How to Slay a Dragon (10 page)

The thought of plunging into the treacherous water caused Greg to scream loudly enough to return an echo from the Shrieking Scrub. He was still screaming when his back struck solid ground on the far bank of the murky creek.

“You okay, Greg?” he heard Lucky say.

“W-what? Oh, er, yeah, I guess so.”

“Hurry along then,” said Nathan. “We’ll be waiting here for your return.”

Greg nodded slowly. He jerked the staff from the stream with a
pffutt
and tried his best to ignore the icky black goo steaming from its tip. Cautiously he crawled to his feet and headed away from the safety of the others, deeper into the witch’s domain.

Instead of getting lighter as the sun climbed, the area grew darker and more ominous. This certainly wasn’t the first time some aspect of this world had behaved other than it should, but Greg decided it was the worst, mostly because it was still going on. He didn’t care much for the unnatural quiet either, or the way the branches of the scrub hung motionless in the still air. But what unnerved him most was the crow.

It was a huge, black bird, much like any other, that did nothing more than flap down to a branch beside the trail, cock its head at Greg, and then alight again. What unnerved him was that it came and went without so much as a whisper. The crow leapt from the unwavering branch, beat its huge wings to slow its descent, caught the air, and dragged itself upward, all in total silence, and when it was gone, Greg could only wonder if it ever existed at all.

He preferred to think it hadn’t.

Aside from the crow, Greg saw no evidence of life. To be honest, he felt he was being generous when he considered the crow evidence of life. He tried to get the shadowcat to come out from hiding so he wouldn’t feel so alone, but the creature wouldn’t budge. Greg had to admit if there were any way he, too, could have hidden beneath the drab fabric of his tunic, he would have done the same.

Not a single leaf hung from the branches of the surrounding scrub, yet the sun couldn’t find its way to the path. Even so, Greg was able to make out a dark shape ahead. Hazel’s cabin. Actually, he could hardly call it a cabin. He hesitated to call it a shack. It reminded him of his rundown tree house back home, except that the tree house brought with it feelings of security, while Hazel’s shack stole away any secure feelings Greg might have left, and replaced them with an uncomfortable lump in his throat—the type of sensation he’d expect to feel if he swallowed something wrong, like his new shadowcat.

For the first time since Greg crossed Black Blood Creek, the air stirred. A soundless breeze wound its way between the scrubs, up over Hazel’s decaying porch and across the face of the shack. The front door banged open against its hinges and shut again, abruptly ending the silence. Suddenly the scrubs looked less charred. Branches began to sway gently in the wind. Greg even noticed a green leaf here and there, though certainly too few to conceal the monkeydog he couldn’t see but swore he heard somewhere off to his right.

In spite of every instinct telling him otherwise, Greg willed himself forward. He stopped just short of the porch and debated how he should approach the witch.

From a larger distance preferably, and with an assortment of weapons.

Again the door swung open, and out stepped a wretched crone in torn rags. She had the deeply furrowed skin of a woman who had spent a good many years under the sun, perhaps wrestling with it. Her hair hung gray and matted, and she stood bent over so far she had to crane her neck backward just to look Greg in the eye. No warts though. Greg had always heard witches had warts.

“Go away,” she squawked.

Greg might have expected such a sound from a goose, if it were sick or injured, but not from this woman, whose neck was barely long enough to prop her head off her shoulders. Still he was relieved. She might not be the most hospitable woman he’d ever met, but at least she seemed human. During the past day he had pictured far worse.

“Are you the wit—are you Hazel?”

The woman scowled. “What do you want?”

“I need some things my friends say only you can provide.”

Her scowl deepened. Using a gnarled cane she pushed herself upright and peered over Greg’s shoulder. It took all of Greg’s willpower not to spin around to check what she was looking at.

“I don’t see any friends,” she said after an excruciatingly long interval.

“They’re waiting in the forest. They didn’t want to cross Black Blood Creek.”

She nodded. “You should have stayed with them. They sound much smarter than you.” She turned then and hobbled into her shack. Greg watched her stooped form disappear into the darkness.

Well, that went well.

He stood awkwardly before the porch for a time, listening to a monkeydog rustle behind no more than three leaves. Eventually he hopped up the steps and, holding Nathan’s staff out like a baseball bat, peered through the front door. Inside, the air hung thick and musty with the nearly overpowering scent of unfamiliar spices. The room was so dark he didn’t see her at first, but Hazel stood no more than six feet away. He jumped back when he spotted her.

“S-sorry, you startled me.”

“The eternal torch is on the stand by the door,” Hazel said, her voice little more than a whisper. “It will light when you pick it up and stay lit until you set it down again.”

Greg stepped over the threshold and groped in the darkness, trying not to think about what he might touch, or what might touch him. His knee banged into something hard, and a wooden object dropped to the floor. With Nathan’s staff planted for balance, he crouched and patted the dust at his feet. All the while Hazel stared at him expressionlessly, or at least with an expression incapable of getting itself noticed beneath her many wrinkles.

When Greg’s fingers contacted the wood, one end of the torch burst into flame. Greg screamed and yanked his hand back, extinguishing the fire. After the pounding in his chest slowed, he reached out again, and the torch returned to life.

Hazel groaned and raised a withered hand to block her face. Greg might have seen fit to cover the flame if he didn’t find her hand to be such a vast improvement. Instead, he took advantage of the moment to survey the room under the flickering light. In contrast to Marvin Greatheart’s cabin, this shack seemed much larger inside than out. Jars and vials of every size and shape lined the room, covering every flat surface.

“What are you looking at?” Hazel squawked.

“Nothing,” Greg said quickly.

She continued to stare at him, waiting.

“How did you know I wanted an eternal torch?”

Hazel grunted. “Second one in as many days. Not surprising. They all want torches.”

“They?”

“You are an adventurer, aren’t you? Adventurers always want torches. What they want with all that light I’ll never understand.”

“You say someone else came recently?” Greg said. “He didn’t happen to be Marvin Greatheart, did he?”

“Marvin Greatheart?” Hazel cackled. “The dragonslayer? Certainly not. Far from it. In fact, he wasn’t a he at all. She was a she, and a tiny thing at that.” She regarded Greg down her long, hooked nose and added, “Hardly bigger than you.”

Greg tried to stand taller.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Hazel said. “She had a lot of spunk for a stillborn.”

“A what?”

“A woman who has never explored her potential. You understand. A non-witch.”

“Oh.”

“Bit of a loon, though, if you ask me. Actually planned to go off hunting dragons, if you can believe that.” Hazel shook her head sadly. “Like a mere child would last a blink of an eye against a dragon.”

Greg’s palms were so wet the torch nearly slipped through his fingers.

“Now, what else did you need, little one?” Hazel asked in the same voice she might have used to suggest ways Greg might better view the inside of her oven.

Greg studied his feet. “Um . . . a fireproofing spell . . .” He peered up at the witch to judge her reaction. “. . . and some dragon spit.”

“Dragon spit?” Hazel screeched. “What would a boy your size want with that?”

Greg rehearsed his answer before he said it, but even he had trouble believing. “I’m . . . uh . . . headed to a dragon’s lair myself. They say I’m supposed to slay Ruuan.”

The witch’s head snapped up. Hard to believe she could move so quickly. “
You’re
Greghart?”

“Greg Hart,” Greg corrected. “Two words.”

Hazel tottered forward and peered at him more closely. Greg tried not to tremble. He longed to shift the torch to his other hand but needed that one to hold Nathan’s staff.

“You don’t look like much of a dragonslayer,” Hazel finally said.

“I’m not,” Greg admitted. “I’ve never slayed a dragon in my life.”

“Not even one,” Hazel asked. “Are you sure?”

“Why does everyone here think I would forget something like that?”

Hazel continued to stare. “So
you
are the Mighty Greghart. I’ll be. Very well, I’ll give you the things you need.”

“You will?”

“For a price, of course.”

Greg’s heart sank. It never occurred to him Hazel might want something in return. He didn’t have any money. Or would she expect him to pay in bat wings, or eye of newt?

“W-what price would you ask?”

Hazel’s eyes flashed wickedly. “Almost nothing. Just those two amulets you wear about your neck.”

Greg’s hand reflexively jumped to the lumps beneath his tunic. “Ow!” He rubbed at the mark Nathan’s staff left on his forehead.

“Careful, small one. You want to get back to your friends alive, don’t you?”

Greg had an idea she wasn’t talking about his accident with the staff. “How did you know about the amulets?” he whispered.

“I know many things,” Hazel assured him.

Greg could read the expression beneath the wrinkles now. It was the same one a wolf might offer a deer. Aside from the predatory gleam in her eyes, Hazel might have been just another grandmother—granted, the type little ones suddenly come up with extraordinary strength to avoid being kissed by, but a grandmother all the same. Only Greg had an idea she was also the type of granny who might one day misplace the children.

No one can bake meat pies like your Grandma Hazel.

With Nathan’s staff rested in the crook of his elbow, Greg clenched the bulges under his tunic. He could feel the power radiate right through the cloth. “I need these,” he said defiantly. “The prophecy says I’m supposed to have the Amulet of Ruuan with me when I fight the dragon.”

“True,” said Hazel, “but neither of those is the Amulet of Ruuan.”

Greg squeezed the amulets tighter, felt them pulse beneath his grip. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I have the real one. Don’t get me wrong. Those trinkets of yours are not entirely worthless, but they will not guarantee your triumph over Ruuan. Only I can help you there.”

“But—” Greg hesitated. Hazel was lying, he was almost certain, but he remembered Nathan’s advice well. He was supposed to go along with whatever she said. It wasn’t wise to argue with a witch. Greg had no reason to doubt Nathan. In fact, he was pretty sure it wasn’t wise to do anything with a witch.

“I’ll tell you what,” Hazel said. “I’ll give you all that you need: the torch, the spell, the dragon spit, even the powerful Amulet of Ruuan, if you’ll do just one favor for me.”

Greg’s expression must have revealed his concern.

“Do not worry. It is a simple thing.” Hazel hobbled over to a rickety wood rocker and lowered herself onto it, relying heavily on her cane. She looked so frail Greg thought she might collapse at any moment, and for one maddened instant he thought he might help her to it with a swift kick to the knee. But he had an idea she wasn’t as weak as she pretended. Surely this was another attempt to deceive him.

Greg longed for a chair of his own. He was as tired as Hazel pretended to be, and the torch and walking stick were growing heavier. Hazel regarded him for a time, as did the large crow perched on the seatback just over her left shoulder. Her chest rose and fell in raspy, wheezing breaths. At last she spoke.

“You will find the dragon Ruuan in a cavern inside a tunnel within a spire that rises high into the air, up into the clouds and beyond. Legend says the spire has no end, that it stretches into the sky forever. I cannot say if this is true, but I have never been one to argue with legends.”

“That’s not possible.”

“You can always argue with legends. There’s just no point to it.”

“I mean, the spire having no end.”

“It has one end, at the bottom, just no top.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. It’s not possible.”

“You’re on your way to kill Ruuan!” Hazel suddenly screamed, spittle flying from the corners of her mouth. “Don’t argue with me about what is possible.”

Don’t argue with a witch,
Greg reminded himself. It shouldn’t have been that hard to remember. “So, the spire has no end. I suppose you’re going to tell me Ruuan lives at the top of it?”

“No, not on top,” Hazel said, returning instantly to her previous calm, “only halfway up.”

Greg thought a moment. Infinity was a hard concept to grasp. “Wouldn’t halfway still be pretty high?”

Hazel’s wrinkled smile returned. “You’re quite bright for a male. Yes, Ruuan’s lair is still infinitely high. It would be quite impossible for you to walk there through the tunnel.”

“Oh.” Greg wasn’t sure whether to be upset or relieved. “Then I won’t be going there after all. What about the princess?”

“Don’t concern yourself with the stillborn,” said Hazel. “The dragon will help her reach his lair.”

Greg felt Nathan’s staff slip from his fingers to the floor, where it rolled back and forth on the wood, the only noise in the otherwise deathly quiet room. “But if I can’t get to the lair, who will save her?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t get there. I said you couldn’t walk through the tunnel. There is another way.”

Greg felt his stomach lurch. Maybe she had a broomstick to lend him.

“The dragon is not the only creature living in the spire,” Hazel continued. “In fact, hundreds of thousands share it with him.”