Author: D.K. Drake (Page 3 of 7)

Meet Barath, one of the characters in The Dragon Hunter.  He works for Omri in the lab located in the basement of the castle.  Here is his brief profile:

Birthdate:   March 13 in the Zandadorian year of 3303

Current Age:  897

Appearance:  Half-bald black man, well-trimmed white beard; scrawny; wears glasses (but he’s always forgetting where he put them and often walks around with several pair on his head at once)

Rank:  Lead Researcher in the King’s Lab

Family:  Widower; his only daughter is Omri’s third wife

Personality:  Intelligent, Absent-minded, Talkative  

Biggest Fear:  Upsetting King Omri and thus endangering his daughter’s life

Unique Facts:  Once Omri discovered how brilliant Barath was, Omri had Barath’s wife Yara killed and threatened to execute his daughter as well unless Barath agreed to work for Omri.  Barath has worked for Omri during the king’s entire reign and has become accustomed to obeying the king’s orders to keep his daughter safe.

Meet Lydia, one of the characters in The Dragon Hunter.    She is the Tribal Chief of the Sacratali Tribe in Lower Keckrick.  Here is her brief profile:

Birthdate:   December 8 in the Zandadorian year of 4103

Current Age:  97

Appearance:  5’7”, spiked hair, brown eyes, brown skin; slender, muscular

Rank:  Tribal Chief 

Family:  Widow; mother of three grown boys; has five grandchildren, all girls

Personality:  Tough, Determined, Impulsive

Biggest Fear:  Being unable to protect her family and tribe

Unique Facts:  On her tenth wedding anniversary at the age of 47, a powerful storm with high winds and massive rainfall swept through her village.  Her husband—the Chief at the time—was trapped by a fallen tree and drowned by the rising water from the rain.  She tried to free him from the tree but was unsuccessful.  She took over as Chief and became fiercely protective of her family and tribe, determined not to lose any more loved ones on her watch.

Meet Taliya, one of the characters in The Dragon Hunter.    She is a Dragon Protector and a direct descent of Atlar, Timlech and Tra, the Protector Kings who ruled Zandador from 1501-1800.  Here is her brief profile:

Birthdate:   March 17 in the Zandadorian year of 4178

Current Age:  22

Appearance:  5’2”, waist-length black hair, tan skin, bright blue eyes, slender figure

Heritage:  Protector Bloodline 

Family:  only child; parents live in Zandador but sent her to Keckrick to live with her grandparents

Personality:  Smart, Witty, Outgoing

Biggest Fear:  Losing Kisa, the dragon she is secretly protecting in Keckrick

Unique Facts:  Her human contact has been limited because she doesn’t want anyone to find out about Kisa.  She can move in the woods without making a sound, shoots darts from a slingshot with deadly accuracy, and studies the weather patterns.  She can sense when animals are about to strike or a storm is about to hit.

In the cold, dark corner of the stone prison, Omri sat with his hands chained together in front of him and his ankles chained to the floor.  He had been stripped of the power to do anything.  Except think.  Plan his revenge.  Contemplate his future.

He would escape this prison.  He would remain in Varzack long enough to regain his physical strength and ensure his brother rotted in a prison of Omri’s choosing.  And he would become King of the Land of Zandador.

When he became king, he would make the world bend to his will.  He would have complete control of everyone and everything.  Dragons would obey him.  People would fear him.  Even the land would produce the food and plants he demanded.

When he became king, he would dictate what the people learned, where they lived, what jobs they worked, who they married and how many kids they could have. 

When he became king, no one would dare defy him.  If they did, he would have them killed or banned to the Land of No Return.  

When he became king, he would show no mercy.  Have no compassion.  Show no sympathy.  He would treat people the way he was being treated in this prison.  He wanted every person in his kingdom to feel like they had shackles on their hands and feet, to know the hopelessness of being a prisoner, to have no say in the day to day activities of their lives.

When he became king, he would gain total domination over the Land of Zandador.  Varzack.  The entire Great Rift.  And eventually the dimension on the other side of the portal known as earth. ffffffffff

The year was 3600, a Battle for the Throne year in Zandador. 

At age 96, Omri was too young to enter the battle.

As a servant in Varzack, Omri was not allowed to leave Varzack.

As a blacksmith, Omri had no official training as a Dragon Hunter.

None of that mattered to Omri. 

Omri was the one son his parents had a chance to influence.  They were forced to give up Omri’s two older brothers to become soldiers in the army and thus focused all their attention on their youngest son.  If he became King of Zandador, they would be freed from their life of servitude to their master Rehu.

His mother had been telling him from the day of his birth how special he was.  She made him believe he could do no wrong and deserved to have everything he wanted. 

Likewise, his father told him he was strong and smart and powerful and had been training him in secret.  They weren’t supposed to know how to fight with the swords they made in their blacksmith shop, but they trained at night anyway. 

So when the Battle for the Throne began, they helped Omri sneak out of Varzack so he could hunt dragons in Zandador.  What none of them knew was that Omri’s oldest brother Mahrer was also in Zandador hunting dragons.

He began his hunt in Dusk Stalker territory.  He spent a month tracking one dragon, learning its habits and assessing its strengths and weaknesses.  Then one early morning in February, Omri made his move.

His plan was to cut off the dragon’s tail while it slept, and Omri had observed it often slept til nearly noon.  Attacking at sunrise would catch the dragon in a deep sleep, and it would be his before it had a chance to open its eyes.

Quietly, Omri drew his sword and approached the dragon’s cave.  He found its white-scaled body curled into a ball, and its tail curved all the way under its head.  Omri smiled.  All he had to do was slice through any part of the dragon’s tail, and it would be his to control.

He adjusted his feet as he raised his sword, but that was all it took to wake the dragon.  In one quick motion, it kicked Omri with his back leg.  The sharp claws ripped Omri’s shirt, cut into his chest and sent him sprawling down the hill.

Omri scurried under cover of some nearby bushes and waited for the dragon to find him, but it never did.  Because his brother found him first.

“Omri?  What are you doing here?”  Mahrer pulled the hurt Omri to his feet and punched him in the jaw.  “How dare you attempt to hunt any dragon, especially one I plan to make my own.”

“You’re no Dragon Hunter.”  Omri spit out a mouthful of blood.  “I got closer to that dragon on my first attempt than you could ever hope to get in a thousand years.”

Mahrer screamed and punched Omri again, knocking him out.

When he woke up, his hands and legs were tied, and he was on his way back to Varzack to serve a decade-long prison sentence for abandoning his blacksmithing responsibilities. ffffffffffffff

Those of the Dragon Hunter Bloodline moved south of Zandador to Varzack when the first Dragon Collector won the Battle of the Throne.

They stayed out of Zandador and the Battle for the Throne for the next 500 years and focused on building their own society.  Two classes soon emerged:  slaves and slave owners.

The slaves mined the resources of the land—mostly iron and wood—to build homes and towns at the direction of their owners.  They learned how to maximize the use of purple rains, cultivate plants and trade using paper currency instead of dragon scales.

They became excellent craftsmen; swords and spears became the predominant weapons across the country of Varzack.

They also learned that although they lived long lives (with an average lifespan of 400 years), they aged faster in Varzack than those who lived to be a thousand years in Zandador.  Many grew content with their lives but a small faction longed for a return to the Land of Zandador.

Omri was one of those people.

Omri’s parents were both of the Hunter Bloodline and both slaves of Rehu.  His father Grishtor worked as a blacksmith for Rehu while his mother Sylvia worked in the kitchen.  Rehu arranged the marriage and ordered the couple to have three sons.

The first two children born were girls.  Rehu had each of them killed.  He wanted boys—two to sell to the army and one to work for him as a blacksmith.

Over the next five years, Sylvia gave birth to three boys:  Mahrer, Vixay and Omri.

Mahrer and Vixay were raised as soldiers and sold to the army at age 12 to fight the beasts of the land.  Since they were of the Hunter Bloodline, they were also trained to hunt dragons in preparation to fight in a Battle of the Throne in Zandador.

Omri wanted to be a soldier like his brothers.  He wanted to use the swords he made with his father in the shop to fight, not simply give them to others to fight.  But Rehu would not allow it and ordered Omri to be a blacksmith, not a soldier or a Dragon Hunter.

This infuriated Omri.  He was more powerful than either of his brothers and deserved to be the one training to hunt dragons.  He thought of himself as a King, not a blacksmith.

So when the Battle for the Throne began in 3600, Omri decided to flee Varzack and enter the competition for the throne.

Only things did not go as planned.