Ashes of Heaven

by C. Dale Brittain

  “May I present this to you,” said Tristan, “in thanks for your welcome of me?” The harbor marshal had not actually welcomed him, and indeed there were several bowmen in his boat who had not spoken but eyed Tristan suspiciously. “I will wish to leave my skiff here on the shore, and this chalice may serve as partial payment for your goodness.”

  The marshal smiled suddenly. “Of course, young man. Your skiff shall be safe here on the harbor shore. Probably safer than you will be, if in fact you plan to face a dragon!”

  And so in a short amount of time Tristan was ashore and haggling over the price of a horse and a heavy spear, and by the end of the afternoon was on his way toward the lake where everyone said the bog-dragon lurked.

  It was not hard to find. Numerous people were more than willing to point the way. The road led back into desolate hills and valleys, and after ten miles he began to see empty fields and villages, the thatched roofs ripped as though something powerful had forced its way in from above. The land was boggy, cut with channels where peat had been harvested, and only the road provided a hard surface—and several people told him that the dragon could maneuver almost as well in the bogs as in water. Tristan spent the night in one of the deserted villages, unable to sleep in more than brief snatches, and slowly rode on toward the dragon’s lake in the morning.

  Soon he started seeing pieces of broken and abandoned weapons and mail and even bones. Some of the bones appeared to be from cows or horses, creatures the dragon had doubtless eaten, but there were also fragments that could have been human bone. A stench of corruption wafted toward him on the breeze.

  Tristan’s horse snorted, not liking the smell, the rough road, or the lack of grass. “Love is indeed torment,” he told the horse, “for the same passion which has made many men bold has brought them all here to injury or to death.”

  From the top of a little rise he spotted the lake where it seemed most likely the bog-dragon lurked. The water was nearly black, stained by the dark soil of the bog, and impossible to see into. He approached slowly, trying not to think that he was subject to the same tormenting passion that had brought other men here to die, and also hoping to find a ground that might be at least minimally advantageous to him. It would be impossible to gallop through the bog, but his whole plan requiring galloping.

  If the beast was there, it did not show itself as he cautiously rode along the lake shore. He tried to fight off relief. Then, off in the distance he heard, faint but growing louder, a roar that seemed to shake the earth, and human shouting, high and thin in comparison to that roar. Someone else, he thought, had come this morning to face the bog-dragon.

  And then he saw, riding desperately down the road, four armed men. Behind them was a beast even bigger than he had imagined, at least thirty feet long from jaws to forked tail, its long body undulating as it came, its scales glistening green in the morning sun.

  Tristan’s horse shied and would have run if he had not pulled it up hard. The four knights, however, were making no effort to hold back their own horses. They ran at full tilt, a quarter mile away from where Tristan watched, at a speed that the bog-dragon on its flippers could not match. None seemed to notice him.

  One of the riders looked curiously familiar. Tristan shaded his eyes, squinting. He could be wrong, but it certainly looked like Paranis, the royal steward of Eire.

  The bog-dragon stopped, roaring after its attackers. “So the love of the princess Isolde will inspire even a steward to manly courage,” said Tristan quietly, “or at least until it comes to the actual fight!” He waited until the riders were far out of sight, then turned his own horse toward the bog-dragon.

  The monster appeared somewhat battered, as though the four knights had inflicted at least some damage, and Tristan hoped if he attacked at once he might have a better chance with an already tired beast—especially since it was now standing on the hard road surface. He lowered his spear into position, spurred his horse into a gallop, and charged.

  The bog-dragon reared up, jaws wide at the end of its serpentine neck. If it was tired, Tristan was glad he was not seeing it healthy and fresh.

  He aimed his spear carefully, straight toward the gaping gullet. He gritted his teeth, gave his horse a final kick, and drove the spear in with the full force of his charge.

  The monster roared as the spear went in, twisting its body half off the ground in its agony. Tristan circled his horse around hard, and waited for the space of five heartbeats, watching. Then he whipped out his sword and charged again, ready to deliver the death blow.

  But the bog-dragon was far from dead. It shook its head wildly from side to side, and the spear snapped off. Some of the shaft was still lodged in the beast’s gullet, but this only filled it with rage. As Tristan charged, it reared up again and opened its jaws wide. He was too close to retreat. The bog-dragon’s hundreds of knife-sharp teeth snapped, and the jaws closed around the head of Tristan’s horse.

  He sprang out of the saddle just in time, as the beast shook the horse like a dog shaking a rat. The headless body of the horse went flying. Tristan found his balance and ran nimbly forward, while the bog-dragon’s jaws were still full of horse head, and landed a sharp sword blow on the side of its neck.

  But the beast spat out the horse head and snaked its head toward its tormenter. Tristan dodged just in time, then had to dodge again as the beast heaved its great body toward him.

  And now the bog-dragon that had been under attack a moment before became the attacker. Tristan had to leap and run, dodging behind stunted trees, ducking and holding up his shield against the beast’s great snapping jaws. With the second bite, the shield began to crumble. In a moment Tristan gave up any hope of landing another blow and just ran for it.

  He pulled up after a quarter mile, panting hard in his armor, and looked back. The beast was not pursuing him but had turned back toward the black lake. It was scrabbling with the claws of one flipper at the stump of the spear in its jaws, shaking its head hard. Its neck oozed thick green blood from where Tristan had struck it.

  “Ah, Isolde,” he said under his breath, “what is it about a maid that can make a man so careless of his own life?”

  He waited and watched, breathing heavily. But he had not come all the way from Cornwall to flee from a fight with a bog-dragon. In a few moments he began a stealthy approach, sword at the ready. The monster was giving great roars of pain, and had cut itself with its own claws. Tristan stayed behind it, trying to find sure footing on the soft ground.

  It was slithering slowly down toward the lake, its belly dragging on the ground. Tristan leaped.

  In a second he was even with the monster’s head. Before it could react to his unexpected appearance, he drove his sword straight into a burning yellow eye.

  The bog-dragon’s head came up so fast that the sword was wrenched from his grip. He sprang out of the way, now both swordless and shieldless, but his blow had gone into the brain.

  With a mighty bellow, the beast reared up a final time, then collapsed in ruin. Tristan waited five minutes after it had stopped twitching before he dared venture in close enough to retrieve his sword.

  He was panting so hard he thought he might never catch his breath again. He felt burning hot all over, both from exertion and from raw terror. But there was one more thing he had to do. He used a piece of what looked like horse bone to pry open the bog-dragon’s jaws, and with his sword he cut out the tongue.

  This he dropped, slimy and green, inside the front of his tunic, and let the jaws snap shut. He couldn’t carry any more of the beast away with him, but with the tongue no one could deny that he had killed it. When his heartbeat had slowed a little, he started down the road, to begin the long walk back to the royal capital.

  Except that in a short distance he passed a pool, filled by a stream of cool water from the hillside above. Armor and all, he slid into the pool, leaving only his face above water, and propped his head back on the stony edge. In half an hour, he thought, he would be cooled and
recovered enough to start walking again.

  VI

  The steward Paranis heard the monster’s death-bellow. He had stayed behind when the other three knights had declared they had no further interest in trying to kill a bog-dragon. If someone else came along, Paranis thought, he might join their party. Sooner or later, someone had to kill this beast, and it might always be him.

  But from the bellowing, it sounded as though someone had succeeded. He mounted and rode slowly back toward the lake, his heart beating hard, starting at every twisted shrub or change of light as the clouds passed over.

  After a mile he came upon half a horse. Here he paused for several minutes. The part that was left looked like a war horse. But if the horse was half eaten, what did that mean for the rider? He listened, hearing nothing, no longer nearly as sure that the bellows he had heard had been those of the bog-dragon’s death agony.

  The ground here was all ripped up, but closer to the lake he saw a trail of drops of green blood. The dragon must have come this way. Scarcely daring, always ready to whirl his horse and gallop away, he followed the tracks.

  He came around a great boulder—and there was the bog-dragon! He was a half mile away before he registered that it had not been moving.

  Again he turned, and again he made his way slowly back toward the lake. This time he looked at the monster’s body from fifty feet away, noticing the green blood on the side of the long neck and all around the jaws, seeing the empty eye socket. Someone had killed the monster, certainly.

  But who could it be? Whoever it was would have to walk back, without his horse. Paranis called cautiously, not liking the way his voice echoed, and heard no answer.

  And then it occurred to him: The man who had killed the bog-dragon must be dead himself. For the jaws that had bitten off a horse’s head would have bitten off a man’s far more easily, even when the monster was in its final agonies.

  And if the man who had killed the bog-dragon was dead, who was there to say that he, Paranis, had not slain the beast himself?

  He gave a final call to see if anyone was within earshot. When no one answered, he dismounted and approached the scaly body cautiously, still ready to flee in case it suddenly came back to life. But already the flies were starting to gather.

  He drew his sword and hacked away at the serpentine neck, first with only small strokes, as he wondered if the bog-dragon might possibly have a mate nearby, then more boldly as it became clear that he had this bog to himself. It took him almost half an hour, but at the end of the time he had the head free.

  “And now,” he said, the sound of his own voice startling him as it echoed around, “Paranis the dragon-slayer is ready to prove his worth in the royal court, and to claim the princess Isolde as my bride!”

  He tied the head to the back of his saddle, much to the discomfort of his horse, and rode off more quickly than absolutely necessary. On the way he passed a pool, fed by a little stream, but he did not give it a second glance.

  When the steward Paranis arrived in triumph at the royal court, bearing the head of the bog-dragon, he was welcomed with great acclaim. “The dragon-slayer!” the cry went up on every hand, and King Gurmun urged him to take his dinner sitting beside him, sharing the same salt dish.

  But the princess Isolde went dead white. “If he has slain that monster he has slain me too,” she said to her mother and Brangein. “I will never have him as my husband. I do not care what Father may say. I will become a nun and live out my life in chaste prayer, or else I will throw myself from the highest castle tower. Anything but submit to his embraces! The only way that he shall hold me in his arms is if I am dead already.”

  Brangein held her cousin close. “Do not do anything yet!” she urged, stroking her hair. “Your father promised only that the dragon-slayer could woo you, not that he would certainly win you.”

  “And,” said Queen Isolde, “I have certain doubts about the steward Paranis.” Her graceful eyebrows lowered in a frown. “He does not seem to me like a man who would have boldly faced and killed a great bog-dragon. Do not despair yet. There may be more to this story than he is telling us.”

  And so very early in the morning, at the far edge of night, the three ladies left the castle. Tendrils of mist obscured the stars, and the moon had set. The night guards opened the postern for the queen, who ordered them not to tell anyone that they had gone, and the three rode quickly away and toward the lake in the desolate hills where the bog-dragon had had its lair.

  Birds began to sing as the sky lightened, and soon flowers lifted their heads to the rising sun, but the princess Isolde refused to see the beauty around her. “What can we possibly find, besides a headless dragon?” she said. Brangein reached over to squeeze her arm encouragingly.

  But the queen rode her palfrey in silence, appearing deep in thought.

  They came at midmorning to the blasted vale where the great beast lay. Even headless it was a terrifying sight, its monstrous body snaked across the stones, the whole area stained dark with blood. Flies buzzed loudly, but everything else was silent.

  Brangein and Isolde hesitated, listening for the sounds of another approaching monster over the loud pounding of their own hearts. But the queen rode forward confidently. “You may bid your fears goodbye, Isolde,” she said. “Paranis would never have dared face this beast.”

  “But someone killed it,” said Brangein.

  “No single man could have killed this beast alone,” continued the queen thoughtfully, “not Paranis, not even a mighty hero out of legend. If several men all fought it, and it was wounded, then someone might have been able to deliver the lucky blow. Even if Paranis was that lucky man, then he must have had help, and he has not told us all.”

  “But what can have happened to the others?” Brangein asked.

  “I think,” said the queen, “that at least one must still be near here.” Isolde looked at her mother in sudden hope. “In fact, I am quite sure of it.”

  The three tied their palfreys to a stunted tree and explored on foot. Soon they came upon the remains of Tristan’s horse. “Half a horse, but not half a rider,” said the queen. “Unless the dragon devoured him whole, he may still be close by, for he would have had no way to ride home.”

  They spread out to search further. Isolde, hot from exertion and exhausted from a night spent in sleepless despair, noticed a little stream cascading into a pool. She hurried toward it, thinking to splash cold water on her face and arms.

  And then she gave a great cry and sprang back. “I found him!” she called. “He is here! I have found the true dragon-slayer! But he is dead!”

  The queen and Brangein rushed to her side. A man in armor was submerged in the pool, only his face above water. His eyes were shut, and he did not react to Isolde’s cry.

  She hung back, but the queen, with Brangein’s help, grabbed the knight by the arms and tugged him from the pool. He flopped to the ground with a great splash of water. “He is not yet dead,” said the queen, although the body lay motionless. “Let us see if we can restore him to life.”

  Isolde, thinking that this man might stand between her and the steward’s embraces, shook herself into motion and assisted, as they unbuckled the knight’s sword, removed his armor, and pulled off his sopping clothes. As they worked something large and green dropped from his breast.

  “What is it?” Isolde cried in disgust, thinking it a piece of the knight.

  Brangein poked it with the toe of her riding boot. “It looks like an enormous tongue.”

  “I believe,” said the queen, “that it is the bog-dragon’s tongue. Do not touch it.”

  “Why would a dragon’s tongue be inside his tunic?” asked Isolde, looking in horror at the great slab of flesh, muscled and pebble-surfaced.

  “I think,” said the queen, “that this must be the true dragon-slayer. He cut out the beast’s tongue to prove his claim as victor. But a bog-dragon’s tongue is imbued with poisonous essences, and by putting it inside his tunic the knight
has weakened himself—perhaps beyond cure.”

  “Do not say that!” cried Isolde. “We healed the minstrel Tantris when he was much more badly wounded. This knight has some scrapes and cuts, but no great wound. And look! He is breathing.”

  Indeed, when the bog-dragon’s tongue was removed from him, Tristan’s breath, which had almost failed, slowly began to recover. He was still unconscious, but his water-wrinkled skin began to take on again the faint blush of life.

  “Look here!” said Brangein. “He has had a great wound on his thigh in the past, one that is now a simple scar. And look at his face, behind the mustache. I do believe he is Tantris the minstrel himself!”

  “Can it really be Tantris?” asked Isolde, in excited hope.

  The queen looked at him sharply. “I do believe it is. But Tantris was no knight. There is much here we do not understand. We must return to the castle with him at once.”

  So they bundled Tristan onto the back of the queen’s palfrey, his clothing, armor, and equipment onto Isolde’s, and the bog-dragon’s tongue onto Brangein’s. They first wrapped it well in Tristan’s cloak, so that its poisonous essence would not reach the horse, but Brangein breathed through her handkerchief all the way back to the capital.

  King Gurmun was pleased to have his wife and daughter back home, for he had been wondering all day where they had gone. “This evening,” he told the queen, “we shall announce that Paranis has been accepted as a suitor for our daughter.”

  She spoke with her husband in the corridor while Brangein and several attendants brought Tristan and his equipment into the queen’s chambers. “Are you certain,” said Queen Isolde quietly, “that Paranis is the best man for our girl? We had always spoken of marrying her to a king, not to a coward.”

  “Well, Paranis has always been a capable steward,” said King Gurmun, a bit uncertainly. “I never thought him brave, but great courage is not required in a steward. And by slaying the monster, he has shown us that he is not the coward we might have thought him.”