Read two excerpts from MERLIN'S DRAGON: Doomraga's Revenge below, including Chapter 1 and Merlin's Thoughts on Magic.

 

CHAPTER 1: NOT SO SMALL ANYMORE

The wrathful roar exploded—so forcefully it toppled a grove of ironwood trees, emptied a flowing river, and blew an entire waterfall sideways. Fierce winds slammed into the pinnacles high above Lavadon Lake, breaking off towers of rock that plunged over the cliffs that rimmed the lake, hitting the water with tumultuous splashes. Not that those splashes could be heard, however. The roar filled the air, overwhelming every other sound.

When, at last, the roar faded away, another sound remained. Higher and thinner it was, yet every bit as arresting—a frenzied chorus of shrieks.

The shrieks of children about to die.

Atop those sheer cliffs huddled a band of young dwarves. Like all their kind in Fireroot, curly red hair hovered over their faces like fluffy clouds. Yet their typical expressions of mischief and playfulness had given way to something else. Terror.

No adult dwarves stood by to protect them. All those who had tried, their mothers with sharp eyes and powerful hands and their fathers with brawny arms and thick beards, now lay in the dirt, their lifeless bodies smashed or shredded or incinerated. Not far away, glaring at the children, was the monster who had done this: Fireroot’s most ferocious dragon.

“Tell me!” he commanded, scraping the ground with his murderous claws, slicing boulders as easily as a knife would cut a melon.

Lo Valdearg was the name he had chosen, hoping to link himself to Valdearg, the most dangerous dragon of ancient lore who had terrorized Merlin’s isle of Fincayra. Although he’d only recently started causing havoc in Fireroot, the mere sound of this dragon’s name, like his roar, made people quake in fear. As did the sight of his gigantic form, which was impossibly large, covered with scarlet scales that shielded his head, neck, chest, tail, and wings.

“Tell me!” he repeated, lifting his gargantuan head high above the cowering dwarves. To them, his massive face loomed as huge as a hillside. But this hillside had fiery red eyes and a vast mouth with rows of pinnacle-sharp teeth. Not to mention the ability to breathe fire hot enough to melt any stone.

Steaming hot air blew down on them from his cavernous nostrils, making the children shriek louder and forcing them to move back to the very edge of the cliff. They stood there, some of them holding hands and others covering their eyes, while the youngest children sat on the ground and wailed. Meanwhile, Lo Valdearg’s ragged black beard, sprouting from the tip of his chin, slapped the air as he shook his massive head. From the beard fell drops of fresh dwarves’ blood, as well as a few remains of his latest victims—a severed arm here, an empty boot there.

“Tell me!” he demanded again, his voice rising to a roar.

“Never,” cried an older girl, still clutching her father’s charred ax. She raised the heavy ax as high as she could before her arms couldn’t hold it any longer. As the double-edged blade slammed back to the ground, she spat, “We’ll never tell you where to find the flaming jewels.”

“Our people discovered them!” yelled a boy at her side.

“They belong to dwarves,” called another. “Not dragons!”

Lo Valdearg’s eyes glowed like molten lava. A ferocious rumble gathered in his chest, while his eyes seemed to burst into flames. “They will soon belong to me, you stubborn little insects.”

The scarlet dragon drew a deep breath, preparing to blast his prey into ashes.

The shrieks rose louder, piercing the air. Many children shrank back to the absolute edge of the cliff. Only a few, including the girl with the ax, stood motionless before their foe.

He roared. Out of his mouth poured an avalanche of flames, so intensely hot that even the air itself seemed to flee, rushing away in a superheated wind. All this fire, smoke, and wind shot toward the young dwarves—

But never reached them.

At the instant the dragon’s flames blasted forth, a great wing reached down from the sky and blocked the onslaught. Protected by thousands of bright green scales, the wing deflected everything right back at the attacker, smothering him with smoke and fire.

Lo Valdearg roared—this time not with rage, but with surprise and pain. The sudden blast of flames had singed his eyes and burned away most of his beard. He rolled backward, away from the cliff, clawing at his wounded eyes.

At the same time, the creature whose wing had saved the children landed between them and Lo Valdearg. Smashing down with a resounding crash, his weight shook the ground violently—so violently that hundreds of boulders broke off from the cliff and rained down on the lake far below.

Gazing up at their savior, the children seemed frozen, too startled to speak. Partly because he was so huge—even bigger than their attacker, more like a mountain than anything alive. And partly because he was, to their utter astonishment, another dragon.

The great green dragon turned his head toward the children, still keeping one eye on the writhing body of Lo Valdearg. Lit by the stars of Avalon above, the scales on his brow sparkled like emeralds. “Do not fear me,” he declared, his voice as loud as thunder yet somehow not so frightening. “I am Basilgarrad.”

Still none of the children spoke. They merely continued to gawk at this enormous being who had appeared so suddenly, their faces full of awe and disbelief. Some of the youngest dwarves continued to sob, while others started to crawl away from the edge of the cliff. At last, the girl with the ax thumped its blade on the ground. Peering up into one of the enormous green eyes, she shouted to be heard.

“Are you the Basilgarrad? Who saved Merlin from an evil kreelix?”

The titanic head nodded ever so slightly. But the dragon’s eyes narrowed as he remembered his battle with the kreelix—whose power to devour magic meant grave danger or death for wizards… as well as dragons.

The girl glanced down at her ax. The sudden recollection of her father, who had wielded it so bravely until the very moment of his death, filled her eyes with mist. Lifting her face again to Basilgarrad, she asked: “Why did you help us?”

Turning away from the other dragon, who had rolled even farther away and was still clawing at his eyes in agony, Basilgarrad lowered his head a bit more. As his immense shadow covered the girl, many other dwarves backed away nervously. But she stood motionless, staring up at him.

Finally, the green dragon spoke, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Because, little one, I was once very small. Even smaller than you.”

She blinked, unable to comprehend such a thing, let alone believe it. How could a creature with wings that could stretch across a valley ever have been small?

Sensing her doubt, Basilgarrad chuckled, a rich, bubbling sound that echoed deep in his throat. As his enormous lips parted, they revealed teeth sharper than spears, arrayed in rows, packed together like thousands of sentries. Except for one place, at the front of his mouth, where a prominently placed tooth was missing—the result of his battle with the kreelix.

A sudden roar burst upon them, flattening the girl and the rest of the dwarves with its force. Basilgarrad whirled around just as the scarlet dragon leaped at him, wings spread wide and deadly claws extended. Fire still glowed amidst the embers of the singed beard. Yet the attacker’s angry eyes, swollen from burns, glowed even brighter.

“How dare you challenge me?” roared Lo Valdearg, spitting flames as he charged. “How dare you defy the greatest dragon of all times?”

With a single deft movement, Basilgarrad spun to the side. Whipping his enormous tail skyward, he slammed it into the attacker’s belly, with such force that Lo Valdearg bellowed in pain and flipped upside down in the air. Then, before the dragon could recover, Basilgarrad swung his tail again, wrapping its length around his foe’s neck. With a might roar of his own, so loud it was heard leagues away in the Volcano Lands, Basilgarrad hurled the scarlet dragon over the cliff and down into the lake below. A huge splash erupted, reaching even the highest rim of rock, spraying the young dwarves with water.

Silence slowly returned, broken only by the fading echoes of dragons’ roars and the slap of waves against the shore far below. Basilgarrad turned again to the girl with the ax. Her cheeks glistened with water from the splash, as a lone drop rolled down her nose. Though she was smaller than the smallest scale on his body, she gazed up at him without fear. Her upturned face glowed with gratitude.

“Thank you,” she said. Basilgarrad gave a nod, while folding his immense wings against his back. She watched him for a moment, then added, “But I really can’t believe you were ever small.”

“Oh, but I was,” he rumbled. His great green eye gave her a wink. “It does come in handy, though, that I’m not so small anymore.”

Merlin’s Thoughts on Magic:

For a long moment, neither spoke. Volcanoes spurted occasionally, illuminating the night air, while the campfire sizzled and crackled. At last, the wizard found the words to continue.

“What I understand now—too late to help Krystallus—is that magic comes in many forms. Some are simply harder to see than the more obvious ways of wizards and dragons.”

“You mean … like his skill at navigating portals? It’s a rare gift that you could, I suppose, call magic.”

“You could,” answered Merlin, “but I mean something even more subtle … and mysterious. The way a seed sprouts into a tree. The love between two people. The light that sparkles in the wings of a butterfly, or the eyes of a child. Those things, I would say, are the essence of magic.”

“And you would be right.” Basilgarrad thumped his tail again, crushing one of the smaller volcanoes into a smoking pile of cinders. “Magic is all around us—in every seed, every leaf, every person.”

Merlin nodded, forming a spark in his hand. He peered at it, rolling it from his fingertip down to his palm, before tossing it into the campfire. The spark glowed bright for a few brief seconds as it sailed through the air, then vanished in the flames. Quietly, more to himself than his friend, he repeated, “Every person.”

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Discover all the books in this trilogy:
Book I: Merlin's Dragon	Book II: Doomraga's Revenge	Book III: Ultimate Magic