Scene: a brutalized bit of forest; a malignant enchanted stump; a sword with a mind of its own...

Around midnight, Cuthbert and Gerald approached the crystallized stump. A faint yellow light came from somewhere ahead. In it Gerald could make out the shapes of Murdoch and Kenna, who he was expecting. The unmistakable shadowy bulk of a dragon was there too, its eyes reflecting the yellow light.

Yellow eyes! Gerald suppressed a shudder. That’s the last thing I want to see around anything of le Fay’s!

On edge, he thought he could feel something as they approached the sword this time—a faint but intense desire he could not identify. Mysterious, fog-ridden mountains loomed in his imagination; dragons flew above them, approaching out of a full moon several times larger than life.

Excerpt from Chapter 6, "Dangerous Toys", of Into Otherness, Book III of The Dragon Lord Chronicles. Due late November 2017.

Illustration by Alli W. Ritchie

Copyright 2017 Miles O'Neal, Round Rock, TX