“I am not dead yet,” Ashan’agar rumbled. “And I am free. I have tasted the sky once more.”
“If I had my sword, I would kill you now,” I said, fury shaking my hands.
“For him?” the dragon needled.
“I would kill you for my own account.”
The dragon’s jaws snapped together and his head twisted toward me. Bones cracked as he moved. “Step closer; I will reunite you with your lover.”
“He’s not my…” My voice trailed off. “…lover,” I finished, inflection flat.
“He’s over here,” Vaste said from behind me.
I abandoned my conversation with the dragon and ran toward the troll, who stood above Cyrus’s shattered body.
“No no no no no.” I hit my knees by his side, grasping at him. I tore the helmet from his head and flung it aside, lifting his face to mine. I pressed my forehead to his, clutching him tightly, praying that the breath of life would be on his lips. He hung limp in my arms, tears falling from my eyes and splattering on the fallen warrior’s face.
“Would you like to compose yourself first or should I revive him now?” Vaste asked with a slight smile crooking his green face. I must confess, in my anguish I had quite forgotten about the resurrection spell. Seeing him lying there, I had only the thought that he might never speak again, that I might never argue with him… or tell him… I can’t even say it. I can’t even write it.
I sniffed and ran my hand across my eyes, dislodging the tears resting there. “Yes,” I said. “Please, do revive him.” I stood and dusted the ash and dirt from my greaves as the magical effect touched him and his pale skin flushed with the breath of life.
Cyrus blinked. He had known Vara for a long time, and to read her innermost thoughts was almost disconcerting. It did not fit well with his memories of the events in question; he had always ascribed her motives to hating him somewhere deep inside. To find it might not be true… He stroked the paper and closed the book, listening to the quiet shuffle of the pages brushing against each other. He set it aside and stood up, walking to the window.
Recalling the certainty he’d felt in that first year in Sanctuary, that strength of purpose, gave him pause. The feeling of confidence reached across the years and touched him where he stood, in the wreckage of this place he had called home, although it no longer had the power it once did. A tear ran down the warrior’s cheek at the memory of all that had been lost in the interceding years.
Out on the plains, the wind continued to whip under the gray skies and that same feeling came once more, the uncertain mixture of fear and regret, and the warrior in black looked across the horizon in hopes that soon — very soon — that feeling would be gone.
Cyrus Davidon returns in
AVENGER
THE SANCTUARY SERIES: VOLUME TWO
When a series of attacks on convoys draws suspicion that Sanctuary is involved, Cyrus Davidon must put aside his personal struggles and try to find the raiders. As the attacks worsen, Cyrus and his comrades find themselves abandoned by their allies, surrounded by enemies, facing the end of Sanctuary and a war that will consume their world.
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A Note to the Reader
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Thanks again for your time.
Robert J. Crane
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is a herculean effort, and requires much help. Here are the culprits involved:
Thanks to Diane Talluto and Rebecca Burns, two teachers who encouraged my writing efforts long before any others.
The cover art to this, the second edition, was created by the very talented Karri Klawiter, whose work can be found at artbykarri.com.
Thanks also to Nicholas J. Ambrose, author, editor, formatter and all-around publishing master. This novel would be much the poorer work if not for his efforts on my behalf.
Much thanks to Shannon Campbell, Heather Rodefer, Kari Phillips, Scott Garza and Debra Wesley for all their contributions to this book. The four ladies mentioned, especially, took enormous amounts of time to read through the book multiple times on several revisions and render their opinions and assist me in fixing my (numerous) errors.
Thanks to the GC Alumni, who inspired me to finally work on a story I’d had in mind for years and years, and motivated me through praise and occasional threats to keep working until I finished. They helped me believe I could tell a story people would be interested in reading. I still hope that’s true.
Thanks to my mom and dad, and my wife and kids. Your support has been absolutely invaluable. I couldn’t have done it without you all.
About the Author
Robert J. Crane was born and raised on Florida’s Space Coast before moving to the upper midwest in search of cooler climates and more palatable beer. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in English Creative Writing. He worked for a year as a substitute teacher and worked in the financial services field for seven years while writing in his spare time. He makes his home in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.
He can be contacted in several ways:
Via email at [email protected]
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A LEGACY OF LIGHT
THE DRAGON WAR: BOOK 1
DANIEL ARENSON
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Daniel Arenson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission.
1
KAELYN
Kaelyn ran through the forest, clutching her bow, as above her the dragons shrieked and gave chase.
The night was dark; the treetops hid the moon and stars. Kaelyn could barely see. Her foot slammed into an oak’s root and she tumbled, cursed, and leaped back up. She kept running. Her quiver of arrows bounced across her back. When she looked up, she saw them there, shades of black above the canopy.
Damn it.
Five or more flew above, and they had picked up her scent. Kaelyn snarled and ran on. Branches slapped her face. Her ankle twisted atop a rock, and she cursed and nearly fell again.
Just keep moving, Kaelyn, she told herself. They can’t see you through the trees. The cave is near. There is safety there. Just don’t stop running.
Dirt and fallen leaves flew from under her boots. Even in the cold night, sweat soaked her leggings and tunic, and her long golden hair clung damply to her neck and cheeks. A stream of fire blazed above. Kaelyn ducked and rolled. The flames roared, lighting the night, and for an instant Kaelyn saw a thousand black trees, mossy boulders, and a f
leeing deer.
“I see the girl!” rose a shriek above. “Right below. I want her alive!”
Then the fire was gone. Wings thudded and air blasted Kaelyn. Claws longer than swords tore at the trees. Wood cracked and branches flew. Two red eyes blazed, their light shining on fangs and black scales.
Kaelyn leaped to her feet. She nocked an arrow. She fired.
The arrow whistled and slammed into the dragon. The beast reared and howled and clawed the sky. Kaelyn turned and ran.
The trees blurred at her sides. Fire blazed behind her. The dragons swooped and claws uprooted trees. A bole slammed down before Kaelyn, showering splinters and broken branches, and she yelped and fell back. A dragon landed upon the fallen oak. Its maw opened, a smelter of molten fire, and light bathed Kaelyn, and heat blasted her.
She fired another arrow, hitting the dragon’s chest. The beast bucked and roared, spewing a fountain of fire. Kaelyn leaped, rolled down a rocky hill, and crashed into a tree. Pain exploded. She yelped, sprang back up, and fired a third arrow. She hit another dragon, then spun and kept running.
Damn it! she thought as she raced between the trees. Her heart thudded and her lungs ached. Her bruises blazed so badly that she ran with a limp.
They weren’t supposed to be here.
But somehow these beasts knew about the boy in the city. Somehow they knew Kaelyn would try to reach him. She cursed as she sprang between more collapsing trees. If these dragons reached Cadport first, and if they found the boy before she did…
“Then we are lost,” she whispered as she ran. “Then all hope is dead. Then the world will fall.”
She snarled and ran up a hill thick with oaks and maples.
So I will have to kill these dragons. And I will have to reach the boy before he’s found.
A howl tore the air above her.
“Kaelyn!” one dragon cried and laughed, a throaty sound like boulders tumbling. “Kaelyn, you little whore. Haven’t you learned you can never hide from me?”
Ice encased Kaelyn’s heart.
So the spies were right, she thought. Kaelyn had not wanted to believe, but now she saw the beast above her. It’s her. She knows. She’s here.
Flames roared. Blasting fire, a blue dragon swooped down before her, claws tearing trees and shattering boulders. Flames howled in an inferno. Red eyes burned. The beast’s maw opened wide, and it shot a stream of flame across the forest. Kaelyn ducked and screamed, and the fire blazed over her head.
There was no doubt now. It was her.
My sister.
Kaelyn fired an arrow.
The shard whistled, slammed against the blue dragon, and snapped. The beast only laughed, nostrils flaring and leaking smoke.
Kaelyn had not wanted to use her magic. Not today. If she had learned anything during the long years of resistance, it was this: As a human girl, she was sneaky and silent and could hide in shadows. Dragons were burly, their scales clattered, and their maws leaked fire that could be seen for leagues. Humans survived in the wild; dragons were hunted and died.
And yet no arrows or shadows would help her now. This was no ordinary dragon facing her, a mindless soldier with weak scales. Here before her, atop a pile of charred trees, roared Shari Cadigus herself.
My older sister. Princess of the empire. The most dangerous woman I know.
Kaelyn tightened her lips, narrowed her eyes, and summoned her magic.
Wings burst out from her back with a thud. Green scales flowed across her, clanking like armor. Her body ballooned. Her fingernails grew into claws, fangs sprouted from her mouth, and a tail flailed behind her. As her sister howled, a blue beast roaring fire, Kaelyn flapped her wings and took flight as a green dragon.
She crashed through the treetops. She burst into a burning sky. Three other dragons circled under the clouds; they saw her, roared fire, and dived her way. Below, her sister Shari burst from the trees, smoke wreathing her blue scales.
Oh bloody stars, Kaelyn thought.
She spewed her flames, raining them down upon Shari. The blue dragon howled as the fire crashed into her. The beast kept rising through the inferno. With a curse, Kaelyn began to fly higher, shooting up in a straight line. Beneath her, her sister and the others blew fire and soared in pursuit.
Kaelyn shot into the clouds. For a moment she could see nothing but the gray mist; she was hidden here.
A pillar of flame rose before her, piercing the sky and nearly roasting her. Kaelyn cursed and spun the other way. Another flaming jet rose there. She ducked and nearly fell from the cloud cover.
“There!” Shari cried below. Her voice rang across the sky, high-pitched and demonic. “I want her alive—grab her.”
Kaelyn flapped her wings. She rose a few feet, then leveled off and began flying south. At least, she thought she was heading south; she could barely tell within these clouds.
Stars save me, she thought. None of this should have happened. Oh, stars, none of this should have happened at all. They’ll be heading to Cadport now. They’ll find the boy. They’ll kill him. And it will be over.
Dragons shrieked before her. Jets of flame pierced the clouds like spears. Kaelyn bit down on a yelp. She kept flying, daring not blow her own fire.
They can’t see me, she thought. I’ll reach the boy before them. He’s our only hope.
She snarled and flew harder.
She had not thought more bad luck possible. As if the world itself conspired against her, the clouds began to thin.
Kaelyn dived and darted from wisp to wisp, trying to remain in cover. But it was no use. She was too close to the sea now. She could smell the salt on the wind. That salty air would lead her to Cadport and the boy who hid there.
It also dispersed the clouds, leaving her green scales to shimmer in the moonlight.
She looked over her shoulder.
She saw them there, the blue dragon and her three servants. A jet of fire blazed her way and Kaelyn ducked, barely dodging it. The heat blasted her. Claws reached out and grabbed her back leg, and Kaelyn yowled. She blew fire over her shoulder, hit the dragon who grabbed her, and tore herself free. She dived low. They followed.
A slim green dragon, she raced across wild grasslands, heading toward the sea. The grass bent under the flap of her wings, sending mice fleeing. The great blue dragon, a furnace of flame, and the three smaller black ones followed. Their fires blazed, and Kaelyn knew that she would die this night, and that with her the Resistance too would fall.
But no. Not yet. There! She saw it ahead—the hill and the cave. Hope bloomed inside Kaelyn like a flower from snow. She let out a cry, swooped, and flew toward the shelter.
Jets of fire blazed around her. Kaelyn darted like a bee, dodging them, until the cave loomed close. A blast of flame seared her tail, and she yowled but kept flying. With a roar, the green dragon shot toward the cave. It rose only as tall as a door, too small for a dragon to enter. Feet away from crashing against the hillside, Kaelyn released her magic.
Her wings and scales vanished. She shrank. She returned to human form. She rolled into the cave as a woman, sprang up, and ran into darkness.
A tunnel stretched before her.
Fire blasted behind.
Kaelyn raced around a bend in the tunnel and spun backward. The dragonfire crashed before her, hitting the stone walls and showering. Kaelyn took a few steps back. The heat bathed her, and she brushed sparks off her tunic and leggings. The flames kept roaring for a moment, then died.
Her sister’s shriek rose outside like a storm.
“Get in there, maggots! Bring her out alive, or by the Abyss, I’ll make a cloak from your skin. Go! Bring me the little trollop. I will break her.”
Her clothes smoldered, and her leg throbbed with pain, but Kaelyn drew an arrow. Her fingers shook so badly she could barely nock it.
The fires died. Outside the cave, Kaelyn heard the clank of scales become the clatter of armor. The four dragons had released their magic.
“Now we
will fight as humans,” Kaelyn whispered. The tunnel walls closed in around her, too small for two to enter abreast. “One by one, I will slay you.”
She stood, waiting around the bend, fingers shaking and lungs burning with smoke.
Boots thumped into the cave. Steel hissed—swords being drawn from sheaths. Kaelyn snarled and tugged her bowstring back.
The first man emerged around the bend—one of Shari’s brutes. He towered above Kaelyn, a burly man clad in black steel. A red spiral blazed across his dark breastplate, and he clutched his dragonclaw sword. This one was a common soldier, no more than a thug.
Kaelyn’s arrow slammed into his breastplate, drove through the steel, and crashed into his chest.
The man fell, and Kaelyn reached into her quiver for another arrow. Before she could draw it, a second man raced around the bend.
This one too wore black armor, and a helm of steel bars shadowed his face. His sword swung, and Kaelyn leaped back. The blade whistled before her, missing her belly by an inch. She nocked her arrow and fired. The arrow scraped the man’s helmet, then slammed against the wall. The soldier cackled and swung his blade down.
Kaelyn scurried back and fell down hard. The man’s blade hit the floor between her legs, raising sparks. With a snarl, she drew her own sword, a silvery blade named Lemuria after the drowned isle of ancient gods. She leaped up and thrust her steel.
Lemuria scraped against the man’s breastplate, denting it. The brute grunted, spat, and swung his sword. He bore a longsword, thick and heavy, a blade for two hands; her sword was smaller and lighter, a single-handed weapon of thin steel. The blades clashed, spraying sparks, and Kaelyn growled.
No. I will not die here. The boy needs me. The Resistance needs me. She snarled. I will live.
She pulled her blade back, screamed, and fell to one knee. She drove Lemuria up. The blade crashed into the man’s armpit where his armor’s plates met.
Blood spurted. Snarling, Kaelyn drove her blade deeper, shoving it through the man’s armpit and into his chest. Blood dripped down her arm. She pulled her blade free, and the man crashed down dead.
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