The uninjured man dove for Tharn’s neck, and the dragon turned with incredible speed, belching flame.
The man’s hair caught fire, but he dived under the gout of flame and stabbed at Tharn.
Tharn dodged, or tried to, but Sirinita heard the metal blade scrape sickeningly across those armored scales she had so often scratched herself on.
Then Tharn, neck fully extended and bent almost into a circle, took his attacker from behind and closed his jaws on the man’s neck.
Sirinita screamed — she didn’t know why, she just did.
The first man was still whimpering into his hands.
The second man didn’t scream, though; he just made a soft grunting noise, then sagged lifelessly across Tharn’s back. His hair was smoldering; a shower of red sparks danced down Tharn’s flank.
Sirinita turned and ran.
At first she wasn’t running anywhere in particular; then she spotted a farmhouse with a light in the window. Someone had probably been awakened by the screaming. She turned her steps toward it.
A moment later she was hammering her fists on the door.
“Who is it?” someone called. “I’ve got a sword and a spear here.”
“Help!” Sirinita shrieked.
For a moment no one answered, but she heard muffled voices debating; then the door burst open and she fell inside.
“They attacked me,” she said. “And Tharn killed one of them, and... and...“
“Who attacked you?” a woman asked.
“Two men. Big men.”
“Who’s Tharn? Your father?” a man asked.
“My pet dragon.”
The man and the woman looked at one another.
“She’s crazy,” the man said.
“Close the door,” the woman answered.
“You don’t think I should try to help?”
“Do you hear anyone else screaming?”
The man listened; so did Sirinita.
“No,” the man said. “But I hear noises.”
“Let them take care of it themselves, then.”
“But....” The man hesitated, then asked, “Was anyone hurt?”
“The men who attacked me. Tharn hurt them both. I think he killed one.”
“But this Tharn was all right when you left?” the woman asked.
Sirinita nodded.
“Then leave well enough alone for now. We’ll go out in the morning and see what’s what. Or if this Tharn comes to the door and speaks fair — we’ve the girl to tell us if it’s the right one.”
The man took one reluctant final look out the door, then closed and barred it, while the woman soothed Sirinita and led her to a corner by the fire where she could lie down. The man found two blankets and a feather pillow, and Sirinita curled up, shivering, certain she would never sleep again.
She was startled to wake up to broad daylight.
“You told us the truth last night,” her hostess remarked.
Sirinita blinked sleep from her eyes.
“About your dragon, I mean. He’s curled up out front. At first my man was afraid to step past him, after what you’d said about his fighting those two men, but he looks harmless enough, so at last he ventured it.”
“I’m sorry he troubled you,” Sirinita said.
“No trouble,” she said.
“I have to get home,” Sirinita said, as she sat up.
“No hurry, is there?”
Sirinita hesitated. “It’s a long walk back to the city.”
“It is,” the woman admitted. “But isn’t that all the more reason to have breakfast first?”
Sirinita, who had had no supper the night before, did not argue with that; she ate a hearty meal of hot buttered cornbread, apples, and cider.
When she was done she tried to feed Tharn, but the dragon wasn’t hungry.
When the farmer showed her what he had found in the cornfield she saw why. Both her attackers were sprawled there — or at any rate, what was left of them. Tharn was still a very small dragon; he had left quite a bit.
She looked down at the dragon at her side; Tharn looked up at her and blinked. He stretched his wings and belched a small puff of flame.
“Come on,” Sirinita said. She waved a farewell to her hosts — she never had learned their names, though she thought they’d been mentioned — then started walking up her own shadow, heading westward toward Ethshar.
It was late afternoon when, footsore and frazzled, she reached Eastgate with Tharn still at her heel. She made her way down East Road to the city’s heart, then turned south into the residential district that had always been her home.
Her parents were waiting.
“When you weren’t home by midnight we were worried, so this morning we hired a witch,” her mother explained, after embraces and greetings had been exchanged. “She said you’d be home safe some time today, and here you are.” She looked past her daughter at the dragon. “And Tharn, too, I see.” She hesitated, then continued, “The witch said that Tharn saved your life last night. We really can’t keep him here, Siri, but we can find a home for him somewhere....”
“No,” Sirinita interrupted, hugging her mother close. “No, don’t do that.” She closed her eyes, and images of the man with the burned face screaming, the other man with his hair on fire and his neck broken, the two of them lying half-eaten between the rows of corn, appeared.
Tharn had been protecting her, and those men had meant to rape her and maybe kill her, but she knew those images would always be there.
Tharn was a dragon, and that was what dragons did.
“No, Mother,” she said, shuddering, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Get a wizard and have him killed.”
About “Portrait of A Hero”
Lester del Rey, my editor at the time, had discovered an artist whose work he really liked, by the name of Michael Pangrazio. He wanted to do a project to showcase the guy’s work, so he got together with his assistant Risa Kessler (at least, I think she was his assistant; I never dealt with her directly) and put together an anthology called Once Upon A Time, which would feature “modern fairy tales” by all Del Rey’s top fantasy authors. Each story would be illustrated with a painting by Michael Pangrazio. I was very flattered to be included in this, but wasn’t sure about writing a “modern fairy tale.” On the other hand, one of my sisters had asked me to write a story with a prophecy in it, so I had started one that I had originally intended to be a novel, but once I started working on it I realized it didn’t have enough plot for a novel. I abandoned it unfinished.
When Once Upon A Time came along I finished the prophecy story, cut it down even more, and sent it to Lester, who bought it. My sister got her prophecy novel a few years later, in the form of Taking Flight.
Portrait of A Hero
1
The dragon atop the mountain loomed over the village like a tombstone over a grave, and Wuller looked up at it in awe.
“Do you think it’ll come any closer?” he whispered to his aunt.
Illuré shook her head.
“There’s no telling, with dragons,” she said. “Particularly not the really big ones. One that size must be as experienced and cunning as any human that ever lived.”
Something was odd about her voice. Wuller glanced at her face, which was set in a rigid calm, and realized that his aunt Illuré, who had faced down a runaway boar with nothing but a turnspit, was terrified.