Shadow Of The Mountain Read Online Free PDF

letters so fast that it frightened some of the other villagers. They joked that he was possessed of the mind of a Lagrean. These had been ancient scholars, powerful, and now vanished from the lands of men.
    Tenlon half-wished that that were true. It would have explained why he was so different.
    In the days of his youth he had consumed every scrap of written parchment to be found in his small village, and soon there was little of interest left for the tiny scholar. After that his mother had taken him to a neighboring town three miles to the west for more books, texts, or scrolls; anything that was worth reading was read.
    He asked questions of the townsfolk—old seamen or retired soldiers, merchants and travelers—listening to them, absorbing their words, learning of a world beyond his patches of forest and looming mountain borders. Everyone was always polite to the curious boy, especially the elderly. They would discuss countless topics: history and the stars, distant lands of desert and heavy jungle, oceans that never ended and peoples long forgotten. And Tenlon sat in rapture, content to listen, remembering it all. When the stories ran dry, there was always something to read in one town or the next and anything bound in leather that he found fascinating, he devoured.
    The stories he loved the deepest were of the dragons, most especially the mighty bronze Draxakis, ruler of sky and cloud. Victorious tales of the Amorian fleet were painted with such stunning clarity in his mind that they became part of him, carved into his spirit, his very soul. Since then his life had been drawn to the wondrous beasts, and the need to study and work with the dragons arose within him as naturally as a thirsty man might reach for a pitcher of cool water. But to do this meant acceptance into the scholarly academies and it took more than dragon lore to gain entrance to their hallowed halls.
    As young as the age of seven, he was able to read entire passages of text and recite them verbatim, purely from memory, and his appetite for knowledge only grew. Soon his mind became a vast library that never filled, with new wings and corridors always under construction, shiny clean floors of white marble and shelves of texts that rose up to cloudy heights. He remembered all of it: each word, every page, each story.
    Such skills were never held in high esteem amongst the other youths of his village, who would constantly be thrashing each other with fists or wooden swords, coming home bruised and bleeding. There were few friends during those early days, but he hardly noticed. Every minute was spent working, learning, preparing for a future that was still just a dream.
    Tenlon was not the least bit saddened when the village boys reached the age of eight and most were sent to various academies to begin their training, the first of many steps to the Amorian cloaks.
    Their departure did not bother Tenlon at all. He did not wish for the life of the soldier, but to work with the Amorian fleet. Creatures of unfathomable magic and beauty, dragons were capable of devastating violence and destruction. Though now there were few left in Endura, their numbers nothing next to what they once were.
    Still, compared to the power of such wondrous beasts, man was just a guest on this planet, thriving to civilized society beneath their indifference to our presence. Even if their numbers were dwindling, it was still a dragon’s land and by battling only each other and not man, they allowed us to share it.
    Tenlon’s passion had grown to an obsession and he found his life within them. Through creatures he’d never even seen before but for his imagination, he found direction.
    Persuaded by his mother’s countless letters to the capital, two old mages came to his village to meet with him at the age of eight. They were from an Amorian academy in the city of Iralic, and they would either be the saviors of his life or the executioners of his dreams.
    The two asked him various