The Dragon Caller (Brightmoon Book 9) Read online

  THE DRAGON CALLER

  An epic fantasy

  Part of the Brightmoon Annals

  by Pauline M Ross

  Published by Sutors Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 Pauline M Ross

  ISBN:

  978-1-912167-07-4 (paperback)

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.

  Cover design: Deranged Doctor Designs

  Proofreading: Coinlea Services

  The dragons are coming, and only a Dragon Caller can stop them. But the Dragon Callers are long gone…

  Ruell knows he’s different. At night, intense, lucid dreams take his mind far away, flying in dragon form over the oceans and coastal forests. It’s as if he’s in the dragon’s mind, seeing everything they see, feeling every sensation of their raw majesty. In his dreams, he’s the most powerful being in the world, not an oddity.

  Could the dreams be real? Could he be the first Dragon Caller in thousands of years? If so, he has no idea how to control this power and the dragons are coming to find him. The only people who may be able to help are halfway across the continent, and he doubts he can reach them before the dragons arrive to spew their fire over him and everyone dear to him.

  Garrett wants to protect his son, and he’s learnt a trick or two in his time, but if Ruell really is a Dragon Caller, every king and lord and petty tyrant will want to exploit his power, and they won’t ask nicely. Garrett and Ruell will find themselves in the middle of a war for dragon power, because whoever rules the dragons rules the world.

  And if nobody rules the dragons, there’ll be nothing to stop them taking over the world. The battle will be for the very survival of humankind.

  A stand-alone epic fantasy set in the Brightmoon world.

  The Brightmoon Annals:

  1: The Plains of Kallanash

  2: The Fire Mages

  3: The Mages of Bennamore

  4: The Magic Mines of Asharim

  5: The Fire Mages’ Daughter

  6: The Dragon’s Egg

  7: The Second God (a sequel to The Fire Mages’ Daughter)

  8: Findo Gask’s Apprentice

  9: The Dragon Caller

  10: The Return of the Mages

  Want to hear about new releases or sign up for my mailing list? Go to my website..

  Table of contents

  Prologue (Ruell)

  1: Dragonflight (Ruell)

  2: Sand Eagle Bay (Garrett)

  3: The Midwinter Moon Inn (Ruell)

  4: The Women's House (Garrett)

  5: Of Dragon Sex (Ruell)

  6: The Library (Garrett)

  7: A Short Cut (Ruell)

  8: Evening (Garrett)

  9: About Dragons (Ruell)

  10: Books (Garrett)

  11: The Cliff (Ruell)

  12: Penance (Garrett)

  13: The Handmaiden's Temple (Garrett)

  14: Visitors (Ruell)

  15: Dragon Fire (Garrett)

  16: A Fast Ship (Ruell)

  17: Confrontation (Ruell)

  18: High Rock (Garrett)

  19: Sail-Master (Ruell)

  20: Questions (Garrett)

  21: Seasickness (Ruell)

  22: Proposition (Garrett)

  23: The Golden Coast (Garrett)

  24: A Camp In The Woods (Garrett)

  25: A Night At An Inn (Ruell)

  26: The Hayloft (Garrett)

  27: In The Forest (Ruell)

  28: The Road To Drakk'alona (Ruell)

  29: Ran’ashilla fah (Garrett)

  30: Roast Venison (Garrett)

  31: A Minor War (Ruell)

  32: Making Camp (Garrett)

  33: A Visitation (Garrett)

  34: Defiance (Ruell)

  35: The Northern Ocean (Garrett)

  Thanks for reading!

  About the Brightmoon Annals:

  About the author

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue (Ruell)

  Ruell was blue this time, blue with black tips to his wings and tail, and big – perhaps the biggest yet… Muscular power rippled through him, so that he glided effortlessly. So exciting! It was awe-inspiring to have so much energy at his command.

  ~~~~~

  Tonight I’m just cruising about, nowhere particular to go, nothing particular to do. Below me, the sea is black velvet, studded with diamonds where the sliver of rising moon catches a wave. Flying near me is a female, brown and gold, very pretty, not one I know. Not in the mood to be admired, though. She’s circling steadily, gazing down, looking for fish.

  She dives suddenly, wings folding, spearing into the water with a great splash. Not so impressive – a young one, maybe. The water heaves and she surfaces. No fish. Should I show her how it’s done? Maybe make an offering? She isn’t in the mood just now, but another time…?

  It’s too much trouble to go to, and I can’t be bothered. She’s not enticing enough, and when she’s grown a little, she’ll come to me. A couple of easy flaps, and I leave the little brown and gold dragon far behind. I rise effortlessly, the sea falling away below me, a shimmering carpet. Shall I go west, to the empty horizon? Or north, to the Shifting Isles? Or east…

  ~~~~~

  He could see the island! There it was, clear as anything. Dragon eyes were much sharper than human ones. If he could only fly closer, he could see the palace and the bell tower.

  ~~~~~

  Something is tickling my mind, some awareness that shouldn’t be there. I’ve noticed it before, but dimly, a far-off, distant thing, not anything to trouble about. It first intruded on my consciousness last winter, when I was sleeping in my cave. Not much reaches that far south, so I was intrigued, I’ll admit it. With the spring, I chose to wander northwards, and sometimes that odd prickle was there again. Nothing threatening about it, though. As if anything could threaten a fully-grown dragon!

  Now it’s there again, but it isn’t distant, it’s right here, inside my head. And also somewhere else…

  The impudence! I spin on one wingtip and power east, towards the coast, flying lower. There are humans there, many humans on the mainland, and also some on the scatter of islands that fringe the ocean, but I care nothing for that, not when my mind is being invaded. The nerve of this being… whatever it is. Where is it, the creature that dares to intrude into my mind? Is it a caller? Surely not! We destroyed them all, didn’t we? Let me just find this thing and it will feel the wrath of dragonkind. Now it’s north of me, but I turn in a wide sweep, so low that one wing is all but touching the sea below. North, north, now a little west… One of the islands then. But which one? By the bones of my ancestors, when I find this wicked thing…

  A great roar bursts from my mouth, the flames stretching twice my own length. Which island is it? I’m getting so close—

  1: Dragonflight (Ruell)

  Ruell woke in a lather of sweat, his head heavy. The dreams were becoming too scary altogether. That was the first time his dream-dragon self had belched flames. He could still taste the hot sulphur in his mouth, feel the power of those great wings. And the anger – never before had he dreamt of dragon rage, and it still ricocheted through his body, jangling his nerves, making him shake with the echo of it.

  He breathed deeply and waited. Beneath the surface emotion was something else, something deep and raw. He had no idea what it was, but every dragon dream left him this way, pulsing with some unearthly energy, like the almost inaudible roar of an underground river or distant thunder. Dragon magic, he called it, but he had no real explanation for it, accepting it as part of the experience of the dream. Sometimes, he’d even felt it at other times, a low rumble in the corners of his mind, there for a few
heartbeats and then gone. But after a dream, it was strong and steadfast, lingering for a while before it faded away.

  He leapt from his bed and raced to the window. Sometimes when he woke from one of his dreams there really was a dragon out there, flying above the water. Always too far away to tell whether it was the colour of his dream, though. Sometimes he was sure it would be, if he could see it more clearly, but at other times he laughed at his own foolishness for thinking that way. Tonight there were no dragons in sight, not from this window.

  For perhaps an hour he watched, hoping, but with the cool light of dawn he turned to his shelf of books. Which one today? He knew them all by heart, but he still liked to read them again, murmuring the words to himself and touching the pictures. He liked the ones with pictures best.

  There was one book that mentioned dreams, and perhaps that might be reassuring. He reached for the book, the embossed leather so worn with age that the title could not be read. But on the first page, in letters dark and strong, he read:‘A Thorough Analysis of Dragons: Their Physiology and Behaviour, Newly Revised and Updated Edition by Eddor Karfordrin, Scholar Dignitarium of the Academia of Mesanthia. Printed in the Reign of the Fifteenth Empress and Dedicated with Humble Respect to the Glory of Her Great Empire’.

  Ruell didn’t understand most of that, but it didn’t matter. He turned to the chapter and began to read.

  ‘Dreams of dragons are believed by the simple people to be prophetic, that if one envisages oneself in a particular place or engaged in a particular activity, then one will, in time, come to that place and accomplish that activity. This is utter nonsense, naturally, the merest superstition, as promulgated by those who have no understanding of the world. Only the Spirit of the Empress has the power to make true prophecies. That is not to say that such dreams are devoid of all meaning. To dream of seeing a dragon is…’

  His fingers turned page after page, mouthing the words, immersed in the long-ago time when there was an empire and prophecies and everlasting books. And dragons! What would the world look like, if dragons and humans lived side by side, in harmony? His eyes flew over the pages.

  ‘…never been proved under rigorous conditions. On the other hand, to dream of flying is—’

  “Ruell, did you miss the bell again?”

  He jumped, and the book slid from his grasp and crashed to the floor. “Sorry. Didn’t notice.”

  “We’re eating with Tella today, and you know what it’s like if we’re late.”

  “I said I’m sorry!” He bent to pick up the book, but when he tried to close it, some of the pages protruded, dislodged by the fall. “Now look what you made me do, Garrett! It’s broken!”

  “It’s just a book, Ruell.”

  “Just a book?” he cried in indignation.

  “It’s notreal. Sooner or later, you have to get your head out of books and find your proper place in the world. Either that or go to the Academia in Mesanthia. There might be enough books there even for you.”

  Ruell was mesmerised. “What do you know of the Academia? This book was written there!”

  “Was it? Well, I went to Mesanthia once. Long time ago now. The Academia’s a big, fancy place. Look, I’ll fix the book later, all right? But you really need to get dressed, or we’ll be so late we’ll be cleaning the latrines for a month. Hurry up.”

  Ruell hastily threw on some clothes. He always felt under-dressed beside Garrett, who was rarely seen without his armoured leather gear and swordbelt, no matter how early or late the hour. Garrett wasn’t tall, barely reaching above Ruell’s shoulder, but he was powerfully built and when he took his sword to the training court, the guards treated him with the utmost respect.

  He followed Garrett out of the room and down the dusty winding stairs of the tower.His tower, as he liked to think of it, for no one else liked to live here. Mostly the rest of the Windblown Isle’s residents clustered in two or three of the main sectors of the palace, Tella and the chosen few in one, the guards and boatmen in another, and the lowly grunt workers in a third. The fetchers and carriers, as Garrett called them.

  The bottom of the stairs was half silted up with a great heap of windblown leaves, brittle with age, crackling where they trod on them.

  “They’ve got in here again,” Garrett said. “I’ll sweep it out later.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” Ruell said. “My fault for leaving a window open.”

  They crossed the courtyard where Melliara was already hard at work, sweeping the morning’s leaves into a neat pile in one corner. She looked up and waved a casual hand at them. Ruell tried not to blush, and failed, smiling at her. Smiling – grinning inanely, more like. He wished he could be relaxed around women, the way Mikah was.He acted like it was no more than his due to be admired, and they flocked around him, giggling foolishly like mindless chickens around the cockerel. Whereas Ruell blushed and stammered and shuffled his feet. Especially with Melliara, but then she was so pretty. Her cheeks had a roundness to them, so soft and smooth, that made his heart hammer in his chest. He was so stupid near women, and they just laughed at him, he was sure of it. Still, it was better that way, after what had happened behind the milking barn. To cover his embarrassment, he lowered his head and scurried after Garrett.

  Guards watched the doors of Tella’s apartment. The Queen’s Tower, she liked to call it, and she’d had a passing stonemason carve it into the lintel over the door. Or tried to. He’d struggled for days but only managed four letters before giving up. “Stone’s too ’ard,” he’d said and then, frightened off by Kestimar, he’d left. Within a few days, those letters had gone, the golden stone as smooth as it had been before. The palace was a strange place.

  The guards threw open the doors and they passed through. Inside, there was no sign of the decay that infected most of the palace. Here no dust gathered, no leaves hurled themselves through open doors or windows, no spiders wove industriously in corners. The rugs glowed with vibrant colours, and even the air seemed alive, energy-giving, smelling faintly of honey and apple blossom.

  Up wide stairs, along a corridor and into the sitting room, with its familiar mismatched furniture and shelves of dragons’ eggs. Ruell ran his fingers over them as he passed, feeling the tingling pulse of magic in each one, like a faintly beating heart. Except for the last one, the odd one that Garrett had brought. It had never quite matched, that one.

  Through an ante-room they came to Tella’s dining room, a formal counterpoint to the homely sitting room. Here, the furnishings shone with polished wood, the intricate whorls of knotting making an entrancingly random pattern. As a small boy, Ruell had spent hours running his fingers round the tracery, spiralling in and out, never quite sure where he would end up. Nowhere else in the palace had wood like it.

  His mother was already there at the table, wearing one of her new gowns, her face lighting up as she saw them enter.

  “Garrett! Good morning. And Ruell! How thoughtful of you not to be late today, for you know how I like to eat on time. Come here and kiss me like a good boy.”

  “Good morning, Mother. You’re looking well today.” He bent to kiss her cheek, still smooth as a young woman’s.

  She laughed, knowing that she always looked well. No one would guess that she had seen more than sixty summers. What magic preserved her looks? Was it the palace? There was something strange about it, with so much decay everywhere, but not here in this part, the golden-walled Queen’s Tower. The rest of the palace was a mish-mash of reds and browns and greys and black, some walls of stone, some of brick, some shimmering almost like metal. The rest of the palace and the grounds around it tried constantly to cover everything with rotting leaves and dust and wind-blown detritus. But here, nothing rotted, not even his mother.

  Kestimar, on the other hand… Such a big man, hunched up in his chair by the window like an over-sized spider, his hair wisps of grey, his arms and legs stick-thin. He glowered at Ruell, but said nothing. Ruell nodded at him, and took his seat at the table opposite
his mother. He had no quarrel with Kestimar, but he was an irascible man, no doubt about it, and there was no point inviting trouble by speaking to him unnecessarily. It was Garrett, as always, who addressed the older man.

  “Good morning, Kestimar. How are you today?” His tone was bright.

  Kestimar growled like an animal. “Worse for seeingyour ugly face. Don’t look at me like that, or I’ll cut those eyes right out of your head.”

  “Ah, having a bad day, I see,” Garrett said with undiminished cheerfulness.

  “Garrett, stop it,” Tella said, as she did every day.

  “Why do you do that?” Ruell burst out. “Garrett’s being polite to Kestimar, why do you tell him to stop it? I don’t understand you, Mother.”

  There was a silence so profound that the distant clatter of pans in the kitchen could be heard.

  “Long story, Ruell,” Garrett said. “Not very interesting. Kestimar, do you want me to push you to the table?”

  This time the growl was a roar. “Girl!” Kestimar yelled.

  From the service door, not a girl, but a man emerged. Savroan, Kestimar’s attendant, was a big, ugly man with a pronounced limp. He grabbed the handles of Kestimar’s wheeled chair, spun him round and pushed him wordlessly to the table, so that he sat at Tella’s right hand.

  “Where’s the girl? I wanted the girl,” Kestimar yelled, arms flapping.

  “You made her cry,” Savroan said, his voice a low rumble. “Get me instead when you make the girls cry.”

  “Fuck it, I want a girl, not a great lump like you!”

  “Don’t we all,” Garrett muttered.

  “Fuck you, Garrett! Fuck all of you! If I can’t do a fucking thing for myself, can’t I at least have something pretty to look at?”

  “Gotta stop making them cry,” Savroan said.

  “By the Nine, stop this!” Tella said. “Savroan, go and get the girl back. If she hasn’t enough stomach to listen to a bit of ranting, it’s time she learnt. I mean, look at him! He’s not going to hurt her, is he? It’s just words. She needs to toughen up. The Nine know, he has little enough pleasure in his life. And Garrett, just shut up. Savroan, tell them we’re ready to eat now. Ruell, don’t sit there with your mouth flapping open.”