The
Last Stand
of the
Dragon
The
Last Stand
of the
Dragon
N. J. Hanson
Ink Drop Press
Chico, CA
The Last Stand of the Dragon – third edition
Copyright © 2017 by N. J. Hanson. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, distributed or transmitted by any means including, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without prior written consent and permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.
To request permission, send request to [email protected].
ISBN 13:978-1-947583-03-0
ISBN 10:1-947583-03-4
Printed in the United States of America
Cover copyright by N. J. Hanson
To Virginia Partain
and Sherry Long
Prologue
A mountain jutted up from the earth. It reached thousands of feet into the air, its time eroded but still mighty jagged peaks pierced the underside of the clouds. Pine trees grew along the mighty granite slopes, their branches covered in a fine powder of freshly fallen snow. Hidden amongst these trees was a cave, a cavern which yawned open like the mouth of an enormous beast and stretched back hundreds of feet into the heart of the mountain.
Inside this cave, hidden in inky blackness and secluded from the rest of he world, was a creature of great size and strength with powers that legends were spoken off. An animal the likes of which had not been seen on this earth for millions of years. Now, the beast slept. Her legs pulled in close against her body and her tail wrapped up to her nose, her chest rose and fell with each breath.
A sound echoed through the cave. The sound of a large boulder being pushed and rolled aside. It was followed by the sound of the rock crashing down the mountainside, causing a miniature land-slide. The creature’s eyes fluttered, then snapped fully open. The yellow-green orbs jerked around furiously in their sockets as they adjusted to the darkness. Her slumber had been disturbed.
A new sound reached her ears, rocks being crunched beneath feet and the clink of metal against metal. Voices as well, at least three distinctive voices were heard as they echoed off the walls of her cave.
“You say this is the cave?” The first voice said.
“Ssh.” Another responded. “We don’t want to awaken it.”
Humans. They had come for her yet again. She pushed herself up from the ground, her leg muscles stretched and tensed. With her feet planted firmly on the ground, she flexed open her wings and beat them to work out the stiffness. She stretched out her legs, popped her neck from one side and then the other. As she awoke, her front claws caught on a rib bone which lay on the floor and knocked it away.
Bones lay scattered across the cave floor all around her, animal bones which belonged to the livestock of the nearby village. Sheep bones, pigs, goats, and even the bones of young calves. This was why the humans had come after her again, to put an end to her thieving.
But she had no choice. She must feed herself after all, and food in these mountains had grown incredibly scarce.
The footsteps and voices grew steadily closer. Soon, she knew, they would be upon her and then she would have little means of escape. Humans were physically weak, but also cunning. She would need to draw first blood if she was to escape with her life. She crouched low to the ground and slinked though the cave like a large cat towards the sounds of the intruders.
Ahead of her was a crevice in the wall of her cave, a crack in the rock which reached from the floor all the way to the ceiling, and just big enough at its widest point for her to squeeze in her massive shoulders. With her wings folded tight against her body, she stepped into the crevice backwards with her tail pulled up underneath her. She hugged at the ground, the muscles in her back legs coiled and tense as she waited.
“Rennec,” the voice from before echoed, “bring me the torch. And hand me my crossbow.”
“Yes, sir.” A second, much younger voice, replied.
A flickering light danced along the cave wall. She saw them through the crevice gap as they approached.
The first was a tall man, nearly six feet in height with black hair which reached to his shoulders, and a short beard that grew down from his cheeks to his chin. Upon his face she noted another feature; a large, crescent-shaped scar which started just above his eye and reached all the way down his face to end at his chin. No hair grew over this scar.
His upper body was armored, it glistened and reflected the light from the torch which he held in his right hand. A cape of heavy blue fabric hung from his shoulders and fell all the way down to his feet. Armor plates also adorned his legs over top brown trousers. He held a sword at his waist which still rested in its scabbard.
In his left hand he held a weapon, one unlike any she had seen before. The man gripped the stock like a sword, but it had a small bow and arrow in place of a blade. She did not like that weapon. Bows and arrows had already caused her pain in the past, to see one combined with a sword frightened her.
Another human came up behind the first, this one much younger and significantly smaller. He was dressed in armor much like the first, and drug behind him a sled weighted down with more assorted weapons; from axes to daggers to swords. His hair was short and wavy red, and his face pale and dotted with freckles. “Master Vince,” the boy whispered, “is it here?”
“If our guide be true.” The taller man, Vince, motioned with the torch to the third man.
The first two humans walked passed the crevice without noticing her, the shadows covered her too well. A third human, the guide who had led them here, came up behind them with his sword already drawn and clutched in his hands. “I swear,” he said in a wobbly voice, “this is the cave. This is were that beast lives.”
“Well,” Vince kicked a rib bone and sent it skidding across the floor. “With all these bone around, it’s obvious something very big and carnivorous lives in this cave.” He handed the torch back to his assistant, grabbed a lever on the bottom of his weapon, and flexed it forward. A hook caught the bowstring and locked it in place. A bolt shifted from the chamber on the bottom into the smooth channel of the barrel. With that done, he took the torch back from the younger boy. “Come on, but more quietly. With any luck, the creature still sleeps.”
The first two humans moved on. They stepped deeper and deeper into the cave, the light from their flame grew dimmer. The guide crept along behind them, his eyes gazed around in fear at every dancing shadow. The creature watched him eagerly from her hiding place.
Her leg muscles tensed up in preparation. Her claws scratched at the ground before her as she waited. The human needed to just take a few more steps and he would be in range. Just a little bit more. He stepped closer, and closer. The guide stopped and his eyes fixed on the crevice in the wall. He stared intently at her, and she stared back. What was he waiting for? Could he see her? If so, why had he not alerted his comrades yet? He just needed to take one more step. Just one more.
The man looked away from her and towards the other humans as they moved away. “Wait for me!” He called. He started to run towards them, and that’s when she made her move.
In that instant, the reptile thrust herself out of the crevice. With claws outstretched and mouth agape, she collided with the man. Together they crashed into the far wal
l, his bones snapped under her enormous weight. Her claws tore at his chest and ripped the armor away as if it were made of paper, and her teeth shredded his neck. The man did not have time to scream before he died. She took the body in her mouth and shook it violently, vertebrae snapped in her jaws and blood flowed down her throat.
“Master, the dragon!” Rennec, the young red-haired child, shouted in alarm.
“I see it!” Vince lifted his crossbow up to eye level and pulled the trigger. The bow string snapped forward with a twang and shot the bolt at the dragon. It caught in her ribs.
The dragon dropped her victim and growled in pain as the metal tip embedded itself in her skin. She growled a warning at her attackers.
Vince threw the torch at the dragon. It bounced off her face and she flinched for a second. The torch landed at her feet, the flame still burned brightly. With the dragon dazed, Vince quickly reloaded the crossbow by latching the lever on the bottom back and fired again. This bolt stuck its target in the torso.
A jolt of pain shot though the dragon’s body. While they were small, and did not pierce though her tough scales, these weapons were still irritating and painful. A rumbling growl rose up from her throat. Already, she felt the heat rise in her chest as she prepared to use her most deadly weapon. She pulled her head back, inhaled, and unleashed her fire breath.
Orange, yellow, and red flames flew from her mouth in an enormous blaze to engulf her attackers. The fire surrounded them in an intense inferno. The two human wrapped themselves in their cloaks and fell to the ground.
The dragon turned away from the intruders and sprinted towards the light at the mouth of the cave. As she charged out into the open, her wings flared and she thrust herself up into the air. Each down stroke took her higher and further away from the mountain. This place was no longer suited for her to live, the time had come to find a new home.
Chapter 1
W ing beats filled the air as the dragon soared through the cold, cloud filled skies of eastern Romania. Her powerful chest muscles pulsated with each down stroke as they forced her large, leathery wings up and down to stay aloft. With a small shift of her tail, she kept herself on course.
What ever that course was, however, was still a mystery to her. She had come down from her last home in the French Alps to this one in the Carpathian Mountains to escape a trio of dragon slayers that made an attempt on her life. She managed to kill one before retreating, but the other two she was uncertain about. They may have lived, or they may have died. It mattered little to her now, just so long as she was alive herself.
The fierce winds kicked up and she staggered in the air. The dragon flapped her wings hard to steady herself. She managed to regain control of her flight path, but she moved slower now. The wind fought her for every inch she gained.
All the while, even in this storm, she listened. She sought to hear the call of another of her species, another dragon. There were none. The silence deafened her ears, as well as her heart.
In all her life she had only every seen two other dragons; her mother and nest mate, and the last time they were together was almost thirty years ago. She was a thirty-five year old dragon and could easily live for another thirty-five, or even longer. The oldest of her species lived to be well over a century, but those days were long past. The race of dragons had been hunted to the point of near extinction by the only species more cunning and dangerous than herself; humans.
She feared and despised the humans. It was an instinctual fear which had developed deep in the subconscious of every dragon still living on earth, a fear of the two-legged creature.
When man first appeared they were of little interest to the dragons, who had long held dominion over the world. But with the discovery of fire, and later metallurgy, man rose to challenge the once mighty dragon and hunt them for sport.
She knew she could never truly be free of them, her latest encounter was proof enough of that. She still bore the scars from that dragon slayer’s weapon on her ribs.
The dragon descended over a crag which jutted out from the mountain side. Her talons latched to the rock and grounded her, pulled her to the earth. The gale force winds bombarded her with snow, which collected in packs on her wings. Snowflakes stung her eyes and clouded her vision. With a growl, she turned into the wind and unleashed a surge of flames in a vain attempt to stop the storm. Fire scorched the air. The snow flakes around her melted and splashed against her scales. But once she stopped, the snow continued to fall and the wind still blew.
As much as she wished to, she could not continue with such a splurging of her fire breath, as the same mechanism that allowed her to breathe fire also let her fly.
The dragon rubbed her body against the rock face to leave her scent. The reason for this was two fold; firstly it was to declare this as her new territory, and secondly it was to attract a mate. Instinct drove her to this, a deep compulsion she did not understand to propagate her race. It was entirely subconscious, as she had never seen a male dragon in her life. Even so, with the odds stacked firmly against her, she was determined.
With her scent markers left, she leapt off the rock and caught the wind. Dipping below the clouds, her wings flared and tail adjusting once again, she headed for her new home.
At the base if the mountain rested a small village. The dragon noticed it when she first came here, but had stayed away as much as she could. She did not want another encounter with the humans, after all. The fact that they lived here was almost a foregone conclusion to her now, they seemed to live everywhere these days. For their part, the humans had not noticed her yet, and she preferred to keep it that way.
***
In the village, a young man stepped out from the local butcher shop with a parcel full of meat slung over his shoulder. He was Richard, the squire and apprentice of the local feudal lord, Sir Ardose.
Once outside, his blonde hair whipped about and his wolf-skin coat fluttered in the wind. With a tug, he readjusted the package of meat and set off for home. The storm was picking up now, most everyone else had retreated inside and were probably sitting comfortably next to their fires.
They were likely all gathered around their hearths, hands reached out towards the flames and fingers tingling in the heat. Their faces aglow in the red warmth. Richard pulled his cloak tighter against this body. The thought of a warm fire just made him feel the cold more fiercely.
His gaze shifted up to the mountain. Even though he had lived his whole life in this village and seen this mountain everyday, the sheer size and majesty of never failed to inspire him. The jagged peaks blanketed white with snow which reached out of the earth.
A flash of orange erupted from the clouds. Richard stopped in his tracks, his feet sank in the snow and quickly started to freeze, but he hardly noticed. What had be just seen? Was that fire? Where did it come from? He squinted his eyes and starred more intently at the mountain top obscured by clouds.
Something burst through from the bottom of the cloud bank. What appeared to be a set of wings flapped as it turned away and flew off towards the mountain. It was faint, little more than a dark shape against the white expanse, but Richard recognized it for what it was. That was a dragon.
Sweat ran down his face and quickly froze in the cold. His fingers were numb, his neck ached from craning his head back, his legs felt weak and watery. Ever since he was a child, Richard had grown up hearing tales of dragons; viscous monsters that burned entire kingdoms to ash and feasted on the flesh of young maidens, and were eventually slain by brave and valiant knights. But he never thought he would see one, even if it was from a great distance.
He wanted to run, needed to run. He needed to warn someone. Anyone. But his legs felt frozen in place. In an act of desperation, he bit down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. He broke the fear with pain.
Richard charged off through the village. A spray of snow kicked up behind him as he sprinted. There was only one place he could go, and one man he must tell, Sir Ardose.
The knight lived on the far end of the village in a manor with a nearby barn and a fenced in field for livestock. It was not usually Ardose himself that tended to the animals, but one of the servants.
When Richard reached the house he ran straight to the front door. Wisps of white steam puffed around his face with each breath. His heart pounded and the cold air stung his lungs, he did not care. He pounded his fist against the door repeatedly, and when nothing happened he hit it again.
Richard waited in the cold snow for his lord to appear. Finally, after several anxious moments, a latch shuddered inside and the door pulled inward. Sir Ardose stood in the doorway, dressed in a warm robe with a leather bound book in his hand. Light stubble grew on his cheeks and chin. He pulled a strand of his auburn brown hair away from his eyes. “Richard,” he said, “what is all this ruckus? Did you retrieve the meat like I asked?”
Richard glanced down at the parcel he still clutched tightly. He’d almost completely forgotten about it. “Yes, my lord, I did.” He gave a small, customary bow. “But there is something of much greater importance I must tell you.” He panted, still working to catch his breath from the sprint over here.
“Well, come inside, then.” Ardose shifted to the left. “I’ll catch my death in this cold if I stand here much longer.”
Richard accepted his lord’s invitation, it would have been unwise not to. Inside, he handed the packaged meat off to one of Sir Ardose’s servants and hung his cloak on the rack by the door. A fire burned in the stone hearth, the room filled with its heat and dancing light.
Sir Ardose seated himself in a chair by the flames and rested the book over his lap. “Now, my boy, tell me, what was all the commotion about?”
“Sir,” Richard spoke, “just now, I believe I saw a dragon.”
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