The Legend- Revealed
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© Cheryl Rush Cowperthwait 2018
Graphic Designer: Lily Dormishev
Print ISBN 978-1-73148-9-456
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
Forward
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
About the Author
A Note from the Author
Forward
My dear readers, in the note below is the experience I wish for each of you as your read this series.
After my friend received my first book and a companion Dragon Tear necklace I created, she sent me this note … I would like to share it here since it touched me so deeply.
A note from a friend~
“It’s beautiful and full of … I’m not sure if it’s the memory of the feel of scales, a breath of warmth on the skin, or the heart speeding up from the free fall of flight.… But then, you know that, don’t you?”
Becky Scott Nickolson
Dedication
Since I was in such a mad dash of excitement to get the first book published, I realized too late that I had forgotten the dedication, so, this will be longer than usual.
First, I would like to dedicate Book One of The Legend of the Dragon Child to my mother. She taught me you could be and achieve anything you desire, if you applied your whole heart and effort into it.
To my ‘publisher,’ not the one who actually printed the book, but for the one who wanted more than anything else, to see my book come to life. Eternally grateful to you, my dear husband!
And now, two other very special people. Susanne Nelson and Tom Cleary. When I started writing, there wasn’t a Book One. What I had was only a blurb and the picture which I created for fun to share on Facebook. They both enjoyed it very much and encouraged me to write more of the story. Because of their interest and continual comments, The Legend of the Dragon Child had begun and now is published!
And I also need to thank Mia Botha who opened her heart and group to the writers of the 12 Short Stories in 12 Months challenge. It was the constant writing challenge that ingrained into me to write daily. This was the first ‘audience’ I had to submit my writing to other writers. They have all helped me, challenged me and became friends. If it had not been for this group, I doubt I would have had the courage to pursue my lifelong dream of writing and publishing.
For Book Two, The Legend: Revealed of The Legend of the Dragon Child series, I dedicate it to my loving family. They have all pitched in with their love and support throughout this journey.
A special thank you to my editor of The Legend: Revealed, Johnathan Rush, who not only cleared away my typos and continuity issues, but offered outstanding advice.
Thank you Norman, Johnathan, Jenni, Sandy, Tony, Justice, Ezekiel and Kelly for your constant support and great ideas.
And to you, my brothers and sister, for reading and enjoying what your annoying little sister wrote.
For cousins and nephews and nieces, who must have always known there was a good reason for my craziness!
Oh, and for all you wonderful people in West Virginia, a HUGE thank you! You have, by far, bought more of my printed books than any other state.
Come on the rest of you states, catch up!
With love and deep appreciation,
Cheryl Rush Cowperthwait ~
Prologue
Wyrtregon, in a burst of frustration, bellowed roars of thunder. Flames licked at the secreted rock door to his hidden chamber. Three moss-green heads whipped around, looking for something to hurl.
“Why do these Dragons get into so much turmoil?” he ranted to the empty room as he stomped towards the table. “Writing their Histories used to be so simple, but now after the Dragon Hails fled Verlaunde and came to Urthe? Impossible.” Six red eyes blazed at the massive book open on the table before him.
The Historian paced the room in thought. Too many events to recount, too many Dragons to trace their steps. His hand raised to rub the ridges of his central head. He lumbered over to the slab of rock which had been his table for too many thousands of years to count. It had been worn smooth and had indentions where his arms frequently rested. A loud groan circled the room as he sat, glaring down at the pages filled with the archaic symbols of Dragon language.
His thick black talon thumbed the pages backwards seeing scattered details of the Histories of the Dragons zoomed past three sets of weary eyes. He stopped on a page.
“Here is where the great changes started. Before this time, I only needed to record Dragon History.” Plumes of smoke rose from his snouts. “The birth of the Dragon Child….”
He read on to what he had recorded.
Kiayla, the blonde-haired human woman, known as ‘a peoples’ had stumbled into the caves of the Mursei Dragons during the great quakes of Urthe. She was heavy with child and in troubled labor. Rynik, a magnificent blue and gold Mursei Dragon and a favorite of the Queen of Mursei, spotted the woman as a swarm of his Hail flew out of the cave towards the battles in the sky.
He landed as the woman passed out. The Queen came upon them and saw that the woman could not finish the birthing of her child. “Rynik quick, bring her to me! She is fading away; we need to save the child.”
After laying her against the Queen’s leathery tail, it had become clear the woman could not finish her task at hand. The Queen had instructed Rynik to pull the child free. The squirming infant screamed to life when Rynik’s talons ripped her left shoulder during his extraction, marking her with four deep gashes. The Queen held the child close, her long forked tongue sealed the child’s wounds and her fate. The Legend of the Dragon Child had been born. Rynik removed an item the mother had clutched in her hand: a strange white orb. He gave it to the Queen for safekeeping.
Wyrtregon tapped gently on the next entry and mumbled, “Here, the Queen touched the sacred place between Rynik’s eyes. She had chosen him for her king only a Dragon’s breath before taking the vast majority of her Mursei Hail to Verlaunde. Her mission was to block the portal from Verlaunde, to stop the onslaught of warring Dragons. Her Chosen, Rynik, stayed behind to protect their new home.”
More pages flipped as he stared at the horrendous battles recorded on Urthe from the Dragons that slipped through the portals. Next, he read of the Queen’s return to Verlaunde to seal all the portals she could find and return home to Urthe with more allies.
The Historian’s face registered a smile when he read over the naming of the child. She had been named, Kaida, meaning ‘little Dragon.’ The hatchling years, he reflected. Kaida had been placed in the nursery with the other Mursei Dragon hatchlings and was raised with them. Kaida’s favorite was Zlemtec, with his enticing eyes of blue, purple and flashing white. He never failed to hold Kaida’s attention, and much later on, her heart.
A slow shake of his head filled his mind with remembrances. She never ceased to amaze her Dragon family. She learned their language as easily as any other hatchling, having never known the ‘peoples’ language. It was soon to become known she had an ability few others possessed, she could hear and call Urthe’s creatures, even Calling up fish from the waters for their food—so much I had to record of her early years! She possessed inherent Magic and added to it the Magic the Dragons taught her to pave her way to her special destiny. All too soon, she was lost from Zlemtec in a battle against warring Dragons and was left hidden in a forest close to where the peoples lived … then her years of living and learning the peoples ways and language, began! His chest released a tender sigh as he turned the pages.
His full palm suddenly slammed against an opened page, throwing a light dusting into the air. His eyes squinted, sparking red daggers as he read the entries. So many entries for the warrior Galdean … and now even more than should have been. This lifelong friend to Rynik had already logged in numerous battles before that fateful day when the scale was tipped against the Dragons.
Wyrtregon’s roar filled his chamber, shaking loose embedded rocks from the cave’s ceiling. Smoke blew out from his mighty snouts. He reviewed the details that had thrust even him into chaos created by Dargenoin the Immortal; the ever present Great Deceiver. He mused angrily, Where there is one force, where is always the other. It was the Nature of all things. All things were bound by the Laws of Balance … but Dargenoin? He brought on the ultimate deception.
It had all begun during the great battle on Urthe when the warring Dragons from Verlaunde used the portals and filled the Urthe’s violet skies with terror. The Queen of the Mursei and her allies rallied against them, driving them back towards a portal. They cut a path through their enemies in a fiery bloodbath, and positioned Rynik and Galdean close to the portal. During the battle, Galdean dodged close enough to the portal to toss the special box Zelspar had created to blow the portal up, forever sealing it shut from intruders. Unfortunately, the backlash of the explosion caught Galdean and crushed his chest, where he fell to his death on top of the many slayed Dragons below.
Zelspar, the Elder White Dragon from the Qyrdrom Hail, known as the Healer and Teacher, was far away. He had heard a warrior’s Call from his spirit and made haste to answer the Call, not knowing it would lead him to his friend, Galdean. The Call grew fainter. Zelspar knew time was of the essence to save his life. He arrived and saw the crushed body and thought he was too late, but still the spirit called.
He worked furiously to save Galdean, calling upon his Ancestors to bring him the strength and power to reunite the spirit to the body. Finally, the Life Spark took hold. It would be much later when Zelspar discovered the trickery used against him and indeed, against all Dragons, had started at that moment.
Wyrtregon’s talon made wide sweeping circles around Zelspar’s name and pulled up his history. He traced the symbols with reverence for there are many, many Dragons but none to compare to Zelspar. The turmoil Dargenoin created hit us all, he remembered in utter disgust. No one would have ever thought Dargenoin could have used Zelspar in creating a Chaos so devastating it could kill every last Dragon on Urthe … however, Wyrtregon chuckled with a smirk carved into his face, Dargenoin gravely underestimated Zelspar’s cunning and deep knowledge of Magic and potions…. All he needed was a little outside help. Smoke flared from his many snouts, That is what brought the Immortals into play … myself, Pravietis and even one of the Weavers of the Strings. Had it not been for Pravietis, the Future Walker’s help, all would have been lost, he thought as he tapped lightly against the page.
Pravietis, the Immortal Sea Dragon, was known as the Future Walker. When any event touched a Dragon’s life, it could start a ripple in the waters that would alter the future of that Dragon, but never before had an event touched a Dragon where it stood to change the future of ALL Dragons, and that future was of total annihilation. It took the combined help of Zelspar, Pravietis, myself and a Weaver of the Strings to sort out all of that Chaos, Wyrtregon rubbed his long muzzle in thought. Oh! how frightened that Weaver, Spedgjek was when he found out he too, played a part in the great Deception, then to learn only he had the ability to help remedy the error through Pravietis’ plan and one thin strand of my hair…. Laughter boiled up from his belly and exploded across the room as the thought came to mind, Never underestimate the collective minds of the Immortals and the powers of the White Dragon known as Zelspar.
Wyrtregon rose from his seat and paced in a slow circle. Urthe was changing. He felt it in his bones long before the assault of the fireballs started spraying down from the sky, long before the Urthe started its furious shaking upheaval. He pinched the small soft scales next to the flare of his nostrils. After all that the Dragons have gone through, their testing has only begun. And Kaida … the Dragon Child, would have to survive it all to bring the prophecy to fruition.
He returned to his long table and sat. History was being made every second. He flipped to an empty page, his hand poised to strike down the current moments into the book.
Chapter 1
Low grumbling rose from the belly of Urthe. Molakei, the old warrior and Elder of the peoples ventured out from the inner hidden chamber filled with dangling crystals. He looked at his daughter, Flower Bird and then to Kaida, the young child who was found alone in the forest, curled around a Dragon scale of Blue and Gold. His warrior’s heart pounded heavily against his bones. He had to ensure their safety.
“Stay here. I will make sure it is safe to return to the upper chamber. It sounds like the fireballs from the sky has stopped. Wait for my return.”
The smell of smoke and ash burned his nostrils as he cautiously made his way up through the winding tunnel. Peering into their cave, he saw it had been hit with a firm shaking. Scattered across the floor were the contents of their broken storage pottery and baskets thrown down from their niches. He gingerly picked a path through the strewn shards and stepped outside.
He held his tunic up over his nose to filter out the smell of the smoke. The sight in front of him caused his hand to drop and his jaw followed suit. Giant splinters fanned out in odd directions. The downed trees that once towered close to their mountain now lay prostrate against the broken back of the ones in front of them. Out-dwellings were still smoldering, their blackened corpses dotting the edge of the stream. Tears trickled silently down his face. So much destruction! Ash continued to drift down, making it hard to breathe. His ears filled with the death cries from the beasts of the ground that echoed across their valley.
Being an old warrior, Molakei had experienced Urthe’s groanings before but never with the assault from the sky too. He felt like a stranger in an unknown land. All the beauty he had known and loved was now enveloped in a shroud of dust. Two wolves appeared from behind the broken sentinels of the mountains, their mouths carrying rabbits.
These were no ordinary wolves. They had come to Kaida as pups and Kaida had a gift of being able to talk and understand them as well as many other creatures. The wolves had become her Protectors.
Molakei spoke to them and pointed to the cave. “Go find Kaida. She will take your gifts. We thank you,” he said as the wolves trotted towards the cave. It was in that moment the truth sunk in. Their food and medicine supply would be gone, or at the very least, greatly diminished. He must go get Flower Bird and Kaida. They needed to check on the others and start gathering food before it was too late.
Kaida ran to meet the wolves at the inner cave’s threshold. “Look Flower Bird, they have brou
ght us food.” She took the rabbits they had dropped at her feet. “When we eat them, we will give you each a share.”
Sigrunn, the white wolf, answered her, “We have fed. We will find more food to bring. The screams of the dying are numerous.” She nodded to Tyrianua, her male counterpart and said, “Let us bring back all we can carry.”
Kaida’s jaw dropped in a shocked silence. Her mind grasped their words, numerous are dying?
Molakei reached the inner chamber as the wolves trotted away. “It grieves my spirit to tell you both, the outside of our dwelling is a strange land. Come, we must act quickly to ensure the safety of our peoples. The air is full of ash and dust, take a cloth to cover your nose and mouth,” he motioned towards the tunnel.
They plotted a path through the upheaval in their cave and stepped outside. All the glorious colors had dulled into a shadowland of grays and black. Kaida’s lips trembled. Molakei placed his hand gently on her shoulder. The three of them stood alone, absorbing the shock of their newly exposed world.
Soon, others ventured out, crying and pointing in great distress. Heads darted over to look at the three and pointed towards Kaida. It wasn’t long before they heard the peoples blame the Dragons for this disaster. Molakei grabbed tight to Kaida’s shoulder before she could run towards them.
“They are blaming the Dragons for all of this Molakei, it isn’t right. I know Zlemtec and I know those he lives with would never bring us harm,” Kaida said fighting back angry tears.
“I know Kaida. Fear does terrible things to the head. The peoples are afraid. They look around and see all they have lost. They try to make sense of it by putting blame on someone. How could they release their anger to the flaming rocks? How could they expect revenge against the very ground that shook?” Molakei shook his head sadly. “I will go talk to them and see if I can help them understand. I believe it would be better for you and Flower Bird to go inside and start cleaning up. If any more big shakes come or flaming rocks, go to the inner chamber at once.”