Honour Rae

25. Sold

Looks like Wolf Moon was the winner. Time to dust off all my 'Three Wolf Moon' and going lone wolf jokes. (What have you all done. ;))

Something very odd happened the moment the dragon took Arthur throu...

24. Tess Caught Boy

The bright light faded. Arthur found himself lying face down in the middle of a forested clearing.

He jerked up and back — a delayed reaction from the spear coming at his throat.

Jerking to his feet, he stared around with wide eyes. ...

23. The Second Card

Arthur held his dagger out in front of him as he walked -- part threat, but mostly a talisman. 

He looked around, alert for any sign of scourglings. Or the fallen dragon rider.

Inside, his heart practically seethed with acid.

22. Dragon's Treachery

The scourge-wolf landed with its teeth clamped on Hivey’s shoulder. The man let out a high-pitched scream which almost blended in with the whistling scourglings.

Arthur’s body acted on pure instinct. Had he been thinking, he would have e...

21. Acting (Thief/Performer)

“You know how to use this?”

Before Arthur could answer, Second pushed the handle of a simple dagger into his hands. It was cheap and not well maintained, with rust spots on the spine of the blade. At least the edges looked sharp enough.<...

20. A Rip In The Sky

With a scream of braying donkeys, the cart clutched forward so hard that Arthur nearly lost his seat anyway. Red grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back into place. 

Every other animal hooked to a cart was rushing blindly forward....

19. Warning From The Crows

Today's cliff-hanger ending brought to you by my dog who interrupted my writing time with her immediate need to go to the vet. (She had a grass-seed in her ear.) So this was the closest stopping point. :)

While convincing...

18. Gambler Class

Over the next few weeks, Arthur settled into a routine. Rising from a bed roll with the fading dawn stars overhead became normal. The pain when he thought of the village slowly lost its jagged edge.

Once or twice he caught himself using the ...

17. Avoid The Silvers

Arthur stared.

His first impression had only been partially correct. What stood on the rocky bank was a ghostly illusion of Doshi the dragon, transparent to the point where he could see trees behind it. It was the same type of semi-transpare...

16. Why Did You Run

For a startled moment, Arthur wasn't in his bedroll on top of a thick mat of straw. He was back at his home village, hiding under scraggly bushes as the red dragon roared and killed the soldiers underneath him.

A second dragon's roar shocked...

15. What's In The Box

The food the inn served was excellent. Freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven, sliced roast beef slathered with thick gravy, and some kind of steamed vegetable Red had called broccoli. It had an intense, earthy green f...

14. Poker (Five-card draw) (Gambler Class)

Arthur picked his way from building to building, slinking along to the dark and out-of-the-way places. Luck was with him in that the sun was sinking and elongating shadows.

He didn’t spot the other kids from the gambling ring but used his ...

13. The Town

Arthur’s trick had worked, though with unexpected consequences. As soon as Second’s cart had started moving, a small mound of the loose leaf slipped free, fell out of the cart, and landed on the dirt road.

Before it could be run over by ...

12. Basic Stealth (Rogue/Thief Class)

The first time Arthur was smacked across the face, it took him completely by surprise.

It was his second night away from the cottage, and the first traveling with the trader’s caravan. He and Red had met up with the rest of the group earli...

Ch. 11. New Adventure

Arthur coughed his throat clear and then stared at his father in disbelief. “What do you mean?” His voice grew higher pitched. “You’re sending me away?”

Red guffawed again. “You can’t seriously tell me you want to stay here.”...

10. Basic Equine Care (Animal Husbandry Class)

To Arthur, the next few days passed in a blur.

His newly forged determination to learn as many skills as he could, to not let another tragedy happen again on his watch, was still there. But it was cloaked by a fog of grief so choking that he...

9. Herbal Medicine Preparation (Healing Class)

“Arthur! Arthur, wait—“ his father called, but Arthur was already out the door and pelting down the road.

It can’t be real. It can’t be him, he thought desperately, trying to remember if there was another Youngborn family ...

8. Apprentice Meal Preparation

By the time Arthur finished with the flyers, an hour later, his Basic Reading skill had increased up to level seven. By far his best level.

He could sound out most of the words easily enough, though some of the bigger ones tripped him up. 2022-06-27 16:18:30 +0000 UTC View Post

7. Basic Reading

Arthur’s body may now be magically boosted from having a card, but the last two days had been exhausting. He slept in late on the cold floor with a ratty, torn blanket thrown over him. It was one of the few cloth items which hadn’t been soiled...

Ch. 6

Arthur and his father trudged back to their cottage to find it in shambles.

It was obvious their small home had been searched multiple times throughout the day. Everything that had been inside the building not nailed down had been tossed out...

Ch. 5

Arthur and his father were  forced to walk back to the village, still without their shoes. However,  they weren’t the only ones. Up and down the lanes, people were being  shoved out of their homes by teams of the baron’s men. 2022-06-25 19:15:31 +0000 UTC View Post

Ch. 4

Dragon soil had to be tilled  into scourge-deadened fields, and it needed to be done while the soil  was as fresh as possible. It also had to be done carefully because not  only could the scourge make any cut or popped blister lead ...

Ch. 3

Holding his breath, Arthur  pushed the card to his chest. He had doubts this would work. A man’s  heart was supposed to be the size of a fist. This card was longer than  his hand from the heel of his palm to his fingertips.

...

Ch. 2

The spell card was encased yet again within a thin sheet of glass with a lock surrounded by complex runes.

It was... beautiful.

Larger than a man's spread hand, the card was  thick as if he were looking at a piece of metal and not...

Ch. 1

Arthur sprinted across the scourge-deadened  fields. The soil was gray and lifeless and the black remains of weeds  disintegrated under his boots.

Though he ran flat out, he breathed as little  as possible, inhaling with quick...