Extracts from Chapter One & Two of ‘White Mountain’ – Book 1 of The Darkling Chronicles:
The deepening sun scorched the snowy drifts turning them cherry pink, as it cast its dying rays over the peaks and popular winter resorts of the skiing elite.
Shadows of dusk lengthened, as lights twinkled in the valley below. Above the hustle and bustle of bistro and café life, chic alpine lodges, ski schools and cable cars, White Mountain loomed.
Its towering flanks gleamed in the fading light, its secret heart still safe, still undisturbed …the ancient ancestral home of an old sorcerer.
The next day dawned bright and clear. Sunlight streamed through narrow slit-like windows cut high in the mountainside. It was a cold beautiful September morning. Gralen’s cavernous room and the corridors outside echoed with the big dragon’s snoring. Mr. Agyk had had an unusually fitful sleep, full of worrying dreams and dark shifting images. He was tired and restless when he awoke and had a distinct feeling of apprehension. Belloc’s distressing cryptic message kept playing through his mind. He shook his head and carefully lifted the heavy latch of Gralen’s door. It creaked open. The dragon was fast asleep and snoring on his huge bed of willowgrass and snootledown feathers, his wings wrapped tightly round him like great leathery sheets.
The wizard stood framed in the doorway for a moment watching his old friend. A stream of autumnal light slowly crept down the walls towards the slumbering figure, igniting thousands of floating dust specks in its wake, like a trail of tiny falling stars. He loved mornings, the slow awakening of the world, the beginning of things. Gralen of course was quite the opposite. He loved the night, especially for flying, and if his stomach didn’t wake him demanding food, he could quite easily sleep the whole morning away and most of the afternoon.
“Rise and shine!” the wizard called at last. he waved a hand at the roof and part of it promptly slid back, opening the room to the sky and the pale morning sun.
Gralen stirred and opened a bleary eye.
