text: “I have to kill a dragon?” Danielle shook her head. She paced the granite flagstones of her tower. “Your last challenge, little knight.” The god’s herald no longer called her that with venom. Obag Sleagh had admitted his respect for her. “You’ve done what I thought was impossible before.” “I don’t know anything about dragons,” said the knight. Her green tabard was completely restored by the herald’s magic after her last battle. It flapped as she turned on her heel and paced back to the other end of her bedroom. Obag smiled. Every tooth was a deadly needle. Holding out his chalk-white hands, a book appeared in them. Dragons, a Guide for Would-Be Slayers . The book was larger than any the knight had ever seen. The title’s gold print flowed in beautiful calligraphy. “Tell me this has a magic word that stops their hearts instantly?” Danielle looked hopefully at Obag. His silver eyes were merciless. “No, little knight. This tells you everything you could ever wish to know about dragons, but no such spell exists.” “Fuck. I wish I had Lupita. She’s good at researching weaknesses.” Danielle thought of her lover. Lupita’s glowing smile, her warm brown eyes and her curves brought a flush to Danielle’s chest. “Obag?” She took the red book from his clawed hands. “Yes?” His brow lowered with the question. “Is it really possible to kill a dragon?” Danielle asked. “I know the things we called dragons on Eshrep are just drakes, pint sized compared to the real things.” She ran her muscular hand through brown hair that was creeping down towards her light brown eyes. “I didn’t think it was possible to kill a greater chatter-jaw, Sir Longbow. Especially alone. You proved me wrong yesterday. Killing a dragon should be impossible for you. Prove me wrong again.” He conjured a throne for himself and sat in the gilded chair. Both hovered over the granite. His hands rested on the golden skulls of the armrests. “I have a lot of reading to do then,” Danielle said, more to herself than Obag. She wanted to hate him still. But she had come to see that he had honour. He served his god, doing terrible things because it gave him power. Obag seemed to enjoy the death and destruction be brought but he had warmed to her. Sir Danielle asked for a desk to read at. The reading table the herald summoned with a wave of his hand was fit for any emperor. The rosewood and ebony were seamlessly carved into twisting dragons. A Crann green leather surface tilted towards her as she lay the heavy red tome upon it. The seat for the reading desk was as beautiful. “A full-grown dragon is up to five miles long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. A single dragon tooth typically measures twenty feet long. Dragons are amphibious, able to breathe underwater or on land. Most dragons prefer to sleep in the depths of the blood sea. While drakes rely on wings to fly, true dragons have the innate ability to swim through the air.” Danielle poured over the book for hours. Meals appeared on another table beside her as she read with mouthfuls of chicken and wine. “A single dragon scale is typically three feet from base to tip and can withstand the heat at the heart of a volcano?” Danielle looked at the herald incredulously. “Is this real?” The herald wore a red leather outfit decorated with bones. He nodded. “That book is entirely honest. Playing fair means you know just how screwed you are.” His eyes reflected her and the desperate look on her face. “A dragon’s breath alone is hot enough to scald the flesh from human bones in moments. They breathe jets of flame which can extend up to four hundred feet from the dragon’s foremost tooth? The gust of their flight has been known to sink ships?” “All true, little knight. Every word.” Danielle rubbed a cold, sweaty palm across her creased forehead. Wine wasn’t helping her headache. She watched the herald who held her kingdom hostage. If she failed, it would be destroyed by dragons. “Do the borders on the maps matter to dragons? Will the hounds of your god burn down Crann’s neighbours?” She wasn’t sure why it mattered, but she was curious. He shook his pale head. “We are bound by strict codes. The borders your people set themselves bind what can be attacked. One must invite us, and always does, their kingdom alone can be destroyed.” “Why?” Sir Danielle Longbow asked. “What does your god have against our world?” Obag Sleagh shrugged. “The arrangements were made long before my time as a herald. I believe they were meant to protect the worlds from open war. Every god has dragons. None have as many as mine. It’s said my god was responsible for the banishment.” “What banishment?” Danielle asked. Obag sat up in his chair, eyes wide for a moment. “You should keep reading, Danielle. Unless you want to use up your life in this tower talking to me?” He spoke as though it was an option. “Could I?” She asked. It was tempting. If she lived for years, her family, friends and home would be safe the whole time. When she breathed her last, Crann would be back on the menu. Were her broad shoulders strong enough to bear that burden? What would Lupita do? She would find a way . Being inside the chatter-jaw was safer than outside . “You could stay,” said Obag. “It might ruin the respect you’ve earned from me.” “ Dragon ears are a cavity behind and beneath the eyes .” Danielle looked at a diagram of a dragon’s skull. Obag had used Leonor Castle from Crann’s capital to illustrate the sheer size of the beast. Horns atop a dragon’s head rose as high as the tower atop the castle. “ Dragons sleep unless they are feeding or laying waste to the enemies of their god .” Sir Longbow had an idea. “I need strong rope and some harpoons,” she told Obag. “Harpoons will not scratch a dragon’s scale, never mind pierce it.” He sat up in his chair, leaning forward to look at her with his mirrored eyes. “I don’t need them to. Harpoons, can I have three? They must be barbed.” With a wave of his hand the murderous god’s advocate summoned three harpoons. “Can you make them shorter, all metal with a ring in the end to attach rope?” A finger twitched. Wood turned to steel. Metal hoops formed in the ends. “I need a hammer.” With a click of his snow-white fingers a broad ended hammer made from one piece of metal sat on the floor. “Metal armour will be a bad idea. Can you make my gambeson thicker?” Danielle watched the plates of her armour unbuckle themselves. They floated to rest on a summoned armour stand. “I’ll leave the shield here.” “It wouldn’t last a moment against dragon fire anyway.” “I need some light for my plan, but a torch is impractical.” “How about a glowing sword?” He winked. “Say solasaich.” “Solasaich,” she said. Light began to spill out of her scabbard. Drawn out, it glowed with green light, bright as a flame. She held her other hand over the blade, expecting heat. For a long while she was mesmerised by the might. At long last, after waving the sword through the air, she felt ready. With the barbed harpoons and hammer hanging from the rope over her shoulder Danielle was ready to go. Her sword sat in the scabbard on her hip. “I’m ready Obag. Please find me a dragon on land. I don’t want to drown.” The former sealgair stood up from his golden throne. He opened a bloody portal wreathed in fire. She stepped through. Her feet sank in the sands of a desert. Red light from the aurora that covered the world danced across the purple and gold pearlescent scales of the dragon. Danielle had never witnessed anything so enormous. Serpentine coils were her horizon in every direction. It was a living mountain range. “Your plan is madness, little knight.” A frown on his face hinted at concern for her. “The climb alone might be the death of you.” “I know,” she said. Feet slipping in the sand, she strode towards the head of the beast. As fast as she walked, it always seemed further away. By the time she stood beneath the dragon she could only see the scales before her. They were rough to the touch. Striations in the scales were thick footholds for her as she clambered up. Her weapons clattered together on her back as she climbed. Before long she was a sweating mass of exhaustion wrapped in muscle and bone. Sitting on one, she rested. The beginning of the ascent was the hardest. She had to pass the natural overhang created by the curve of the dragon’s neck. After an inadequate rest she began again, reaching for a handhold to pull herself higher. Her feet often hung in the air as she hauled herself up to the next scale. The scales wore the skin of her hands to blisters. The relief when she reached the end of the overhang was palpable. Muscles thanked her for the rest as she clambered on all fours. Stepping from scale to scale, she hiked up the living mountain. Horns rose into the sky before her, casting mighty shadows. Even atop the dragon there was no such thing as walking. Every step to every scale was a stretch that risked a slip and fall to her death. From the peak of the neck Sir Longbow saw other dragons in the distance. Their heads were silhouettes in the permanent twilight of that hateful world. The ear was a cave below her. The black cavity sat on a ridge of scales she could not have traversed from below. Going down, seeing the drop below her was more nerve wracking for the knight than the ascent. “I fucking hate heights,” she said beneath her breath. A rumble reminiscent of an earthquake followed her words. She gripped her handholds for dear life. The world to her right became a heat haze. Hotter than the brightest day she’d ever known. Danielle’s skin screamed for mercy. Finally at the entrance to the ear, she spoke to the sword. “Solasaich,” she whispered. The sword’s glow lit the space immediately around her. A short walk ended with the sheer wall of the dragon’s tympanic membrane. She tied herself a harness with the rope. She tied an end to one harpoon and looped it through the others. Danielle pressed the point of the first harpoon to a gap in scales at the other edge of the ear. She raised her hammer and prayed. “Gods guide me. I know this is madness.” She brought the hammer down with a mighty blow that put it down between the scales. CLANG! It stuck. The noise of the mountain roaring made the knight clap her hands to her ears. She grabbed at her hammer and harpoons as the world beneath her feet began to soar. Walking closer to the eardrum she hammered in the second harpoon. CLANG! The second harpoon did not catch in the gap. The world shook. Danielle fell to the ground, blessing her gambeson for the padding. She recovered as the ear began to tilt. Her harness caught her as she bounced from side to side. The third harpoon slid away. She dived to catch it. Seizing a moment of stability, she slammed the last harpoon into a crease in the dragon’s skin by the tympanic membrane. Bringing the hammer down with both hands she watched the shaft of steel sink into the skin. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. A roar which dizzied her rushed in through the ear from the outside world of Craspeur. Pulling herself along the rope she felt like a spider clinging to the wing of a bird in flight. The green glowing sword emerged from her scabbard with the hope of light in endless darkness. Finding a wrinkle in the skin across the dragon’s ear cavity, she pressed the sword point to it. Danielle brought the hammer down on the pommel with all her might. The clang was lost in the raging roar of the flying titan. The pain of the beast came through in the guttural scream it made. The knight hated to murder something so beautiful. To fail would be the death sentence of her home and all she loved. Dragons would swim through the skies of Crann and burn it all to the ground. The wrinkle became a rip as her sword punched through the tympanic membrane. Danielle was ripped from her feet. The dragon jerked to the side and down towards the world below. Slammed up into the air, she tried hold onto the sword and the hammer. Paying more attention to the heirloom sword, she saw the hammer slip through her fingers. It sailed out of the ear and away. What would Lupita do? She’d keep going . When the dragon twisted, still trying to shake her loose, she stabbed at the hole in its ear. She kicked at the cross guard. “Come on!” She screamed as she slammed her foot into the metal. The blade sank deeper into the wound. She kicked again and again. She was thrown aside with every twist of the dragon’s head. Whenever she could, she opened the rip wider. Time stretched and contracted without meaning. Every moment hanging on the rope instead of attacking was a lifetime. Whenever she could press the sword into the wound her chance was over too soon. Any moment the harpoons or the knots she’d tied could come loose. Once more she struck at the rip, tearing it wider. “I can get through that,” she thought aloud. The dragon had other ideas. Yanking its head to the side sent her flying with all the slack in the rope. The first harpoon crunched from its place between the smaller scales of the dragon’s ear. The jerking of her against the second harpoon ripped the glowing sword from Danielle’s hand. The green glow spun through the air and away. “NO!” When the next opportunity came, she ran blindly to where she hoped the hole was. Hands slid along the rough skin in darkness. Try to the left, little knight , said a voice in her head. Sliding her hands left with the haste of mortal peril she found the rip and pushed through. The ear tipped up. She hung from the rip, half in, half out. The dragon turned again. An agony reminiscent of her whipping sparked up her leg as the loose harpoon broke through her thigh. Through the rip, she screamed. “Die you bastard. Just fucking DIE!” She fumbled with the knots of her harness. Each one had been carefully tied not to be undone. Fumbling fingers burnt against the rope. Slammed against the tympanic membrane from the inside, she felt the rope pulling her out, the momentum of the harpoon ripping her away. So close, little knight. Don’t give up now . She hung on the end of the rope in the perfect darkness of the dragon’s inner ear. Knowing the harpoon hook was flying towards her she kicked away from the rip. The barbed metal dart caught on the slack in the rope. Danielle held it to her as the dragon turned again. Flesh inside the ear was soft compared to outside. Stabbing the harpoon into the skin, she kicked the hoop with her good leg. Anchored to the new position she began untying herself from the harness once more. Desperate hands found unknown strength. Knots yielded. Weightless for a moment, she grabbed the ring of the harpoon. Sweaty fingers slipped on the metal. Gasps of desperation escaped her lungs. A crash yanked her until she felt a bone give under the shock. Hot agony flooded up her arm. There was no movement. No flight. The last knot gave. Danielle cried to herself in the darkness. “I should have stayed in the tower.” Never give up, little knight . The herald’s voice was the slightest whisper in her mind as though he was committing a sin behind his master’s back. “It’s not flying anymore.” It can’t balance. It can’t fly . Danielle pulled on the harpoon that had been her anchor. Blood poured from a deep gash in her side. She ripped her only weapon from its grip. Flapping sounds beyond the dragon’s tympanic membrane caught her ear. A feast has fallen from the sky. Scavengers have come to try their luck . Defending itself from an onslaught all around, the dragon twisted and turned. Danielle had to crawl on all fours with the harpoon held in her right hand. Roaring shook her insides. “Why am I still trying, this is impossible,” she sobbed. No. Keep going . “I can’t.” I can’t believe we’re arguing over this, finish it . Crawling in the dark on ever softer flesh, she stabbed at it here, there, and everywhere. Blood flowed. Other fluids soaked her as she crawled through the endless insides of the dragon’s skull. She stabbed at every surface she found until it flowed. Finding a wall of soft flesh through a hole in the skull, she went wild. The dragon lost its mind, little by little. Just a little more . Danielle swung the harpoon until the dragon stopped moving completely. Done . Now we wait . The body cannot live without the mind . Giving in to agony, Danielle knelt in blood and cried. “I’m going to see you again, Lupita. Just wait.” The green light preceded her sword as it appeared in the red mess before her. Eyes on the green light. She waited. “It’s dead,” Obag said. “Time to go back to your world, little knight.”