Dragonheart (11 page)

“You’re just trying to save your scaly hide with tricks!” Bowen angrily popped his head over the trunk, then popped it back down as another fireball skimmed overhead and exploded behind him.

“Haven’t you noticed the pickings are rather slim these days?”

Bowen had noticed. But it couldn’t be true. If this dragon was the last, then that meant “his” dragon was already dead. It couldn’t be true. Not yet. Bowen edged toward the dragon and brazenly tapped the latest addition on his shield.

“What about your recently departed friend?”

“And before him? How long has it been?”

Bowen braced himself for a fireball or a talon slice. But there was none. The dragon let him come forward, eyeing him warily.

“The Old One and I were the last. He lived a long time. It must have been a proud kill, warrior.” The dragon’s words dripped with disdain. “How much gold did his toothless, tattered carcass put in your purse?”

“What business is it of yours!” Bowen growled peevishly. This was a sore point. The thought of that smirking Lord Felton in his silly hat. He should have cut the fop down when he didn’t pay up.

“Couldn’t have been much,” jeered the dragon. “And you’ll kill me for sport. Dragonslaying seems a precarious profession at best.”

Keep jabbering, you giant lizard, thought Bowen. You’re allowing me to come far too close. A few more steps and you can mock me out of the new mouth I’ll slice in your throat. You can’t be the last. Just keep talking.

The dragon, unknowingly, obliged. “And when there are no more dragons to slay, how will you make your way, Knight?”

“Shut up, you!” Bowen lunged. He was in perfect position—right where the dragon wanted him. For Bowen had straddled the chain still attached to the dragon. As he lashed out with his blade the dragon yanked his foot. The chain snapped up taut and caught Bowen in the groin. With a yelp, the knight tumbled to the ground, losing his shield as he fell.

The dragon reared up, opening his jaws. And opening. They distended like a snake’s, stretching inordinately wide as the sharp eyeteeth fangs sprang out. Helpless, Bowen watched the black maw of the dragon descend on him.

Gilbert coaxed Merlin with a kick in the haunch, riding toward the cloud of dust where the dragon had plummeted. It never occurred to him that the mule might be reluctant to move in the general direction of a dragon, given that it did not share the suicidal whimsy of its master. After all, a mule’s instinct for self-preservation could not get swept up in the passion of poetry.

“The sword against the fang and claw.
The flame against the shield.
The man the beast, which one would win? . . .
Uh . . . uh . . .”

Both inspiration and a sense of direction were momentarily lost until Gilbert spied the swath of broken twigs and mashed bushes and churned ground. Bowen, the saddle, and the stump had blazed a trail. The friar kicked the mule down it, searching for a rhyme.

“. . . shield, field, wield, peeled . . . Aha! Whose bones would flesh be peeled? . . . Ew!” Gilbert shuddered at his literary desperation. “No, no, no . . . Ah!”

A flash of genius seemed to ignite his imagination. He rolled the words on his tongue, savoring them as he would a tasty joint of meat.

“The sword against the fang and claw
The flame against the shield.
The man, the beast, which one would win? . . .
Whose fate would soon be sealed?”

Gilbert shrugged; not a lyric feast, perhaps, but a pleasant palate cleanser for the next stanza.

At that moment fire flashed behind a stand of trees and Merlin bucked to a stop. Gilbert saw the stump, the saddle, and the dangling chain point the way from the forked tree. He dismounted. Again, the fire spat behind the trees. Quill and parchment in hand, the priest scrambled toward the fray, hoping to be in time for the kill.

He was.

The dragon was scooping Bowen into his gaping jaws as Gilbert broke into the glade. His own jaw dropped with a screech and he threw up his hands to cover his eyes.

“If your teeth come down, my sword goes up. Right into your brain!” It was Bowen’s voice. Gilbert peeked through his fingers and screeched again. This time with relief. Bowen still lay in the dragon’s mouth, but his sword tip was tickling the dragon’s palate. And neither one was moving.

Eleven

THE POET GETS A HAND

“Oh, who’d the fatal falter make . . . ?”

Night fell.

They still were not moving.

Gilbert looked up from his parchment. Still in the same positions. The dragon’s unhinged jaws remained as before, stretched to their aching maximum, as did Bowen’s sword arm, which was propped up by his other arm. It had seemed like hours. Gilbert yawned and continued writing.

“Till moonlight night, the titans dueled.
In deadly combat bound . . .
Oh, who’d the fatal falter make,
Whose blood . . . would . . . stain . . . the ground?”

Gilbert’s quill slid off the parchment even as his head flopped down on it and he fell asleep, his mouth agape in midyawn.

Crouching uncomfortably inside the mouth, Bowen stared at the fangs and tried to sneak his blade up with the utmost discretion.

“If your sworb cums upf, ma teef come down,” the tongued-tied dragon garbled. But Bowen understood the message. Sighing, he relaxed his arm, and studied the fangs once more—from a vantage point that he had just as gladly not have had. He noticed a piece of cloth stuck between the back teeth. Curious, Bowen gave it a tug. It was a sleeve . . . with a skeletal hand still in it. He recognized the ring on the bony finger.

“Good Lord, Sir Eglamore!” Bowen flung the hand from the mouth in astonished disgust. After all, holding the decomposed hand of a stranger was one thing, but holding the hand of someone he once knew . . . even if he hadn’t liked the clod.

“Thanffs!” mumbled the dragon. Bowen felt the tongue tingle beneath him. “Been stug upf dere fa monffs! Cuud you ged you elba aff ma tongue.”

“Why should you be comfortable? My mail is rusting in your drool. And your breath is absolutely fetid.”

“Wad da you expekd wiff Sir Eglamaa rotting batwan ma molars? . . . Oh? My mouf ith dry . . .”

Hacking grumbles rolled up the dragon’s throat as he started to cough. Bowen tried to steady himself on the rocking tongue as noxious waves of breath set him to coughing himself.

“You belch up any flames and the last thing you’ll see is my blade coming out between your eyes.”

But it wasn’t flame that rolled up the dragon’s throat. It was a huge ball of yellowish-green saliva. It splashed over him, warm and vile. Bowen shuddered a growl, flinging gobs of the goo from his face and clothes.

“Watch it!”

“Den ged aff ma tongue an’ led’s tag about id!”

Not moving his blade, Bowen cautiously shifted so that the dragon’s tongue was free.

“Ahh,” sighed the dragon. “Much better.” The tongue flapped up in Bowen’s face. He shoved it away.

“Do you mind?”

“Sorry! Seems we’re in a bit of a stalemate, wouldn’t you say?”

Bowen didn’t give an inch. “But I can go three days without sleep!”

“I can go three weeks.”

“I’ll stab you before I nod off,” Bowen, his confidence shaken by the dragon’s reply, attempted to recuperate.

“And I’ll chomp you!” the dragon snapped peevishly and his tongue slapped Bowen in the face again. “Marvelous. We kill each other, doing neither of us any good.”

“What do you suggest?”

“A truce. Climb out of there and let’s discuss this face-to-face.”

More than happy to leave, Bowen slung a leg over the dragon’s jaw, but before he pulled his sword away he had second thoughts. He swung his leg back in.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“I give you my word.”

“A dragon’s word is worthless!”

“Stubborn lout!”

The dragon’s tongue flapped up in an exasperated snarl and flicked Bowen across the chest so suddenly that his own reaction was the unavoidable one—he tumbled backward out of the dragon’s mouth.

As he fell to the ground his sword clattered from his hand. But before he could run for it, a scaly paw clamped down on him, pinning him in place. The dragon craned his neck down, his eyes searing into Bowen as he shook his overextended jaws back into place.

“A dragon’s word,” spat Bowen. “I should have known. Go on! Kill me!”

“I don’t want to kill you! I never did!” the dragon thundered at him. Then his voice got quiet, almost solemn, as his gaze turned wistfully to the star-pocked sky. “And I don’t want you to kill me . . .” The eyes came glaring back at Bowen, the voice taking on a savage exasperation. “How do we gain? If you win, you lose a trade. If I win, I wait around for the next sword slinger thirsting to carve a reputation out of my hide . . . an unenviable inevitability, I assure you.” Again, he swung his gaze heavenward, desperately focusing on something in the black night. His words spilled out in a tortured, lisping lament. “I am tired of lurking in holes and skulking in darkness! My life may be miserable, but I must not . . .”

He shook the unfinished thought away with a mysterious shiver and, turning from the sky once more, began to clench and unclench his teeth. Bowen had seen quite enough of those teeth for one night, thank you, and despite the dragon’s protestations of peacemaking and his wish for Bowen’s continued existence, the knight did not think this ritualistic display of pearly whites boded particularly well.

“Oh, my aching jaws,” heaved the dragon, flexing the stiffness from them. Bowen heaved too, relieved that all the teeth gnashing now had a less sinister purpose. The beast leaned down into Bowen once more.

“Now I will let you up and you can retrieve your sword, and if you insist, we can pursue this fracas to its final stupidity. Or you can listen to my alternative.”

The dragon released Bowen. Perplexed but still suspicious, the knight staggered to his feet, his legs tingling as the blood flowed painfully back into them. He reeled more than walked to his sword and tried to pick it up. But he was exhausted. And the sword suddenly seemed so heavy. He could hardly lift it. He could barely swivel about to see if the dragon was sliding in for a sneak attack.

But there was no attack; the dragon hadn’t moved. He too was spent, and sagged to the ground with another deep sigh, gazing at Bowen with disappointed eyes.

Bowen looked at the sword he leaned on. He’d never be able to get it off the ground in time, much less swing it. He let it fall. Then he plopped down on the soft sward beside it. But he was more than tired. He was curious.

“What alternative?”

The dragon smiled.

The rosy rays of dawn filtered through the forest foliage. Birds twittered. Crickets chirped. Someone snored—Gilbert, lying facedown on his epic ballad.

A pine cone fell from a tree, thudding on his rump. Gilbert snorted, stirred, and jerked awake. His face was smeared with ink where he had dozed upon his parchment. The parchment was equally blotched. He picked it up and tried to decipher it. “Oh, who’d the fatal . . .
farfromuke?”

It didn’t make sense, but it jogged his memory nonetheless, and he staggered to his feet in panic.

“Bowen!” he called.

But only Merlin answered, contentedly braying from the nearby patch of grass where he grazed. Gilbert scanned the glade. “No bodies, no blood, no sign of battle anywhere!” His words were not quite true. There were the dragon-scorched patches of earth and the whittled tree. But they gave no details about any specific outcome. “What happened to them, Merlin? Worse, who won?” And as he looked at the smeared manuscript in his hand, he realized something even worse. “How am I to finish this?”

Merlin offered no suggestions. But Gilbert noticed something golden glinting in the bush upon which the mule was now munching. He went over and inspected it. It was a ring, encircling a bony finger of a bony hand, encased in a ragged sleeve. Gilbert gingerly plucked it out of the bush. The hand slipped from the tattered garment to the ground. Not acquainted with the late Sir Eglamore or his taste in jewelry, he immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“Oh dear. Poor chap. Picked clean.” Gilbert crossed himself in memory of Sir Bowen and sadly crumpled his ink-stained manuscript into a ball.

Part III

THE NAMING

A knight is sworn to valor.
His heart knows only virtue.

—The Old Code

Twelve

FELTON’S MISFORTUNE

“Pesky critters, dragons . . .”

Felton lolled on his bed and listened to the growl of the millstone and the crack of his foreman’s whip on the hill above his manor, and smiled lazily. The harvest was going well. Einon would be pleased. And pleasing Einon made things pleasant for him.

And things were already quite pleasant. This afternoon had been particularly so. He hungrily glanced over at the pretty little minx who was languorously leaning in the open doorway, lacing up her tunic. The sunlight from outside sprayed her tousled hair an even more dazzling yellow and glowed golden across the tanned globes that no amount of tunic cinching could hide. She hadn’t been able to hide them the night she leaned over to pour Felton’s wine; the first night he noticed them . . . and her.

And the nice thing was, she had been so compliant. Most of these peasant pretties were reluctant playmates, and Felton found such resistance unflattering, to say the least. After all, he was a rather good-looking fellow, even handsome, if he allowed himself a moment’s immodesty. One would think these wretched wenches would gladly prefer the refined attentions of an elegant chap like himself to the fumbling seductions of those brawny dolts in the field. A respite from their drab little lives; a moment spent in a fine house, in a soft bed, eating good food and drinking good wine in the good company of someone who could do them some good and deigned to favor them with the finer things for a few hours.

But Rowena understood the nature of advancement and appreciated it. Or was it Rosamund? Or Ronalda? Ro-something. He could never remember her name. But then he didn’t really have to. And that was another nice thing about her. They rarely spoke, and when they did, she was always satisfied with “my pet” or “my lovely.” Yes, not only pretty, but clever as well. Clever enough to be in here during the heat of the afternoon instead of outside threshing wheat. Or bundling it. Or milling it. Or whatever her tedious little task was. He could tell she was reluctant to return to it as she dawdled over the drawstrings of her garment, staring wistfully at the wheatfields below. Her golden half-moons arched to a forlorn fullness as her plump little lips pouted a sensuous sigh.