Defending Zando

By James Richard

The Kingdom of Zando and its magnificent Castle on the Hill is a source of envy for the kingdoms nearby in this ancient time of magic. King Bullato of Grottlyn covets the Kingdom of Zando and its wonderful castle as he watches Zando’s prosperity and happiness grow each day. He plots to take over Zando after removing King Allandro. Will Princess Adriana, now the Queen be capable of saving the Kingdom of Zando? Will she ever be able to join with the love of her heart, the handsome and rugged Duke Arden? Will the Army of Zando be able to overcome all odds and defeat evil King Bullato, in spite of his army and the horrible, twisted creatures he gads created with the help of his sorcerers? All these questions suddenly descend on the Kingdom of Zando one warm and sunny summer day when the bells in the towers of the castle suddenly ring out an alarm after fifty years of silence. Join the Army of Zando, Queen Adriana and Duke Arden in the heroic quest to save their beloved kingdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Richard
• Release date: Nov 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310142123

James Richard

Retired university professor enjoying a second "career" writing books, creating music and video. Love living here in the desert of Utah, St George. Year-round golf and the clean, clear and dry air of the desert. Hope you will check out my blog and some of my music. Go to Bandcamp, i.e. jimbomedia.bandcamp.com and give a listen. Look for more books in my new series, Castle on the Hill.

Book preview

It was a time of great magic, a time long before mankind lost touch with the real world. The world of magic, sorcery, creatures and happenings now long forgotten were then a part of the lives of all the people. Mankind was close to the earth and its wonders and had not yet lost its kinship with spirits, both alive and dead. Logic and science had not yet trampled the knowledge of the unseen world, perhaps a parallel world to that of our modern, orderly and well-documented world. A world today that leaves little chance for the magical happenings once so often a part of the lives of the people. It was a time of magic in the Land of Zando, a land ruled by King Allandro.

King Allandro and his wife, Gloriana, who had recently died, had reigned for 30 years. For many years the Land of Zando had prospered. The people felt free to follow their heart’s desires, unfettered by their ruler and thus Zando was a happy place. There had been no attacks on their land for many years and the people had become complacent with the peace and prosperity of their land. Thus it was on this quiet morning. All seemed well and everything in place as the sun rose that summer day, the birds sang and people went about their early morning business just as they did every day. This day, however, was not to be like any other. This day would bring changes unlike anything the people of the Land of Zando had ever known.

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CHAPTER ONE- THE KING

King Allandro sat comfortably in his high-backed chair the softness of the bearskin surrounding his tall and lean torso. He so enjoyed these quiet mornings. The sun was streaming light into his chamber in a high tower of the Castle on the Hill. The Castle on the Hill was high above the meadows and low hills of the Land of Zando. As the King enjoyed his morning meal his thoughts turned to his beloved daughter, Adriana, his only offspring and therefore the future ruler of the Land of Zando. Thinking of the fact that he was reaching the middle fifty’s his concerns were turning to how he should be preparing Adriana for the time when she would be the Queen. Although she was not yet twenty-five, Allandro was concerned that she had not yet married. This fact worried her father who was clearly expecting to keep the throne of Zandro as a part of his lineage. He wanted a grandson and soon. When would the Princess make up her mind and marry one of those handsome Dukes he continued to invite to the Castle on the Hill to woo his daughter? All of his efforts seemed to be to no avail, at least as far as he knew at this point in time. Perhaps there was someone special to his daughter, but if so she was not telling him. Oh well, he thought, there is some time left before I pass on, at least I think so as my health seems to be quite good. So, all was well in the Castle on the Hill, or so it seemed to King Allandro on this beautiful summer morning. If there was any trouble brewing the King did not know about it. So the summer day began as many others for the beloved King in the Castle on the Hill, happy, warm and cheerful.

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CHAPTER TWO- A MAN FROM GROTTLYN

At that very moment there was a man nearing the castle gate on a mission from the Kingdom of Grottlyn, the kingdom over the High Pass, beyond the Enchanted River and the Dunes seemingly too far away to be of concern to people in the Kingdom of Zando. The man who had come so far from the Kingdom of Grottlyn to the Castle on the Hill in the Land of Zando was known simply as Herrot.

Herrot started his life born as the son of a blacksmith. His father was a brute of a man who routinely punished his children with a knotted rope wielded by his heavily muscled arm. Herrot’s back bore many, deep scars testifying to the fact that he had made his brutish father angry too many times. As he grew to manhood, Herrot carried with him the anger he felt so many times as a child. All of this seemed to mold him into a sort of machine, a man without feelings. A man with no regrets for choosing the life of an assassin who would end the lives of many men, men who for some reason had earned the wrath of someone of power or of the means to hire an assassin to snuff out their lives.

His first deadly job involved removing competition for his local butcher and then he made other small-time, contract killings. As his reputation grew among the disreputable merchants and others in Grottlyn, word reached King Bullato, the evil King of Grottlyn, that Herrot was an efficient killing machine and could be trusted to keep his evil deeds secret. So King Bullato arranged to bring Herrot to his castle and to assign several jobs to him over these last several years of his tyrannical reign. Thus Herrot was pleased to have been assigned the job of his life, that of a secret mission to the Land of Zando.

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CHAPTER THREE- KING BULLATO AND THE KINGDOM OF GROTTLYN

King Bullato sat by the window of his elaborate palace staring towards the distant Dunes. He was anxiously waiting for word from Herrot as to the success of his mission to the Land of Zando realizing the it would take Herrot at least a week of travel to Zando and another week back to Grottlyn. For many years now King Bullato had coveted the Land of Zando and especially its magnificent Castle on the Hill. In recent years it had become his obsession to somehow take over the Kingdom of Zando and to impose his oppressive rule over the prosperous people of Zando. Not only then would he confiscate the wealth of the people of Zando, but he was obsessed with the power he knew would come from control over the magnificent Castle on the Hill. With its overpowering height and its many walls and towers it was immune to attack by forces on the ground and its ruler would have domain over a kingdom to be envied among all those known by man.

The Kingdom of Grottlyn, by contrast with that of Zando, was mostly a flat and rather ugly land. It had further become a land without color after the many years of King Bullato’s oppressive rule. He had squeezed the very life from the people of Grottlyn and his thugs had taken everything of value from the people by force and fear. His torture chambers and dungeons were full as he made examples of anyone who dared to oppose him with words or deeds. To create even more fear and obedience, his evil sorcerers had created monsters, creatures that were half men and half bears, two-headed water serpents and others as another means to strike fear in the hearts of his subjects.

Meanwhile, King Bullato lived a life of luxury and wantonness that had turned him into a fat hulk who could barely rise from his throne. Surrounded by several wives and concubines, he lounged in his throne room, eating and drinking until falling to sleep. He increasingly took pleasure in cruel games involving hapless men pitted against his evil creatures and continued to collect riches at the expense of his people. Yet all this was not enough for his boundless appetite and he wanted to possess the Kingdom of Zando and to sit in the highest tower