The Forgotten Dreams. Book Two. The Dragon Army

By Adam Dominiak

This is an adventurous fairy tale that appeals to all age groups. In the Happy Kingdom a teenage prince, Adian, is under the spell of a dark wizard and is unable to feel any love in his heart and subsequently travels around the world in search of it. He meets witches, dragons, magicians, trolls, elves, dwarfs, a flying teacher and even a pig that learned how to fly, and all his courageous adventures take place in a surreal fantasy world that is just off our dimension. Are you ready for a jump into the reality where everything is possible?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Dominiak
• Release date: Jun 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301124220

Adam Dominiak

Adam Dominiak is a Polish born South African writer and author of 'The Grand Schizophrenia for the Milking Cows" trilogy and "The Forgotten Dreams" eBooks series. He lives with his wife and two cats near Cape Town, South Africa. He is a map collector and loves to cook.

Book preview

THE FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Book Two

The Dragon Army

Adam Dominiak

Copyright 2013 Wiesław Bąk

Smashwords Edition

Wiesław Bąk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Adam Dominiak is an artistic pseudonym of Wiesław Bąk.

Cover by Caress Crafts ©2013

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying or otherwise without the written permission of the author except for short inserts for promotional means.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is coincidental.

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1.

The situation was absolutely hopeless and Adian realised that there was not much he could do to avoid being killed very soon. The monster sized dragon was staring at him, dribbling saliva - he was very hungry and the boy was his awaited snack. What to do now? Adian thought desperately. And then an idea came to Adian’s mind: the broom. He had left it in the forest and perhaps the soldiers had not picked it up so it could still lie somewhere around the tree they had slept under. If he used his magic he could somehow manage to call it and then he could perhaps have a small chance of escaping. Without passengers the broom should fly much faster; but how fast and would it make it on time to rescue him? He did not know, but it was still worth trying, as it was Adian’s last hope. It all sounded very risky but it was the only chance he had now.

He focused his mind on this idea and in his thoughts he started to call the broom. He imagined it flying across the sky, fast like lightning, and then himself escaping on it just out from under the nose of the surprised Urus. His imagination, fed by desperation, was so strong that he could almost see the broom flying across the sky.

The impatient soldiers carelessly pushed the boy onto the first step of the stairs. He almost tripped over it and then reluctantly put his foot on it.

Will the broom manage to be in time? He was trying to resist but strong soldier’s hands pushed him further upstairs. He was making slow progress; step by step towards his destiny.

He visualised the flying broom closing in on the capital city, but the soldiers were persistent, taking him out of his deep concentration. His mind was now tense to the limit of feeling pain, giving off all the great energy of life he could push into his vision. The dragon roared, rocking and banging at the cage with its strong body, making the ground shake like it was a small earthquake. Will the broom be on time to save his life? He resisted the soldier’s arms pushing him forward but would he resist his fear? He knew that he had to remain calm but it was more and more difficult not to fall into a deep abyss of panic. They pushed him again, with more force, and he fought back so they came and grabbed his arms and carried him up the shaky stairs. Where is the broom? he screamed desperately in his mind.

Finally he was on top of the stairs and he looked down to the edge of the cage. Below him was the furious and desperately hungry dragon, jumping up, trying to frantically catch him with his gigantic mouth. What struck the boy was the size of the dragon’s extraordinary huge teeth - they were as big as the longest battle swords; all yellow and sharp.

Adian did not want to lose his concentration and, against all odds, he kept his mind on the vision of the flying broom. The horrific size of the monster, which was almost a few steps from the boy’s legs with the soldiers pushing him up and hundreds of eyes of the citizens watching him struggling with his fear, did not help him in staying focused and soon a paralysing fear took over and corrupted his heart.

A moment later he shivered as if he was in fever; panicking and wanting to cry out and pray for mercy. The bitter tears were dropping from his face, out of his control, and a strange feeling of calm and peace came to him. He felt as though somehow he was seeing himself weeping and shaking, but in fact, inside he was calm and at peace with everything around him. Am I about to die? asked a silent voice inside him but strangely enough, there was no shadow of fear in it; only a powerful peace and serene tranquillity, as though he knew that it was just a dream.

The dragon attacked the wooden cage with even greater fury and it looked as though the thick trunks of the trees it was made of were just about to break, like matches under someone shoe, but somehow the cage still resisted the monster’s violent movements. The cage was shaking and the soldiers that stood sloppily on the rocking and vibrating construction were losing their balance, securing themselves onto the railings with both hands. Adian squatted down, glued to the edge of the cage. He could not go any further; he could not reverse either, feeling the sharp ends of the spears in his back. He looked up at the sky and said in desperation: ‘I need a help!’ but his words disappeared into the whirlpool of the mortifying roaring of the shining, white beast.

‘Stop!’ Suddenly he heard the voice of an officer observing the whole event from ground level. ‘We have to wait for viscount Voldar.’

They all looked up at the balcony high on the fourth floor of the Castle where, from the large chamber behind blue curtains, should soon appear the dark sorcerer.

Adian fixed his eyes on the stony walls of the balcony. What on Earth could the wizard look like? he thought. Somehow he imagined Voldar as a very tall and scary man with wild, fearful eyes and a long beard, but he knew very well that he did not have to necessarily look like that. And he was right, because when he finally appeared on the balcony he looked totally different: he was a short man, whose appearance was commoner-like and much younger than the boy thought. So, this was the formidable sorcerer whose name half of the world dared not mention too loud, even in pub conversations? It was surreal and disappointing in a way. Voldar did not even look around but came halfway to the edge of the balcony, waved his hand as a sign to start the execution, and vanished behind the curtains into the cool shade of his room, looking almost bored. He did not even look at Adian for longer than a blink of an eye. What cynical impertinence thought the young Prince.

The officer, noticing the sorcerer’s command, immediately took the spear from one of the soldiers standing around the cage and started to climb rigorously up the stairs, pushing aside two guards who, until now, were dealing with Adian.

He stopped a few steps away from the boy and poked him with the spear, straight into his lower back. A ray of sharp pain came from his back and spread over his body, making him bend like a bow, but somehow he managed to keep his balance. Suddenly a great layer of energy came into him. He started to feel strange butterflies in his stomach and his flesh crept, but not in fear. He felt like a ray of light had fallen on his face and shoulders, which travelled all over him as though a thousand shining ants made of air walked over his body. He closed his eyes, seeing beautiful sun-like light, with fantastic rainbow colours around it.

’I am certainly about to die now,‘ he whispered. It was the only way he could explain the feeling.

He used this great energy he filled with to call once more to the broom. He whispered: ‘I can do everything. I can change my world. I can change this story into what I want to achieve. And I want to live.’ He opened his eyes when a sharp pain from the officer’s spear pierced his leg. The officer did not care much how deep the spear bit into Adian’s flesh; he wanted only one thing and that was to push him down into the Urus’s mouth as soon as possible. Adian landed on his knees, yelling from pain, and grabbed his wounded leg. In agony he looked once more at the sky. The broom still was not there.

Another hit of the sharp spear and he lost his balance. For a split moment he thought that he will somehow manage to hold onto the wooden ramp, but reality was very different - he was falling down, straight into the dragon’s open mouth.

The almost silent crowd of people held their breath and no-one knew who it was exactly, maybe one of the boys selling fruit or maybe one of the young bakers, shouted: ‘Oh. Look out!’ pointing at the sky where, flying like a thunder ball, the broom circled around the Castle’s towers and flew directly into the dragon’s open mouth. The beast at first rolled its big, surprised eyes, then they became even bigger as the horrified beast started to choke and spit, the broom with Adian sitting comfortably on it, straight into the air. The young Prince waved to the people who were mad with joy and cheered him enthusiastically at his escape, and of not being scared of Voldar’s Dragon Army. And then he disappeared behind the Castle walls and flew away as fast as the wind.

Voldar observed all of this standing at his opened window. He was smiling. He whispered something to one of his officers and soon Urus’s huge wings had been untied and the monster beast now flew free, breathing heavily. It made a small hurricane near all the people standing; their hats flew from their heads and a short woman, who lost her balance, fell to the ground. It caused a small panic and half of the gathered citizens of the capitol city ran away in hysterics. Four other dragons had been sent to chase Adian.

2.

Adian flew low to the ground as fast as the broom could carry him. When he passed the capital he turned around for the first time to assess how far behind the chasing group could be. He was sure that Voldar would send one or maybe two dragons after him, but somehow he did not expect to see four of them behind the huge, white Urus. The reptiles were noticeably faster than his broom so he had to outsmart them somehow.

He lowered his flight, slaloming between the few trees he could find in the Kingdom’s opened lowland, and in this way hoped to lose the dragons, which he thought would have problems seeing him. A moment later he suddenly turned, flying in a different direction and a while later, when he decided that it was safe to do so, he bravely climbed up, checking to see if he had permanently lost the beasts, but instead he froze in fear because they were just behind him. The trick had not worked - perhaps Voldar’s magic helped them in the chase.

He knew that his only chance was to reach the Grendall Forest before the chasing group. Unfortunately he was very far from its borders. The Grendall was dense and full of very tall trees. The trees were no danger for him (he could easily manoeuvre the broom between them) but impossible to fly for dragons because of their whale sized bodies and large wings. Between the wide branches of the trees was a labyrinth of climbing plants and curtains of thick, giant spiders’ webs and lower there were dozens of different kinds of bushes and large plants, growing at the foot of the forest. Walking through this dark jungle was difficult and the thought of him flying through this mess of plants would be a suicide mission. In addition, the forest was drowned in a thick, greenish fog. For the dragons it would be very dangerous to fly through this, and no dragon in the world could land there safely or even walk without injuring itself on the muddy ground, which was covered with a thick blanket of thorny bushes and fallen trees. But Adian could and this was his advantage.

The only obstacle was that the Grendall Forest was still very far and he started to think that maybe it was too far to reach in time. However, he did not lose hope despite his growing doubts. When he looked behind, the dragons were so close that he could see the helmeted heads of the soldiers on their backs. The white Urus was now flying together with the four other beasts. His much bigger body made him a little slower than the other dragons.

Adian was constantly changing his direction of flight, sometimes losing the beasts for a short while, but usually it was never for long enough. In fact, it was more of a temporary win, of short duration, in order to delay his imminent capture.

Finally he noticed on the horizon a thick, dark line, marking the forest and the sudden explosion of hope burst a shot of adrenaline into his head. Would he reach the forest in time? Would he escape?

He turned around and shouted with joy, seeing how two of the dragons had started to lose their speed and stayed behind the others. Now he was sure that he would succeed. Soon another dragon slowed down, visibly tired, and even Urus seemed to slow down.

The line of the trees grew fast in Adian’s eyes but the strongest of the dragons was almost directly behind the broom, and what was worse, it was still closing in