Rick Shelley - Son of the Hero

The shock of the collision could hardly have been worse if I'd been hit by an out-of-control semi. The dragon knocked me down, dragged and bounced me along the ground, and finally ripped the elf sword from my hands. I didn't even have the wit to let go of the sword. As soon as I slowed down enough to get some control over my own movements, I rolled left, fast, to get out from under the collapsing body of the gargantuan beast. Pain stabbed at me from every part of my body. The dragon's wing and leg pummeled me. I felt skin and muscle tear, my skin and muscle. The wing's trailing edge bounced me forward again and finally pinned me against the dragon's flank for a moment before I bounced clear-butt over brains.

"We're here, son." I heard Dad's voice as plainly as I had ever heard any sound in my life. I couldn't move. For a time, I couldn't even get my eyes open.

Am I dead yet? I wondered. Mentally, at least, I shook my head. I hurt so much that I had to be alive. My heart was still pounding. I inhaled. That added to the pain.

It won't be long, I decided. If I wasn't already mortally wounded, the dragon would finish the job soon enough.

"We're here, son," Dad's voice said again. "We're waiting for you."

More than anything, that was what forced me to keep trying.

I got my eyes open. They burned. I saw sky above me… and dragon to the side. I was flat on my back. I rolled over on my side, facing the dragon. Everything seemed willing to move, though not without complaint. My chest hurt. More than one rib had to be broken now. My arms were both bloody, but I could make fists with both hands. I could move the fingers.

The dragon didn't fly off for another go-round. That didn't feel like much of a victory, though. The damn thing was a mountain next to me. The tail was moving from side to side, not all that fast, but enough to keep anyone from coming close. The neck and head were swaying too-not as much as the tail.

I didn't see any people, just dragon.

The feeling of power-or whatever I had felt before-had deserted me, been dragged out of me. I had to finish rolling over, onto my stomach, before I could start to get up. I got up on hands and knees… one knee. My left knee didn't want to bend in the middle. And the foot felt as if it had been crammed into a boot that was only half as big as it needed to be. I tried to reach for my hip pocket to get the silver flask that Mother had given me, but the flask was gone. So was the pocket. No painkiller.

I retched, threw up. No blood in it, I told myself. I thought that might be a hopeful sign.

The dragon bellowed in what I hoped was intense pain.

"Get up," I told myself. "Get up and finish the job while you can."

Dreamer, another part of my mind said, laughing at me. Why not lie back down and wait?

I wouldn't do that.

Instead, I fought my way to my feet. With a leg that wouldn't do much of anything but throb, getting up was difficult-and agonizing. I stood and limped toward the dragon's head, making a wide circle and watching it closely. It was slow going. I had to step forward with my right leg and then drag the left leg up into place. The leg would hold me, but I couldn't do much else with it.

I had to stop and fight back the waves of pain every few steps. I had never dreamed that so much pain was possible.

For the first time, I got a chance to see just how damn huge that dragon really was. I don't think I could possibly exaggerate its size. You could have put a football field on its back and left room for cheerleaders. The neck and tail were each longer than the back. Its thighs were like those old redwood trees with roads cut right through their trunks. A circus could have used one of its wings for its big top. The teeth were big enough to serve as headstones. It was as tall as a four-story building. New York City and Chicago could have met for a barbecue with steaks for everyone from its meat, with enough leftovers to stuff the entire NFL.

Big. Maybe a quarter mile long.

I don't know how long I stared at the dragon, running those stupid comparisons through my mind. It probably wasn't nearly as long as it seemed at the time. I started walking again, coughing dust and retching. Every time the pains got together and squeezed, strange things happened to my head and gut-none of them pleasant.

Eventually, I got around in front of the dragon. My elf sword had split the top of its snout from between nostrils the size of basketball hoops to between eyes the size of hula hoops. The eyes were open, though the fletching of one of Annick's arrows protruded from the pupil of the left eye. I couldn't reach Dragon's Death. I stretched as far as I could, but my fingers fell a good eighteen inches short of the sword's hilt. Finally, I leaned against the dragon's snout, put my good foot on the corner of its lower lip-gingerly-and got up just far enough to reach the elf sword. I pulled on Dragon's Death and fell backward when it came free.

The dragon moaned and moved its head from side to side, just a little.

"I hope you're hurting as much as I am," I said, very softly. I rubbed a sleeve across my eyes. They were watering constantly from the pain. Getting to my feet again was as painful as the first time, and just as slow. I stood there-ten feet from the dragon-and looked up at it. Its eyes were definitely out of reach, even with Dragon's Death, as long as I was on the ground.

I came close to giving up then. The only way I would be able to reach this dragon's eye to put that long thrust into it would be to climb up on top of the snout. Even if I could manage that, all the beast would have to do was toss its head to throw me far enough to finish the job of killing me.

Static electricity started to pop and crackle all over me again. I got hot-roasting. The wizards were dueling over me again. I glanced toward the battlements of Castle Thyme. Parthet was still there. He didn't seem to be looking at me, but somewhere past me, past the dragon. I turned my head and spotted the Dorthini wizard. I didn't have an up-close-and-personal view this time, so I couldn't see the expression on his face, couldn't tell if he was nervous or ready to gloat.

The Etevar was next to him, holding his horse quiet, watching.

I advanced on the dragon again, slowly, still dragging my left leg, using it only as a prop to hold me up. When I got right up to the dragon's bleeding snout, I was temporarily out of his sight. I rested there a moment, in the shade, trying to gather my strength, and my nerve. With only one good leg, I was going to need both arms to climb, so I slipped Dragon's Death into its clips on my back. Then I got my toehold at the corner of the dragon's mouth and scrambled for the top of its snout.

The head rolled to the side. I held on to a couple of knobby wartlike projections until the rolling stopped. Then I got up-on one knee with the other leg trailing behind-and drew Dragon's Death again. The whistling started immediately. I rammed the point of the elf sword into the dragon's uninjured eye and leaned in and down, uncertain that the blade could even reach this monster's brain. I pushed and twisted, and the dragon bucked and tried to roll its head again. For an instant, I was dangling from the sword's hilt, holding on desperately. The dragon flapped its wings a couple of times but couldn't generate enough lift to get off the ground. It couldn't even get its chin more than a couple feet of the ground.

When the beast quieted down again, I maneuvered back into position. This time, I put all of my weight behind the sword until the guard was sinking into the eyeball itself.

And then the eyeball popped like a gigantic zit and foul-smelling crud gushed all over me, topped by gallons of black blood. It came so hard and fast that for a moment I thought I was going to drown in it. I choked and gagged and retched so hard that I almost lost my grip on the elf sword. My hands were deep in what was left of the eyeball now. The dragon moaned, then screeched and gave one last violent shake that tossed me and the sword to the ground. More blood-barrels of it-spurted from the wound and poured down on me. It was all I could do to get my face free of the flash flood.