Dragon Magic

By Melanie Ifield

Daniel and his companions journeyed north rescuing Poe from the hidden forces of Bauhinia, only to discover that war had been declared in their absence between Novarmere and Bauhinia. As Novarmere gears itself up for war, Daniel needs his friends more than ever. Magic that his body was not designed to hold is burning through him. Can he survive this ancient sorcery?

Daniel thought Poe would extract the magic seeping through his veins. Unfortunately, Poe can’t help. The origins of the magic are too foreign for the young wizard. While going home to a world without magic halts the problem for a while, Princess Rishana has ordered Poe to bring Daniel back to help with their mounting problems. Nilofar’s life is endangered as he slowly Solidifies into stone, unable to reverse the process; the war effort is going too slowly for a longed for easy victory, and Bauhinia’s high Priest, Lord Boan, has released magical warriors to lead his troops.

MAGIC BURNS
Daniel’s body was coping with the magic when he went home, but now he’s back in Novarmere and it burns. The troubles keep mounting up. Novarmere is fighting all along the border against the blind aggression of Bauhinia, as the Bauhinians tap into ancient magic, raising deadly Morphs to destroy Novarmere. The magic in Daniel’s blood is boiling. Nilofar is fading away into stone under a spell even Poe does not understand. Where can they turn for help?

THE NORTH CALLS
Daniel can feel it – the call of the Northern Fire Plains. Home of the dragons. Daniel is determined to reach them and ask for their aid. Can they help Novarmere as it faces the Skeletal Morphs that lead the Bauhinian soldiers? Can they save Nilofar and Daniel from the magic that is destroying them both? There is a chance the dragons, with their ancient knowledge, can save them all, but will they?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melanie Ifield
• Release date: Sep 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994419859

Melanie Ifield

Melanie Ifield writes novels for all ages. After years exploring the written word from a young age, culminating in a degree in journalism, Melanie now writes full time. Melanie loves the idea of loosing yourself in new worlds or new experiences through books and hopes her stories will provoke that love in others.She has been self publishing since 2013 with a fantasy series for everyone over the age of eleven called the ‘Chronicles of Novarmere’ where Daniel and the little dragon Nilofar set out to save a Kingdom; a children’s adventure story where the determination and strength of the eleven year old protagonist saves the lives of mistreated chickens in ‘The Chicken Liberation Army’; and a romantic thriller with action and adventure for adults called ‘The Age of Corruption’.Melanie has taken some time out due to long term chronic illness. However, for now and forever, her passion is writing. Her dream is for her books to find their audiences and to write as often, and as much, as she can while she can. She’ll change tone, voice and genre. She’ll write in novels, in journals, on her blog, in notebooks and on post-it-notes if she has to.Then one day, one very fine day, all her dreams will come true. She hopes yours do too.

Book preview

Chronicles of Novarmere:

Dark Wizard Quartet Book Three

Dragon Magic

Melanie Ifield

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Books by Melanie Ifield

Children

The Chronicles of Novarmere: Dark Wizard Quartet

The Candlestick Dragon (Book One)

Hunt for the Last Wizard (Book Two)

Dragon Magic (Book Three)

Bellamante Productions

The Chicken Liberation Army (Book One)

Adults

Listening to Echoes of her Self

Fiona Page Novels

The Age of Corruption (Book One)

A Melanie Ifield book

First published by Melanie Ifield in 2015

Cover illustration: Kevin Burgemeestre

Front cover design: Elaine Ouston

Cover lay out: Thomas White

All rights reserved

Copyright © Melanie Ifield

www.melanieifield.com

PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-0-9944198-1-1

EPUB ISBN: 978-0-9944198-5-9

Typeset & formatting: Thomas White

No part of this book may be reproduced in any way, in any form, mechanical, electronic or otherwise, without expressed permission from the author.

All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Author: Ifield, Melanie

Title: Dragon Magic / Melanie Ifield

Series: Ifield, Melanie ‘The Chronicles of Novarmere: Dark Wizard Quartet’

Target audience: Middle grade

Acknowledgements

Abig thank you to everyone who has worked on this book to make it a reality – I simply couldn’t get everything done without you all.

I especially wanted to thank my darling, lovely sister for her untiring effort to edit and streamline every word within. Any mistakes are mine (though I shall blatantly blame her).

Calm before the Storm

‘T ry to stand still,’ advised Poe. ‘This isn’t how I would normally do things, but innovation is a marvellous thing.’

He glanced up from the book he held in his hand and noticed the look on Daniel’s face.

‘Don’t worry, Daniel. I will figure out a way to get that magic out of you, one way or another.’

Daniel was a little unsure about that, but he held his tongue. Poe had tried several new ways; none of them doing a single bit of good. It hadn’t improved his temper. Working this closely had strained their friendship on more than one occasion. Daniel thought he was being far more reasonable than Poe deserved. It was, after all, his body they were discussing.

‘I am holding still. I’ve been holding still for the last two hours. We need a break.’ Daniel hopped down off the stool Poe had manhandled him onto and went over to the window.

He never got used to the view. Actually liking heights was one of the things that made him realise the magic was still working in his blood - that and the ever present feeling of warmth in his veins.

He looked out over the valley. Far to the left were the flat grass pastures where the cavalry traditionally exercised their horses. It was also where Princess Rishana’s cousin had been stolen away by what was now suspected to be Tiggre the cat-like morph, when her mother, the Queen’s sister, had been killed.

Now the pastures hosted the remainder of the Queen’s war party, minus the advance troops. Those had already gone to the border between Novarmere and its western neighbour, Bauhinia. Tents, flags, horses and men filled the valley from one side to the other. Daniel hardly ever went down there. It was too confusing. Though, he was assured by Rishana, it was organised chaos.

The troops had been massing since the Queen had declared war on the neighbouring country, Bauhinia. Daniel had read about gathering together vassals for war back at school. He’d always enjoyed reading about Attila the Hun and the seemingly endless wars in medieval England. It was a different thing when faced with one himself.

Poe handed him a cool drink. It was stiflingly hot in the south of Novarmere at this time of year. Even though summer was wearing on and leaves were starting to be tipped with autumn colour, Daniel couldn’t feel the change. Andamooka, the nation’s capital, was too crowded, and summer was yet to loosen its grip. He couldn’t feel the approach of the cooler weather this far south of the Dragon Spine Mountain range. The extended summer would simply vanish overnight, he was assured. While past the Dragon’s Spine, in the Dragons’ Lair itself, it would remain endlessly hot – a part of the dragon magic that protected the northern fire plains.

‘Thanks.’ He took a sip and went back to watching the activity. Poe stood beside him and stared out the window, too. They needed no words to know the failure of another attempt at partitioning the magic in Daniel’s body. Containing it was proving to be a frustrating endeavour.

They’d been in the castle now for a few weeks. Daniel couldn’t believe how quickly it had all flown by.

After they had run into Fireforge, the red dragon from the north, they had made straight for Rusher’s Hills. Forge told them Novarmere had declared war on Bauhinia after Queen Tia discovered the evil mastermind behind the plots of ex-wizard Rullin and the kidnapping of Poe was in fact the First Priest of Bauhinia – Lord Boan. This caused a great stir. Lord Boan had supposedly been a great friend of the Queen and Princess Rishana. He had given Rishana the gargon Dagma, a creature of magic, half dragon half gargoyle, for a present on her birth. Dagma had betrayed them by kidnapping Poe.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had given the companions pause. Fireforge also revealed that Novarmere had been the aggressor six hundred years ago in the Great War which had nearly annihilated magic completely from the Land. From the history books, everyone had always believed that Il’Havannah, whose borders marched down the eastern side of Novarmere, and its sorcerers, had declared war on Novarmere.

But dragons are long lived, so were able to provide a witness to the truth. Daniel also persuaded everyone to keep in mind history was written by the victors, in this case Novarmere, so perhaps it wasn’t as clear cut as they had been led to believe. The news of this, when they returned to the castle, had brought instant uproar. Poe was still madly deciphering the books they had brought back from the monastery to see if he could refute it.

That was providing the wizard with an entirely new focus for his frustrations. While most were written in early Novarmerian script, there were few scribes who actually studied such a dialect. This made finding comparative texts exceedingly difficult. Daniel wished they could meet the person who had written them. He didn’t know if he would congratulate them on stumping the wizard, or beat them over the head with one of their own books.

Daniel took another long sip of the cool bitter limony juice, as they called it here in Novarmere. It was very similar to lemon squash, but more bitter and had no bubbles.

They had dashed madly to the north to find the kidnapped Poe, who had been held prisoner at the Eye of the Mountain, the single highest peak in Novarmere. Along the way, discovering an ancient set of linked fortresses. They used the Rusher’s Hills fortress-link to the Mirrione Monastery to get back south as fast as possible after finding Poe, once they had caught up with Captain Remoh and Lieutenants Florent and Sotheron.

‘Do you think Tru and Ouse are okay?’ Just thinking about the Eye made Daniel’s mind turn to the ruarc and herb magician. Ouse had been instrumental in their escape, organising his fellow ruarcs into a mass attack. They’d left the pair in Rusher’s Hills. Tru had decided she wanted to rebuild her home, destroyed in a goblin attack. Even her herb garden, the source of a lot of her power and knowledge, had gone up in smoke.

Poe shrugged. ‘The threat from organised goblin raids has certainly gone. Commander Juuka, our joyless leader of the goblins and Bauhinians who held me prisoner, is no doubt in Bauhinia trying to explain his failure. Without him, they’ll just be so much disorganised rabble again. Tru will be fine. Didn’t the rangers agree to widen their patrols to include the Hills? Pretty soon goblins won’t be an issue there, either. Plus, she always has the ruarc. Ouse wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her.’

The Queen had also sent troops to guard the fortresses, as they were strategically a nightmare should any foreign power manage to control them.

‘Does war always take this long to get going?’ Daniel turned away from the depressing sight of so many war machines and rows of horses in armour. The last regiments were preparing to move out. Reading about war had been one thing, watching its slow progress was entirely different.

‘How did you think it would happen, Daniel?’ asked Poe, quietly.

‘It’s just we’ve been here for a couple of weeks. It took us long enough to get here lugging those books. Surely things would have happened by now?’

Daniel sighed in frustration. They didn’t understand his hurry. War happened, the Princess kept telling him, when it happened. They couldn’t rush these things. Sometimes hostilities could start and end without a single arrow being fired – just a whole lot of posturing and aggression until one side backed down and agreements were reached. Queen Tia still hadn’t sent the last of the Bauhinian delegation back home. There was hope her show of strength, by declaring war on the bigger nation, might lead to a peaceful settlement.

They were also hoping that the sight of so much military activity would hasten peace talks.

Not going to happen, Daniel thought for the millionth time.

He wasn’t sure why, but he had a strong feeling Novarmere held something Boan wanted and one way or another, the First Priest was determined to get it - even if it meant destroying a lot of lives in the process. There would be no peace until he was either killed, or got what he desired. Why else had he gone to so much trouble to place Rullin and Dagma in the castle? His sphere of influence was wide and they were still unsure of how much power he could wield without Rullin’s magic.

But Daniel’s dilemma was deeper than that. He didn’t want to leave his friends in the middle of a war, but he needed to get home. Before that, however, Poe had to remove, or at least contain, the foreign magic in his blood. He didn’t want to go back through a Gateway to Fadden without knowing the magic wasn’t going to turn him into something unpleasant or blow his head off.

‘War will take the time it takes,’ Poe replied somewhat cryptically. ‘There have been skirmishes on the border between the advanced troops and Bauhinia’s militia, testing resolve and strength. We don’t know what it is Lord Boan is really after,’ he said, echoing Daniel’s concern, but then dismissing it a little more quickly. ‘We can worry about that later and you shouldn’t worry about it at all. Getting this magic out of you should be your first priorit.’

‘It is. Then you can send me home. But I just wish things would be resolved quicker, that’s all.’

It was all well and good to make lots of noise about how Novarmere would trounce Bauhinia, but pulling in the reserves and arming a nation wasn’t a quick process. Novarmere hadn’t been to war for centuries and neither had Bauhinia.

‘I wish Lan was here,’ he said quietly.

‘Me, too, but he’ll get here when he can. Hopefully, what he brings will be of some use, because nothing I’ve read so far gives me an inkling as to what to do.’ Poe sounded a bit lost.

Daniel slanted a glance at him from the corner of his eye. The last thing he wanted was another futile session standing on that stool, if Poe was already in a mood.

‘I say we call it a day. How about we go for a ride down the park?’ Anything was better than standing all afternoon. It had been a couple of days since Naffar, the heavy cavalry horse they’d provided Daniel with, had had some exercise. Daniel found he missed the enormous beast, which was a shock. He’d never ridden before, but the horse was now definitely a part of his weekly program.

It never ceased to amaze Daniel how Naffar and the Princess’ horse, Trudo, had managed to escape the goblin attack in Rusher’s Hills and find their way home. So many had been lost, including Laningrin’s faithful beast, Freedom. What with the destruction of nearly all the Queen’s Guards, and their horses, Daniel never thought to see Naffar again.

On the other side of the castle, away from the valley of war, was lovely parkland leading through Andamooka and the palace grounds. The palace was Daniel’s least favourite place. Full of dignitaries, royalty and priceless objects, he felt completely out of place. Instead of taking up Rishana’s offer to give him his own rooms there, Daniel preferred the simpler style of the castle. It housed the barracks, the lesser court officials and Daniel’s friends. Even Rishana had moved into her rooms at the castle. It was easier to defend. Soon the whole royal court would move there. Though they didn’t expect the war to reach Andamooka, safety was important.

Nilofar, who had been snoozing on a soft pillow set on one of the wooden chairs, sat up and snorted some smoke.

‘We leaving this place?’ asked the terrier-sized dragon. He had grown bored of Poe’s attempts to ‘fix’ Daniel, as Nilofar had described it, and turned himself partly to stone to sleep. Only his head remained unaffected by the Solidifying.

‘Absolutely! Not that I don’t think you’re the best wizard ever, Poe, but right now I can’t see us making me any better. I still think I should have gone north with Forge.’

A small part of him did wish that he had gone with Forge, who had asked him, relatively politely for a dragon, explaining Daniel had something that didn’t belong to him. He had his suspicions about what that might be.

Mostly, though, he knew he’d made the only decision he could. There was no way he could travel north with a dragon, right into Dragon’s Lair, leaving all his friends behind. For one thing, he had to get home and Poe was the only way he knew of being able to do that. For another, as Poe had quietly explained, he may have become a snack for the dragon if Forge became testy. Seeing as the dragon had already been testy, Daniel didn’t think it would have taken long.

The alternative, of having Poe work out how to quell the magic in his system and create another Gateway, was proving to be a longer exercise in futility than he’d expected. Especially with the fact that the few rare and old manuscripts they had liberated from under the monastery library they’d discovered when using the chambers, were so hard to decipher. The monks were busily sorting the rest of the library, a task that they delighted in telling the Princess could take decades. He only hoped that Laningrin was more successful.

Leaving his rooms, Daniel, Poe and Nilofar, now completely unSolidified and wrapped around Daniel’s shoulders, headed to the stables. Anything was better than another afternoon stuck inside being poked and prodded by a wizard.

They hadn’t gone down more than one level in the castle, when Rishana came running up.

‘Where are you off to?’ the Princess asked. She looked tired and Daniel felt bad about complaining over Poe’s help. Rishana was stuck in meetings listening to strategy discussions and old generals talking about their prowess. He wouldn’t swap Poe’s prodding for the generals’ gossiping, for anything.

‘We’re going for a ride. Can you come?’ He wasn’t always sure when she was free. Sometimes she’d be out and about for hours, but other times, her brief escapes meant she was merely getting more refreshments. Daniel found it weird that a kingdom with only one heir would put that heir in danger by including her in war preparations.

She pushed long dark hair away from a pale drawn face. These days, Rishana always looked pale.

‘If we hurry, I can. If they find me wandering the halls looking as though I have nothing better to do, they’ll certainly find something. But a chance to go riding ...’ she grinned. ‘Let’s go!’

Even though the castle was full of servants and guardsmen and soldiers, none of the ones they went passed were of senior ranking, so they made it to the stables without Rishana being ordered back into talks.

‘What exactly do you talk about?’ Daniel asked, hauling Naffar’s saddle off the row of pegs. With the extra height gained through the magical growth spurt, he was able to saddle Naffar himself. He could also mount without a soldier heaving him up. That had always caused him great embarrassment.

‘It’s all very technical stuff - where to place troops along the border and how to get supplies to them, that sort of thing. We have such a large border with Bauhinia and so much of it is lined with the Great Forest! I’ve never really paid all that much attention, but with a limited supply of troops, there is a lot of ground to cover.’ The Princess petted the nose of her showy light cavalry charger. Trudo danced on her toes, eager to get going.

‘Limited supply?’ That didn’t sound very reassuring to Daniel.

‘It’s not as though we can just snap our fingers and have more regiments as replacements,’ she sounded impatient. ‘People are going to die if Mother can’t restrain Boan. Then who do we turn to? We have no ally who will come to our aid. Even Thessinger will merely watch and wait to see who comes out the victor. I don’t want to order boys to take up arms, reinforcing our troops with children!’

Daniel opened his mouth to ask why not, when her mother clearly didn’t mind her own thirteen year old daughter heading off to war, but then he caught Poe’s eye. The wizard shook his head slightly. Arguing with Rishana wasn’t going to get them anywhere. To be fair, the Queen was determined that Rishana would be kept back from the theatre of war itself, but what if it came down to using the sceptre? The Queen couldn’t make it transform from plain wooden artefact into glowing magical wand, at all.

‘Then the older men brag about how if only they were younger, they’d show those Bauhinians a thing or two,’ she deepened her voice and made it sound pompous, mimicking the older commanders well. ‘If they weren’t so afraid of lifting a sword in case someone put them on the front line, they wouldn’t have to boast so much. I have a good mind to order them to the front line just to see them sweat it out. Mother’s still in talks with the Bauhinian delegation, so I don’t see her much, plus she gets updates from the troops in the field. She expects the commanders to be training me, so she doesn’t breathe down their necks.’

‘It sounds like she should be.’ Daniel threw himself up into the saddle as he spoke, ending his sentence with a grunt. It was still a long way up. Naffar wasn’t the smallest of horses. ‘How does she keep the Bauhinians here to talk peace, when there are already troops facing each other on the frontline? Doesn’t that get a bit confusing? And when is she going to move the Command to the border?’

Rishana shrugged, as she swung up on Trudo.

‘The skirmishes that have occurred thus far are being written off as ‘misunderstandings of trade and border issues’. So long as they have diplomacy to hang onto, Mother can keep them here. When things get more serious, she’ll take over command and the delegates will be sent back to Bauhinia.

‘The only conflicts our commanders have seen are with foreign ministers. Novarmere doesn’t make war, as a rule, though we are all strong, even our women. Whilst eventually the command will move, we must also remain in control here at home and ensure that our people stay loyal to the throne. We wouldn’t want a civil war to erupt. We must show that we are all in this together – we will all suffer deprivation and loss of life until we can end this aggression. We have watched the tribes of Bok’Hara rip themselves to shreds making war. The tribes across the Tyrants Ocean are always fighting someone; if not each other, then people from The Beyond.’

‘The Beyond?’ Daniel led the way out of the stables, as Naffar was pulling on the reins.

Poe rode a quieter horse, not one bred for war, but a horse used by the ladies of the court merely for leisure riding. He didn’t have a favourite and just took whatever horse wasn’t being used at the time. Trudo carried Rishana up to Naffar. Both were looking for a gallop, but they were reined in. Poe’s mount wouldn’t keep up.

Daniel had seen the maps of the Known World. He hadn’t seen anything on a place called The Beyond.

‘They aren’t really mapped,’ Rishana explained. ‘Well, if they are, not on any maps we have. We’d have to send our mapping experts through Bok’Hara to get to them and that isn’t always a sensible idea. Bok’Harans can be very territorial. I don’t think even they know the extent of The Beyond. The only thing they will tell us is there are many peoples and they are very aggressive.’

To Daniel, the mapping of an unknown land sounded like an adventure. However, since he’d come to Novarmere, his idea of what constituted an ‘adventure’ had shifted. A fair bit of the time it meant lack of sleep, and when sleep was possible, it was usually on hard ground around a campfire. It also meant travelling in fear and not knowing if the next day he would be killed or not. Throw in a bit of magic and before you knew it, things were out of control and you were living with royalty. Not exactly what he’d been planning. He hadn’t even met a single local councillor back home.

‘You two can get the friskiness out of them, if you want. Nilofar and I will follow more sedately,’ said Poe, watching the two war horses pulling their riders’ arms painfully. Nilofar glided over to Poe, to leave Daniel free.

‘Race you, Rishana?’ He flashed the Princess a grin. He couldn’t get over the fact he had grown to love riding and was actually quite good at it. Naffar was a lot heavier than Trudo, but Daniel could feel the extra oats they were feeding the horse in his eagerness to run.

‘You’ll lose!’ She laughed, the idea of a race chasing the shadows from her eyes. ‘Ready? Go!’

He didn’t have to do anything, simply stop holding Naffar back. The two horses raced down the park lane, scattering walkers and other riders along the way.

‘Look out! So sorry! Coming through!’ Daniel and Rishana yelled as they plunged past. Daniel waved at one lady who was shaking her fist at him. Naffar had scared her half to death.

The end of the lane came way too fast. Trudo pulled up just ahead of Naffar, prancing and sweating in excitement. There was nothing the lighter horse loved more than galloping. It was what she was bred to do.

‘I win! I told you not to try that dead end pony against a real horse.’ Rishana was laughing, but she reached over to scratch Naffar’s nose to show she didn’t mean it.

They turned the two horses back up the lane to go find Poe.

‘No luck yet?’ Rishana asked him.

Daniel knew exactly what she was talking about. ‘No. Poe doesn’t know what else he can do. The magic is too foreign. Nilofar tells me it feels comfortable to him, which makes me even more worried.’

If the little dragon liked the ‘feel’ of the magic in Daniel and Forge had told him it wasn’t something he should ‘have’, Daniel was afraid the magic was