I do not like this idea. It requires travel, and I know of no way it will help me improve my own stash. And I need to concentrate on my hoard since I did not find a mate at Nae The Loch.
Indeed, the females abandoned the place when they learned of the murders. There is talk that the females will not return to the Swap Meet. Instead, they will flock to other festivals, ones in less remote locations.
Because of one male’s actions, females now view all of us with suspicion.
Still, I think back to that moment on the snow-covered mountainside, as I realized the corpse left me a message about her death.
All males collect. Our hoards are what separate us from each other. Anyone can find sapphires or diamonds. Most of us have, at one point or another, raided human dwellings for gold.
But I am the only dragon in recorded history—male or female—who has collected information and, more to the point, the only one who has found value in it.
I like that distinction. But the distinction also disturbs me. Because, for my collection maintain its value, the information must remain useful.
I am not certain I want to read corpses. I do not think I will like what they tell me.
I have reviewed my collection, looked over the items found at the fifteen death sites. Only the needle contains a substance from a dragon’s body.
The other items carry human blood or bones too tiny to be dragon. It seems to me that the humans died at the whims of a dragon, as they always have, and only once was it the other way around.
Which means that fourteen male dragons died before their time.
We are large creatures, with no natural predators. We should all die of ill health or old age. Yet fourteen of us were murdered—in the space of a very short time.
Something has changed in the past century. Initially, we thought it was the humans.
Now we know it is not.
What frightens me the most about this is that the details show me one other thing, something I have confided in no one else.
It is true that the fourteen died at another dragon’s hand. However, I do not believe that a single dragon committed the killings.
I believe we as a species have changed. And it is clear that change could doom us all.
“Dragon Slayer” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch was first published in German as “Ein Fall für Rumaad,” Feueratem: Das Grosse Drachen-Lesebuch, edited by Michael Nagula, Knaur, 2003.
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