The Dragon’s Dream – An Excerpt.

(This is the first chapter from Episode 5 and I am deep into the eighth episode at the moment. Something to whet the appetite, and I’d welcome any comments and feedback)

1.

The catfish had been fat and frantic for days, near leaping into the nets. They fermented and salted much of it for the lean times, but the last few weeks had been full nets for all of them.

Welt tethered the raft and got onto the outcropping of land, then hauled in the nets. He was rangy, tan and twined with muscle as he loaded the nets onto the raft then packed the fish into barrels, put out the night before to cure. He had given three days’ worth to the salt stores and liked to make sure there was enough in the lean and fat days ahead.

It took him an hour, but he got it all in. Time for some food and a cup of the fermented spirits he brewed himself.

He sauntered up the stairs set into the mud and grinned to himself. An excellent day.  Then he felt something and peered up as the hackles raised on the back of his neck.

A shape, hidden by shadows in the cool of his shack. The blunt snout raised and as it passed by the door, the glistening yellow eye. 

Tilaurians.  Lizards who roamed like men.

They held to their own land, but fought for it without pity. Welt was more startled than perturbed. 

‘Hey,’ he said.

They paused and shifted around to stare at him. They sometimes revealed anything beyond hunger and dread, but they were not a declared menace to the families here.

He assumed it was ravenous.

It reached behind them and Welt saw the knife in its hand and turned his hand up.

They hissed as they came at him. Welt turned and sprinted, thinking of the raft,  headed to the main shack, raising the alarm.

It was his last thought as the blade punched between his shoulder blades, sunk in his spine as his skull filled with a silver blaze of light, then a hard and endless black.

Mercy, because he didn’t see what the tilaurian did to his body. 

The story was more interesting than the truth, so when it reached Darmur in Br’ir Al Asad, he heard a word which drew his interest. 

Dragon. 

He ran to Utheir.  They continued to Ron and Zephyrus, and it was there, the complications appeared.