“You’ll understand if I’m a little reluctant to force him.” The sorceress sighed but looked to her companion with a grimace, regardless. “Lenny, we need it.”
His response was twofold. First, he swept a long, angry glare over those assembled. It was with some lack of nerve that Nitz noticed how furious the man’s stare was when clear of throbbing red veins. Bright and angry blue, his glower instilled a chill in all of them, forcing even Maddy to quickly disguise a step backwards as a restless shift.
The tension emanating from his stare was palpable, the vision of what might occur frozen in their minds. What if, they wondered simultaneously, the thrill of battle and the lack of smoke was just enough to grant one of the two murderous souls inside him control of the body they fought over? What if, they thought as he reached for his belt, his hand shifted just a bit … past the belt buckle to the sword hanging at his hip?
And then, Sir Leonard dropped his pants.
In stark comparison to the way his stare had forced their attentions away, they were now horrifyingly riveted as the knight reached a gloved hand between his legs and rooted around for a moment. Then, producing a bag which he quickly brushed off and drew a small pinch of green from, he tossed it upon the heap with a snarl.
“This”—he ignored his lack of lower coverage to pull out a small piece of paper—“is the last of it.” Quickly rolling the cigarillo, he shoved it in his mouth and thrust it to Armecia. “The pants don’t go back on until you light it.”
“Yeah … sure.”
She snapped her fingers, conjuring a flame to the tip. Sparing only a moment to light the man’s roll, she turned her hand to the pile of weed before her. She narrowed her eyes and the flame became a large, angry billow, rolling from her fingers to sear the herb and send a cloud of acrid smoke roiling into the air. Nitz barely had time to put a hand over his mouth before she swept her other arm, conjuring a gust of wind that sent the cloud chasing down into the cavern’s mouth, a ghastly, reeking hound after the massive, fire-breathing rabbit.
“Now what?” Sir Lenny asked, apparently in no hurry to fulfill his promise.
“Now we—”
“Now we wait,” Armecia interrupted Nitz. “When the thing comes out, you distract it, Lenny, while Maddy or I kill it. Then we chop off its head, get my book, get some kind of whacky-stick—”
“Fraumvilt.”
“Right, whichever. After that, we bid each other farewell and go off to find some more herb.”
“What … just like that?” Nitz raised a brow.
“What, were you hoping we’d cuddle on its corpse afterwards?”
“Well”—he quickly cleared his throat—“I mean, what am I supposed to do during all this?”
“Read a book or something.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. You can cook us dinner after we do the fighting.”
“I can fight!” he said, wondering if it was because of a sense of humor or outright cruelty that God made his voice crack at that moment. Clearing his throat, he continued. “I mean, Maddy is the muscle. I’m usually the thinking man of the pair.”
“For one, you can scarcely be called a man yet,” she replied, her grin particularly irksome. “For two, the keyword in your prior statement is ‘pair.’ I’m the one that thought of this, so I get to take care of it.” She tapped her temple. “Not to mention that I can shoot ice out of my eyeball. Can you do that?”
“Well, I—”
“Can you?”
“Of course I can’t!”
“Then do what you can,” she retorted, before he could elaborate. Gesturing with her chin, she glanced to a nearby rock. “Tend to whoever happens to limp over there if something goes wrong.”
He found himself at a loss for words. Blunt as she might have been, she wasn’t entirely wrong; coming up with plans and needlework was typically his specialty, while bashing brains and occasionally making necklaces out of bits that fell off people was Maddy’s. Armecia’s specialty, apparently, was his combined with magic, rolled into one ominous, dusky-skinned package.
He would have liked to think that he could have proven his worth as a man of ideas by coming up with a better one right then and there. He would have settled for proving his worth as a man of wit by coming up with a sharp retort to hurl back at her … preferably one that would have made her so weak in the knees that she would have swooned at his feet, leaving him free to scoop her up in one arm and fight off the dragon with the other.
Yeah, that’s what would happen— he sighed as he settled onto the rock—and so long as I’m fantasizing, I’d like a harem.
“You think this will work, then?”
Armecia looked up to regard Maddy’s unexpressive, one-eyed glance fixed on her. The sorceress frowned, finding herself unable to read any emotion in the massive woman’s stare. You’d think, she mused, that if you had one eye, you’d be twice as expressive with it.
“I think it might work,” she replied in lieu of her thoughts. “I mean … if you can use that axe of yours, anyway.”
“You can always ask your little friend if I know how to use it,” Maddy replied with a shrug.
Armecia resisted the urge to turn around to regard Leonard. She couldn’t precisely say how or when she acquired the instinct, but somehow possessing the ability to know precisely when the knight had his pants down was an ability she chose to be thankful for. Instead, she looked over her other shoulder at Nitz, sitting dejectedly upon the stone.
“He looks upset,” she observed, more sympathy than she would have liked leaking into her voice.
“Why wouldn’t he be? You just told him he was worthless.”
“Thanks for that,” she muttered. “I was hoping you might be reassuring.”
“I can see how you might think that.” Maddy flashed a jagged-toothed grin. “I do appear to be the nurturing type, don’t I?”
“Not particularly, no.” Armecia furrowed her brow at the woman. “Which sort of raises the question of why you’re with him in the first place, doesn’t it?”
“If you’re prone to not minding your own business and not minding your nose getting broken off because of it, I suppose.” She shrugged. “I owe him … he owes me. We’ll pay our debts and go our separate ways after we do.”
“Hm … debts.” She laughed a little, smiling at the woman. “You know, that’s how I—”
“Don’t care.”
“Oh … alright, then.”
The stench of weed hung heavily in the silence between them as the herb burned steadily. Burlap and herb were consumed, reduced first to gray curls, then to black ash as it continued to seep into the cavern mouth, spurred by the artificial wind. The skulls swayed gently in the breeze, rattling against each other in their vine entanglements, punctuated by the sound of Sir Leonard inhaling behind them.
The cave itself lay quiet, not so much as a stir in the darkness.
“So …”—Armecia kicked at the dirt—“why do you think he’s called Zeigfreid?”
“That’s his name,” Maddy replied.
“Well, yes,” the sorceress said. “But who named him? Did he do it himself, or did the people around him?”
“If I had to say, I suppose I might …” Maddy’s voice trailed off as her eye grew progressively wider with the two breaths that followed. “Oh, son of a—”
She heard the beast long before she saw it. Its roar began as a subtle thing, a low rumble in the earth, a quiver in the branches. It became an overt thing, a growl that sent birds flying from their perches, rodents fleeing from the roots.
By the time its roar had become loud enough to send the weed smoke billowing out of the cave mouth in a roiling gray wave, it was a horrifying thing.
Armecia collapsed onto her rump, her legs suddenly sapped of strength by the intoxicating blast of weed smoke mingled with the terrifying strength of the creature’s howl. She scrambled to her hands and feet, or what she hoped were her hands and feet, for she could barely feel her heartbeat through the toxic fog th
at seeped into her.
Her voice felt mute in her throat, her ears deaf on her head as she called for her companions and heard nothing. She swept the fog through hazy vision, searching for someone, anyone who might help her. When she could find no one, hear no one, she turned, scampering across the earth like a blind sheep, hoping she might bump into someone.
She did.
“Oh, thank God,” she gasped, afraid to open her mouth. Reaching hands up to seize her savior, she could feel something cold and hard. “Lenny, is that you?”
It wasn’t.
Something rose beneath her, sent her flying backwards to sprawl on her back. Through her fog-laden eyes, she could barely make out the thick, red toe ending in a thicker black claw. There was a sudden gale, the cloud of smoke was swept aside, and when it parted to reveal the scaled titan looming over her, God didn’t seem quite so benevolent anymore.
Zeigfreid, for a creature capable of crushing her under his little toe who had just been exposed to more weed than a Hashuni choir, seemed decidedly less agitated than he ought to be. Through a pair of large golden eyes that stared down a long, red snout, he—if the dragon was indeed a male and dragons didn’t abide by some other demented rule of genders—regarded her impassively.
Armecia did not return the favor.
She didn’t dare take him all in at once but forced herself to look at each part of him with painstaking slowness: his great, webbed wings, his massive, curving horns, his brightly polished red scales and lashing tail. Her tactic seemed to work; focusing on one part of the great beast at a time proved enough to spare her mind from utter ruin.
Until she saw Zeigfreid’s teeth.
What remained of the smoke was dissipated in a great burst of wind as he craned his neck down, opened his jaws, and loosed a roar that whipped her hair about her face and sent the dead leaves upon the ground sweeping into the sky like golden angels called to heaven.
That left only her and the dragon … and his teeth.
She scrambled backwards like an intoxicated crab, swaying to and fro as she retreated from the creature’s gaping jaws. The benefit seemed negligible, however; every twenty breaths she spent retreating, it took Zeigfreid only one step to cover, the earth shaking with every movement.
She tried to summon her breath to her lungs, tried to summon her voice to her throat, but it died and melted inside his molten orbs, was funneled past his scaly lips and onto the long, pink tongue that lashed out hungrily. She would die silently, she realized, the last sound she ever made in the mortal world being the crunch of bones and maybe a break of wind if she was particularly fibrous.
When her back struck the trunk of the tree, her shriek escaped her with a suddenness that shocked her.
“LENNY! PROTECT ME!”
And, to her surprise, Leonard did come. Bounding across the earth like a hare, he skidded to a halt before her, sword in hand, cigarillo in mouth, pants in a place not known to mortal men. He turned to face Zeigfreid, his twin butt cheeks before her like pale, fleshy shields between her and the dragon.
“This is him, huh?” he muttered, apparently not quite as impressed as Armecia had been. “I thought he’d be taller.”
“Well, he’s not. So, you know, do your thing and get to whacking him.”
“Whacking … that’s a funny word.”
He turned to face her, and, with horror splashing across her eyes, she saw the pleasant redness in his.
“Say, who do you think named him Zeigfreid? The people around him or his fat, ugly ma—”
The end of the question, along with every other part of Sir Leonard, was lost between two massive slabs of red flesh as Zeigfreid brought his forepaws together and crushed the knight between them. Whether or not he could actually feel it, Armecia could certainly not ask loud enough for his flying body to hear as the dragon tossed him over his shoulder to land somewhere beyond the brush.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it,” she muttered over and over, finding no other words for the occasion.
She suspected a prayer might be in order, perhaps a last breath repenting of sins, but could find only the breath to scream a name. She was determined to make this one count; Lenny could feel no pain, but she only knew of one who could deal it.
“NITZ!”
That was not who she had in mind.
Regardless, she was no less shocked when two arms that she wished were more capable wrapped around her. Holding her tightly against himself, Nitz cowered against the tree, ready to die alongside her.
Despite the fact that it was profoundly stupid, she couldn’t help but feel slightly flattered that he hadn’t run. Then again, she reasoned, he could have tried to distract the beast while she got away.
No, she told herself as she retreated further against him, this is good … Better to die with someone than no one, I guess. She felt a smile creep across her face. Father used to say that …
Better, too, she told herself, to die with a smile on her face.
Zeigfreid seemed to agree, for his face seemed to bear something resembling a smile as his neck craned low, and his jaws edged toward the pair, in no particular hurry. Despite the glittering rows of teeth facing her, Armecia couldn’t help but feel her own smile grow broader as the creature’s red mass dipped to expose a mass of pale flesh and silver metal creeping up its neck.
In a flash, Maddy leapt from his shoulder blades and seized his left horn in one hand. Massive thighs straddled his neck as her axe went high into the air.
Zeigfreid’s scream, however, was far more disturbing. Mingled with the sounds of crunching bone as Vulf bit deeply into his skull, then punctuated by a spurt of red as Maddy pulled the weapon out of the dragon’s cranium and slammed it back down again; the dragon collapsed to the earth, leaking life upon the ground, golden eyes going dim.
“See?” the woman grunted as she hoisted herself off the beast’s neck. “Not so hard. Just smack it in the head, watch it die, same solution for any of life’s problems, eh?”
Her grin was spattered with red as she winked her good eye at them.
“You can thank me later.” Hefting her axe over her shoulder, she put a hand on one hip. “So, which part do you want to take back to Father Scheitzen? The wings? The foot?”
“The head …” Nitz gasped.
“I was thinking that, too, but it’s a little big, isn’t it?”
“The head!”
“Fine, but you’re carrying it.”
“MADDY, THE HEAD!”
Her eyebrows quirked in confusion before disappearing behind a wall of teeth as Zeigfreid’s jaws snapped shut over her. In an instant, the beast was on his feet, wings flapping, tail lashing, and teeth gnashed in a large, ugly grin. Vulf remained as a testament to Maddy’s strength only for as long as it took the dragon to step forward and crush it under his foot.
“Slightly anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Armecia asked, half laughing. “I always figured I’d die by burning.”
“He could still do that,” Nitz replied gloomily as the beast lurched forward. “They breathe fire, don’t they?”
“I think that’s just a myth.”
“Maddy …” The young man found it hard to breathe, to speak. “Maddy always wanted to die killing Kingdomers.”
“She probably wouldn’t mind dying for the death of one Kingdomer.”
“If it wasn’t in vain, I suppose not.”
Zeigfreid took another lurching step forward, his great toes twitching so close to them that they could feel the earth trembling between each thoughtful drum of the red digits.
“It’s not over yet,” she said, though the viselike grip she clutched his arms with seemed to suggest otherwise. “You’re the man with ideas, aren’t you? Think of something!”
Zeigfreid’s foot was a crimson eclipse, blotting out the sun as he raised it over them.
“Like what?” Nitz demanded.
“SOMETHING!” she screamed.
Think of something, think of somethi
ng … he told himself over and over in his mind. Think of something …
Zeigfreid’s foot began its descent.
THINK OF SOMETHING!
“Your eye …” he began.
Armecia gasped, stiffened in his arms, and bent all the power of the Eye of Ajeed upon the dragon, its icy blast boring upward toward the great descending menace.
The last thing they heard was the dragon giggling.
“That tickles,” a huge voice said, and the foot came down.
THE nub of the tailbone was perfectly smooth, glowing with a multitude of hues under the stained-glass windows. Even colored as it was, its sheer size and smoothness seemed to reflect the light, casting the church into a symphony of color it had never seen since the day it was hewn from rough gray stone and cast into dank blackness when its huge carved doors had closed over its mouth.
The poetry, however, seemed lost on Father Scheitzen.
The priest was less interested in the colors it cast and more intrigued by the remaining length of the beast’s tail. It ran the entire length of his altar and then some, its scaly, ridged back dripping down the dais steps like a small fall of blood to curl slightly at the tip upon the red carpet.
“And you did not bring the head … why?”
He turned to regard Nitz, less impressed.
The young man stood as straight and proud as a vassal could in a torn tunic and smudged breeches reeking of weed smoke. Regardless, after clearing his throat and brushing a lock of blond hair out of his face, he spoke with rehearsed succinctness.
“It was a tad too large, Father.”
“So it would seem,” he replied, looking back at the tail. “And you’re certain the beast cannot live without this?”
“If Father doubts me, I would encourage him to venture to the fiend’s lair and discover what I left of the beast.”
“I suppose I might, at that, when we venture out to get the gold.” He turned a glower upon the young man. “I trust you’ve a better reason for not bringing that.”
Dragon Book, The Page 24