Stephen M. DeBock
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Stephen DeBock writes on just about any topic but for fun
concentrates on sci-fi/fantasy adventure and supernatural
fiction.
As a teenager, Steve would entertain (and frighten) the
neighborhood children by retelling them stories from E.C.
horror comics like The Crypt of Terror. As a middle school
teacher, he continued the tradition by reading his students a
horror story to initiate the school year. Now retired, he has
time to write his own stories.
His first writing success came as a high school senior, when a
25-word essay won him an all-expenses-paid vacation in Alaska.
Upon his return he entered the Marines and was chosen to serve
in the President’s Honor Guard. Vignettes from that venue have
appeared in American Heritage magazine and in various
newspapers.
Upon leaving the Corps, Steve worked days, went to college at
night, and spent weekends earning a private pilot’s
certificate. A flying narrative he wrote was published in AOPA
Pilot Online.
During his teaching career, Steve garnered an award by the
State of New Jersey for his work in consumer education. He
served briefly as a consultant for Consumers Union and
contributed to essays in Time magazine, ABC’s World News
Tonight, and CNBC.
Having founded and later sold a video rental business, Steve
and his wife also sold their home and lived for three years
aboard a 42-foot sea-going trawler yacht. An article describing
one of their summer cruises was sold to Living Aboard magazine.
Steve has written newsletters for both private and non-profit
organizations; a flash fiction story for the children’s
magazine Spider; and the text for a coffee-table book on one of
America’s most-collected living artists: The Art of H.
Hargrove.
He and his wife Joy live in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
BLOG
EMAIL Stephen at:
stephen.debock@yahoo.com
FACEBOOK
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New Title(s) from Stephen M. DeBock
Click on the thumbnail(s) above to learn more about the book(s) listed.
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Two months ago, college junior Lori Stark was found dead
of unknown causes alongside the Appalachian Trail. Today,
the police bring a beautiful girl to the grieving parents’
door. She appears around Lori’s age; is amnesiac from an as
yet mysterious trauma; and her only link to her prior life
consists of two words: Lori Stark.
Lori’s parents take the girl—whom they’ve named Morgen—into
their home and eventually into their hearts. The arrangement
is intended to be temporary, until her memory returns. But
time and the girl’s near perfect nature draws the parents
into her sphere, resulting in Morgen’s blinding them—and
binding them—to her dark purpose.
When something seems too good to be true … it is.
Excerpt
Word Count: 10300
Pages to Print: 38
File Format: PDF
Price: $3.99 |
Reviews
From
Gathering Leaves |
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Reporter Lucille Easton’s nose tells her that
the full moon murders plaguing the city are the work of a vampire, and
thanks to the efforts of the newspaper’s researcher Willi, she learns
that the undead do indeed exist.
When Willi herself becomes a victim, Lucille deduces that the vampire is
her new boyfriend: he’s the undertaker’s new assistant; he lives in the
apartment above the mortuary; and his job guarantees an endless supply
of blood.
The reporter plans to stage a seduction of the suspected vampire in his
apartment, while hiding a crucifix in her cleavage and a vial of holy
water in her purse. She’s already framing in her mind the story she’ll
write and the Pulitzer she’ll win. Surely a TV anchor’s slot will
follow.
But we know what they say about the best-laid plans . . .
Excerpt
Word Count: 12300
Pages to Print: 44
File Format: PDF
Price: $ 3.99 |
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Alden Walker—sport pilot and skydiver—finds
himself and his light airplane mysteriously transported into an alien
world: a parallel Earth peopled by exotic-looking humans as well as a
host of animals that have evolved into human-like form, with human-like
powers of thought, but which have retained their appetites for flesh and
blood.
Especially human flesh and blood.
Accompanied by a beautiful indigenous woman with a score of her own to
settle, Walker must set out upon a covert mission to retrieve a vital
element from the creatures who have stolen it, employing his piloting
and parachuting skills in combination with her superb swordsmanship. On
their quest they will encounter a host of anthropomorphic predators,
until they finally reach their goal: a mountain fortress occupied by a
coldly calculating race of humanoid vampire bats.
And upon the success or failure of their mission hangs the fate of both
their worlds.
Excerpt
Word Count: 50000
Pages to Print:
File Format: PDF
Price: $4.99 |
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His fraternity brothers
had warned Brian not to surf alone, but the beach is empty, the Pacific
is calm as a lake, and this overindulged son of privilege figures a
couple hours’ dozing on his board won’t do any harm.
That is, until he wakes up enveloped in fog. Until
he feels the sudden swirl of current beneath his board. Until he sees
the triangular fin slicing the water, coming straight for him.
And as his guts turn to water, Brian realizes the
last thing he’ll ever see will be a cavernous, jagged-toothed tunnel
leading straight into hell.
Excerpt
Word Count: 3100
Pages to Print: 14
File Format: PDF
Price: $2.99 |
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Whenever the beautiful Princess Mallory so much
as bats her eyes, all the knights in the kingdom take notice, but none
so much as Sir Nicholas. Thus, when Mallory sweetly asks him to kill a
dragon for her, he is eager to do her bidding.
Meanwhile, in the woods far from the castle lives a witch who also has
reason to want the dragon killed: a dark purpose known only to her.
Every day she sets out on a secret mission, leaving her poor servant
girl to clean and cook and keep her hovel in repair.
The dragon, the servant girl, the witch, and the knight are all destined
to meet in a battle for their lives, one in which the knight will
discover that things are not always as they appear—not even his adored
Princess Mallory.
Excerpt
Word Count: 8400
Pages to Print: 30
File Format: PDF
Price: $3.99 |
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| Excerpts |
| Morgen |
It was obvious when Nate answered the
bell that the policeman facing him was uncomfortable. The
officer’s car was parked at the curb, even though the driveway
leading to the single-car garage was vacant. At least the lights
weren’t flashing. Flashing lights made Nate’s knees weak.
Standing next to the uniform, and a half step behind, was a
young woman. A hooded gray sweatshirt hid her hair, and her head
was lowered, as if her shoes fascinated her.
“Good morning, Professor Stark,” mumbled the cop. He was
youngish, with blue eyes, apple cheeks, and sandy hair. He
looked like he might have just graduated from the academy.
“Sorry to disturb you. I know it’s early.”
“Not a problem,” Nate replied. “I’ve been up since five.” He
gestured toward his sweats. “Jogging.” He glanced at the cop’s
nametag. “Collins. I know you, don’t I?”
“Yes, sir, I was one of your German students about five years
ago.”
“Uh . . . huh. I remember. And I’m sure that your knowledge of
German makes you invaluable in your job.”
The officer returned the smile. “Not really, but it did help me
get a bride.”
“You don’t say.”
The girl might as well have been invisible.
“Right after graduation I decided to backpack through Germany,
staying in hostels. Your classes paid off when I got to Berlin.”
He grinned. “See, I met a certain Fräulein there . . . and now
she’s my schöne Frau.”
“Wunderbar.” Nate glanced at the girl. “I assume this young lady
isn’t your bride?” Little Gray Riding Hood, he thought.
The girl tilted up her head. Her eyes, Nate observed, were
startlingly green. She wore jeans that were as unkempt as her
sweatshirt. The hair that peeked out from her hoodie was dark
red.
“No, sir; sorry, got sidetracked there.”
Nate said to the girl, “Have we met, miss? Were you one of my
students, too?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her eyes not quite making contact
with his. Her voice was weak, almost a whimper. Tracks made by
dried tears were evident in the smudges on her cheeks.
“Why don’t we go inside?” Nate said. “It’s only September, but
already there’s a chill in the air.” He turned and called,
“Ellen, company.”
Nate ushered them into a tidy kitchen and bid them sit at a
circular table. His wife looked at her guests nervously.
“Is anything wrong?” Two months now, and she still grew
apprehensive in the presence of the police.
Nate said no, introduced her to the officer, and then said, “I
didn’t get your name, miss.”
The girl’s lips parted, as if she were about to speak. Then she
simply shook her head.
“That’s what I need to talk to you about, Professor. She was
picked up late last night wandering around the Criterion campus.
She didn’t seem to know where she was or what she was doing
there. Campus security brought her to the station. It’s like
she’s got amnesia or something.”
Nate frowned. “Amnesia? Really?”
Ellen said, “Amnesia? This is beginning to sound like a scene
from a penny dreadful.”
Collins continued: “We checked her out as well as we could;
there’s no record of her fingerprints on any law enforcement
files, which means she has no criminal record. We sent her photo
to the missing persons database; again, no joy. Meanwhile, she
doesn’t match anyone on the university’s student photo file
either.”
Ellen said, “No evidence of physical trauma?”
“We took her to the hospital. The doc said there was no sign of
sexual assault.” He looked at the girl, embarrassment in his
face. “I’m really sorry to be talking about you like you weren’t
here.”
She nodded, but said nothing. |
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Back to Morgen |
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| A
Cross to Bare |
Connie Marx shivered as she stood
alone in the moonlight. Spring weather was late in coming this
year, and she longed for something warm to cover herself with;
but of course that would defeat the purpose of her being here.
She needed to display as much of herself as the law allowed, in
order to consummate relationships beyond what the law allowed.
Business had been slow tonight—make that nonexistent—and Connie
needed business, now, in order to transact business of her own
later. She wore a long-sleeved blouse to hide the telltale
tracks in her arm, but the front of it was unbuttoned enough to
show any interested party that she had nothing to hide beneath.
Her skirt was hardly wider than the belt that hugged her hips,
and her spiked heels made her look taller than her barely
five-foot height.
The shadowed alleyway before which she
stood gave Connie the creeps. But, she thought with a twist of
her mouth, creeps were what she was after. She checked her
make-up one more time in her compact mirror. The moonlight was
dim enough to conceal the worst of the acne scars, and thick
pancake hid the darkness around her eyes. Her lips were blood
red, vivid and glossy.
She put the compact back inside her
purse and looked around. Where was everybody? Oh, wait, it was
Good Friday. Maybe her potential johns were in church, or dyeing
Easter eggs with their families. Connie herself had a family, of
sorts; in fact, she was carrying on the family trade. At twenty,
she had grudgingly taken on the support of both herself and her
besotted mother, who at this very moment probably lay in a pool
of her own puke, a bottle of cheap vodka on the night stand
alongside her stained and sagging mattress. What did Good Friday
mean to Connie? She knew it was something about Jesus dying and
coming back from the dead, but she’d never gone to Sunday
School, never spent one hour inside a church.
Someone was approaching. Connie heard
soft footfalls and looked up to see a man, in a dark overcoat,
heading her way. The moon was behind him, which meant its light
shone directly on her while he was in shadow. She reached into
her purse and pulled out a cigarette.
“Excuse me,” she purred, “but would
you have a light?”
The man stopped and looked down at
her. “Sorry, I don’t smoke,” he said, but he didn’t make any
move to continue walking.
Connie replaced the cigarette and
smiled. “I’m going to quit,” she said. “Nasty habit anyway.”
“If you were really going to quit,
you’d have thrown that thing away rather than putting it back.”
She looked up at the man, batted her
eyes. “I am going to quit, I mean it.”
“Oh, I believe you.” He paused. “Tell
me, what’s your name, and why are you out all alone this late at
night?”
“My name’s Tiffany. What’s yours?”
“Call me John.”
She smiled. “John? Really?”
“Really, like you’re really Tiffany.”
“Got me. My real name’s Candy.”
“Candy. That’s sweet.”
If she got the pun, she gave no sign.
“So, let me ask you the same question. What are you doing out
all alone? This late at night?”
“I’m . . . looking for someone.”
“Could that someone be me?”
“That could very well be, yes.”
The man spread his coat and dug into
his pants pocket. Connie stiffened, then relaxed as he brought
out a money clip—not a badge, not a gun, not a knife. He wasn’t
a bad looking guy, from what she could see, and his eyes seemed
to capture the reflection of a distant street lamp as he glanced
from side to side before peeling off some bills.
“This be enough?” he asked.
“For a quickie, right here in the
alley.”
“That will be fine. I’m not looking
for a long-term relationship.”
She laughed then, took his money, and
led him into the alleyway.
“Well,” he said, “where do we begin?”
He was on Connie’s turf now, and her
self-assurance took over. “No kissie-kissie stuff, okay? We cut
right to the chase.”
“That’s fine with me. I wouldn’t want
to smear the paint from those pretty lips. But I do intend to
kiss you somewhere else. Would you like that?”
“Oh, honey,” she sighed. “You’ve got
me wet already. Feel.” She hiked up her excuse for a skirt. She
wasn’t wearing panties, and her wetness came from a light smear
of petroleum jelly—a trick she’d learned from her mother.
The man felt, smiled, and Connie saw
the glint of moonlight on his perfect teeth. Must’ve had braces
as a kid, she thought idly as her body went on autopilot. She
murmured, “Ooh, I like it when you touch me there.”
With one hand between her legs, the
man slipped the other inside Connie’s blouse. She forced herself
to breathe heavily, feigning passion, hoping to get him into her
and out quickly. “Yes, oh yes,” she moaned.
The man ran his tongue inside her
cleavage, and she felt his teeth brush against her flesh. Connie
reached down and fumbled with his belt buckle. He said nothing;
instead, both hands parted her blouse all the way and moved up
to her armpits. She lost her grip on his buckle as he lifted her
into the air and pinned her against the brick wall. They were
eyeball-to-eyeball now, and she saw that his pupils were
severely dilated. They looked almost vertical, too, like a
cat’s. Or maybe a snake’s. |
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Back to A Cross to Bare |
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| The
Bridge Between Worlds |
PROLOGUE
From the Baltimore Sun:
REPORTER KILLED IN SKYDIVING ACCIDENT
SALISBURY, MD—A skydiving mishap has cost the life of a
well-known feature writer for this newspaper. Lynda Murray, 26,
perished when her parachute failed to open. She was a veteran of
over 100 jumps.
Murray was the correspondent who penned the popular “Girls Do
It” feature that appeared monthly in Sunday’s edition of this
newspaper. The column chronicled her forays into offbeat and
occasionally dangerous hobbies and pursuits, especially those
favored mostly by men. Last September, she learned of a
parachuting school located at Walker Field, here, and signed up
for a jump course. She wrote a full-page article about her
experience, complete with freefall photographs, in a subsequent
“Girls Do It” column.
Having become enamored of the sport, Murray coupled her love of
skydiving with her growing affection for the airport’s owner,
Mr. Alden Walker. The two were married last Saturday while
enroute to jump altitude in the center’s airplane. Their plan
was to be pronounced man and wife during freefall by the Rev.
Donald Wilson, a fellow parachutist. They were then to perform
aerial maneuvers for the entertainment of their guests on the
ground before opening their chutes.
Features editor George Murray (no relation), an invited guest,
reports that whereas the parachutes of Walker and the minister
deployed normally, “Lynda’s never came out of her pack. All of
us could see her struggle to pull the ripcord. When she finally
pulled her reserve, it was just too late.” He added, “Lynda was
a vital part of our Sun family. She will truly be missed.”
Murray’s parents are deceased and she had no siblings. She is
survived by her husband, Alden James Walker. The Hemby Funeral
Home, Salisbury, is in charge of arrangements. Rev. Wilson,
acting as spokesman, has asked that in lieu of flowers, memorial
gifts be made to the donors’ favorite charities in the name of
Lynda Murray Walker.
CHAPTER 1
I could tell Gus wanted to smack me—hard—upside the head.
“When are you gonna stop moping around, Numbnuts? Two months and
you still won’t get back on the horse that throwed you. Fly a
plane. Take a jump. Even better, take a student pilot up, run a
jump lesson, earn the company some money for a change.”
I attempted to deflect the sting with a weak stab at humor.
“Just so I’m clear on this, Gunny. You’re calling the man who
signs your paychecks Numbnuts?”
He tried to look contrite, something he was never able to do.
“Oh, I’m sorry; Mister Numbnuts—sir.” He scowled and shook his
head, his short gray hair still cut high and tight and flat on
top, just as it had been when he was in the Marines. “Come on,
Walker, all due respect to Lynda, you’re not the one screwed up.
I’ve told you every day, every way I know, and you know I’m
right. From now on, convince yourself And do it fast.” He put
his hands on his hips, as he used to do when he wanted to
intimidate recruits. “I’m carrying your load as well as mine
around here, and my sea bag’s gettin’ kinda heavy. Know what I
mean?”
I had to admit he was right. I was as useless as teats on a boar
hog since what folks euphemistically called the accident. Don
Wilson, Nate the jump pilot, Lisa the head instructor, Dennis
the chief rigger, all the club members—they knew full well
accidents are caused; they don’t just happen. And they were kind
enough never to mention the obvious—that I was made a widower
after forty-five seconds of married life because of human error,
not mechanical. And the human in question wasn’t me.
So here I stood, in the ops building next to the airport parking
lot and directly across from the jump school, attempting the
impossible: staring down my former drill instructor, now my
fixed-base operation’s chief administrator. Gus ran the FBO with
the same no-nonsense, by-the-numbers approach he’d used on the
grinder at Parris Island. And his calling me Numbnuts was
mellow. I can remember from when I was an eighteen-year-old
recruit his getting within two inches of my nose, his stogie
breath nearly gagging me, screaming all sorts of imprecations
and aspersions upon my ancestry. I remember too, his famous
threat to the platoon, which he regularly made good on to
individuals throughout our boot training: “You little pissant,
I’ve decided I’m not going to chew your ass out! No, private!
I’m going to chew around your ass, and let it fall out by
itself!”
From day one, when my ragged platoon mates and I had to stand on
the painted yellow footprints in our first formation, eyes
front, thumbs on our trouser seams, heels together, feet at a
forty-five-degree angle, Staff Sergeant Bellows (how appropriate
the name) and his two junior drill instructors rode us hard,
kept reminding us that we weren’t Marines, we wouldn’t make a
pimple on a Marine’s ass, we were nothing but a bunch of high
school pussies. And they kept reminding us there were: “only two
ways to get off my beloved Parris Island—in a Marine Corps
uniform or in a pine box.” Most of the recruits both feared and
hated their DIs. But I didn’t. Well, I admit to a certain amount
of fear. But I had gone in knowing what they had to do. |
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Back to The Bridge Between Worlds |
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| Lucky
Break |
“The frat brothers were right,” Brian grumbled as he nosed his
red ragtop into the deserted parking lot. “Calm as a lake, and
not a wave in sight.” He hesitated a few seconds, contemplating
the gray afternoon sky, the gray Pacific, the silence of the
salt water as it whispered against the sand. “Oh well,” he said
to himself, “won’t hurt to float around for awhile anyway.”
He reached across the console and unbuckled the seat belt that
held his surfboard in place—the next time he buckled his own
seat belt would be the first time—then opened his door and
hopped out. Tucking the board under one arm, Brian walked across
the sand, thinking that an afternoon on the ocean would be a
reasonable consolation prize for his having phoned the airline
too late to get a ticket home on this, the first day of spring
break. That’s okay, he thought, the airport’ll be a zoo today
anyway, what with every college kid in the area making tracks.
One more day won’t make a difference.
Brian had never seen the beach so absolutely empty. He
remembered his surfing buddies had warned him never to go into
the ocean alone, but all his buddies were headed to their homes
today, and besides, the waves were too small to threaten even a
popsicle stick, much less a surfboard.
Brrr. It seems the Pacific Ocean never warms up, no matter the
season. “Goose bumps on my goose bumps,” he complained, as he
forced himself to wade deeper and finally to plunge into the
gray-green sea. “At least the air’s warm,” he noted, as he
attached the board’s leash to his leg and paddled well away from
shore.
Calm couldn’t begin to describe the ocean today, Brian thought
later as he lay on his stomach, arms and legs hanging over the
sides of the board, his cheek resting against the slick
fiberglass. For a few minutes he felt the sun on his back as it
tried to burn its way through the clouds, and the warmth helped
him drift into daydreams . . .
The dreams were of his palatial home in fashionable Chevy Chase,
just outside the D.C. line; the prep school where he’d scraped
by, thanks more or less to his father’s handsome endowment; his
father’s being a power broker somewhere on K Street in D.C.
Exactly what he did didn’t interest Brian in the least.
And of his mother, whose career consisted mostly of golf and
tennis lessons, and who ran the most successful—what did she
call them, soirees—for candidates for political office. She said
once that it didn’t matter which party they belonged to, as long
as they raised her own profile. Deep, Mom.
And mostly of his girlfriend, Kaytee (Kim Trang), whose
immigrant parents ran a convenience store and spent every dime
of profit on her tuition at the prep school where Brian had met
her. “What’s the matter,” his father had asked once, “can’t you
find a white girl?” Brian explained that she was Vietnamese, and
Dad had just shaken his head and said, “Whatever.”
He found it hard to keep his eyes open. The sea was like a giant
waterbed.
Brian never knew what had drawn Kaytee to him, but he knew what
drew him to her: God, she was gorgeous. Deep brown almond eyes;
a smile that could melt glaciers; long, really long black hair
that framed her face like it was a painting by that artist, what
was his name? Gauguin. |
| Back to
Lucky Break |
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| The
Heart and the Crown |
Long ages ago, in the islands which would one day be named
Britannia, sages told wondrous tales of magic, and of monsters,
and of sorcery and darkest witchcraft. But among adults such
tales were seen only as stories designed to frighten their
children into proper behavior. In truth, the small kingdoms
suffered only the occasional band of robbers who preyed upon
isolated farms and unwary travelers.
One such band ran rampant for a time in the Kingdom of Evermore,
until the king sent forth his bravest knight, Sir Nicholas, to
seek out its leader and bring him to justice. That tale would
provide a heroic story in its own right, but what followed
proves even more memorable—because it gives the truth to the
stories the ancients told.
Early one morning, the newly risen sun reflected its golden glow
in the silver breastplate of the knight standing in the castle’s
courtyard before the king, the queen, and their dark-haired
daughter, the Princess Mallory. Gathered behind the knight in
the castle courtyard were the other Knights of Evermore, and
behind them stood the citizens of the nearby village. From the
parapet, trumpets blared a fanfare, and the throng fell silent.
The king spread his arms, as if to embrace them all.
“My fellow citizens,” he began, “for the past year your village
and the countryside have been plagued by a band of highwaymen.
They have stolen from your homes, robbed you on the roads, and
even butchered your livestock for no other reason but to keep
you living in fear.”
Nicholas lowered his eyes self-consciously, for he knew what the
king would say next.
“This bold and brilliant knight,” continued his majesty,
“single-handedly found the leader of this band of brigands and
brought him to justice. Now the leader and his cutthroat crew
are imprisoned in our dungeon, awaiting trial. And we have the
honor of awarding Sir Nicholas with the kingdom’s highest honor,
the Order of the Cross.”
The knight looked up and found himself staring into the
coal-black eyes of Princess Mallory. Her long, raven-colored
hair flowed from beneath her headpiece, framing her lovely and
delicate face. Her red lips were parted in a smile that seemed
directed toward him alone. Such a beautiful young woman, he
thought, and but a few years younger than I. However, I must
remember that she is a princess and I but a common knight. And
so Sir Nicholas put all thoughts of a union with the fair
princess out of his mind as as he knelt to receive his award: a
golden cross, emblazoned with the crest of the king himself. A
thick golden chain was threaded through a loop at its top, and
as Nicholas lowered his head, Princess Mallory herself leaned
forward and draped it around his neck.
As she did, she whispered in his ear, “I must meet with you
privately, Sir Nicholas. Please report to my chambers within the
hour.”
#
Shortly after the ceremony had ended and the celebrants had
retired to their respective homes, a confused Sir Nicholas stood
before the chamber door of Princess Mallory. The guard outside
saluted him with his spear and knocked on the door, opening it
when the princess called, “Enter.” The knight walked through,
and the door closed behind him.
Princess Mallory welcomed Sir Nicholas from a chair near the
unshuttered windhole. He bowed, and she extended her hand for
him to kiss. “Welcome, brave Sir Nicholas,” she said. Her voice
was gentle as a summer’s breeze.
“Your highness,” he replied.
“You are no doubt wondering why I sent for you.”
“I am indeed, my lady.”
Mallory’s eyes narrowed and she spoke softly. “I need you to
carry out a mission for me.”
“A mission, Princess?”
“There is evil afoot in the kingdom,” she said.
“Evil, my lady? But the highwaymen are no longer a threat.”
“That is so, Sir Knight. But I’m not talking about highwaymen.
I’m referring to—” she lowered her voice to a whisper—“a
dragon.”
“A dragon? But—”
She placed two fingers against his lips. “I know, I know. No
dragon sightings have been reported for centuries. Some people
even refuse to believe they exist at all. But my lady in
waiting, who with my blessing spends much of her time outside
these castle walls, reports that on the outermost borders of the
kingdom many sheep have been slaughtered. Now, we all know
dragons love sheep more than almost anything else.”
“So have I heard, Princess.”
“And would this evidence not suggest a dragon is about?”
“One might think so, if one—”
“I need you to kill the beast. And bring me a vial of its yellow
blood as proof of your kill.”
The knight nodded his head, but did not lose his frown. “My
lady, your wish is my command. But why am I awarded this
commission from you, and not from your royal parents?”
Mallory’s smile lost its warmth. “My parents are wonderful
rulers,” she said. “But they are growing older, and they are
sometimes . . . out of touch . . . with what is going on in the
outlying reaches of their realm. As I said, the dragon’s kills
have occurred near the border dividing Evermore from Evenmore,
and news from there is scant. But the danger lies in the fact
that once it has eaten its fill of livestock, the dragon may
advance upon the village below and then upon this castle. Were I
to tell my parents of my concerns, they would brush them aside
as the fears of a child. This I could not bear. So for the sake
of our kingdom . . . and for me . . . will you undertake this
quest?” She fluttered her eyelashes as she spoke the last.
“I would be honored, my lady,” replied the knight, bowing. When
he kissed her hand again, she held it to his lips a bit longer
than he might have expected. She looked into his deep blue eyes
and smiled as she casually swept a loose lock of his
sandy-colored hair behind his ear. His strength and bravery
notwithstanding, Nicholas suddenly felt weak at the knees, so
totally captivated was he by this beautiful young lady.
A few moments later, Mallory stood by the windhole and watched
Sir Nicholas ride away from the castle. “Thus events are set in
motion,” she murmured to the empty room. |
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