I need to confirm your email address… and in an act of wanton bribery I’ve added a free short story at the bottom of this page… The Knight, The Dragon, and the Missing Os.
Watch out! Space pirates are trying to steal your signup email, not to mention the Letrochang monsters who are always ravenously hungry and feed exclusively on electronic communication!
Please click the confirmation link in the email I just sent you so you can get access to the starter library. If you don’t see it please check your junk / spam folder hasn’t eaten it for dinner!
Clicking on the link in the confirmation email also confirms that it was really you who signed up, and not your wife’s – aunt’s – cousin’s – gardener’s pet pig that you upset once and who is signing you up to every available website it can find in retaliation. 🙂
Once you confirm you’ll receive a second email with the link you need to download all four books and six short stories and a few more emails with some fun short stories and a little information about me.
After that you’ll receive a free monthly short story or instalment in a longer story, monthly progress updates, notifications when new books are available and notification of special offers.
You can, of course, unsubscribe from the list at any time.
Now here’s the story!
The Knight, The Dragon, and the Missing Os
Sir Istron was a famous knight, renowned for having defeated hundreds of fierce creatures in single combat and so keeping the lands safe. Griffins, ogres, minotaurs, hellspawn, giants, direwolves, and many more horrific creatures had all fallen to his blade. A truly remarkable achievement.
In fact the list of creatures he’d slain was missing but one monster… a dragon. And not for want of trying! Sir Istron had sought out many of the fiery lizards, but each and every time they had either been slain by another adventurer before he arrived or moved on to different lands.
He stopped here at this inn once, after a particularly difficult battle with a giant hippopotamus. What do you mean that’s not an epic creature to face down? Even a normal hippo is a juggernaut of armoured skin, massive teeth, and an incredibly bad attitude. Now take that and triple the size of the beast. If you still think that isn’t fearsome, I ask you to go face down such a creature yourself!
But I digress… Sir Istron visited and sat in the very chair you now occupy. He was celebrating his victory, but there was little joy. A shadow hung over him, the shadow of the valiant battle he sought unsuccessfully at every turn. The shadow of a dragon.
The knight did little more than stare at his ale for more than an hour, and none dared to interrupt his dark thoughts. Then one of our serving boys charged into the room, waving a scroll around. He was shouting about a dragon that had torched Harsbad and was heading toward the village of Tirus, barely three hours ride away.
The effect on Sir Istron was electric. He leapt to his feet, declaring that he would slay the beast before it could escape. I called to him to wait, knowing as I did that the young boy was not truly confident with his letters, but the knight either didn’t hear or chose to ignore me.
I ran to the boy and grabbed the scroll, pulling it open and quickly scanning the words. I shook my head in despair, then charged out to the stables… but Sir Istron was already gone, galloping away far too fast for me to catch him. With no other option I returned to the inn.
It took three days for news of the battle to reach us. Sir Istron was killed, as I’d known he would be from the moment I read the scroll myself, but he was strong and brave to the end. He managed to slay five and badly wound three others before succumbing himself.
‘Five?’ I hear you say. ‘He killed five dragons?’
Ah… no. Not exactly. In fact not at all. He didn’t even kill one dragon. You see the serving boy had managed to misplace an OS. That is he’d missed an O and an S. Harsbad wasn’t torched by a Dragon, it was torched by Dragoons.
That was why I’d tried desperately to catch Sir Istron. That is why he succumbed in the battle. Instead of facing a single dragon he faced a detachment of fifty heavily armed and highly trained Dragoons. And managed to kill five of them!
But against fifty he never stood a chance. They overwhelmed him, chopped him down, then gave him a burial worthy of a knight. At least that is their story, and I certainly wouldn’t be one to suggest they might have left his corpse to rot in the forest. No, not me!
So that is the tale of Sir Istron. I’m sure you understand its meaning — that you should not rush to ignore the stories and information I can provide you with. Stick around, learn everything you need, and ensure you don’t get killed for the lack of an O or an S!
Go on. Find the email and click the confirm button so you can get the next story!