The Half Dragon of Yaerna: The Gathering Arc Box Set: Books 1-3

by Hans Bezdek

  The Gathering Arc (Books 1-3)

  The Half Dragon of Yaerna

  by Hans Bezdek

  Copyright © 2017 Herrin Enterprises LLC

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Half Dragon of Yaerna Series:

  Tumbler Short

  The Ilkas Diamond Job (Book 0)

  Releasing February 2018

  The Gathering Arc

  The Shattered Sword (Book 1)

  Released December 2017

  The Time Shield (Book 2)

  Released January 2018

  Grimkell's Mace (Book 3)

  Released January 2018

  The Heralding Arc

  Durnskeep (Book 4)

  Releasing February 2018

  For updates on the newest releases in The Half Dragon of Yaerna, as well as freebies and giveaways, come subscribe to my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/dfZmfP

  Feel free to reach out to me with questions or comments at hans.bezdek@gmail.com

  The Shattered Sword

  Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Here I was again, hanging upside down with all the blood rushing to the top of my head. I glanced up at the magical vines twisted around my ankles. I knew I should’ve been more on the lookout for Greener traps. I was too busy watching out for quicksand to pay much attention to all the vines hanging down. It had been quite a few years since I fell for one, but I guess I hadn’t been to this part of Yaerna in a while.

  I looked down at the puddle below me, letting out a sigh. The sun caught enough of the water to show my reflection. My hood was pulled back some, exposing my bushy black hair and more of my face than I preferred. It wasn’t that I looked particularly ugly or scarred, just that I didn’t want people to remember me. Plus, I didn’t want to risk them seeing my eyes. While in human form, my green eyes weren’t worth anything. However, the last thing I needed was someone getting the idea I was a green dragon.

  I mean, I am, but only a half one. Still, green dragons had been hunted down for our giant, green, crystal-like eyes that resembled emeralds. It was so bad that I wasn’t even sure if there were any more green dragons out there. Maybe I was the only one left.

  Granted, if I didn’t get out of this trap soon, there might not be any green dragons left. I calmed my breathing and grabbed a hold of my dagger from my belt. Reached up, I got a bit of an ab workout in as I tried cutting through the vine.

  I froze as I heard the bushes behind me rustle. Sounded like I wasn’t alone. I could probably handle some Greeners, but if it was Dmetri and the Tumblers, I’d probably be out of luck. Even worse, it could be some of the Dar’Ka. I knew I shouldn’t have been sneaking around on the edge of Truska like this. Not the safest of places.

  My breath caught as the visitor emerged from the bush, hands on her hips.

  I hadn’t seen many females elves before, there weren’t many that left their home in Aelric, but the rumors of their beauty and grace appeared to be true. She stood a bit taller than the average human, but slenderer. Her brown hair matched the rest of her clothes, while her brown eyes pierced through to my soul. I wasn’t one for mingling with other beings, but she seemed like someone I’d like to get to know a littl-

  “How’d you end up there, ya idiot?” she asked, squinting up at me.

  Or maybe not.

  “You part of a group?” I asked, looking behind her. I couldn’t remember if the elves preferred traveling alone, or with a group.

  “What’s it to you?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “You gonna try something if I’m alone?”

  “Try something? In your dreams, maybe,” I mumbled, going back to trying to cut through the vine. If she meant me harm, she probably would’ve attacked by now. “You… you’re the idiot.”

  “Why are you up there?” she asked, ignoring my weak insult.

  “Because I thought it would be fun to tie up my feet and just hang out in this forsaken swamp,” I said, putting on a big smile. She didn’t look amused.

  “Are you trying to get into Aelric?” she asked.

  “Aelric? What would I want that far south? Ain’t nothing but trees and elves down there,” I said. I pointed up at my ears, raising my voice to make sure she heard me. “No offense, but I’m not a fan of you bat heads. It’s the ears, you know.”

  Her eye twitched, letting me know she was at least a bit offended. Good.

  “Well unluckily for you, you’re practically on our border,” she said, moving closer to me. “If you fell for something as simple as this vine trap, you’re probably not going to survive going any further south.”

  I was near Aelric? I really needed to get a map or something. I figured I was getting close to the border with Gorland to the east, but I didn’t think I was going particularly south.

  “You a guard or something?” I asked. I pointed up at the vine holding me. “You set this up?”

  “No to both,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve got to say, though, I’d be pretty disappointed if I went through the effort of setting up that trap just to get stuck with something like you.”

  “Oh, you’d be lucky to get stuck with me,” I mumbled, nearly all the way through the vine now.

  I was getting exhausted from talking and holding myself, so I took a break and leaned back upside down. These things were such a pain, and the less-than-delightful conversation wasn’t making it any easier.

  “You wanna maybe help me down?” I asked. “It’ll be easier for me to get out of your hair and away from your land.”

  “Don’t think so. You don’t seem like the friendliest guy,” she said, watching me as I began to slowly spin around.

  “Hey, you’re the one that started off calling me an idiot!”

  “I was trying to be funny!”

  “Trying to be funny? I’m not sure about- hold on,” I said, as the vine had completely turned me around. We both waited in silence as it continued to slowly spin me, until I was finally facing her again. I hated talking to people when I couldn’t see their faces. Eventually, I was able to see her in my peripheral again. “Trying to be funny? I’m not sure how making friends goes down in bat head country, but in the rest of Yaerna, people try to be nice when first talking to strangers.”

  “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”

  “Bat. Head.”

  Her fists shook as she glared at me, the twitch in her right eye working overtime. I stared back at her with a smug look on my face, slowly turning.

  “Nothing is stopping me from killing you right now, you know,” she said, pulling out a dagger from her belt.

  “Please, if you so much as-hold on,” I said, losing track of her again as I continued my rotation. She let out a frustrated noise, but waited. I made it back around without her putting the dagger in my neck, so I considered that a win. “Please, if you so much as took two steps closer to me, it would be the end of you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she said, taking two big steps closer to me. She held her hands out to the side, showing me that nothing happened to her after all.

  “Whelp,” I said, pulling myself back up to finish cutting through the vine. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself for what’s happening to you now.”

  “I’ll let you cut yourself down,” she said. “I want to beat you in a fair fight.”

  Textbook elves. Nearly all of them are all about honor, respect, and doing the
right thing.

  The fools.

  “Fair fight?” I scoffed, mere centimeters away from freedom. “From my experience, that’s how you lose fights, not win them.”

  “I guess you aren’t that skilled at combat, then,” she giggled.

  “Guess I’m not,” I agreed, holding on to the top of the vine as I finally cut myself free.

  “Took you long enough,” she said. “First time using a blade?”

  “Something like that,” I said, letting go and gently dropping down to the ground. I took a minute as the blood rushed back to the rest of my body, stretching out. The elf looked excited to fight me. Too bad.

  “Well, it was nice talking to you,” I said, putting the dagger back into my belt and picking up my bag from the ground. “Best of luck getting out of here.”

  “Oh, are you too chicken now?”

  “No,” I shrugged. “I just thought you wanted it to be a fair fight. I don’t like to attack people when they can’t move.”

  “Can’t move?” she laughed. “What are you talking abou… t…”

  I tried not to laugh too much as she struggled to take another step. When she had taken her two steps closer to me, she had stepped perfectly into a patch of quicksand.

  “How’d you end up stuck there, ya idiot?” I asked, raising my voice a couple of octaves to match hers.

  “Y-You tricked me!” she shouted, trying with all of her might to take another step.

  “You should stop moving so much, it’ll just make you sink faster,” I recommended. “Anyway, see ya.”

  “W-Wait!” she cried out as I turned to leave. “Please! I don’t know how to get out of this!”

  “You weren’t going to help me,” I noted. “Why should I help you?”

  “Y-You were already cutting free when I found you!” she said. “I wouldn’t have left you if you actually needed my help! H-Honest!”

  “I’m sure you can figure it out,” I said, walking away. I paused as I left the clearing, trying to get my bearings back. Now which way was east…

  “I-I can help you get out of here!” she called after me. “It looks like you don’t know where you’re at. I can lead us out of here!”

  Tempting. I thought it over for a moment, slowly walking back to her.

  “How do I know you’re not just going to attack me after I get you out of there?” I asked.

  “L-Like, verbally?”

  “What? No! I don’t mind the verbal banter. Plus, I know you wouldn’t be able to keep your word on that. I mean with your daggers.”

  “You have my word that I’ll never raise my weapon against you again!”

  Normally, that wouldn’t mean anything to me. This wasn’t my first time meeting up with other travelers, and they could never really be trusted. Come to think of it, I was always surprised when someone didn’t try to cross or kill me. There was something about this elf, though. The way she said I had her word made it sound like that actually meant something to her. That was a rare thing, nowadays.

  “Fine,” I said, grabbing the vine I recently cut down. Looks like this thing would come in handy after all. “I’ll help you out of the quicksand, and you help me get out of this swamp. I’ve got one more condition, though.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “No falling in love with me on our journey, okay?” I smiled.

  She blanched.

  “Trust me,” she said. “I’d rather die here.”

  Chapter 2

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I said, as we left the quicksand and vines behind us.

  “I didn’t intend to,” she said. “You’re the reason I ended up in the quicksand to begin with.”

  “Well, that’s a good point,” I shrugged. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Cassandra,” she said, hesitating slightly as if I was going to somehow use the information against her. “Cassandra Nightgrip. Yours?”

  “Reimar Pinespell,” I smiled. “Well, Cassandra, where you headed?”

  “I promised to help guide you out of here, so wherever your headed.”

  “You’re in luck then, cause there isn’t a particular place I’m going.”

  “Really?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously. “Where is your family?”

  “All dead, as far I know,” I said. “Parents died shortly after I was born. Don’t know if I have any other relatives.”

  “I’m so sorry, Reimar,” she said, eyes softening for the first time since we met. “Who raised you, then?”

  “An unsavory group called the Tumblers,” I said, following half a step behind her as she led the way. “I’m not sure how they got me, but I was practically raised as a slave. It wasn’t until a few years back that I managed to escape. Since then, I’ve just been traveling around Yaerna.”

  “What’s your goal?” asked Cassandra. “Is there something in particular you’re hoping to see or do?”

  “Goal?” I asked. I guess I never really stopped to think about that. “To stay alive, I suppose.”

  “Maybe you should be on the lookout for traps more often, then,” she smirked.

  “We humans don’t have weirdly big eyes like your kind to help us avoid them,” I said.

  “Very funny,” she said. She didn’t sound like she thought it was funny.

  “So, where are we heading?”

  “I’m heading to Trenton,” she said, stepping around a coiled up vine.

  “That’s one of the towns on the border of Gorland and Truska, right?” I asked. Geography was never my thing, but it helped to know the gist of where towns, borders, and other dragons were. That way you sort of knew what you were heading into, but still got the thrill of the unknown. However, I had been to Trenton once or twice before on behalf of Dmetri. “What’s in Trenton for you?”

  “It’s… it’s kind of embarrassing,” she said, face turning a light shade of pink.

  “Oh, well now I’ve got to know,” I chuckled, side stepping a puddle. “Some unrequited love for a gnome? An expensive purse you’ve just been dying to have? A special diamond bracelet?”

  “You’re sounding a bit sexist, you know that?” she asked, giving me a disapproving look.

  “Eh, I wasn’t wrong though, was I?”

  “I’m going there to get information on where I can find the Shattered Sword.”

  “Shattered Sword?” I laughed. She looked away and grew quiet, so I cut it off a bit short. Still, it was funny meeting someone above the age of five looking for the mythical weapon. “I’m sorry… you’re serious?”

  “I know everyone thinks it’s just a legend, but I think they’re wrong,” she said firmly. “Even if some of its power is exaggerated, there’s got to be a basis for the the Sword. It’s in too many stories of our world.”

  “I think that’s what adds to the non-believability,” I said. “I’ve heard the Shattered Sword was involved in everything from the cutting off of Ra’Chok from the rest of Yaerna to the defeat of the dwarven king Njal. There’s no way it’s done all that, even if it is real.”

  “I’m with you, but even if it’s done just one percent of all those things, it’ll be worth having,” said Cassandra, taking a hard right around a body of water. “You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

  “No, no. I’m good with going to Trenton,” I said, continuing to follow after her. “I’ve got some contacts that are probably still in that town. They might know where I can get some easy work before I move on.”

  We traveled further through the swamp. I would’ve been so lost if it wasn’t for Cassandra. While I had been to Trenton before, I’d never been south of it. Everything in this place seemed the same to me, and I couldn’t make any sense of it.

  “What’s this place called, by the way?” I asked, breaking a stretch of silence.

  “The Swamp of Aiden,” she replied, not bothering to look back.

  “Don’t think I’ve heard of it,” I said. “Who’s Aiden?”

  “Aiden was one of th
e elven princes a few hundred years ago,” she said.

  “You know him?” I asked. I was trying so hard to figure out how old she was, but I wasn’t sure if that was a sore subject with elven women like it was for human ones.

  “No,” she laughed, glancing back over her shoulder. “How old do you think I am?”

  “I’ve got no way of knowing,” I shrugged.

  “That’s fair, I suppose. Most people are bad at telling ages outside of their own race,” she nodded. “I’m twenty five.”

  “That means you’re basically just a baby, right?”

  “A baby that could kick your butt.”

  “We haven’t actually seen whether that’s true or not,” I said.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Guess.”

  She stopped walking and sized me up. She tapped her finger to her chin and narrowed her eyes as she examined my face a little closer. I felt uncomfortable with someone staring at me for so long and self consciously itched my neck. Would she be able to tell something was off about me? Something not quite… human?

  “Early forties?”

  “What?!” I shouted, mouth falling open. How bad did I look? “I’m just a year older than you!”

  “Wow,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I guess humans don’t age as well as I thought they did.”

  I felt a vein in my forehead pulse as she flashed me a smile and kept moving. I guess that’s what I got for asking.

  “So what’s so special about old prince Aiden?” I asked. “Getting a swamp named after you must mean you were pretty hot stuff.”

  “He was known for being a very ambitious warrior,” she said. Her voice was growing monotone as we talked about it, like she was repeating something she read in history books a thousand times over. “He thought that it wasn’t fair that the humans had staked out more land in the west. He wanted to grow the borders of Aelric further north, into Truska territory.”