Guardian Dragons

Book I

Edition 2

GUARDIAN DRAGONS

Aarabassa World Series

By
Catherine L
Vickers

Copyright © 2013 Catherine L
Vickers

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. No
characters in this novel resemble any real people and are purely a
product of the writers imagination.

PRINTING HISTORY

Book 1, Edition 2 - Guardian
Dragons

Amazon - (e book) ASIN:
B00BCK11JQ

(Paperback)
ISBN-10:
1482375680

ISBN-13:
978-1482375688 February 2013

Based on the world of Aarabassa
where one half is dark the other is in constant sunlight. A magic
barrier divides the darker characters out of the
Lightlands.

Only the Guardian Dragons and the
Changeling can pass through the Magic Wall. When the dragons over
hear vamplins plotting to attack the Darklands, the dragon Queen
seeks the Ancient Mage for help.

Three young Princes have grown up
alongside the Changeling a female mage. Their world will soon
change as they are destined for different adventures.

Chapter 1 Preparations

Chapter 2 A Festival
Murder

Chapter 3 The Enchanting
Healer

Chapter 4 A Soldier’s
Death

Chapter 5 Feeding of
Souls

Chapter 6 A New Guard

Chapter 7 Brotherly Bond

Chapter 8 A Young Lady’s
Rituals

Chapter 9 Sea Whistle

Chapter 10 Huphin
Beginnings

Chapter 11 A Princely
Decision

Chapter 12 Mother Whale

Chapter 13 Meeting of
Friends

Chapter 14 Changeling

Chapter 15 Dolphins

Chapter 16 The Chase

Chapter 17 Confessions

Chapter 18 Tale of a
Mage

Chapter 19 Courting
Memories

Chapter 20 Voices

Chapter 21 Monshaad
Wraiths

Chapter 22 Vamplins

Chapter 23 Banish the
Witch

Chapter 24 Guardian
Dragons

Chapter 25 A Discovery

Chapter 26 An Ancient
Mage

Chapter 27 Kings and
Mages

Chapter 28 The Heir

Chapter 29 A Cure

~
Prologue
~

T
he boy ran hard and
fast. His throat stinging from ice cold air stabbing at the nerves
in his teeth and choking his aching lungs. Blood pumping fast,
heart beating so loud in his ears, he feared it would simply burst
and stop him dead in his tracks. He quickly glanced sideways to
look down from the cliff top at the wet sands below. Sure enough,
his
image
ran and panted, mirroring his own
plight.

‘You cheated,’ he shouted
accusingly, turning his back on his image. ‘You just can’t play
fair. You promised you would take the longer path because I had a
hill to climb. Why can’t you do as you say you will?’

He dropped heavily onto the soft
grassy embankment and lay on the cool, lush greenery. It chilled
his hot skin. His golden curly locks stuck to his neck with sticky
sweat.

His image lay down next to him,
still panting.

‘I didn’t cheat,’ his image paused
breathlessly between words, ‘I was first.’ Stretching up an arm and
waving a pointed finger he yelled, ‘I am triumphant!’ He jumped up
ready to defend his place, ‘you can’t dispute that,’ he threatened
the other questioningly.

His image did not reply. It was not
worth an argument. Instead he rubbed at the cramp in his leg
muscles, stretching his limbs to shake away the sharp squeezing
pain.

* * *

‘Morte, gather your fruits, your
going to the Trade Stones with your father,’ his mother
called.

Morte looked at his brother’s stern
frown, and half smiled at the lanky lad, shrugging his shoulders in
a surprised gesture.

‘Is it my fault I have grown
enough fruit to fill a basket and yours hasn’t even managed to
break its buds yet?’

‘I don’t know why they allow you
to go, your fruits are sour and foul,’ Saurlton replied
indignantly, shaking his golden locks as he nodded at the tall
lanky lad that stood before him.

‘That’s not true, here bite the
plump side of this juicy soft peach,’ Morte offered a tempting
piece of fruit that appeared unnaturally large.

‘No, there’s little point. It
won’t be any better than the one I tasted earlier.You will give our
parents a bad reputation from your tainted products.’

‘Come Saurlton, I offer you a
challenge, taste my wares and if you don’t like this one I will
confess to having a sour harvest and throw away my whole
stock.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he pushed
away the long slender fingers that yielded the fruit. Let me choose
my own piece, you have probably managed to pick the only sweet
piece.’

‘Be my guest, I certainly have
plenty to choose from.’

Saurlton sifted through the basket
of peaches, his strong slender fingers separating the crop
carefully. He did not wish to bruise any of his brother’s goods but
he was determined to save his parent’s reputation at the Trading
Market. He found his piece and bit into it unwillingly, squeezing
his eyes together in anticipation of the sour tart flavour he had
experienced on his last attempt at tasting his brother’s strange
fruits. But alas, no, the sweet juices wet his tongue and trickled
down his chin in a sticky rivulet, it was truly
delicious.

‘How have you done that Morte?’ he
asked suspiciously but truly surprised. ‘Your products never taste
as they should.’

‘Hah little brother, I have won
you again!’

‘Stop calling me little brother. I
am not smaller than you and I followed you in birth before our
mother had even breathed ten sighs. We are equal in suncircles.’
The handsome lanky lad looked annoyed at the equally fetching tall
youth that he confronted.

‘That was why I was given two
names, Morte-Bielz and you only one, little brother, because they
had to distinguish who arrived first.’

‘My stomach aches with your bitter
words and your bitter fruit.’ ‘You love my fruit as you love me,
little brother.’

‘How have you managed it Morte?’
Saurlton remained curious of his brother’s trickery. ‘The only way
you could have so much fruit is if you’ve used your magic, the
magic that you’ve been told to conserve. But yet still I can’t
understand how your bitter fruits can taste so sweet?’

‘Mind power, little brother.’
Morte-Bielz tapped his fingertip to his head, indicating his
cleverness. ‘I confess all. I have used magic to make you believe
my fruit is sweet but you and I know that really it is
foul.’

‘You can’t do that to our parents
Morte,’ Saurlton longed to talk his brother out of this treacherous
deed. ‘When the traders taste the fruit in your absence they’ll
know that you’ve tricked them. Please don’t be foolish Morte, don’t
trade this fruit until it ripens in its proper time.’

‘Our parents need all the
assistance they can get Saurlton.’ The two boys bent in their task
of loading their father’s wares on to the readied wagon. ‘I care
for our parents equally as much as you do. What I do is good and
you should use your magic skills to help them too.’

‘We are taught that our magic is
virtuous. It is not worthy to then go and poison the traders. You
would do better using your mind skills for healing and taking away
the pain that the sick must suffer.’

‘The traders are fools anyway and
why would I wish to help the sick, they can’t pay me.’

‘Sooner, or later, you will be
discovered and then our parents will be shamed.’

They stopped their task and faced
one another with burning eyes, immersed in their profound
discussion, their loyalty to one another dwindling.

‘I love our mother and father as
truly as you do. That’s why I do these things. Our family deserves
to be respected, we are the strongest in magic, and it’s time our
people recognised this.’

‘Magic is not meant to be used as
a tool for power. It ruined our ancestors and you now wish to
repeat that history.’

‘You don’t understand Saurlton. I
would never dishonour our family. I wish only to increase our
respect and let our parents rest easy in their old age.’

‘You can’t be everywhere Morte.
You can’t persuade those you cannot see, when they are out of your
sight they will taste the true flavour of your harvest.’

‘But you are so wrong. My powers
have grown. I have already experimented with father.’ Eager to
convince his brother, Morte divulged his secret. ‘Father didn’t
want to take me to the Traders Stones because of the riot I caused
last time. I coaxed him into choosing me and I was at the other
side of a closed door, listening to the conversation. I swayed his
mind and he doesn’t suspect a thing.’

‘Morte you can’t use your magic on
our parents. What are you thinking?’ Saurlton was frantic with
worry, waving his arms around in frustration at his brother’s
betrayal of his inherited skills.

Morte clutched at his brother’s
shoulders with an iron grip as he revealed his disposition. ‘I have
found my special skill Saurlton and it is for me to decide how to
use it. Soon you will discover your own skill and I won’t
interfere. So leave me to my destiny and I will leave you to
yours.’

Chapter 1
Preparations

R
ikka ceased stirring
the contents of the heavy pot, turning her attention to her portly,
idle son.

‘Ye lazy useless good fer
nothing,’ she muttered in a whispered breath. ‘Go get more
firewood,’ she screeched, hoping to waken him with a start. ‘I need
to keep this pot boiling until the Master sends more
orders.’

Reluctantly, the short chubby man moved towards the hot air
at the opening of the cooled cave. Even this high up in the
mid-mountains of Ginnung the sun burned brightly. He left the
shelter and headed to a gathering of prickly gauze bushes. A slight
breeze occasionally wafted and cooled the sticky sweat that
lingered in the folds of his plump body. A yellow bush was close at
hand but he had already stripped it of all the branches he could
reach, without scratching his flabby arms. Ambling along he turned
onto a narrow dry dust path that wound downhill towards a small
bubbling spring. Wood was scarce in this region of barren lava
fields. This would mean effort and hard work, not to his liking.
Lighting a fire in this heat was an arduous chore but brewing a
poison for his Master could mean an interesting mission lay ahead.
Finding a shady spot by a large black jagged rock, he crouched
down. This should hide him well should any of those wretched
dragons happen to fly over. Kneeling, he cupped his hands in the
luke warm water of a small
rock pool and drank the sweet refreshing liquid, greedily.
This was a good place to have a quick nap. Concealed in the grey
shadow of a looming rock, he lay down, closed his eyes to the
bright blue skies, and soon entered into a blissful
slumber.

Rikka, on her part, was glad to be
rid of such an unpleasant companion.

Memories stirred in her idling
mind. In the silence, she drifted deeper into a thought provoking
dream remembering her herb nurse mother Nealther, whose own parents
had perished in an attack upon their village, resulting in Rikka’s
father taking Nealther for his prize. She knew how much her mother
had hated her husband and that she had not married the large
loathsome man through choice. Her own loathing for her father had
been the reason she had studied the darker magics in the first
place. Her unwanted son was the result of her father’s repugnant
desires. Thankful that he had died in a drunken brawl at an inn,
only a short time after she had discovered that she was to have his
child, she had never divulged to her son who his father really was.
Her father’s cruelty had inbred into her son’s bloodline. This had
proved useful when luring innocent victims to the slaughter to
provide their Master with the pitiful human souls he so cruelly
devoured. Shortly after her father’s death, her mother had wasted
no time replacing him with a gentle poet named Ryan. They were
quickly wed following her mother’s announcement that she was with
child. Rikka had hated her for this. Never able to admit to her
mother that she was also with child in her womb, which by rights
should be her sibling. She did not linger around to see her baby
sister Minnah born. Her own labour had been long, painful and
lonely. Rikka had despised her unwelcome son and begged her Master
to devour its soul. Showing no compassion he had commanded her to
raise the spawn to aide her in his services.