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  RETURN TO DRAGON PLANET

  DRAGON PLANET, BOOK ONE

  S A ROBERTSON

  Copyright © S A Robertson

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design, dragon illustration, and maps © S A Robertson

  FOR JO

  CONTENTS

  MAPS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MAPS

  ONE

  1

  Squinting against the shimmering curtain of light enclosing the combat ring, Blake McCord tried to block out the cheering of the bar crowd. His head pounded and his stomach roiled. This hadn’t seemed such a bad idea after six flagons of dark dwarfish mead. Now, barely able to grip the power mace in his sweaty hand, the realisation dawned that this might not turn out quite how he had hoped.

  “Yeah, this has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” he murmured to himself as he tried to focus through the hexagonal, pulsing plates of his force shield. Not that he liked much of what he saw. For while Blake was not exactly a small man, his opponent was so large it was like standing in the shadow of a small mountain. Nor was this a human kind of large either. This was almost nine hundred pounds of pure ogrish muscle, packed into a half-naked eight-foot frame—about the same weight and height as a fully grown polar bear.

  “Hey! Little human…” the ogre rumbled in heavily-accented Common. “Joke is over. This is no contest for Borghash.”

  Blake adjusted the sparring helmet he had been given and tried to stay focused. “Borghash? That’s you, right?”

  “Of course! Borghash the Ravager.”

  “Snappy name.”

  “Borghash like it. So, you must be…how you say? Soft in head to want to fight me, yes? You want to have skull crushed?”

  “Must look that way.”

  “This I never understand about humans. You are so tiny, yet you think you are so big.”

  “Must be a Napoleon complex.”

  The ogre frowned. “Napoleon? Who is this?”

  “A general on Earth a long time ago. A great fighter.”

  “Ah. So, you think you same as this Napoleon then?”

  Blake swallowed. “Well, I guess we’re about to find out.”

  And that’s when Blake lunged.

  A cheer went up as Blake surged forward, swinging his mace around in a wide arc, leaving sparkling plasma trails in its wake. It was a move he would have been able to execute with some precision in his younger days; the kind of surprise attack that would have floored a half-orc and probably dislodged most of its teeth. But that was then. These days Blake wasn’t anywhere near as young as he used to be. And together with his slower reactions, his creaking joints, and a fifteen-year love-hate relationship with the bottle, he probably only had half the power behind it. This was proved when the ogre swept out a hand the size of a shovel and caught hold of the mace’s spiked globe. It was as if he was snatching a child’s ball out of the air.

  Blake felt like he had just launched a pickaxe into a bed of concrete. It was almost enough to jar the mace from his grip. Sparks crackled through Borghash’s huge, claw-like fingers as Blake stared unbelievingly down the haft. It must have hurt like hell too, he thought: all those needles of energy were doubtless blistering the ogre’s skin. But not the slightest of flinches crossed the creature’s ugly face as it finally leaned forward, revealing a map of scarred, tattooed, bone-pierced features. The pungent odour of rotten meat and sour, dwarfish mead crept toward Blake as the ogre grinned, revealing a mass of brown fangs.

  “You should not have got in this ring with Borghash,” the ogre growled, his oxygen plugs hissing. “Now, you pay.”

  “Yep,” Blake murmured resignedly. “I think you might be right.”

  The blow seemed to come out of nowhere. Blake barely managed to throw up his shield before he saw Borghash’s other huge fist, ogrish runes tattooed on its knuckles, swing about and connect with the plates of the shield in a fitful flash of spectral light. It was powerful too, tearing the mace from Blake’s grip and launching his body across the ring. He careened off the scintillating walls of the cage and dropped to the ground.

  Instantly, Blake’s force shield retracted into a snaking band that wound about his fingers and forearm. But even as he sprawled, winded and gasping for air, he was aware of the ground beneath him shaking with the drumming of approaching feet. He looked up and cursed, rolling out of the way just in time. The ogre dropped his knee and splintered the carbon-fibre floor where Blake had just been moments before. The floor quickly repaired itself, which was more than could be said for Blake whose arm and shoulder were barking in agony.

  “Shield at ninety percent…” said a calm, floaty voice through the commlink in Blake’s helmet.

  “Yeah?” Blake gasped. “Tell me something I don’t know…”

  Borghash swung about as Blake scrambled to his feet. “You very quick…” the ogre muttered.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” Blake gasped.

  “Aye. Borghash is faster and stronger even for my own kind. Bigger too. And I come from Mardhuhl, Planet of Giants.”

  “You don’t say.” Blake flicked his eyes to where the ogre had dropped the power mace, still crackling with sparks. The only problem was, Borghash was blocking his way.

  “I win this fight for credits for passage home,” the ogre continued, as if Blake were interested. “There is huge feast for Borghash to celebrate his return.”

  Blake wondered if he could strafe right and outfox the ogre before he grabbed him with one of those ham-hock mitts.

  “We will fight for the right to eat the Great Vorm Worm. But first I must beat you until you lose consciousness. Or be dead.”

  Blake was still ruminating on which were the best tactics when Borghash came at him again. He was almost taken off guard, his head still muzzy from the drink, the concussion, and the blazing lights around the ring. He only just about managed to duck out the way as a fist swung at his head, and soon he was sliding around the hulking creature, snatching up the mace again.

  Borghash whirled. He didn’t look so happy either.

  “You must fight!” Borghash bellowed. “I did not come here to dance! Come and let me rip off your little human arms!”

  “That’s a te
mpting offer…” Blake hefted the mace. “But I’d rather stay in one piece.”

  Except now the crowd seemed to be echoing Borghash’s demands for more contact. In the beginning, they had been more than eager for the mismatch to go ahead. Most were dwarfish and human miners, with some kobold engineers thrown in, back from the Ryger Asteroid Fields. And after too much dwarfish mead and Mirian whisky they were only too happy to see this curiosity unfold. But now the mood was beginning to change. They wanted a fight, preferably with a lot of blood, and if Blake kept hanging back it wouldn’t be just Borghash who’d want to tear him limb from limb. Grumblings had quickly turned to catcalls. Tankards and plates were soon bouncing off the walls of the ring.

  “Fight!” Borghash roared. Blake could see the ogre’s veins standing out on his forehead like a nest of thick, purple snakes. The creature curled his hands into fists. “Fight or be called a coward by Borghash the Ravager!”

  Blake set his jaw. For a moment, a memory of his wife’s worried face surfaced in his mind. Her soft grey eyes were shining with a warning. ‘You don’t have to do this, Blake,’ she would have said. ‘Just walk away.”

  Only for Blake to force the image back into a deep corner of his mind where it belonged; he levelled his eyes at the ogre. He knew he didn’t have to do this. It was madness in a way, fighting monsters wherever they surfaced, always was.

  “Well…?” Borghash took a step forward. “I call you coward, little human. What are you going to do about it?”

  Blake tried to find a centre of calm. And to his surprise the hazy mead-cloud fogging his brain began to lift, offering a bright seam of clarity. He brought his shield close and extended his mace, trying to drown out the clamour of voices around him. Then he took a breath, narrowed his eyes, and suddenly made his move.

  For a moment, as he skipped one way then the other, he felt a little like his old self again. His muscles responded to his demands, and the mace even felt a little lighter in his hands. Borghash lurched forward, too, with a snarl to meet him. This time the ogre seemed slower as his huge arm swiped impotently into a space where Blake had already been. Then Blake swung the power mace upward, throwing it with all his effort to reach the tip of the ogre’s chin. At least, that was the idea. And it may well have played out exactly as Blake had hoped in his imagination, had he really been his younger self. As it was, while the mace swept close, it didn’t connect as Blake had intended, and suddenly he was off balance. He staggered to one side, tryinh to steady himself, only for Borghash to seize on his opponent’s lack of control. The ogre lashed out with a great, hairy arm.

  Blake was thrown across the full length of the ring once again, and it was like being struck with a battering ram. This time, though—and before he even hit the wall—he was aware of the crowd’s voices lifted in excitement. They had finally seen some action; the kind they had craved when the human had entered the ring to begin with. It was just a pity it was as short-lived as expected. For as Blake’s body struck the hard, unforgiving surface, the back of his head bounced off the wall with a halo of brilliance. Pain radiated through his skull. Around him, the crowds cheering was reduced to muggy reverberations. The sharp agony in his chest and head quickly faded and the lights above him smudged, the walls of the ring turning to snow. And Blake felt himself slide helplessly into a dark pit of oblivion.

  2

  “Blake? Blake! Blake, can you hear me?”

  The thin, nasally voice seemed to come from the depths of a well. Blake slid a dry tongue across even drier lips. There was no pain at first. He was only aware of what sounded like the lapping of distant waves and the vague memory of Kaylen smiling down at him. Then that voice came again—a familiar voice—bleating in the distance. Almost as soon as the image of Kaylen’s face began to fade, a bloom of pain began to creep its way through his skull. Breathing became painful, as if a belt had been fastened too tightly around his ribs, and was that the coppery taste of blood? Most probably. It made him want to puke, even though he doubted his body could have coped with the strains of emptying his stomach.

  “Blake!” Was that the sound of snapping fingers? “It’s me! Skreet!” Then, as an afterthought: “Maybe if we give him a shot of whisky? Or a slug of mead?”

  Blake winced. His whole body was as heavy as concrete. Even flickering open his eyes turned out to be an effort. But he managed to say, “No. God…no. No mead, please,” and his stomach bubbled again.

  “Ye sure? It might perk you right up.” Then the voice observed: “Blake, you don’t look so good.”

  Blake cleared his throat. Immediately, a hot needle of pain skewered his back and he winced. Hazy lights soaked into view, turning into hovering lamp-globes that brought his surroundings into sharp relief. The ceiling was dark and cracked. He was aware of two shadows leaning close to him. And there were shelves beyond them stacked with dusty bottles, and the sour, and now repellent, smell of mead. That didn’t help his innards either. It wasn’t enough that his head had ricocheted off a wall, but it was also ushering in the beginnings of a whopping hangover.

  “Did…” His stomach turned over again. “Did…I win?”

  “Not quite,” came that nasally voice again.

  “Then…where am I?”

  “The storeroom at the back of the bar. Otto said you could lie here for a bit until you came ‘round.”

  Easing his head to his left, Blake saw an overweight, unshaven man with untidy grey hair.

  “Hey, Blake,” the man said, offering a hesitant smile. “Quite a show you put on tonight.”

  “Thanks,” Blake croaked. “I aim to please.”

  “I thought you was dead for sure,” the nasally voice chattered in Blake’s other ear. “The way you flew clean across the ring and hit that wall. Boy oh boy. That was it, I thought. Blake’s dead meat.”

  Blake slowly swung his head the other way and was immediately confronted by a huge pair of bulging green eyes. A long, black tongue moistened a pair of thick, wet lips. And Blake winced. When Blake had first arrived in Miria as a boy, goblins were one of the first exotic creatures he had seen. It was quite a shock, despite having avidly stared at a variety of images on the voyage from Earth. Even now, up close, they could have a startling effect.

  “Damn it, Skreet,” Blake groaned. “You have to be so close?”

  “Oh. Sorry, sorry…My bad…” Skreet eased back, curling his little clawed hands into apologetic fists. His huge, pointed ears twitched. “I was just checking ye was breathing, ye know? In case ye gave up the ghost.”

  “That’s reassuring. But I think, as we’re having a conversation, it’s safe to say I’m not dead.”

  The goblin blinked his huge eyes. “Well, don’t be so sure, eh? What about all them stories you told me about Genek IV? Plenty o’ ghosts around there, you said.”

  “Maybe you should stop listening to me when I’ve been drinking too.” Blake turned his head again and was rewarded with another painful spasm along his spine. “Damn it…” he groaned. Through the door to the storeroom, he could just hear the rowdy cacophony of shouting voices and singing.

  “Yeah, that ogre busted you up pretty good, I’d say,” Skreet went on. “I thought you was a goner for sure.”

  “You said that already.”

  Then Otto intervened: “You think you can sit up?”

  Blake sighed. “Well, I can’t exactly lie about here all day, can I? You want to give me a hand?”

  It was a delicate process. Every inch of his body sang with pain. He tried his best not to make too much of a fuss. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t suffered much worse in his hunting days. Even so, his ribs screamed at him as Otto and Skreet helped him unfold on the table he’d been laid on, and his skull pulsed as if it had its own heartbeat.

  For a few seconds he simply hunched, legs dangling, his hand pressed gingerly to his side. His stomach gurgled and he was only a few swallows away from being sick. Nevertheless, he’d managed to keep upright and that was better than nothing.

>   “You might have cracked a few of your ribs,” Otto suggested, looking Blake up and down. “And you should have that skull o’ yours checked out too.”

  “Yeah, you need a bone doctor,” Skreet said. “He’ll knit them soft bones o’ yours back together in no time.”

  “I can’t afford a bone doctor,” Blake muttered. “Besides, I’m fine. Really.”

  “I have to say, you don’t look it, old friend,” said Otto. “What possessed you to get up there in the first place? I mean, I know dwarfish mead is strong, but you were sober enough to know you were walking into a brick wall.”

  “I was just unlucky, that’s all. A few inches either way, and it would’ve been a whole different story.”

  “Hmm. Well, you’ve got to look after yourself more. You’re not getting any younger. Any more fights with another bruiser like that ogre and maybe you’ll end up on Genek IV like Skreet said.”

  “He means you’d be dead,” Skreet added helpfully.

  “Yeah, I got that Skreet.”

  Otto sniffed. “Still, at least you’re in one piece. You okay to walk back to your hanger on your own?”

  “I have Skreet,” Blake nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay then. Because I need to get back to my customers. My advice: keep to whisky. Stay away from that dwarfish crap. If the ring doesn’t kill you, that stuff surely will.”

  “You’re not kidding. Thanks for helping me out, Otto.”

  “No problem.” And with a worried glance to Skreet, Otto slung a towel over his shoulder and headed back into the bar. The clamouring sound of his customers muffled as he shut the door behind him.

  3

  “So, I was thinking…” Skreet said as they exited the bar through the back way, easing out into the blue-tinged night. The stars were still brilliant through the membrane of the sky-dome. The streets were busy too. Despite the late hour, all manner of beings bustled along the stall-lined streets of the night markets. “…We should try and get permits for Vargah this year. We could fix up the ship and take tours of all the old demon-haunts. Maybe spot a few desert hags out there, or even devil hounds.”