DRAGON STALKERS - a tale of myth, lore and of fire breathing dragons

By Richard Marman

The latest YA novel from the pen of Richard Marman, author of the acclaimed McAlister Line.

A mighty dragon called Brimstone is terrorizing the once quiet village of Oak Tree. Prince Roger and his sister, Princess Crystal, set out to hunt the fire breathing beast.

They are ably assisted, or hindered, as the case may be, by an evil knight, a mysterious good-guy, the local sheriff, loyal men-at-arms, forest brigands, ogres, trolls, and Oak Tree’s villagers with a bunch of attitude.

There are thrills, spills, romance and a heap of rollicking fun to be had by all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abela Publishing
• Release date: May 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781910882573

Book preview

Dragon

Stalkers

Narrated & Illustrated by

Richard Marman

Accompanied by his

Merry Troupe of

Roving Minstrels

DRAGON STALKERS

Copyright © 2015 Richard Marman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any

manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever,

electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical (including

photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis,

or any other information storage and retrieval system) without

the prior written permission of the publisher or author.

Published by

Abela Publishing

London

[2015]

Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.RichardMarman.com

ISBN 13: 978-1-910882-57-3

First Edition, 2015

Part One – The Plot

Chapter 1

I

n bygone times there were a lot more kings and queens than there are today, although many people feel there are still far too many. Monarchs generally ruled small kingdoms that were verdant, covered with plump, fertile farmlands, vast forests and surrounded by high, spooky mountains. There were always hordes of trolls, bears, wolves and bandits in the mountains, so only brave knights with a good backup of dispensable cannon-fodder — AKA men-at-arms — ventured there.

Sovereigns were duty bound to produce beautiful, sumptuous princesses and handsome, brave princes, which they managed admirably. Plain progeny were simply unacceptable and astute royalty kept a wizard or fairy godmother handy to see that any defects were rectified with the appropriate magic spell or potion. Some of these however, were prone to unfortunate side effects resulting in long term drowsiness that could only be overcome by a loving — and essentially chaste — kiss.

Two such dutiful sovereigns were King Elvis and Queen Aretha. One of their offspring-of-choice was Roger who was just as handsome and brave as could be. Needless to say Roger had a beautiful — and essentially chaste — sister called Crystal, who was a year younger than her brother. Hour-glass figure, jet-black hair flowing to her waist, shapely non-cellulite legs, ruby lips, sparkling blue eyes without even a hint of capillaries accompanied by long, battable eyelashes and a flawless complexion — not a pimple throughout puberty for this little miss — these were all essential fair princess fare.

Queen Aretha was paying a shonky warlock a fortune for mystical quackery to restore her sylph-like figure. She felt that, although she’d not technically produced an heir-and-a-spare in medieval terms, she was close enough. Two scions whatever their sexes were sufficient in her opinion, even though their upbringing fell to loyal and lovable nannies. All that huffing and puffing associated with child-birth was most undignified, quite unseemly not to mention unqueenly and much more suited to itinerant lone wolves on the prowl for a pork supper.

Our particular privileged royals all lived happily-ever-after in a castle on top of a hill, being the normal locality for a regal des-res. As just stated, Elvis and Aretha’s palatial edifice stood in the midst of the obligatory idyllic bucolic tranquillity,  fringed by a dense forest surrounded by distance snow-capped peaks, exactly as you’d expect. There were also loads of birds and animals around, but we’ll come to them later.

Cosy oak-beamed thatched buildings lined narrow streets leading to the palace within the bastion walls, while lesser cottages had sprung up randomly beyond the castle moat. Merchants, mercers, butchers, bakers, candle-stick makers, chandlers, cordwainers (now there’s a word you don’t hear much nowadays), factors et al hung their shingles, hawked for business and displayed their wares outside their shops, pretty well cluttering up the cobblestone roads which were little better than lane-ways. And of course there was a mandatory forge manned by a stalwart, ale-swilling, muscle-bound blacksmith. The streets simply bustled with cheerful shoppers without a drop of organic effluent to be seen — or smelt.

Now, if you thought monarchs were common, well dukes, counts and earls were just about two-a-penny (or eight for a silver groat) and there were simply dozens of knights. Dukes, earls and such were frequently helpful advisors and allies to the king, but there was a fair smattering of downright evil rascals who were always plotting against someone, usually the king.

A knight’s main job was to protect his monarch and fight for him — mostly against other knights — and generally be chivalrous and helpful to everyone. Unfortunately some knights failed in their job description and were simply bullies who liked nothing better than thumping the living daylights out of each other at jousting tournaments (which were known as ‘lists’ for some obscure reason) when there were no real battles scheduled.

Sir Vladimir — Vlad for short — was King Elvis’s chief knight and champion, which just meant he fought the king’s battles for him, because it wouldn’t do for a king to get killed, or even bruised a little bit.

Prince Roger was always having trouble with Sir Vlad because he hated it when the king’s champion bullied peasants or was generally mean to the king’s mastiffs. These were dirty great hunting dogs. Prince Roger thought Sir Vlad was pretty silly to kick such huge hounds around, because one day they’d bite him and he would only have himself to blame.

‘They’re just dumb mutts!’ Sir Vlad declared.

‘It doesn’t matter. Remember I’ll be king one day, and then you’ll have to do what I tell you whether you like it or not,’ our worthy prince admonished.

That prospect didn’t lie well with Sir Vlad, but he knew he couldn’t just chop off Prince Roger’s head in a tournament, or pull some other dirty trick. Knights didn’t just go around chopping off their prince’s heads. Other prince’s heads were fair game — in fact that was actively encouraged. But, you had to be loyal to your royal or you were out of a job and even outlawed, which was a fate worse than death to most knights, although some took to it like ducks to water. But, we’ll come to all that later as well.

Sir Vlad also had the hots for Princess Crystal even though she thought he was creepy with his slicked back hair and waxed goatee. Sir Vlad’s descendents were to go on to greater things in the Balkans, but that was still a long way off.

So, Sir Vlad grumbled and grizzled, but usually did what he was told when the prince was looking and carried on bullying behind the royal back. The King and Queen didn’t seem to notice. Undoubtedly their minds were on loftier, majestic matters. Sir Vlad wasn’t a complete animal-hater. He owned a mean looking raven he’d named Cyanide that often perched on his shoulder and frowned a lot. Vlad used to chat to the bird and feed it titbits like frog’s legs, wriggling caterpillars and cute little bugs.

The biggest difficulty for young princes such as Roger was not dealing with grumpy knights like Sir Vlad, but boredom. Certainly there were the lists and hunting at hand, along with endless balls where princesses lined up three deep to attract the attention of a handsome prince and become that epitome of Fairyland — a princess bride!

None of this interested Prince Roger — not that he minded a bevy of available princesses — who wouldn’t, remember they’re all duty-bound to be beautiful — and he certainly wasn’t gay, even if he lived in Fairyland and occasionally wore tights. But at nineteen-and-a-half he felt a bit young to marry, which was all those lasses ever thought about. Mind you, with old fashioned family values and no reliable means of contraception, people got married a lot younger then. Most girls felt they had missed the boat if they were still single at seventeen, which shows they were pretty foolish about a lot of things in those times. Princess Crystal might have been getting a bit edgy, but she wasn’t going to settle for just anyone, and especially not Sir Vlad, no sir.

Jousting and hunting were all very well and quite exciting if you were up against mean opponents or after bears and wild boar. But because he was such a good guy, Roger really craved for some more meaningful employment.

Well, as luck would have it, and is so often the case in stories like this, Roger was offered a challenge to dispel his ennui and go riding off to adventure and peril. Just what the apothecary ordered!

One morning a small and weary group of travellers approached the castle to seek an audience with King Elvis. They rode in a hay wagon pulled by a contrary mule called Julia. Lots of people came to petition the king all the time and normally quite a crowd built up, so they had to wait a while for the king to see them.

The humble quartet sat patiently: a short middle-aged man, a young muscular chap, a plump woman and an obligatory simple fellow who carried a massive club. The guards made him leave the weapon outside, palace security being tight and the soldiers diligent. And in time this lowly group was led before the king. They doffed their hats and respectfully bowed as you do in the presence of a monarch.

‘Well,’ the royal person said after a suitably royal pause, just to keep the hoi polloi on their toes and in their place. ‘Declare thyselves and state what boon ye seek of us. Do be brief. We are not well pleased when our time is wasted, especially before morning tea.’

Kings always said ‘we’ and ‘us’ when they meant ‘I’ or ‘me’ and so on. No one really knows why royalty started talking that way and it was very confusing, especially when they addressed school children who were having trouble learning grammar. Of course not many children went to school in those days, which was probably just as well.

Royals also — along with a smattering of nobles — used ‘thou’, ‘thee’, ‘thy’ and ‘ye’ a fair bit, which is all well and good, but sounds rather pretentious to me, so I think we’ll cut that out from now on.

The king may have sounded a bit terse with those strangers. Actually, he wasn’t cruel or unfair and generally popular with his loyal subjects despite the occasional beheading, although only black-hearted villains who really deserved it got the chop. It was just that he had to deal with this sort of thing every day and wanted to get on with it.

‘If it pleases your majesty,’ the middle aged delegate began as he had some idea how to suck up to royalty. ‘I am Phil, mayor of Oak Tree Village at the edge of the kingdom. This is my son, Trevor,’ he indicated the youthful man. ‘He is our sheriff, Doris here owns the inn and,’ he