Who is Lyam Draken

Today we will talk about who Lyam Draken is.  For those of you who have read the first book, this will come as no surprise, but for those of you that have never read the book, this will give you an idea of how this character thinks.

Lyam is an orphan, found in the forest when he is just a baby.  Raised by a former tracker in service to the King, he is taught from an early age to act just like everyone else.  As a child he never understood why it was that he was constantly told to conform to society, or why it was that he was never allowed to show emotions.

In his teen years, Lyam starts to notice the difference between himself and the people of his village.  He is not nearly as muscular as the other boys his age, but he is also a little taller than they are.  When he and all the other boys his age join the local militia, as required by his village, he discovers that his speed is hampered by wearing the heavy armor most of the village men prefer to wear, and instead chooses to wear the leather armor the local hunters wear.

Lyam spends his two years in the village militia, learning how to use his agility as an advantage when sparring with the rest of the militia members.  When the local army comes through, one of the scouts that travels with the unit of soldiers sees him, and impressed with his abilities invites him to join them.

Spending a few years with the scouts, Lyam learns more about the daily life of the army, and works hard to impress the officers in order to be promoted to tracker.  Once invited to become a tracker, he is sent off to training with veteran trackers, none of them knowing that he had some early training from his foster father.

The training which Lyam endured to become a tracker was rigorous, out of the dozen young men that started it, only three made it to the final test.  Having watched nine young men die during training, Lyam soon found himself unconcerned about survival, but instead was more concerned about proving he was better than all those who had looked down on him for being different.

The final test turned out to be the easiest test Lyam had ever taken, simply get from one side of a small forest to the other side alive.  He was quite surprised to find out that one of the men from his class had died in the forest already.  Entering the forest, he followed the tracks of the last person to enter, until they suddenly stopped looking around he could find no sign of what may have killed his fellow student.  Continuing on, he soon found other signs of where others had died.  Just before reaching the far side of the forest, he felt a cold sensation along his spine, but when he looked around, he could not find a reason for it.

In the end it was just Lyam and one other that successfully graduated the tracker training, and he found himself assigned to the Royal Trackers, the elite troops of the kingdom.


And thus ends the history of how Lyam became a tracker, this information is summarized in book one, but I figured I would expand on it a bit more here, for those that are interested.