Free Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy by Jonathan Biviano Page A

launched his muscular frame into the churning water.
Lendril detected the faint scent of electricity in the air and
turned her head to watch the river. Long, agonizing
minutes passed and despair once again began to fill her
soul.
    With a yell of triumph, the black man broke through the
surface with Tych under his arm. He climbed onto the dry
bed and walked to the shore, Tych limping next to him with
support. Lendril stood and met them on the dry land. Tych
collapsed and she bent over him, adrenalin once again
boosting her. Frantically, she began removing the armor
from his upper body.
    Taking bandages from her pack, she ripped off his
padded shirt and began wrapping the white cloth around his
torso. The bandages became pink and then red. She
struggled to pull them tight but no strength remained.
“Help me pull them taught over the wound or he’ll die.”
    The man bent over and yanked with such force that
Tych sat up in shock and pain out of a deep stupor. The
man looked sheepishly at Lendril then loosened the
bandages until Tych fell back to the ground. Quickly she
taped them.
    The stranger spoke. “Can you walk?”
    “I doubt I would make it very far. Besides we have no
reason to trust you, human.”
    “I’m not human, I’m a dragon. If not for me, the storm
would still be raging and you both would be dead.”
    Lendril noticed for the first time that the rain had
stopped. She had been too weary and wet to notice this or
the absence of wind. “Tell me, then, why should we trust
one who considers us an enemy.”
    “I have long been at peace with the endarils. They have
served my master and I well.”
    “So then you are owned by a human?”
    “No, my master is Buhlaht, the King of the Dragons. I
served as one of his guards. He remains to this day one of
the greatest forces to be reckoned with, but not nearly what
this man will be.” He gestured towards Tych with an open
palm.
    “You cannot possibly know who we are.”
    “You, my beautiful endaril, are Lendril di Rutif, and he
is Tych di Corl, Prince of the Endarils, banished for crimes
he did not commit.”
    “How do you know all this?” Lendril tied the last tie on
Tych’s armor and sat down.
    “That must wait, for here we are in danger and the
forest has ears. I must take you to the safety of my lair.”
With this the dragon seemed to blur before Lendril’s eyes
and then a gold dragon stood there. Standing on the legs
protruding from his torso, his head towered to thrice
Lendril’s height. His wingspan was over fifty feet. Shiny
gold plates covered him from head to tail but for a small
spot between his arms where his neck and body appeared to
meet, if at all. His neck and head were half his height, and
horns protruded over his eyes.
    Lendril stood on wobbly legs and collected their
belongings. “What is your name?”
    “Doleof.” He reached down with his clawed hands and
picked up Tych, then turned his long neck and placed the
prince on his back. Lendril screamed in pain as she
scrambled up the tail behind Tych.
    “Let’s go, Doleof.”
    Doleof raised his wings to keep them on his back and
with a powerful push lifted his body off the ground. With a
bellow to frighten anything lurking in the woods, he
entered the trees. Lendril soon fell asleep on Tych, already
soundly snoring.
     

Chapter Eight
NANDEL
     
    Even stranger than Tych, since he was endarilan and
unusual things always happen to them, was the human
wizard, Nandel. Like the two moons that swung overhead
as he walked through the forest, he seemed eternal. Three
thousand years earlier, in the island kingdom of Uctar, on
the other side of the world, he had been born at the exact
moment when the two moons, Hift and Nuvi, eclipsed in
perfect alignment. The gods placed upon him good favor,
or bad depending on point of view, giving him everlasting
youth until the two moons once again met. This event took
place only once every ten thousand