Flight to Dragon Isle Read Online Free Page A

for the planned attack on the Westering Isles. Instead, he was making sure that the SDS would never return home from the forthcoming battle with the hobgoblins. Turning abruptly, he crossed his castle’s inner bailey and descended the rough-hewn rock steps that led down into the ancient dragoncombs.
    It was here that he had first tapped into the Maelstrom; here too that he had conjured an elixir that allowed him to wield the immense corrosive power of dark destruction that would otherwise have long since killed him. Instead, immortality and a new Dark Age beckoned. But first the kingdom’s ancient guardians must fall. The supposedly invincible SDS must be destroyed, their reputation and power broken. To whom, then, apart from himself would the Queen turn to guard her northern shores against the hobgoblin swarms? He would first claim her hand in marriage, and then usurp her crown.
    To this end, using the Maelstrom, he had been crossbreeding stolen pedigree battledragons and hobgoblins. He gave these evil creatures shape and form and a name: Razorbacks. A dragon conjured to carry its most hated enemy, the hobgoblins. The Grand Master paused to consider a young Razorback brood that slithered and coiled unceasingly below him, the rasp of their sharp spines rattling like shale on the shore. Feeding on a diluted Maelstrom brew, already they were large, each the size of a full-grown bull, growing daily. Soon they would exceed the size of a Sabretooth; but unlike Midnight Madness, the unstable rogue dragon he had unleashed at the Winter Jousts, whose dark side was hidden, these foul creatures were evidently as much hobgoblin as dragon: amphibious, carnivorous, voracious pack hunters who were bound to serve him. And they spewed Dark Magic the like of which the SDS had not seen since the Mage Wars; forbidden Dark Magic. And none would know how to fight it. The Seven Sea Kingdoms would fall and ultimate power would be his!
    Passing on, he moved out through the caverns to the shore, where a hobgoblin awaited him. The sea around them boiled with Razorbacks, black against the rocks of the shoreline. Clinging to them like limpets were thousands of pale hobgoblins.
    ‘Have you done as I commanded?’ the Lord Hugo demanded of the hobgoblin messenger whom Galtekerion had sent.
    ‘Asss you commanded, lord,’ the hobgoblin hissed, keeping its head bowed before the masked warlock. ‘One of our championsss was sssacrificed. His body bears the marks of the thirteen tribessss and carriesss the great tooth of the warlord. We placed trophiesss and weaponry from the tribesss about him. His ssssacrifice will be honoured.’
    ‘And you are certain they will find him?’
    ‘Yesss, lord. Hisss body was left in the great cavern at the heart of the mountain in the Howling Glen. The SDSSS sssscouts will find him.’
    The Grand Master nodded, finally satisfied that the trap was set. The SDS would take the bait.
    ‘Lord …’ the hobgoblin said uncertainly, afraid of exciting this warlock’s wrath. ‘Our warriorssss are sssstarving … many are dying … those who have gone into winter sleep will never awake in the ssspring.’
    ‘It will not be long. Sacrifice the old and the weak. Tell your master that his warriors will soon feed on rich dragon meat. The Earl is bringing four regiments to the battle, numbering twenty thousand dragons.’
    ‘Even the mighty Imperialsssss …?’ The hobgoblin trembled at the name of that most feared of dragons.
    ‘Yes.’
    The hobgoblin’s pale eyes glowed in the growing dark. ‘Lord …’ it hissed as it looked upon the Razorbacks. ‘They will recognize usss? They will obey only usss? Not the Dragon Lordssss …’
    The Grand Master nodded. ‘They will obey only you.’
    And you – the Lord Hugo Mandrake smiled as the hobgoblin mounted a Razorback and disappeared below the dark cold waves – you will obey only me!

C HAPTER F IVE
Becoming Better Acquainted with Dragons
    The last note of the bard’s harp