Clayton Emery - Sword Play

The snoring had stopped.

Desperately, Sunbright tried to think. The road from Dalekeva? Walking to Tinnainen? It had been a long road with many minor adventures. The only true danger he'd faced was when he and Greenwillow had bumped into patrols of orcs. Of course, he'd wanted to skulk through unseen, but she'd insisted the quick and sensible way was just to clutch their pass and march down the middle of the road…

A while later, Sunbright came swinging down a slope, sword at his shoulder, whistling jauntily. The floor of the cave was smooth from a dragon dragging its iron-hard belly scutes along the floor. The barbarian was guided by the flickering flame that welled from the nostrils of the dragon as it slept-or pretended to-and by the reflected light from the monstrous pile of gold, silver, gemstones, and other precious artifacts that made up the dragon's bed. Sunbright couldn't guess the treasure's value, but the hoard rose above his head in some places. The cave sprawled in many directions, the distances lost, but the treasure pile had been scooped out in the middle to make a resting place for the dragon, like a kitten in a pile of mittens.

The dragon was immense. Its head was longer than a rowboat, frilled with horns like stalactites, its neck like a stone bridge, its back like a low hill. Details were indistinct, but its scales seemed as big as a man's hand, overlaid so tightly they bristled outward. The beast's pointed ears drooped at the tips, and its nostrils were flame-blackened around the edges. Sunbright stopped and planted himself right in front of those nostrils and tried not to think about how hot they were.

His whistling trailed off, like birdsong fading into the forest. He bit down on his quivering stomach and willed his legs to stay steady. His bravado had almost failed him as he entered this vast cavern, for he'd passed the rotted remains of a dozen corpses of all sizes, including endless fragments wedged in cracks to rot to nothingness. But at least he'd gotten this far, which was farther than those unfortunates. And he had a ghost of a plan, which was something.

Still, those nostrils were as big as caldrons, and the flame that winked within hotter than any forge. He could feel the heat a dozen feet back. He hated to see the flames well out of that awesome nose, but on the other hand, when the dragon breathed in, the cave became pitch-black, which was even more disconcerting.

Then the slanted yellow eyes opened, and Sunbright knew what it was to be a mouse being stared down by a cat. The dragon's black pupils were bigger than his head.

Yet he held his ground and boldly called "Good day," his voice a bit shrill.

Without lifting its head, the dragon opened jaws that could swallow a man whole. "You pick a painful but noteworthy suicide, fleshy morsel." The rumble of Wrathburn's voice, like a stone boat over a wooden bridge, made Sunbright's breastbone tingle.

"I've been sent by the One King to slay you!" he announced in what he hoped were cheerful tones.

The dragon moved like a glacier, rearing upward to tower over Sunbright and better aim his nostrils. The barbarian heard plinks and clatters as jewels and coins cascaded from the beast's scaly hide in a precious rain. The dragon inhaled deeply, like a blast furnace being stoked.

"But after seeing you, I cannot even imagine harming such a beautiful creature!"

Wrathburn gulped as he swallowed fire. "Beautiful?"

"Truly!" Sunbright assured him. "Unparalleled beauty and unspeakable magnificence! Never have I beheld such a wonder, and never could I lay a hand on such a fearsome, awe-inspiring being! You are truly the most marvelous creature in all of Toril! Why, you take my breath away!"

Confused, the dragon mulled over the compliments. He wasn't used to flattery. Screaming, begging, crying, whining, yes, but not compliments.

Still alive, neither flinders nor cinders, the barbarian dropped his sword dramatically and slathered on the praise with a trowel. "As long as I live I shall sing the praises of this most magnificent sight, the glory and grandeur of the king of all skies, the noblest creature in creation, who looks down upon the world with his fearsome gaze, knowing every being to be his inferior!"

Summoning every scrap of story and song he'd ever heard, the young man waxed eloquent for what seemed like hours, until his voice began to creak and his tongue grew numb and stumbled. And repeated itself, at which point Wrathburn grew restless and began to swish his tail back and forth amid the gems and gold. He wanted new praise, an endless stream of it. But Sunbright knew eventually he'd run out of words and then be dinner. So, drawing a mental breath, the barbarian took a leap into unknown territory.

"But oh, the perfidy of the One King!" Sunbright threw his arm across his eyes in mock horror. "To think, to think!"

"Think?" rumbled Wrathburn. He twitched his tail harder, flattening a suit of silver armor. He didn't want to hear about some king, but about himself. "You mentioned this king before. What about him?"

"To think he would send me to slay you!" wailed Sunbright. "How could one man be so heartless as to think of assaulting something so proud, so famous! Why, better to command that I put out the sun than cause the world to lose the glory of Wrathburn the Magnificent! I would become the most hated man in existence! And yet…"

"Yet what?" Flames flickered all around the dragon's snout, throwing black shadows across the crags of his face.

"Why, the One King must be jealous! That's it! He's sat too long on his throne, accumulated too much power, and has come to think he's the equal of Wrathburn. Consumed as this petty man is with jealousy, he's sent me, the most insignificant of warriors, to slay the light of the world! How cruel, how callous, how blind of this lowly beast-man, to challenge the might, the divine right of rule inherent in the noble breast of All-High Wrathburn…" The barbarian trailed off, panting. He would have killed for a slug of ale; his tongue was practically hanging out.

Fortunately, Wrathburn took his cue. Pointing a long, whiskery snout at the distant cave mouth, he asked, "Where lives this One King?"

Sunbright pounced. "I can point the way!"

"Then do." Picking up a foot as large as the One King's throne, the dragon crushed coins and made the cavern shake, jarring Sunbright's bones.

Scurrying out of the way, the young man took one last gasp and called, "There is one more little thing, if it please your greatness?"

The head swiveled to aim nostrils like matched volcanoes at the human. "Yes?"

"A book."

Eyes closed, Sunbright gasped for breath and hung on with all his might. He didn't look down.

Hurricane winds tore at his face, yanked his topknot, whistled in his ears, and pressed his tackle so hard against his body it dented his skin. By the time they landed, he'd be blind, deaf, and bald. If his arms didn't fall off first. As long as he lived-which at this point he figured might be a little past sunset-he'd never even climb to the second story of a building.

For he was miles in the air, soaring faster than the wind. He perched standing on Wrathburn's neck, which was as slippery as sleet-slick flagstones. Both arms were wrapped tight around one of the horns rimming the dragon's frill. After careful consideration, he'd chosen this one for the craggy folds in the scaly skin at the base of the horn. These handholds, such as they were, had seemed adequate at the time. Now his fingernails ripped from his flesh as he tried to hang on, he pressed his face into the crook of his elbow to breathe, and he tensed his legs to the breaking point to remain in one spot. If he slid an inch, he thought, even a half-inch, he'd be flung into space like straw from a barn swallow's beak. And the last-and only-time he'd dared to look, the mountains below looked like gray smudges in a tablecloth.