by Lisa Cach
He carefully bent down and picked up the end of that rope. What he needed to do now was to get Belch to roll, and twist this line around the beast’s jaws like spaghetti on a fork.
In his first battle, it had been standing on the dragon’s back and poking him with the sword that had set off the bout of rolling. George could see the gash where his sword had cut the huge lizard—it was an area of white and pink that looked already to be healing over.
Thinking, he took aim, then threw the pitchfork javelin-style at the raw patch on Belch’s neck. It hit and stuck for a moment, then fell away, leaving twin puncture wounds.
Belch lunged.
George danced aside, taking his rope with him, and with a quick flip of his wrist pulled its length under Belch’s jaw. As the dragon swung his head at him again, he dashed back in the other direction, this time bringing the rope over the teeth of the beast’s lower jaw.
Belch shook his head, and George clung to the end of his line, feeling like he had hold of a bucking bull.
Roll, dammit, roll! he silently urged.
The rope snapped, halfway between George and the dragon.
“Shit!”
He dashed behind Belch, leaping over the lashing tail to the other side where his other ropes had dropped. Belch swung his head back and forth, looking for him.
George grabbed his second lasso and turned to face Belch head-on.
The dragon’s lowered snout made a ramp up to the top of his head.
What the hell.
Before he could think better of it, George charged the dragon, putting foot to snout and then running up the lumpy slope until he was right between Belch’s eyes.
He turned around and dropped onto his butt, straddling the dragon’s head as if it were indeed a bull he was riding. Belch slowly opened his mouth, and George’s seat began to rise.
He sent a prayer heavenward, swung the lasso around his head, then tossed it the short distance to the end of Belch’s snout.
The loop fell perfectly over the end. Almost not believing his good luck, George yanked on the rope, tightening it.
Belch decided it was time to fight, and tossed his head. George clung for several bucks, then his thighs lost their grip on the beast’s snout, and he was thrown off.
He still had the rope in his hands, though, and he was jerked up and down, back and forth, like a rubber ball against a paddle board. With a quick snap of his head, Belch flung him off.
He hit the beach, hard, and took it on his back the way he had learned in the ring, distributing the force of his fall to avoid injury. Belch threw himself forward and George rolled, but not fast enough. Belch’s claw landed atop his ankle, pinning George in place, the pressure of that one dragon toe over his bones nearly enough to snap them.
His pitchfork was out of reach. He had nothing but his bare hands with which to defend himself. He heard Alizon shouting, calling Belch’s name, trying to distract the dragon. Belch paid her no mind, his cold eye focused on George, watching him with the same detachment as a child with a pinned insect.
Belch lowered his snout, sniffing at him. George kicked at the beast’s nose, his foot bouncing off with no effect. He reached wildly around him, hoping against hope for a loose rock, a stick, anything.
And then there was the flash of a green gown to the side, and all of a sudden Belch was bellowing, the tip of a spear jammed into his nostril. His claw came off George’s foot, and George jumped to his feet even as Alizon dashed back to the semi-safety of the stone stairs.
There was no time to thank her. He jumped for the dangling rope, caught it, then swung forward and kicked the spear.
Belch rolled, the spear coming free of his nostril with a gush of blood.
George hit the ground, then swung around into a sitting position, bracing his feet against a bump of stone as he played out the rope, keeping it taut as the dragon rolled again and again, each turn wrapping the line another time around his jaws, tying them shut.
Just as all the slack was used up and George started to be dragged toward the thrashing beast, Belch stopped his rolling and lay still.
George tentatively stood and approached.
The lizard’s yellow eye was baleful, but Belch did not move.
Cautious, George came near enough to touch. Belch thrashed, the tip of his tail coming around and knocking him down. George rolled away and jerked his surcoat off over his head. Before Belch could strike again, he found his feet and in three bounds was vaulting onto the dragon’s snout. He threw the white silk over Belch’s eyes, and held it there until the dragon’s thrashing halted and its head lowered to the ground.
He stayed there for a long moment, not trusting Belch, then carefully dismounted and tied off the end of the dragon’s rope muzzle. On the nature shows, blindfolding a crocodile always took the fight out of it.
The dragon lay still, his sides heaving.
Holy cow. Had he done it?
George grabbed more rope, and in the interest of safety over sorrow quickly tied Belch’s legs, jerking the beast’s elbows back behind it as if it were a criminal.
He still couldn’t believe he had succeeded.
He fetched his fallen spear, then came back for the killing blow that must be dealt. Right through the heart, as Pippa had said.
He got a good grip on the spear and trained his eyes on the patch of scaly hide that was his target. And again, he felt a hesitation at killing the beast.
To let it live, though, would be to keep Alizon imprisoned in this fortress. Belch had killed and eaten dozens of people, and, given the chance, would do so again. Grisly and unpleasant as the task was, the dragon must be destroyed.
And then, from halfway up the stairs, came Alizon’s voice. “George, no… .” The sound of the quiet plea carried across the cavern.
He paused, spear raised and ready. He looked up at her, for the first time since the battle had begun. “No?” He could not have understood.
“Don’t kill him.”
He frowned up at her, glanced at the lizard lying trussed before him, then frowned more deeply as he looked back to her. “Why the hell not?”
“I … will have nothing left.”
He set the butt of his spear on the ground. “What are you talking about? It’s the damn dragon that has taken everything away.”
“No,” she said, her voice still soft. “You’re the one who is going to do that.”
“What?”
“You’re going to take the virgins away with you. There will be nothing left for me but Belch.”
What the hell was she talking about? She couldn’t mean that. “But he is the source of all your misery,” he said, incredulous.
Her answer came in a voice whose softness had been replaced with a cold edge. “He is the instrument of my revenge.”
What? “Against whom? Surely not against whatever poor girl they plan to send here in a week.”
“Against the people of Markesew. They do not deserve to live free of fear. They do not deserve to keep their flocks of sheep. They must be made to pay for their crimes, and Belch exacts that justice.”
George looked again at the immobilized dragon, trying and failing to understand her warped viewpoint. “Have you never wanted him dead?”
She didn’t answer for a long moment, and then, quietly, “No.”
He looked at the broken rope that hung off of Belch’s lower jaw. A gut-sinking suspicion formed. “The ropes. You weakened them.” He looked up at her, anguish in his heart. After they had been growing so close, to have her do such a thing—
“I did nothing this time! I could not bear to. I could not risk your getting hurt! Didn’t I save you, when Belch had you pinned?”
“This time?” He suddenly thought of his dam, which he had left so secure in the mouth of the spring, and the doors he had found unlocked the next morning. And then there had been the “sleeping powder” that had done little to sedate Belch. “That blue powder …”
“Dyed flour,” she admitt
ed softly.
His heart twisted with pain. “Alizon … why?”
She held her hands apart, her palms open and empty. She was a cold and distant angel, looking down upon him from the stairs, but her voice cracked when she spoke. “This mount is all I have.”
He let go of his spear, and it fell to rest against the side of Belch’s head. He plopped down on the beach, elbows resting on his knees, and dug his hands into his hair, staring at nothing.
She had never wanted the dragon killed. She had never been the helpless virgin, awaiting rescue. She wanted the damned dragon alive, to wreak vengeance on the town that had thrown her away.
What was he doing here? What the hell was the point of being St. George, and killing the dragon, if the damned virgin wanted it alive?
He dropped his hands from his head and looked up at her. She looked frightened now, although of his reaction or from the threat to her lizard, he couldn’t say.
All he did know was something that contradicted every reason for which he had originally thought he was sent here. Something he said now: “He isn’t my dragon to kill.” He stood up, and without a glance at Belch went to the stairs and started to climb out of the cavern.
“What are you doing?”
“He’s not my dragon to kill,” he repeated, still climbing.
“You’re not going to slay him? I thought that was what you came here for!”
“I thought so, too.”
“But—”
“Doing so won’t make me a hero, at least not in your eyes.” He laughed, dry and short. “That’s what I wanted: to be a hero. Kill the dragon! Rescue the virgins! Be the biggest name, the best fighter! Be a hero, and everyone will love you.” He paused beneath her on the stairs and shook his head at his own folly. “I had it all wrong. I thought heroism was something I could seek out and then grant to myself, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about putting other people first, about using your life to better theirs. I’ll help the virgins leave the mount and settle elsewhere, but if you don’t want the dragon killed, I’m not going to kill it.”
“You can’t just leave him tied up like that!”
“He’s your dragon. You do with him what you want.”
“He’ll kill me if I go down there and untie him.”
“It’s your choice, Alizon. It’s always been your choice. The dragon has always been under your control. Do what you will. Stay here with Belch or exchange Devil’s Mount for a new life. Kill the dragon, or let him live. It is all your choice.”
“It is not so simple!”
“It is. You created this world on the mount, for yourself and for the others. You can create a different one. You just have to want to.”
“I’ve always wanted that.”
“No, you’ve wanted revenge, and to hide. You would rather lock yourself away, alone here with a dragon, than take a chance on living in the world, with all its risks to the heart. You’ve been a coward in everything that matters.”
“What is it that matters, if not keeping eleven young women alive?”
“Love matters. Above all, love.” He closed the distance between them, and stood on the stair beneath hers. “Love, Alizon. As I love you.”
She was silent, her face a pale mask of shock, her lips parted.
“I can’t make you love me. I can’t make you choose me over that damn dragon. I saw the longing in that tapestry you were weaving. Now I understand it. Everything you ever wanted is waiting, if you just have the courage to take it. If you have the courage to give up your hatred of those villagers—villagers you haven’t seen in a dozen years, for God’s sake—and the courage to build a new world for yourself, with me.”
“I don’t know how,” she whispered.
“You do know; it just takes more guts than dumping a sheep to Belch ever did. I’m not going to force you to come out from behind your walls. Come of your own free will or don’t come at all.”
She stared at him, mute once more, and gave no answer.
He shook his head and stepped past her, continuing up the stairs and feigning an indifference that was a hundred miles and a thousand years from the pain that was crushing his heart.
Chapter Twenty-three
Alizon sat on the middle cold stone stairs of the staircase and stared down at Belch. It wasn’t the dragon she was seeing in her mind, though, but George, telling her he loved her. Telling her that she could have a life with him, if only she were brave enough.
Was she?
She had been too shocked to respond when he confessed his feelings. She had never suspected them, had never thought that what she had felt growing in her own heart might be returned by his. She had not believed it was possible, knowing inside how unlovable she was. How like the dragon.
George was different, and she could not understand him. How could it be that he could love her?
Even after hearing that she had sabotaged his efforts to kill Belch, he had said he loved her. He had not abandoned her after she had put his life at risk and secretly fought against everything he tried to accomplish. She had betrayed his trust, and still he could love her.
He loved her, despite being put through more than anyone should be asked to endure.
He loved her.
And she loved him. That gave her all the courage she needed.
She stood and descended the stairs into the lair. Belch was making his gurgling sound, the noise ominous in the quiet of the cavern. The mist drifted off the water and up the bank of the beach, then was blown back again in swirls by the breath of his nostrils.
Alizon trailed one hand along the stone wall to keep her balance on the slick stones. They were steeper than they had looked from the platform, and she wondered at George’s easy agility on them.
She wondered at George, who might or might not truly be a saint. Against her every expectation he had managed to subdue Belch, showing a physical skill and bravery that one would never expect to be paired with such a kind, gentle, forgiving man.
What had she been thinking to ever put him in danger? Where had her heart been?
She shuddered at the thought of what she had become, during all these years on Devil’s Mount. Thank God for George, who had come to save her from herself.
She reached the bottom step and jumped down onto the beach. Belch’s rumbling vibrated in her chest, shaking her like a reed. She felt another spurt of respect for George, that alone he should be able to bring down such a monster.
God save her, she had been housing a hero without even knowing it.
Keeping a safe distance, she circled around Belch’s snout. The spear was where George had left it, leaning against the side of the beast’s head. Alizon dashed forward and grabbed it, then danced back, heart thumping, staring at the blindfolded monster.
This was her dragon to kill. Her choice to make. George had been right about that.
Would it live, or would it die?
Its death would be her total freedom. Its death meant she could be with George. And its death meant that no other young girl would ever have to worry that her future lay in its jaws.
She made her decision.
In the course of daily living Alizon had slaughtered her share of chickens and sheep, and she was no stranger to the death of animals. She knew that the kindest end was the swift and unexpected one, accomplished before the creature suffered fear or pain. Lowering the spear, she took aim and ran full tilt at Belch. The spear’s head pierced the beast’s hide, Alizon’s weight and momentum pushing its shaft in a full foot. Belch bellowed through his tied jaws, and he started to thrash his tail and head, his body arching.
Alizon felt tears start in her eyes, Belch’s agony her own. She did not want him to suffer, no matter what suffering the monster had caused in the past. She gritted her teeth and took better hold of the moving spear, and she shoved on it with all her might.
“Damn you! Die!” she cried, and pushed again, tears spilling down her cheeks. The spear went in another inch, then stuck. �
�Die! Please God, die.” Blood poured out of the wound and down the shaft of the spear, coating Alizon’s hands and soaking into her dress.
And then there was another pair of hands added to her own, shoving with greater strength than she could muster. George was beside her. Together, they sent the spear homeward, deep into Belch’s heart.
The dragon gave one last bellow of pain, his head thrown back, and then his head crashed to the ground. He lay still.
Alizon released her hold on the spear and stepped back, shaking. She met George’s eyes. “Is he truly … ?” she asked.
George looked at the dragon a long moment, then back at her. He nodded his head.
She closed her eyes and tears spilled anew down her cheeks. George’s arms closed around her, and she let herself sink into the warmth of his embrace.
Chapter Twenty-four
Her tears for Belch did not last long. Tucked within the safety of George’s arms, Alizon began to feel the weight of the past lifting from her. With the monster’s death came the end of all that had been … and the birth of all that could be.
Giddiness bubbled up inside her, an almost hysterical sense of relief and burgeoning joy. She reached behind George and squeezed his buttocks. He jerked back in surprise, then looked down at her in question. She grinned. “You said we had some unfinished business,” she began.
“You don’t want me to take care of it here,do you?” He seemed a bit shocked.
She licked his salty chest in reply.
He laughed in amazement, then swept her up into his arms and carried her to the pool. There he plunged with her into the steaming water. Alizon clung to him as the water billowed her gown and soaked through her sleeves and bodice.
“I cannot swim!” she cried.
“It is only waist deep here.” George set her down, and he yanked loose the laces of her bloody gown. Soon the soggy garment was tossed over his shoulder, her chemise following, and then his clothes as well. Slowly he helped wash every trace of dragon’s blood from her skin, then she returned the favor, at last running her hands down his body as she had wished to do all those times she had spied upon him at his bath. At last she felt comfortable doing so.