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“The Black Dragon is coming! The Black Dragon is coming!” Voices below shouted. George heard the yelling, but he could not believe it.



In the thoroughfare below the rectory, looking over the town square, George watched men scramble to find shelter for their wives and children. People frantically grabbed their possessions and made for the woods. A Dragon’s lust for gold was well known, and though these people had little, they knew she would take what they had if she saw it.



The Black Dragon had stayed in her cavern for centuries, and no one was sure why she had begun burning villages and looting them, but for weeks the town had been abuzz with stories from the passing merchants. She ranged outward from her lair on Mount Gothmog, descending upon towns and looting them of their gold and meat, and then leaving the smoldering remnants behind and returning to her mountain. The Dragon was ranging farther from her home and closer to the town of Silene, George’s home. Every day the merchants brought news of a new town burned and ransacked, one closer than the last. And yet here, few listened with more than cursory interest and a sense of remote foreboding.



By common understanding, Silene was too far and too small for the Black Dragon to care about, and both of these things were not unsound assumptions. The Dragon had spared Narbus, which was the same size as Silene, and Utmo, which was bigger. Why strike so far south and west, and at so small a prize?



So when George heard the frantic ringing of the bells in the Church tower near his room, his first thought was not that the Black Dragon was coming. On hearing of the Dragon’s approach from the criers on the walls, he secured his scabbard and drew his blade from it. He had worn the sword for weeks, for there were threats beyond the greed of a Dragon.



As if the Black Dragon were not enough, the rains had been light, and the crops were stunted. But a sword was no good against a famine. Worse still than Dragon or famine were the hideous…things which rose in the night from the ground, things which men called the Damned.



They were so named because tales said they rose from Hell itself, rising up with gasping moans of pain when the sun dipped below the horizon. They were figures of muck, and they stank of stagnant water, hey squishing and lurching as they walked. Their eyeholes were dark and seemingly vacant, their muddy faces sunken and their mouths hanging open. It was said that there were rotting bodies within the center of the black slime, and these were angry, violent ghouls who had been wicked men in life. It was also said the ichor was the coagulated blood of hell, eternally drowning the sinners for their evil. Men called them Abominations, the Damned, the Men of Hell. They sought out living things, to surround them and rip them to pieces, or force their poisonous ichor into their lungs.



The Damned rose anywhere – it could be in a garden, or a dirt floor. They had been heard banging under floorboards. The Damned had claimed two people from the village. George recalled vividly seeing little Mary Smith’s body under a red-stained sheet as her mother wailed hysterically into the parched ground, and he remembered being awoken to the tinkerer Scott Fletcher’s blood curdling screams as the old man was pulled apart outside of town before dawn. And now, a Dragon had awoken on top of all of this. He gripped his sword tightly.



As George looked at the cloudy mirror of his face in the blade, he mused that this had been his father’s sword once, and he wondered if the blade might show him a vision of his long-gone father, who had no doubt gazed at the blade as George did now.



“What are you going to do with that, eh?” A familiar and challenging voice asked from behind him.



Turning, George saw Father Edmund in the doorway of his room. The stocky, tall priest stood with his arms folded, his eyes narrowed. He wore the simple robes of a priest but had the build and bearing of a martial Lord.



“I thought-” George began.



“You thought wrong. Put that thing away; do not try to be a hero, George,” Father Edmund admonished. “Dragons are not to trifle with.”



“I can fight,” George shouted. “You taught me-“



“I taught you to fight smart. Against this foe, that is impossible right now,” The priest said. He outstretched his hand. “Give me the sword.”



“I am a grown man now, Father,” George replied.



“You are a grown man next month, and it clearly is a month needed,” Father Edmund replied. The priest grabbed away the sword swiftly and with considerable strength. “Until then, you are my ward.”



“So I am to simply watch, defenseless?” George asked.



“We are defenseless, a sword won’t change that. Fighting a Dragon requires men on horseback with lances, and crossbowmen and scorpions. A sword only makes you a target. There is no cowardice in avoiding a fight you cannot win. If she approaches, we run. Do you understand?”



“What about the Damned?” George asked. “What if we are forced outside after night?”



The priest hesitated. “I will have the swords,” he said. “But I will not have one in your hand when the Dragon is near. Until then, you will have your knife.”



George bowed his head and sighed. “Yes, Father,” he said dutifully, more eager than ever for a month to pass.



George disliked being without his sword. He had worn it for weeks, and it make him feel safe. Most everyone kept at least a knife on them in these troubled times. George still had a knife on his belt, but he considered it a poor comfort. Against a dragon it was of little use, and against the Damned it was dangerous to employ.



Edmund beckoned him out the rectory and to the front of the church, near the main thoroughfare of Silene. The noon sun was high in the early spring sky but gave little warmth. Father Edmund bade George to follow him into the Church, and he did. In most things Edmund gave practical counsel, and men consulted with him not on questions of conscience, but of efficacy. Now he had George take the alms from the Church’s coffers, minus fifty coins, and bade him place the money in a bag before the Church.



“We’ll hope that she is satisfied to spare herself the hassle of tearing the Church apart to find more,” Father Edmund said. “We must try to keep as much of the town from being burned as we can.”



George collected the Church’s funds and put the pouch of coins at the walkway to the Church. Two hundred coins was more than most people would ever own, but the pouch was less impressive than the ones in the stone vault across the road, at the brick office of the Tax Collector.



Silene’s Tax Collector was named Bernard Gilders, a heavyset man who wore gold rings with large jewels on every finger. He covered his large belly with exotic furs from Archenland, and his gullet with a thick black beard. He was from some far away country across the sea, and he had loaned the Crown money on the promise he could collect taxes with interest from the populace. Many, many foreign men had done the same as of late across the entire country.



He ventured from his stone office only rarely, relying on his foreign men-at-arms to collect people and bring them to pay their tax. The people had paid, and paid, and paid, and Gilders was ready to take his money and leave. Sadly, he had waited to squeeze a bit more, and now a Dragon was ready to swoop in and claim it all.



The Dragon’s imminent approach made Gilders very worried, and he was loudly directing his foreign thugs to array themselves against the dragon. The men didn’t exactly look thrilled to be doing so, and the locals did not seem too eager to help Gilders to keep their money for himself. One would almost pity him by how wretched he looked. Father Edmund, however, watched him with folded arms and irritation.



“I need to try to talk sense to him,” Father Edmund said. George knew that would not go well. Edmund had a singular way of arguing people into resisting his every suggestion.



Father Edmund walked halfway across the cracked road, towards the frantically twirling fat man in furs who was screaming orders. “This is folly, Gilders,” Father Edmund called out. “You will get your men hurt.”



The foreign soldiers exchanged furtive glances. They clearly appreciated the priest’s intercession, even if their employer did not. “What would you have me do, you drunken charlatan? Give her all the money without a fight?” Gilders shouted.



“Yes!” Father Edmund shouted. “Pile the gold outside your door and give up this lunacy. The Dragon may be inclined to simply take it, and not waste time ransacking the village…”



“Oh, You would advocate for that,” Gilders said. “I bear all the costs and you and your filthy rabble reap all the benefit. This is lawfully collected tax, to which I am entitled. I will not simply surrender it to some…some scaly whore!”



“For God’s sake, be sensible for once in your God Damned life,” Father Edmund said with frustration. This was almost assuredly the wrong thing to say, George knew. “You cannot win. We both know you shall have to recollect the tax. If the dragon damages the village, it will take you longer to get your money back…”



“I am not giving up the money!” Gilders bellowed, spit flying from his mouth as his bearded face reddened. “Do what you will with the Church’s coffers; drink it, gamble it, spend it on young boys for all I care. But I will see the village burned to the ground long before I release a single fucking coin of my money!”



Several unkind words were exchanged, and Father Edmund took off down the road, muttering about the Tax Collector’s recalcitrance. He returned to the church gates a few moments later at a hurried pace. “I just spoke to Eumaeus,” he said to George. “He will tie two pigs to a post outside Maddie’s Tavern and leave them for the beast, as we had discussed.”



“It isn’t right for him to have to do that,” George protested. Eumaeus was the town swineherd, and a pious man who did much for the Church.



“Right? It is wrong if he doesn’t! Eumaeus is an honest man, a true Christian. If this costs us two pigs to save the village, I will gladly pay him for them both myself,” Father Edmund said. “We should hope the Dragon is so easily assuaged. Now we must hide; we must go to the graveyard.”



They walked about two hundred yards from the church, past the collapsed stone arch and into the church graveyard. The tombstones were all old, and the ground was uneven, lumpy soil. Poor for farming, which is why it was a grave yard. George crouched down behind the cemetery wall, in an obscure spot near the monolithic but rough-hewn Atherton family Tombstone. In this spot, he would not be visible from the road.



There were no ornate tombs in the village graveyard, and Father Edmund had reasoned that the Black Dragon nit waste time digging for peasant jewelry. The priest was crouching down behind a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the center of the graveyard, his eyes shut in prayer. It was very, very rare that Edmund prayed in earnest, George knew.



George did not wonder at the sight for long, for the sky darkened as though beneath a cloud, and he heard a terrifying roar. Gilders raced away, running off to hide. His catspaws were the only men in the road, and though they had all been cruel and nasty when they collected tax, George could not help but admire their bravery as they stood resolute before a Dragon. Such men, if they were purely mercenary, would have run. Some sense of duty compelled them, and George saw honor in that.



The Black Dragon descended upon the thoroughfare and landed with a thunderous slam near the tax collector’s office. The landing had such force that George felt the cemetery wall rumble. One of the older tombstones behind him broke and fell to the lumpy ground with a dull thud. George shrank behind the stone wall of the Church graveyard, still peeking out to try to catch a glimpse of this mighty creature. The dust of her landing combined with the smoke of her flames obscured her as well as any alchemist’s concoction could have. The giant dragon morphed into a smaller humanoid form – though still quite large – and she roared yet again with the same intensity as in her full Dragon form.



With brave cries, Gilders’ catspaws charged into the acrid darkness to engage the Black Dragon, and George was quickly glad that Father Edmund had talked him out of fighting the beast-woman. The Dragon roared, and George watched the shadowy form in smoke twirl, dodge, and strike with speed and ferocity that he had not thought possible. With each loud crack he saw a man fly backwards with a loud cry and a thud, and their bent swords clanged against the cobblestones.



In the blinking of an eye, all six catspaws were dispatched and groaning on the ground, weapons smashed and shields shattered. The obscured dragon-woman sniffed the air, then thundered towards the tax collector’s office. For a moment she stood before the stone and the thick wooden doors as if they were an insurmountable obstacle. But, they were not. She inhaled a deep breath with a hissing sound, her chest puffing up as it filled with air.



She let out a billowing roar of fire which burned brightly even in the smoke, and the stone of the tax collector’s office melted away before its fury, becoming glowing red coals of molten stone. The door ignited and burst inward. The woman in smoke marched into the melting ruin, casually knocking aside falling glowing debris. George marveled at the sight. What manner of creature held such power as to melt thick stone with a single gust of breath?



He saw the smoky and dusty figure emerge and heard the rumbling of bags full of coins. With a feminine growl the dragon sniffed the air again and thundered off to Maddie’s Tavern, where Eumaeus had left the pigs as offering. He heard two loud squeals. The ground shook as the dragon returned down the thoroughfare. As the smoke and fire made its way back towards George’s position, the winds blew and the smoke cleared, and finally he caught a good glimpse of the Black Dragon.



Many people who witnessed the raid on Silene that day described the Black Dragon as a terrible being, a beast of fire and smoke. Others spoke of her as a shrouded demon with bright fangs and sharp claws. Still others spoke of her powerful wings, and the terrible gusts of wind they made when she flapped them. But when George was asked about the Dragon’s raid on Silene, he would speak only of the Black Dragon’s eyes.



He would say that whenever he closed his own eyes, he would see the beautiful, terrible eyes of the mighty dragon more clearly than he could see the darkness of his own eyelids. He would speak of them with the same reverence that a man might speak about a vision of Heaven, for they were perfect ovals of an amber wheat color, and despite her tempestuous soul he saw the calmness of fields in them, and the warmth and life of summer days.



George trembled at his first sight of them. The Dragon was not what he had expected. Her wings rose like a grand, bifurcated cape that made her seem Queen, Sorceress, and Daemoness all at once. Her scaled black tail flowed along behind her, thick and strong, cracking like a whip. She was large but of a full womanly figure, walking in black and purple armor that looked like flowing flames and left much of her bare skin and scales exposed. George had never seen a woman so dressed, never seen a feminine body so unafraid and aggressively willing to showcase the fullness of its Divine Art. And it was divine; her bosom and thighs and her hourglass figure made him stir in ways that he did not understand. She stalked forward with teeth clenched, gold sacks clenched in one giant black clawed-hand and dead pigs grasped by the nape of the neck in the other. In instinct, and in awe of her beauty, George rose from behind his hiding spot and stepped forward to get a clearer view of her.



She growled as she walked, and though George was afraid, he could not stop looking at those beautiful eyes, and slowly he began to drink in the rest of her. Her face was perfect, with full lips and angelic features which were highlighted by her long black horns and sable hair. Though the ground shook with each step of her powerful reptilian feet, the swaying of her form was graceful, and like a mouse entranced by a cobra’s hypnotic dance, he found himself paralyzed by the grace of her movement.



He was vaguely aware that Father Edmund was telling him – in quite vulgar and heated language – to get back down behind cover, but his legs would not budge. George could only stand, wide-eyed, as he lost himself in awe of the powerful, beautiful dragon-maiden before him.



Her eyes scanned over the quiet town and the desolation of the tax collector’s office, surveying for any threat to her looting. It was inevitable that she would see George standing in the Church graveyard, and he knew that he should hide, but he could not bring himself to stop from looking at her. When she did see him from the corner of her eye, she spun and faced him with a growl. She looked ready to roar at him in menace, until her eyes met his. The narrowed amber ovals widened to circles. All at once she stopped, and the powerful, mighty Black Dragon looked as if she had been struck by a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Her mouth fell open slightly. The bags fell from her hands, the dead hogs thudded to the ground.



For a moment she stared at him and he stared at her. Her chest was rising and falling. His did the same. He found himself taking an unsteady step towards her. She tilted her head, and tentatively raised a reptilian foot in response, starting to take a step towards him. But there was a twang and a loud gust of air, and a bolt from a crossbow suddenly appeared in her chest, over her heart.



Gilders stepped forward with a triumphant laugh, the crossbow in his hands. “Got you, you bitch!” He yelled.



“NO!” George shouted. He felt as if his heart had been rent asunder, as if he had watched a flower trampled beneath a boot.



The Black Dragon frowned at George’s distress, then looked down at the spot and at the arrow, noticing it. She took it out and looked at it with clenched teeth. The tip had not pierced her scales or skin, but merely gotten lodged between two scales above her breast. Still, this was disrespectful, and Dragons did not like disrespect. She turned her head towards the fat tax collector.



A long, liquid trail formed down Gilders leg, and a puddle of urine formed at his slippered feet. The Black Dragon swiftly approached the fat man, her wings looming overhead and flapping with violence. He dropped the crossbow and shrank away, but the Black Dragon swiftly snatched him in her claws and lifted him off the ground.



She roared at full intensity in the tax collector’s face, and he began blubbering and crying, begging for his life. The dragon dropped the fat man on the ground, snatched up a broken sword from one of his dispatched catspaws, and began striking the tax collector on his wide ass with the flat of it.



Each strike echoed with a loud crack, even above the roars of the burning office. The tax collector howled in pain, kicking his feet like a fat, unruly child after each hit. George heard a sharp laugh, and looking towards the Virgin Statue he saw that a smile had crept onto Father Edmund’s face. He guessed all the townspeople were similarly enjoying the chastisement of its least popular resident. After several stout thwacks, the Black Dragon dropped the sword onto the ground with a clang. She left fat Gilders there, blubbering in pain and fear.



The Black Dragon turned back to George, and gave him a look of sadness that made his heart nearly break. She turned away, which felt to George as if the sun had set, and she reached down to the bags and pigs and took them into her hands.



“W-wait…” George found himself saying, quietly.



Somehow, despite the distance, she seemed to hear him, and her mighty wings stopped for a moment. But then her head slumped down. She flapped her giant wings, and a gale of wind kicked up a cloud of dust which knocked him from his feet. She took off into the sky. A moment later a giant, terrifying saurian dragon was silhouette against the sun, letting out a roar that to George did not sound aggressive or terrifying, but sorrowful. Lonely. He took several steps towards the flying dragon, but she was swift, and soon just a spec on the horizon.



It was in that moment that George had resolved to pursue the Dragon. He wasn’t sure what he would do, only that he had to see her again, had to behold her. He could not bear the thought of her sadness. She would probably crush him under her feet, but the mere hope of something else was enough to make him wish to seem her.



George didn’t know quite what that something else was. Father Edmund had never explained to George about sexuality, and aside from vague notions of kissing and handholding, he knew little else of what men and women did. He considered a kiss the wildest fantasy of what to do with the Dragon maiden, such that it made him blush. He hoped only to see her smile.



But the next few hours and days gave him little time to dwell on such things. The Black Dragon had spared the town directly, but a fire of the intensity to destroy stone threatened to spread to the rest of the village. Several homes were already catching fire when she left. George joined a bucket line, carting water from the cold stream over and over and handing it onward.



It was only deep into the night and by destroying buildings around the tax collector’s ruins that the townspeople were able to contain the fire. When all was done, some quarter of the town had been burned or razed. So dispatched, people gathered indoors, fearful that Damned could rise at any moment and strike.



Morning brought fresh problems, even as it offered respite from the terrible Damned. The Tax Collector, chagrined by his humiliation and even more inclined to merciless cruelty, seized a room of Mattie’s Tavern and announced new taxes would be levied.



Weeks passed, and the town was slowly rebuilt, even as Gilders squealed for more money. The Dragon had spared the Church’s coins, and so Father Edmund was prudently able to use the money to help rebuilt the town.



George had expected Edmund to ball him out over his actions in the graveyard, but curiously he never did, nor did he seem to want to acknowledge that the Dragon had attacked except in very general terms, as if he wanted to avoid talking about it all again. This was unusual for Edmund, who typically had an opinion on everything.



Edmund had been the dearest friend of George’s late father, a brother in arms on the distant battlefields of the Crusade. With both of his parents dead, George had lived with Edmund most of his life as a ward of his Parish.



Edmund had been an atypical guardian, but then he was an atypical priest. He had been a noble’s son, which was not unusual for a priest, but he was an eldest son, which was unheard of. Rather than for piety, he had chosen to enter the priesthood when his father and he had quarreled over gambling debts. Father Edmund was a learned man, a scholar, but he was as vain and worldly as the most debauched hedonist, and he drank, gambled, and even whored to excess.



Soon a month had passed, a month that George spent thinking of the Black Dragon’s eyes in the moments he was not thinking of the Damned, or of rebuilding Silene, or of the longer and longer count of days since it had rained. With times so difficult, The day of George’s majority came with little fanfare, save a goose dinner which Edmund and George shared with Eumaeus quietly in the rectory before sunset.



The sat at a small table downstairs, the three of them gathered around the cooked Goose – George’s favorite dish. Father Edmund broke out his favorite wine, and poured everyone generous portions of it, which he began to imbibe with enthusiasm.



The Goose was delicious – cooked by Mattie, who was the best cook in town, and George savored every morsel. Still, the day had brought him thoughts about the Black Dragon, and of a plan which would be hard to do…



“Congratulations, young Master,” Eumaeus said, raising a glass of wine and shaking him of his train of thought. “A shame it is such a small affair.”



George shrugged, his mind still elsewhere. “I have always lived quietly,” he said. “Is there any word on the Black Dragon? Her location?”



“None,” Father Edmund said, and he locked eyes with his ward. The meaning of his gaze was clear; he knew.



“She’s not apt to come back here. Can’t say I’m glad she came, but I am rather tickled by her treatment of Gilders…” Eumaeus said. He cleared his throat and looked to Father Edmund. “Begging your pardon, Father, I know it is uncharitable to rejoice in another’s misfortune…”



“When are you going to remember that you should hear my confessions, Eumaeus?” Father Edmund said with a wry smile. “If rejoicing in the misfortune of fat tax collectors is grounds for damnation, then I shall surely be eaten by the Devil himself at the center of Cocytus for all eternity.”



“Not all eternity, it seems…” Eumaeus said, grimly. “These are hard days. A dragon strikes, then drought, and worst of all…” he swallowed. “The Damned.”



George’s blood chilled at the mention of the hideous Abominations. Father Edmund picked up on his ward’s reaction. “Eumaeus, it is supposed to be a festive day…”



“Forgive me, Young Master, but I am a poor reveler of late,” Eumaeus said.



“I understand,” George replied. “At any moment during the night, the thought that one of them could just rise up…”



“We are really going to discuss this?” Father Edmund asked.



“We might as well; at sunset there is little else that any of us can think of,” George said.



Father Edmund held up his hands. “So much for festive. Grim can work, too.”



“What are they, Father?” Eumaeus asked. “Are they damned men from Hell like people say?”



“I would have laughed at such a notion before they first rose” Father Edmund said with sad eyes. “But I gave last rites to the little Smith girl, or rather to what was left of her. A child so small, so mangled…” he took a long gulp of wine, finishing his drink. “They are from Hell Itself.”



“I saw Fletcher’s body,” Eumaeus said. He, too, took a long drink. “All broken and twisted. His jaw was gone. They never found it…”



“What do we do about them?” George asked.



“The King has sent a decree saying it is the Monster Girls doing. They have risen mud golems from the land,” Eumaeus said. “He says we must cross the River Acheron in force to kill their wicked sorceresses.”



“King Diocletian is receiving poor counsel,” Father Edmund said. “And his counsellors have been pushing for war long before the Damned began to rise. That is why the taxes were levied.”



“People are inclined to believe the Monster Girls have become hostile, what with the Dragon ranging…” Eumaeus said.



“The Monster Girls do not control the Black Dragon. Dragons are nations unto themselves,” Father Edmund said.



“They must have families, though…” George said. “For there to be more dragons.”



“They take men that strike their fancy,” Father Edmund said hurriedly. He poured himself more wine.



Eumaeus shuddered. “I would pity such a man,” he said. “They must not last long.”



George sighed. That was probably true, he realized. What hope had a poor orphan of being anything more than a Dragon’s meal?



“At any rate,” Father Edmund said. “I tired of all this grimness. Did I ever tell you, George, about the time your father broke my mother’s vase…?”



George’s eyes lit up, and the mood of the party improved considerably as Father Edmund began to tell the wild stories about his father. Everyone was drinking, and laughter and merriment soon filled the tiny rectory dining room.



Eumaeus left as the sun was setting, hurrying home on unsteady legs which walked a very curved rendition of a straight line to his house. George bid Father Edmund goodnight. He slept in his room on the second floor of the rectory. In general people slept as far from the ground as possible with the threat of the Damned. It had not been uncommon for people to hear banging on their floors from underneath, and see muddy hands breach the wood. This did not make for comfortable or easy nights. George slept with his sword near his bed, ready to grasp it if necessary.



Despite this, and despite the moaning and gnashing of the Damned outside as they shambled just beyond the town’s walls, George thought of the Black Dragon, and of her sad and lonely roar. His heart was sick. The fulminating destruction of her breath and power of her muscles paled in comparison to the power of her eyes over him. He spent the night of his birthday sleepless, weighing his options. By morning he decided what he was going to do. It would be hard, but he knew that Father Edmund would not approve. He would have to leave in secret, but he would seek the Black Dragon..



After hours of playing through scenarios in his head, the sun was beginning to crest above the horizon. The brightening sky made the distant moans fade, as the Damned melted back into the ground. Father Edmund tended to sleep in on days after he drank, and in that knowledge George rose and dressed as quietly as he could, then stood in his small room and closed the Latin Missal on his small desk, rubbing its cover reverently. He loaded it into a backpack along with some other items and keepsakes.



“You mean to do it like this?” Father Edmund asked softly, watching George pack his knapsack from the doorway to his room. His face was pale, and he rubbed at his brow where a headache brewed. “You would leave at first light with no word?”



George sighed “I feared to confront you,” he said. “I am of age now…”



“Then why leave in secret?”



“You have a knack for convincing me I want something stupid,” George said. “I don’t want to be convinced otherwise this time.”



“I see that,” Father Edmund replied. He folded his arms and pursed his lips.



“You said you wanted me to avoid a Church life…” George continued. He had once confessed a desire to be a priest to Edmund, and Edmund had told him not to say that too loudly. He told the young boy that someone would hear him, and he’d wind up in a seminary, miserable and alone.



Father Edmund cleared his throat. “There is, young George, a wide gulf between a life of the cloth and seeking out a Dragon.”



“You knew?” George asked.



“It was obvious. I saw the way that you looked at her,” Father Edmund said. “And how she looked at you.”



George felt his heart lighten. “She did, didn’t she?” He asked, betraying some excitement with a grin.



George’s smile faded as he saw the guarded look of the worldly priest. “She had an interest in you, of that I have no doubt,” he said slowly. “You can be sure what she feels is both stronger, and darker, than what you feel. There is much I didn’t tell you about men and women, and you have never known Monster Women…”



“You have?” George asked.



Father Edmund nodded. “I have traveled far and wide, young George. I have seen many strange things in this world. And beyond what I have seen, I have read. I have read the scholars concerning Dragons. You saw what she took from here: meat and treasure. That is what you would be to her. You would be her slave, her prey, her eternal meal. It is not a life I would have for you. I do not want to see your father in the hereafter and tell him you are a dragon’s thrall.”



“But if all I would be is a piece of meat or a trinket, why did she not take me?” George asked, unsure what it meant to be a Dragon’s meal.



“I do not claim to know all the thoughts in the minds of Dragons, young George. No one knows why after all these centuries the Black Dragon is torching villages, but I know that she is dangerous.”



“Is she?” George asked. “She attacked the tax collector’s office and took two pigs. She didn’t kill anyone.”



“Do you recall how she attacked the tax collector’s office?” Father Edmund said. “She did considerable damage: burned down buildings, cleaned out the tax collector…”



“There’s a shame…” George said with folded arms.



“Yes, it is,” Father Edmund replied. “It is the townspeople who will suffer, because Gilders is not going to absorb his debts. He still has the power to collect, and he will.”



“Maybe she doesn’t realize what she’s doing,” George said. “Maybe I need to tell her to stop doing this.”



Father Edmund laughed, which George didn’t expect. “Oh, you will tell her to do things, and then she will tell you to do things. Guess who will win that exchange?” Father Edmund said.



“But maybe I’m supposed to try, like Esther did to Xerxes. Genders reversed, of course. Perhaps… perhaps this is what God wants?” He asked, embarrassed at the thought.



“Leave God out of this until you see a burning bush, or parting clouds and beams of light shining down on her breasts,” Edmund said. He shook his head. “This is what you want, George, or what you think you want. But Dragons will not serve any master. It is their nature.”



“Maybe I can’t be her master,” George said. “But perhaps she can be reasoned with.”



“There are a handful of men on earth who can be reasoned with, and absolutely no women at all. A Dragon? You may as well reason with the stones,” Father Edmund said.



“I have not seen any stone as beautiful as her eyes,” George replied.



“Oh Christ…” Father Edmund said, making the sign of the cross apologetically. “You wouldn’t even know what hit you. Look, George, I’ve never been much of a Priest, we both know that. But even I don’t want to see a soul go astray, particularly my departed friend’s only child. I’ve seen a lot of men forget themselves for a pair of pretty eyes: I did it once or twice myself. A Dragon has all the same powers over a man that a woman does, and more besides. I fear what you would become.”



George weighed his words with care “You may think you have been a terrible Priest, but you weren’t, and you aren’t. You taught me about our Faith, and how to fight, and how to think. And most importantly, you taught me right and wrong. I’ll remember what you have told me, and I won’t forget myself, Father.”



Father Edmund smiled sadly. “You have no idea what you are up against, here,” he said. “She is powerful, and she is…”



“She is lonely,” George said. “And she is beautiful. And I cannot go without seeing her face again. Maybe I am a moth going to a flame, but I must see the candle flicker in my eyes, and feel its warmth. I must.”



“Were I a better man I should club you on the head, and send you to a monastery to cool your blood,” Father Edmund said, his arms folded.



“But…” George began, making sure the cunning priest was disarmed. “You realize I am too good a swordsman for that now, right?”



“Maybe so, but I should still attempt it. In truth, I cannot go against my nature. I was young once, and I had a first love, as you do now. So be it,” he said. “I will not stop you. Instead, I will help you…”



The priest disappeared into his own room. George heard the sounds of furniture moving, and of old chests being dragged out with grunts, then a stubborn lock opening at last with a relieved sigh from the priest. He heard the rattling of tiny bits of metal. Father Edmund returned with a suit of mail.



“Your father’s mail, from when we crusaded together,” he said quietly. “He was the finest man at arms in my father’s service, and we both learned from the same war master, the Legendary Fiore. I have taught you our art: there is none better with a lance than you, and you are well versed with a sword, the best I have seen since the war. But you will need protection,” Father Edmund said. His face darkened. “There are dangers in the world beyond Dragons.”



“I know the risks,” George whispered, casting a glance towards the ground and imagining what lurked beneath.



“The Damned are not the only thing you need to worry about. Beware your fellow man, also. They can be every bit as wicked as the Damned; indeed, all the Damned were wicked men, once,” Father Edmund said. “You both shall need to be wary. Stay to the main highways, try to join the caravans wherever possible. But do not trust too readily…”



“Us both?” George asked.



“Yes. Ephialtes will go with you,” Father Edmund replied.



George shook his head. “Father, you don’t need to do that. Ephialtes is-“



“He is a Warhorse I bought when I was drunk. He has not seen battle, but he jousted in the lists, and I won a great amount of money wagering on him. He is old, but still sound. He will serve you better than he will serve me here, and he will find your adventure more to his liking than stamping around in his stable and waiting for me to give him his oats.”



“It will be dangerous out there. He could get hurt,” George said.



“Imagine that,” Father Edmund said with folded arms. “Imagine being concerned that someone under your care is about to go off into a world of Mud Zombies and Dragon temptresses. For that reason you should take him: perhaps in worrying about him you will take fewer risks, and he will keep you alive.”



George finished gathering supplies, and slung his pack over his shoulder. He headed to the small stable behind the Church, near a pasture that faced the graveyard. Filling a small stall with his brawny frame was Ephialtes, looking as mighty as the last time he has rode in the lists. The horse saw his two riders, and began to stamp excitedly.



George had supplies enough to reach Strabo, the village on the Phlegethon River which would shuttle him downstream to Mount Gothmog, where the Black Dragon had her lair. With his equipment secured onto Ephialtes, he stood before Father Edmund, prepared to bid his guardian adieu with his heart in his throat .



“I am cross you were going to leave without saying farewell,” Father Edmund said, his voice quiet. His color had begun to return in the sun, but he was still covered in cold sweat.



“I did not wish it, Father, but I feared you would not let me,” George said. “I must do this-“



“I know,” Father Edmund said. “I understand,” he added slowly.



“Thank you,” George said. “For giving me your leave.”



“Thank me for my leave by returning,” Father Edmund said. “Meet your Dragon, confront your Fate, and come back here.”



“I swear to you that I will return, Father, either in heartbreak or in victory,” he said. “Thank you for all you have done for me. It was never in your nature to be a guardian to children, but you were always good to me.”



Father Edmund smiled, his eyes shimmering. “It was easy with you. You were just good, you always have been. You get that from-“



“From my father, I know…” George said.



Edmund shook his gray head slowly and smiled warmly. “Your father had been half a hellion in our youth. He endeavored to do well, but I could always get him to go against his better angels. Your mother…” he said with sorrow. “You cannot know this, as she died giving birth to you, but she was pure, pure in a way you cannot imagine.”



“You have never spoken of her,” George said. “Do I now have a right to know more?”



“You do, and you always did; but there are reasons it must be kept quiet, especially now. Return from your quest, and to this Parish, and I shall tell you. Consider that an incentive to return,” Father Edmund said.



It was a rare event, but the two men embraced, and their eyes were wet. As the sun rose above the hills, George led Ephialtes out from his stall and loaded him with gear. George had ridden Ephialtes many times, and the two of them were like old friends. It had been the last, most cunning move of a very cunning priest to attempt to stop him from leaving. Risking his own life was one thing, but risking Ephialtes was something else.



But still, when he weighed danger to Ephialtes against the sorrowful wail of the Black Dragon, he knew which he must choose. The War Horse would be fine, he told himself. He knew for certain that he would be safer with the mighty stallion than without.



The Priest stood in the Church courtyard as George departed, and for a moment he raised his hand in solemn farewell. He watched George until he and Ephialtes were out of sight. George would tend to imagine Father Edmund as there, waiting. It is good to have someone to whom you can return, he realized.



They walked beyond the gates of the city, passed Biff the morning sentry, who stared at George with curiosity as he walked out. George did not divulge his purpose. Men who sought congress with Monster Girls were only barely tolerated in the best of times, and King Diocletian seemed inclined to punish this offense more severely than his forebears.



Ephialtes was a good companion, quiet and faithful. George went on foot and led the powerful horse, using Ephialtes to carry his gear and otherwise keep him from being overloaded.



A true Knight would have had three horses; one to ride when traveling, one for gear, and his charger for combat. Sadly, he was a Church orphan with his father’s armor and an old jousting horse, and even these were more than most had. He was lucky to have a knife, a sword, a shield, and to have hewn a lance from a poplar tree. Normally one would not wear armor while they traveled, but the roads were dangerous, and George viewed it as prudent to remain prepared.



He went down the road and through the clearing outside of town, and toward the tall, dark Andrean Forest, with its thick pines and evergreens which made the paths within dark, even at noon.



As he entered the dark evergreens at the forest’s edge, he passed a shattered cart, the cart Scott Fletcher had been in when he was overtaken by the Damned. George could see large dried puddles of the tinker’s blood stained against the cracked wooden frame. Scott’s mule lay dead, its throat ripped out jaggedly, its eyes pulled from its sockets. The chill of early spring had left it free of serious putrefaction, and he could see the gouges in its skin from the bony fingers which had rended at it. He walked Ephialtes widely around the carcass and the cart.



He put his hand to his sword for a moment as he passed the unpleasant display and entered the darkness of the wood. This would not be an easy trip, and he did not even know precisely what he would do when he reached the Dragon’s Lair. But arguing against the senisble doubts of his mind was a vision of those amber eyes, and the memory of that lonely roar, and the thought of them lit a fire in his heart. He clicked his tongue and beckoned Ephialties into the darkness of the forest.

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