And when seeking the game that he sought, the roles of hunter and prey would quickly be reversed and the kill would be made.
It would have to be an open place along the cragged ridge. There in those heavy stones he could wait for as long as he needed without getting soaked to the bone and he could hide himself in his dark plate armor. The dragon wouldn't smell him over the bait. He could take the shot and then come down the side as the beast reeled in its blindness and finish it with the sword.
And for that, he knew, he would have to take the lower ridge. Some place where he could come down the slope swiftly and without fear of falling. No more than six feet high. The taller cliffs would be better for the shot, but he would lose too much time advancing. You did not kill a beast like this slowly, but swiftly and all at once.
When the bards sang of dragon slayers, they sang long about the fight, allowing it to ebb and flow like the tide. First the knight with the advantage, then the dragon pushing back. They sang as normal men who had seen a normal battle and knew how it went on the field, drenched in blood. The way a siege could last for hours or days or weeks. The shifts in strength.
But they did not sing as those who had fought dragons. For if you fought a dragon for long, it would always win. Without fail. It was a beast more powerful than any man and the songs lied. If the battles were fought that way, dragons would rule the earth and men would be no more.
He went to the cliff and found a thin path where he could climb and pulled himself up. The horse still in the field watching him. Its eyes like dark pools of oil. He topped the cliff and stood there in thin snow and the wind howling about him and bent and checked that wind again to be sure it was at his face and not his back and then knelt and looked out. Here with stones before him upon which he could rest the crossbow and which would break up his shape, but the path close and easy.
If he ran hard, he could be down and across the field in less than half a minute. Still longer than he wanted, but it was what he had and it was good enough. He'd have to note the eye the arrow struck and stay to that side of the beast and buy himself what time he could.
The horse was bending and licking the snow and he went down to it again and led it to the center of the field. Eyed the cliff to be sure he'd have a clear shot and moved the horse slightly north and nodded and then went to the saddlebag and took out the gold. A small pouch with the string drawn in the top and the coins heavy and rattling within.
He bent and emptied the bag in a meager pile. The gold glittering in the sun. He pushed it with his foot, spreading it out, knowing it didn't matter if it went below the snow crust or not. The dragon would smell it either way. There were two dozen coins and he spread them until they were a rough circle a meter across and then he reached to his shoulder and drew his sword and brought it back and drove it through the horse's neck.
The animal screamed and reared and the sword tore free in a great gout of blood. The horse tripping back and falling and regaining first its knees and then standing and falling again. He stood watching it and could tell from the blood that he had taken it through the vein and it would not be long. This the fastest and most painless way it could die, but still those shrieks to draw the dragon.
When the horse at last lay still on the frozen snow with the blood pooling and spreading around it, he went to it and cut off the head and dragged it back over to the gold. Setting it at the center of the coins. He took up some of the blood in his hands and spread it on the coins themselves to mingle the scent and then he went back to the horse and took off the saddle and quartered it. Bringing each piece and laying it about the outside circumference of that circle of coins. Like four winds on a compass rose. At last he pulled the body over and put it on the far side of the circle with the mountains behind it and he again spread the blood over the coins and then bent and washed his hands in the snow and stood back to look at it.
He hadn't needed this for the red dragon. That city had been full of gold and blood and it was coming down on them regardless. But here in the wild he needed to bait it precisely and this would do. He nodded once and went to pick up the saddle and the bags and the reins where he'd left them and went back to the short cliff and climbed it.
From the top, the spreading blood looked dark and ugly, the coins glimmering within it like eyes.
He waited a time and the dragon did not come and the sun moved slowly above him until it hung directly aloft and not a cloud to break that merciless glare. When he could crouch no more he stood and set the crossbow aside and stretched his legs. The pop of tendons, the fire of feeling spreading back to feet too long motionless in the snow. His eyes the whole time on the sky and wheeling far off two carrion crows and he closed his eyes when he saw them and then looked away.
Never had he been one for patience. For waiting. Even in this occupation in which those were the most important qualities a man could have.
When he'd ridden with the Chainmail King along the banks of a river with a forgotten name, he'd found in him a kinship in their desire to push forward when others would wait. Falling into battle and letting everything sort itself out at the edge of a sword. They came down many times on towns that way and fought through and reveled in their triumphs and in the last town a company of archers not well hidden in the forest. But still unseen.
They'd ridden down into an empty town and a maelstrom of arrows and while the king lay gasping with a splintered bolt through his throat Brack had learned something of the value of patience. For the rebellion had died there and the world had continued to turn and he'd put those days behind him. But he had never forgotten the feeling of reining up the horse on the empty street and looking back and forth in confusion and then dawning realization and the sound of strings from the forest giving them the smallest warning of the death coming so quickly.
The way she'd looked at him when he'd returned and told her of it and all in his voice and her eyes the knowledge of what he'd done. His hands and face still coated in the king's blood. The real worth there of a king who yearned to reign and did not, the world now about them twisting in violence and in her face also the knowledge of what was to come—the endless nights on the run and in caves and forests and the pounding of hooves on a night's road as they held their breath.
And so he settled himself back and he waited, his eyes on the sky. Knowing it would come and not knowing when.
He saw it the first time far off and circling. Below it a wide field of ice and the path up to the keep. So small at that distance that this beast which had dwarfed the castle tower upon which it landed now was little more than a spinning fleck on the horizon, but he knew already it was scenting the air, and he knew also the ground it could cover. He sat forward and watched it circle and then a cloud came and when the cloud was gone, so was the dragon.
The second time it looked as large as the crows—those long departed, knowing the terror that approached—with its wings beating just once every few minutes. Gliding there in the still air, dropping from the east to the west on the current, then rising again. He felt he could hear the drumming of the wings, that heavy beating, but he did not know if he actually heard it or only remembered.
He watched it as the sun fell into evening, the crossbow in his hands. He knew his body was cold but he could not feel it, could not feel anything. There was nothing but the drifting creature, so unnatural on that wind, as it moved slowly before his vision. Ever closer. The size of a hawk, then an eagle, then surpassing them all. The great serpentine tail snapping in the air.