DRAGONHUNT

  OR

  WHY HEROES ARE SO RARE

  “Was it my idea to promise we'd kill a dragon? No!”

  The ranting wizard waved his hands theatrically and his horse snorted in surprise. With a curse, the wizard snatched at the reins wrapped around the saddlehorn.

  “That's not entirely Aramon's fault,” replied the priest. “It was Gorgar that decided to brag about us.”

  “He didn't decide anything,” the wizard snapped, squirming in the saddle. “He drank enough mead to drown a horse—and I wish we could drown this blasted beast!”

  The priest's eyes twinkled blue. “If you would remember that the objective is to keep your backside in contact with the saddle—you sit on it, you know—instead of standing in the stirrups, you might find it more comfortable.”

  “I should have brought another blanket, Tindal,” moaned the wizard, miserably.

  “What's this about a blanket?” asked Gorgar as he rode up from the rear of the group. Dust from the horses' hooves stained his armor and steed a roadway grey; the blending of color made him look like a strange hybrid creature of man and horse.

  “Y’vin is still a trifle uncomfortable on horseback,” Tindal replied, unperturbed. “He could use another blanket for his own backside, rather than under the saddle for the horse.”

  “Gee, I'm sorry,” Gorgar said, and sounded sincere. “I forgot how you and horses get along.”

  “You also forget that I hate dust, and heat, and eating that dried dung you call trail bread!” Y’vin snapped.

  Gorgar sighed. Y’vin was in one of his moods again. Nothing would be right until he was in a small, enclosed room, freshly bathed, and pleasantly filled with a hot meal. It was always the same. Y’vin was simply a natural-born indoorsman. A damn fine wizard, and, when it came down to cases, a good man to have backing you, but completely out of his element in the elements.

  “I'm sorry,” Gorgar repeated. “I hadn't intended to go off on some wilderness trek like this, but…”

  “You weren't to know,” Tindal soothed. “We should have thought twice before coming along to your sister's wedding. We knew it would be a long trip and not entirely pleasant,” he added, and pointedly looked at the wizard. “We all agreed to come along.”

  Y’vin muttered something too low to hear and subsided into a sulk.

  “I'm glad you were all here,” Gorgar agreed. “It really made her happy to see actual heroes.”

  “And got us volunteered to go hero-ing,” Y’vin muttered, this time loud enough to hear. “We could have been in Tourmaline, minding the town's woes, getting paid to just be handy in case of trouble, but noooooo—we had to go looking.”

  Gorgar flushed a darker shade than his usual heavy tan. Tindal spoke before anything more could be said.

  “That will be enough from both of you. Gorgar, please go relieve Sir Aramon on point. And you, Y’vin if you can't do anything but complain, shut up.”

  Y’vin shut up.

  * * *

  “My brother, Gorgar. Gorgar, this is my betrothed, Llewellyn Harpsinger.”

  Gorgar looked the man over with an experienced eye. The fellow wasn't a fighter, not by a long shot. Still, he was hale enough and handsome enough. Combined with a fine instrument and clear voice, he looked like he might not be all that bad, for a worthless songsmith. If Sis was happy with him…

  “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance,” Gorgar recited, and offered his hand. Llewellyn clasped forearms with the warrior and showed himself to have a good, strong grip. Gorgar liked him, even against his natural suspicion of minstrels, but held hard to that suspicion. Anyone too charming spent a long time practicing it.

  “The honor is mine,” Llewellyn replied.

  “I got word in Tourmaline of the wedding,” he replied. “I wasn't aware that Sis had been seeing anyone.”

  “Maedel and I were rather taken with each other,” Llewellyn admitted. Maedel blushed madly and lowered her eyes. Gorgar's own eyes narrowed as he looked hard a Llewellyn.

  “Oh?” He swigged from his latest tankard and set it roughly aside. “How taken?”

  “My brother, please,” Maedel said, and laid a hand on his forearm. “Father has approved of the joining, and most heartily!”

  Gorgar's eyes narrowed further. “Father's got no great love for minstrels, either,” he said, almost to himself. Louder, he asked, “Why's he so pleased?”

  “Because he's soon to have a grandson, I'd wager,” Llewellyn said. Maedel gasped in shock and one hand flew to her abdomen.

  “Llewellyn!” she cried. “That's not—”

  Llewellyn shushed her with a sharp gesture. “Hush! That will be enough from you. You're safe now, and I'm marrying you. Count your blessings!”

  Gorgar extended his hand again, saying, “And congratulations on that!” Llewellyn reflexively reached out to clasp forearms again, but Gorgar, drunk or sober, was as fast as a striking snake. Instead of forearms, they clasped hands. Gorgar, massively built and hardened by a profession of arms, squeezed.

  Llewellyn's eyes widened, then bugged out. He gasped, a startled eep! sound, and tried desperately to jerk his hand away.

  Gorgar squeezed slightly harder. Bits inside the minstrel's hand ground together in ways the gods had not intended. Llewellyn, by main force of will, ceased to struggle and Gorgar slacked off slightly.

  “You want to explain,” Gorgar informed him, and gave out a slightly-flammable belch. “Sorry; I should clarify that. I've been drinking, you see, and I need to have it explained to me. Before I break every bone in your skirt-lifting, button-working, harp-strumming hand.”

  “Gorgar!” his sister cried, laying her own hands on the paired wrists and pulling vainly at them. “Let him go.”

  “I will in a moment,” he replied. “Just as soon as I have what I want. He might even get to keep his hand. And all the bones.”

  Llewellyn spoke quickly. “There's a dragon terrorizing Pelamir and they need virgins to give to it so I saved your sister from being kidnapped and was persuaded to marry her.”

  “'Persuaded'?” Gorgar repeated. His hand flexed slightly, encouraging the minstrel to speak even more quickly.

  “Your father described you and I've heard of you and you're proving their point right now with my hand and I'll need it to earn a living for the both of us and your nieces and nephews please?”

  Gorgar thought about it. It took doing, considering the number of mugs of mead he had already downed.

  “Come with me.” Gorgar, without releasing the hostage hand, walked off. Llewellyn, perforce, followed. Maedel fluttered along with them, like a butterfly caught in the wake of a storm. Gorgar led them straight to Sir Aramon, Tindal, Y’vin, and Fliss.

  “Hey. Guys.”

  “Here's the lucky brother-in-law now,” Fliss said, feet comfortably on a table while the rest of him leaned gracefully back in a chair. “Hail and well-met, all.” He lifted a mug, drained the dregs, and flipped it underhand into the air to twirl several times before rattling to a stop on the tabletop. It remained upright upon landing.

  “Got a problem,” Gorgar said.

  “It would seem you have your brother-in-law's hand,” Sir Aramon observed. Of the entire pre-wedding party, he was the only one in full armor. Then again, he was also the only man with the right to the coat of arms he wore over it.

  “No, that's his sister,” Fliss replied, grinning. “Well, it's maybe not his hand that she's got—”

  “Hush, you,” Tindal said, watching the storm signals in Gorgar's eyes. “Listen up.”

  Gorgar explained. Sir Aramon's eyes lit up instantly with the word “dragon,” but he held his peace to better hear the rest. He and Tindal frowned at the circumstances that required a wedding. Y’vin and Fliss looked less concerned with the propriety of the thing, but still interested.

  “So, since I haven't got the safest occupation,” Gorgar said, “I was sort of hoping that—”

  “Got it,” Y’vin said. “A little insurance, coming right up. Hold him still.” Gorgar moved. His hands and arms did brisk, efficient things with Llewellyn's limbs. A moment later, Llewellyn was on his knees with a complicated interlocking of bones and joints that encouraged him to hold very, very still on pain of pain.

  Y’vin rolled up the sleeves of his robes and drew both wand and dagger. He chanted and waved the wand; sparks and drifting bubbles of polychromatic light issued from it and began to circle both Gorgar and Llewellyn.

  “Wh-what's he—” Llewellyn began.

  “Shut up,” Gorgar replied, and tightened his holds. Llewellyn repeated his eep! noise and fell silent. The rest of the people at the pre-wedding celebration gave back from the scene of the action. Wizards were best given large amounts of room—generally a good-sized courtyard, preferably a township.

  Y’vin pinked both Llewellyn and Gorgar with the dagger. He used the tip of his wand to get a smear of blood from each. The chanting increased in pace and volume while the lights and colors darkened to somber, purple-and-black shades. The blood at the tip of the wand burst into a small cloud of smoke and sank immediately to the floor. Once there, it seemed to sprout misty legs and scuttle away. The whirling lights and sparks dissipated.

  Llewellyn simply held still and stared in horror.

  Gorgar let go of him and caught Maedel as she fainted. He laid her gently on the floor and fanned her face with a kerchief.

  “What—” Llewellyn began, and his voice broke. He swallowed once, twice, and started again. “What did you…?”
<

br />   “Just a little necromancy,” Y’vin assured him. Llewellyn paled further. “See, if anything happens to Gorgar, his ghost is now bound to watch you. If you don't live up to your end of the bargain in this marriage, it will be able to summon the ketch. It'll crawl into your mouth and nose while you sleep and fill your lungs until you die.” Y’vin grinned horribly. “I'd be a faithful husband,” he added. “There's no way to lift the curse, and not many wizards can kill a ketch.”

  Gorgar was kneeling next to his sister and could have broken Llewellyn's fall.

  But he didn't.

  * * *

  The pavilion tent was up and the horses hobbled. It was easy to see that the region was less prosperous; even the grass seemed stunted. Abandoned farms to either side of the road grew wild—where anything would grow at all.

  The clouds of the afternoon had turned into the rain of the evening. Everyone gathered inside around the fire to dry out.

  “Who has first watch?” Tindal asked.

  “I'll take it,” Sir Aramon replied.

  Gorgar nodded. “Wake me for the next one. Fliss?”

  “Since the intellectually gifted require their beauty sleep, I shall once again bear witness to the dawn,” he agreed. “We have to hire someone for this, someday. Or get a dog.”

  “I vote for the dog,” Y’vin said. “It won't complain as much.”

  “Oh, look who's talking!”

  Tindal raised his hands. “That will be quite enough! It has been a long day and we are all unused to the trail after the soft living in Tourmaline. Let us sleep and recover our strength.”

  There was some grumbling, but four out of five prepared their pallets for the night. Sir Aramon put his helm on again and stepped outside, into the rain.

  Inside, Gorgar placed his armor in a carefully-arranged pile. If a fight started, there wouldn't be time to don it, but if there was enough warning to put on some of it, the breastplate would be the first choice…

  “Y’vin?” he asked. The wizard propped himself up on his elbows.

  “What?” he asked, testily.

  “That spell you did on Llewellyn…”

  “That? That was nothing.” Y’vin settled back down in his blankets.

  “Really? It sounded like a powerful spell.”

  Y’vin chuckled for a moment, then laughed aloud. “Oh, you dupe! You're no better than the minstrel!”

  Gorgar restrained his natural response to such a slight. Y’vin might be an irritable fop, but he was a powerful wizard and a good friend. His insults were never meant to bite, unless they were aimed at enemies. It was just Y’vin's manner.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, indeed. You were just as easily taken in.”

  “How so?”

  “I got the idea from Fliss,” Y’vin said. Fliss sat up.

  “Wait, you got a spell from me?”

  “No, just the idea. Remember the time you poured that concoction down the prisoner's throat and told him that if he didn't get to a priest in jig time he was a dead man?”

  “Yes. He went straight back to the bandit camp and their healer. Made it easy to find them.”

  “Exactly. Well, I told that minstrel-boy the same sort of story. A little chanting, a little handwaving, a spooky cloud of blood-smoke.” Y’vin snorted. “A ketch! Ha! There aren't ten wizards in the world that can counter a ketch if it comes for you, and none that can summon one! The things are incredibly dangerous spirits.”

  “So you didn't really sic a ketch on him?” Gorgar asked.

  “Of course not. But he thinks I did. Now let me get some sleep, would you? It's bad enough that I get dragged into the gods-forsaken hinterland to go hunting for a powerful and dangerous beast, but I won't stand for this incessant chatter.”

  “Look who's been doing the talking,” Fliss muttered.

  Y’vin ignored this and almost immediately began to snore.

  * * *

  The morning dawned grey and cloudy. The rising sun was only a bright place in the thick overcast. Fliss woke everyone when the light grew bright enough to see more than a dozen paces. Sir Aramon and Gorgar helped each other into their armored shells while Y’vin placed a pot on the coals of the fire. Tindal stepped outside and faced the direction of the hidden sun; he knelt and began to pray.

  It was less than an hour later that they hit the road again. The tent was packed, the gear stowed, the campfire obliterated, and most of the signs that a camp had even been there were gone. It wasn't perfect, but it was unlikely to draw anything's attention, not even from the air.

  Besides, old habits died hard so their owners didn't have to.

  As they rode, Y’vin asked, “Someone want to tell me again why we're going to go bother a scaly beast that isn't stomping on our sand-castles? I'm still a little unclear on that.”

  “Because,” Sir Aramon answered, quoting, “‘There shall rise into the air dark things, kin to the Serpent of Night, and thou shalt smite them, and hew them, lest the fumes of their breath bring ruin to all the birds and beasts of the earthly plane.’”

  “Book of Namae, chapter six, verses six and seven?” Tindal guessed.

  “Very good, priest. I did not think you knew my god's holy works?”

  “I'm more familiar with the Solar Scrolls,” Tindal answered, and made a gesture—a closed fist in front of his heart, opened suddenly, like a starburst—”but I decided to at least be familiar with your faith so as not to inadvertently blaspheme your god.”

  “It sounds like you're much more than familiar,” Sir Aramon noted.

  Tindal shrugged. “I cannot help my memory. It is one of my gifts.”

  “Would that I had such,” Sir Aramon replied. “It was test of my teachers' faith to commit the Book of Namae to my memory.”

  “The test of ours is coming.”

  * * *

  The dragon was first seen in the high air that evening. A line of light streaked the heavens above the setting sun. Sir Aramon nudged Gorgar and pointed. Everyone's gaze swung to the west.

  “Looks like a dragon,” Y’vin stated. “How big do you think it is?”

  “Sixty, seventy feet,” Tindal guessed.

  “More like eighty, at least,” Fliss replied, hand held low to shade his eyes. “It's further away than you think.” Tindal and Gorgar glanced at Y’vin.

  “He’s the one with the eyes,” Y’vin stated. “Elves in his ancestry, I bet.”

  “I’m not the fairy here, Y’vin,” Fliss replied.

  “Look, the man walked in on me while I was in the bath!” Y’vin began, heatedly.

  “Any idea where it's going?” Sir Aramon asked, interrupting.

  “I think I think it's got something in its claws,” Fliss said. “I'm not sure what it is, not from here.”

  “Then it's probably headed back to its den,” Sir Aramon said. “Blast! I wish we could have been a bit quicker. That may be some village girl.”

  “It's more likely to be a sheep or a cow,” Y’vin replied. “You know how hard it is to find a virgin, these days.” He snickered. “Or maybe you don't.”

  “Y’vin, just because my vows preclude—”

  “That's enough!” Tindal declared. “I swear, we never used to bicker, jabber, and argue like this in the old days! Look at us! We're getting on each others' nerves like a bunch of boys while their tutor is out of the room! What is this? Some fair-day outing? Pull yourselves together and act like men!”

  Sir Aramon flushed inside his helm. Y’vin simply frowned in thought. Gorgar and Fliss both pretended not to hear, but knew that the injunction had been directed at them just as much, if not as directly. There was an awkward silence while everyone looked at the sunset.

  “Have I been acting like a child?” Y’vin asked, finally. He sounded more thoughtful than anything else.

  “You have,” Tindal replied, calmly.

  “I had not noticed. Thank you for drawing my attention to it. And I apologize to you all for my… manner.” He sighed. “I can be difficult, and I know it. With most people, I don’t really care. With you... I will attempt to be… less difficult.”

  Fliss looked amused. “Oh? Then who are you, and what have you done with the real Y’vin?”

  “I outgrew him,” Y’vin replied. “Why haven't you outgrown the Fliss we used to go out questing with?”

  “Because I was already perfect,” Fliss replied, unabashed. “Do we camp, or do we go dragon-hunting in the dark?”

 

1 2