Dragon's Tear - A B Smith - Bog

For eons the great majestic Dragons controlled the world. Collectors of wealth and beauty they amassed vast hordes, hordes many humans sought to pilfer, fortune hunters everyone, they often found themselves pitted against these gigantic beasts in their quests for riches. From his humble beginnings in the small hamlet of Friend to the snow capped mountain range of the great Cascades Namsilat had chased his illusive fortune. Most times spending more on the information than he ever took in loot, until, in the unlikely benefactor of an old dwarf the fates smiled on him, not always a good thing. Airapal was called to be the high priestess for her people, the SilverLeaf Elves of the deep Willamette Valley that was before a Rogue Red Dragon had killed her life mate. To set right the scales she took off from her post to hunt down and slay the Red, a life debt she called it, others saw it as revenge. FireClaw was one of the last of her race to exist off the sanctuary of the Dragon Isle, rogue they called her. Yet she had been entrusted with the responsibility of one of the most treasured artifacts known to her species, an artifact. It was that artifact that some foolish human had stolen while she was in her growth slumber, and she intended to get it back. Namsilat stumbles into the lair of sleeping FireClaw just as she is coming out of her sleeping cycle. Heeding the warning of the old dwarf as best as he could remember he grabs what he can fit in his small sack and makes good his escape. Only to discover that one item would prove to be harder to get rid of than it was to acquire the Tear of IO, perhaps, the most powerful artifact in all Dragon tongue. When he cannot fetch the price he desires for his bounty, he sets out on an adventure to the human city of PortsLand. On the road to PortsLand, he runs into a would-be young Elvin woman in peril. As he prepares to rescue her from three brigands' he discovers she is in no need of saving as Airapal quickly dispatches two of the would be assailants and he barely has time to get a shot off on the third. After a brief stand off the two strangers decide to travel a time together to the human city. Once in the city they discover they have more in common than they knew. While FireClaw now tracked the foolish Namsilat, Airapal was tracking her and soon the three's lives would become locked in a life and death game of cat and mouse. As they flee the city and the Red, they fall in with the misfit Brothers Four, a wandering band of adventures that refuse to let them go it alone, in hopes of making a true name for themselves. As the three chase each other over the realms of Coeur d' Alene they are unaware an even greater evil pursues them. The true Red that had killed Airapal's life mate, the same creature that had set Namsilat on the journey that lead him to FireClaw's lair, in hopes that he could steal the item Namsilat now processed. Astre a rival red dragon seeking power and control of the Dragon race had set in motion the situations that now brought them to their destiny. On the snow covered fields of Mount Adams, they meet in a great battle that ends in the defeat of their common enemy and the kinship of the three unlikely friends. Namsilat returns to the SilverLeaf Valley with Airapal for a time and the Brothers go off chasing easy loot. FireClaw relinquishes the tear a returns to her simple life of hunting and sleeping awaiting the next adventure the fates would hand them.