Chapter 2: Senyor Jordi i El Drac - excerpt

       Many centuries ago, on top of the barren and windswept stone peaks of the Pyrenees Mountains, a knight and his squire rode to the click, cluck of their horses’ hooves against the rocky eastern ridge. They had been riding to this sound for days on their way to the kingdom of Barcelona, when the wail of a weeping woman cut through the gray air, stopping them in their tracks. So horrifying was the cry that the young squire’s face turned white and his normally steady steed, Nano, bucked, neighed, and stopped with a snort and shake of the head. “What was that, Senyor Jordi?” said the boy as he stroked the smooth brown fur of his nervous horse’s neck.
      “There is only one cry painful and powerful enough to reach us up here my dear, Jaume,” replied the old knight. “And that is the cry of a mother who has lost her child.”
       Lifting the dented visor of his helmet, Senyor Jordi squinted his large brown eyes and peered down his long, beak-like nose as he followed the steep slope to where it eased at the trees of the Carlac Forest that stretched north and south like a black band against the brown mountainside. Beyond it were the gray stone and red-tiled roofs of a walled village near a dark lake. He rubbed the white stubble on his thin and worn face, closed his eyes and sighed, “Come on. We must see what we can do.”