My Servant, Varly

Mike Snowden

Description

Gary, Amanda, and Sarah find themselves grappling with information revealed to them by the dragons they encounter. Meanwhile, back in Elmhold, the newly crowned king finds himself dealing with his own struggles. He must somehow balance engaging the will of the people of Elmhold and avoid the murderous wrath of his uncle while simultaneously harboring a monster in plain sight.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: First Edition Design Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781622875313
• Langue: English

Extrait

My Servant, Varly
Mike Snowden


First Edition Design Publishing
My Servant, Varly
By
Mike Snowden

Published by
First Edition Design Publishing
My Servant, Varly
Copyright ©2014 Mike Snowden

ISBN 978-1622-875-31-3 EBOOK

February 2014

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com



ALL R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. No p a r t o f t h i s b oo k pub li ca t i o n m a y b e r e p r o du ce d, s t o r e d i n a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s mit t e d i n a ny f o r m o r by a ny m e a ns ─ e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o - c o p y , r ec o r d i n g, or a ny o t h e r ─ e x ce pt b r i e f qu ot a t i o n i n r e v i e w s , w i t h o ut t h e p r i o r p e r mi ss i on o f t h e a u t h o r or publisher .
Thanks to my family for all of their support.
Special thanks to Misty for all of her help with content revisions.
Special thanks also to Trina Dahlke for all of her hard work correcting spelling and grammatical errors.
Prologue

"Drink your fill and fill your skins boys, we don't have time to waste. Theferax says that our prey slowed down to a stroll since leaving that trail from the plateau." It had been two days since the incident on the hillside that cost him his pawns and Bortermore was perhaps more angry now than he had been then.
At First, the prey had appeared to be fleeing at first with all due urgency. Since that first hard run, the princess and her fox spirit tutor seemed to have decided that any pursuers would have been both fooled and destroyed by the trap they had left behind. Bortermore was most angry now because, while he and his elite squad had survived, though with depleted numbers, the assumption was well founded. "We're not going to let that fool girl and some silly little fox show up the best troops under general Pearlhealm ’ s command. Two minutes, no longer," he snarled.
The soldiers had finished filling their water skins and were preparing to leave when it happened. It was only thanks to the keen senses and constant alert nature of Theferax that they had any warning at all.
"Move it you slimy mud heap! Incoming from above! Roll, Deader! Roll!" The goblin had already taken full advantage of the watering hole and was preparing to scold the subordinates for taking too long when he caught whiff of the invaders. "Gaslex protect the sorcerers, this one ’ s not likely to be alone."
The warning had come in time, but only just. Had the large dark orc hesitated even an instant the griffin ’ s claws would have likely torn him to shreds. Hesitation, however, was not a part of Deader. Perhaps he was not as quick witted as his goblin superior or as strategically minded as his commander, but Deader was gifted in his ability to follow orders without question. When Theferax said roll, roll Deader did.
There was hardly enough time for the two brawny orcs to comply with their orders before the other predators began to swoop down at the troop. Bortermore had drawn his weapon and the dark elves had hid in the grass. Only the lone leprechaun had the ability to act purposefully in so short a time. Almost as though he were teleporting around the water ’ s edge, the last remaining front man, as Bortermore called the more typical soldiers of Elmhold, vanished completely from sight, reappeared thrusting his dagger down through the base of the first griffins neck and then vanished again.
Bortermore lunged forward, stabbing at a high upward angle as he did. The second of the griffins impaled itself on the gleaming blade of the forest orc. As it did so, the beast lashed at him with his lion's claws. The blow landed, but the force of Bortermore's great broad sword had slowed his enemy ’ s decent dramatically and it no longer had the force needed to tear through the bark like skin of the tough commander.
Deader and Gaslex naturally pared up as quickly as possible. Their twin battle axes gleamed and glistened as they flew through the air. Then the twin blades were both covered in the dark blood of a single griffin which now laid, mutilated and missing most of its two great wings, at the feet of the two gargantuan orcs. The beast had no time to react to its new found flightlessness before Gaslex crushed its skull with a most violent ax kick.
The loan leprechaun, by this point, had dispatched another of the beasts. It was unclear how he had reached such a great height. Perhaps he had stolen momentum from one of the orc's powerful battle ax swings, leaping high into the air before the blade touched flesh. Nevertheless, the brave elf had managed to mount his victim while it was still in flight. Executing the same death blow that he had employed on the first of the birdlike creatures, he could be seen leaping from the falling corpse for the briefest of moments before vanishing once more from sight.
Suddenly the earth began to tremble and the remaining griffins began to retreat. Before the rest of the troop could confuse what was about to happen with victory, Theferax sprang up from the shallow lake and shouted what he knew to his commander.
"It's the worm sir; we need to act fast."
"You three impale it, through the earth, don't let it make the mistake of thinking there is easy prey up here on the surface."
The dark elves knew better than to hesitate. It all happened in a flash. All three linked hands and voices as they shouted first at the sky and then at the epicenter of the quake that now shook them. Instantly a large spear of ice fell from the sky and impaled the earth. As it struck its target a green spray shot out of the wound in the ground. Then the ice spear broke, fell, and shattered as the worm retreated.
The Puppet prince and the Shadow King

"Any word from Bortermore?"
"No general, not since he sent word that he was crossing the gonzoran plains sir."
"And what of the other squad, any word from them yet?"
"Yes sir! They lost a lot of men sir, but the target has been destroyed."
"Very well. Dismissed, soldier."
Richard Pearlhelm needed some good news. The loss of Bradley had greatly hindered the public relations program. The general had spent decades on this project, this coup. He was clever and a gifted wordsmith, but in the past few years he had grown accustomed to Bradley ’ s unique talent for spinning the truth and painting a more favorable view of the situation for the public.
Fortunately, Richard had the good sense to plan things out well in advance. He and Bradley had spent several hours discussing the cover story for the masses of Elmhold long before the banquet of kings, but the disappearance of the queen and the eleventh heir was complicating matters. With each passing day since the announcement of the death of the king, Richard had been forced to live with the fear that one of them would return to claim the throne.
This new information, this latest development, had done a great deal to set the general's mind at ease. The greater fear had always been the return of the queen prior to the crowing of the new king. That Gatlemore girl was young, foolish, and undependable, there was far less to fear from her. Better still, that girl had fled the country, crossing the Gonzoran Plains. With any luck she was a problem that just might solve itself; crossing into such dangerous lands was almost certain death for so fragile a girl.
Now he could focus on more important matters; the crowning ceremony for Dougless was first on the general ’ s agenda. A puppet government is almost impossible to control without the puppets in place to dance for the public. Once crowned, Richard's nephew would make the perfect puppet king. The people adored Dougless almost as much as they did the young Sarah Gatlemore. The draw to Dougless was so great, in fact, that after a few years on the throne the people would likely love him so much that they wouldn ’ t want the Gatlemore girl on the throne even if she did return.
The tale that the Pearlhealm supporters had been spreading throughout the land was that during the banquet of kings one of the northern neighbors to the kingdom had launched a surprise attack. During the attack the enemy units managed to slay the king, as well as ten of the twelve heirs to the throne. The attackers then, as it has been reported through Elmhold, took the queen and the young Gatlemore girl as their hostages. As for Dougless, the story goes; it was his uncle ’ s quick thinking that allowed the two of them to escape the slaughter unharmed.
The queen, it just so happened, had fled north into the very country that the general had blamed the attack on. When his men, genuinely wounded and bloodied from the battle, return with their fallen queen they will also bring along with them evidence of her abductors identity in the form of one of the enemies fallen officer ’ s remains. Richard will present these evidences to the people only moments after Dougless is crowned. The boy, clearly still suffering from the tragedy that he witnessed will then have the support of the entire nation when he declares war in retaliation.
"Dougless." Now finding himself in high spirits for the first time since the banquet of kings, Richard was eager to solidify his new hold on the throne. "Dougless, we have good news. All of the catering concerns have been finalized. Who is this?" The general was not terribly surprised to find Dougless with company, but this girl was not military. Richard was fairly sure she wasn't even from Elmhold.
"This is Varly, Varly this is my uncle." Though Richard often found Douglass ’ s attention to social educates tiresome it was in many ways what made him an ideal pawn to place on the throne. "If you could excuse us please, I fear that my uncle has brought with him a desire to discuss matters of the most tedious of sorts. Perhaps we can continue our discussion at a later date."
"O