Dragon's Land Book 1: Lost and Found

As I promised (albeit a little later than I thought), an excerpt from my first novel, part of a trilogy and in the second stage of editing to be published. I hope this gets you excited to read the whole thing!



This is from chapter 4, the first encounter with the series main antagonists, the monstrous dragons of Orcion:

 Clouds obscured the sky, thunder rumbled as a light rain began to fall, adding to the sinister atmosphere. And as lightning lit the dark world the dragon roared at the newcomers, ready to kill.

Cael suddenly yelled to get the dragon’s attention, and it turned its murderous yellow eyes on him.  It resembled a cat in body: long, slender limbs, with wide eyes and pupils that were narrowed into angry slits.

 The dragon’s bronze scales began to spark with electricity, they were shimmering gold in color and they glowed in the darkness and flashed off of the raindrops, adding it seemed, to the storm’s rapidly growing fury. The dragon snarled at its new enemy, spread its wings and turned its body so that its shoulder, and the myriad of bone spikes that sprang from it, faced its foe.

 Cael recognized the movement and tensed himself to jump. The dragon roared and sprang forward covering the distance between them in an instant, Cael jumped aside just in time to evade the razor sharp bone. The dragon continued its headlong rush right past him and smashed into one of the massive boulders that dotted the clearing, carving large, jagged furrows in the stone.

 Diving into a roll, Cael stood up from the ground panting because of the rush of adrenaline from his close shave. The dragon recovered from the shock of hitting the rock and shook its head, apparently fine with smashing into large boulders. The dragon looked at Cael, who was now taking a ready stance and igniting his hands in preparation for the next attack, and narrowed its reptilian eyes with anger. Cael saw the angry glare and smiled as he saw the ragged scar on the side of its neck.

“So it’s you.” He said, “Didn’t think you’d be coming back for more. If I’m honest with myself I thought you were dead the first time.” The dragon roared, shaking the ground beneath the companion’s feet.

 Soran watched the melee and calmly bandaged up Brenna’s bleeding arm, having already taken her to the edge of the clearing so as to avoid getting in the way of the fierce confrontation. Brenna was not taking things so lightheartedly, “Why are you making conversation with it, you idiot!” she shouted in Cael’s general direction, “We have to run, we can’t fight that thing!”

Cael gave her a reproachful look and elaborated, “But we’ve met before, do you really have that little faith in me?”

 The dragon watched them with narrowed eyes knowing that another head-on attack would be useless. With a sudden burst of speed the dragon bunched its leg muscles and leapt towards the Soran and Brenna, knowing that they were the weaker of its current opponents. With a flying leap, Cael intercepted the beast mid-flight with a solid kick to the ribs.

Brenna stared in shock as the beast that had been hurtling towards her at top speed suddenly changed direction to fly headfirst into a tree. “Just how freakishly strong is he?” she thought to herself.

 Cael dropped to the ground and stood ready, knowing full well that even with a powerful kick like that, all he had done was make the dragon angrier. “He isn’t going to fall for the same trick twice.” He thought quickly. Cael sent a double stream of flame towards the still-prone dragon, engulfing it in a sapphire inferno.