Dragon Raider Read online

  Dragon Raider

  Sea Dragons Trilogy Book One

  Ava Richardson

  Contents

  Map of Torvald & Surrounding Lands

  Sea Dragons Trilogy

  Copyright

  Dragon Raider

  Mailing List

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part II

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part III

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  End of Dragon Raider

  Thank you!

  Sneak Peak

  Other Books by Ava

  Sea Dragons Trilogy

  Dragon Raider

  Dragon Crown

  Dragon Prophesy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, MARCH 2018

  Copyright © 2018 Relay Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Joemel Requeza

  www.relaypub.com

  Mailing List

  Thank you for purchasing ‘Dragon Raider’

  (Sea Dragons Trilogy Book One)

  I would like to thank you for purchasing this book. If you would like to hear more about what I am up to, or continue to follow the stories set in this world with these characters—then please take a look at:

  AvaRichardsonBooks.com

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  Blurb

  Will adapting to a changing world make one young woman lose touch with where she came from?

  Far from the kingdom of Torvald, on the Western Isles near the coast, Sea Dragons rule the skies. Lila is the daughter of the Raider leader, destined to take his place one day aboard their plundering ships. Her people value only what shiny trinkets they can get their hands on, but she aspires to much more than that: Lila wants the Raiders to become Dragon Mercenaries, dragon riders who help protect merchant fleets and navies from attack. Her father Kasian is skeptical, but a young monk named Danu—with a quest of his own—comes bearing a prophecy claiming that Lila is the lost heir of Roskilde, a born Dragon Rider.

  With Danu’s guidance, Lila finds the unruly dragon she’s destined to bond with—but the mismatched pair soon learn that much more than just their futures is at stake.

  Prologue

  The Roskilde Prophecy

  Churning seas, bright with blood. Fire billowing over the water, and dark skies heavy with thunder…

  “Aii!” The old woman awakes with a start to find herself in her simple round room in her simple round hut. The inner walls are dark, though she knows with the dawn the plaster will gleam white. The floor is yet the solid, deep mahogany planks she has trod for decades. The roof is still the weathered, bone-white but also bone-strong giant supports of giant driftwood, with heavy, warm thatch over that. Here are not the churning and frothing waters of her dreams. Not the billows of fire, not the dark storm skies.

  The old woman sighs deeply, patting her frail chest as if to quiet the night terrors that had so recently fluttered there.

  To say that this woman is old is an understatement. Chabon Kaidence is beyond ancient. Her pale skin is deeply lined as if cracked, and her eyes are sunken – but there is still a spark of vitality within their depths, like hidden stars. Even the folds and wrinkles of her skin still glows despite its age.

  The Matriarch of the West Witches has been alive for a long time, long enough to know when a dream has stopped being just that, and has instead, become a prophecy.

  A pale hand moves unsteadily to the wicker table, where a silver bell sits on piece of rough-woven, colorful fabric. She rings it, once, for the silver chime to cut through the night like a shooting star.

  “Mother?” A voice sounds almost immediately at the heavy purple curtains that hang over her door, and, for a moment Chabon blinks from the glare of brighter light outside.

  “You fool!” snaps another voice behind the first, and into her room step two women: one is tall and lean, with skin the color of rich, warm earth, and the other is as pale as Chabon lying before them. The first has braids of black hair falling behind her back like tree roots, whereas the pale woman has fields of golden hair streaming behind her like sunshine. It is this fair and pale woman who snaps at her darker colleague.

  “Afar, you’ll blind the Mother. Turn off that light!” she says angrily, pushing her way into the room to cross the mahogany floor and stand at Chabon’s bedside.

  Afar scowls for a moment, but she does as she is advised, turning the notches on the lantern until it only emits a dulled, yellowish glow as she steps into the room. Behind her, the Matriarch catches a glimpse of the wooden walkways that stretch from one hut to the next, crisscrossing the island of Sebol like vines.

  “I am blinded by the darkness, Ohotto, not the light,” Chabon breathes to her two most-trusted sisters amongst the witches.

  “Yes, Mother.” Ohotto hangs her pale head in shame, as Afar steps to her bedside bringing with her a pouch of rich and nourishing purple berry juice.

  “Are you thirsty, Mother? Do your aches pain you?” Afar says in her heavy voice. She is not a native to these Western Islands, but she has spent many years here, under Chabon’s tutelage.

  “No time to drink. I will repeat a dream for you, a nightmare – and I want you both to remember it, and to set it down on paper as soon as you can,” Chabon says. “It is a nightmare that I have had many times over the years, but now it comes frequently, every moon! Every week!”

  “A prophecy.” Afar nods her head in awe. This will not be the first such prophecy that has fallen from the oldest witch’s lips. Afar Nguoa just hopes that it is also not the last.

  “The seas are churning, bright with blood, and atop the waves there are flames,” Chabon intones, her voice carrying in the still airs of her hut. “There is a darkness to the skies, a darkness that is more than thunder, but a darkness as if the sun is blocked by great wings….” The old woman wets her lips, remembering the other parts of the nightmare that she has had throughout her life. Like the stationary stars in the sky can suddenly coalesce into a constellation when one squints at them right, so the nightmares fall into place, one after another.

  “There is a child, born from the waters. A girl, rising from the north-east sea, under a dragon’s angry call and upon her head is a crown made of leaping waves.”

  “The Sea Crown of Roskilde,” th
e fair-haired Ohotto Zanna states quickly. It is a famous artefact, even out here in the wild and furious lands of the western archipelago.

  “Yes, child,” Chabon breathes. “I believe it to be so. The royal crown of the island realm of Roskilde, green-gold like leaping waves, fashioned of old to protect the island for all time.” Chabon’s starry eyes flutter, and she starts to recount her dreams once more. “The Sea Crown will be lost, and then it will be found once more, but the one who finds it will not come from the royal line. A girl will rise from the sea to seize the crown, with a bloody sword in her hand, and in her other she holds fire.”

  “What does it mean, Mother? Will this girl be a usurper? A tyrant, seeking the Sea Crown?” Ohotto interrupts.

  “Wait, sister, let the Matriarch finish…” Afar whispers, as Chabon coughs, looks confused.

  “There was something else – what was it? A boy. A boy with a forked tongue… But what part did he play? I cannot remember!” Chabon looks deeply hurt, before her breath eases a little deeper. “The boy and the girl. They will bring with them blood and fury, and before them and behind them there will be the dead…”

  The Matriarch sighs, and a shudder runs through her body. Her eyes slowly close, and her hand relaxes.

  “Mother!” Afar Nguoa, the dark-skinned witch of Sebol whispers, bending down to touch the old woman’s hand.

  “Is she….?” Ohotto’s breath hitches is the night.

  “No, Chabon sleeps, that is all, but I fear that even the Matriarch of the West Witches is coming near her end.” Afar frowns deeply as she gently smooths the older woman’s long white hair away from her brow, and pulls the blankets a little closer around her sleeping form. “We must write down the prophecy,” Afar says. “What shall it be called?”

  “The Prophecy of Roskilde – and we can only pray that it will not come true, for it is terrible,” Ohotto Zanna states, her eyes searching the darkness for clues and answers that do not come so easily. “If this child rises from the seas to claim the Sea Crown, the delicate peace we have with Havick of Roskilde will fall. Years of our work will be for nothing.”

  Part I

  To Catch a Dragon…

  Chapter 1

  Lila, dragon-thief!

  The claw print in the sand was huge. Much larger than even I had expected. Hang on a minute. I thought that fisherman had told me that this island was inhabited by the sea-greens dragons? I bit my lip, glad at least that I didn’t have my foster-father here to watch my moment of fear. Chief Kasian of Malata was known as a harsh man, even amongst us proud Sea Raiders of the Western Oceans.

  The sun was starting to burn off the sea fog that clutched onto this bit of rock where I’d directed my little skiff, revealing that, in all other ways it was just as I had been told: a tiny, rock-topped atoll with a smattering of trees and a golden beach skirting its northern side. This little islet had no name other than a designation, “the last bit of rock before you get to Sebol” the old sea-salt fisherman had told me, and it was on this beach that I had found my first evidence of the dragons.

  A track of claw prints, each almost the size of my little boat. Not that the skiff was very big – I had chosen the skiff from my father’s flotilla for its speed rather than strength. But still, I calculated quickly – if this foot was that big, then that meant that the leg would be as big as a tree, and the body it connected to… I shuddered. The beast would be, even at the very least, larger than most of the huts and houses on my father’s island-rule of Malata.

  “You did say that this was a bad idea,” I murmured at my father, far away and doubtless angry at the fact that I had gone off again to try and find the dragons.

  And their eggs.

  Still, there was little that I could do other than press on. I was Lila of Malata, adopted daughter to the chief of the notorious Sea Raiders of the Western Isles. I did not shirk from a challenge. I was the challenge.

  The tracks led to the head of the beach and the rocks beyond. The white stone was crisscrossed with lines of black – Bonerock, my people called it. Notoriously hard to shape, it formed the core of many of these little islands that speared the Western Seas. Moving as lightly and as quietly as I could, I passed into the rocks and started climbing, toward the dark cave openings where this dragon must have made its lair.

  It’s a long way down from here. I pushed away the thought as I climbed. Why did dragons have to make their dens on the tops of things? Why couldn’t they live in nests on the ground? The soft goatskin leather of my gloves was already scuffed and torn, and I could feel the edges of the rock beneath. The heat was making me sweat, and I was glad I had managed to argue my difficult hair into the warrior’s braid this morning. Just a few more feet—

  “Ach!” My foot slipped, and instantly pain tore along my shoulders and arms as I hung from the rocks. Don’t look down. Don’t look down…

  I looked down. Beneath me, the rocky walls jagged and snarled out, with the occasional tuft of scrubby sea grass, all the way to the frothing grey-blue ocean below.

  Sweet Seas… I breathed, my stomach lurched and my limbs trembled in that way they always did when I was forced to be anywhere up high.

  “Don’t overthink! Do!” my father would have shouted at me. He had tried to drum this fear of heights out of me ever since he had found it in the child he had rescued after the raid had taken her parents. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth as I tried to remember the lessons he drilled into me. “You’re a Raider, Lila! The most fearsome thing on the four oceans! Nothing stops you. Not a bit of wind under your feet!” And then he would tell me to get up that rigging and tie off that knot, or secure the sail anyway. I had to do it.

  “Think of your crewmates waiting for you! What if we had one of that brute’s Man-o-Wars on our tail? Your crew are depending on you!” He would shout, which would spur me to get up there and do what I had to do anyway, admittedly with shaking fingers and taking twice as long as any other of the Raider sailors.

  Just like I had to do this.

  Because if I don’t do this, the Raiders are finished. I gritted my teeth, opened my eyes, and pulled. My back screamed in pain, but I managed to bring myself up to the height of the cave opening, my boots kicking on the Bonerock until I found a purchase and – “Ugh!”— I flopped over into the shallow depression before the dragon’s lair, panting and wheezing, and waiting for my heart to slowly calm down to just a dull roar, rather than a thunder.

  Slowly, the world came back into focus. I was Lila Malata. I was alive. And I was here because my father’s Sea Raiders were getting themselves decimated by the self-styled Lord Havick of Roskilde. The Roskildean ships were larger and stronger than ours, and they always seemed to know which shipping routes we were heading for. They would be out there already as if expecting us, ambushing our smaller, faster boats with fire and catapult, and slowly my father’s mastery of the seas was being whittled away. I didn’t think that we Sea Raiders had another generation in us if this plan didn’t work.

  The darkness of the cave beckoned. Disturbingly, there was a litter of bones on the front “porch.” Small bones as long as my finger, which I guessed were the spines of the marlin fish that the sea green and blue dragons adored so much. I hoped they were that, anyway.

  “Lady Dragon… Great Dragon…?” I called out hesitantly, my voice, used to shouting orders from the decks piers as it was, sounding small and hesitant in the darkness. How are you supposed to talk to dragons, anyway? I had no idea. We Raiders didn’t exactly have a big library, although I had tried to get through the collection of scrolls that my adopted mother Pela of Malata kept. Each one had been stolen from the captain’s quarters of some merchant ship or another, and only a few had talked about the great Dragon Academy of Torvald.

  And Queen Saffron, I thought, feeling a flush of borrowed courage. The tales said that she was like me, almost. Not a Raider of course, but she was a Western islander who had managed to tame a sea green and blue dragon, and ride on her all the way
to the citadel of Torvald, where she defeated the evil King Enric, and there reinstated the Dragon Academy with Lord Bower.

  If she can do it, so can I, I thought – and I wasn’t even dreaming of flying off to take over a city far from home. I just wanted to raise an egg for my father, and save my adopted people from being wiped out.

  Thankfully, however, that old fisherman who had told me that there was a dragon cave here on this atoll had also told me that the dragons go off hunting early in the morning, meaning that their nest would be unprotected. I wasn’t quite so foolish as to attempt to steal a dragon’s egg with an angry mother still sitting on it!

  No noise from inside. Good. The footprints I had seen couldn’t have been fresh. The last thing I wanted to do was disturb a mother dragon as it sat on its eggs! I crept forward, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom before I could make out the deep piles of dried twigs and grasses making a rough nest. It was warm in here, and made me want to yawn. But what if there was more than one dragon in here? What if the old fisherman had been wrong?