The Dragon Legion: The Sunborn Series, page 1
The Dragon Legion
Book One Of The Sunborn Series
Isaac Hill
Copyright ©2024 by Isaac Hill
The Dragon Legion
The Sunborn Series
First Edition: 2024
Cover Art by: https://www.seventhstarart.com/
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, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, institutions, agencies, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
978-1-7382984-2-6 (Hardcover Book)
978-1-7382984-1-9 (Paperback)
978-1-7382984-0-2 (Electronic Book)
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Dedication
For EE Hill
Prologue
“Ship to port, Captain!” the lookout above them shouted from the crow’s nest.
“Aye! First mate, lower lines!” El Alera called out.
The wind howled across the deck of the ship, the cold cutting through clothes and chilling the men of the Ralaria. El Alera looked out across the deck of the small cutter. It was sleek and fast, made for darting between islands, a small fish designed to be faster than the prey she would outrun.
The Ralarians had been on the sea as long as their history was recorded. They were one with the sea. El Alera could remember the first time he’d set his feet on deck—he’d felt like he belonged. A lowly deck boy, now a captain of the fleet.
He took a deep breath as he watched the small rowboat, a distant speck of light at first, growing larger as it grew closer in the darkness. The light bobbed up and down as it moved across the shallow bay the Ralarians had moored in.
Men scurried across the deck; El Alera watched as ropes flew down to the rowboat, the men below tying her up as it drew close to them.
The ropes creaked, the rowboat clattering against the side of the Ralaria.
“Ease the lines!” El Alera called out before his first mate could.
His first mate gave him a look of apology, to which El Alera shook his head.
These newcomers were obviously flat-footers with no sense of the sea. They didn’t know how much slack to give the lines. El Alera knew The Ralaria could take it. The little row boat on the other hand? Their boat would take a beating against his cutter without slack in the lines. He didn’t want to rescue them when their boat began to sink.
The Ralarians pulled on lines to help the passengers make the deck.
The first two up were barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, with long dark beards and hair braided in the Eastern fashion. El Alera spotted the bulge of daggers hidden beneath their leather vests with empty sheaths at their sides.
He smiled. They underestimated him. The deal had been brokered, no weapons to be brought aboard. This slight was forgivable, but now he knew that they did not respect him and didn’t think he was smart enough to spot it.
The third man, much smaller than the first two, was hauled up and over the rail. He was covered in a dark cloak, black, and heavy. He sported a cane, slight but well-crafted.
El Alera walked towards the three, swaying with the boat.
The three looked to be fish out of water, hanging onto the deck, bucking the swells.
“Sirs, welcome aboard the Ralaria!” El Alera welcomed them with a bow on the deck.
“Captain,” the third man greeted him, impatient and without a bow.
“What brings you here tonight?” El Alera asked.
The third man sneered, moving forward with his cane.
Click, click, click.
The man approached El Alera, coming within arm’s distance of him, almost falling as the ship tilted to the port side.
He steadied himself with his cane. “Captain, what say you to our proposal?”
El Alera met the man’s gaze. “I took this meeting out of respect for Kassar. He has served me well as a broker in the past.”
“You took this meeting because you are a pirate and I offer gold for your ships.”
El Alera said nothing.
The third man narrowed his eyes and looked around. “You know the terms?”
El Alera nodded.
“I offer you gold. I need twenty ships, and I need them for a voyage across the Eastern Sea and back.”
“What is the cargo?” El Alera asked.
The smaller man fixed him with a stare. “Kassar agreed that the terms were no questions.”
El Alera nodded. “You come to me because you need ships to move men, no? Kassar says cargo, but no one needs twenty ships to move cargo. They need twenty ships to move an army.”
El Alera’s first mate took a step forward.
The two Easterners did the same, their hands buried in their vests.
El Alera put his hand up. “Enough.”
“We had a deal,” the little man spit out.
“No, we agreed to meet. To hear you out. But the Ralarians do not interfere with the business of flatlanders.”
The little man took another step forward, towards El Alera. “No questions. That was the deal. What do you care what you take across the seas?”
“The blood you are going to spill will color the seas. We will have no part in chumming the waters.”
“Bloody pirate!” the slight man brandished his cane as if it was a sword.
El Alera spit on the deck of his ship. “You insult me and bring weapons aboard my ship. We will not work with those who do not honor the terms of a deal.”
“I offer you more gold than you could carry in your hold. And you spit on our deal?”
El Alera put his hand up to stay his men. The Ralarians had circled the two Easterners and now were forming a ring around El Alera and the slight man in the black coat. “Leave. We will have nothing to do with you.”
The man’s eyes bulged, his face turning red. “You’ll regret this. Pirate.”
El Alera said nothing, motioning for the man to leave, to get off his ship.
The three men returned to the port side of the ship and lowered themselves over its side. The two larger men helped the slight man over and down to the rowboat and followed behind.
None of the Ralarians moved to help them.
“Cast off!” could be heard from below.
The Ralarians pulled their lines back up onto deck, coiling the ropes at the deck rail.
El Alera nodded to his first mate, and walked away from the main deck.
El Alera was not a man of the land, he was of the sea, of the wind and the salt spray, a man of the Ralarian Islands. But he knew full well that what this dark man had proposed would rock the world of men and the lands from one sea to another.
“What of it, Captain?” his first mate said quietly, as they walked to the bow of the ship.
El Alera let out a long breath, one he hadn’t known he was holding.
“We are men of the seas. We do not concern ourselves with what happens on land,” El Alera said to him.
The first mate nodded. “Aye, Captain.”
They watched the small rowboat push off their bow and make for the dark cove to the west. Its small torch flickered in the night, a beacon in the inky blackness. The waves rocked it to and fro, The Ralaria a mirror in the swells.
El Alera cursed.
“What is it, Captain?”
El Alera turned and made for the wheel of the ship. He put his hand to his mouth. “Raise anchor, make ready the mainsail!”
He turned to his first mate and cursed again. “We should have killed that man. He will bring the Pit down on all of us.”
“It is for the flatlanders to decide, it does not
“Ah, but war, she spills to the seas, and they turn red with the blood that soaks the earth,” El Alera said, quoting his own father. “You tell the men, no one speaks of this. Not in the ports, not in their lover’s arms. Not a word.”
El Alera gave his first mate a look. He needed him to understand that they were playing with fire.
“Zufier save us,” the first mate whispered to himself.
The cutter began to move in the night, the anchor pulled out of her prison at the sea’s floor. The ship rolling as she cut through the surf provided comfort to El Alera. The sea’s winds blew in his face, breathing life into his sails.
Chapter 1
“Dragh!” the jailer called down the damp stone hall.
Dragh stood with his arms resting on the bars of the cell door, hands hanging into the prison hallway. His jailer liked to bat at Dragh’s arms, trying to catch them with his club as he made his rounds.
It was a game they played. Dragh’s head bowed down as he tried to stop the world from spinning.
The cell’s iron bars were the only place that Dragh could rest to keep from puking. He kept his eyes closed to keep the world straight, from painting the floors with his guts.
The rest of the cell was the hard granite stone of the mountains around them. Cold. Unforgiving.
‘Mhh,” Dragh grunted, his mouth dried of saliva. His stomach turned over as he grunted.
The jailer was whistling, the tune not quite carrying down the stone hallway; its sound mixed with the sputtering of torches in the early dawn light.
Sunlight hit his back, warming him from the one window high in his cell. The heat made his nausea all the worse.
Footsteps echoed down the hall, and their cadence told Dragh he’d screwed up royally. He could hear the cane tapping along with each footfall.
Click, click, click.
Every step conveyed annoyance. He’d hear about this. No hiding his long night out.
Dragh shook his head as if it would banish the hangover he felt.
“Dragh,” the voice dripped with frustration, contempt.
“Ellis. I should have known they’d send you,” Dragh almost barked the words, his mouth dry.
Ellis scoffed. “They? No, HE sent me.”
“He sent his errand boy, did he?” Dragh’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the bars of the cell.
“I’m your father’s advisor. Not an errand boy. Your Highness,” Ellis said loudly.
Dragh grunted, his head was already splitting from his headache. ‘shut up, leave me be.”
Ellis paced back and forth in front of Dragh’s cell.
“You shouldn’t be in here. All you have to do is tell them who you are.”
“I am Dragh, a man of the Second Legion.”
Ellis walked the length of his cell, his cane tapping on each bar, the noise reverberating in Dragh’s skull.
“He’s not going to be happy. First you spur his requests, then you go and join the Legion.”
Dragh considered him, rubbing at his temples. “I know what I am, and so does he. I joined the Second, they are my family now.”
“Boy. You are royal by blood. A fight outside of a pub is no reason for you to be in here.” Ellis looked around the prison cells as if they might absorb him.
Dragh laughed. “I’m in the Second because they only take criminals. I am what I am.”
Ellis sighed, shaking his head. “You’ve been summoned to the Palace .”
Dragh peered at Ellis, shaking his head. “Well, he can go to the Pit. I won’t be there; the last time I went to the Palace , I almost killed him.”
The corner of Ellis’s mouth raised in what Dragh thought was a smile.
“I told him as much. But nonetheless, you owe him your fealty,” Ellis’s eyes narrowed, appraising Dragh. “It’s about your little bastard, the one you seem to have forgotten to mention,” Ellis wagged his cane back and forth. ‘tisk, tisk.”
“What the Pit are you talking about?”
Ellis laughed. “Oh, this is perfect. You didn’t know?”
Dragh sighed again. His head was a mess. The anger rose in him like a bile, his meaty fists gripping the bars as a lifeline. He could feel blood rising in his face. He wanted to strike out at Ellis, to rip his throat out. He settled for less.
“Fuck off, Ellis.”
He watched with some satisfaction as Ellis took a sharp breath at the anger radiating off of Dragh.
Ellis said nothing as he walked away, his mouth a tight line.
Dragh knew what he’d have to do now. He’d made it worse for himself, he knew that as the words left his mouth. Ellis didn’t speak for himself. He spoke for others, and he’d be relaying the message.
He knew he’d have to go to see her, if what Ellis said was true. He hoped to Zufier that it wasn’t.
—--
“See you again soon,” the jailer said, shoving Dragh out of the prison gates and into the dawn’s sunlight.
Dragh righted himself, almost falling over. He swung around, his fists bunched, but the jailer had closed the iron gates to the prison.
The jailer gave a wave with each finger.
Dragh took a step forward, then thought better of it, as he had to close his eyes. The world spun.
All the jailer knew was that he’d been given a pass. Not who he was. Just a man of the Second who had been freed after a fight with the guards.
“Pit.” Dragh rubbed his face again. His mouth felt like dry smoke.
Dragh squinted at the sunlight peeking over the Car Lauch Mountains. The stone that built many of the buildings around him, the walls of the city he was in, and the palace of the nation of Landor.
The jagged white peaks still made him shiver, even years after his training in the army. The troops of Landor’s army trained in the mountains, fighting each other in imaginary wars.
Sometimes men died, but mostly they got hurt, fell from peaks or just lost toes and fingers to the frostbite.
Dragh squeezed his right hand. It still tingled where it had turned a waxy white in the early morning of his last day up there. His beard had been a sheet of icicles hanging from his face, his breath steaming as it issued from his mouth.
His squad had hidden in the drifts in the night, waiting for dawn, to ambush the last enemy squad. He’d known the pain was going to be bad, but not how bad until they found one of his men, dead from the evening in the snow.
He’d known regret then. Then anger. Anger for the generals that made them play their stupid games.
The jailer had known Ellis was someone. Or that he was working for someone who was above his station. What Dragh had to do with it, he was sure to wonder.
Dragh was on the main road of Landor’s main city now. He could see the palace in the distance, its walls and towers seeming to rise out of the base of the Car Lauch Mountains. The stones cut from the granite walls were not far from the mountains, blending in with the peaks.
Flags of Landor and her king snapped in the wind. Even from a distance, Dragh recognized the white peaks on the gray background and a sun between them.
“Look who’s alive!” a lazy voice called out from behind him.
Dragh turned on the cobblestones, narrowly missing a passing cart. The driver gave him a rude gesture and grunt.
“Pit, it is good to see you, Hemmelle. I thought you were a goner after that big lad from the Pass took a swing at you!” Dragh clapped his friend on the back.
They began to walk. The route from the prison to home was one they both knew.
Hemmelle laughed and returned the gesture. He looked around, his eyes taking in the people around them. He said lower, so that only they could hear it. “Ellis was back, looking for you this morning.”
Dragh nodded to him. “Aye, he found his way to me.”
Hemmelle chuckled. “I had guessed you were… ahem… held up by pressing matters after your little show last night with the guard.”
“You know I hate them. They have been at the Second Legion for years. I just wanted to show the captain of the guard the error of his ways.” Dragh gave his friend a dark smile.
“I know they must hate how they put us into the dungeon only to salute us now.” Hemmelle laughed out loud, the laugh echoing on the empty streets.
“I just decided he needed a little reminder of who the Second are.” Dragh put his hands on his knees, breathing in the cool air. “Gods, I shouldn’t have drunk that much ale.”
