This fantastical tale
is retold in the first person by the egotistical dragon himself, Dragonlord
Bane Castellan. Fascinated by humans and
civilized behaviour, he moves to a backwater village called Little Musking determined
to ingratiate himself with his neighbours and become civilized. He adopts an unwanted farmer’s son, Arden
Barleigh, as his ward the better to learn civilized human ways.
Naturally, Dragonlord
Bane experiences difficulties. For one
thing, he has his own dragonish nature to contend with; a habit of always
getting his own way (who is going to contradict a dragon?), a tendency to eat
people when provoked (preferably roasted), and a certain obtuseness in regards
to human diplomacy (outing the local mayor’s son as a thief).
Dragonlord Bane’s
other major difficulty is gaining acceptance by his new neighbours. Everybody distrusts his civilized resolutions. The local villagers have an aversion to being
eaten by a dragon, and so Dragonlord Bane can’t find human servants for his
manor house - he is forced to import hobgoblins. The local fairy godmother is suspicious of
his motives and keeps him under a most unwelcome surveillance.
Worst of all, there’s
an evil wizard (the Royal Wizard Naldamus) plotting to take over the kingdom,
and he too does not trust Dragonlord Bane’s avowal that he has settled in
Little Musking seeking a quiet, civilized life.
To make sure Dragonlord Bane does not interfere with his plans, the
Royal Wizard Naldamus has the said dragon transformed into a chicken.
At this point,
Dragonlord Bane’s civilized resolutions spectacularly unravel. Although a chicken, he still behaves exactly
as he always has, as a dragon. And the
dragon wants revenge. Life for Arden in particular
becomes hard, smuggling an illegal chicken that persists in acting like a
dragon out of the kingdom to find a cure for the evil spell.
In the end, though, it
takes a dragon to save the kingdom from the evil Royal Wizard and set things
aright. Well, right for Dragonlord Bane,
anyway.
The Dragon Lord of
Little Musking is a rollicking tale of high adventure, with a kingdom to be
saved, a beautiful princess to be won, shining knights in armour, and most
important of all, dragons.
Paperback edition
EPUB edition
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