Prologue

A shiny red ruby lay shattered in a sandy desert; there were over a hundred pieces, and each one glittered and sparkled in the intense sunlight. The slow calm breeze that was blowing gently before now turned strong and forceful, pushing the golden grains of sand everywhere. The wind's cries echoed around the silent desert. Not a single person saw the shards of glass being whisked away from each other, never to be reunited.

The strong gale began to die down and the sun once again came out but the pieces were no longer shimmering. Each part of the stone now looked ordinarily as they were no longer together, spread out over the desert, miles apart. As time took its toll, the pieces sank deeper and deeper into the ground.

However, this stone was not always shattered; it was once whole, enriched with colour and power, giving the person who yielded it tremendous strength and agility. But there were many other things not even its master knew it could truly do, therefore in the wrong hands it was a deadly weapon.

She found this out on one dark night. You see, the owner of this stone was not a human; in fact she despised humanity so much she wanted to destroy it…but it did not turn out how she planned.

The demon stood in the middle of the dark desert, her long thin hands were grasped tightly around the ruby that shown brightly, lighting up her cold features. Light blue skin shimmered slightly in the red glow of the stone as black soulless eyes scanned the desert.

She then decided that now was the perfect time to start the ritual.

"Alma da dem. To na distro bemg bom, bom, bom temcondus!" she chanted in her native language.

The ground beneath her feet gave a tremendous tremble; the red ruby's light grew stronger, casting a hue of crimson over not only the demon's face but the whole desert.

Then suddenly there was no more words spoken in the strange language; only a strangled cry from the demon, for an arrow had plunged deep in her leg. Black blood oozed out of the wound and spilled over her blue skin where there were red scales scattered around in groups.

She turned around and saw a man a few yards away, behind a sand dune, with a crossbow aimed at her. She turned away from him and continued calling strange words, but once again she was interrupted as another arrow soared though the air. This time, however, she was ready; the arrow did not penetrate her flesh, but landed in her outstretched hands where it was crushed into dust.
The man did not flinch; he discarded his crossbow on the ground and unsheathed a shining sword from its leather case on his back.

The demon laughed; she found it highly amusing that he was so willing to stop her. She laughed so hard the hood of the cloak that she was wearing fell off and her long fiery red hair came tumbling out, falling into place in perfect waves.

She stopped chuckling as she saw the man raise his sword to attack but she was much faster then he and was behind him before the man could even strike with his blade. She grabbed his neck with her sharp pointy black nails and sniffed him.

"You're the Stone Protector," she said in a crackly cold voice.

The man that was struggling to get out of the demon's grasp was indeed the Protector of the stone and would do whatever it took to keep it away from the demon; it was his destiny, his duty. His father had done so, as had his grandfather, and they had all been waiting for this one day to come.

The protector felt his olive-tanned arms being sliced with a sharp finger causing blood to ooze out of the deep gash.
The man closed his eyes and swiftly sliced his blade through the air.

The demon let go of him and looked at the small gash that was now on her arm. She hissed angrily at him and aimed a powerful punch at his head but he dodged it, retaliating instead with a kick to her chest, which made the stone to fly out of her hands and crash to the desert ground.

The protector saw the demon's black eyes dart to the stone but she was much too far away and he was closing in on it. They both sprinted for the glittering ruby, but the demon was too late; his feet had already crashed onto the stone but not before the demon had placed one finger on top of the stone in one last attempt to get it.
The demon screamed as her body began to fade away leaving nothing but red smoke.

The protector fell to the floor, choking; his hands reached out for the stone's pieces but he could not see them anymore as the deadly crimson smoke had clouded them.
The man's eyes slowly closed and the cherry smoke clouded around; slowly the wind began to pick up sweeping the fragments up into the air.