Dragon Bound

Chapter One

--

Chapter One

--

Jason knelt before his king, head tucked, short bronze hair reflecting the firelight of the surrounding torches. His dragon, Damon, knelt just behind him. The Sun King regarded him with an almost listless expression as his sat on his throne of gold and dragon bone. The king's dragon was just as grand as the king himself, a powerful and rare gold-scaled beast of incomprehensible beauty, captured as a hatchling from the Desert of Glass far to the west.

The world was full of powerful and ancient creatures. No boat could cross the oceans as the monstrous sea serpents that lived within the black waters could grow larger than any castle. The skies held dragons and the deep mountains held many kinds of things that slithered, burrowed, and ate flesh. It could be said that the human race should have been wiped out over a millennium ago. Perhaps they would have been if not for the few that learnt to wield magic. These humans were able to use their magic to tame the land and its beasts. Most importantly, it allowed them to capture and tame dragons.

With dragons by their sides, the humans were able to rise out of their caves and spread across the lands. They could finally travel the oceans and fight back against the creatures that had hunted them for so long. From these lands, four kingdoms emerged, each with its own ruler. The kingdoms were divided by the vast ocean, the virtually impassable Kaempe Stor Mountain Range, and the Desert of Glass in the west. These parts of the land were not ventured much by humans. Virtually uninhabitable, they were the true wilds.

Jason was but one of the thirty knighted dragon riders of the Sun King. He was young for his station. Most knights owned at least four dragons by the time they were knighted. Jason owned only two and the second was a crippled filly dragon he had rescued from the slaughterhouse. She was for breeding only and couldn't be used to ride or fight.

It was law that those children gifted with magic be taken in and trained under the watchful eye of the king's guard. They would go into the forest and tame their first dragon, usually something small like a Thistle Dragon which was no bigger than a carrier pigeon. Leaf Dragons were also popular first choices. Named for their dark green dappled pelt, they stood no taller than a house cat.

Jason however, had chosen neither. He was trained by his father, a dragon knight himself. He had studied in his father's stable. It was unorthodox to say the least, but Jason was a particularly gifted student and as he had passed all his magic sigils classes with embarrassing ease, he was permitted to wait. At the age of fifteen, Jason had packed his bag and vanished into the wilds with his fellow riders. His fellow students were sent out to capture their first true riding dragons. Stealing an egg or hatchling from a nest was the easiest way.

Again, for a first riding dragon, most young students chose the more common breeds. Jason was not most students. He stayed in the wilds a full month by himself. He had travelled a long way into the ancient lands. It was on a night with no moon that Jason had found his dragon. Damon was of a spectacular rare breed. His scales were inky black, his eyes, glittering silver. He was a Yoru Dragon, a Night Dragon and they were very seldom seen by living people. The female only ever hatched up to two eggs at a time unlike the other breeds which normally had clutches of nine or ten.

It had taken almost everything Jason had to tame Damon. Damon was just as stubborn and powerful as he was. Many of the older knights had petitioned the king to remove Damon to the care of a more experienced rider but the king had allowed Jason to persist. Broken bones, blood, sweat, and magic bonded the rider to his dragon and Damon was now unquestionably his. No other could touch him. Except the Sun King.

Jason kept his head bowed as he heard the man rise. The hairs on his arm and neck stood on end with the intense magical aura the king permeated. A warm hand slid down the side of his face to cup his chin. Jason's head was tipped up.