The prince and the dragon II

For a moment, the world stood still. It was like everything around me had stopped, no longer existed. Two huge yellow eyes, staring at me. I stared back, knowing full well that my own brown eyes weren't even remotely intimidating. Puppy dog eyes, one of my girlfriends had called them. I could make her do anything, she had said to her friend, when I gave her The Look.

It hadn't been meant for my ears of course, but I so happened to overhear her when she was strolling down the rose garden with a friend. She had then proceeded to recount our latest encounter in great detail, which had made my ears burn. And that's saying something, because I had been there, at the encounter. She was disturbingly accurate. I had made a point of avoiding her after that.

Somehow, I doubted that giving the dragon my famous puppy dog look would get me out of there in one piece. Or any piece at all. Maybe he'd leave my arms. He seemed not to like them, judging from the way he had scattered them all over the place. I wondered if my father would come and collect them, and if he would then proceed to give them a proper funeral. It would save on the cost for a coffin. A box would do. Or maybe he wouldn't bury me at all, maybe he would display my arms next to the scales of my great-great grandfather's dragon.

Or better yet, maybe they'd put my arms into my great-great grandfather's mausoleum. To make him whole again. Then he'd only be missing a leg. And an eye, of course, but over the time that would have rotted away anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

The dragon blinked.

All my jumbling, hysterical thoughts came to a full stop. With a flash, I became aware of my surroundings again, the blood stained ground, the barn behind my back and the fact that I was only two feet away from a dragon's pointy teeth.

I made a sort of wheezing sound and took a step back, first one, then another, until my back hit the barn door. The dragon raised his head and stared at me, and for some reason which had absolutely nothing to do with my imagination, seemed to look slightly amused. My left hand – I was still holding on to the sword with my right – started feeling the barn door, searching for an opening, and, by some miracle, I almost immediately found it.

My hand curled itself around the edge of the sliding door and I yanked it open, turned around and ran inside. And still, to this day, I have no idea what I hoped to accomplish with that, other than to be out of sight from the dragon. A childish if I can't see him, he can't see me and he's not there. Run into the house, hide under the bed like I used to do as a small boy, maybe. It never worked then, and it didn't work now.

I ran inside, between the rows and rows of cows, all looking at me, all mooing pathetically. I felt like joining them, but the loud bang against the partially opened door kept me going, had me running all the way to the back where, thank you thank you, there was another door. I was running so fast I slammed right into it and bounced back into the barn. Not wasting any time I started yanking it, trying to get it to open. Just my luck it was stuck.

Behind me, the dragon had stopped bashing his head against the barn. I stopped and looked back, but I couldn't see him. My sense of urgency increased. I yanked the door again, which clearly hadn't been used much. Some rust fell off the iron handlebar. It moved maybe an inch.

Panting, I leaned my head against the door. A stream of curses ran through my head, but I didn't have the breath to utter them. Outside, everything seemed quiet, even the cows had stopped their noise. All of us seemed to be waiting for something. I had no idea what, and absolutely no desire to find out.

The dragon shrieked.

It was a horrible sound and I clasped my hands over my ears to shut it out. The cows panicked again and started kicking the wooden fences that kept them locked up. I panicked too and dropped my sword, grabbed the edge of the door, curled my fingers around it and jammed my foot against the door frame. I pulled with a force I didn't know I had, and the door moved.

I was screaming now too, falling in perfectly with the cows and the dragon. The door opened, inch by inch, squeaking so hard I could hear it even over the noise we were making. Then I couldn't do it any longer and just dropped to the floor, right on top of my sword. Luckily, it was flat on the ground, so I only cut myself a little. It would just have been my luck that I would fall on my own sword while fleeing from a dragon.

Fine epitaph that would have made. Here lies Prince Florian The Klutz, who managed to fall onto his own sword whilst fighting the dragon, which then proceeded to devour him, leaving only his arms.

Just as I scrambled to my feet, the dragon outside let out a deafening roar. Fire erupted at the entrance at the other side of the barn, and for a moment the entire structure was brightly lit. I could see light reflected in the dozens of eyes, cows, staring at the fire in horror. Then it was extinguished, he hadn't actually hit the barn. Yet.

I grabbed my sword, clambered to my feet and started squeezing myself through the opening. It was the chainmail shirt that almost killed me. When I was about halfway through, it caught behind some rusty nail and I was stuck. I pulled at it, tried to make myself as thin as possible, cursing my habit of always taking two deserts. If I got out of here, I swore I'd never have another piece of that delicious chocolate pie our cook made ever again... or maybe for a month. Of course, a week not eating those might already prove to be enough to have me lose some weight... come to think of it, I wasn't really that overweight, if only the blasted door...

The barn erupted in flame. Cows started screaming, and if you've ever heard cows screaming, then you know it is a horrible sound. It doesn't sound like mooing at all, it sounds like... screaming. I screamed to, tore myself loose and burst out into the open field behind the barn. Flames burst out of the narrow opening, following me, trying to get me. I felt their heat in my back, touching my feet as I dove to the ground and rolled.

The dragon roared again, and I put my hands on my head and tried to press myself into the mud. The heat intensified, the back of the barn started burning too, and I realized I was way too close. I had to move. Raising my head a little, I looked out over the field, then back at the barn and found myself facing the same horrible dilemma as the peasants had had to make only hours before.

Burn to death or be torn apart and eaten alive by the dragon.

I whimpered, moved my hand and started feeling around. It took me only a moment to find my sword, and another moment to realize it was hot. I grabbed it anyway and started crawling away from the burning structure. At least the cows had gone silent.

After a few feet of very undignified crawling, something collapsed behind me and sent out a cloud of sparks raining down on me, hitting the skin of my exposed arms, burning through the fabric of my hoses and tunic. I abandoned all pretense of trying to sneak out of there – not that that would have worked, the closest hiding place was a fence, about a hundred yards away from me – and started running.

The good thing was that it got cooler very quickly. The bad thing was that the dragon, hovering above the barn, flapping its humongous wings and by doing that providing the fire with more oxygen, saw me almost immediately. As I ran, I could feel it pass over me, the wind from his wings almost knocking me to the ground.

I stopped. Right in front of me, the dragon landed on the ground, wobbled a bit on his feet, settled down in what seemed to be a comfortable pose to tear apart foolish princes and folded his wings. The foolish prince, me, grabbed his sword with both hands and heaved it up a little, in a way that could be interpreted as non-threatening, yet allowed him to bring it up quickly should the dragon attack. I hoped.

The both of us stood there for a moment, staring at each other. I put on what I hoped was a brave expression on my face, and the dragon laughed. Well, dragons don't laugh, but I swear he looked like he did. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, and I realized that since he had already eaten, I wasn't to be a quick after dinner snack, but more something like a toy. A quick death seemed to be out of the question.

At that point, my mind started running away from me again, and I remembered the bard, Brandon, probably still hiding in the ditch, waiting for me to return, carrying the dragon's head – which by the way would have been an accomplishment in itself, the thing was huge and looked heavy. And I realized the only winner here was in fact the bard. Whoever of us won, he'd get his song. Either about me, risking life and limbs, bravely slaying the dragon, or still about me, risking those same life and limbs and tragically be killed by that same dragon.

The dragon raised his head and breathed fire into the sky. I could feel the heat of it on my face even from where I was standing, about thirty feet away from him.

If my life were a song, this would be the point where everybody started mourning the hero, knowing that his last hour had come, that he was going to go down heroically. And then they'd have a beer, or, in more culturally high standing environments, a glass of wine, and they'd continue talking about their livestock (when drinking said beer), or polo (in case of wine consumption). In fact, if I were a story teller, I'd be hard pressed finding a way out for the hero. And if I did, I'd be scorned for telling stories that were too unlikely, too far fetched.

All that thinking about beer and wine made me thirsty. It also calmed me down. The shaking stopped, the frantic gasps subsided, the week feeling left my knees. I was going to die. I had known it from the moment my father had announced that his son Prince Florian was going to save the country from the dragon. From that first sentence, my life had been over. He'd talked more, had a whole speech prepared in fact. I hadn't heard a word of it, I had watched the crowd, the faces of the people, looking at me (some of them) and my father (most of them). I had watched the expressions on their faces, varying from polite, sympathetic horror, like you sympathize with somebody falling off their horse and you're glad it's not you, to amusement. Amusement at the strange law in my country that condemned the crown prince when we were attacked by a dragon.

I had nothing to lose. I was already dead. I charged.

They say that in the moments before you die, your whole life passes you by in a flash, highlighting the most important events in your life. If that is so, the most important things in my life were being bullied by either my sisters or my classmates, falling off various horses, falling out of various taverns and having my heart broken by various girlfriends who incidentally also liked to bully me. All in all my life seemed to be a quite depressing failure, and I wanted to make an effort and remember the good times too. Unfortunately, the brief instant between me starting to charge into the direction of the dragon and actually reaching it didn't allow me to elaborate any further.

The dragon opened his mouth, and I was so close I could see the fire burning within him, just before he let out a stream of fire in my direction. I dodged, dove to the ground, rolled and got back onto my feet in one fluid motion that I probably couldn't have repeated if I had to do it again. It brought me right underneath the dragon's neck. Without thinking, I lashed out with my sword into the unprotected base of the neck, cutting right into him. Hot black blood splattered out of him on me. I jumped aside and rushed forward, out of reach of its claws. The dragon shrieked, turned and breathed another stream of fire in my general direction.

I kept moving, kept dodging, but I couldn't prevent him from scorching my left arm and singing my clothes. The dragon was mad now, lashing out with his claws, his head and his tail, turning and twisting, trying to hit me. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of the blood that was running down his throat, and I realized just how lucky I had been in inflicting that wound on him in the first strike, because I couldn't get close enough to repeat that little feat. The wound seemed to make him sluggish, slow. He had clearly underestimated me. For the first time in over a week, I dared to hope.

Now if I only could get close enough and slash his soft abdomen some more. The scales that covered his body didn't cover his belly. It was a weak spot, a vulnerability that normally wouldn't cause a dragon trouble, as you had to approach him from up front to get to it. Nobody in their right mind tried that, because it meant facing the fire.

At some point, we were just standing there, staring at each other, both of us panting. I was exhausted. I was cursing my decision to leave the chain mail shirt on. It hadn't seemed too heavy when I set out on my crazy mission, but it seemed to weigh a ton now. The dragon, standing on all fours, shook his head, coughed out some smoke and glared at me. I glared right back. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I was starting to get a little hysterical, but I didn't dare allow that feeling to come out.

Think, Flint, I thought to myself. What to do? How to end this? What would my great-great-grandfather have done?

Ah yes. He would have rushed him.

I chanced a glance into the direction of the fence to check if it was still a hundred yards away from me, but it hadn't miraculously come closer. I had my back to the barn at that particular moment, and I could feel the heat of the dying fire. Then my eyes widened. Behind the fence, right there, was the head of Brandon, the bard, carefully peering over it. I could clearly see him, his pointy black hair, streaked with gray, huge brown eyes, mouth hanging open. He saw me watching him and slowly raised his hand. To wave? To wish me luck? Probably just to urge me on, to get on with it and either slay the dragon or die, so he could write his epic poem.

The dragon saw me watch the fence, saw the expression on my face change and turned his head to see what I was looking at. Brandon ducked behind the fence, too late. The dragon had already seen him. He lifted his head and roared, spewing out a enormous flame into Brandon's direction, as if to tell him, once I've finished with this idiot, you're next. During all this, he left his belly completely unprotected.

For a moment, I froze. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for, this was what would save me, and there I was, completely immobile, gaping at the stupidity of the dragon, thinking he had already defeated me. I tried to scream at myself to get moving, to get my feet moving, to simply rush the beast like my brainless great-great-grandfather, and then I finally proved his blood was in fact streaming through my veins.

Everything had slowed down. The dragon turned his head towards Brandon. I took a running step, then another, and another, gripping my sword with both hands, leaning forward. My feet splashed in the muddy grass, and if I had tripped right then and there, it would have been over. The dragon, realizing what I was about to do, realizing his mistake, started to turn back. But this time, he was too late.

I was already halfway there when he started to turn back, and I pushed myself to run faster. When I reached the dragon, normal time suddenly kicked in again, and everything happened in a flash. I slashed him open, cut right through his belly from left to right, causing his intestines to fall out. I mean, literally fall out, right in front of me. I had to duck not to get covered in them, but I didn't stop there. The dragon screamed and tried to get up, tried to get away from me but I slashed it again, this time close to his throat.

He made a gurgling sound. He swayed. I looked up at him from underneath, and then realized I'd better get out of there because the beast was kind of massive, so I turned and ran. I made it all of two steps before the dragon crashed down on top of me and knocked me out.

PART 3