Eric Flint - Pyramid Power

Looking back, he saw that the huge green dragon was slowly making his way out of his lair. Lamont ducked behind a handy rock and wished there had been a very much bigger handy rock. Peeping out through some fronds of dead fern that still clung to the stone, he watched the dragon ponderously advance down the path toward the pit where the blond Norseman lay hidden.

Lamont could see three possible outcomes. First, the man might just succeed. Second, the dragon might just find him and kill him. Third, he might wound the dragon. It was the third possibility that worried Lamont the most-and, unfortunately, it seemed the most likely. This was not a very large valley, it was not a very deep cave that his family was hiding in, and this was a very small rock he was hiding behind. And a wooden spade wasn't going to make much of an impression, if a sword that sharp couldn't.

He watched. And waited.

In the cave Liz cursed under her breath. The dwarf whose name was apparently Reginn, judging from what she thought the blond guy with body-builder build had called him, had drawn his sword and was intent on the scene down below. If it hadn't been for Lamont being stuck behind a tiny rock a good two hundred yards closer to the dragon than any sane person wanted to be, this would have been the perfect time to make a sharp exit. She had a boyfriend to go looking for, and she had a feeling that the blond guy and this Reginn were up to no good, even if dragon-killing was a traditional knightly practice.

Besides, she was a biologist. There were probably far more knightly types than dragons anyway. She watched Reginn's intent face. It held an expression that seemed a combination of fear and nasty delight. Liz could probably swat him with one of these heavy wooden shovels, but there was no way that Marie would leave and let Lamont catch up. Actually, there was no way Liz could just leave him down there, for that matter, no matter how sensible it would be.

The dragon appeared to be crawling slowly toward the holes they'd dug. It stopped and puffed some of that sulphurous yellow smoke, then turned its great head, as if tasting the air. For a brief, wild moment Liz considered yelling a warning. But that would most likely be terminal for all of them.

The dragon continued its slow pace forward.

Suddenly, a great gout of the yellow smoke roared and gushed out of that fangy mouth and surged across the valley. The dragon reared up and Liz could see a spurting fountain of black blood. Its blood hit the grass, and the grass withered and smoked. The dragon twitched and clawed the ground, its great tail thrashing as if it was about to do a lizard trick and come right off.

The dragon jerked spasmodically. And then again, and reared up trying to reach the place from where its black life-blood leached out onto the ground.

Even from here she could hear that it was saying something. To Liz that made the dying worse, somehow.

They watched and waited. And then the blond man emerged from the side of the dragon, his great sword held aloft, and it seemed to catch the sun like some shaft of silver. Liz wasn't surprised that the others clapped. The dwarf was capering in glee. He waved his sword at them and bellowed something that was probably "out." Before Liz decided to take him out, he chopped a solitary spruce-perhaps four inches thick-with a single cheerful swipe.

He shooed them ahead of him like he was herding geese. He was soon happily engaged in kicking the dragon, and loudly congratulating his knight, who was cleaning his sword, and beaming toothily himself.

"Now do you think we can just slip away?" said Marie. "Where the hell are those children? Come here, you two. Don't you dare go near that cave!"

Unfortunately that yell, while it had turned the two boys back, had also reminded the dwarf and the blond dragon slayer of their presence.

They found themselves lifting a very heavy foreleg while Reginn and the dragon slayer took part in some gory butchery. At length the two of them hauled out a heart the size of a steamer-trunk. It was speared onto a spruce sapling, and they were sent walking up the hill with it back to the cave and to the fire. Reginn waved cheerfully with a snaggle-toothed smile and left them to make a dragon-heart barbeque.

By the way Ella had stopped to be sick, the dish might not catch on in the U.S. Liz suspected it might be a better hit back in South Africa, where the men doing the barbequing-"braai-ing"-believed in alcohol marinade, principally applied internally to themselves, because the meat was too hot. This blond dragon slayer was their kin in spirit, anyway. He had dug out a flask of something and was applying it liberally internally, and not offering to share, either.

Liz had spent much of her adult life working with commercial fishermen. She was used to out-toughing and out-drinking men. And right now she wouldn't have minded showing this fellow how it was done. Still, after dragon-killing, a drink was probably a fairly reasonable thing to want.

Liz tried to turn the meat, more on principal than out of any real interest in cooking dragon heart properly, burned herself, and sucked her fingers.

"Ow! Give me a hand with this, will you," she said, putting her fingers back in her mouth. It was some indication of how long ago breakfast had been that dragon heart tasted quite appetizing.

Emmitt responded, after a prod from Lamont. He had the bright idea of using another stick. It didn't work too well either on the lopsided weight of heart. He ended up burning his fingers too, and instinctively sucking them, before they got the meat propped the other way.

The blond dragon slayer now tried his hand at singing. You'd have thought that a noise like that would have frightened off birds and any other wildlife, but Liz noticed that two ravens fluttered in and perched on a ledge near the entrance. They eyed the grilling heart with greedy, beady eyes.

"Where are the others?" one raven asked the other.

"Probably still flapping along."

"Probably flapping in the other direction, Hugin," cawed the first. "You were supposed to watch them."

"I was tired," said the raven grumpily. "Do you know what it was like trying to find a single nuthatch, let alone five? Here on Gnita-moor of all places."

"I know," said the first raven. "That's why you should have kept a better watch on them."

"I forgot, Munin. I was too busy looking out for trolls. This is too close to Geirrodur's castle to be comfortable for a bird. There's nothing trolls like more than raven-roast."

"You'd forget your own head next, Hugin," said the other raven, with a disapproving clack of its beak.

Hugin scratched his poll with a black claw. "Memory is your job. Anyway we'll just have to do it without them. When is the idiot going to burn his hand and lick the hot blood, if he has thralls doing the cooking?"

Emmitt looked incredulously at Liz. "They're talking," he said in a frightened whisper.

Liz had been trying to come to terms with them saying anything but "Nevermore," herself. She'd already worked out that they weren't speaking English, but that she was understanding them. "I know," she said quietly. "Now, for a tasty piece of dragon heart, they might like to explain."

Hugin bobbed his head forward. But Munin-the one on the left-clacked his beak angrily. "You're not supposed to taste the hot blood."

"Why not? The human is blond, and it is offering us some," said Hugin eagerly, hopping from one foot to the other.

"Because it is not Sigurd the Dragon-slayer, the killer of Fafnir the Great. He's the one with the sword and the ice-brew. Go and peck that stuff out of his hand. I'll chase off these thralls."

"No chance," said Hugin. "If that's Sigurd, then that sword is Gram. I might not be you, but I remember that much. I don't want to be half a raven. You do it. I'll chase the thralls. Peck their eyes out."