Battle Scars | Book 1 (DISCONTINUED)

Prologue

"DRAGON RAID!"

"GRAB YOUR WEAPONS!"

"GET THE CHILDREN TO SAFETY!"

Alice grabbed a sword from the weapon rack and ran outside onto the battlefield. She heard her mother shouting behind her but paid her no attention. She was done sitting on the side while her village got destroyed and watch people being grabbed off the ground and taken into the unknown, never to be seen again. She may have only been eight, but she knew it was her time to fight.

Even if the rest of the village thought otherwise.

"Alice! What are you doing?!" a woman yelled, grabbing Alice by the back of her shirt and pulling her off the ground. Her sword was taken away from her and when she was put back down, she looked up to see her aunt. "Get to safety!"

"No! I want to fight too!" Alice demanded, stomping her foot.

"Alice, for the love of Thor, you are too young to fight! How many times does the entire village have to remind you of this before you actually do as your told?"

"Henry started fighting dragons when he was nine! Why can't I fight them now?" Alice whined.

"Yes, when he was NINE! Your only a year away before you start your training, but for now you have to get somewhere where those dragons won't find you!" her aunt pointed out.

"I don't need training! Henry taught me everything I need to know!" Alice argued. "Why can't you let me prove it to you guys that I'm ready to fight dragons?"

There was an explosion behind them, causing both of them to jump and look behind them. Alice's aunt turned back to face the child. "Alice, we will discuss this later. For now, get to the vaults with the rest of the kids!"

Before Alice could continue to argue, her aunt ran off to fight a Monstrous Nightmare that was breaking into a house. She growled to herself and stomped away in the direction of the safety vaults that were hidden on the edge of the village. All she wanted to do was to help with the raids, she wanted to protect the ones she cared about. Earlier that year her sister had been taken away during a raid, and ever since then Alice promised herself she'd try to not let anything like that happen ever again.

"Alice!" She turned around to see her mother, Sara, running towards her. She pulled the young girl into a hug and nearly started sobbing. "Oh thank goodness you're okay! Please, don't ever run off like that again!"

Alice sighed and hugged her back, feeling sorry for worrying her so much. "Sorry, mom..."

There was another explosion far behind them. Sara looked behind her, seeing that the source of the explosion was a Gronkle who had blasted a house. "We have to run, quickly!" She got up and grabbed her daughter's hand before running away from the battle.

As they headed towards the safety vaults, Alice noticed a shadow looming over them. It flew past and then a blue and red Zippleback landed directly in front of them. Gas spewed out of one of the head's mouth, engulfing the two in a green cloud. Sara coughed and pushed her daughter out of the way just before the second head lit up the gas. She was about to make a run for it as well, but it was too late. Flames swallowed her in a matter of seconds, sending Alice running into the woods in terror.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, growing more and more distant from the village. She was so focused on getting as far away as possible that she didn't even notice the rain starting to pour down on her. She finally stopped went a bolt of lightning struck the tree beside her, startling her and causing her to slip in the now damp soil. Her face collided with the ground and as she was getting up, she heard a creaking noise nearby. She glanced up and gasped when she saw a flaming tree heading down towards her!