The Pitchfork of Destiny

by Jack Heckel

  There was the sound of sudden movement, and she tensed herself for the killing blow that she expected to come. But nothing happened. She looked up and saw to her alarm that Elle was standing between her and the dragon’s massive claw.

  “Move aside, Lady Rapunzel,” the dragon said, his harsh voice having lost much of its earlier refinement. “I mean you no harm.”

  “Don’t you see,” she said her voice plaintive, “if you harm her, you harm me. If you kill Will, you will kill me. That is what I’ve been trying to tell you from the beginning. If I have stayed with you, willingly, it’s only because I know that the only escape for me would be through death, and that would kill Will, but if you go ahead with your plan to slay William Pickett, then I will follow him into that final darkness. If you continue, there will be nothing but sadness at the end of this story.”

  Liz held her breath as the dragon stared down at Elle, his deadly, taloned claw still poised to strike, but how the dragon might have answered or the moment resolved she would never discover as just then, there was a shout from outside the tower.

  It was Will.

  “Hail, Great Dragon of the North. I am King William of Royaume. I ask for proof that the Lady Rapunzel still lives. If she does, I am ready to discuss your demands.”

  CHAPTER 16

  DRAGON TOWER BURNING BRIGHT

  The fire in the Dragon’s eyes rekindled as he heard Will’s challenge. With a rush of movement that sent the tapestries on the walls fluttering, Volthraxus sprang to the edge of the balcony and screamed his hatred.

  “HERE I AM, KING WILLIAM, DRAGONSLAYER!” Volthraxus roared, beating his wings and sending a terrible wind rushing through the room that knocked Elle and Liz back into the wall. Holding each other for support, the two women tried to fight their way to the balcony, but it was useless.

  Will’s answer floated up from below, “I am ready to meet your challenge, Dragon, but first show me that Lady Rapunzel remains unharmed.”

  “I will do more than that, King William, Dragonslayer,” Volthraxus said, and he reached back with his tail and pulled Liz and Elle toward him in a sweeping motion so that they found themselves at the balustrade looking down at Will, who was standing before the boulder-­blocked door of the tower in tattered clothes with a pitchfork in his hand. He had never looked more like a farmer.

  His eyes alighted on Elle first, and he called out, “Are you well, Elle?” But then his gaze took in Liz, and they watched as his face visibly paled, and he shouted, “Liz? What are you doing here?”

  “We are both fine, Will,” Elle shouted back to him.

  Liz added, “Now get out of here, you ninny, before you get yourself killed.”

  “I would not advise taking your sister’s advice, King William, Dragonslayer,” the dragon called down with a hiss and a spurt of flame.

  “I have no intention of running, Dragon,” Will said. “Leave the ladies alone and let us be done.”

  “AS YOU WISH!”

  “Wait!” Elle cried, and reached a hand up to the dragon’s chest. “Will you take me down with you so that I may at least say goodbye?” she asked in a fragile voice. “Please?”

  “Elle!” Liz said in a shocked voice.

  “Liz, be quiet,” Elle snapped.

  Volthraxus looked down at her with his molten eyes. “Normally, I would grant such a request, but I know you too well, little princess. I fear that your desire to say goodbye is a subterfuge for some grand and noble gesture on your part that might lead to some harm coming to you. You may say your farewells from here, I think.”

  “You are cruel.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied. “However, I think that it would be more cruel to King William if he died knowing that you had come to harm when he might have prevented it.” Volthraxus raised his head to address Will. “What do you say, King William, Dragonslayer, shall I transport Lady Rapunzel down to the field of combat?”

  “He’s right, Elle, it would be better if you stayed where you were,” Will said from the bottom of the tower. “Besides, I’ve been two weeks on the road, so you probably don’t want to get too close right now anyway.”

  “You do look a mess,” she said with a cluck of her tongue.

  They stood in silence for a time, their eyes drinking each other in, absorbing every detail.

  At last, Will said, “You let your hair grow out.”

  Elle touched her head self-­consciously. “Yes. I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to get it cut since—­”

  “No!” he said brightly. “I like it. The way it spills over your shoulders and how the sun catches in it. I want to remember you like this.”

  Tears sprang into their eyes and ran down their faces as they gazed at each other.

  “Elle, I wish . . .” Will started, but then stopped, and said, “The dress is beautiful.”

  “You peeked!” she said accusingly, and wiped at her eyes with the edge of her dress.

  He shrugged. “Sorry.”

  Will’s face became serious, and he said, “You should wear it someday. It may not be with me, but it should be with someone. Elle, promise me that you will wear it!”

  “No!” she sobbed, and reached out a hand toward him. “Will! No! There must be a way. Volthraxus! Please!”

  “You monster!” Liz was suddenly shouting, shaking her fist up at the dragon’s face. “How can you do this to them? How can a thinking being who says that he has felt love do this?”

  “Enough!” Volthraxus rumbled angrily and, using his tail to push Liz and Elle to the side, stepped forward to the very edge of the balcony, beat his wings against the air and threw himself off the tower. He glided down in a half circle so that he landed near where the trail emerged onto the tower’s ledge.

  “As you can see, King William, Dragonslayer,” Volthraxus said, spreading his great gray wings out to the sides, “I have fulfilled my portion of the bargain. The ladies are unharmed, and when our combat is at an end, I will free them and not stop or hinder their flight in any manner; nor will I raise a talon against them unless you choose this day to flee from your appointed doom.”

  Will nodded. “You have done all you promised, Dragon. I will not run.”

  “Yes, you will, William Pickett,” Liz shouted down at him.

  She grabbed Elle by the hand and ran back across the tower to the stair. They raced down the stairs and across the debris-­filled lower chamber to the blocked doorway. Through the gaps in the rocks, they could see Will, his back to them, facing off against the dragon.

  “I love you, Will!” Elle cried out as she banged her fists futilely against the stones.

  “I love you, Elle!” Will cried, and, coming to the other side of the rocks, he reached his arm through a slight gap so that their fingertips touched. He peered through the crack into the darkness. “Liz, take care of her, and tell Charming thanks for everything.”

  “Will, behind you!” Liz shouted.

  Volthraxus had closed the distance between them in two steps of lethal grace. He reared himself above Will, his great gray wings flapping and fire issuing from his mouth, and gazed down at him as molten flames danced in his eyes.

  Will circled around to the side of dragon, putting some distance between them and where Liz and Elle were standing.

  “Now we fight, King William, slayer of Magdela,” the dragon said, hissing flame and steam. “I have the fires of the infernal. You have your Pitchfork of Destiny. I fight for the memory of my beloved. You fight for your kingdom and bride. Shall we begin?”

  “No,” Will said calmly.

  He threw the pitchfork to the side and fell to his knees.

  Behind him, Liz and Elle were shouting. “Will, No! Don’t!” “Run, Will!”

  Volthraxus ignored the shouts of the women and, as smoke continued to leak from his snout, took a step back, and rumbled, “What is the meaning o
f this? Do you refuse my challenge?”

  Will looked up to meet Volthraxus’s terrible gaze, and said, “I accept your challenge, Dragon, but I am not here to fight. I am here to end this. If only my life will satisfy your need for vengeance, then I give it to you. I give it to you with the understanding that you will leave Royaume, satisfied by the exchange, and that you will no longer terrorize my ­people or seek further retribution on my family. Do we have an accord?”

  “Will! You can’t!” Elle screamed with a sob.

  Liz shouted, “Move aside, Elle!”

  There was a loud crash as something heavy and wooden was thrown or rammed against the boulder barricade.

  Volthraxus ignored the screams and shouts and leaned in close to Will, his hot breath scalding Will’s face. “Do you think I will be swayed to mercy by this gesture? Do you think I will let you live because you are willing to sacrifice yourself?”

  “No.” Will said, still staring into the dragon’s molten eyes. “I expect you will kill me, but this is no longer about me. You keep calling me dragonslayer, but since my crowning, I have not claimed that title. I do, however, call myself King, and I understand better now than I did before what that means. It means that my life must be lived for the betterment of my ­people, even those that reject and scorn me. I give my life for theirs, for Elle and Liz and all the others who would be subject to your wrath should I refuse. Now, do we have an accord?”

  Will’s steady gaze seemed to be making Volthraxus uncomfortable, and the dragon retreated a step and cocked its head as if in thought.

  There were more shouts from Elle and Liz, and more sounds of heavy objects being battered against the stone blockade. One of the boulders shifted.

  “I don’t understand,” Volthraxus growled. “Are you so tired of life?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand, Volthraxus,” he said. “However, I am trusting to your word that you will not harm the ­people of my kingdom, and that you will see that Lady Elizabeth and Lady Rapunzel make it safely back to Prosper.”

  “You are putting a lot of faith in the word of a monster,” Volthraxus said. “Why?”

  Will’s grim expression finally broke, and he smiled. “Because I had the best teacher of dragon lore in the kingdom. Prince Charming told me all about you, and he told me that Volthraxus was an honorable dragon.”

  Volthraxus nodded. “Very well. If this is what you wish. I think it is a pity that we did not get a chance to fight.” There was real regret in his voice. “I think you would have made a worthy foe.”

  Liz’s and Elle’s shouts grew louder. There was the sound of more rocks falling and tumbling over one another.

  Will smiled a little self-­mocking smile. “I probably would have disappointed you. I don’t even know how to hold a sword properly.” His face grew serious again. “You will keep them safe?”

  Volthraxus nodded, then opened his mouth. Will saw within a sight that few in the world have ever seen and lived to tell of, the fiery maw of a dragon. He felt the heat build, said a silent goodbye to Elle, Liz, and even Charming, and closed his eyes.

  At that moment, something soft that smelled like jasmine struck him in the chest. Elle wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. In a startled panic, Will twisted around so that his body would shield Elle as much as possible from the dragon’s lethal breath. He felt a terrible heat pass just over the top of him.

  “Elle!” “Lady Rapunzel!” he and Volthraxus both shouted once the flames had passed.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Volthraxus demanded above them. “I could have killed you, Lady Rapunzel.”

  “Don’t blame her,” Lady Elizabeth shouted between heaving breaths. “You tried to burn her to death.”

  “I did nothing of the sort,” the dragon said, indignantly pointing a claw at Will. “I was trying to burn him to death, and she leapt in the way. It’s only by a miracle that I managed to redirect the fire at the last moment. I think I may have strained something,” he said, holding a talon to his throat.

  Behind them came a crackling and the smell of smoke. The dragon’s flame had caught the rosebushes that grew around the tower’s base on fire and, in seconds, the tangled vines were a raging pyre, leaping up the sides of the stone structure.

  “Great,” the dragon said with disgust. “Now what are we going to do?” He gestured with frustration at the burning tower. “I can’t very well put you and Elle back in the tower, can I? But if I leave you out here, you two are going to keep finding ways to get in my way.”

  “I hate to say that this is your problem,” Liz said unsympathetically, “but it is your problem.”

  “It is all very irritating,” Volthraxus said.

  Elle and Will were holding each other on the ground. Elle was saying, “How could you think to leave me like that? You must promise never to leave me.” Will was saying, “Don’t you ever, ever do that again.” They paid no attention to Liz and the dragon’s exchange or the fire raging a few feet away.

  “And, look at them,” Volthraxus said with a strange mixture of disgust and wistfulness. “I mean, it lacks a certain dignity to roll about like that kissing and hugging and touching, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Liz said this time with a great deal of sympathy. “I have to admit it is an unseemly sight. I’m not sure that a king and his future queen should be behaving in that manner—­publicly.”

  Volthraxus settled himself on the ground and sighed. “This isn’t working out to be as violently cathartic as I had hoped.”

  “Perhaps,” Liz suggested, “you might consider scrapping the whole idea of revenge.”

  In the dragon’s eyes, the flicker of anger kindled, flamed, and grew. “I would like to, Lady Elizabeth, I swear that I would, but as much as we pride ourselves on our intelligence, we dragons are essentially creatures of emotion. I can no more ignore this anger that rages in me than I can ignore a hunger in my belly. I must answer vengeance’s call. It is my nature.”

  Liz sat next to him, and they watched the tower burn and tried to ignore the endless litany of sweet-­nothings being whispered between Elle and Will. Finally, she looked over to the dragon. “Why do you think your anger picked Will, I mean, King William, as its focus?”

  “I suppose,” Volthraxus said thoughtfully, “because he is the most blameworthy. It was his pitchfork that slew her, it was his field where she fell, and it is his head that wears the crown as a result.”

  Liz was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “It isn’t much, is it?”

  “No,” the dragon admitted sadly.

  “In fact, you could put as much or more blame on me,” she said. Volthraxus looked at her skeptically. “It’s true. It was in trying to protect me that Will found himself in that field in the first place. Had he never gone out there to draw her away from the farmhouse, probably Magdela never would have attacked us. Also, I profited as much from her death as he did. It is only because of Magdela that I met my Charming. Without her death, I would be a spinster desired by no one and doomed to a life of drudgery and loneliness. Would you be satisfied to exact your revenge on me?”

  A knowing smile stretched across his face, and the fire ebbed in his eyes. “No, Lady Elizabeth. I am sorry for my behavior earlier, but you may be the last person I would choose to harm.”

  “But I am as guilty—­”

  “Your guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.”

  “What then?”

  “You will know soon enough, suffice it to say my personal code of honor prevents me from harming you. Besides,” he said with a sigh, “I am beginning to see that if anyone is to blame, it is I. You were right in the tower, Lady Elizabeth. I didn’t love her enough. I should have come for her sooner, but I kept making excuses and finding reasons to delay. Are those the actions of an honorable dragon?”

  Liz had no idea what an hon
orable dragon acted like, and so did not answer, but, as she watched Elle run her fingers through Will’s hair and sigh, a sudden thought struck her. “I don’t think you are any more to blame than Will and I.”

  The dragon looked at her with a rise of his scaly eyebrow. “I don’t think you have a firm grasp of self-­preservation, Lady Elizabeth.”

  “You just told me I’m the last person you would choose to harm, Volthraxus. Forgive me if I’m feeling a little reckless, but if you are going to keep me in fear of my life, you need to work on your intimidation,” she said with a waggle of her tongue.

  Volthraxus looked a little hurt. “I think I’m very intimidating.” Then, looking around at Will and Elle kissing and Liz, who was now resting against one of his taloned claws, he added, “Perhaps not at this particular moment, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, Volthraxus,” she said in an encouraging voice. “I am sure you are usually very ferocious.”

  “So if I am not to blame, and you’re not to blame, and Will’s not to blame, who can I blame?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Magdela,” Liz said softly.

  There was a rumble of anger from Volthraxus. “Be very careful, Lady Elizabeth. My patience can be stretched too far!”

  The anger in the dragon’s voice snapped Elle and Will out of their lover’s embrace. “What’s the matter?” Will said. “I thought the rumbling part was over?”

  “Your sister was explaining how Magdela was responsible for her own death,” Volthraxus hissed angrily.

  “Liz!” Will and Elle both said in surprise.

  “She was!” Liz said, and, standing, began pacing in front of the dragon. “Volthraxus, in the brief time I have known you, I have found you to be a refined dragon.”

  “It’s true,” Elle said passionately, running a hand through her mussed-­up hair and rearranging her clothes. “He doesn’t like to eat ­people. He doesn’t even like to attack or kill ­people. For the most part, he is satisfied with an occasional pig.”

  “More than occasional,” Volthraxus interjected.