Welcome to our first Doggone Good Read. Every week we’ll post a short excerpt from a new or upcoming title.
Our premiere Doggone Good Read is . . . HOW TO SLAY A DRAGON, Bill Allen’s funny middle-grade fantasy.
Enjoy an excerpt!
HOW TO SLAY A DRAGON (brief synopsis)
They call him Greghart, The Dragonslayer
But Greg Hart can’t slay a dragon. He’d be lucky to win a fight against one of the smaller girls at school.
His only real skill is that he can run faster than any other twelve-year-old boy in his class, a necessity, since that’s who he’s usually running from. Oh, it’s not like he’s never been the hero at the center of an adventure. It’s just the kind of adventures he’s been involved with have always been the made-up kind he’s written about in his journal.
Now the magicians of Myrth have yanked Greg into a strange new world, where the monsters he must run from are far scarier—and hungrier—than anything he’s ever run from before. He tries to tell everyone there’s been a mistake. Ruuan is a very large dragon, while Greg, on the other hand, is neither large nor a dragon. He’s barel
y much of a boy. Unfortunately, such trivialities could never stop the people of Myrth from believing Greg will rescue King Peter’s daughter from Ruuan. After all, Greg has been named in a prophecy, and no prophecy has ever been wrong before.
Why, Greg wonders, does he have to be at the heart of the first one that is?
Greg Finds Himself In A Very Odd Place
“Is he alive?”
“Of course he’s alive. Give him room. He may be a hero, but he still needs to breathe.”
When Greg opened his eyes his first reaction was to close them again instantly. This turned out to be his second reaction as well. He might have given it a third go had one of the hooded figures hovering over him not poked him with a sharp stick before he could get to it. Instead Greg yelped, and his eyes popped open.
He was no longer in the woods. He lay on a hard flagstone surface lit by a dim, flickering light. What little air managed to squeeze its way to him reeked of something familiar, though Greg couldn’t quite put a finger on it, and wasn’t sure he would if he could.
Greg shrank back as the surrounding figures drifted closer. Everywhere he looked, nothing but black robes and sticks. Inside the many hoods, only darkness. Finally one figure leaned over and peered down at him, and Greg felt a glimmer of relief at seeing the shadowed face of a man, even if that face was scowling.
“Doesn’t look like much of a warrior to me,” the man said in an icy voice that would have made Death himself envious. “Are you sure you got the right one?”
“Of course, Mordred,” said another. “Look at his eyes.”
“Those are warrior eyes, all right,” said a third. “My Uncle Cedric had eyes just like ’em—only his were blue now that I think about it, and more bloodsho—”
“Yes, yes, Dimitrius,” Icy-Voiced Man nearly spat. “We all remember Cedric. Why do you suppose his feet are wet?”
“Uncle Cedric didn’t have wet feet.”
“Quiet, everyone,” said the man who had poked Greg. “Stand back, you’re smothering him.” He jabbed Greg again, but Greg sent him shuffling quickly backward by yelling twice as loudly as before.
“Careful, Agni,” someone shouted. “I think you hurt him.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know who this is?”
“I say we find out,” said Icy-Voiced Man. He raised one hand, causing Greg to flinch, but he was just drawing back his hood. His dark eyes stared without compassion past his stringy black hair as he locked gazes with Greg. “Who are you, boy? Tell us your name.”
“W-what?” said Greg, his voice two octaves higher than normal. He surprised himself by wishing it were Manny Malice staring down at him. Only, where was Manny? Or Kristin? For that matter, where were the woods behind his house?
“See. I told you the boy was no hero.”
“Wait,” came a voice from behind. “Give him a chance, Mordred. He’s probably just disoriented from the trip. Go ahead, sir, tell him who you are.”
One by one the remaining figures lowered their hoods. Greg was relieved to see that beneath each was a face, some gleeful, others excited or anxious, a few that might have even been wary, but none as disapproving as the one from the man named Mordred.
“I-I’m Greg,” he told them. “Greg Hart.” Throughout the room men gasped.
“Wait,” Mordred commanded, holding up a hand for silence. He leaned closer and stared, as if daring Greg to lie to him. “Tell us, boy, are you from Earth?”
Greg swallowed hard before replying. “Do I look like an alien?”
Mordred’s expression gave no hint of what he might be thinking.
“Where else would I be from?” Greg clarified.
One man slapped his knee and laughed. “I knew it!” A few others clapped, though they stopped rather abruptly when Mordred directed his stare their way.
A voice called out, “You did it, Lucky. You did it.”
A boy about Greg’s age stepped forward and hovered over Greg, his mouth drawn into a wide smile, his green eyes gleaming. Unlike the others, he wore a bright orange tunic and tights that clashed badly with his even brighter red hair. “Of course,” he boasted. “Did you have any doubts that he’s the dragon slayer?”
“Plenty,” someone shouted.
