“That is the Dour that makes you feel that way,” the elf grinned. He pa ed the stag on the shoulder and leaned toward its ear. “You were right my friend. This was the one.”
“What’s Dour?” March asked. Whatever it was, it felt fantas c in his veins, as if he were full of lightning.
“It will fade. That dragon’s tear is old, the amber Dour has been leaking from it for a century or more. See how clear it is? The dragon that let it fall died long, long ago.” The elf lightly heeled the stag into a turn and looked to be about to trot away.
“Wait,” March pleaded. “What about Bren? What about my family?”
The elf gave a nervous chuckle. “Your dragon is coming, and you were going to leave anyway. Just go.” The stag shivered and looked to be growing nervous. “I’ll not want to be bumbling around when your wyrm gets here. A er you’ve gone, I’ll return and keep the scavengers from badgering your friend. I’ll make sure he gets where he needs to be.”
As the stag bounded away, March heard the elf chuckling.
March looked at Bren and dropped his head. He hoped he hadn’t been a fool. He hoped—
Suddenly, the trees swayed violently. A near silent blast of air wa ed across the camp. Before a thought could form, another gust came, this one kicking up leaves and sending a dusty whirl of debris into the thicket. Then the dragon was there, directly behind March, looming it’s long neck up over the camp as it pulled in its leathery wings. The connec on happened instantaneously. They bonded, and a single shared consciousness was born.
The dragon’s name was Balazerahdadicol and he was the rarest form of pure blooded High Dracus that existed. Since March’s human tongue couldn’t pronounce the name correctly the dragon spoke a single word into his mind. “Blaze.” Blaze was a pure blooded fire drake. March somehow knew this, and other things that he never imagined one could know. It was overwhelming.
March turned to take his bond-mate in with his eyes. He found that save for its neck and head, the dragon was nearly invisible in the pre dawn shadows. What he could see was nothing more than a sinuous crimson silhoue e in the lightening sky. The dragon was not huge, nor was he small. Substan al was the word that March decided upon, probably twenty-five paces from p to tail. Through the bond they shared, a wealth of knowledge was opening up and star ng to flood into March’s eager mind. Had it not been, his ins nct to flee would have already taken hold.
A pulse of magical energy rippled through the fabric of the world and March knew in his heart of hearts that Blaze had just filled Bren’s body with powerful healing Dour. Bren would wake soon and the elf would watch over him un l he could make it down into the valley. March, however, knew that he had to go. The land he and Blaze were going to was
far far away. It would take them a full season to fly there, most of the journey over the sea.
Blaze leaned down and created a step with his fore claw. March hurried to his bedroll, grabbed the pack, his bow, and a quiver of arrows. Then, a er saying a silent goodbye to his friend, he climbed onto the wyrm. He le the sword and the gold for his friend. He wished he could stay and explain what he was doing, where he was going, but he wasn’t even sure about those things himself.
Blaze took an awkward lurching step. Then a few neck yanking, exhilara ng wing strokes later, they were above the forest and flying.
The first of the dragoneers had bonded and the wheels of des ny had been set into mo on. The saga of the dragoneers had begun.
Thus ends the prequel novella:
The First Dragoneer by M.R. Mathias
Enjoy the following free preview of “The Royal Dragoneers” It is available in ebook and paperback formats. To find out how to get your copy or to see the map of the land where March and Blaze are headed, then please visit: h p://www.mrmathias.com/Dragoneers.html
The Royal Dragoneers By M. R. Mathias Copyright 2010
Part I
The Fron er
Chapter One
Jenka De Swasso peeked through the thick leathery undergrowth he was hiding in. The forested hills were lush and alive with late spring growth. The birds and other small creatures were busy making their symphony of life. It was a welcome cacophony, for Jenka was on the hunt, and it masked the noisy sound of his breathing.
Jenka was trying to see which way his prey was going to move. The ancient stag, once a beau ful and majes c creature, was now past its prime. One of its long, mul -forked antlers was broken into a sharp nub near the base. The other antler was heavy and looked to be weighing the weary creature’s head over to one side. All around its grayish-brown furred neck were scars from the numerous ba les it had fought over the years defending its harem from the younger bucks. A fresh gash, a dark trail of blood-ma ed fur leaking away from it, decorated the stag’s shoulder area.
Since there were no does moving about, Jenka figured this old king of the forest had lost his most recent ba le, and his harem as well.
Jenka was sixteen years old, and he moved through the shadowy glades - between the towering pine trees and the ancient tangle limbed oaks - with the speed and dexterity of well-fit youth. He was dressed in rough spun and leather, brown and green, and when he stopped s ll he blended into the forest like a bark-skinned lizard on a tree trunk. His face was well-sooted and the shoulder-length mop of dirty-blond hair on his head looked more like a tumbleweed than anything else.
Like any good hunter who aspired to be a King’s Ranger, he was determined to get close to his prey, to get a good angle, and to make sure that his arrow went deep into the stag’s vitals. A creature as undoubtedly experienced in surviving as this one could probably travel for a day or more with any lesser wound. Jenka knew that if he didn’t make the right shot the creature would bolt away and not slow down. If that happened it would end up ge ng dragged down by trolls or wolves long before he could catch up to it.
Jenka shivered with a mixture of excitement and sadness. If he could kill the animal, then he and his mother could eat good meat for the rest of the spring. He could also get a handful of well-needed coins for a shoulder haunch from the cooks at Kingsmen’s Keep. It was a be er death for the noble creature than to be stalked and shredded by hungry predators anyway, at least that was what Jenka told himself as he drew back on his bow to take aim.
The stag stopped in a small canopied glade carpeted in lush, green turf. The area was well illuminated; several slan ng rays of dust-filled sunlight had managed to penetrate the leaves and branches overhead. The stag wearily bent its head down, pulled a mouthful of grass from the ground, and chewed. A pair of ny, lemon-yellow bu erflies flu ered away from the intrusion, their wings flashing like sparks as they fli ed through one of the golden sha s of light.
Jenka had the stag perfectly sighted in. He was about to loose one of his hard-earned, steel- pped arrows when the old animal looked up at him. Their eyes met, and for a flee ng moment Jenka could feel the raw indignity the creature felt over having lost its herd to a younger male. The
stag beckoned him, as if it wanted to meet its end, right there, right then.
Jenka took a deep breath, resolved himself, and obliged the animal.
The arrow flew swi and true and struck the stag right behind its foreleg. Jenka squinted as the animal went bounding away. He saw that only the arrow’s fletching was protruding from the stag’s hide. It was a kill shot, and he knew it. The arrow itself would grind and shi inside the stag’s guts as it fled through the forest, bringing death that much swi er.
The hunter’s rush came surging into Jenka’s blood then, and a er marking the first crimson splashes of spilled life and the general direc on that the stag had fled, he had to sit down and work to get his shaky breathing back under control.
Hopefully the animal would fall close; he would have to call for help as it was. It would take four grown men to haul the meat back to Crag a er it had been quartered. Not for the first me today, Jenka wished his friend Grondy were there to help him. Normally Jenka and Grondy hunted as a team, but Grondy had recently been bi en by a rat while working in his Pap’s barn. His hand was swollen to the size of a gourd melon. Jenka would have to track this kill himself, then run back to Crag and round up some help before the sun set and the scavengers came out to feed.
The first step was finding where the stag went down. Jenka took a few deep breaths and tried to drown his excitement in the reality that there was s ll a lot of work le to do this day.
Groaning, he got back to his feet and set out to follow the blood trail.
It wasn’t hard to see; the splashes were large and frothy. Even the nier drops were a bright scarlet that stood out starkly against the forest’s myriad shades of brown and green. That the stag had been able to keep
moving a er losing so much blood amazed Jenka. It amazed him even more that the stag had fled upward into the deeper foothills instead of down towards the thicker growth around the valley stream. If the stag went too far into the hills, Jenka might have to give it up. Li le gray goblins and bands of feral, rock-hurling trolls had been ranging down from the higher reaches of the Orich Mountains as of late, and Jenka wanted no part of that. An ogre had been seen just three days ago by a well-respected woodsman from Kingsmen’s Keep. There were also wolves and big tree-cats that hunted the area, but they were growing scarce as the troll sigh ngs increased.
Jenka was an aspiring King’s Ranger and knew he was already far enough up into the hills to warrant paying a li le more a en on. Heaving from exer on, he was none too pleased when he finally found the stag’s broken body. It was lying at the bo om of a shallow, but steep, ravine; the creature had apparently staggered right over the edge and fallen into a heap at the bo om of the rain-washed gully.
