The Disintegration of Dragons, Part 1: A Death in Vastervik

By Mark Bousquet

Pro Se Productions proudly presents a fantasy noir epic as a part of its Pro Se Single Shots Signature line- Mark Bousquet’s The Disintegration of Dragons.

The Golem War is over. One year to the date of final victory over the automaton armies of an evil wizard sect, the kingdom states of the Third Continent gather in the human kingdom of Vastervik to party. The guests of honor are all of the known surviving members of the 19th Legion (popularly known as the Dragon Legion), the military unit that ended the Golem War via mysterious, unknown actions. In the morning, Vastervik awakens to find two Legionnaires murdered and another the main suspect. Panic slowly grows among the Queen’s men. The 14 surviving members of the 19th are the most popular men in the continent, and neither the dwarves nor elves would dare move against them. The Queen needs someone who can stand up to the 19th to solve the murder, so she turns to the 15th surviving member of the Legion who none may mention without facing the penalty of death, a man locked away in the deepest, darkest cell. With the Legion in crisis, the Queen turns to the one man that she can trust to stand up to the 19th to find out who’s killing the greatest heroes of the Continent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pro Se Press
• Release date: Aug 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310087714

Book preview

THE DISINTEGRATION OF DRAGONS, PART 1:

A DEATH IN VASTERIK

By Mark Bousquet

Copyright © 2014 Mark Bousquet

Published by Pro Se Press at Smashwords

IS YOUR NAME really Kestrel? the Queen’s Guardsman asked.

It is, the young woman with cropped red hair replied.

Your parents named you after a bird?

What’s your name?

Bakig.

Oh, yes, that’s much better.

Bakig laughed as he pulled open a heavy wooden door in the first basement of Vastervik’s castle. After you, he smiled.

Kestrel looked down the narrow stairs, barely lit by intermittent oil lamps. What’s down there?

Your assignment.

Is this because I’m a woman?

Yeah, Bakig smiled. It is.

What will I be doing down there?

Guarding a door that never opens, the veteran guardsman said solemnly.

Wonderful, Kestrel said, and took her first steps into the deepest part of the castle.

FOUR ROPES. FOUR horses. Four races.

One wizard.

The Riders of Judgment urged the war horses forward, stretching the magician’s body tight and lifting it off the ground. The middle aged woman had been stripped down to a white undershirt, stained with her own blood. Her dark hair had been cut and chopped, her nose and fingers were broken, and she kept finding pieces of broken teeth that she would have spit to the ground had not her mouth been gagged tight with a muddy cloth. They cut her throat as she swallowed them.

A tall, helmeted man in black armor streaked with gold highlights moved in to straddle her body. A heavy long axe hung threateningly in his right hand.

He was a Dragon, one of the fourteen Legionnaires who had come out of the Spine Mountain Range as heroes almost one year ago, and the wizard knew his presence meant her end.

Felo Jinkari, you stand accused of witchcraft! the soldier roared, pulling off his black helmet with his free hand and dropping it to the crunchy, blood-spattered snow. The gathered crowd of fishermen and trappers from the western coastal region of Bel-tu gave an audible hush at the sight of the shoulder length golden hair, trimmed beard, and piercing green eyes.

Mogon! someone gasped and the crowd buzzed to life. There was weeping and prayers, and some of the women fell to their knees.

The captain of the 19th Legion of the Third Content, more commonly known as the Dragon Legion of Vastervik, raised a hand and the crowd fell silent. He, three of his Legionnaires, and his four Riders of Judgment were here to do grim work, and he would not allow the crowd to forget their duties.

Mogon looked down at the witch, hoping he would remember her face or her deeds, but none came to him. She was a lower level spook, but far from innocent.

No wizards were innocent. For almost three quarters of a century they had plotted and planned the takeover of the Third Continent, hiding away in the Spine and building an army of stone automatons as they waited for the right moment. Twelve years ago, that