To Slay A Dragon

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No sword or arrow or poison could slay the dragon. It came like a storm from the north, rushing on the wind and raining fire. The land turned to ash under its breath, and when the village had emptied, the dragon dug out a nest with razor claws and draped its scaly coils over the charred remains.

A field of crude tents now spread along the edge of the nearest city, and from that city, perched between the forest and sea, men waged war with the dragon.

The sun was spreading a dark shadow at the forest’s feet when soldiers and archers came through the trees, bloodied and blackened, hauling carts of the dead behind them. Ahna stood among the tents, a hand resting on her swelling stomach, watching them come.

Roderick, a tall man with a sword and an army and a hall of stone, led them. He stopped in the rutted lane between the tents. The villagers’ haggard faces turned to him, hopeful, but Ahna looked away to the twin tongues of smoke over the trees, curling into the sky. She had lived in that village, farmed the land now fallow and burnt under the fiery belly.

“We’ll waste no more men,” Roderick said, resting his palm on his hilt.

“Some of us had homes there!” a voice cried. “What are we supposed to do?”

Roderick towered over them. “That’s no concern of mine. Be grateful the city has allowed you to remain here this long.”

More voices rang out, but Ahna turned and walked to her tent, leaving behind the bark of angry men. When her husband came trudging back from working another’s fields, she handed him a bowl of thin soup. “I think I’ll go fishing tomorrow,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

He looked up with tired eyes before he nodded, drank his soup, and fell asleep with his hand on her stomach. Ahna covered him with a worn blanket, then sat outside the tent, her quick fingers freeing peas from their pods. She watched the two streams of smoke rising in puffs to the north until the night hid them.

At dawn, she passed through the city to the docks, a coil of rope on her shoulder. “I would like to come aboard,” she said to the captain of a small boat, dropping a precious gold coin into his tan palm.

She stood in the bow, wiping salt spray from her cheeks, as the ship jumped over the waves. When they cast anchor, the men dropped nets for little silver fish, but she ran a single line, deeper and baited with pungent, rotting meat. Then she sat and waited.

The little boat swayed when a fish finally swallowed the hook, and it took three men to haul it up into the sunlight. It twitched and gulped on the bottom of the boat until the scales dried in the sun and the lidless eyes paled.

When the fishing boat had docked, Ahna took the stinking fish by the tail and heaved it onto her back. Eyes and laughter followed her as she slowly made her way through the city to the field of tents. With a dull knife, she split open the belly, then she roasted the fish over a fire until the skin crackled and turned black. When it had cooled to the touch, she hoisted it onto her back and walked through the field of tents into the forest, toward the village.

The dragon watched her with baleful eyes as she approached. Ahna stopped and looked at the stretches of gleaming coils. “I brought you dinner,” she said, heaving the fish off her shoulder into the dust.

Then she turned and began the long walk back. Behind her, the dragon greedily devoured the fish, swallowing it whole.

A horrible screeching echoed through the forest that night when the moon rose. Ahna woke, smiled, and nestled against her husband.

She was washing her feet the next morning when a scout came running through the trees. The dragon was dead. It lay twisted in the dirt, its claws furrowing the ground. A pale forked tongue hung from its mouth, and blood dripped from its fangs.

Voices murmured of who could have slain the beast when men of might and cunning had failed. When they cut the dragon apart to haul it away, they found a thin, silver fish bone piercing its throat.

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