In less than an hour, Trav and Kennick were dismounting in front of the dragons’ cave.
Kennick Strongarm stared at the cave entrance but made no move to approach it more closely. In a low voice he said, “It hasn’t the look of a dragon’s lair about it. I know. I’ve seen dozens.” The man struggled to keep the quaver from his voice. He fingered Dragonslicer again, then drew the sword and advanced on the cave. Kennick stopped outside and called, “Come meet your death, vile beast!”
“You’ll have to go in after the dragon,” Trav said, enjoying the paladin’s fright. “I’m not sure a dragon understands our language.”
“They are clever monsters,” Kennick said, but he didn’t argue. He edged forward, hand trembling on the sword’s handle. Kennick looked back at Trav, a glare of hate and desperation, then plunged into the low cave. Trav saw fat blue sparks explode from the steel blade as Kennick swung wildly at nothing, striking rock.
Then there was only silence.
Trav frowned. Yilg ought to be growling and Piddling snorting fire-or Kennick screaming in abject fright. There was nothing. Trav shuffled toward the cave mouth and peered inside. It took a few seconds for him to understand what he saw.
Kennick stood over a dragon’s skeleton, but plainly the champion had not killed the creature. The flesh had been stripped from these bones some time ago. Looking closer, Trav saw that one of the creatures he’d raised-perhaps Yilg? — had been eaten. The gnaw marks on the gleaming white bones were unmistakable.
“What did this?” Trav asked, confused.
Kennick’s voice was hoarse, but had regained some strength. “It matters little. The dragon is dead. Once more I have triumphed!”
“You’ve done nothing!” cried Trav, outraged that Kennick would take credit for an accident. “You can’t claim any honor in finding a dead dragon.” He tried, physically, to stop Kennick from taking the skull as proof of death, but failed. The man was too strong for him.
“Walk back, youngling,” Kennick ordered with satisfaction, hurrying from the cave and mounting his riding-beast. He never looked back as he held his trophy in his lap. Trav grumbled and started walking home as fast as his feet would take him. Anger burned away pain. He returned to Slake almost as quickly as if he had possessed a full set of toes.
But he did not return to the celebration he thought sure to be in progress. The village was deserted. Even during the withering fever, some people had been outside, wandering the muddy trails between the pitiful dwellings. Not now.
Frowning, Trav made his way to his home and stopped at a little distance. The roof had been burned off, leaving only a charred shell.
“Father!” he called. “Juliana! Where are you? What’s happened?” Trav rushed to the door and peered into the charred husk of building. He blinked in surprise when he saw Kennick huddled in the far comer, arms curled around his knees and mewling pitifully. Taking a single step, Trav stopped and then vomited.
His father’s body, burned and dismembered, had been partially eaten by monstrous jaws.
“It was a dragon, a big dragon,” moaned Kennick, his voice unrecognizable. “When they eat human flesh they grow huge quickly.”
“Where is Juliana?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Trav spun when he heard feet pounding behind him. His relief was boundless when he saw Juliana. Her dark hair was disarranged, and she was flushed, but unharmed. It was up to him to tell her of their father’s death.
“Juliana, wait,” Trav said, trying to keep her out of their house.
“I know he’s dead, Trav, I know. I saw it and I ran and hid. The dragon! It’s half the size of this house, and it’s coming back.” Juliana pushed Trav out of the way and dropped to her knees in front of Kennick.
She grabbed him and shook him hard. “Kennick, you’ve got to fight the dragon. It’s vicious! Terrible! And it’s coming back!”
“No, no!” Kennick threw the sword from himself.
“Kennick, you must. You’re our only hope. The dragon feeds constantly on us. It… it’s out there!”
Trav looked from Juliana to Kennick to the monstrous dragon lumbering outside, heading toward them. It shocked him to see, by the pattern of facial markings, that the marauding dragon was Piddling, the once-puny hatchling.
Giving a last frantic look at his father’s half-eaten body, Trav scooped up Kennick’s fallen sword and ran outside, screaming. He swung Dragonslicer as hard as he could, counting on Vulcan’s magic to pierce the thick brown scales on Piddling’s chest.
The blade glanced off, not even scratching the outer surface. The recoil staggered him and for a moment he stared up into the dragon’s yellow eyes. Trav wasn’t sure what he read there. Not anger. Not malevolence. It was more like surprise or even delight.
Piddling roared and let out a long belch of flame that surged above Trav’s head. He ducked low and swung. Again the blade bounced off the dragon’s hide. This time Piddling spun with startling speed and caught the blade between imposing jaws. The dragon’s neck muscles tensed, and the sword shattered like glass.
Trav stared at the sundered blade shining on the ground, then backed off from the dragon. He stopped and stood his ground.
“Piddling, here,” Trav said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a crushed pig-bug, and holding it in a surprisingly steady hand. The dragon bent, and its darting black tongue flicked across Trav’s palm. The pig-bug vanished.
Trav didn’t know what to feel. In the shock of his father’s death, all he could think of at the moment was that Piddling had probably killed Yilg, Grendl, and Drowsy, cannibalizing its own kind to grow this large.
“Trav, get back,” called Juliana.
“No, wait, I-” Trav screamed when Piddling moved with dazzling quickness and caught Juliana in heavy jaws. The girl screamed once before being broken in half.
Trav’s mind snapped. Dragonslicer had failed against Piddling; he beat at the dragon’s haunches with his bare hands. Somehow, this attack made Piddling stop his feasting and turn his head with its bloody jaws, staring at him with wide, questioning yellow eyes. Then Piddling snorted flame and walked away slowly until he vanished into the gathering twilight.
Trav sobbed. He wanted to kill himself. He couldn’t bear to look at the thing that had been Juliana. He was responsible-and all because of Kennick.
“Kennick!” he cried. Suddenly he had a target for his towering wrath. He hobbled to his burned-out house and looked around wildly, trying to find the object of his hatred.
“He’s gone. Saw him running away toward Westering. Might be there by now, the way he was running.”
“What?” Trav whipped around, fists balled and ready to fight, to confront Wyatt’s hunched figure.
“That wasn’t Dragonslicer. I carried the true Sword and know. He lied about everything.” Wyatt spat a gray-green gob that hissed on the ground. He grimaced, displaying blackened, broken teeth, then coughed. The rattle sounded deep in his chest.
“Go away. Let me be.” Trav wanted to strike out, and now there was nothing to hit.
“Kennick was a fool and liar, a blowhard who never saw Dragonslicer. That’s not even a good copy. A jeweled blade-bah! Too long, not sharp enough-and lacking in any god-forged magic. And those gems. Fake. Fake, just like Kennick.”
“You are as big a liar. You never held Dragonslicer.”
“Take this,” Wyatt said, shoving into Trav’s hands a long package wrapped in old, cracked oilcloth.
Before Trav could reply, he heard Kennick’s loud shout. “That’s him. He’s the one. He’s a demon! He commanded the dragon to do his bidding!” Kennick, advancing, stumbled at the head of a dozen people, most from Slake but a few Trav had never seen before.
Trav jerked around to face Wyatt. “You? You’re a demon?”
Wyatt coughed and spat. “Would a demon take such a sorry form? No, my young fool, he means you. He’s damning you. You might not be a demon, but you’re responsible.” Wyatt sank down, amid a loud crackling of joints. He shivered, though the air was warm, and stared at Trav.