by Perrin Briar
Bryan stood before the townsfolk.
“I have one question, and it won’t take long,” he said. “You have a dragon problem. It pillaged your livestock, your friends and family. You came up with a solution, by feeding the dragon the bodies of the dead. And you’ve built your walls and developing weapons to protect yourselves. My question, then, is why do you continue to feed the dragon?”
Bryan let the question sink in. A hush came over the audience. Bryan tried to read their expressions, but they were blank.
“Perhaps I might explain,” Lord Maltese said with a friendly smile. “Perhaps my explanation of our situation wasn’t very clear earlier. We feed the dragon so we might live in peace and continue to develop our resources. If we did not feed the monster, it would attack us once again and destroy everything we’ve managed to forge till now.”
“I understand that,” Bryan said. “But why not take the opportunity to kill it?”
Lord Maltese smiled again, as if talking to a slow child.
“As I said before, we lack the resources to mount an attack on the creature,” he said. “It would have torn through us, destroyed us. Decimated our population, and we’d have nothing left to show for it.”
“Yes,” Bryan said. “But why didn’t you kill it?”
Lord Maltese frowned. He thought he’d just answered this question.
“I’m not sure I understand…” he said.
“There are more ways to kill a dangerous creature than to attack it head-on,” Bryan said. “You could trap it, drown it, starve it, poison it, burn it… You’re limited only by your imagination. Once the monster is out of the way, you could continue developing at your own pace in a manner you choose. You’d never have to fear the dragon again.”
There was a shiver of nervous murmurs through the town’s inhabitants. They were entertaining the idea, sounding like a hive of killer bees.
But Bryan wasn’t finished. He had plenty more to say yet.
“There’s also the evidence of tampering,” he said.
“Tampering?” a local said. “What does that mean?”
“It means changing, editing something,” Bryan said. “About a hundred years ago people were beginning to make discoveries of fossils of large animals no one had ever seen before. They were being described as giant crocodiles and iguanas. Over the century that passed, we gained great insight into these ancient creatures. We called them dinosaurs, giant animals that lived millions of years ago all over the surface.
“One of the creatures, one of the most fierce and terrifying, was called a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or T-Rex for short. They were believed to be extinct, like all dinosaurs, until we got sucked through a sinkhole and saw they were very much still alive, deep beneath the Earth’s surface.
“You have one here too. Only it isn’t just a T-Rex, but an altered creature. It carries a metal pack on its back, perhaps as a shield or protection, I don’t know. And the way it breathes fire, that isn’t natural in any living creature. This too could be a machine someone attached to it to make it look more like a dragon.
“On the surface we have advanced technology and could build these things, a way to upgrade a creature like this. I realize these things might seem like magic to you, but I can assure you, they’re not. They’re processes that abide by the laws of science, that we manipulate and use to our advantage. They are not magic. There is no such thing.
“But someone here, or out there, as yet undiscovered by us, is trying to scare you into believing this creature is a dragon, when really it is just a dinosaur in costume.
“How the T-Rex got to be here is anyone’s guess, but it shouldn’t be here. It is a mistake of nature, for you and this creature to be occupying the same space. But it can be undone, and it can be undone by you all.”
A local stood up. It was Montgomery.
“What you suggest is impossible!” he said. “We cannot kill the dragon!”
“It is impossible if you accept it is,” Bryan said. “It doesn’t look impossible from where I sit. I’ve seen people with far less intelligence and technology than you defeat a similar creature in another world. You can too.”
The townsfolk muttered amongst themselves.
“How would you suggest we do it?” Cynthia Morris said, standing up so everyone could hear her loud booming voice.
Bryan was hoping someone would have the courage to ask that question.
“We starve the beast out,” Bryan said. “We stop feeding it.”
The locals exploded into loud outbursts:
“Not feed it?”
“Do you know what it’ll do to us if we stopped? It’ll come for our children!”
“We’ve got a family to worry about!”
“What happens when it gets inside the walls? Then we’ll all be dead!”
Bryan held up his hands to help allay their fears.
“You’re afraid,” he said. “I would be afraid too if I were in your shoes. But look, the world where the bodies come from was destroyed. It means there will no longer be a constant influx of feeding material for the monster. There might be a lot at first, but they will quickly dry up. The monster is going to be starved out anyway. I say we strike while we have control.”
“As soon as the dragon gets in here, with its fiery breath, it’ll destroy our town!” Montgomery said.
“We’ll starve the dragon,” Bryan said. “He’ll come out of his lair. It’ll have no choice but to come out. We’ll have food set up, a trap to kill it. It’s a dumb animal. We can defeat it.”
“I say we let you defeat it!” another local said.
“We can’t let him anger the beast!” Montgomery said. “It’ll come after us after it’s done picking its teeth with his bones!”
“We’re in this trouble because of you!” Cynthia said, pointing a finger at Bryan. “And your family. If you hadn’t come here, the dragon would still be in its cave and we wouldn’t have to be afraid all over again!”
“Leaving you alone to cower in fear,” Bryan said. “To not stand up and fight.”
“I would rather not fight and survive than to stand and die!” Montgomery said.
Lord Maltese stood up, waving his hands to keep the people calm.
“Listen,” he said. “I can see Bryan has gotten you all a little riled up, but the truth is, he might be right. Perhaps it is time for us to rid our world of this demon from hell. It is only flesh and blood. We can destroy it if we only have the will. Perhaps all this time that was what we were really missing: a hero to champion our cause. To aid in Bryan’s effort to destroy the dragon, I will pledge a dozen of our guards to his effort.”
There were murmurs of assent from the locals. Sporadic clapping.
“We always planned to rid ourselves of this beast,” Lord Maltese said. “Perhaps now is the time.”
He raised a goblet.
“To Bryan,” he said. “Our dragon hunter.”
30.
THE TRAP consisted of half a dozen sheep carcasses courtesy of the lord’s larder and five buckets of pig blood from the town’s butchers. It would be irresistible to the monster.
The breeze was good, blowing in the direction of the caves, carrying the scent with it. There was no way the monster could avoid it. It would drive him berserk.
The trap was a simple one. A series of snares made of high tensile wire had been laid across the ground in a grid pattern. Once the monster approached, the wire would wrap around its foot and draw so tight it would cut into his thick flesh, slicing to the bone if the monster pulled too hard, which Bryan fully expected it would.
Another circle of wire hung suspended in midair in front of the food. This was their failsafe in case the wires on the ground were not sprung. The monster wouldn’t see it. Even Bryan couldn’t see it—he’d walked into it twice already. A pair of guards stood behind a tree with a rock that hung suspended to the choke wire.
Only once the creature had been adequately ensnared would the soldiers leap forward. Armed with pointed spears a
nd sharp swords, they would hack at the monster as quickly as they were able. These guards were currently camped behind a large rock, along with Bryan and his family, that prevented them from being seen by the monster.
But the creature hadn’t shown his face yet, hadn’t graced them with his presence, nor even so much as greeted them with a growl. Bryan didn’t understand why. The meal should have been irresistible to the monster, who hadn’t eaten for the past few days.
“How’s it going?” a sweet voice said.
It was Abigail, leading a retinue of serving men to give the soldiers food and refreshment.
“Nothing yet,” Aaron said. “He should have come by now. I know I would have, if I was a mindless eating machine. Oh, are those lemon cakes?”
Aaron tucked into them, picking up two in each hand.
“Leave some for the guards,” Bryan said, shaking his head.
“There’s more than enough for everyone to eat,” Abigail said.
“Luckily,” Bryan said. “For everyone else.”
Aaron chuckled around a mouthful of lemon cake, the crumbs spilling from his lips.
There was a roar. It echoed from deep within the cave catacombs.
The lemon cake froze halfway to Aaron’s mouth. He turned deathly pale. Clearly the memory of being chased through the caves by the dinosaur was still fresh in his mind. It was still fresh in Bryan’s too, but he wasn’t about to let it stop him from wiping the beast from the face of the Earth, or the under-Earth, as the case may be.
Bryan wasn’t the only one to turn silent. The servers who’d brought the food had turned white as a ghost, and even the guards, who seemed as hardy as they came, clutched their weapons tight, not in an aggressive stance, but one requiring support.
Bryan was struck by a sudden lack of confidence. Would these men, who had grown up with the fear of the dragon, be able to do what was needed when the time came? To look the dragon in the eye and shove their spears into its heart? Or would they run away, scared and afraid, into the night? There was no doubt in his mind: they would turn and run.
A man was only as brave as his experiences. A man used to darkness could be brave with no light, another accustomed to the roar of great beasts could walk through a pride of lions undisturbed. But a man used to stories of a demon that resided in a cave could not stand against it.
The roars from the caves died down, and the guards returned to their vigil. They stared at the ground and did not eat their cakes and drink.
“How’s the town?” Bryan said.
“It’s fine,” Abigail said. “They’re all nervous, worried you might cause the monster to be angry and attack us. The nobles are glad you’re doing this, that you might put it down for good. Not that they would ever admit that.”
“Of course not,” Bryan said. “That would be too easy.”
As a businessman he knew what people were like. They were generally good and kind hearted, but they could also be very selfish. They were quick to blame, to point the finger, even if the culprit was really themselves.
“It has to come out of there at some point,” Bryan said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
“Time,” Abigail said. “It’s always about time, isn’t it?”
“Time always plays a factor somehow,” Bryan said.
A wagon piled with scorched bodies trundled along a rough path. Just as Bryan had predicted, there had been a massive influx of bodies, no doubt in reaction to the destruction of the magma world they had inhabited. Bryan had been right, and it had drawn nervous consternation from the townsfolk.
Still, they looked upon the floating bodies as their only salvation. They wanted to pick them up and drop them off at the cave for the monster to consume. It was a tried and tested solution to their problem, and they did not like to change it, even if it was for the best, a solution to their problem for the rest of their lives.
The locals didn’t really believe the previous world—hell, in their minds—had really been destroyed, but their eyes goggled when they set eyes upon the burnt feathers of the giant Humungo birds that washed up on the surface of the lake. They had never seen such a beast before. Several of the locals performed a strange little dance, brushing themselves off, turning in a circle, and spitting. It was to dispel bad luck and spirits, Abigail said.
Then, when half a dozen giant snakes emerged, the locals believed the apocalypse was upon them, that the demons of hell were about to descend. There was no telling the locals they were just animals from another world. They had made up their minds and were blind to the truth. It was infuriating. They buried the bodies in giant pits—one for the human bodies, another for the creatures.
The church bell rang.
A voice shouted something from the top of the tower. The distance was too great for Bryan to hear. The ringing seemed different to what was used for when the dragon attacked. That had been a high shrill sound. This was a different rhythm: two taps, followed by a pause. It was repeated over and over. It was smart for the locals to design an intricate system of communication.
“What is he shouting?” Bryan said.
“Murder,” Abigail said. “There’s been a murder.”
The same thought passed between them: while they were watching these cave entrances, was there another one they weren’t aware of, that the dragon had used to escape and enter the town?
The blood drained from Bryan’s face. Had his plan cost someone’s life?
31.
THEY HAD to wait at the front entrance before the gates were opened. Five minutes is an agonizingly long time when forced to wait. When your loved ones were inside the town. When there had been a murder and you don’t know who the victim was.
The gates opened, revealing pandemonium. People ran riot, not knowing what they were doing or where they were going.
Bryan dismounted and handed the reins to one of the guards. He pushed through the crowd, grunting when someone ran into him.
He came to group of people standing around. They glanced at Bryan as he pushed through them. They turned their eyes from him. Bryan’s insides turned to water.
Something was wrong.
Was it Zoe or Cassie who had been hurt? Had the locals felt so aggrieved with Bryan’s plan that they would act with violence against his family?
Bryan pushed harder through the crowd. The people saw him and began to move aside. Then he came to the wide clearing in the center.
There were a dozen guards, doing their best to block the view of a body lying on the ground, but failing. There was blood, spread like a finger painting by a child.
“What happened here?” Bryan said. “What happened?”
“Murder,” a bystander said. “Murdered in cold blood.”
He said it in a tone of voice that made it clear this was not a common occurrence in the town of Silene.
Bryan stared at the unmoving body. It wasn’t Cassie, nor Zoe. It was Cynthia, the loud-voiced woman from the hall meetings. Her face was twisted in a mask of shock.
Peering around, with the locals eyeballing Bryan the way they were, it was clear at whose feet they placed the blame.
32.
THE GREAT HALL was crammed. Every member of town was present. A meeting had been called, an impromptu affair. None of the chairs and tables had been set out as they had during feast days.
The people milled, mumbling with folded arms to angry neighbors. Bryan sensed a strong atmosphere of discontent. The locals eyed him and his family as they took their place on the stage.
Bryan didn’t entirely understand what was going on. These were essentially the middle ages. Did they still hang people? Or cut off their heads? There was a fiery anger and hate in their eyes that he had rarely seen.
“Silence, please,” Lord Maltese said.
The people quietened down.
“Today we have suffered a great tragedy,” Lord Maltese said. “Cynthia Morris, one of our number, was brutally slain in the street, by someone armed with a cloak and dagger. Who would
commit such a crime, and for what reason, to an innocent bystander, is anyone’s guess. But the police and my guards are working together to find the perpetrator.”
“It was the evil spirits!” Montgomery said. “We angered the monster and he sent spirits here to do his bidding!”
“‘He’s an animal,” Lord Maltese said. “He doesn’t bid, doesn’t do anything any other animal can’t do.”
“Hidden in shadow, he was,” another local said, apparently present at the murder when it’d happened. “Wearing the darkness and shadows as a cape!”
“Wearing a black cape,” Lord Maltese said. “Not shadows and darkness. Though we can say the killer certainly had darkness in his heart. The police are conducting an investigation and I’m confident we will find the murderer.”
“What are we all pussy footing around for?” Montgomery said with folded arms. “We all know who’s responsible for this.”
“Their plan caused poor Cynthia’s murder!” a fearful local said. “I’d rather it was their blood than any of ours! I say we sacrifice them before another one of us has to die!”
“Yeah!” the crowd said.
“We didn’t want anyone to die!” Zoe said, stepping forward. “It’s the last thing we wanted to happen. And who knows, this might have happened anyway, no matter what we tried to do with the monster.”
But the crowd—the mob, really—was not appeased. They wanted blood. Suddenly Bryan realized how dangerous their situation was. At least if a monster was after you it didn’t smile at you through its teeth. It was honest with its intentions. It was out to eat you, to feed upon your flesh.
Now, the townsfolk’s mask had slipped. They had pretended to be the family’s friends when they first arrived, but now they wanted their blood. The people had judged them once again on the result, and not the objective, what it was they were trying to achieve, to make the world a better, safer place. Instead, the locals were intent on crucifying them.
There was only one man who could save them, one man who could get the locals to calm down, relax. Bryan turned to the lord and his family.