The Last Dragon Rider

By Luke Aylen

'With a plucky, compelling heroine, a novel steampunk-styled device, and a dragon, of course, this may well be the best book of the three!' -  Bob Hartman, author and performance storyteller

Street-smart Anavah lives a tough life on the crime-ridden streets of northern Presadia. But when a mysterious tinker gives her a curious set of crystal goggles, she discovers a powerful magic that will change her life forever.

Drawn into an adventure that stretches across time and space, she learns about the legendary dragon riders and is caught up in events that will transform Presadia’s history.

The question is: what part will Anavah play? Her life to date has taught her to trust no one, but that instinct may have devastating consequences…

Enter Presadia one more time to experience a third dazzling adventure. Meet friends old and new, and learn of the trust, betrayal, fear, bravery, greed, and sacrifice of individuals that lead to a struggle for Presadia’s very existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lion Fiction
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781782643166

Luke Aylen

Luke Aylen is a children's fantasy author who lives in Bristol. He studies and writes at Trinity College and from his DIY camper van, usually with a cup of tea on hand. He loves building magical worlds with words and telling stories that excite, delight or change people. He is a multi-award-winning film-maker, has a background in performing arts, and was formally responsible for creativity at Spring Harvest. Now his focus is on writing and training to be a vicar in the Church of England. He is the author of The Mirror and the Mountain and The Forgotten Palace.

Book preview

1

COWS, CRABS, AND A SCARY HIPPOPOTAMUS

These annals are to be kept in the palace library and updated as required to record the history of The King’s Order of Dragons for future generations.

Preface to The Annals of the Order of Dragons, undated

Thief!

The market trader’s angry bellow echoed around the narrow street, drowning out even the loud hubbub of the morning shoppers and the rumbling thunder. That thunder had almost become a constant feature. It wasn’t even raining but still the evil-looking sky growled at them like an angry dog.

Anavah dropped the stolen fizzfruit into a pocket designed specifically for the purpose. Tall buildings lined the street, each one different from the next and soaring up four or five storeys. Between them, the crowded marketplace was crammed with densely packed stalls and bustling people with crates and baskets, some eager to buy food and goods from the recently docked ships, others trying to sell their wares.

Stop that girl!

Of course, there were also many like Anavah who didn’t have money or goods to buy and sell. They had to acquire things a different way. Thieves, pickpockets, and other questionable characters were common in Peresea. It was Presadia’s biggest port town, after all. With so many ships and traders there were rich pickings on offer.

Fortunately, few people took notice of the indignant market trader with so much noise around them. Still, Anavah needed to get away quickly. She darted through the crowd, as sleek and street-smart as a feral cat.

She had acquired plenty of practice in the five years since she had first arrived there. In fact, it felt as though she had been in Peresea her whole life. Yet there had been another life – another world – beforehand. She didn’t know what it was called but it certainly hadn’t been anywhere in Presadia. It was hazy and dreamlike these days, but things had been very different there…

No. Don’t think about that.

She had been eight when she arrived. Around five years had passed since then, though sometimes it felt like only yesterday.

It’s in the past. It’s gone. It doesn’t exist.

Anavah looked back. The angry market trader was trying to follow her, his face more purple than the fizzfruits he was selling. He had no chance of catching her though. She was a cat and he was an old pregnant cow. He lumbered from side to side, clumsy and slow, his big belly hindering him as he tried to squeeze through the tightly packed crowd.

He shook his pudgy fist at her. You come back here!

Anavah poked out her tongue at the cow man, feeling smug. Everyone was like an animal if she looked hard enough. A tall, ungainly person might be a giraffe, while a small, shy person was more likely to be a tortoise. Anavah preferred animals to people. Animals seemed to like her.

When she had first arrived, Anavah had discovered that there were all kinds of creatures that had never existed where she came from. A few lived right here in Peresea and along the surrounding coastline. Snap-lizards sunbathed on the quayside, their mouths open like unfurled flowers. Unsuspecting insects would land there and get eaten right up. There were water-worms: stubby, blind, scaled things that seemed to do little other than lie on the bottom of the seabed. Although they were big, they were too tough and chewy for even the poorest and hungriest of people to eat.

When she wasn’t stealing food to survive, Anavah liked to listen to the sailors telling of their exotic adventures. They hung around in gaggles by the ships or outside inns to brag about the wonders they had seen and the adventures they had been on. Anavah didn’t believe the tales of their heroic exploits. She was sure they were exaggerated or made up. What captivated her were stories of weird and wonderful animals; creatures like gruffle-worts, magma-worms, griffins, and even dragons!

Guards, stop that child! the cow-like trader mooed again, pointing.

Anavah knew that she stood out. Peresea was filled with all sorts of people, but few had dark skin and frizzy hair like hers. She slid under a cartload of coal, almost tripping up the northern dwarf overseeing the human slaves who were busy pulling it. Poor things! That’s why Anavah didn’t ever want to get caught. Criminals were sold to the northern dwarves as slaves to work in their mines and factories; a practice she hadn’t known existed until she arrived in Peresea. There were supposedly other dwarves to the south who refused to use slaves, but the dwarves in Peresea never hesitated to snatch beggars right off the street. She made sure to dart quickly away from this dwarf in case he made a grab for her.

She squeezed past a tattooed elf. They were less common in Peresea, but she had seen a few around. It was said that they could talk to animals and even trees! If only she could talk to animals.

As she passed the elf a heavy hand grabbed her shoulder. She turned to face a stiff wall of chain mail and scarlet cloak. Anavah didn’t need to look up to know that it was a guard. This was the last person she wanted to crash into!

If Anavah were a wildcat and the fizzfruit merchant a pregnant cow, this guard was a hippopotamus. Hippos were not as friendly as people thought. They could outrun a sprinting grown-up and were actually one of the most dangerous animals alive. At least, they certainly were where she had come from. Anavah had yet to meet anyone who had heard of a hippo here. This was another of the strange things about Peresea that she had grown used to. Of course, even she had never seen a hippo in the flesh; she had only read about them in her old life. It was her mum who had taught her to read…

No. Don’t think about her.

The hippo guard turned out to be a ginormous woman, who towered over the rest of the crowd. She stood there, as solid and calm as a stone wall, but radiating a dangerous aura.

Guard, catch that girl! She’s a thief! The merchant’s bovine bellow carried right down the street.

The iron hand tightened its grip. You’re not going anywhere, little lady.

Anavah glared up at the guard’s merciless face.

Scapwollop! she shouted. It was the rudest word she could think of, and it had the desired effect. The guard’s eyebrows shot up in shock. Anavah instinctively sagged, her entire body going floppy. The guard, who had expected her captive to run, was caught by surprise as Anavah collapsed into a heap onto the cobbled road. The hippo dived for the wildcat, but in the tightly packed street the belly flop only caused her to crash into other people.

A slender man balancing a large basket on his head was knocked right over by the guard, and the contents of his basket – hundreds of live crabs – came raining down on the heads of all the unsuspecting shoppers. Utter pandemonium ensued as those nearby found themselves showered in wriggling, pinching crustaceans.

An elegant lady, regal and beautiful just moments earlier, was reduced to a squawking crow, screaming and batting her hands as she tried to untangle a persistent crab from her hair. A plump man, who Anavah thought looked like a potato – not actually an animal but accurate nonetheless – waved his arms in distress, pleading with those around him to help extract a crab that had somehow managed to hook its pincers on to his pudgy nose. A street urchin laughed in delight as she gathered up some of the spilled critters for a free supper.

People started pressing in, trying to see what was going on. For a moment Anavah was dumbstruck, awed by the scale of the drama she had unintentionally caused. Fortunately, the guard was suitably distracted. Anavah regained her wits and slipped between the stout hippopotamus legs, scrambling on her hands and knees to the edge of the road.

She crawled through a forest of legs: skinny legs, muscled legs, dirty legs, clean legs; legs wearing trousers, skirts or tights, and in one case completely bare! They rose up from the street like the trunks of swaying trees. Unfortunately, unlike trees they kicked her as they moved, unaware of the small girl on the ground at their feet. She was aware that the chaos could quickly escalate into a stampede, and then there was a very real chance that she might be trampled to death.

Bruised and battered, Anavah eventually reached the outer wall of a nearby shop. She stood up, feeling relieved, and slid along it toward a small alley. She was away!

She ran swiftly, zigzagging expertly through the narrow paths and small courtyards. Many of them were little more than gutters. Tall walls rose up on either side, and as the upper floors of the buildings were often bigger than the lower ones, only a thin sliver of sunlight could be seen directly above. The alleyways smelt of damp and even nastier things. Anavah’s grubby clothes helped her move like a shadow through the backstreets.

Her arms and legs were burning from all the exertion. She stopped, sheltering within a graffitied doorway and panting heavily as she peeped back along the path she had come. Phew! No one had followed. Anavah rested gratefully, sucking in deep breaths of stagnant air.

As the excitement lapsed she started to ache, hurting all over from the kicks and knocks she had received during her escape. There was a sharp pain in her chest where someone had kicked her particularly hard. She looked down to check out her bruises and felt a chill run through her as she noticed a big red stain on the front of her shirt.

2

THE MAN IN THE JUNKYARD

The king has indicated his intention to form an Order of Dragons. This elite group will consist of members from the four major races, each one a pairing of a dragon with either a human, a dwarf, or an elf dragon rider.

Excerpt from The Annals of the Order of Dragons, Spring 14th, Year of the Griffin

The red bloodstain was spreading. How had it happened? Anavah had been kicked and battered, but she couldn’t remember anyone slashing her with a knife.

She peeled the shirt back from her skin very gently, dreading what she would see beneath it. Crimson immediately stained her fingers. It was odd. Her chest hurt, but she would have expected such a serious wound to hurt much more. Bleeding this much could surely kill her, after all! The blood was sticky. It smelled sweet and fruity.

A sudden realization dawned on Anavah. She reached into her special thief ’s pocket and encountered the squishy mush of the squashed fizzfruit inside. She pulled out a handful of the gloop. The purple skin and brightly coloured seeds were mixed in with the red pulp of the fruit itself. She wasn’t going to die; she wasn’t even bleeding!

Anavah scooped a handful of pulp into her mouth. It still tasted sweet and fizzed delightfully on her tongue. She examined the mess she was in as she ate. A wash was clearly in order, and there was no time like the present. She had eaten her breakfast, even if it was a little more mashed than she had planned.

Turning into the maze of dark alleyways that was her home, Anavah headed in the direction of the docks. There was a quiet beach along from the harbour where she could swim, wash her shirt and make a driftwood fire to dry it out. She figured she might as well sleep there tonight. With the threat of a breaking storm it was unlikely that anyone else would choose it as their sleeping spot. Anavah knew a couple of small caves well above the tideline that only someone her size could squeeze into.

She strolled along casually, no longer fearing pursuit. Peresea’s more respectable citizens would have feared for their lives in these shadowy passages, but Anavah had no anxiety about them. She had been hanging around in scary places for as long as she could remember; well before she arrived in Peresea. After five years of calling the filthy labyrinth home, she knew it like the back of her hand. Anavah had come to sense danger the same way she could smell food, and she had quickly learned whom to avoid.

She turned the corner to cut through a big courtyard. People often used it as a dumping ground and she had found all sorts of things there in the past: bits of cart, ship equipment, glass bottles filled with stinking liquids, the charred remains of books, once even a life-sized wooden statue of a lord that had been graffitied to look like a freaky clown. Most of it was of little use, as anything of real value was scavenged pretty quickly. Still, she sometimes got lucky.

There was an unexpected hammering sound in the courtyard. Anavah paused at the edge of the square, ready to bolt if need be. More light penetrated the middle of the square. It wasn’t sunlight, but a dull, yellowy hue that came from the ever-present stormy clouds above.

At the centre of the junkyard she saw the strangest sight. A weird contraption had been set up that looked like a cross between a cart and a small forge. A curious-looking man in rags sat on a stool beside the portable forge. He was facing mostly away from her, pumping a big set of bellows with his feet and hunched over in intense concentration. A small, barrel-shaped furnace glowed behind him, illuminating the edges of his outline with a warm glow. It glimmered in the sweat on the side of his face and neck. Around the barrel and making up the bulk of the cart were various shelves and hinged arms filled with tools and bits of junk. The man even had a small anvil for hammering on, which was exactly what he was doing. Using a small hammer he tapped with precise, firm beats that clinked around the square.

That’s brave, doing it here, Anavah thought. Very brave, or very stupid!

She posed no threat to him, but there were all sorts of people about who might take a fancy to an ingenious mobile forge and wouldn’t hesitate to take it by force. It had to be worth a bit of money, and the city guard never ventured this deep into the backstreets or hidden parts of the city unless they absolutely had to.

Anavah watched him for a moment. He had his back to her, so she couldn’t see him fully. She considered what kind of animal he might be. Maybe a lizard to match those sharp, deliberate movements, she figured, or a mother bird intently focused on weaving a nest. Or perhaps a drowned rat would have been a more accurate description. His clothes were among the shabbiest she had seen; even worse than hers. They were covered in black streaks and splodges, as if he had been rolling around in soot.

It was fascinating watching people. Anavah did it a lot. There wasn’t always much else to do for those who were hanging about on the streets all day. Besides, being good at watching people helped her identify who had stuff that was worth taking and who might become violent if they caught you. Watching this man was quite mesmerizing; so much so that she forgot about what kind of animal he might be and instead became hypnotized by what he was doing. She wasn’t sure why exactly, but Anavah began to suspect that this man was a master of his craft. Although she couldn’t see the item he was working on, his deliberate actions and careful focus gave her the sense that whatever the man was doing he was doing to perfection.

She sidled closer to get a better look, inching stealthily along the junk piles and taking care not to knock against any stray rubbish. Closer and closer she came, until she was only three or four paces behind him. The creation was still obscured by his muscled shoulder.

A couple more steps.

Anavah’s cheeks flushed as she realized that the man was just out of arm’s reach. So aroused was her curiosity that she had set aside all common sense.

Stupid, she chided herself. He could turn and attack at any moment.

But it didn’t really seem as though he would to Anavah. He was completely absorbed, and appeared to be totally unaware of her. And it didn’t feel as if he was a violent man. Anavah had sharp instincts for danger and was oddly sure that she would be safe. He was clearly a craftsman. Craftsmen liked to create, not to damage or destroy.

For some inexplicable reason she desperately wanted to see what he was working on. The angle at which he worked had kept it hidden behind his left shoulder until now. She figured she could always turn and run if he saw her. She would be faster than him, for sure.

Hello there, the craftsman said without pausing from his work. He was holding something in his mouth, which muffled his words, but they still made Anavah’s blood freeze.

He’s seen me! she panicked silently, frantically considering what to do next. Several excruciating seconds passed, but he didn’t lift his eyes from his work. He simply carried on as if he had never spoken.

Maybe… maybe he was just talking to himself. Or maybe there’s someone else here – a bodyguard or something.

Anavah stepped back silently so that she was half hidden by a mound of smashed barrels. Then she stood as still and silent as the junk, scanning the courtyard for anyone else.

The man tapped away, either unaware or unconcerned. He didn’t look around and he said nothing further.

He must have been talking to himself after all, she thought to herself.

The smith lifted his hand and retrieved the little pin he had been holding in his mouth. It was tiny – about the length of a thumbnail. He carefully selected a pair of tweezers to hold it in position and then used his other hand to start banging it into place with the tiniest hammer Anavah had ever seen. She watched, enraptured, afraid to move in case he realized she was standing there.

When the pin was in place the man put down his tools, straightened his back and admired his handiwork. Anavah still couldn’t see what it was. It was driving her mad. He chose some slender tongs from one of the extending racks and used them to place the object into a bucket of water. She had seen the briefest tantalizing glint of something, but couldn’t make it out. The bucket hissed and steamed.

It was getting silly. She knew that she should go before he caught her spying.

The man began tidying up his little workbench, returning the tools to their slots and racks. Last of all he took hold of the tongs he had just used. Instead of putting them away he used them to fish out the mysterious object from the bucket. He plonked it down on the bench before picking it up with his bare hands, giving it a little shake and lifting it up to get a better look.

Anavah finally saw what he had been making. It was a beautiful pair of goggles. The lenses glittered with a rainbow sheen, bound by a dark metal casing with spikes that looked like animal teeth radiating out from the sides.

What do you think? the man asked in a satisfied tone.

Anavah tensed, readying herself to make a run for it as the man turned towards her. He had sensed her.

There was still no surprise or concern at her presence. Picking up a leather strap, he began attaching it to the goggles with practised ease. She was on the back foot now. She was the one who had sneaked up on him. Had he shouted or looked startled she would have been jolted into action. Even if he had suddenly attacked, Anavah’s instincts would have kicked in. As it was, his friendly manner made it seem rude to run.

Stupid! I’m going crazy, she thought to herself as she remained rooted to the spot in awkward indecision. Anavah never normally cared about rudeness.

Here you go. Come and have a closer look. With the strap now attached, the man turned and held the goggles out to her.

Anavah was still frozen in uncertainty. Her survival instinct told her to run – that there was sure to be some hidden danger here – while her street-smart mind calculated how much the beautiful goggles might be worth to her. She didn’t know for sure, but Anavah suspected she could get a decent sum for them. Maybe she could just snatch them and run away. But a conflicting set of emotions filled her with a warmth and excitement that was unfamiliar to her. Against all her usual instincts, she felt as though she trusted this man. She never trusted anyone! She had several friends among the other street children, but Anavah didn’t even trust them. Any one of them would potentially stab her in the back if they became hungry or desperate enough. She couldn’t remember ever being greeted with such genuine cheerfulness before. This man somehow made her feel like an old friend.

He sensed her indecision and laughed. It wasn’t a mocking or cruel laugh, though. It simply broke the tension of the moment, making Anavah feel unexpectedly safe. She finally reached a decision.

She inched forward very carefully, never taking her eyes off the man’s face. She was ready to bolt at the first sign of danger, like a wary cat or stray dog. They were always desperate for food, and even affection, but mistrusting and cautious after receiving too many kicks.

The man stood patiently smiling, the goggles still extended towards her.

She snatched them from his hand and quickly took a few steps back in case he tried anything unexpected. He didn’t comment on her abruptness but simply smiled again and went back to tidying his little forge. She watched him a moment longer in case it was a trap. Slavers would have no qualms about kidnapping children like her from the streets. The authorities didn’t care if a few pickpockets disappeared.

A dark memory pressed in against her defences, but again she pushed it back. Despite all their differences, at least one thing was the same in both her old world and in Presadia: you could never trust people.

The man hummed a jolly tune under his breath as he tidied up his workbench and Anavah turned her attention to the curious goggles. The lenses were far more complex and wonderfully made than she had first realized. She turned them over to marvel at the design. Each lens was made from not one but two thin pieces of shimmering crystal. Between the layers he had sandwiched the tiny translucent cogs of a minuscule but elaborate machine.

How? How could someone make something so tiny and beautiful? she marvelled. The cogs whirred and spun, interconnected and purposeful. What made them move?

Anavah had never seen anything like it. Presadia was much more old-fashioned than her original world, like somewhere from a history book. Some of the technology and commonplace items she had used in the past would have blown