Offering Extraordinary Books by Talented Authors TM
Dragon's Son
This story is incredible! Beautifully written with vivid imagery
and strong plot. —Kelley A. Hartsell, Love Romances |
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As the armies of Argannon sweep south across the Kellsmarch, Jenel's forces frantically organize to stop them. Caught in between are the common people of Jenel, driven from their homes by the horrors of war.
After their harrowing escape from Segg, Suchen, Auglar, and their companions find themselves lost in the midst of anonymous masses of refugees. Devoid of hope, they want only to return to Kellsjard and lick their wounds. But the journey is long, and the dangers many.
Lost to his friends, Yozerf must also make his way back to Kellsjard, his only companion an eight-year-old human girl. But as conditions continue to deteriorate, he soon finds himself at the head of an army of refugees—men, women, and children, human, Aclyte, and Wolfkin. And as opposing armies converge on them, the fate of the kingdom itself may lie in his hands.... |
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About the Author
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Elaine Corvidae has worked as an office assistant, archaeologist, and raptor rehabilitator. She is currently earning her Masters degree in Biology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. She lives near Charlotte, NC, with her husband and three cats. Her first published novel, Winter's Orphans, was the recipient of the 2001 Dream Realm Award and the 2002 Eppie Award.
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Reviews
 I could not stop reading Dragon's Son. Elaine Corvidae's gift of capturing the "human spirit" and portraying it in a tale of betrayal, grief, love, and hope is a rare and lovely gift. —Dena Kosche, Fallen Angel Reviews
...A wonderful fantasy world with well-crafted characters and an engaging saga. —Christine Filipak, Dark Realms Magazine
5 Hearts! This story is incredible! Beautifully written with vivid imagery and strong plot, Ms. Corvidae once again enchants her readers with her otherworldly tale. She also has incredibly talent for getting to her reader’s hearts and emotions. This reviewer laughed, screamed, cheered, and cried throughout this story. Some scenes are so heart-wrenching that one will want to have some tissues on hand for wiping up the tears bound to flow as a result. The conclusion to this book, and the trilogy, is so incredibly climactic that one will be left breathless when all the dust settles in the final battle. It is shocking, stunning, dramatic, and intense, gripping all of the emotions of the readers tightly in its grasp. Villains finally get what they deserve, and the real heroes shine forth in all their glory. Brilliantly done Ms. Corvidae! No one can read this book and not feel some stirring of emotions. And THAT is the mark of a wonderful storyteller. This reviewer has become a lifelong fan after reading this incredible saga in its entirety. —Kelley A. Hartsell, October 2004, Love Romances
Corvidae's series has never been about the peripheral distractions: the castles, the darkness, and the magic. It was and remains primarily a character study about those who struggle with differences to achieve harmony and greatness. Her characters are not cookie-cutter heroes and princesses; their lives and emotions are complicated and often disturbing, as well as deeply involving. Corvidae has a gift for recreating real emotions in imaginary people; it just happens to be a plus that her characters live in a world rich in fantasy, magic, and dark beauty... In the world of High Fantasy, Corvidae is up there with Lackey and Bradley as a female fantasy writer who grasps both Darkness and Light, and the importance of both in a dark fantasy tale. —Heidi Martinuzi, Pretty-scary.net
Excerpt
Even as the scout cried out his warning, a dark mass of horsemen crested the horizon. They were on the youth in a moment, and he fell, disappearing beneath the iron-shod hooves of warhorses. The purple and black colors of King Fellrant's house showed on tabards and streamed proudly from a banner, and for a wild instant Yozerf thought that they might be spared, that the riders might simply take what they wanted from their stores and leave the refugees alone. Then he saw the foremost riders lower their spears, and he knew that all hope was lost.
"Form up! Children to the center!" Yozerf shouted. He grabbed Owl's arms, his heart wrenching at the fear on her face. "Go to Grilka!"
"But you—"
"Now!" he roared, half-mad with the terror that she would be hurt. Owl flinched at his shout, but then turned and ran, her short legs making for the slight protection that Grilka offered in the center of the column.
Ji'seth, Wulfgar, Tan, and Gless all materialized at Yozerf's side as if by magic. The rest of the fighters fell into a desperate line, putting themselves between the riders and the noncombatants. Some of them held swords and spears scavenged from the dead soldiers days before, but many were armed with nothing more than pitchforks and rusty scythes.
The riders thundered down on them, and the heavy hooves of their horses shook the very earth. Yozerf caught a glimpse of pitiless eyes and gleaming swords, of blowing manes and foam-flecked hides. Then the line was on them.
The Wolfkin howled, and gray shapes darted past Yozerf. The horses went mad, spurred by shape shifter magic, and the ordered cavalry charge turned into chaos. Soldiers were flung to the ground and trampled, while panicked steeds, suddenly become unmanageable, carried others off. A ragged cheer burst from the refugees, and for a moment Yozerf thought that they might have some hope after all.
A horn blew, regrouping the soldiers on foot, and they charged grimly towards the rag-tag refugees who had dared to defy them, even if only for a moment. Bracing himself, Yozerf raised his stolen sword and caught the first blow.
The world narrowed in, consisting only of himself and those who fought directly to either side. Gless staved in a skull with his mace; blood and brains spattered his face like gruesome war paint. To Yozerf's other side, Ji'seth began to howl something that some part of his mind identified as an ancient Cadean war song. She stabbed and hacked with a poleax that had replaced her pruning hook, her eyes narrowed with grim determination.
The air filled with the stink of blood and entrails, with the screams of the wounded and dying. It seemed to go on forever and for mere moments, fear and desperation playing tricks with time until Yozerf no longer knew anything beyond the fact that his arms ached and his mouth tasted of blood. A momentary pause came in the fighting directly around him, and Yozerf belatedly became aware of what was happening elsewhere.
The line had been breached, experienced soldiers cutting down untried farmers like wheat before the scythe. They were among the carts now, overturning what they could, killing the donkeys and mules in their traces, bearing struggling women to the ground. Grilka let out a mighty roar and took off the head of one soldier with a single blow from her axe. Children cowered behind her, beneath one of the carts, but there were more soldiers coming from the other side now, and Grilka could not defend against them all.
Time seemed to slow. A horrible realization swept over Yozerf: they were dying. These people who had--mistakenly it seemed--looked to him for leadership were dying. His people, damn it all, and so every drop of their spilled blood was on his hands, because he had failed to protect them.
One of Telmonra's memories rose up unexpectedly in his mind, like a clear bubble bursting atop a stream. Very small and far off, he could see the mountains of Caden, could see the dragons on the wind. The dragons had once been Aclytes--had, in fact, been Jonaglir like him. They had given up everything, allowed their bodies and minds to be unalterably transformed in order to protect their homeland. Their people.
For once, the wolf in him agreed, the instincts of pack meshing surprisingly well with the heritage of blood sorcerers who had ruled a kingdom for almost three thousand years. The screams of his people sounded in his ears, burned in his blood, and in a moment of perfect clarity and desperation he knew what he had to do.
The magic rose in him, far more sluggish than it had been when Telmonra had shared his mind, but there nonetheless. Peripherally, he was aware of a group of soldiers charging him, of Ji'seth shrieking a warning, but it all seemed distant and unimportant compared to the fire and the wind filling his brain, drumming in his ears, clawing at his throat.
He let go of it, felt the fire change from a thing of the mind to something real. The closing soldiers ignited, their hair going up in an instant, their clothes charring to ash under their armor. They screamed and flailed, and the smell of roasting flesh joined the other stenches of the battlefield.
And, having breached the dam with that, Yozerf let the rest of it go as well. The wind flattened the soldiers, flung them from their feet, left them vulnerable to their would-be victims. Fire leapt and darted, finding hair and flesh and cloth. They began to run, to panic, but there were still so many of them.
Magic poured from him like blood from a wound, taking vitality with it just as surely. Wind hollowed his bones, and fire heated his scream of rage and pain. His blood seemed to boil, to turn to liquid gold, to flame, until there was nothing left of him at all, just a glass shell shaped by the wind and filled with fire.
Then his strength gave out. The flames died, the wind fell back, and he found himself suddenly in a body made of lead, too heavy to support. Dazed, he dropped to his knees as the world spun crazily around him. With an effort greater than any he had ever known, he forced himself to look around, to see that the king's forces were scattered or dead. Gray shapes formed a lose circle around him, some drawing closer hesitantly, and he could taste their fear on the wind. Then the weight of his body became too great, and he collapsed into darkness.
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