***
Everything about her turns weak as she stares at the hill of charred bones. There's nothing she wants more than to turn back. Her legs are as weak and watery as the patches of quick mud that surround her village. Part of her knows this is folly. A girl against a dragon. But another part wants to bury the point of her father's sword deep in the monster's throat.
That's her duty as a daughter. And she could never be a knight of honour like her father without that duty carried out.
So she pushes herself to her feet, and walks unsteadily back into the field of bones to retrieve her sword. The bones are packed so tightly together that she can't avoid stepping on them. They snap under her feet, and she tries to pretend they're just twigs, not people. The sword sticks up out of the field like some peculiar flower, the blade caught in a ribcage. She tugs but it won't come free, so she puts her foot on the skeleton, closes her eyes and pulls until it does.
By the time she makes it off of the field of bones, she knows her face must be as white as some of the bones themselves. She pushes the fear aside. A knight has to be brave and strong. If she ever wants to be a knight like her father she can't afford to act like a weak woman.
Then she looks up at what's before her and fear consumes her again.
This close the castle looks magnificent. The single tower rises far into the sky, taller than any building Bonnie has ever seen other than the palace. But that's not what catches her eye. In front of the rest of the castle - a large stone building with an open front like a giant fancy barn - a dragon lies stretched out in the sun, cat like. It's huge, bigger than the round house she'd called home for so long. Its scales, the deep crimson of blood, glint as its large side moves up and down. Every now and again its tail twitches.
It has its back to her, but that won't last for long.
So much for size of a large hound.
Bonnie reaches her hands into the field of bones, grasping a helmet. She tries a few before she finds one without a skull in it. It wobbles loosely on her head, but she can see enough to swing a sword and it should provide some protection. Then she grabs a shield, much larger and heavier than the wooden one that had fallen from her arm. Added to her sword, the weight of it all makes her stagger. She pushes on and finds her stride, though the shield and sword make her arms ache.
She ignores the bones as she creeps past them. She doesn't want to think about the bones in that pile that once grasped the shield as she is now, and wore the helmet teetering on her head.
Her father used to talk of dragons often. Some were as small as kittens, he said, and some as large as whole villages. She'd never believed they could grow so big, but now she's starting to.
Were it not for the gleaming red scales and the way his side rises and falls she would think him a hill, not a dragon. Even lying down his height is taller than any building she's seen apart from the tower and King's palace. His head is as tall as the peak of the roof of their roundhouse, his middle at least four times as tall and nearly as wide. His length from nose to tip of his tail is as long as every building in her village set wall to wall.
He's come a long way from the hound sized dragon she'd last seen four years ago.
She breathes deep, trying to push the terror down. She grips her father's sword tight. Giant or not, fire breather or not, it's sleeping. It's vulnerable. She can kill it. She will be a knight, and she'll have paid for the mistake she made long ago.
It doesn't stir as she moves closer. Its breathing is deep and even, like the waves of an ocean washing over her. Its claws are each as thick and sharp as her sword. Wings bigger than sails shuffle together in its sleep, making a noise like autumn leaves settling on the ground.
She walks right up to its head, keeping her body low and ready to run. Her heart increases in volume until she can't hear the dragon's breaths even though she's close enough to feel them.
You never can tell how tough those scales are, her father had told her once. They're usually softer on the stomach and under the jaw, but if you get them there there's no telling whether it’s going to be a fatal wound or if the dragon is going to snap your neck for giving it a flesh wound. No, he said, if you get the chance then you try for the eye or inside the mouth. Only way to know you're going to do some real damage.
She's close enough now to see the intricate patterns of the scales around its jaws. Its chin is on the grass, tilted sideways slightly so the only way she can reach the eyes is if she reaches upward when she stabs. She'll have to drive the blade in fast so she kills it instead of half blinding it.
Warm breath rolls over her, flattening all the grass and flowers for a good distance before they lean back toward the beast as it takes a breath in.
Its eye, as big as her head flutters from side to side under the red lid as if it's dreaming. Bonnie heaves the sword up on her tired arm to strike, then hesitates inches from the eye. Everything about the dragon has changed, and nothing has. Its red eyelid is bordered with lashes of the deepest black, but she knows their colour is pale compared to the colour of its eyes. All at once she's stuck by the intense need to see those eyes one last time.
Bonnie takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and picturing the blood, how alone she'd felt sailing away from the city she'd known in Jack's boat. A familiar rage fills her, but then other images intrude. Her, five years old, staring in fascination at the crate her papa had brought home. Her pudgy fingers reach out toward it, and it shudders under her hands.
No. No. A knight has no place for mercy. Mercy is for women, weak women who let men control their lives. She won't be like that. She can't be like that.
She draws back the sword, and heaves it forward with all of her strength.
Somewhere to her left comes a defeating 'moo.' It's so out of place that she's caught off guard, the force going out of her swing.
The eye opens, and the ground shudders.