In celebration of Earth Day and my birthday today, I have a new excerpt for you!

Read on for the new first chapter of Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1 – the first book in the upcoming Khehemni prequel series to the Kingsmen Chronicles.

In this chapter, Dhenir Leith Alodwine holds the line with Khehem’s warriors on the coast of the Thirteen Tribes, against an onslaught of raiders from the southwest.

Here, we get to meet a number of characters that will be prominent in the Khehemni series – like Leith, his aunt Jennira Alodwine in the Order of Alrahel, the Djinn Rhune, and Leith’s Berounhim daughter Alitha.

It’s still a little rough and will go through more rounds of editing, but I hope you enjoy this first chapter from Dragon of the Desert.

More info in the coming months about release date!

Onward to glory,

Jean

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CHAPTER 1 – LEITH

Battle was life. Battle was everything. And failure was not an option for Khehem.

Standing tall on the sea-sands before the red cliffs of Drashaan, Leith Alodwine held the line. Waiting on the hard-packed ocean sands as the stiff breezes of early evening swirled around him in a fragrant sea-wind, he watched the invading army come. Of course, the cowardly Southwestrons would attack only once the sun descended from its zenith, too afraid to confront men of the Thirteen Tribes at the height of the day. For the brutal desert heat of the Tribes was too much for them; too much for any outlander, even those from the arid grasslands of Jadoun and Desh-Kar, and the spiced mountains of Perthe. Though the Southwestron nations were just across the Scorched Sea to Khehem’s west, these men were soft to the Tribes’ vicious ways.

And it showed as they paused on the western shore before Khehem’s might.

Hesitation was evident in the way they wrapped their headgear tighter against the Tribes’ stinging winds, rather than grip their swords with readiness. Reluctance showed in the way they shuffled their feet through the ocean’s sands, rather than pick them up briskly on the vicious silica-sharp hardpack of Drashaan’s swirling sea-dunes. Uncertainty showed in the way their dark eyes shifted uneasily as they rose up the red cliffs to the ramparts of the city far above, Drashaan’s capable warriors standing silent all along the battlements to fight if Leith’s forces failed, then back down to Leith and his command of a meager five thousand spear-warriors standing before the cliffs on the long afternoon sands, their shadows stretching back to the mighty walls of the cliff-port.

Fear showed in how they scanned the far smaller force before them, thinking to themselves, Is this it? Is this all the Thirteen Tribes brought to fight us with?

An eager smile lifted Leith’s lips as his hard gold-umber eyes scanned the Southwestron horde before him with their colorful fighting-silks run through with black and gold tribal patterns, each stitch carrying native protection spells from the wyrria of those far-off shores. Khehem’s spies had counted a hundred ships passing the tip of Cennetia as they sailed across the Tourmaline Sea and into the Scorched Sea, approaching the Tribes on the fastest, most direct currents. But by the time Leith’s forces had crossed the desert from Khehem here to Drashaan, the central port of the Tribes with a long beach easily assailable by a sea-army, he’d counted a startling force of three hundred ships. Some were little more than dual-sail Jadounian merchant vessels carrying ten men, but some were massive tubs of sea-engineering from Paralia, sporting twenty masts and fifty sails and carrying a force of hundreds in their deep-keeled bellies.

And as smaller vessels shuttled warriors in colorful battle-regalia from all three Southwestron nations of Jadoun, Perthe, and Desh-Kar in now through the crashing surf and dumped them out upon the three mile beach with their chariots and plains horses who shied at the vicious sands cutting their hooves, Leith watched their fear, facing only a force of five thousand stretched all along the beach and protecting the alabaster stone causeways that wound up into the city proper. Though Leith counted approximately fifteen thousand, a force come to break the Tribes’ central most port and take the Jewel of the Coast, he saw their wariness. It was warranted, as Leith saw this massive force suddenly recall that every warrior who protected the Tribes held in spades that which other areas of the world held little of.

Battle-magic – the furious battle-magic of the Wolf and Dragon of Khehem.

“I count twelve thousand foot soldiers, three thousand horse, and a hundred chariots, Scion.” As the Khehemni held the line, Leith’s aunt Jennira Alodwine, the King’s sister, stood to his right, watching the incoming army with grey eyes like luminous sea-pearls. A High Priestess in Khehem’s Order of Alrahel, Jennira’s long twists of black hair shone blue in the sun, flying in the sea-wind from beneath the silk hood of her white fitted robe with its geodesic gold and red borders. The robe’s cowl up today, a gold circlet with a thirteen-point star graced her brow beneath, signifying Jennira’s royal Khehemni birth, though she’d chosen a life in the Order. The King’s most trusted counselor and the only person he would listen to in the Order of Alrahel priesthood but also an accomplished battle-mage, Jennira watched the arriving army with a piercing gracefulness.

Acting as emissary for the Order today against the invaders.

Waiting like Leith for the opening parlay, Jennira absently rubbed bracers of silver and fiery sun-opals at her wrists, inset with gold-inlaid runes. Reaching up, she cast back her silk cowl to see the approaching army better, and Leith watched a subtle fire twist through the runes on her bracers, matching a crimson flame that twisted through her grey eyes. Jennira had more Werus et Khehem wyrria than anyone on this entire beach, possibly excepting Leith. But she kept it contained, honing her skills most of the time for negotiation and keeping a precarious peace between the Khehemni Kings and the Order of Alrahel.

Until battle came, and Khehem was called out to protect the Tribes.

“I count the same numbers.” Leith spoke quietly back to his aunt as he watched the invaders finally come into some semblance of organization, with horses and chariots spaced neatly through the foot soldiers and pikemen, ready to charge through the line when the battle began. Across the long expanse of hard-packed sand at low tide, Leith saw a black-clad commander approach a waiting chariot, readying to parlay with Khehem’s five thousand warriors now barring their way into the Port of Drashaan. Squinting at the man to see him better against the lowering western sun, Leith saw his black battle-leathers were of an unfamiliar sort, a strange silver-studded herringbone-weave pattern he’d not seen from Southwestron warriors before. Tall of stature and uncommonly strong with pale skin and almond eyes, he had an Unaligned look to him, though the entire army around him were the dark coffee and ebony-skinned people of the far Southwest. Frowning at their leader, Leith contemplated the man.

And heard a scoff come from the creature standing beside him to his left.

“Well. They have a Scorpion-rider with them. Figures. No one could have possibly assembled this ragtag bunch of warring Southwestron tribes without the Hakir’s support. But I wonder… is the Scorpion leading these men? Or is someone else?”

On Leith’s right, whirling in a slow sand-funnel of his own make, the creature Rhune Orodinii was already terrifying the invaders before them. Hundreds of men blanched as they looked at Rhune from across the line, basically ready to shit themselves from his disturbing otherness. Standing like a spear of darkness in the high desert day, dressed in wrapped black Berounhim battle-silks with his burly arms crossed, Rhune’s Djinnic magic dissipated him to the ocean winds, then swirled him back into being once more. As he disappeared, only Rhune’s vivid blue eyes were visible for a moment, like burning sapphires as he stared the invaders down with deadly force, before his body returned.

As the sea-breezes blew and his own power surged and ebbed him into being then vanished him again for the oncoming battle, the Djinn Rhune was a being of the desert sands – not a creature anyone would ever have called human, though he looked like a man. As he cast his deadly desert winds around him now, teasing them ahead into the opposing line, wielding sand like blades, Southwestron men pulled back with cries of dismay. Though Leith extended a hand for the Djinn to cease taunting their opposition and the nasty little smile on the creature’s full lips died, he arched an eyebrow at Leith.

Letting his magic quiet, for now.

“A Scorpion-rider? What’s that? And why hasn’t he got a scorpion?” From behind Leith now, his daughter Alitha Alodwine piped up, waiting for the parlay like the rest of them as a member of Khehem’s noble house. Standing proud and tall in her close-fitted charcoal-grey Berounhim silks like Rhune, Alitha fingered twin sickled allajira swords at her hips. Slender and tall like the Berounhim caravanserai of the desert interior from whence she hailed, at eighteen Alitha had Leith’s fiery auburn hair, a rarity in their country born only to the strongest Scions of the Wolf and Dragon. Her wild red waves were pulled back into a long braid today for fighting, her vicious green eyes shining like emeralds on fire in the lowering sun as she watched the herringbone armor-clad leader ready his chariot. Taking his time to check harnesses and leather straps, the man made the Tribes’ protectors wait as he gave his forces opportunity to finish assembling on the strand from their ships.

“Scorpion-riders, or the Kreth-Hakkim Beldir as they were known in times long gone,” Rhune educated now with a dark basso chuckle as he glanced back to Alitha, “were once a mighty army, Scioness. A pivotal force in the Albrenni-Giannyk Wars four thousand years ago, they helped decide the outcome of that conflict. But I thought they were extinct in recent eras, fallen from their golden age into darkness. The armor this one sports before us, however, is most certainly their classical odd herringbone-weave.”

“Tell me of these Kreth-Hakkim Beldir, Rhune. Make it quick.” Leith ordered softly as he saw the general before them finally glance up from his chariot, piercing Leith with his gaze from across the sands. Though he had heard the name from Rhune before, the history of the Kreth-Hakkim Beldir was an obscure piece of lore about the ancient Albrenni-Giannyk Wars that Leith didn’t know yet, massive wars that had at one time devoured their entire continent. The Thirteen Tribes had once been a vast green country before the wars, Leith knew, and it had been those wars of terrible magic which had devastated it and blighted the Tribes’ land into little but oases, bare ruins, and mountains of sand. Rhune had taught him much over Leith’s lifetime, but there was still so much more he didn’t know.

Oddities of wyrria that cropped up sometimes in the vast deserts of the Tribes – affecting the outcome of battles.

“Kreth-Hakkim Beldir are traditionally possessed of deep mind-magics, and in ancient times, rode Diamanne Scorpions into war via a mind-link upon their vicious steeds.” Rhune rumbled back to Leith now as they both watched the herringbone-clad leader mount his chariot and set a long ebony spear into a bracket within, close to hand. He knew whom he was fighting soon; his spear was a Black Spear of traditional Ghellani make, ebony in the haft and obsidian for the long cruel spear-point. Golden runes flared all through the shaft and blade, flickering with a caustic violet light now that they sensed strong magic nearby. One cut from a Black Spear could render a lesser wielder of wyrria useless; a deeper thrust could paralyze the magic of a stronger opponent, even one of Leith or Jennira’s caliber. As a small smirk quirked the big man’s thick lips, he gathered the chariot’s reins in his beefy hands.

Snapping the reins now and moving the horses forward.

“Faster, Rhune. Just the essentials.” Leith admonished his pedantic protector and teacher, the Djinn often long-winded when brevity was necessary.

“This man will try to bespell your mind, Scion.” The creature chuckled with dark wit again as he lifted an eyebrow once more at Leith’s commanding tone. “Avoid eye contact at close distance. Same for you two also, Scioness Alitha and mistress Alrahemni Alodwine.”

“Noted, Rhune.” Leith’s aunt spoke shortly, her quick temper simmering up now as flickers of wyrric fire began to manifest in the air around her from her battle-tension. “Anything else?”

“Scorpions almost always serve someone else.” Rhune spoke with a subtle growl now as his winds devoured him suddenly, then returned him to being. “Question him hard to discover his master. Because if I’m right, this army is not his. But an army meant to devour the Thirteen Tribes under his commanding fist at someone else’s behest.”

But they had no more time to talk as the commander in black herringbone-weave armor slapped the reins of his chariot over his horses’s backs again and they heaved forward faster. Though the fleet, sleek Desh-Kar bred steeds were hardy in their native arid grasslands, they balked now as the Tribe’s vicious glass-rich sand sliced at their hooves on the strand. Every part of the Tribes was forbidding, even the environment resisting invaders. And though the man in the chariot stood tall, staring Leith down with prowess and dominance in his dark gaze as he came, Leith remembered Rhune’s words and dropped his gaze to the man’s lips rather than his eyes as Jennira and Alitha did also. Stepping forward with a small contingent of his top Lieutenants from Khehem at their backs, their group moved into the parlay, meeting their adversary halfway upon the beach.

But the Scorpion-commander came alone to parlay, not a single captain or lieutenant at his back. And soon he sawed his horses to a halt before them on the strand, as both sides stared each other down in a deeply quiet tension that stretched all the way up and down the massive beach.

“Defenders of the Thirteen Tribes.” The man spoke now in an unctuous baritone as his thick lips smiled, noting that none of them were looking into his eyes – except the Djinn, who had stronger magics than any mortal. “With whom do I parlay?”

“With Leith Alodwine, Scion of Khehem, Captain of the Red Spears of Khehem, and son of the King.” Leith spoke up promptly, not caring what this man thought of his actions, if it kept his forces safe. “With whom do I parlay, mhensit?”

“With Loratius of Berg, High Priest of the Kreth-Hakkir and leader of the army you see before you. Which will soon wipe you out, and take your beloved nation.” The man answered coyly but brashly, though Leith wasn’t having it.

“Whom do you serve, cur?” Leith returned coldly, though he still stared at the man’s thick, odious lips. “For as I understand, the Kreth-Hakkim Beldir, or Kreth-Hakkir as you name yourself now, are only ever hounds to better masters.”

“You speak much about what you know little, desert whelp.” The man’s pleased smile vanished now as he gripped his chariot’s reins in one solid fist. As he did, Leith suddenly felt a darkly seeking aura sigh out from the man like a rip-tide, though he hauled it neatly back. But that one touch of such a dark, convincing magic was unlike anything Leith had ever felt as he suddenly gave a deep shiver, his skin prickling into gooseflesh. “Yes, I serve a master,” the man continued, “who wishes the Thirteen Tribes taken under her yoke. But if you surrender now, you will understand that my mistress’ will is not your destruction – she seeks to unite this nation to her might, and wishes you to be a part of it. Give me your surrender now, and you will benefit from all the riches she builds – and the peace she brings to all lands.”

“Peace she’s brought to the all Southwestern nations, has she?” Leith’s aunt Jennira suddenly spoke up as a hot whirl of her Wolf and Dragon battle-magics singed Leith’s skin through the ocean breeze. Though she was a priestess in the Order of Alrahel now, this was far from Jennira’s first parlay, involved in the battles of Leith’s grandfather’s time when the raiders of Ghrec had hounded their borders for decades. Strong as steel and vicious as a blade, Jennira stared the man down with a hard presence beside Leith, though like Leith, she was staring daggers at the man’s lips and chin instead of his eyes.

“Indeed, desert mistress. Look before you and see the warring tribes and fractious city-states of Jadoun, Desh-Kar, and even the mighty Perthe united to her banner. As we speak here upon your shores, Perthe’s formidable capitol of Menekhret has already fallen to her will. And will soon enjoy her newly-arisen prosperity and joy.” The man spoke with his smarmy smile again now as he glanced at Jennira and showed an open attraction to her knife-edged, elegant beauty. Though twenty years older than Leith’s middle thirties, Jennira had the Alodwine blessing of longevity, hardly looking a day over thirty-five – a Khehemni warrioress in her prime and just as viciously beautiful as any of them.

“Prosperity and joy.” Rhune snorted now, everyone in Leith’s parlay allowed to speak freely though Leith would make the final call for battle. “Since when do despots and warlords ever bring prosperity and joy to the people they quell and conquer?”

“Since my God-Queen’s power is absolute.” The big Unaligned man spoke quietly now, with reverence. “And her mercy is almighty.”

“God-Queen?” Alitha breathed now from where she stood just behind Leith. “Do you assert that your mistress has some kind of godlike powers?”

“She does, battle-maid.” The man spoke with the same dire awe and somber honesty now as he glanced past Leith to Alitha. “And if your people wish to experience the greatest prosperity the world has ever known… you will come to her banners now. And experience the bliss of the White Goddess. A bliss unfathomable to the heart. And just as beautiful.”

In the man’s voice, Leith suddenly heard something he hadn’t expected from a conqueror – the honest passion of true conviction. He’d not expected a warlord commanding an invading army to speak from the heart, but this man had – as if this God-Queen uniting the far Southwestron continent was just as beautiful and generous as he’d insinuated right now. It startled Leith; and his sudden shock at hearing the truth of the man’s heart was his undoing. In that brief moment, his gaze flicked up to the eyes of the herringbone-clad man’s. And in that moment, the man’s dark grey eyes pierced him to the quick; heavy as a mountain of granite and thrice as immutable.

Crashing into Leith’s mind and sundering him wide open.

Leith had studied various forms of wyrric mind-invasion over the years and how to thwart them; he lived in the Thirteen Tribes, home of the most accomplished wielders of wyrria upon the entire planet. And yet, he’d felt nothing like this as the sheer brutality and conviction of this man’s will suddenly hammered though him like a fist, thrusting all thoughts of battle aside as it devoured him. It was a taking of such vicious, ungodly proportions that Leith shuddered now, pinned to the man’s gaze and shivering like a blown horse in the brisk sea-wind. It had only been a moment that the man’s tremendous mind had unlocked his.

But in that moment, visions came pouring in – and Leith couldn’t stop them.

Images came, slamming through Leith as he stared into the man’s slate-grey eyes and felt his mountainous nature; not images of battle and bloodshed as he might have thought, but images of plenty. They weren’t images of what this God-Queen might do to the Thirteen Tribes if they resisted her, they were images of the plenty that Leith’s land would experience if he bent his knee right now and stood his armies down.

Beautiful festivals rolled through his mind, enjoyed by the people of Jadoun and Desh-Kar celebrating with copious wine and sweetmeats, heady abandon and more. Prosperity flowed like rivers as flowers and gold adorned everyone, and Leith saw a future already coming to pass of lands united, ceasing to war with one another and living in peace. As massive white wings like an elder goddess rose in his vision, stretching out to encompass the world, he felt the tremendous love of a benevolent being pour out, and saw a statuesque, graceful woman’s form reach to embrace him. Tears sprung from Leith’s eyes to feel this goddess’ benevolent joy reaching out to him like the World Shaper herself; he wanted nothing more than her vision of love and glory, pouring all through him now via her emissary’s gaze.

But even as Leith’s heart opened to embrace that bliss, even as his body shook and shuddered, beginning to collapse to his knees to feel her miracles pour through him and wanting that not just for his countrymen but for the entire world, he felt his own internal magic open wide. Like a seething tide, the vast power of his Werus et Khehem wyrria surged open in that moment, roaring out like a thousand lions in the waning day. In a tremendous rush of living fire, the power of the Wolf and Dragon hurtled from Leith with a boom in silent day, rocking everyone around him and hammering the God-Queen’s army even as it slammed into the red cliffs behind him. Boulders crashed from the cliffs and sea-birds screamed, their nests scorched by his sudden flames even as the creature Rhune slammed up a hand to create a hard wind, thrusting that fire away from the parlay group.

But even as Leith’s own internal conflict rioted, he understood its cause. Bending his knee to anyone was not in his nature; it was not like a Dragon to allow himself to be chained, no matter the promise. And as he resisted the God-Queen’s tremendous sending through her emissary, the power of his blast making the chariot’s horses rear as they were singed by his fire, the God-Queen’s general was thrown off his balance. It broke his tremendous gaze from Leith’s – but not before Leith saw something flash through the God-Queen’s bright eyes in his vision. Red took him in that moment, a sea of bloody crimson, pouring out from her gaze. And as Leith felt something more terrible than he had ever experienced thunder through him like a howling wind, seeking to devour him from the bright goddess’ gaze, he knew his real enemy.

And screamed, thrusting that vision of utter destruction out of his mind – even as it took him with its red, red eyes.

Collapsing onto his spear thrust into the sand, Leith breathed hard as he gripped the weapon with both hands, shuddering hard from that last vision of crimson death. Deep inside, he felt only despair for a long moment, knowing to the foundations of his soul what those red, red eyes would cost him if he let them in, if he let them take him.

But then battle flared up in his soul as he promised his everything to throw down that terrible darkness he’d felt. And with a massive inhalation, Leith Alodwine, Scion of Khehem, Captain of the Wolf and Dragon, and son of the King, found his steadiness once more.

His head snapping up, Leith found his feet, strong like a mountain now as he pinned the recovering emissary with his gaze. Focusing the bright fury of his wyrria into a blazing white spear inside his mind, Leith thrust a terrible fire like a falling star down through their mind-connection, scorching deep inside the God-Queen’s emissary. As the emissary screamed in pain, his eyes burst into flame, burning white to Leith’s indomitable wyrria. As Leith roared like a lion, the man screamed, collapsing over his chariot’s edge, blind now as his horses screamed in terror.

And then Leith raised his spear – hurling the wrath of his wyrria out and lifting the sand before him all along the line in a million razor-sharp spears of death.

Light Before Darkness

NEW EXCERPT! Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1

Jean Lowe Carlson