Rise of The Last Dragon Rider - Prologue (Patreon)

“You are lucky he beat me here, boy!” shouted Stioks over the wind.

Each of the three dragons hovered in place, beating the wings to stay aloft as they all faced each other.  Kaen and Pammon were off to the side of Elies and Tharnok, staring at the massive black dragon that seemed happy to display his huge mouth full of teeth.

“I would have offered you the world, yet it appears you have chosen the losing side!  Worst, it seems I have found my missing dragon egg.  You have no idea how angry that really makes me!”

Kaen noticed how the black dragon glared at them.  Blood fury raged in its red eyes.  It was slightly smaller than Tharnok, but it was just as powerful.  He could tell it was different.  Like a crazed beast barely controlled by its master.

“We are at an impasse,” Elies yelled back.  “He will not go with you, and I will not leave him undefended.  If we fight today, you might not like the odds!”

Stioks began to laugh, his head lifting to the skies as he mocked them.

“You and I both know you cannot do anything.  I can smell the rot taking you over.  Those words do more to lift your own spirit and that boy.”

Kaen was flustered hearing the way the man ignored him.  The way he talked about how he and Pammon were nothing more than an insect he could squash at any moment.

“Who was Hoste Marshell to you!?” Kaen cried out.  “What did you do to him!?”

Stioks’s head slowly turned as he gazed at Kaen; a frown formed on his face.

“I won’t bother responding to that question.  He was nothing, and I made sure he suffered for a long time before I snuffed out his life.”

The block that had been preventing Kaen from activating his lifestone was gone.  In a moment, it went from as cold as ice to hotter than a volcano.

“HE WAS MY FATHER!” Kaen shouted as he drew his bow back, loading an arrow into it.  “YOU WILL PAY FOR THOSE WORDS!”

Stioks laughed again, waving his hands and dismissing Kaen’s threats.

“Take your best shot, boy! I will give you one free attack before I cut you down like I did your father.”

Power filled the arrow in a way it had never before.  Every ounce of power and mana in his body flowed into the tip of the arrow.  It went from red to white to black-blue in an instant.  Kaen felt power and something else coming from Pammon.  Hate.

A hate that burned for some reason that neither of them understood.

The arrow blasted from his bow, flying faster than he had ever seen an arrow go.

As it streaked across the sky, like a star at night, Stioks smiled, never flinching, and somehow snatched the arrow in his gauntleted hand, snapping the arrow between his fingers.

He laid back his head and laughed, shaking from how hard he seemed to be enjoying himself.

“A fair attempt but a feeble one,” Stioks shouted. “Now die!”

Juthom raced forward, his mouth opening as a cloud of blackness started to spill out.

Panting, Kaen woke up, sweat pouring off his body.

The same dream?

Wiping his face with his hand, Kaen sat up, wrestling with his blanket before tossing it off of him. It had wrapped itself around him while he slept.

Yes… it's been six months since the last time I had that dream.  Why now?

Kaen heard Pammon moving toward him.  The massive room he and Pammon shared in the elven King’s castle had a place for both of them.

Those claws and talons of his scraped across the stone floor as he moved.  The double doors that let them fly in and out were open slightly, and light spilled into the side of the room Pammon often slept on.

That will never happen.  We have gotten much stronger since that day.

Reaching for the cup of water on the nightstand next to his bed, Kaen nodded as he gulped down the water.

We can still train harder.  I need to train harder.

You are making great time! Keep going!

A grunt escaped as Kaen acknowledged to himself what Pammon was saying.  He didn’t have time to worry about responding right now.  He needed to hurry up.

The forest zoomed by in a blur.  The weights he carried on his body barely affected him right now.  His lifestone was slowly burning, his mind consumed with thoughts of the dream and needing to get stronger and faster so he could protect people.

His people.

Leaves flew up as he ran through them, branches crumbled and crunched as he sprinted down a trail he had run hundreds of times. Dodging around trees, leaping over logs.

He had chains and weights wrapped around him, a backpack and chest pack filled with metal the elvish blacksmiths had helped create for him.  He had gained strength, speed and constitution running this course at least once a day since he had made it.  Sometimes, he ran it four or five times.  Today would be one of those days.

Here comes the wall; don’t misjudge it!

Pammon was overhead, flying his own path through the trees.  Both of them were working together, each getting stronger and encouraging the other.  His pants and shirts had no long fit that he once wore.  His leg muscles had grown, and his upper body reminded him of what Hess must have looked like as a young man.  He was no longer willing to wait on gains.  He would make them happen.

The wall Pammon had mentioned came into view as he darted around a massive tree.  It was twenty feet high, made from solid logs stacked on each other and braced.  He sprinted toward it, feeling the power in his legs.  One might consider the four hundred pounds on his body a bad idea, but that wall had grown.  Once it had only been ten feet.

Slowing just a step, he planted his foot and leaped up toward the wall.  His left hand and right foot found purchase on the wall over halfway, and he drove off a small gap in the logs, letting him grab the top easily with his right hand.  Flinging himself over, Kaen grabbed onto the rope on the other side and slid down without losing speed.

The second he hit the ground, he rolled, springing to his feet and taking off again.

Glancing up in the air, he saw Pammon overhead, working on the course that was for him.

Don’t miss that arrow!

Resisting the urge to groan, Pammon ignored the laughter that was coming from Kaen as he ran below.  This arrow was the bane of his life.  Each time, Kaen buried it more and more into the tree limb and put it into harder places.

Swooping between the limbs and branches, Pammon dodged a trunk and whirled his body, corkscrewing between a tight set of branches.  He had grown a lot over the last six months, and it was getting tighter to fit now.

Once through the branches, he rolled till upright and saw the arrow waiting on him.

A flick of his wing broke it off just a few inches from the branch it had been shot into, and a small trumpet of victory rose from his throat as he raced toward the next target.

He would not let Kaen win this time!

Both of them lay on the grass field, huffing and puffing from the exertion they had just done.  Kaen had won but only by a few seconds because Pammon had to turn around and get an arrow he had missed.

Maybe next time you won’t wine like an eggling when you lose.

Rolling over from his back, Pammon put his head next to Kaen and cleaned his sinus cavity, depositing a mountain of mucus on Kaen’s topless half.

“UGGHHH!” groaned Kaen as he stood up, snot and chunks dripping from his body. “Some got in my mouth!”

Pammon began to thrum as he laughed, quite content to remind Kaen that just because he won, no one needed to rub it in.

There is a stream only a mile away.  Perhaps you can beat me to it.

Kaen nodded as he shook his hands and then his eyes slanted as he pointed across the field.

“What’s that?”

Pammon turned his head, looking to see what Kaen might be talking about.

A moment later, laughter erupted from Kaen and Pammon groaned as he felt his rider rubbing his mucus covered body along his neck and chest

Oh, I will make you pay for that one!

Kaen took off running as Pammon rolled over to his side and prepared to chase him.

No fair! No fair!  You win!  I surrender! Kaen shouted in his mind as Pammon raced across the ground after him.

In a foot race, Kaen would most likely win, but he knew Pammon wouldn’t stay on the ground forever before taking to the air and snatching him from the ground with his talons.

As they ran along the field of grass and weeds, a shadow moved across them, and Kaen stopped running, letting Pammon almost bowl him over.

*I can give you other tasks if you two have this much time to play and not work.*

Groaning, Kaen glanced up at Tharnok who had swooped down from the sky to give him another earful.

*Time is of the essence, and you two keep wanting to play games.  Now stop acting like an eggling and get back to the training area.*

Grunting, Kaen ran back to where his pack was and began slipping things on over his mucus-covered chest.

You should have told me he was watching, lamented Kaen.  I would not have played around like that had I known.

Perhaps I should have said something, but neither of us worked as hard when Hess wasn’t watching.  Why change now?

Maybe the thought of a two-hundred-year-old dragon breathing fire down on me motivates me a little more than Hess ever did.

Thrumming, Pammon enjoyed that thought until he groaned as Kaen climbed onto his back with the extra four hundred pounds.

It’s almost like flying with Hess now.

Kaen started to laugh and stopped as their teacher's shadow flew over them again.

Let’s go before we get in trouble.

Springing into the air, Pammon thrummed as he flew.  That dragon was much harder than Hess had ever been.

Wooden swords, spears, shields and other weapons littered the sandy arena as men and women limped away.

Kaen stood smiling as he tossed the spear and shield down and quickly flung a quarterstaff with his foot into his hands.

A pair of elves holding wooden training swords circled around him.  They had just seen two of their training partners get destroyed by Kaen with his spear and shield.

None of them had managed to get any hits in today, and the masters were still watching.  They had only trained him once and, after making Kaen look like a fool, told him he had much to learn.

“Stop watching and make a move already,” he taunted as the two warriors took up positions on either side of him.  Both of them had skills in the twenties, and Kaen had been working hard on the spear and quarterstaff lately.

He was already above a twenty-three on the spear and was close to getting a twenty with the staff.  All he wore was the blood ring.  Elies had told him it was better to train with as little magical assistance as possible.  Occasionally, it would help, but if one only learned to fight when wearing them and something happened, and they did not have them, they would be worse off.

Both warriors attacked.  The female to his right came in faster than the man on his left, but neither of them was close to his natural agility.  He spun the staff, knocking away her attack with the sword before pivoting on his foot, bringing his staff around to crash into the man who had charged him with the sword held low.

The elf had tried to bring it up in time, but the speed of it took the sword from his hand, sending it scattering across the floor.

Continuing his spin, Kaen snatched a handful of sand as he stood up, tossing it into the woman’s face who was coming in for a second attack.

Blinded, she held her hands to her face, taking the butt of the quarterstaff into her gut.

“Cheater!” cried the man he had just disarmed as his partner dropped to the ground, trying to get air back into her lungs as she fell to her knees.

“Enough!” shouted Elies as he slowly applauded Kaen and walked over. “Some might say that is cheating, but there are no rules or honor in battle.  This is why you fail to improve.  You attack out of unison, allowing her to close first and hoping to strike right after.  If you attacked at the same time, your odds would be better.

Using his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow, Kaen grinned until he saw the look Elies gave him.

“They are right.  Honor is important here, but you are smart to realize there is a time when honor does not matter.  Remember this lesson.  Against the wrong opponent, if you allow them to trick you into thinking they will fight with honor, you might find a dagger in your back.

Nodding, Kaen understood.  A dragon rider was expected to fight differently, but the truth was that more people would fight dirty when faced against him.

“Thinking of checking your stats?” Elies asked as he watched Kaen’s face.

“Uh… no,” Kaen lied as he gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.  “You told me not to waste my time doing that.  Something Pammon never lets me forget.”

A rare chuckle escaped Elies’s lips as he smiled.

“I’ll remind you I went fifty years once without worrying about my stats,” he informed Kaen.  “Trust the process.  It will work if you put in the work.”

Grunting, Kaen bobbed his head.  Another eighteen months of this seemed so far away.

As Kaen began to move towards his equipment, Elies turned to return to his chair.  Kaen saw the wince that Elies had tried to hide.  The rot was spreading.

He prayed he had eighteen months to train.