Support Your Local Dragon
Posted: 2004-04-07 01:34am
It is with the stunning clarity of hindsight that I tell you I should have just incinerated the idiot where he stood. It all started one chill morning near the end of winter. The snows were melting, the sun was shining, and I was nursing a hangover the likes of which no mortal with the possible exception of the Stonelings had ever experienced. The source of the hangover was of course from the previous evening’s New Year’s celebration which is probably why none of my human neighbors were awake enough to warn me of the knight’s approach. I never liked knights. Always showing up at your doorstep ranting and carrying on about how you’re a foul beast who ravages the countryside and demands virgin sacrifices. Never mind that I myself have never ravaged much of anything that wasn’t dinner and don’t have the slightest interest in human women virginal or not. While we’re on the subject of knights slaying dragons lets get one thing out in the open. Knights never have and likely never will kill dragons with any degree if success. I guarantee you that for every wild tale you’ve heard of a knight killing a dragon (and chances are that most of the ones you’ve heard are just distortions of the same story) there are probably around five hundred that end with the knight baked inside his own armor. Which brings me back to the nuisance plaguing me on what was to be one of the single most irritating days of my life. He was big as humans go and covered head to foot in full plate armor with a mirror polish. If I hadn’t been too busy with the fact that it felt as if my brain was going to dig its way out of my skull and go for a stroll I probably wouldn’t have needed a warning from the villagers because I would have spotted him miles off. But I had been, and now I’d have to deal with him. You could tell he’d never done this before. For one he was on foot and brandishing a sword, a weapon no man can swing with sufficient strength to get through the scales of a full-grown dragon. For that sort of penetration you need full armor, a really big horse, a lance, and an entirely impractical amount of clear ground to build up speed over. For another he had gotten me fully awake and in a bad temper instead of just doing me a favor and cutting my head off while I was too busy feeling miserable to hurt him. The third tip-off was the fact that he was still standing in front of me. The front is not the part of an angry dragon you want to be looking at, that is the end with the tendency to cause sudden, sharp increases in the local temperature after all. In fact most dragons less tolerant than I am tend to have a vaguely knight-shaped silhouette permanently burned into the floor as a result of knights making this mistake. How so many members of a particular human profession could be so uniformly stupid I’ll never be able to say. All this time that I was staring at the thought of a knight showing up at my cave the human was spending getting the necessary knightly speech and prayers to whatever particular deity he followed out of the way. He got them out of the way, and that’s when he whacked me in the head with that sword. It didn’t draw blood of course; in fact my scales hurt the blade more than the blade hurt me. However with my head the way it was it certainly didn’t help things in any way. Fighting instincts overrode my control for a moment and I surged to my feet. This would prove to be simultaneously embarrassing and hilarious as my stomach decided it had had enough and heaved. The force of the ejection was sufficient to blow the knight off his feet, and if the smell hadn’t knocked him out the rock his helmeted head found did. I staggered a bit, and then took a moment to glower at the unconscious human as the juices from my stomach began etching some interesting patterns in his suit. The temptation to flambé him was strong, but I’m generally not the sort to go straight to homicide, especially not with someone as obviously mentally deficient as this joker. So I did the next best thing, grabbed one of his legs with a paw, dragged him to the entrance of my cave and heaved him out. This might not seem quite as mean spirited as I make it sound but then I haven’t yet mentioned that my cave is near the top of a rather steep hill now have I? The armored figure bounced twice with a sound like a dropped silverware tray then began rolling and making a racket that my head found horrendous but that my brain found quite satisfying. I turned back to my home’s entrance quickly wanting to clean the place up before he got to the rocks at the base of the hill. A quick exhalation later and the remains of last night’s dinner were reduced to ash. It still smelled awful but that would fade if I let the cave air out for the day. With that chore completed I turned around once more and looked down the hill just in time to catch the very satisfying crash of my early morning antagonist slamming into one of the rocks near the bottom of the hill. I assumed that as a reasonable individual this would tell Sir Dunderhead or whatever his name was that dragon slaying just wasn’t his thing. My mistake was in assuming he was a reasonable person.
Leaving my little armored inconvenience to his trip I decided to answer another call, the strange half-gurgle, half-lurch that was my stomach’s way of demanding food and protesting the idea at the same time. Now, flying with a hangover is not something I would recommend as a good idea to anyone, especially when said hangover makes the morning sun feel like it’s burning its way into the back of your skull through your eyes. On the other hand I’d done this before on a number of occasions and thus I was able to make the trip from my cave to the village at the base of my hill without crashing more than six or seven times. At the outskirts of the village I stopped for a moment to clean myself off since it just would not do to show up for breakfast covered in clods of dirt and moss. I was about halfway through this rather time-consuming process when a painfully familiar voice reached my throbbing head.
“Halt knave-beast! Thou shalt not escape the wrath of Sir Warren George Wallace the third so easily!” My eye twitched and I swung my neck around to stare at the dented, mud-covered, figure plodding towards me unsteadily. It has to be those helmets of theirs, they must compress their brains or something, it’s the only rational explanation for how this particular specimen couldn’t have gotten the hint. “Thou hast befouled my family’s armor and besmirched my fine name demonspawn and I intend to take compensation from your blasted hide!”
It took me a moment to decode just what it was exactly he’d said to me. That’s another annoying thing about knights, they always insist on all that ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ crap that nobody else uses anymore because it’s supposed to be noble or something. My stomach growled/lurched again and I gave him a glare that would have incinerated him on the spot if there were any justice in the world.
“Look Warren or George or whichever one of those your name is. I just want to finish cleaning up and go have my breakfast, can we do this later?”
“Hah! Undoubtedly some poor defenseless maiden, know this beast I shall not idly stand by and.. wait, later? Are you challenging me?”
“Well not rea-“
“Accepted! I shall meet you in battle here in approximately one-hour foul creature! Now be gone to your hideous repast whilst I prepare.” And with that he simply turned away and stomped off. Not that it really mattered since I was too busy staring in complete befuddlement at where he’d been standing. It was nearly a quarter of an hour before my stomach informed my brain that if it didn’t get moving soon I’d have to gnaw one of my own legs off to stave off my hunger.
The Mallory homestead was so quaint and cozy you could choke on the sheer power of cliché it radiated. There in the center was the cozy little cottage, just big enough for a family of four with its thatch roof and carved door. Smoke drifted lazily from the small, brick chimney and carried with it the smell of some of Dam Mallory’s fresh baked bread, a scent so heavenly that it made me wish sometimes dragons weren’t carnivorous so I could eat more of the stuff without making myself sick. Though this morning in particular the smell didn’t seem quite so sweet, but then that probably had something to do with my stomach doing a rather impressive gymnastics display, or at least that’s what it felt like. From behind the wooden fence came the faint laughter of the Mallory’s two children and the distressed mooing of their cattle as the bovines caught my scent on the wind. My armored paw gingerly rapped on the door, and a moment later the lady of the house pulled it open. Laura Mallory was a striking woman as far as humans went, and with a mind and personality as beautiful as she was physically. In fact it had lead to more than a little friendly discussion in town as to whether or not she was even human. She was like that dream woman (well for humans, for me it involved an older lady dragon with a large hoard and small appetite, but I digress) that you knew couldn’t exist because she was too good to be true, but there she was. I assumed her husband was still in bed sleeping it off and expected he’d be at it for quite a bit. The middle-aged man had somehow managed to imbibe almost as much of Master Callahan’s rotgut beer as I had before he passed out. How the man had managed to not die of alcohol poisoning was a mystery to me, though rumor said there was stoneling in his family tree somewhere, however despite his tolerance for alcohol I figured that was a face saving rumor started by those who’d lost a few too many drinking contests against him.
“Ah Ashrak, how are ye this mornin’?” She said with a smile that somehow made my head hurt just a little bit less and settled my stomach right down.
“I’ve had better, but I suppose that’s what I get for drinking so much last night. I came by for breakfast and to pay you for last month’s feed.” As the words came I carefully sifted through one of the pouches inside my mouth and lifted out a teardrop shaped stone like a pearl but with a greenish tinge and about the size of a hen’s egg. A dragon pearl.
It had taken some doing to convince the Mallory’s that I wasn’t playing some sick game with them when I first moved in and offered to pay to feed from their cattle herd each month. Even the likes of Laura had been suspicious of my actions at first, not her fault of course. Dragons just didn’t have all that good a reputation as a result of the stories that tended to circulate around the lands of man, most of them either misinterpretations of a dragons actions or the result of the occasional less than civilized member of our race. I will say though it’s hardly fair for us as most every people living in this world has its bad apples. Unfortunately for us all those same brutes tend to have exploits far more spectacular and story worthy than the average citizen. However after some cajoling they’d agreed to the terms, probably because they thought I’d burn their house down or something if they hadn’t. The relationship had warmed considerably though when at the end of the month I delivered a dragon pearl the size of a chicken egg to their doorstep. Selling the pearl had been enough to not only replace the losses to their herd but actually expand it a bit. After a few more months where I never ate more than I’d agreed to and delivered a pearl promptly on the first of each month, I’d seen enough of the Mallory’s and they’d seen enough of me to count them among my friends. The friendship had also given me a toehold through which to gradually acclimate the villagers to my presence. Eventually proximity and familiarity did their work and I was accepted as just another neighbor, albeit one with scales and of quite unusual size. However I also had a tendency to pay in dragon pearls, often in fact to an amount far in excess of what I was buying was actually worth. I don’t particularly have much of a problem with this as despite the fact that we dragons have a certain love for things that glitter we don’t much like the idea of sullying our hoards with what is, when you get down to the core of it, the results of our body disposing of those bits of food we can’t get out from between our teeth. Human wizards however go positively bonkers over the things, which makes them quite valuable among my somewhat squidgy friends with the nice livestock.
“Ah thank ye. The cow’s are around back as usual, do be sure to clean up your mess though.” She said in that tone that pretty much any mother, no matter her species, was apt to use on children she knew had a habit of leaving a mess behind. I ducked my head in acknowledgement then turned away from the house and stepped over the fence. As I did I could hear her calling the children in from their play to eat breakfast and consequently avoid the rather gruesome sight of me having a meal.
An hour later I found myself in a much less foul mood waiting in the indicated field for Sir Wallace to put in an appearance so I could sort this entire mess out, go home, and sleep off what was left of my hangover. Sure enough he came trotting up on ye olde noble steed, the animal armored up almost as heavily as he was it seemed. Not like it would seriously matter if he were fighting a dragon. Contrary to what most knights told you, dragons do not often go to battle with knights using tooth and claw. It drags things out and most importantly it lets the other guy usually get in a few useless whacks with their sword or whatever they brought so that their squire or whoever survived could tell the tale of how he died a valiant death in close combat with a dragon. On the other hand if he brandishes the sword and he gets incinerated a moment later it tends to help discourage those types who think dying well is as good as living. It’s really not fair but then I and most other dragons see no reason to play fair with somebody who shows up at our home uninvited with the intention of removing one or more vital body parts from their proper place
Unlike the villagers I didn’t have a clock but I would have been willing to bet good money that when Sir Wallace came riding up exactly one hour would have passed. He just seemed the sort who’d do something like that. The fool had managed to clean the dirt off his armor, however there was very little he could do about the impressive collection of dents and dings it had acquired in his little downhill adventure. Undoubtedly he’d go about saying they had been inflicted by my “horrific, scimitar-like claws” or some other such overly descriptive nonsense if he survived this. As if my claws wouldn’t have turned that tin suit of his into a sieve if I’d really gone after him with them.
“So oh foul hellspawn. Thou hast overcome thy natural cowardice and decided to face me in honorable battle! It would appear I gave you far too little credit.” I was tempted to agree with that second part, but then after what I’d seen of how his brain worked so far he’d probably think I was agreeing to the foul hellspawn bit.
“Look, this is completely unnecessary, can’t we just work things,” He didn’t let me finish the sentence; instead he gave a sharp tug on the reins of his horse and sent it into a headlong charge towards me.
“Have at you!” I spent an instant staring at him in disbelief then had to overcome the urge to simply let the horse crash into me and show him what that got him. After all it was hardly the horse’s fault his owner was an idiot and the poor thing shouldn’t have to pay for that unfortunate set of circumstances. So I did the next best thing for wounding a man’s ego. As the thundering charger came within reach I casually extended one foreleg and slapped him off his saddle, but not hard enough to jerk him completely free of his stirrups. There was that silverware tray crash again as he hit the ground, his right leg firmly tangled in that side’s stirrup, and it was accompanied by a rather satisfying collection of grunts and yelps as he was bounced and dragged along by the horse. I noted with some amusement that the animal was heading back towards the base of my hill and its collection of stones and small boulders. I couldn’t help it and snickered with a bit of malicious glee before turning back to the village to finish my day’s errands.
This however did not turn out to be nearly so easy as it sounded as at seemingly every turn I was confronted by an increasingly banged up Sir Wallace, brandishing his little pig-sticker and roaring overly formal and poetic challenges and insults at me. To my credit I still managed to keep my temper and not use him as a chew toy, instead I simply did something else somewhat painful and humiliating to him like using his sword as a toothpick. Every dragon has their limits however, and I was fast approaching them. On the other hand crispy-frying a knight was almost certain to draw even more of the cretins to the area, so I did what I always did when I wanted advice. I went to the lodge.
The hall of the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Crafts was the largest building in town. Not from any sort of inflated sense of self-importance I might add though, but simply because I was a member. It was likewise because of this fact that the entire place was made out of stone, not that anyone had minded the expense since it meant more payments in dragon pearls. I knocked at the door and the cover of the eye-slit was pulled aside. A scratchy voice with a bit of a squeak at the end of it drifted to my ears from behind it.
“You who wishes to enter the Lodge of the Brotherhood must speak the password.”
“Charlie, open the door.”
“But you could be an infiltrator.” I gave a loud sigh, both partially because I was in no mood to deal with Charlie’s usual paranoid nonsense and because I had forgotten the password. Most of the others didn’t bother with it anyway.
“Charlie, honestly. It’s not like anybody is going to break in and steal Sister Beatrice’s cookie recipe, now open up.”
“But what about me ring? You could be a spy trying to get in and get me ring. You won’t though, it’s mine you understand, mine!”
“Yes, yes, yes and it makes you invisible and some dark lord or other wants it back or whatever the rest of that nonsense you spew about is. Look now Charlie either you open this door or I’m going to just walk through it.”
“You don’t frighten-“ About here is where I got tired of Charlie’s usual paranoid nonsense and did just what I’d threatened to do. I put one great paw up against the door and pushed. The locks (installed at Charlie’s insistence I might add) made a rather interesting noise when they snapped. So did Charlie when the door smacked him in the head and pinned him up against the wall. I made my way down the hall, not seeing the small, gremlin-like creature that followed in after me and took something off Charlie’s immobilized form though I would hear about this at length later when my paranoid little lodge brother finally worked himself loose but that’s for another time. It was only a matter of a few forward steps and a hard right turn before I found myself in the main hall. A half dozen of my lodge brothers were present, most of them nursing coffee or tea in a vain attempt to help them with their hangovers. I settled into my usual spot in the empty southwest corner of the room reserved for me and exchanged a few pleasantries with the others before getting down to business.
“Look guys, I’ve got this problem,” I said, trying to keep the volume of my voice down so as to not cause them any avoidable discomfort. “I’ve got this damn knight following me around all the time and I just can’t seem to get him to bugger off and leave me alone and my temper’s starting to get pretty stretched. Now normally I wouldn’t be much concerned but you know how these knights are. They hear one of their own got barbequed by a dragon and they all go rushing off to prove themselves by killing it. So I figured you guys might understand him a bit better, I mean he is human after all, what’s a good way to get him out of here that doesn’t involve me having to kill him or dismember him?”
“Have you tried just smacking him around a bit? You know, try and make it too painful and embarrassing to be worth killing you?” This from Mick, the local woodcutter who was casually picking unidentifiable bits of food from his beard
“Tried it, it doesn’t work. He just comes back and makes an even longer speech before trying again.”
“Well I could turn ‘im into a newt!” Reginald was the local potter and he seemed at times to have trouble remembering that it was his brother Harry who had all the magical talent. Said magician looked up from his book at his brother and scowled.
“For the last time Reggy, no you can’t. You make pots, I do spells not the other way around.”
“Could you turn him into a newt?” I asked, out of simple curiosity I assure you, most certainly not because I was considering it, no sir.
“Most assuredly not. That idea’s even dafter than that one Vines has. You know, the one where he says the world is shaped like a disc and sits on the back of a quartet of elephants?”
“What is an elephant anyway?” I’d heard Vines going on about this one day. It didn’t mean much to me though since I had absolutely no idea what an elephant was. Apparently neither did Harry since he just shrugged. “Oh well, it’s off topic anyway. Any other ideas?”
“Why not fake it?” Someone shouted from the other end of the table. This was followed by the offender being pelted with shoes, silverware, and bits of food rendered so unidentifiable with age they could have been perfect for use in Madam Lackey’s gumbo. I neglected to join in, mostly since I didn’t have anything to throw, but the idea stuck in my head, ricocheting around like Sister Diane’s cat that time it had gotten into the coffee grounds.
“Why couldn’t we fake it?” I said, the idea sounding better all the time. “Harry could do it. Just get him all gussied up in those magician’s school robes of his let him rattle off some of that gobbledygook human magicians use and I can make a big show out of roaring and thrashing about. Then when I stop moving he can pronounce me dead, the Knight’ll be satisfied and we can get everything here back to normal.” The others started muttering amongst themselves and slowly but surely our plan came together.
We kicked things off with a bit of a ruckus to attract the Sir Wallace. This consisted of Reggy and Mick running about like a pair of decapitated chickens and screaming their heads off while I did a lot of roaring and show fire breathing, though I was careful not to actually burn anything aside from the old barn that the Jordans had wanted me to get rid of sometime this week. Sure enough, right on cue Sir Wallace came charging out of the treeline waving his sword about just as Harry stepped out of his shop, adjusting a magicians robe that was about a size and a half too small for him. Well if he pulled this off I’d make sure he got one in his present size.
“Quickly noble Sir! Thou must distracteth yon drake so that I might slay it with my magic!” At this I whirled on Sir Wallace, rearing up and swiping with my forepaws like I’d seen lions do before. Wallace of course fell for this hook, line, and sinker, charging in with another ‘Have at you!’ and swinging around that sword of his in a manner that, while certainly all nice and brave looking, would have gotten him very dead against a dragon that meant to do him harm. This continued on for some minutes with Sir Wallace deluding himself into thinking he was hurting me, and I doing nothing to disillusion him of the idea by roaring myself hoarse whenever his sword glanced off my hide. All the while Harry kept outside the area we were circling through, chanting in a most convincing manner. I would later learn he was simply running through every swear word he knew in ancient Gloin in alphabetical order. He made it look good though, the litany of cussing accompanied by lots of flamboyant hand gestures. At last he uttered a final word in a shout, a word so foul I really can’t put it in this archive, and I began act two. From my two-legged stance I simply keeled over onto my back and began to do a lot of thrashing about and roaring. I was slightly amused to note that during the course of this I managed to hit Sir Wallace in his helmeted head with a rather large dirt clod. I kept this up until I felt my voice starting to give out and finally went limp, tongue lolling out, and eyes rolled up into my head. From there all I could do is lay there and listen as Wallace got up and limped his way over to Harry.
“Truly Sir Magician, you are a wizard of the highest order.”
“Nonsense Sir Knight! If not for your valiant close combat with the beast it wouldst surely have slain me before I could complete the Diputserauoy killing spell.” I had to keep from sniggering when I heard what he called this spell and was once again thankful that Sir Wallace was too stupid to figure it out.
“Aye that is the truth. Still, it is a true pleasure to have fought side by side with one such as thee. My only regret is that I am not permitted to stay and have a victory feast with thee. However I must be off for there are other such beasts to bring low in the world. Farewell to you Sir Magician.”
I can’t really tell you exactly what happened here. It’s reasonable of course to assume I heard him head off into the woods to find his horse or start down the road. But I didn’t hear this, or rather I heard about it later for you see by this point, I’d fallen into much desired slumber.
Leaving my little armored inconvenience to his trip I decided to answer another call, the strange half-gurgle, half-lurch that was my stomach’s way of demanding food and protesting the idea at the same time. Now, flying with a hangover is not something I would recommend as a good idea to anyone, especially when said hangover makes the morning sun feel like it’s burning its way into the back of your skull through your eyes. On the other hand I’d done this before on a number of occasions and thus I was able to make the trip from my cave to the village at the base of my hill without crashing more than six or seven times. At the outskirts of the village I stopped for a moment to clean myself off since it just would not do to show up for breakfast covered in clods of dirt and moss. I was about halfway through this rather time-consuming process when a painfully familiar voice reached my throbbing head.
“Halt knave-beast! Thou shalt not escape the wrath of Sir Warren George Wallace the third so easily!” My eye twitched and I swung my neck around to stare at the dented, mud-covered, figure plodding towards me unsteadily. It has to be those helmets of theirs, they must compress their brains or something, it’s the only rational explanation for how this particular specimen couldn’t have gotten the hint. “Thou hast befouled my family’s armor and besmirched my fine name demonspawn and I intend to take compensation from your blasted hide!”
It took me a moment to decode just what it was exactly he’d said to me. That’s another annoying thing about knights, they always insist on all that ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ crap that nobody else uses anymore because it’s supposed to be noble or something. My stomach growled/lurched again and I gave him a glare that would have incinerated him on the spot if there were any justice in the world.
“Look Warren or George or whichever one of those your name is. I just want to finish cleaning up and go have my breakfast, can we do this later?”
“Hah! Undoubtedly some poor defenseless maiden, know this beast I shall not idly stand by and.. wait, later? Are you challenging me?”
“Well not rea-“
“Accepted! I shall meet you in battle here in approximately one-hour foul creature! Now be gone to your hideous repast whilst I prepare.” And with that he simply turned away and stomped off. Not that it really mattered since I was too busy staring in complete befuddlement at where he’d been standing. It was nearly a quarter of an hour before my stomach informed my brain that if it didn’t get moving soon I’d have to gnaw one of my own legs off to stave off my hunger.
The Mallory homestead was so quaint and cozy you could choke on the sheer power of cliché it radiated. There in the center was the cozy little cottage, just big enough for a family of four with its thatch roof and carved door. Smoke drifted lazily from the small, brick chimney and carried with it the smell of some of Dam Mallory’s fresh baked bread, a scent so heavenly that it made me wish sometimes dragons weren’t carnivorous so I could eat more of the stuff without making myself sick. Though this morning in particular the smell didn’t seem quite so sweet, but then that probably had something to do with my stomach doing a rather impressive gymnastics display, or at least that’s what it felt like. From behind the wooden fence came the faint laughter of the Mallory’s two children and the distressed mooing of their cattle as the bovines caught my scent on the wind. My armored paw gingerly rapped on the door, and a moment later the lady of the house pulled it open. Laura Mallory was a striking woman as far as humans went, and with a mind and personality as beautiful as she was physically. In fact it had lead to more than a little friendly discussion in town as to whether or not she was even human. She was like that dream woman (well for humans, for me it involved an older lady dragon with a large hoard and small appetite, but I digress) that you knew couldn’t exist because she was too good to be true, but there she was. I assumed her husband was still in bed sleeping it off and expected he’d be at it for quite a bit. The middle-aged man had somehow managed to imbibe almost as much of Master Callahan’s rotgut beer as I had before he passed out. How the man had managed to not die of alcohol poisoning was a mystery to me, though rumor said there was stoneling in his family tree somewhere, however despite his tolerance for alcohol I figured that was a face saving rumor started by those who’d lost a few too many drinking contests against him.
“Ah Ashrak, how are ye this mornin’?” She said with a smile that somehow made my head hurt just a little bit less and settled my stomach right down.
“I’ve had better, but I suppose that’s what I get for drinking so much last night. I came by for breakfast and to pay you for last month’s feed.” As the words came I carefully sifted through one of the pouches inside my mouth and lifted out a teardrop shaped stone like a pearl but with a greenish tinge and about the size of a hen’s egg. A dragon pearl.
It had taken some doing to convince the Mallory’s that I wasn’t playing some sick game with them when I first moved in and offered to pay to feed from their cattle herd each month. Even the likes of Laura had been suspicious of my actions at first, not her fault of course. Dragons just didn’t have all that good a reputation as a result of the stories that tended to circulate around the lands of man, most of them either misinterpretations of a dragons actions or the result of the occasional less than civilized member of our race. I will say though it’s hardly fair for us as most every people living in this world has its bad apples. Unfortunately for us all those same brutes tend to have exploits far more spectacular and story worthy than the average citizen. However after some cajoling they’d agreed to the terms, probably because they thought I’d burn their house down or something if they hadn’t. The relationship had warmed considerably though when at the end of the month I delivered a dragon pearl the size of a chicken egg to their doorstep. Selling the pearl had been enough to not only replace the losses to their herd but actually expand it a bit. After a few more months where I never ate more than I’d agreed to and delivered a pearl promptly on the first of each month, I’d seen enough of the Mallory’s and they’d seen enough of me to count them among my friends. The friendship had also given me a toehold through which to gradually acclimate the villagers to my presence. Eventually proximity and familiarity did their work and I was accepted as just another neighbor, albeit one with scales and of quite unusual size. However I also had a tendency to pay in dragon pearls, often in fact to an amount far in excess of what I was buying was actually worth. I don’t particularly have much of a problem with this as despite the fact that we dragons have a certain love for things that glitter we don’t much like the idea of sullying our hoards with what is, when you get down to the core of it, the results of our body disposing of those bits of food we can’t get out from between our teeth. Human wizards however go positively bonkers over the things, which makes them quite valuable among my somewhat squidgy friends with the nice livestock.
“Ah thank ye. The cow’s are around back as usual, do be sure to clean up your mess though.” She said in that tone that pretty much any mother, no matter her species, was apt to use on children she knew had a habit of leaving a mess behind. I ducked my head in acknowledgement then turned away from the house and stepped over the fence. As I did I could hear her calling the children in from their play to eat breakfast and consequently avoid the rather gruesome sight of me having a meal.
An hour later I found myself in a much less foul mood waiting in the indicated field for Sir Wallace to put in an appearance so I could sort this entire mess out, go home, and sleep off what was left of my hangover. Sure enough he came trotting up on ye olde noble steed, the animal armored up almost as heavily as he was it seemed. Not like it would seriously matter if he were fighting a dragon. Contrary to what most knights told you, dragons do not often go to battle with knights using tooth and claw. It drags things out and most importantly it lets the other guy usually get in a few useless whacks with their sword or whatever they brought so that their squire or whoever survived could tell the tale of how he died a valiant death in close combat with a dragon. On the other hand if he brandishes the sword and he gets incinerated a moment later it tends to help discourage those types who think dying well is as good as living. It’s really not fair but then I and most other dragons see no reason to play fair with somebody who shows up at our home uninvited with the intention of removing one or more vital body parts from their proper place
Unlike the villagers I didn’t have a clock but I would have been willing to bet good money that when Sir Wallace came riding up exactly one hour would have passed. He just seemed the sort who’d do something like that. The fool had managed to clean the dirt off his armor, however there was very little he could do about the impressive collection of dents and dings it had acquired in his little downhill adventure. Undoubtedly he’d go about saying they had been inflicted by my “horrific, scimitar-like claws” or some other such overly descriptive nonsense if he survived this. As if my claws wouldn’t have turned that tin suit of his into a sieve if I’d really gone after him with them.
“So oh foul hellspawn. Thou hast overcome thy natural cowardice and decided to face me in honorable battle! It would appear I gave you far too little credit.” I was tempted to agree with that second part, but then after what I’d seen of how his brain worked so far he’d probably think I was agreeing to the foul hellspawn bit.
“Look, this is completely unnecessary, can’t we just work things,” He didn’t let me finish the sentence; instead he gave a sharp tug on the reins of his horse and sent it into a headlong charge towards me.
“Have at you!” I spent an instant staring at him in disbelief then had to overcome the urge to simply let the horse crash into me and show him what that got him. After all it was hardly the horse’s fault his owner was an idiot and the poor thing shouldn’t have to pay for that unfortunate set of circumstances. So I did the next best thing for wounding a man’s ego. As the thundering charger came within reach I casually extended one foreleg and slapped him off his saddle, but not hard enough to jerk him completely free of his stirrups. There was that silverware tray crash again as he hit the ground, his right leg firmly tangled in that side’s stirrup, and it was accompanied by a rather satisfying collection of grunts and yelps as he was bounced and dragged along by the horse. I noted with some amusement that the animal was heading back towards the base of my hill and its collection of stones and small boulders. I couldn’t help it and snickered with a bit of malicious glee before turning back to the village to finish my day’s errands.
This however did not turn out to be nearly so easy as it sounded as at seemingly every turn I was confronted by an increasingly banged up Sir Wallace, brandishing his little pig-sticker and roaring overly formal and poetic challenges and insults at me. To my credit I still managed to keep my temper and not use him as a chew toy, instead I simply did something else somewhat painful and humiliating to him like using his sword as a toothpick. Every dragon has their limits however, and I was fast approaching them. On the other hand crispy-frying a knight was almost certain to draw even more of the cretins to the area, so I did what I always did when I wanted advice. I went to the lodge.
The hall of the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Crafts was the largest building in town. Not from any sort of inflated sense of self-importance I might add though, but simply because I was a member. It was likewise because of this fact that the entire place was made out of stone, not that anyone had minded the expense since it meant more payments in dragon pearls. I knocked at the door and the cover of the eye-slit was pulled aside. A scratchy voice with a bit of a squeak at the end of it drifted to my ears from behind it.
“You who wishes to enter the Lodge of the Brotherhood must speak the password.”
“Charlie, open the door.”
“But you could be an infiltrator.” I gave a loud sigh, both partially because I was in no mood to deal with Charlie’s usual paranoid nonsense and because I had forgotten the password. Most of the others didn’t bother with it anyway.
“Charlie, honestly. It’s not like anybody is going to break in and steal Sister Beatrice’s cookie recipe, now open up.”
“But what about me ring? You could be a spy trying to get in and get me ring. You won’t though, it’s mine you understand, mine!”
“Yes, yes, yes and it makes you invisible and some dark lord or other wants it back or whatever the rest of that nonsense you spew about is. Look now Charlie either you open this door or I’m going to just walk through it.”
“You don’t frighten-“ About here is where I got tired of Charlie’s usual paranoid nonsense and did just what I’d threatened to do. I put one great paw up against the door and pushed. The locks (installed at Charlie’s insistence I might add) made a rather interesting noise when they snapped. So did Charlie when the door smacked him in the head and pinned him up against the wall. I made my way down the hall, not seeing the small, gremlin-like creature that followed in after me and took something off Charlie’s immobilized form though I would hear about this at length later when my paranoid little lodge brother finally worked himself loose but that’s for another time. It was only a matter of a few forward steps and a hard right turn before I found myself in the main hall. A half dozen of my lodge brothers were present, most of them nursing coffee or tea in a vain attempt to help them with their hangovers. I settled into my usual spot in the empty southwest corner of the room reserved for me and exchanged a few pleasantries with the others before getting down to business.
“Look guys, I’ve got this problem,” I said, trying to keep the volume of my voice down so as to not cause them any avoidable discomfort. “I’ve got this damn knight following me around all the time and I just can’t seem to get him to bugger off and leave me alone and my temper’s starting to get pretty stretched. Now normally I wouldn’t be much concerned but you know how these knights are. They hear one of their own got barbequed by a dragon and they all go rushing off to prove themselves by killing it. So I figured you guys might understand him a bit better, I mean he is human after all, what’s a good way to get him out of here that doesn’t involve me having to kill him or dismember him?”
“Have you tried just smacking him around a bit? You know, try and make it too painful and embarrassing to be worth killing you?” This from Mick, the local woodcutter who was casually picking unidentifiable bits of food from his beard
“Tried it, it doesn’t work. He just comes back and makes an even longer speech before trying again.”
“Well I could turn ‘im into a newt!” Reginald was the local potter and he seemed at times to have trouble remembering that it was his brother Harry who had all the magical talent. Said magician looked up from his book at his brother and scowled.
“For the last time Reggy, no you can’t. You make pots, I do spells not the other way around.”
“Could you turn him into a newt?” I asked, out of simple curiosity I assure you, most certainly not because I was considering it, no sir.
“Most assuredly not. That idea’s even dafter than that one Vines has. You know, the one where he says the world is shaped like a disc and sits on the back of a quartet of elephants?”
“What is an elephant anyway?” I’d heard Vines going on about this one day. It didn’t mean much to me though since I had absolutely no idea what an elephant was. Apparently neither did Harry since he just shrugged. “Oh well, it’s off topic anyway. Any other ideas?”
“Why not fake it?” Someone shouted from the other end of the table. This was followed by the offender being pelted with shoes, silverware, and bits of food rendered so unidentifiable with age they could have been perfect for use in Madam Lackey’s gumbo. I neglected to join in, mostly since I didn’t have anything to throw, but the idea stuck in my head, ricocheting around like Sister Diane’s cat that time it had gotten into the coffee grounds.
“Why couldn’t we fake it?” I said, the idea sounding better all the time. “Harry could do it. Just get him all gussied up in those magician’s school robes of his let him rattle off some of that gobbledygook human magicians use and I can make a big show out of roaring and thrashing about. Then when I stop moving he can pronounce me dead, the Knight’ll be satisfied and we can get everything here back to normal.” The others started muttering amongst themselves and slowly but surely our plan came together.
We kicked things off with a bit of a ruckus to attract the Sir Wallace. This consisted of Reggy and Mick running about like a pair of decapitated chickens and screaming their heads off while I did a lot of roaring and show fire breathing, though I was careful not to actually burn anything aside from the old barn that the Jordans had wanted me to get rid of sometime this week. Sure enough, right on cue Sir Wallace came charging out of the treeline waving his sword about just as Harry stepped out of his shop, adjusting a magicians robe that was about a size and a half too small for him. Well if he pulled this off I’d make sure he got one in his present size.
“Quickly noble Sir! Thou must distracteth yon drake so that I might slay it with my magic!” At this I whirled on Sir Wallace, rearing up and swiping with my forepaws like I’d seen lions do before. Wallace of course fell for this hook, line, and sinker, charging in with another ‘Have at you!’ and swinging around that sword of his in a manner that, while certainly all nice and brave looking, would have gotten him very dead against a dragon that meant to do him harm. This continued on for some minutes with Sir Wallace deluding himself into thinking he was hurting me, and I doing nothing to disillusion him of the idea by roaring myself hoarse whenever his sword glanced off my hide. All the while Harry kept outside the area we were circling through, chanting in a most convincing manner. I would later learn he was simply running through every swear word he knew in ancient Gloin in alphabetical order. He made it look good though, the litany of cussing accompanied by lots of flamboyant hand gestures. At last he uttered a final word in a shout, a word so foul I really can’t put it in this archive, and I began act two. From my two-legged stance I simply keeled over onto my back and began to do a lot of thrashing about and roaring. I was slightly amused to note that during the course of this I managed to hit Sir Wallace in his helmeted head with a rather large dirt clod. I kept this up until I felt my voice starting to give out and finally went limp, tongue lolling out, and eyes rolled up into my head. From there all I could do is lay there and listen as Wallace got up and limped his way over to Harry.
“Truly Sir Magician, you are a wizard of the highest order.”
“Nonsense Sir Knight! If not for your valiant close combat with the beast it wouldst surely have slain me before I could complete the Diputserauoy killing spell.” I had to keep from sniggering when I heard what he called this spell and was once again thankful that Sir Wallace was too stupid to figure it out.
“Aye that is the truth. Still, it is a true pleasure to have fought side by side with one such as thee. My only regret is that I am not permitted to stay and have a victory feast with thee. However I must be off for there are other such beasts to bring low in the world. Farewell to you Sir Magician.”
I can’t really tell you exactly what happened here. It’s reasonable of course to assume I heard him head off into the woods to find his horse or start down the road. But I didn’t hear this, or rather I heard about it later for you see by this point, I’d fallen into much desired slumber.
