Oh the fight we did. I wished a hundred times that it had been fought in an arena to the admiration of those enamoured of the art of swordplay. We used every skill and trick we both knew, each accustomed to the other’s style and I survived only because I had a century of training and experience on Felix. But the man was good. He took to swordplay as a duck takes to water and was a natural fighter.
Did the fight last minutes or hours? I don’t know. I was tired from hacking the undead and Felix was tired from killing Saxons and we eventually rested, me still on the high. “You’ve gotten better since we last met,” Felix called.
“Hopefully better enough to send you to join Merrick.”
He glanced down and screamed as she saw Lys toss oil over the altar and burn Merrick, the Saxon and the necromancer. The remainder of the room was already in ruins and books were burning with the incenses filling the room with noxious fumes. I would miss those books but rather they burn than fall into Felix’s hands. Felix, however changed his tactics and ran down the stairs.
“Lys, run!” I yelled following Felix. At the base, Felix turned to give one blow that knocked me back, unbalanced as I was on the stairs, then he ran for the Altar to save what he could of Merrick.
Lys was trapped and pulling tapestries from the walls to feed the fire. She intended to burn Felix and didn’t much care if she died too. I had an urge to leave them all but an arrow struck my shield from behind and looking up, saw the remaining Saxons enter the room. The cavalry had arrived but in this case, they wanted us all dead. So I ran, jumped the fire to Lys, all those years of jumping Beltane Fires came into use here, and yelled, “He’s already dead! There are too many of them. He can’t kill them all so let’s get out of here!”
She saw Felix take an arrow as he frantically covered Merrick’s head to beat out the flames so she spit, screamed “Dabogda te jebao nekrofil. Metrovy kokot do tvojej riti. Kurcoglavac! D'anam don diabhal” at him and then I dragged her through an opening that had been revealed when she tore a tapestry from the wall. She continued to swear at him in Solvak, Bosnian, Turkish and even the Gaelic she had heard me use as I dragged her down the stairs.
The well led down and air, by no means fresh, flew up the well to feed the fire as we ran down the stairs. Eventually the well led to a series of stairs cut into the limestone cave and soon we were in a large cavern which began as the stairs ended. The cavern was wet and a large pool filled the far side, we slso felt air rushing from an opening which must have led to the outside but it was far too small for either of us to enter.
“Imigh sa diabhal” I cursed in Gaelic! “This must be the opening. But only a child can use it. We’re trapped.”
Lys struck a light and with her torch looked around. “Look” she pointed. Over the pool was another opening, far larger than any other and the light from the torch bouncing from the crystals in the walls, we saw gold. “There’s the treasure of Baron Wrath! Not in the dungeon but down here. How do we get it?” Then she began to pull rope from her pack.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Getting the treasure.”
“And how do you intend to get it out of here?”
“You’ll find a way. You always have an escape planned. Besides,” she touched my cheek, “We promised your daughters a big present.”
It took three throws but she finally got the grapnel over a broken stalagmite and pulled to lock it into place. Then I heard a clatter on the stairs and grabbed Lys and pulled her to cover as Felix, burned and bloody, arrived. “You Irish bastard! You Slavic whore!” he yelled. “Where are you! You’ve ruined everything. I’ll kill you for this!” He had a bundle in one hand that probably was Merrick’s head and his heavily notched sword in the other. His shield he had left behind and his armor was rented in a number of places, only some of which I remembered creating. Apparently, he had killed a lot more Orcs.
I was about to step out and finish the job, neither knowing not caring who would win when Lys pulled me down and hissed, “Be quiet, don’t move!”
I froze, then saw a long snake-like creature crawl from the treasure trove. Its tongue tested the rope then it looked over and saw Felix who never saw it leave its nest until it was over him. Then he heard the hiss, looked up, said, “shit!”
Then the dragon snapped down to engulf both him and Merrick in one bite. As it lifted its head to swallow, I grabbed Lys and pulled her into the water and we waded to the far side where I noticed air bubbles being sucked from an underwater opening. The dragon finished swallowing its meal and turned to us but by that time we had cut our mail free, sheathed our swords and dove, both encumbered by the bows and quivers Lys had carried down the stairs.
The opening was large, too large and we saw it easily as the dragon flamed the cavern where we once stood. We both swam as fast as we could, more pulling ourselves along the stalactites and stalagmites that lined the passage then Lys burst ahead of me, fighting for distance. If she was that scared, I wasn’t going to argue and rushed fast too. Finally, we reached a chamber, pulled ourselves onto a shelf and Lys crawled back into the ledge in the darkness, pushing bones aside in her haste. “It followed us into the tunnel! Ow! Jason, here’s the ladder, quick, up!” and her voice faded into the distance.
I found the ladder and climbed after it and that climb was a nightmare. The ladder was rusty and we made it only because of our thick leather gloves that swordsmen wore and our boots. “How did it get through that tunnel?” Lys called. “It was barely large enough for us!”
I panted back, “In Africa I saw a crocodile big enough to eat me squeeze through a hole too small for my head to enter. Those things can dislocate their bones. Climb faster!”
Then a burst of flame followed us up. The flames didn’t reach us but the methane stink did. Some natural napalm maybe as I looked down and saw it stick to the ladder and walls as it burned. Below was the dragon slowly gaining on us, avoiding the burning patches. Lys stopped climbing and kicked at the wall until a door opened. Had the dragon not flamed when it did, we would have passed it by. “Inside, fast!” and she pushed through with me on her tail. We slammed the door shut then followed the tunnel to a blank wall. We both began to search for the hidden door when the dragon smashed the shaft door open and looked in. We barely made through and slammed the next door as it flamed again.
“This tunnel and door is way too small for it. Maybe it can get its head and neck in but those arms and wings will stop it. I hope. Where are we?” I asked.
I could hear Lys moving about in the dark and I did so too. It was a small cavern, large enough for the dragon to move around in if it didn’t mind curling like a snake but the air was rank and we were trapped.
“Jason! There’s a tunnel going down and I smell water. This must lead to the pool and this tunnel is large enough for the dragon. Damn! What now?”
I felt the door and it was warm, too warm. “He flamed the tunnel and heated up the door. He isn’t coming through here, even Dragons can’t survive their own flames. I think he did it to trap us here so he could continue the climb and return to his cave by another exit. Then he’ll enter the pool follow the underwater tunnel to this one and come up to eat us. We have time. He has to continue up through the dungeon or wherever the shaft leads, then outside and back inside. Let’s go!” and I opened the door to see the tunnel filled with chemical burnings.
I scraped as much as I could off the walls and ceiling with my sword and patted them out the moved back to the shaft. From there, covered with dragon stink and fearing a light, we continued up.
“Why won’t it turn around in the shaft and save time?”
“Because it is flexible but there isn’t enough room here for even it to turn around. It needs a room to turn in and its scales won’t let it back down. So right now we are behind it. We’re safe until it gets outside.”
“What’s to stop it from entering the dungeo
n and turning around in there then coming down at us?”
I stopped then. Looking up I whispered, “I forgot about that.” Down or up? It could be waiting for us up there or … “I’m guessing that it thinks we are as greedy as it is. Dragons hoard and they are jealous of anything stealing its gold. It found us there in its treasure nest so it hopefully thinks we took the tunnel back to its cave to rob it. It’ll go faster outside than fighting these tunnels again.”
“I hope you’re right, keep climbing. I just want out now. Did you see Felix’s face when he saw those teeth close over him! I am going to remember that forever. Too bad I can’t be here when that overgrown snake shits him out.”
We reached the dungeon but without armor I wasn’t willing to meet with whatever was still alive, undead or Orc, so continued up. Not too far above we entered a storeroom that showed signs of the dragon’s hasty progress. An Orc lay against the wall, pretending very hard to not see us. He had a friend with him and even the friend wasn’t ready for another conflict after being tossed aside by the dragon. So we ran across the storeroom, seeing nothing of value even if we wanted to take the time, and ran up the stairs and into the ruins of an outer building. We looked around, saw a scale scraped off as the dragon exited this place and seeing nothing we left and ran for the gatehouse. Still nothing. “Lys, we need to be away from here before it discovers that we tricked it. They may be greedy bastards but they are also full of pride and hate being made a fool.”
We both looked for sign and then ran down the road to the river, always keeping close to cover. Going down a road wearing nothing but clothes an unstrung bow and closed quiver and a sword is a lot easier than climbing that road uphill wearing armour and a pack so we made excellent time. Once at the river, we hid and searched, then searched again but saw nothing and even the horses were quiet. “Now is the dangerous part. If he shows while we are crossing, we are dead. If we duck underwater and even drift downstream, he’ll see us from the air and pluck us like an eagle takes a fish. I’ll go first. Then give me a chance to find that longbow and make ready. I won’t be able to kill it but I may divert its attention long enough for you to get across to safety.”
She grabbed me, kissed me hard and said, “Don’t die on me.” Then she pushed me to the river. I didn’t even tie on but grabbed the rope and near ran across the river in waist deep water using the rope to prevent me from being swept away.
Once across, I ran for the place where we hid the bows and by the time I had strung the longbow (both our strings being soaked and stretched as we swam underground), nocked an arrow and returned to the river, Lys was almost across. The fool! I scanned the skies and hills but she made it across safe and we ran for the horses, knocked down the poles blocking the doorway, mounted and rode for the woods as fast as we could and damn the safety.
We barely made it to the tree-line when we heard a hissing and looking back, saw the dragon dive for the river. While it was burning the deserted town that we had vacated, we rode, terror giving strength to the horses. When we heard it call again, we left the road and hid under trees as it passed overhead, searching.
“We need a christian knight to slay the beast,” Lys laughed as she calmed her terror-stricken steed.
“That beast must be at least 100 feet long. It’ll take an army of knights to stop it and even then, most will die. No, I’m willing to let it go, unharmed. See that smoke back there? It burned the river town. For all we know it may go back and clean out the Orcs and undead before it calms down. Had we taken even a coin from its hoard, it’d never let us go.” We walked the horses, blindfolded through the deep forest, they starting every time it roared in the sky but blinded as they were, unwilling to run. So we made slow time and headed far south to throw it off for it was probably watching the roads and shortly after leaving the road, we heard it running east on the road we had vacated hoping to meet us head-on. Dragons are sight hunters. Unless we made a lot of noise or it stopped to taste the road, it wouldn’t know where we left the road so we were safe for a while.
We traveled slowly in the deep forest, avoiding underbrush and moving from thick tree to thick tree so by nightfall we probably hadn’t made more than a league if that. We also ate our meal cold, fearing that even a small fire would bring the dragon so remained as quiet as possible until Lys sat next to me and asked, “When do you think it’ll give up?”
“Depends on how badly we pricked its ego. Dragon’s don’t think that they are the peak of creation, they KNOW it! So to have two petty humans outwit it hurt its sense of omnipotence. Maybe a day or two. It may take revenge on Iskandar but probably not destroy the town though, then give up since we didn’t steal anything.”
“I can see it attacking Iskandar but why won’t it burn it to the ground?”
“That dragon has been feeding off the cattle and sheep of the village for decades, plus the occasional adventurer. Iskandar feeds it the occasional adventurer so it’s a steady source of food and whatever wealth they carry. It probably sees the town as slave labor and so too valuable to eliminate or face going back to hunting for its dinner. It may, however, burn a house or two and eat some stock and people out of anger.”
She leaned against me in the cold and I placed my arm around her and we looked into the darkness until she asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you leap the flames to save me? To drag me to safety? You could have easily left and with me and Felix dead, your problems would be solved.”
I looked at the stars peeking through the canopy and calculated. Another day or two to Iskandar because of the weaving path we had to walk. If the town was untouched, a day to rest then two to the StarGate. If the dragon hit the town, we’d avoid it and live off the land so make that four days to the StarGate. So… five to eight days before I got home and had to face Diane and my kids.
“Because, sometimes you have to stop thinking and follow your heart.”
Back to Contents
END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
What can I say about my past, for biographies should be exciting and filled with the wonder that encourages one to explore the written word as Hillary explored Everest or Livingston explored Africa. But, alas, you are doomed to disappointment for I, as my family before me, have led a dull and completely normal life.
My father was born in a railroad car within sight of the Superstition Mountains. As a child, when he could escape the life of the West and its duties, my father explored these mountains seeking the same gold that had been found by the Dutchman. At the tender age of fifteen, my father lied about his age to escape the overly romantic ranch-life of a cowboy and enlisted in the Marines, carrying a flame-thrower across the Pacific Theater, then later Korea, before he settled down to the equally dull life of an Air Force police officer in such locales as Vietnam and Arabia.
His father was the first white-man born in Northern Arizona and worked as a telegrapher, a horse-drawn supply wagon driver to Jerome and, of course, a cowboy.
His father was a Norwegian pirate upon the Barbary Coast, eventually seeking the safety of Arizona, believing that the US Navy would not chase him that far inland. And so traded the cutlass for lariat and became the owner of the oldest working ranch in the West, a ranch whose size increased with his entry into the Mormon Lake sheep wars and a major character in one of Zane Gray’s western novels.
My mother's life was equally dull, arriving as an illegal immigrant from Ireland in 1925. Her mother was Irish Nobility of Claire and was descended from the Great High King, Brian Boru. She married into Irish Nobility from Antrim causing her children to argue between the Orange and the Green. Being good Catholics, they gave half their wealth and half their children to the Church and supported the IRA with funds and sons back when these heroes were Freedom Fighters seeking to form a Republic free from British rule.
With this background, I grew up not only upon Arizona Ranches, but also on
Eastern Farms. My fondest memories, however, were growing up in Okinawa, searching among the post-war ordinance that still littered the jungle and discovering two Cryptids, a giant centipede and a supposedly extinct salamander. And when time allowed, I became politically active, fighting for and winning various civil rights for oppressed minorities on both a state and federal level.
And so I grew up, living a normal and dull life, studying Karate, Kung-Fu, Kendo, Fencing and Ninjitsu. I worked as a farmer and cowboy when necessity called, exploring the jungles and deserts when possible and seeking the crash site of that famous incident in Roswell, New Mexico when desired.
I eventually achieved my Degree from a well-known institute of learning in the field of Psychology and Sociology but left academia shortly before achieving my Masters in Anthropology, choosing to marry, enlist and follow my father's footsteps. However, as he chose the life of action, I chose the dull life of a Construction Engineer satisfying myself with building a school in Panama for Indians, repairing the homes of the unfortunates on a leper colony, building a hospital in Belize, a fire station for 16-year-old Apache smoke-jumpers in New Mexico, an office for the Red Cross in Arabia and the like. Not particularly exciting but satisfying on a spiritual level for my military career was based upon making people's lives better. And exploring the forbidden areas of these and other nations taught me that learning to say "please" and "thank you" in the local dialect and a polite attitude saved me much trouble, my Martial Arts training filling in on those rare occasions when courtesy failed.
And so, 28 years later, after leaking blood upon the soil of nations most Americans cannot find on a map, I felt it time to retire when my beliefs that every nation possessed the right of self-determination countered the actions of America.
So, I continue my dull life of retirement working in the Justice system, teaching Witchcraft, paddling kayaks and running the occasional river race, writing, Geocaching, martial arts, rebuilding my sailboat, building 'toys' for my former girl-friend, who was a professional Dominatrix, seeking a future Mrs who can bake a decent pizza and, of course, writing, having won the prestigious Georgian Award in 1982, but selling nothing since, though I do have a reputation for my papers on Martian Cartography.