The Dragon lord of Valloria

Chapter one

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Valloria did not need them. One of five continents in the world of humans, Valloria had enjoyed a millennium of peace and prosperity. Its people were known for their industry, their devotion to customs of the land, and their reverence to the Lord of the Deep; the age-old deity of their ancestors. The realm of Valloria was home to three kingdoms, united for the majority of the realm’s existence under the rule of a single monarch; Toria of the house of Vikhran, whose seat of power was the Throne of Vallor. King Vikhran had direct rule over the kingdom of Vikhra, northernmost of Valloria, with the kingdoms of Baeloria and Babor; controlled by the noble houses of Joriah and Voss respectively, owing fealty to the Throne. Surrounded by the vast Balkan Sea, Valloria was bounded to the east by the continent Esteros, to the north east by Khalm, to the north by Noria, and to the west by Wessos. The smallest of all continents in the known world, Valloria had been the target of military colonization by Noria and Wessos at two key points in its history. The history books record both campaigns as colossal failures, thanks in no small part to Valloria’s geography.

As it had always been, armed troops from the warmongering Noria and the seafaring continent of Wessos had little problems making the two-moon voyage to the shores of Valloria. But upon arrival, they were faced by the insurmountable Andos Mountains. The only passageway through the mountainous range into the kingdoms of the valley—a stretch of winding road no wider than 18 hands at its narrowest point—was manned at all times by an encampment of over two thousand armed soldiers with the capacity to mobilize ten thousand more. But these were not dizzying numbers by any stretch of the imagination. After all, Valloria not only had the smallest landmass by also the smallest population by some margin. While it could field just over twelve thousand men of fighting age, the next smallest continent by population; Esteros, easily tripled that. So, the inability of the hundred-thousand-strong forces from Noria and Wessos to invade Valloria had been the stuff of legend. Children were sung to sleep with poems of the omnipotence of the Lord of the Deep by their wet-nannies, and soldiers were inspired by the tales of the valor shown by Vallorian forces during the Norian invasion and the three-year Wessos siege. Valloria was blessed. Its nutrient rich lands, impregnable mountains and peaceful people meant it was poised for prosperity in perpetuity. That was, until the first dragons sailed over the Andos, and put the kingdoms of the realm to the torch.

On the backs of these dragons were dragon lord Elden Skylar and his sisters; Caelis and Carnaelis. Natives of the continent of Khalm, Elden and his sisters were born to the noble family and wardens of the second Khalmese kingdom of Junassia. Historically subservient to the ruling house of Hallo, the Skylars were notoriously keen on taking over power on the whale-oil-rich realm of Khalm, emboldened by their status as the only house in the World of Men who had succeeded in taming and breeding the fire-breathing beasts of the First World. To prevent a coup, female children born to the house of Skylar were taken in their infancy to become wards of the house of Hallo and eventual wives to the seating king when of age, while their dragons were either killed or kept as artifacts for the king; chained up in the Dungeons of Halloria.

So, for the past decade and half, Caelis and Carnaelis Skylar had been groomed to serve as wives to King Hallo Hallo the twenty-fifth, after having their parents murdered at the request of the king. But unbeknownst to the royal family, Elden Skylar had been in an incestuous relationship with his sisters, and could not bear to let the king have them. Ultimately, on Hallo Hallo’s naming day, Elden, having orchestrated the spill of hundreds of thousands of casks of whale-oil into the realm’s internal waterways and sewage system days before, sparked the fire that burned the kingdoms of Hallo and Junassia to the ground. Elden sailed off Khalm for the last time with his sisters, five ships, three hundred skilled and trusted troops, and the three dragons to have survived in the inferno. In one moon, he had docked at the shores of the continent most fitting of his extravagant tastes. Valloria had withstood attempted invasions by some of the most powerful armies in the world, but those armies did not have dragons.

The Andos proved a small obstacle for the dragon lord. With knowledge of the Valloria obtained from his councilmen, Elden left his troops at the shores of the realm and flew first to the castle of Baborall; the stronghold of the noble family of Voss; wardens of the kingdom of Babor, southernmost of Valloria. Unsuited to and unprepared for violence, Baba Voss bent the knee and yielded his castle at the first sight of his men burning alive at the field of battle. The dragon lord spared his life, and reinstated him as warden of the south in a new realm to be under the rule of Skylar. Set his sights next on Baeloria; the wealthiest and largest of the three kingdoms in Valloria, the dragon lord marched with one thousand soldiers from Babor. Clouded by stubbornness, Darl Joriah; warden of Baeloria and patriarch of the keep of Baelor met the dragon lord on the field battle and was ultimately slayed. Crowning Caelis as the new warden of Baeloria, Elden flew to Vikhra to usurp Toria and assume the throne of Valloria. But when he arrived at the gates of Vallor, Toria jeered at him and shut the gates, walling himself up in the impregnable stone castle of Vallor. True to his impatient form, the dragon lord spurred his beast on above the castle, breathing plumes of fire down its walls all night. By morning, the king and all members of the royal family in the castle were charred crisps, and the dragon lord had begun his reign of Valloria with fire, blood, and terror.