteor. Now he was speaking again. A few moments earlier, he had told her that Vardis was not to be trusted. Since then, Alex’s head had been full of white noise, a meandering sort of thought. “It’s the Dark One,” she finally managed.

  Gill, who was flying beside Alex and Chine, whirled around to meet Alex’s eyes. She could see fear in them. “Wait, are you saying the Dark One?” he asked. “Aboard the ship?”

  Alex nodded, certain for reasons she couldn’t put into words that the Dark One was aboard that ship. Not one of the different incarnations like the pale white child; the real deal was on that ship, and he’d come for Alex.

  “Alex, what’s the plan?”

  She couldn’t tell who had asked. Everyone seemed far away at the moment. Her head was pounding, and she was having a hard time putting her thoughts together. If she had any thoughts. She wasn’t certain what she was doing so far above the Earth.

  The dragonriders sat there dumbly as the Dark One’s forces continued to pour out of the portal like a foul oil spill across the ocean.

  Brath’s voice rang out over the comm. “We need to move now!” he shouted. “Everyone on me! Someone wrangle Alex!”

  Gill and Jim spun around Alex so that they could force her backward, away from the portal opening.

  Whatever was affecting Alex was affecting Chine as well. The dragon’s joints were locked as if he had been scared motionless. If the two hadn’t been breathing, it would have been easy to assume they were dead.

  Jim, Gill, Jollies, and Vardis followed Brath as he retreated toward the far side of the moon, but he didn’t stop there. He headed toward an asteroid field beyond it. He set down on one of the asteroids, and the dragonriders descended beside him.

  Brath leaped off Furi and came over to Alex, who was muttering to herself, holding her head in her hands. “Hey! Alex?” he shouted.

  Alex looked up, hardly able to keep her eyes on him. They kept moving back and forth as if she were looking for something. She could see Brath, but something about him being in front of her didn’t make any sense.

  The white noise was still drumming in the back of her head. Suddenly, it surged to a crescendo, hitting a fever pitch as a voice screamed, “Alex!”

  Alex twitched violently as if she had been shocked and jerked upward. Her body relaxed as she stared into space, trying to make sense of the vague waves of information pouring through her head from the Dark One’s ship.

  Jollies flew to Alex and tugged on her cheek, to no avail. “Is she going to be okay?” the pixie asked the assembled crew.

  Brath looked over his shoulder to see if the Dark One’s forces had followed them. “I have no idea, but we can’t wait
for her to stop freaking out to figure out what to do. Otherwise, we’re all going to end up dead.”

  Gill, who had knelt beside Alex, asked Brath, “What do you think we should do?”

  “We can’t risk a head-on fight. We’re way outnumbered. If we charge them, we’re just going to end up dead.”

  “Astute observation. We could hide.”

  The asteroids would make a reasonable hiding place. The field looked to be too densely populated for the Dark One’s flagship to follow them in. The vrosks would have the ability to weave in and out of the asteroids, but so would the dragonriders. That would at least put them all on the same playing field.

  Figuring out what to do was the most important thing. Luckily, Alex had never been much of the planner until recently. Everyone in Boundless was used to making decisions. “If we hide here, we could be easily overrun,” Jollies squeaked. “We can’t just stay still.”

  Gill paced as he tried to think of something. “We could all take different positions,” he suggested, pointing to three different spots that formed a triangle. “We could attack from above and below, cutting out some of the vrosks. We still won’t have to deal with the ship. Once we get the numbers down, we can funnel them to a kill spot.”

  Jim had exited his mech and now was walking up the asteroid, checking for different vantage points. “That’s not a bad idea. We could have the heavy hitters down here, pounding them with artillery, and two lighter Riders up at the top.”

  Boundless was in survival mode. There was no way they were going to be able to outrun the forces they had seen coming through the portal, and there could be more.