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realize that you killed so many?”
    The truth was, I didn’t have any idea how many I had killed at all. I hadn’t even thought about it.
    My father looked down, and I felt like it was the last time I’d ever see him again. My heart began to sputter in my chest as I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks, and begged, “No, father, I’m so sorry. Let me fix this.”
    “It’s too late for that. You have cursed yourself. You are no longer welcome in Dragon Home. You’ll take no swords, no gold, no magic … not anything. You are on your own. If there is any hope left, you’ll have to find it on your own. I’ve told you all I can. Now go, to never return unless those scales are a different color.”
    My father gave me one long, lasting look with nothing but sadness and disappointment in his eyes. I’d failed him, I knew it, for the last time. I felt smaller than the tiniest coin in the room as he turned, walked away, and disappeared back into the mural.
    Alone, I wept my way through my father’s throne room, never looking back, through Dragon Home, through the Sulfur Marsh, until I wept no more.
    ***
    Bearded and lonely, I sat inside a cave at least a hundred leagues from my father as another season passed while I contemplated my failure in self-pity. No men killed. No dragons saved. My cursed black scales remained.
    If there is any hope left, you’ll have to find it on your own, my father had said.
    He’d said many things, and it was time I put them together. I rose from the crag where I had stooped and bellowed the fiercest bellow I could muster. It was time to figure out what I must do to become a dragon, and a very good one at that. Like my father.
    From out of nowhere, Brenwar showed up and tossed a beautiful sword at my feet. It was Fang.
    “Brenwar! How did you get this?” I asked in alarm and jubilation.
    “Yer father only said you couldn’t take anything from his cavern. He didn’t say anything about me.” He winked and added, “And that isn't all I got, either.”
     
    Thus begins the Chronicles of Dragon.
     
    ***Read on for an excerpt from Book 2, Dragons Bones and Tombstones***

Nath Dragon
     

Dragon Bones and Tombstones
    The Chronicles of Dragon: Book 2
    By Craig Halloran

 
    PROLOGUE
     
     
    Starlight. The land of Nalzambor was filled with stars, more than could be counted, more than could be seen. The biggest one, the most brilliant, lingered behind the moon like the twinkling eye of a dragon. But now was not the time to pay attention to such beautiful things. Not the shimmering waters, the soft grasses, the gentle breeze, or the trees filled with fruit aplenty. No, such things didn’t matter now in the mystic land of Nalzambor, at least not when death, despite all the beauty, still whispered in the air.

 
    CHAPTER 1
     
     
    I sat high in the branches, spying the orcen camp below. Brenwar and I had spent weeks trying locate it. Brenwar wasn’t with me. He didn’t climb trees, not unless he really had to.
    Below, the gruff voices bellowed and drank, celebrating their prized catch: an evergreen dragon. I could see her well from my perch. She was a rare flower, a thing of beauty among the decay of mankind. Small and young, the creature was no bigger than a man. Her tail, slender and serpentine, curled around her body as she lay still. Green, a brilliant green like emeralds, was the color of her scales. Her underbelly was not fully developed, yet it was armored in citrine yellow. Long necked, with a small nose and snout, she had two leathery wings folded over her back. Her chest was rising and falling as if she was out of breath. I could sense her fear as she lay alone and helpless. I had to free her; after all, that’s what I did. Or at least, what I was supposed to be doing.
    I watched and waited. Certainly Brenwar’s signal would come at any moment. The waiting wasn’t so bad. And the watching part was another matter. Watching orcs—all of which were brawny, fatty, and