Dragonfriend

by Marc Secchia

Introduction

Finalist – 2015 Parable Award
Gold Award winner – 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards

Stabbed. Burned by a dragon. Abandoned for the windrocs to pick over.

The traitor Ra’aba tried to silence Hualiama forever. But he reckoned without the strength of a dragonet’s paw, and the courage of a girl who refused to die.

Only an extraordinary friendship will save Hualiama’s beloved kingdom of Fra’anior and restore the King to the Onyx Throne. Flicker, the valiant dragonet. Hualiama, a foundling, adopted into the royal family. The power of a friendship which paid the ultimate price.

This is the tale of Hualiama Dragonfriend, and a love which became legend.

Excerpt

Twisting free FROM her manacles, Lia surged to her feet. She rapidly gathered a six-foot length of chain between her hands.

At her sudden movement, startled oaths burst from two young soldiers assigned to their cabin. Clad in the midnight-blue of Fra’anior’s Royal Guard, the soldiers watched over Lia and Fyria, her royal sister, as a Dragonship bore them into exile—likely, to a place of execution.

“What’re you doing?” squeaked Fyria.

“Escaping,” said Lia.

Eyes bulging, the soldiers whipped out their swords. One snarled, “Not by the fires of this caldera, you aren’t!”

“Here,” said the other, crooking his finger in a crude gesture. “Little girl want to play—urk!”

Lia lanshed out with the chain as he spoke. The metal links snaked around the man’s neck. She sprang sideways, up against the Dragonship’s cabin wall. Using her captive as a counterbalance, Lia stepped brieful along the lightweight wall to avoid the first soldier’s lunge, before dropping nimbly behind him. A swift kick of her slipper-clad foot propelled the man into the corner where her Royal Highness the Princess Eyria’aliola of Fra’anior—Fyria, for short—lay in chains.

Planting both of her feet, Lia used her full weight to spin the chained soldier about. His forehead struck a metal stanchion with a meaty smack. The soldier slumped. Unholy windrocs, that crazy maneuver had worked? No time to exult.

“Aye, I’m little,” she snapped, relieving the man of his sword. “Want to play some more?”

“Mutiny!” yelled the first soldier. “Help!”

Lia swayed away from his flickering blade. She pirouetted her parry with the poise of a skilled dancer. A cut appeared on her arm as if by magic. She flung her elbow upward, catching the soldier in the throat. As he choked, Lia finished him with a sharp rap of her sword pommel to the base of his skull.

The cabin door crashed open. Half a dozen soldiers boiled into the room, led by the hard-bitten Captain of the Royal Guard, Ra’aba. “You,” he growled. “Ever the troublemaker!”

“Traitor!” Lia spat in return. She raised her blade.

Captain Ra’aba, called “the Roc” after the windroc, a ferocious avian predator with a wingspan of up to eighteen feet, stilled his men with a gesture. “Hualiama,” he said, his scarred face twisting into a grin as he mangled her full name with great force, “little Lia, I trained you myself. How can you possibly hope to best me?”

She said, “I can’t. But I will protect my family—”

“Your family?” he snorted. “You’re a royal ward—about as much a Princess as I am.” When she only raised her elfin chin as if wishing to skewer him upon its point, he added, “Everyone knows you’re an unwanted, bastard whelp of a cliff-fox the Queen took pity on.”

Hualiama flushed hotly. “At least I’m not a worm who betrayed the people who gave him everything. Go cast yourself into a Cloudlands volcano—”

Ra/aba drew himself up with a sneer. “You forget you’re speaking to the future King of Fra’anior, girl. Now, kneel and swear fealty, or it is I who will be casting you off this Dragonship.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh, little Lia, who’d stop me? A Dragon?”

Relish twisted his lips; the harshness of his scorn unnerved her. Little Lia. The nickname she hated more than any other.

Staring up into his flat, fulvous eyes, Hualiama realized why she had never trusted this man. Her sword-point wavered; the Roc still had not drawn his weapon. She knew how fast he was with a sword. Ra’aba had never been beaten. If the legends spoke true, no weapon had ever touched him, neither in training nor in battle.

“Last chance,” he said. His stance bespoke nothing but absolute command and confidence. Lia tried to summon her courage back up from her boots, as the Isles saying went. “Girl, you’re fifteen summers of age. You’re a foot shorter than I am, hopelessly clumsy with a blade, and if I’m not mistaken, today’s your birthday. Choose wisely. Choose life.”

“Just as you’re promising life to my family?”

“Banishment.” He shrugged. “Uncomfortable ad permanent, aye, but hardly deadly. After all, which Fra’aniorian Islander would accept me if I had royal blood on my hands? King Chalcion will abdicate; I shall ascend the Onyx Throne in his stead.”

He rolled his muscular shoulders, a silent threat. “Now, haven’t you fomented enough grief for one day, Hualiama? Join me, and I’ll promise you a place in my kingdom.”

– – – – –

The Author

Marc is a South African-born author who loves writing about dragons and Africa, preferably both at the same time. He lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night there are also hyenas patrolling the back fence.

He’s the author of over a dozen fantasy books including 6 rip-roaring dragon fantasy bestsellers. Dragonfriend won a Gold Award for Fantasy in the 2016 IPPY Book Awards. He’s currently working on Dragonsoul, the third book in the Dragonfriend series.

Catch up with Marc at:
Twitter: @marcauthor
Facebook: www.facebook.com/authormarc
Website: www.marcsecchia.com

When he’s not writing about Africa or dragons Marc can be found traveling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.