Road of Dragons – Part I by Mark B. Gilgam

Dragons don't really exist – do they? His wanderings take Kitt to Nurkande, a city on the border of the red desert Kisil Kora, where trade has come to a standstill on the caravan roads. The mythic Dragon-Lord has risen and loosed his minions to steal, torture, and murder to find the Rosary of Varakhsha, forty-four cherry-sized, rose-coloured dragon pearls of immense value and strange power.

Kitt meets the rogue Salawar, who has great plans with his band of gentlemen of fortune. For a blacksmith, there is little to do - for a hired assassin, all the more. Nurkande sees several massacres and the authorities mop up the bloody shreds and look for culprits to arrest.
Amidst the spreading chaos and terror, forty Emerald Princesses give all to protect their Darling King, the last descendant of water fairies.