The Dragon Chronicles Read online

  The Dragon Chronicles

  WINDRIFT BOOKS

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  THE DRAGON CHRONICLES

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the appropriate copyright holder listed below, unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal and international copyright law. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein.

  The stories in this book are fiction. Any resemblance to any person, place, event or armor-plated, bat-winged, gold-hoarding, fire-breathing creature is entirely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  The Dragon Chronicles copyright © 2015 by Samuel Peralta and Windrift Books.

  Foreword copyright © 2015 by Samuel Peralta. Used by permission of the author.

  “Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons” by Elle Casey, copyright © 2015 by Elle Casey. Used by permission of the author.

  “Of Sand and Starlight” by Daniel Arenson, copyright © 2015 by Daniel Arenson. Used by permission of the author.

  “Tasty Dragon Meat” by K.J. Colt, copyright © 2015 by K.J. Colt. Used by permission of the author.

  “Transparency” by Alex Albrinck, copyright © 2015 by Alex Albrinck. Used by permission of the author.

  “Sacrifice” by David Adams, copyright © 2015 by David Adams. Used by permission of the author.

  “It’s Time to Change” by Terah Edun, copyright © 2015 by Terah Edun. Used by permission of the author.

  “Dragon Play” by Ted Cross, copyright © 2015 by Ted Cross. Used by permission of the author.

  “A Diversion in Time” by Nina Croft, copyright © 2015 by Nina Croft. Used by permission of the author.

  “The Book of Safkhet” by Kim Wells, copyright © 2015 by Kim Wells. Used by permission of the author.

  “Grey” by Chris Pourteau, copyright © 2015 by Chris Pourteau. Used by permission of the author.

  “The Storymaster” by Vincent Trigili, copyright © 2015 by Vincent Trigili. Used by permission of the author.

  “Judgment” by Monica Enderle Pierce, copyright © 2015 by Monica Enderle Pierce. Used by permission of the author.

  All other text copyright © 2015 by Samuel Peralta.

  Edited by Ellen Campbell (http://ellencampbell.thirdscribe.com)

  Cover art and design by Faustino Leonidas Gaitan (www.fausga.com)

  Print and ebook formatting by Polgarus Studio (www.polgarusstudio.com)

  The Dragon Chronicles is part of The Future Chronicles series produced by Samuel Peralta (www.samuelperalta.com).

  978-0-9939832-1-4

  THE DRAGON CHRONICLES

  STORY SYNOPSES

  Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons (Elle Casey)

  If you’re going to train to be a Dragon Rider, you need to know the basics, and Ishmail Windwalker is the guy to teach them to you. In fact, he’s the only one left to teach anything to anyone about Dragons, being the last of a dying breed. Join him as he gives a seminar about Dragons and their partners and keepers, the Dragon Riders.

  Of Sand and Starlight (Daniel Arenson)

  Erry is a dock rat, an orphan, living on the boardwalk of a crumbling town, rummaging through trash for food. She's hurt, haunted, and the sea keeps calling her to sleep forever in its depths. Erry can also turn into a dragon. Her magic is ancient, the magic that lets her people grow scales, breathe fire, and rise as dragons. Yet her power is outlawed. A cruel emperor rules her land, and only his soldiers may use the magic. Erry must choose: her freedom on the boardwalk, hungry and hurt…or servitude with a tyrant, as a dragon.

  Tasty Dragon Meat (K.J. Colt)

  Dragon meat. It's for dinner. In the town of Bolopsy lives a humble butcher, Nogdo, who's quietly making a fortune selling dragon meat. But when the town’s children start growing black dragon scales, Nogdo is horrified. The source of his new fortune is cursed. He wipes dragon meat off the menu and hopes the problem goes away on its own. It doesn't. Now his youngest son is growing scales. Poor Nogdo seeks guidance from the Dark Magician. But the quest involves retrieving two dragon eggs...from a very angry dragon mother, and father, and a horde of barbarians.

  Transparency (Alex Albrinck)

  Damir, a fire dragon, must protect the underworld from invasion by the ice dragons. He’s worked to dismantle a growing complacency among his kind, and counter growing movements claiming that the ice dragon threat and the surface are both outdated myths. Damir’s dream: to lead his people to the surface and reclaim the land that’s rightfully theirs. But when a personal scandal erupts, Damir must confront the unthinkable: that the greatest threat to his invasion plans comes not from the mortal enemies flying above, but from those he trusts above all others.

  Sacrifice (David Adams)

  Before the Godsdeath we had power. Dragons commanded the arcane and the divine equally. We could have raised our stillborn eggs to life. Such things were not unusual for our kind, especially not those who had magic or motivation. I had both.

  It’s Time to Change (Terah Edun)

  Since he was little, Vedaris knew that to be a dragon he needed to be able to shape shift. But what happens when you’re born a freak? Without the ability to turn and the natural magic of his dragon race, Vedaris is more than just a desperate outcast…he’s in mortal danger.

  Dragon Play (Ted Cross)

  All their lives the group of young Vikings had heard of their clan’s past glories, but all they have known is the terror of being relegated to living within the shadow of a dragon’s mountain. When the chieftain’s daughter finds an ancient scroll showing a hidden back entrance to the dragon’s lair, she and her three friends decide to sneak in and retrieve the lost talisman that held the luck of their clan.

  A Diversion in Time (Nina Croft)

  At last there is peace in the Universe. But some people just aren’t interested in peace, so once the dust has settled, the crew of the Blood Hunter set off in search of a little excitement. They are heading back to Earth and going back in time. Along for the ride are a couple of stowaways: Angel, a young werewolf in search of adventure, and Kronus, an ancient dragon, seeking to regain the power his people once wielded. But when things don’t go entirely as planned, can the two overcome their differences and help each other find what they are looking for?

  The Book of Safkhet (Kim Wells)

  The nature of history, of the origins of civilization, and our own human story, may be changed forever by the discovery of an ancient scroll that tells the story of a doomsday device that threatens civilization as we know it. The Dragons, empathic interstellar navigators of uncertain origin, may be able to save some. But where will the survivors go?

  Grey (Chris Pourteau)

  When Amanda stumbles into a cave, she discovers it’s the lair of an old dragon, the last of his kind. Not yet old enough to know she should fear the creature, Amanda is quickly won over by his kindness toward her. Over time, the human and the dragon—whose respective races are age-old enemies, prey and predator—become fast friends. When an army of savages known as The Bane threatens her village, Amanda’s people decide to flee. She seeks help from her old friend, but the dragon refuses her. When The Bane attack, what will become of Amanda and the friendship she feels has been betrayed by her ancient, erstwhile friend?

  The Storymaster (Vincent Trigili)

  The era of dragons has passed but is not forgotten. There will be at least this one last
ride, one last battle, before the masters of the domain of air fade into history and become legend.

  Judgment (Monica Enderle Pierce)

  Consequences are dire when vigilantes falsely accuse Peregrine Long of murder and horse theft. But guns and hanging aren’t the scariest things a cowboy can face in the town of Bonesteel. A dragon’s opinion and appetite are even harder to reckon with, especially for men who have trouble telling the truth.

  CONTENTS

  Foreword (Samuel Peralta)

  Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons (Elle Casey)

  Of Sand and Starlight (Daniel Arenson)

  Tasty Dragon Meat (K.J. Colt)

  Transparency (Alex Albrinck)

  Sacrifice (David Adams)

  It’s Time to Change (Terah Edun)

  Dragon Play (Ted Cross)

  A Diversion in Time (Nina Croft)

  The Book of Safkhet (Kim Wells)

  Grey (Chris Pourteau)

  The Storymaster (Vincent Trigili)

  Judgment (Monica Enderle Pierce)

  A Note to Readers

  Foreword

  by Samuel Peralta

  “I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.”

  – Ursula K. Le Guin

  The stone my father put in my hand was small and round, like a pebble, perhaps a centimeter in diameter. I was nine or ten, and my father was an archeologist with the National Museum.

  He’d come back from one of his many expeditions through the mountains and jungles of the Philippine islands, and while my mother boiled water for some coffee, he’d lay out on the kitchen table some of the finds from his recent journey.

  They ranged from bird skulls to blow-guns, flint stone tools to flutes – discoveries, mementos, personal gifts from tribesmen so sequestered in their mountainous habitats that they didn’t have a word for ocean.

  My father would spin stories about every object – how he’d found the fragile skull outside his tent flap one morning, how the tribesmen would hunt with blow-gun darts tipped with poison from the same plant used in the arrows that felled Ferdinand Magellan in the Battle of Mactan, how he’d made the flake tool himself by hammering a rock against a carefully chosen slab of cryptocrystalline quartz.

  And this stone –

  Tektite, my father said, a new word for me. The stone was dark, a deep and glassy black that was unlike anything I had ever seen, textured with what looked like trapped air that had somehow bubbled to the surface of the mineral, then frozen.

  It had been formed tens of millions ago – he said, as my mother brought the coffee – thrown up from the impact of a meteorite as it crashed into the surface of the earth, droplets of the earth melted like glass from the intense heat and flung from the impact crater. I couldn’t imagine the heat, the kind of heat that could melt stone. What was it like?

  Like the center of a volcano. My father leaned forward, blowing the steam from his cup. Like the fire of dragons.

  That last image stuck with me as I went to bed that night. My two younger brothers had gone to sleep before my father had come home; under the mosquito net, I was still awake. I could feel the tektite pulse with warmth in my clenched hand, a stone that had been touched by dragon-fire.

  When I did close my eyes, in my dreams I flew with dragons, spiralling up from the jungles of Palawan. The wind that blew through my hair was infused with music, with the notes of the flute that my father played for my mother in the kitchen outside our room. Meteors streaked across the sky, against the smoke of volcanos. The night was obsidian, ranged with stars; and as I rode, the great beast paused its wings, breathed in, and roared a mighty breath of white-hot dragon-fire.

  From then on dragons surrounded me, the dragons of Ursula K. Le Guin and Anne McCaffrey, of J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling and George R.R. Martin, in tapestries and on canvas, on paper and in film, stories filled with improbable magic.

  Indeed, we live in a time of magic – a time where electronic ink forms words across handheld screens that respond to touch, a time when moving pictures stream wirelessly to phones. We live in a time when holographic headsets and force-sensors allow you to experience dragon-flight. But the essence of that magic remains the same as that which made an ordinary black stone breathe fire – the magic of storytelling.

  As I write this, I have on my bedside table that stone my father put in my hand, that night decades ago. It has travelled with me from the island of Luzon to the vineyards of California, through the summers of South Wales to the winters of Ontario. My hair is streaked with grey now, and when I look into the mirror, those are my father’s eyes.

  I take that stone in hand, and I swear I still feel the heat of that dragon-fire within. It speaks to me still of that wonder, that magic, this gift that my father gave to me.

  www.amazon.com/author/samuelperalta

  Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons

  by Elle Casey

  THE VERY FIRST THING you should know about Dragons is they are my life. Now, that might not seem like such a momentous thing, because you're only just now making my acquaintance, but it's a very important piece of information, trust me. Right now I'm the only one left in our world who knows anything worth knowing about these mystical and misunderstood beasts. We are a dying breed.

  Not the Dragons, of course; they're fine—plentiful in number and species, size, and color. It's the Riders who are almost extinct. We do tend to meet the most untimely ends. With this training program, however, I hope to change that. We can't have a world full of Dragons without Riders. The entire balance of the universe would shift, and then I wouldn't want to be around to find out what would happen next. It wouldn't be good, that's for certain.

  And so, since I am so attached to my continued existence, here we are—at the first annual Dragon Rider Training Seminar, hosted by yours truly. Please save all questions for the end, and feel free to take notes. If you find yourself unprepared for note-taking, not to worry. I call your attention to the fact that my good friend and second cousin, Dalys, whom I had to pay to be here because he's deathly afraid of Dragons, is sitting over here to my right transcribing my every word so that this training manual can be copied and made available to you for a small but reasonable sum. Dalys will keep the original in the village down in that valley just over there to your left, in his blue-shuttered cottage, under his bed where he hides anytime he hears Othello, my Dragon-partner calling out.

  Ouch! Okay, stop with the rocks, already, Dalys. And don't put that part in the manual.

  A-hem. So. As I was saying. My name is Ishmail Windwalker, but my friends call me Ish. Unfortunately, this nickname makes it easier for my detractors to seem clever when they mock me. They say I'm normal-Ish. Funny-Ish. Nice-Ish. It doesn't matter, though. I let them say what they will. I know it's just jealousy moving their tongues. Not everyone can be a Dragon Rider, least of all those prone to feelings of inadequacy and less-ness. Dragons can spot a pretender from ten leagues away, and they like to set them on fire.

  I see some of you eyeing me skeptically. Believe me, I understand. I've seen the same expressions of doubt on people's faces all my life. I'm nineteen years old, pretty young to be doing what I do, of course, but old compared to many in my village. As you know, war has taken its toll, like a scythe cutting down the healthy wheat, the able-bodied and strong, leaving behind the softer materials: the women, the frail, and the very young. Not that you're softer materials, of course. You must be able-bodied and strong to be here in the first place. But you're probably much like I am; I've managed to survive this long without dying in a battle because I'm strong-Ish, able to withstand the siren song that is the promise of wealth and land that the overlords are always slinging around. 'Come join us and earn your place at the foot of the mountain!' they cry.

  Bah, I say to that. I live in the mountain, and I find that it suits me much better than merely toiling at the foot of it. You know what the foot of a mountain is to a dragon? Its toilet. Everything
runs downhill in our world, and no amount of wartime pseudo-magic is going to change that.

  I took my first ride on a dragon when I was but five years old. Yes, I know that sounds unbelievable, but it's true. It was more an accident than a purposeful venture, but it did happen and I have witnesses. My poor mother, may her earthly soul rest in peace while her eternal soul continues to soar the heavenly skies, took her eyes from me for just a moment — this is her story, somewhat hotly disputed by my father's mother — and I was gone, one minute at her heels asking her 'Why? Why? Why?' and the next with my belt hooked onto the claw of a mighty flying beast. I soared over the village, laughing the entire way. No one knew then why I wasn't killed and eaten by the Great Mortan that day, but I do. And that leads me to my second point about dragons that you must know before we take another step in this training program.

  * * *

  Dragons are very tricky beasts. I mean that in the practical sense and the enchanted sense. Their existence is an integral part of the magical fabric that makes up our universe and all the worlds within it. They also get bored easily. Add these things together and you come up with the Dragon: an oversized, gargoyle-like, fire-breathing creature with the wingspan of a trading ship and the mischievous nature of a three-year-old. You don't want to be on the wrong side of a Dragon's mood ever, unless of course you have the right armor on hand. I will discuss the official uniform of the Dragon Rider in the latter part of this seminar.