“I know shite about your sister’s titties!” Thad yelled, and then Darro swung his slop pail at Thad’s head, and Merle jumped into the fight, and then the three slop boys were in the mud alongside the pigs.
Emory and Maddie did their best to stifle each other’s laughter, Emory’s hand across Maddie’s mouth, his face buried in Maddie’s naked breasts. When the three boys finally broke apart and headed back toward their hut, Maddie said, “Everybody knows the only place to pierce a dragon is in the soft skin under its arm.” As soon as the words were out, she gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth in a pretty gesture.
And then Emory had set into showing Maddie how much fun she could have, relieved as she was of the responsibility of virginity, and he had forgotten all about dragons.
But now, in the dragon’s lair, emboldened by his success with the chalk, Emory eyed the dragon’s form, and he wondered if Maddie had perhaps been right.
The Dragon’s Armpit
Had Emory not been intent on killing, he may have been able to see what a spectacular achievement of artistic beauty the commencing battle was to take place in. But, warrior that he was, he saw the great hall only for what he needed from it: places to hide, a network of assets and liabilities.
Stacks of jewels: double asset.
Reflective surfaces: liability.
Such a perspective left no room for wonder.
Perhaps this was not the time for wonder, or perhaps it is always, always time for wonder, no time more so than when one’s very life is facing the very real possibility of immediate termination.
In any case, had Emory been someone else, he would have seen that his reluctant host was an artist of incomparable talent. The dragon’s was the art of arrangement: the gem towers were not random, mercenary stacks thrown together without regard for aesthetics. They were carefully constructed dances of color, shape, and light, and each of them told a story, called forth an emotion: Here, in citrines and diamonds, a monument to spring, and hope, and youth. There, in rubies of all shades and shapes, an angry roar and blood spilled in battle. Under a wide window, a twisting river in emeralds and sapphires, dotted with diamonds to make the water glint.
The great hall was a sanctuary; the gems, its altar.
To Emory, it was but a battleground. He plucked from the river a fist-sized emerald cylinder and threw it, hard, at the pyramid of rubies.
It crashed down, decimating the carefully constructed arrangement of crimson gems, and the dragon turned in that direction, a roar tearing from its throat.
Emory heard the anger in the dragon’s roar, but his ears—like the dragon’s eyes—did not perceive the whole truth. For he did not hear the dragon’s anguish. He did not hear its grief. He did not consider why the dragon might drop its head, might close its eyes. All he saw was an enemy and an opportunity. The dragon’s flank turned toward him, its attention to the ruined, Emory scanned its body, looking for a place where its scales did not protect it.
Emory thought that while Maddie had been wrong about wanting to keep her virginity, she had been quite right about the vulnerability of a dragon’s armpit. For there, with its great front legs stretched forward, was a thin slit of scaleless dragon skin, dull dark red, a perfect target for his sword.
He would have one shot—that was all. If his sword missed its mark, the dragon would kill him. Now was not the time for brain; that had been earlier, when he disguised the sword’s shine and the color of his own flesh. Now was the time for steel.
He raced forward, leaped, sword arm back, landed just behind the dragon’s left front leg, and thrust true, his sword sinking deep inside the dragon’s exposed red flesh. A truer mark had never been hit.
The dragon roared, and this time Emory heard it rightly—more anger, mixed with pain. It whipped around, and Emory, who hung tight to his sword handle, swung like a puppet from its side. Then his sword shifted in the meat of the beast, digging deeper, yes, but also listing to the side, and its hilt rubbed against the sharp armor of the dragon’s scales.
A terrible screech rang out from the clash of steel against scale, but the dragon is mightier than the sword, and the scale’s razor edge snapped his shaft.
He fell from the dragon’s side, sword pommel still in hand, the blade still inside the creature’s body.
He landed with an “oof,” which he immediately regretted, as the sound of it alerted the dragon to his position. But it was currently engaged with the remainder of his sword in its side, attempting to bite it out. The steel was in a tricky spot, just out of easy reach, so Emory had a moment to regroup. He rolled himself behind what he failed to recognize as a self-portrait of the dragon, rendered in diamonds and opals. There he lay, staring up at himself reflected down from the rose-gold ceiling.
The dragon writhed in worry, thrashing upon the floor of the chamber. Its mighty tail smashed one of the last remaining sculptures, and jewels scattered in a confusion of color and sound. As the beast snapped at the protruding bit of blade, Emory clenched his fist.
He had used his brain.
He had used his steel.
His mother the queen had said, “Your sword is one weapon. Your mind is another. But you have a third, and to conquer the dragon you shall need all three.”
And suddenly, certainly, Emory knew what his third weapon was and what he must do.
Two
The Prince’s Belt
When the damsel woke, it was to a gentle rocking. The awareness of her naked limbs pressed one against another. An arm around her. A hard surface beneath her.
She did not open her eyes. She was not certain she wanted to see where she was. Perhaps she could stay just like this forever, curled into an uncomfortable ball, moving, yes, but without knowledge of where or why.
Because it might not be better to know these things, a voice in her head warned, one she did not yet recognize as her own. Ignorance, perhaps, would be the safer path.
But still, she peeked open her eyes—just for a second, for the light was too much to bear. Shocked by the brightness, she squeezed her eyes tight and pulled up her arm to shade them. That was when she first knew that she was not alone—by the arm and hand that relaxed to allow her to adjust her position, to shade her own eyes.
“You wake!” said a voice. Deep, rich, pleased. “Thank gods, you wake.”
Then he jerked his other hand, said, “Reynard, whoa,” and the rocking motion stopped.
A horse, then, and a rider.
She did not know where these words—horse, rider—came from. A moment before she hadn’t known the words, but now, absolutely, still with closed eyes, the girl knew that she was atop a horse, cradled in the arms of its rider.
A man, she thought, and then she knew that word as well.
In the same instant, she knew she was covered by some cloth but naked beneath, and she knew this was a dangerous position in which to find herself.
She had adjusted well enough to the light. She lowered her arm. She opened her eyes.
The sun haloed behind the rider’s head. The maiden blinked up at him.
His mouth widened, his teeth flashed.