WREN Book Three Prince of Dragons

Fire dragon

It was a touch of wind that awoken me to a new place. I knew I wasn’t really here, in my mind I knew this. Yet, my body could feel the ground on which we stood. I could feel the harsh fires that rippled over the land. The warm air tore out the coolness from my lungs. I gasped for breath, reaching for the dragon beside me.

‘This was the world before man.’ His voice touched me.

It slipped over me anchoring me in place. With his mind connected to mine I could hear his words, but also feel his emotions. During this time he had been afraid. Afraid of the fires, afraid of man, afraid of the large dragons. He had been beaten, kicked, forced to eat last since he was so small.

The worst was his very own mother. She had kicked him from the nest, favored his clutchmates over him. She didn’t like his orange coloring, didn’t like how he defied the laws of the land. She had left him on a mountain to die in the harsh cold winds, but he had returned. Now she pretended she didn’t see him.

I shivered despite the warmth of the fire. ‘Before man, we were divided.’ He went on.

‘I hadn’t seen a water dragon, an air dragon or even an Earth dragon. Soul dragons didn’t exist before man came along.’ He informed me.

I watched his memory. The memory of a runt fighting to live. The fire dragons were cruel at best. Down right terrifying at their worst. This was his reality for most of his young years. Yet he survived. The dragon born without a name. No one spoke to him or about him. They simply kicked him aside. None noticed when that kick didn’t get him too far.

The others who ignored him didn’t see the changes in him.  I watched the years speed past. I saw the runt grow larger, stronger, more powerful. Yet he hid it. Each day he took the abuse. I gasped as the day arrived. He was over a hundred years in man terms. Yet men hadn’t come to the lands yet.

He who wasn’t given a name stormed forth to take on his abusers.  They had a hierarchy in their tribe, the strongest led. To be the strongest you had to beat everyone else. The runt stormed forth. He started with his brother, the one hatched in the same clutch as he had been. This had been his biggest bully since he was only one step away from being the one bullied as much as the tall orange dragon beside me.

He who wasn’t named, tore at the sibling who had hurt him. He used all of the anger he felt over the years of abuse. He murdered the other by ripping out his throat. In a roar of pure rage, he swung to look upon the next target. The line was long. He would have to defeat most of the tribe. Males and females stood against him. His own mother was twentieth in line.

Night and day he fought. He was allowed brief spells to eat, but very little rest. He tore through the tribe massacring all that stood opposed to him. The leader was growing furious for this small runt to decimating his clan so easily. I knew that rage. The pain it sent you into. The anger that lived in the heart of the one being pushed down.

I didn’t judge what I saw. I knew there should have been a different way, a different life for the young dragon, but this was the life he had been handed. This was the fate he had to over turn. So he fought. He fought for the one thing he wanted, to be alone. He wished only to be kicked from the tribe or to die where he stood.

He had finally reached his mother. At this point he had been fighting for five days straight. He stood before her, having killed nearly all of his clutchmates, not to mention a few other siblings from other clutches his mother had lain. The large red beast towered above her weakling offspring.

Her face spikes were larger than his talons. She roared her head back. Scars from old battles marred her neck, chest and paws. She swung her head down to smack the younger away. As she did so, she brought her tail around. The head was a distraction. She had fought many battles. Some solo some with others all with the hatred the tribe had beaten into her.