The Island of the Seven Kings is an epic romantic adventure. It takes you to a fictional island where young Rebecca and her friends serve their kingdom as dragon riders and learn about relationships between themselves and the world around them in peace and war. Idos, the creator god and the seven gods he created to rule over his domain watch over them and lead them toward his purpose for them. It is the old story of the struggle between good and evil and how the "Sky Raiders" came into being.

THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN KINGS

By Ken Stephenson

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Ken Stephenson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4370-4

Contents

1. THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT FATHER.....................12. ANDREW'S FALL..................................................293. TO KEEP A SECRET...............................................424. A PLAN FOR CRIMSON.............................................975. VISITORS BEFORE THE WEDDING....................................1046. NEGOTIATIONS...................................................1347. SKY RAIDERS....................................................1538. A GIFT.........................................................1809. CRIMSON'S TRIAL................................................19710. THE END OF NEGOTIATIONS.......................................20611. AMANDA........................................................21512. DEFENSE AND REGINA'S SURRENDER................................22913. BATTLE PLAN...................................................24914. THE WAR.......................................................258

Chapter One

The Sons And Daughters Of The Great Father

It is a most glorious morning outside the castle of the Great Father. It is the third week in the season of Lumirus and the warm sun glows brilliant as it rises over the eastern mountain range. The seven young dragons stretch skyward from their perspective perches to bask in the warm rays and their multicolored scales glisten reflecting the suns light. Each messenger stands close by, awaiting the news that will surely come today as this is the last day of the Festival of the Great Father. Today a new Great Father will be elected from the elders of the mountain castle they call Castle Paternus and when it is announced, the messengers will mount their young dragons and spread the news across the island as has been done for all recorded history on the island of the Great Father.

The messengers are a proud group of young men and women, and most of them are in their second tour as dragon riders. It is a great honor to deliver this message to your city. Two tours is usually the limit for any given messenger as each tour lasts until their dragon matured prior to age 8. To ride a dragon past the age of its adolescence is certain death as they develop the fiery glands on both sides of their mouths and will turn on a rider and set him on fire once they matured regardless of the bond they share. The dragons have occupied the island long before recorded history and live and breed in the mountains that surround the island of the Great Father. They are the protectors of the mountain passes on the island and the descendants of the Great Father had suffered harsh lessons before they learned to share the island and live in harmony. The flat land belongs to the sons and daughters of the Great Father but the mountains belong to the dragons. A young dragon is the fastest way to travel to each of the seven cities on the island and they could be harvested before they hatched and trained by a skillful rider to do his bidding until he matured. A skilled messenger could cross the entire island in a matter of hours where a horseman might take several hours just to get to the next city. Each city has an office of scribes that collects news and stories about the events in their city and makes 6 copies that the messengers will carry at first light each day and distribute throughout the kingdom. This way any citizen in the kingdom can obtain a copy of this 7 page scroll and read what had transpired yesterday all over the kingdom. Therein, the messengers had become a favored sect in the culture of the Sons and Daughters of the Great Father and were honored as royalty.

A mature dragon is especially deadly with the exception of mating season which lasted a week in the first full moon of the spring. Mating between dragons is a very delicate event that requires a female mature dragon to lie on her back and submit to the male dragon with her wings spread out over the surrounding grasses. Mating and death are the only times you ever see a dragon on its back. When the male dragon mounted her, both would place the sharp talons of their front feet on the others chest and gently grip the other until the mating ritual was completed. The female might lay as many as three eggs surrounding the spot where she mated before setting the grass on fire around her eggs to mark her nest. Neither she nor the male will return to that spot until after the mating season is over and the eggs hatch. Once hatched the parents return and feed a single live fish to two of the hatchlings. If the female laid 3 eggs, one of the hatchlings will perish as the parents only bring one fish each. Young dragons stay with their parents until maturity. It is during this week of mating that the sons and daughters of the Great Father take to the sea and sail around to the northern coast where the entrance to the valley of dragons is. For that week the dragons are passive and completely occupied in the mating trance. Each kingdom sends a perspective dragon rider pushing large carts to harvest a single white dragon egg along with the bones from fallen dragons. Dragon bones are much denser than any of the wood the Sons of the Great Father can harvest and are seemingly impervious to decay. They look for the burnt grass and deposits of three eggs. If the dragon egg is yellow it was too young and if it is brown it was too old so only a white egg will hatch with satisfaction. Once each messenger secured an egg, they will set sail to return to the coastal city of Sandista where they await the birth of their dragon. When the dragon hatched, the messenger will present a live fish to the dragon thereby bonding with him until the dragon matures. Dragons grow fast and usually before the moon completes three cycles, a messenger is able to mount his dragon and fly back to his own city. Before he left Sandista, the likeness of his dragon was tattooed on his forearm and the headmaster at the Academy of Dragon Riders awarded him the title "Count or Countess" if it was his or her first tour. So one would know by his title and his tattoo, that Count Brandon of Red Oak was a messenger from Castle Red Oak.

Messengers can also be called to protect the Sons of the Great Father. Even a young dragon developed deadly talons and fearsome canine teeth that can rip though armor and flesh easily. All the cities on the island of the Great Father make the trip to harvest eggs each year so each city has 6 or 7 messengers at any given time. Just before a messenger's dragon reached maturity, he will be flown to the mountain pass that leads to Castle Paternus and released to join his brothers and sisters in the mountains. A new messenger might start as early as puberty, or 13 years, if he or she is physically capable of handling a young dragon. Early in the history of the Sons of the Great Father, many riders perished falling from their dragons once they reached high speeds but the advancements to the harness now made it virtually impossible to lose your seat even during wild high speed maneuvers. Two tours as a messenger are common but occasionally, if a rider was small in stature and very skilled, a third tour could be accomplished. Countess Rebecca of Gardinia was the only living messenger to have three dragons tattooed on her forearm and she now presided as Head Master over the Academy for Dragon Riders at Sandista.

The festival had been a week long and emissaries from all seven kingdoms had come to participate and celebrate the...