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  Dragon Mage: Uprising

  Book Two of the Dragon Sea Chronicles

  Brian Ference

  Chris Turner

  Copyright © 2018 by Cave Creek Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Map of the Dragon Sea

  A Pirate Raid

  Cape Spear

  Rebirth

  The Rookery

  Archituthis

  Dendrok

  Pacts With the Wolf

  Valkyrie Island

  Solaricus

  The Cove

  Darkthorn Isle

  A Bold Plan

  Sabotage

  Deadman’s Hold

  Skullduggery at Sea

  Curakee

  Sacrifice

  A Seed is Sown

  Visilee

  Nameless Isle

  New Beginnings

  Epilogue

  About The Authors

  Books By Brian Ference

  Browse books by Chris Turner

  Map of the Dragon Sea

  Chapter 1.

  A Pirate Raid

  Livis stared with cool resentment at her father as he slammed his looking glass shut, cracking the lens in the process. Captain Serle, her storm-weary father gave a blustery sigh. He rubbed his square jaw, peering out through black, slitted eyes from the foredeck of The Singing Gull. “I’m done arguing with you, Livis. You’ve come a long way, but you’re not ready to raid a Black Claw ship.”

  “I’m ready, Father!” One look back at the crew under her command made her regret the choice of words. “I thought you said it was an easy target.”

  Her bear of a father grumbled. “There’s treachery about, Liv, I can feel it. That clipper out there is a trading vessel to be sure, but seizing cargo from the Black Claws is never easy. Just pray the report we received is true and they have no dragon riders aboard.”

  “Don’t underestimate the power of our sea dragons,” Livis replied. She stroked her curly russet-dark hair trailing down her back, her heart beating with fierce emotion.

  Captain Serle glanced over the railing at the mounted creatures swimming below. They circled the rowboat her father had used to cross over from his own ship. The silver-green pair, sisters, sported shimmering petal-shaped scales on their muscular torsos with sharp fangs protruding from long snouts. Black claws descended from lizard-like feet. Fierce hunters they were, deadlier than any shark. The pirates who rode them were either very brave, or insane.

  “When that clipper turns in to the reef, my ship and dragons will attack.” He glared at her. “Stay out of range until they surrender.” He turned and stared down the rest of her crew who stood fingering their weapons aboard the one-masted schooner. “Don’t engage. If anything goes wrong, you’re to sail straight back to Pirate Cove. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, Captain.” Livis gave a sloppy salute. She turned away and brooded as her father returned to his rowboat. She gave instructions to her crew to be on the ready for an attack while she moved about the decks, checking the harpoons and cannons for smooth operation.

  “But mistress,” Skarlee, the quartermaster, protested, “your father expressly forbade us to—”

  Livis shrugged. “He also said a good captain should never be caught unprepared.”

  Serle boarded his much larger flagship, The Longrunner. Within moments, the barbaric schooner with its garland of skulls latched to her gunwales was moving into position to attack as she and her crew looked on.

  Livis reflected on the past year spent studying her father’s trade. The other pirate schooners were on the prowl, chasing down other quarry leagues away. It was just her ship and his…and it gave her a peculiar thrill. Neither had expected to stumble across a lone Black Claw cargo ship. She was at last on a raid with the infamous Captain Serle, only to be left out of the action.

  The prey, the three-masted clipper, approached the reef, her white flag and three black streaks clearly visible. As they entered the narrow channel, Captain Serle’s ship rounded a small island on an intercept course.

  Serle’s cannons roared to life, sending a warning shot across the clipper’s bow. The two dragons shot through the water, moving to flank the ship. The Black Claw vessel had little room to maneuver. This should be where the enemy captain saw reason and surrendered—only he didn’t. The clipper turned just enough to fire broadside at Serle’s ship, their guns loaded in anticipation of an attack.

  “No!” Livis yelled as the cannonballs ripped through the deck and sails of The Longrunner. Captain Serle’s men returned fire, but several of the gunners were writhing in pain on the deck, struck with flying shards. The pirate dragons raised their heads and roared, closing in on the Black Claw ship to lay waste to the cannons.

  The unthinkable happened. An answering roar sounded from the hold of the clipper, as a massive brown-scaled dragon launched into the air. Its outstretched wings cast an arching shadow over the sea: a fire-breather, one of the rare ones, with a Black Claw dragon rider astride its back. The pirate ship fired a steam-powered harpoon into the air, but the creature ducked under it. In seconds, Captain Serle’s sails were aflame. The Black Claw guns swiveled, firing at the first pirate dragon hurtling through the water in an explosion of water and blood. Her sister-dragon gave a keening cry of agony and rage. What should have been a simple raid was now a desperate fight for survival—one that her father would lose without her help.

  “Full sail!” Livis commanded. “Give me ramming speed.”

  The captain of the Black Claw ship saw their approach and ordered his guns to fire, but the second silver-green dragon had clawed its way aboard her decks and was tearing through the Black Claw gunners in a swirling mass of death.

  While the hulking brown dragon swooped low over The Longrunner, Livis’s ship surged ahead. The spiral metal horn mounted to the prow of The Singing Gull aimed directly at the wooden heart of the enemy ship. “Brace for impact!” Livis yelled. The two vessels collided with a terrible, echoing crash.

  “Follow my lead! Maquia! Skarlee!” Drawing the cutlass strapped to her side, Livis led the charge as her crewmates leapt aboard the clipper, cutting through the dazed Black Claw sailors. Most vicious of all was her harpoon master, Maquia. The scarred and bald-headed man wielded a black-steel cutlass in each hand, using his muscled arms to dispatch any who dared challenge him. Throwing one of his curved swords into the chest of a sailor in the rigging above, Maquia used the other to deflect a blow and cut the throat of another. Few were as battle hardened or skilled with a blade. He’d come to see Livis as a daughter of sorts, with the instinct to protect her at all costs, and she’d earned his respect through fair treatment of the crew. He snatched up his weapon from the fallen man’s chest, wiping the blood from his twirled mustache.

  Swords flailing, chunking into flesh and sliding off cutlasses, the invaders cut a deadly swath through the Black Claw sailors and forced them back. Dozens of their deck mates lay in bloody heaps. Soon sailors lay down their curved blades and su
rrendered. The crew’s effectiveness at keeping Livis alive was a testament to her father’s careful selections—Maquia’s lips drooped in disappointment that there would be no fight to the death.

  Sensing victory close at hand, Livis stormed toward the Black Claw captain: a lean man, with a coarse beard and broad shoulders. The Black Claw captain laughed through his teeth as she lunged in with a reckless flurry of steel. She parried the deadliest of his strokes and earned cuts in the meantime, yet held her ground against the more experienced fighter. Headstrong, yes…rash, yes, she knew it, but her anger only escalated at his gross taunting, that of a man confident he would win.

  His beady eyes tracked a glint of movement: the merciless pirate dragon hunting his men and a red-faced Maquia slinking toward them with a trail of bodies in his wake. Too far away to help, the Black Claw dragon shrieked and dove over The Longrunner, harrying her with fury. He roared out an oath and held up a hand. “Hold! I’m a reckless sea dog, but not stupid.” He dropped to one knee, offering his sword to Livis in surrender.

  Maquia snatched up the blade and tossed it with approval to his captain. “A day well served, Mistress! No more rogues to kill. The day is ours.”

  “We’re not out of this yet!” Livis cried, shaking the blood splatter out of her hair. “We need to help my father! Quick! Turn this ship’s harpoons on the Black Claw dragon. It flies still!”

  Maquia and her crewmates hurried to obey.

  Caught in a crossfire, the Black Claw dragon beat at the air and banked left and right, dodging missiles, but Captain Serle’s harpoon master scored a hit that shredded its wing. The creature crashed into the water in a spray of blood and cartilage. The impact rocked the boats as it thrashed about before sinking beneath the waves. Damage to The Longrunner was extensive: a gaping hole in her forward bow and her main mast leaning on a drunken angle.

  The crew formed a bucket brigade and managed to douse the fires. The Singing Gull, entangled with the Black Claw clipper, creaked to the slap of waves at bow and stern. Forced to use winches and dragon power, members of Serle’s crew separated the two entwined ships only with much painstaking effort. As they toiled, others patched the defeated clipper’s hull. Livis ordered her own crew to tend to minor repairs on deck. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched her father finish directing the repairs before going to his cabin to down several tankards of ale as was his habit. When her deck work was done, she spoke to her mates about the battle and how it might have gone differently. The captain emerged with a lean to his step and a frown on his face. He now set out to look for her.

  At last he stumbled to the stern where she gathered about a keg, grumbling with her mates who were quaffing rum like fish.

  “I thought I told you to not engage,” he said in a dangerous voice, breath sour with grog.

  “You expected me to let you die?” Livis demanded.

  “While I appreciate your bravery, Livy, I expected you to follow my orders!”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t give such stupid orders.”

  “That’s mutiny,” her father rasped. “You’re stripped of rank and back on deckhand duty until I decide otherwise.”

  Her mouth hung open. “You can’t do that.”

  “I just did.” The captain marched over to a group of men by the midships cannons. He sated his wrath by berating the man who had sold him the course of the Black Claw Ship—along with the bad information about her defenses that had caused the death of so many men.

  The messenger piped back, “If you can’t handle one Black Claw ship against two of your own, then you’re not fit to be captain.”

  Captain Serle turned red in the face. Wits already impaired, and at the limit of his tolerance, the man would not stand to lose face in front of his crew. He grabbed the offender by the ears and dragged him to the bow where he ordered the bosun to tie him up. He threw him overboard, then dragged the line under the bow and ordered two men to pull, keel-hauling him. The man survived the first trip, his cries shrill as the scavenging gulls swooped over the chop. A third trip proved unnecessary.

  “’Tisn’t right to punish the messenger like that,” Maquia muttered. Several others nodded their agreement, but kept silent. No one else was willing to defy the ruthless Serle.

  The ships dropped anchor for the night and Serle drank himself into a stupor. Yet, Livis did not go to her bunk. Soft words and silent action filled her evening. She recalled how the distance had grown between her and her father, ever since she had freed the slave, Darek, from the prison pens. Life had changed for her from that moment on, her parents treating her with more harshness and mistrust. Just before dawn, she cracked a smile, knowing that in the morning, her overbearing father would awake to find the sails of his new Black Claw prize slashed and his daughter and her crew vanished along with The Singing Gull.

  Chapter 2.

  Cape Spear

  The first chalky bluffs came into view as the dark mage Cyrus, once Agrippa’s apprentice, circled around the shallow, wooded valley east of Cape Spear. He flew astride Valoré, his young red-scaled dragon. Stone buildings surrounded by coconut groves dotted the area. Cyrus squinted. A large crowd had gathered in the cobbled square of the town, he guessed to elect a new leader after the demise of chief Lared. The air teemed with dragon riders coming from every island to cast their vote. It was a perfect distraction for him to avoid notice.

  Cyrus could sense the presence of his target, Darek, amongst the crowd. The divinatory magic never failed. He landed his dragon within a stretch of turquoise sea firs, bent by the wind and scarred with age. He commanded Valoré to stay hidden on the windswept hill overlooking the sea and slowly walked down the hill path, slouching like an old man. To disguise himself, he wore the tattered garb of a beggar and tucked his cowl around his cheeks and brow. The unthreatening appearance should serve to disarm any prying eyes.

  A few hundred townsfolk gathered to hear the petitioning speeches of the two candidates. A dais raised on planks stood before the new clock tower, a work still in progress, blocks piled high to the sides.

  The townsfolk muttered to each other in quiet voices, still uneasy that their town had been so easily destroyed while under the protection of their previous leaders. The square seethed with angry looks and a rising tide of complaints.

  Three figures stood behind the podium, a grey-haired town elder who acted as arbitrator of the debate, and the two contenders, looking as different as night and day.

  Cyrus’s mouth hooked in a grin. The dragonmaster Jace stood to the left, a surprising candidate in the upcoming elections with his hooked claw of a prosthetic arm and hawk-eyed, stoic sandy-haired face. No doubt he was seen by the townsfolk as a savior, swooping in with his dragon riders in their time of need. Darek, a handsome, well-built youth with a mane of dark hair, stood at his father’s side, lending a significant endorsement as the islands’ new Dragon Mage.

  Cyrus’s fingers itched to pull out the runestones and hurl a burning spell of Myxolian magic at them.

  Cyrus’s hatred for Darek and the Red Claw Clan ran deep.

  He resisted that urge. The moment was not ripe.

  Looking on with interest, he gazed at the dark-haired woman at the young man’s side. She seemed more than a casual acquaintance. A lover perhaps? Cyrus bared his teeth in a malicious leer. If he could take her unawares, she could be used to lure the boy away from his place of power. If not, the wench would burn along with him.

  Cyrus regarded the other man on the stage opposite from Jace. This was a tall, russet-haired man, who cast a serene gaze over the crowd as he wrapped up his speech:

  “—and that is what I promise, good citizens of Cape Spear, peaceful trade and the promise to build a new sea wall that will protect our harbor once and for all from sea serpents.”

  The crowd cheered.

  Jace stepped forward, nodding to the arbitrator. Cyrus watched the figure with bitter resentment, remembering how that claw-handed man had led the counterattack against his serpen
ts not long ago. Not only a daring strategist, the man was a formidable dragon rider.

  “Friends, citizens,” the speaker intoned in a deep resonant voice, “I am pleased to be amongst you again after a long stint at Manatee Island. Evren, my adversary, has spoken well. I have the utmost respect for him as leader of our merchant guild, but he is short-sighted on many points. Mostly in the area of defense. Our losses have been considerable. Simply rebuilding a wall will not be enough.”

  He swept a claw arm across the square, a once proud coastal town now nearly reduced to rubble. “The demon Cyrus is no more and his serpents slain with him. Yes, we will restore the town to its former glory, but there are many other threats that a wall will not protect against. Evren suggests trade with the Black Claws is the answer, but we have seen their honor is easily sold.”

  “Down with the Black Claws,” yelled a distraught villager.

  “Down with the whole stinking lot!” came more mutters and boos.

  Jace raised his hands for silence. “The pirates grow ever bolder and continue to raid. What few ships we’ve left, must be protected. If we show even the slightest bit of weakness, they’ll attack. We must begin recruiting and training a new army of dragon riders.”

  Evren scowled as the crowd began to cheer noticeably louder for Jace’s plan. His wife raised her voice, “The dragon riders failed to protect us once, why would the next time be any different?”

  Several bystanders grumbled in agreement.

  Jace spoke up again. “I will direct the training myself, with help from my most experienced dragon riders. We’ll return the Rookery to its former glory, and bolster our ranks with riders from across the Dragonclaw Islands.”

  Evren was losing the crowd.

  Jace turned to Darek. “Our new dragon mage has pledged Agrippa’s dragons. Together with his magic, we’ll create a strong enough force that no one will dare touch us.”