EMPIRE OF THE DRAGON
An Event Group Thriller
David L Golemon
Quoth Publications
Empire of the Dragon (An Event Group Thriller)
ISBN: 978-0-692-13221-0
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Copyright © 2018 by David L Golemon
Cover Design by J. Kent Holloway
Published by Quoth Publications
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Prologue
I. THE GATHERING STORM
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
II. WHITE MAGIC
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
III. DRAGON’S FIRE
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Prologue
A BROTHER’S EMBRACE
“I have not told half of what I saw…”
~ Marco Polo
Upon his return from China
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700,000,000 Years Ago…
Six thousand light-years from the newly formed planet called Earth, the Black Hole today is designated Cygnus X-1. Seven-hundred million years ago, this Black Hole spewed forth debris from a dying world at the edge of the universe whose distance from the Earth is still unmeasurable. Since then, the giant silver imbued rock made an annual tour of the outskirts of the Milky Way Galaxy. The asteroid made its fly-by of its five-million-year trip near the planet Jupiter as it had for eons. The sixteen-mile-long rock had never been close to a trajectory that threatened the small blue planet that was placed third in orbit around the yellow star many millions of miles away. The journey of this asteroid through the eons of time had come and gone without incident. Without incident until the day a small rock from the solar system’s outer asteroid belt, named ‘The Trojan Asteroid Field’, nicked the speeding body at only seven hundred kilometers a second, a relatively easy bump in celestial terms.
The newcomer to the young solar system spun off in a dizzying roll that sent the sixteen-mile-long rock blazing past the older, outer planets of Jupiter and Saturn. In its direct path was a world that would be unrecognizable to the universe today. The continents had yet to separate into the land masses that is known in today’s geography.
The asteroid would have slammed directly into the relatively new world, and smashed out the young life that had spread throughout the jungles and forests of the baby planet. This did not happen. The asteroid came into contact with the blue planet’s small moon on its dark side. Although only a glancing blow, the brush with the moon changed the attitude of the giant rock and made a glancing blow off Earth’s atmosphere, flattening out its orbit and sending the asteroid into a crazily spinning bullet. Instead of coming straight down onto the surface of the Earth, the glancing blow leveled the asteroid out. The friction of entering the world’s airspace diminished the weight and size of the object by half, sending shards burning off into the sky of the new world. The rest was sent sliding into a lush, green jungle. The silver-green ore material that made up the visitor stayed intact as it hit mountains and evaporated inland seas until it came to rest, sliding deep into the Earth and creating a new mountain range on the surface of the young planet.
The lush jungle terrain gave the elements of the newcomer the fertilization of nutrition the rock had not had in over six billion years. There, the newcomer settled in and lived alongside the growing world and its varying new species of animal life.
That place today would become known as the Rift, or, outer Mongolia.
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Hunan Province,
China, 221 BC
The forty-six-year-old ruler of Hunan was brought forward and forced to kneel before the line of men standing rigid in front of his flaming palace. The dead and dying were strewn about just as the bodies of countless thousands in other provinces had before this night of nights—the destruction of the last army standing in the way of a dynasty.
King Tao Che cast his eyes about as the flat side of a sword struck his armored chest, forcing his eyes away from the carnage that had once been his glorious and peaceful capital. He was kneeling in a large puddle of blood that had once flowed through the strong, vital bodies of his palace guard. A thousand men killed and beheaded in less than the time it took to eat a meal. The hundred men standing before him were dressed in the red and black colored armor of the usurper who was walking across all of China in his quest to unify the giant nation. The horse-hair plumes on the apex of their helmets told the king that these were the personal guard of that man, and the scene also explained to him that, no matter what happened in the next few minutes, his nation of Hunan would shortly cease to exist.
As he was forced to kneel, he heard the cries of his subjects as they were torn asunder by lance, arrow and sword echoing in his head. The screams of the children as they were rounded up tore at his very soul. As his attention was forced back to the front by sword tip, he saw the men before him come to stiff and disciplined attention. The center-most ten men separated as a large black roan eased forward. The King raised his eyes and caught a fleeting glimpse of the man he had fought against for three months in the flickering fires of his home. The false deity himself eased the horse to a stop and then one of his men went to all fours as the rider used him as a stage to dismount. Tao Che lowered his eyes, not out of respect, but self-preservation as he wanted nothing more than to spring forth and kill the man that had butchered hundreds of thousands in his quest to subdue all of China.
The man that used to be known in his younger years as Ying Zheng, who was once thought of as a mild-mannered boy who did nothing but read scrolls of bamboo and dream about other-worldly places, glanced around the capital of Hunan and its flaming structures. He used the boot of his right foot to kick out at a severed arm, sending it across the mud, and then stood before the kneeling King of Hunan. The small man, who was now called Qin Shi Huang, finally lowered his gaze to take in the last king to defy his promised rule of the nation now known as China. His eyes studied the unbroken man kneeling before him, a gentle king who was once known across all the land as a proud and just ruler. Qin Shi once thought King Tao Che could be persuaded to add his province to those already conquered and destroyed without the persuasiveness of battle and the coercion of death. But after months of defiance, he had instead brought his kingdom to this sad end. This, in Qin Shi’s opinion, could never be forgiven. His eyes darted to his men, and two of them took the king by the arms and hoisted him, one going so far as to mercilessly twist the man’s arm until he complied.
The sword came free of the scabbard so fast that his imperial guard didn’t see the flash of steel in the firelight’s reflection. The head of the guard that had hurt the sovereign king came free of the body while his torso remained standing. The headless body finally slid to the muddy ground and spewed blood, forcing Qin Shi to step aside. He sheathed his sword and then remained looking at the man before him. He then turned to his men who had not reacted to the sudden and brutal beheading.
“This man is a King and will be treated as such.” He reached up to the taller man and placed an armored glove on his shoulder. “You have my profound apologies for the actions of this fool. He failed to heed his instructions about the respect he was
to afford my one-time teacher.”
Hunan King Tao Che finally looked into the eyes of the man he despised above all others. He then turned his head and the black eyes fell on the fallen defenders of his capital. Women and children, the last survivors of his kingdom, were even now being rounded up by the usurper’s soldiers to be herded to camps to begin their adjustment and reeducation to a different life and a new leader—that of servitude in the continuing construction of the conqueror’s new wall far to the north.
“I see the same treatment you profess in regard to myself, does not extend to my subjects.”
The smaller man smiled as he looked around the burning capital, the black beard and hair shining brightly in the fire’s light. “They are no longer your subjects. They are mine. There will be a certain amount of persuasion that has to be made to make my new province more,” he again looked around as children and their mothers were roped together for transport out of the province, “educated in the new world I will create for them.”
“A world in flames—one that is awash in blood and sorrow.”
“To build anew, you sometimes must destroy the old.” His dark eyes, reflecting the burning buildings, turned back to Tao Che. “A man of wisdom once taught me that.” He took Tao Che by the chin and made the older man face him. His left brow rose to the apex of his helmet. I believe that man was you, my old teacher.” His face went blank of all expression. “Now, who am I?”
The meaning of the question failed to register. The king looked at the heavily armored man from the south. His eyes went from his helmeted head to his handmade boots that had not escaped the blood flow from his beheaded man.
Qin Shi took a menacing step forward, quickly releasing Tao Che’s chin and moved his right hand to the hilt of his sword. “I will ask once again, who…am…I?”
“You were once a boy that had my admiration. A smart child, a kind child, and besides one other, my best student. You were a boy that was once a dreamer that I once called ‘son’. In my tired old eyes, I still see the boy named Ying Zheng, who once played in the bamboo forest with his little brother.”
The mention of his half-brother caused Qin Shi to falter. Then his eyes became fury and wrath. “What is my name and title?” This time the sword came free and its tip went to the throat of Tao Che.
The king started to refuse, then his eyes went to the taskmaster’s whip as it popped and cracked, bleeding the backs of the small children and their mothers. His eyes lowered and then he went to his knees.
“You are Qin Shi Huang, King of all the lands that are China.” His hands went to the booted feet of the new ruler of all, as he bowed even deeper.
“Not King, I am the Emperor of China. Do you know what this word means? You should, it was you who instructed me on its definition.” He lightly kicked at the chin of Tao Che as he groveled upon the soaked ground. The head nodded, and the fingers clawed at the blood-soaked mud.
“You are, huángdì, the ‘First’. You are Emperor Qin Shi Huang.”
The sword eased away from the man’s neck. Qin Shi then nodded at his commanding general. The man gestured toward the flaming wooden palace that used to be the home of Tao Che. The man kneeling before the new Emperor heard the cries of his two small sons as they were led from where they and their mother had been captured. Tao Che could not help himself, he raised his head and saw what he feared most. The two boys, thirteen and eight years of age, and their mother, Yao Lin, his wife of fifteen years, were being forced to their knees. General Li Kang looked at his Emperor and saw the man smile. The general remained still, his sullen face not showing the disgust he had for what was about to happen.
Once more the sword appeared at the throat of the king. The blade dug into his neck until it found what the steel searched for. The blade was lifted free of the armored chest plate of the king. There, gleaming in the firelight, was a chain. The blade twisted until the object that dangled from the small, gold links was shown to the new Emperor. The nugget of ore was bright and silverish in color. The blade twisted again, and the chain snapped. Once more the twist of the sword’s edge forced the necklace and the nugget into the air where the Emperor caught it with a gloved left hand. He held it up to the dying moon and examined it.
“Where is he?”
Tao Che’s head dipped as he heard the cries of his two boys behind him.
“You were close to my father and his bitch concubine. You were with him when he brought her back from her home where he had captured her far to the North. Where is that home? Did he and his people flee to this mysterious land?”
The king looked up and with trembling lips answered.
“You seek the great secret of his power. All of this,” he gestured around him at the carnage that once held the populace of a proud nation, “is for that? You will kill millions to get at the thing your father said would always be protected. To dampen your cause, to make all of this even more senseless is the fact that your father never told me where he found the source, nor his concubine.”
The new Emperor pursed his lips in anger and then closed his gloved fist over the chain and the silverish green tinted nugget it held. He angrily nodded his head just once and the General gave the order.
Suddenly, Tao Che threw himself to the feet of his conqueror, embracing the man’s embroidered boots and begged for the lives of his family. He pawed at the emperor’s bloody boots and cried until he heard the swish of blades through the air and the sudden cessation of crying coming from his two boys and his wife.
General Kang turned to his emperor and nodded that the deed was done. The general then turned away and gave the order to remove the headless bodies of the king’s family.
Qin Shi kicked away the grasping hands and then brought the curved sword down.
“I must not have ghosts threatening my rule. I can combat any force upon this earth, but I find no defense against the souls of the dead. If one descendant is left alive from the loins of my father’s whore concubine, their brethren will come for revenge.” He once more held the strange silver nugget, that was etched in a green vein, into the air, so the forlorn king could see it in the fire’s light. “This is only a part, I want the whole, and the man who knows how to wield its power. I want my half-brother!”
Tao Che suddenly stood. The blinding speed of the action made the Emperor’s guard move forward, but with a simple hand gesture they were stopped by Qin Shi himself.
“Ghosts?” Tao Che laughed as his tears still flowed. “All the ghosts of all those you have butchered will not be comparable to the foe you still have to face if you attempt to run him and his people down. This man will not be as obliging to your rule as the rest. This was something I taught him, a thing your father taught you both, and it is a thing you have forgotten and will be your undoing.”
Tao Che saw the sword falter somewhat as it came up. The doomed King smiled, this time the gesture made it to his eyes as he saw the effect his words had on the new emperor.
“Yes, the one man that you fear. The one soul in all the world who can stop you. The man who has the power of that,” he nodded at the silver nugget in the emperor’s hand, “flowing through his heart and blood stream. The last true magic upon this Earth” He laughed as Qin Shi’s eyes blazed with hate. “The one man—”
The sword came down and silenced the hate-filled warning. The cutting edge sliced deeply through the leather armor of the king from the man’s right shoulder to his left hip, cutting him into two halves. Qin Shi watched the body falling in two differing directions, and then viciously kicked out with his boot at the still moving parts. Qin Shi threw his sword into the burning embers of the palace and then turned to his general.
“You told me he was dead! Now this fool says he is alive!”
“My Emperor, it was reported that your brother,” he saw the anger once more flare into the eyes of his emperor at the mention of the relationship, and he quickly continued as he lowered his eyes, “…it was said that he died many years ago. I have not bee
n able to confirm this from any of the conquered provinces. I have eyes and ears out all over China, and there has been no word on his being seen alive anywhere.”
The emperor held the chain and nugget up so the general could see it clearly. “I thought I only had to be concerned with his fanatical followers who would know where the source of the ore is, now I am told its not only them that have to be found and destroyed, but the bastard child himself, my one-time half-brother is still alive!”
“If he is alive, I swear to you, my master, he and his people will be found. The war is over, they have no place to hide. But he must be dead. He must be.”
“That is not good enough!” he stormed to his horse and kicked out at its tender. He turned back to General Kang. “I must know. If he is truly dead, I want his rotting corpse dug from his burial mound and brought before me!”
“Perhaps great one, if you had not killed Tao Che before questioning him, we may know where it was Li Zheng went to ground…if he is truly alive. Without any information and absent any witness accounts of his still being alive, we need not worry, unless you intend to carry out another search of all China?”
The emperor mounted his horse and cruelly steadied the animal with a slap to the side of its head, making the large roan rear and then finally settle. He pointed his finger at his general, the iron nugget hanging from his shaking fingers, and then moved the accusing digit to his personal guard. Shaking with anger, he once more reared his horse to its hind legs.
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