The Dragonslayer's Dilemma

It is a thing known by some about dragons - those that have dealt with the civilized dragons of distant Cathay, or are particularly well read - that they are things of parts and places. Their influence is not felt merely in their talons and their jaws, their breath and their thunderous roars, but in the way shadows fall from trees, the way leaves turn at unnatural times, the way new caves seem to glint with red eyes. The way the wolves lurk along hills, watching not sheep, but their herders, their eyes filled with mathematic certainty.

As the two riders made their way north from the kingdom, Lyrian considered the low humping hills that made up the landscape that crept up and up towards the northern mountains that marked the barrier between their kingdom and the Black Kingdom, and the narrow pass that had been contested between their two rulers for time out of mind. The pass had been enchanted by a great worker of miracles in the time before time, and the examples of their efforts remained visible even from a vast distance - statues rising up, carved straight into the sides of the mountains that had been cleft down the middle as if they were loaves of bread being carved by a housewife. Those mountain statues were the shapes of men and women from a race not quite of humanity, with queer features and uncanny gazes, peering down at the men and women that fought over their clear passage and the fertile farmland to the north and the valuable silver mines to the south and east.

Lyrian turned his gaze to his brother, Adrin, who was looking as somber as he had since they had burnt their father on the pyre. Mother had solemnly taken the leadership of the kingdom in hand, while the army had hastily worked to rebuild the castle, in case of invasion. And the two brothers had prepared. They had sharpened blades, gathered supplies, chosen the finest horses, and in the case of Lyrian, worked as many subtle spells and magics that he could, spell of warding and haste, to make their way easier as they followed after the beast Aheddighast.

"We should be into the foothills by nightfall," Adrin said. His voice was like shifting stones, his hand resting on the front of his saddle. His horse, considered a prince by many in the horse kingdoms, shifted and pawed his hoof at the ground, clearly nervous. Lyrian's mount was, herself, a simple mare chosen more through the strength of her spirit than any great lineage - and she too seemed restive and nervous. Both horses, possessing more sense and less passion than their riders, could scent the dragon touched wind and knew to fear.

"Do we have a plan beyond simply bearding the beast in his lair?" Lyrian asked, his voice growing dry and taut. "Remember, brother, this is no simple wyvren or wyrm - this is a true dragon. And neither of us are saints."

"What? You think St. George never once slept with a tavern wench?" Adrin asked, flashing a momentary grin - as if he was casting aside the strain and sorrow of the day in the face of Lyrian's own worries. Lyrian pursed his lips and shook his head.

"It is rather part of being a saint, brother," he said, then kneed his mare forward. Not wishing to go before a prince, but goaded on despite that, the horse started further along the winding path that would take them, eventually, to the distant pass. Lyrian knew they would need to veer off in several miles, to find the even more circuitous path that led up the mountains themselves, rather than through the straight miracle. He kept his eyes darting back and forth, while Adrin kneed forward.

"In truth," his twin said, quietly. "I was figuring I would distract the beast while you slew him with some great spell."

"Dragons cannot be cursed or hexed like some mortal," Lyrian said. "They are one of the few creatures whose names are utterly their own - you call me Lyrian, but I have truer names that that, Adrin. Names that describe my heart, my belly, my balls, all using the oldest tongue. By speaking those names, I can be turned inside out." His lips pursed at the idea and he shook his head. "Then, of course, there are the more overt forms of magics - the calling of lights and fire from other realms, the force of will, glamouring from the fae, miracles from our lord Christ-"

"I understand, you need not lay the road to Rome," Adrin said, his voice growing dour once more, his eyes flashing. "How did dragons get such power?"

"No one knows," Lyrian said, quietly. "They are dragons. It is enough."

They continued in silence.

"What do dragonsdowith princesses?" Adrin asked, softly.

Lyrian's tongue darted along his lips.

"You do not wish to know," he said, softly.

***

***

Many telling of this tale speak but fleetingly of what transpired to Princess Miryan while she was held for three days by the dragon Aheddighast - and in so doing, they play her a disservice. Though much has been said of the Princes and their many talents, that is the nature of tales of knights and dragons - princesses are nothing but bundles of colored fabric to be stolen back and forth. But this is a tale that does not flinch from such things, nor one that wishes to make things seem sweet as honey when they were not.

Miryan had been in the midst of her daily tasks as a princess - learning how to manage the finances and supplies of a well stocked larder and the battlements of castles under sieges, an act that required more mathematics than she had really expected - when the dragon arrived at her tower. She had been sitting in her bed while her mentor, the kindly priest Moran, told her how the sums were added - and then the wall had come crashing in. Moran was buried, slain in an instant and sent to God with a cry of horror on his lips. And from heaven, he did beg for intercession, while the snarling head of Aheddighast thrust in through the hole he had made within the tower. Peering inside, he had transfixed Miryan, and with the resounding ring of his roar still deafening all, he reached up with one hand, to hold onto the roof of the tower. His tongue flicked out, drawing along the floor, and he spoke a single word in the oldest tongue.

In that word, there was time enough to converse, between the beat of birds in the sky, and the glittering ruby red of blood pouring from wounds.

"Princess, oh Princess," the dragon said, his slitted eye as tall as she was, his head tilted to fill the room so he could peer at her. "Do you not recognize your suitor, Princess? Do you not admire my finery?"

"Y-You are a dragon! Stay back!" Miryan snatched up a small dagger used to carve and sharpen quills. It would have done poorly against a man. Against a dragon, it seemed all the more laughable.

"Quite," Aheddighast said, amusement pouring from his mouth like smoke from his nostrils. "I am a dragon. But I will not stay back, oh Princess. Not when you are so comely, so fetching, so utterly beauteous. I am here to kidnap you, to spirit you to the far mountains, and to make you known to me."

Miryan's hand trembled and her cheeks flushed. She glared and snarled, in a tone that came more from her mother's people, a people who shot knights from behind as they slogged through brackish mud to find a village to burn: "I bite."

"Which I find so very admirable, oh Princess." The dragon's eyes glinted and it was here that Miryan would have done better to remember stories. For a dragon's tongue was as silver as their horde - and despite the danger and heat, the amusement and the pleasure in Aheddighast's words tickled a part of Miryan's soul - a pleasure, born of being recognized as dangerous, despite her size, despite her lack of weapons. She did lower her knife, ever so slightly, as Aheddighast crooned. "If you come with me, oh Princess, your father will know life eternal, and your kingdom shall be prosperous 'ere more. In exchange, you will know the pleasure that is a dragon's company."

"I..." Miryan hesitated. Her eyes were filled with uncertainty, and her cheeks did heat. She had seen her father age, in the years since she had been born, and those silver-tipped words, piercing into her heart like claws, brought to mind the spreading of white through his hair like silver frost. To live forever? Could a dragon offer such a thing? She knew they were terribly powerful beasts, but...that seemed too perfect, too good to be true. She shook her head. "I don't believe you."

"Part of you wonders, oh Princess." The dragon chuckled. "My spell will last but a moment more. Choose." And his head, vast and terrible, drew from the hole in the tower and was replaced, a moment later, with his palm. And before Miryan knew it, she was stepping towards that palm, to caress one finger, a finger as large as she was. Her whole body shivered and she felt as if she was quite dizzy. Like many youths, she had been curious about the ways of men and women - but unlike her brothers, Miryan had been kept quite sheltered, even at the age of eighteen. And so, the murky confusion in her thoughts only added to the sweet allure of the forbidden, scaled beast that offered his hand to her.

And so, the Princess stepped hesitantly onto the palm before she even quite realized she was doing it - and as she was lifted up, her father burst into the room. She was drawn away as his sword flashed, biting deep - and Aheddighast made good on his promise, destroying the keep and sending her father to heaven and, thus, to life eternal with Christ.

"You beast! You brute! You liar!"

Those three words were thrown at Aheddighast as he soared to his home in the highest peak of the mountain range between Miryan's kingdom and the Black. He laughed, his scales and his callous cruelty alike casting off the accusations as if they were arrows. The cave mouth he landed in did not always seem to look like a skull, with leering eyes and dangling teeth, and yet today it did, and when he gently cast Miryan onto some cushions he had collected and piled for this very purpose, she landed and emerged, rushing at him. True to her word, she did bite, her teeth grinding against scales, and again, Aheddighast laughed, booming and echoing off the walls of the cave.

"It was not I who sent my only son to offer such promises, oh Princess!" Aheddighast said, reclining back on his haunches and looking down at her with amusement. "I spoke nothing but truth."

"You know you did not, beast," Miryan hissed, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. She turned her back upon Aheddighast and fled - fled into the cave. There was more to flee too than she expected, for the cave was merely the opening of an ancient ruin of unknown origin, which had been carved by hands that had never had five fingers, nor the eyes to see them with. Stair steps were too wide, and they led to a chamber too high for a mortal to have made it. But there was something akin to a bed, and so Miryan flung herself into the sheets and buried her face against the pillows, sobbing - vast wracking sobs. Her father had been slain, smashed apart with a single errant blow, and she was now the captive of a dragon.

Her shoulders shook and she curled up upon herself, trying to wring the weakness from her body and her soul. She knew her mother would never simply surrender - but the black horror was too vast for her to fully grapple with at the moment.

And Aheddighast?

Aheddighast simply sat and then laid, his head resting upon the gold and gems he had collected, his bulk filling the cave, his shadows casting forth. He half closed his eyes and let himself become of the land, as was his way.

For he was Aheddighast, the Eater of Forests, the Drought of Kingdoms. He was Curse Maker and Sin Breather, one of the oldest dragons of the world. When he had refused to bend his head to the Celestial King of Prester John and the court of Cathay, he had left the valley of Immortals in ruins. From there, he had been cast from the city of Constantinople during the reign of Justinian the Great, but not before cursing the king to become a monster - to the end of his reign, the great Roman was forced to be confined in the secret quarters of his palace, lest he rend apart the citizens of the Empire. And now, here, he had new lands to work his will in.

He savored the taste, like red blood on the tip of his tongue.

***

***

The night had come like a cavalry charge, sweeping across the hills and the mountains. The shadows flowed over the camp, while Adrin worked with striker and iron. Sparks flared, tinder caught, and the firelight cast its most ancient magic. Lyrian kept his gaze on the shadows surrounding the camp, his lips pursed. "There are no stars tonight," he said, softly. "We're not going to have much in the way of their help."

Adrin grunted. His expression remained grave, and his eyes darted from the fire to the bedrolls he had slung from his pack, and from the two horses, who had been tied near a tree and were themselves looking as tense and nervous as their riders. The prince of horses whickered and nudged his hoof against the ground. Softly, Adrin spoke: "Something is out there. I can feel it. Like the weight before battle."

Lyrian snatched his staff from where it leaned against a tree. The sleek, straight branch of silver wood seemed to glow between his hands, drinking up the firelight. His gaze pierced the shadows - and there, a gray shape against gray pillars, visible only by how it shifted ever so slightly in the evening gloom, he could see the humanoid figure. Lyrian lifted his chin and frowned. "Who goes there?"

"Can I warm myself by your fire?"

The voice was quite human sounding - the soft tones of a woman, sounding afraid of the chill and the cold around them. The tone made Adrin lifted his head and look to relax. But Lyrian held up his hand, forestalling his twin.

Wait,he thought to him.A dragon touches these lands.

"You may stand in our fire light, stranger. We grant you such hospitality," he said, while behind his back, his fingers crooked into a gesture, turning the sentence to stone in the air. The shadowy figure darted forward - and quite suddenly, Lyrian was pressed against the tree that his horses were tied too, while serrated blades pressed to his throat. The shadow-thing that had come within their firelight had moved faster than quicksilver, and her entire head had split apart, revealing sharpened teeth and writhing shadow. She chuckled, low and throaty.

"Your blood is all I want, Prince," she said, but as the bladed claw-fingers touched to his throat, she was flung backwards and to the ground, but not by Adrin, who was still scrabbling for his longsword. A screech of pain came from the shadow-thing, and she scrabbled at her face, her belly, while silver light blazed along her skin, fanning along veins that were not veins beneath her flesh. The blazing light grew hotter and hotter, while Lyrian shook his head.

"Unwise to spurn hospitality, dragon-sent abomination," he said.

Adrin put a heavy boot upon the shadow-thing's chest, pinning her to the ground and touched her chin with the tip of his sword. "Did the Drought sent you, thing?"

Her shriek was like a kettle. "You will die - I will flay you with my claws, I will burn you with my flames, I will...I will-" Her body was consumed by the silver light, and when Adrin's boot touched ground, it was through a ring of mushrooms, grown in the perfect shape of a fairie ring. He grunted, while Lyrian clicked his tongue.

"Aheddighast's next attempt will be less subtle," he said.

"That wassubtle?" his brother snorted.

"Dragons have different views on these things" Lyrian said. "I need a few moments for this next working. Your blade will need to handle these."

Adrin looked back out from the center of their camp. The horses were beginning to shuffle and blow air through their nostrils, and the stallion whinnied. Prince of horses or no, he was able to scent what came on the breeze. Adrin saw the red gleam of the eyes, and then unnatural haste of the wolves as they pounded from forest to firelight was immediate and obvious. The poor beasts were scrawny and underfed, and they moved with the jerky movement of marionettes or passion play creatures - and he could practically see the claws of a dragon, pushed through their arms and legs, making them twitch them forward.

Adrin hewed left, then right, and two wolves fell, their bodies split by fine steel, but a third leaped and bit onto his arm. The padded gambeson he wore when he was not clad in plate armor kept blood from spilling, but the weight of the wolf dragged him down and to the left - only for Adrin to slam his knee into the side of the creature and send it staggering into the fire at the heart of their camp. No natural wolf would be so clumsy, but Adrin was not about to complain. He grasped his blade with both hands and the last of the wolves leaped at him. He stepped forward and split open its belly and pierced through its heart with one upward motion, then flung it aside. The burning wolf tried to swipe a claw at him - but he skipped aside with the ease of long practice, his feet as light as air. When he looked about himself, the camp was splattered with blood and the bodies of the wolves, and the smell of burning flesh had sent both horses into a wild panic.

His brother, standing, brandished his staff and blue flames flickered along his arms. He glared about himself, then frowned, lowering the staff and blinking several times.

"Sorry, brother," Adrin said, chuckling. "They were only wolves."

"We should sleep in shifts," Lyrian said, waving one hand and sending the true flames back to the realm they had come from. He stepped over to the horses, his hand stroking his mare and there, he spoke in the soft speech of horses. The two calmed - and he turned back to Adrin. "Aheddighast is going to be sending more terrible things after us. And not all will be split so easily by a sword."

Adrin frowned and nodded. "Dreams?" he asked. "Visions?"

"Quite likely," Lyrian said. "If you find yourself in a nightmare, there is a simple cantrip that can break the nightmare, make it your own to play with...but..." He hesitated. "A simple cantrip can take years for a novice to learn."

Adrin chuckled. "I will persevere. You sleep first, and when I sleep, you can cast that little cantrip on me if I seem about to die in my sleep."

Lyrian nodded, then walked to the bedroll. He laid himself upon it, then wriggled inside, the firelight casting its warmth along his body. His eyes started to droop, the exhaustion of the day and the excitement of the battle mingling to draw him towards sleep. He tried to not think of how many shadowed creatures lurked in the woods beyond, waiting and watching. He tried to not think, ere now, what might be happening to his sister.

That itself might have been a mistake.

It gave Aheddighast precisely the idea for what sending to use upon the wizard twin.

***

***

In the dream, Lyrian had limbs of scales and fingers tipped by claws. He crawled along the floor and felt a sense of power and potency that made the first time had cast a spell feel like the flickering of a candle next to the blazing light of the noonday sun. His tail writhed behind him, serpentlike. His head was tipped by a long muzzle and his nose flared, nostrils slitted. He breathed in the scent of warm, wet cunt and a feral part of his mind growled its hunger. He knew this was a dream - a sending from the beast Aheddighast...but the cantrip remained on the tip of his tongue, unspoken as he crawled through the ruined splendor in the high mountain and came, at last, to the room with his sister.

Miryan was, like his brother, a source of forbidden fascination. From the moment he had realized that her body was budding into something more beautiful than he had thought possible, Lyrian had forced himself to try and not take notice. But it was like trying to not feel flames consuming ones fingers, to not notice the shattering of a vast pane glassed window. Miryan was so beautiful that it hurt him - her breasts modest compared to her mother, but her figure so delicately perfect that it simply suited her. Her face was heart shaped and freckled, her hair as long and dark as his brothers, and her eyes the most remarkable, ever-shifting shade.