ISBN 978-5-0059-4892-2

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

      Flames in the woods

      Clement was gathering brushwood in anticipation of an attack. Though he now wore simple peasant clothing, and a sharp dagger with a costly hilt was hidden in his bosom. He would pull it out instantly if his pursuers sought him out again.

      There was a deafening dragon roar through the forest. It almost made his ears bleed, it was so loud. Clement had expected anything but a dragon to appear. It was up to the humans to attack. His friends and allies had warned him that assassins had been sent for him. The main thing was that none of them would think of disguising themselves in a peasant’s shirt, as Clement himself had already done for the sake of disguise. If his enemies had the same plan, they would be indistinguishable from ordinary passersby. Well, almost impossible.

      Clement himself was kept safe by his uncle’s magic. It was good to have a wizard uncle and a royal father, but only as long as your kingdom was not overrun by monstrous beings from the black sands. They were non-human, and they knew magic very well. His uncle had gone to great lengths to place impenetrable spell protections on his nephew and his new habitat.

      Until yesterday Clement had slept at the palace; today his home was an abandoned hut in a forest of ill repute. There were stories in the old days that the place was haunted. It had been said that berry-picking peasant women had seen dryads and vicious elves in the trees. The dragon was probably part of the forest’s magic, and not an agent of the new ruler of Aluar. His aim was to kill the only surviving prince.

      When his country was overrun, Clement himself survived only by going hunting. The young prince was bad with a sword, and could not improve this, though his instructors had exhausted him in the training ring. But he was so good with a crossbow and a bow that no royal archer was a match for him. Clement had always believed that if a prophecy came true, and the Aluar’s heir’s life was in danger, he would be saved by his skill as an archer. And so it was! It was only indirectly, not directly.

      If he had not gone on that fateful day to hunt, he would already be dead. The kingdom had been overrun at night, and the prince had been so caught up in the hunt for game that he roamed the woods until morning.

      Now there’s no way home. Black creatures are nesting in the king’s castle.

      «They are a special race! They will either overwhelm and enslave Aluar’s people or utterly destroy them,» his uncle, who had only escaped the castle by virtue of his ability to obscure the eyes that watched him with magic, told him.

      It turned out to be possible to verify his words in the nearest city, where there were more monstrous creatures than ordinary citizens. Clement’s allies still hoped that he could wrest the power back. But it seemed rather doubtful. It is better to escape. Clement had already been attacked more than a dozen times by archers and knights in black armor. The dragon, on the other hand, would not attack. It just flew by. Its scales glittered so brightly overhead Clement had to squeeze his eyes shut. You could go blind!

      «Run away, you fool!» A villager of some sort dropped her basket of blueberries and sprinted from the thicket. «Dragon in the sky! Expect fire!»

      But there’s nothing on fire! Clement looked around in astonishment, and spotted another squad in black armor. It was time to run. Or should they fight back? The knights had spotted him too, and despite the magical protection, they knew who he was.

      Clement quickly reached for the crossbow, hidden under his shirt, on his back. It was time to fight. It was too late to run away. Suddenly the villager, running away, flashed like a match.

      Could it be that lightning had struck the tree beside her? There seemed to be no thunderstorm! And the trees were all intact. Clement opened his mouth in amazement as the band of black knights burst into flames, too, like one big bundle of brushwood.

      What is this? Was it a heaven’s punishment for these men trying to kill the true heir of the country in which they live. If so, so be it for them. But why did the villager burn? On the contrary, she was trying to warn him of some danger.

      Clement waited until the knights had burned almost to the ground and walked over to examine the remains. The charred limbs beneath the pieces of the armor looked monstrous.

      But the real monster hovered overhead. Clement shuddered, realizing that it was not the fire of justice that had burned the men alive, but the fire of a dragon.

      «Sit in the gamekeeper’s hut and wait while I send you a helper,» his uncle instructed before parting. Did he really send a dragon to help him? With a dragon and no army, there’s a chance to regain his rightful throne! Only Clement’s joy was premature. The dragon was quickly gone.

      All that remained was to bemoan his fate. He would need a dragon companion, and an army of ghosts who could overpower the invaders.

      His uncle had promised to send him just one mate-fighter and one bride. The latter was superfluous in Clement’s opinion. To marry penniless and on the brink of death was unwise. Then his bride would be executed along with him. But his uncle had lectured him on the benefits of an alliance with a wealthy neighboring princess, whose kin would support him in case of trouble with their armies. His uncle was probably right.

      Clement was a good-looking fellow. But that’s how a cranky princess was going to like him in peasant clothes. All the princesses he knew were mean and selfish.

      But the elf-like girl who emerged from the thicket stunned him with her beauty. Pale, slender, dressed in a light white dress, as if she were a bride. She had a wreath of white daisies in her blond hair. One glance at her shocked Clement, but she was not looking at him, she was looking at the ash-covered ground. She was looking for something, and when she found it, she grabbed it and disappeared. What she had found was beyond Clement’s comprehension, but he supposed it might have been something magical, something dropped by a dragon in mid-flight. Who was this girl, picking up what the dragon had left behind? Was she a sorceress? Was she a forest nymph? Or who else might dwell in the thicket?

      As Clement pondered whether to speak to her, the beauty’s body turned into a silvery haze that billowed skyward.

      Raymonda

      The beauty came to his hut in the middle of the night. A village was burning nearby. The smell of fire reached here. When Clement woke up to the stench of smoke, he had the feeling that everything was about to burn, but the beautiful elfish woman he had seen in the woods that morning smiled sweetly and said:

      «Don’t worry, the fire is far away! The forest is not on fire!»

      He was at once relieved. If she says all is well, it must be so. How could he not believe her? But Clement was worried.

      «But the village where I bought the wine and candles is burning. It stands behind the forest edge.»

      «It has already burned!» The beauty corrected him without regret in her voice. «The people weren’t very nice.»

      «Has anyone survived?»

      «It is hardly. Only ghosts. They come often from the ashes of dragon fires.»

      «So a dragon burned the village?»

      The beauty silently trimmed a cascade of snow-white skirts, covered in a layer of silver sequins as if they were stars. Her bouncy blond curls snaked down her chest and back. The puffed sleeves accentuated the grace of her thin arms. How beautiful she was! Clement regarded her, forgetting to ask how she had managed to get through the latch-locked door.

      Only the window was open, but girls in expensive dresses certainly didn’t climb through windows. Clement knew how meticulous court fashions were. It was as if the guest had walked through walls. If she’s from a tribe of elves, that’s no surprise.

      «Are