Anthology: The Realms of the Dragons II

"Yeah, well, they don't call you Wyrmbait for nothing," said Silver. "But I'd rather steal a treasure and keep a whole skin, than carry around a bag of hissing, wiggling baby dragons nipping at my fingers. Nasty way to make a living, Nix, nasty."

"Baby bites," scoffed Bates. "Why that's nothing compared to the fury of Malaeragoth. He ripped Uvalkhur's roof off with one swipe of his claws. He hunted Uvalkhur's killers through the hallways like one of Guerner's terriers after rats. I saw him, and that's more than either of you have ever seen-a great old dragon like that, fighting with all his strength!"

The ratcatcher Guerner suddenly spoke up. "Well, I've never seen a dragon, and I've never wanted to see one. Catching rats is enough vermin for me. But I like hearing your stories, makes these winter nights pass quicker. I'll stand you a drink all round for your tales. Hey, Varney, draw us four more cups," he said to the tavernkeeper.

Varney smirked at Mrs. Varney. He'd been right and she'd been wrong, it was worth staying open a little longer.

The chink of Guerner's coin dropping into his box sparked Varney's big idea, or "another one of Varney's big ideas" as Mrs. Varney would say in later years to friends and relations. Middle of the tenday, middle of the winter, was such a lonely time for a tavernkeeper's coin box in Sembia. It had been another lousy winter for trade. There'd been talk of odd trouble in odd places, ghosts in the forests and suchlike. In a small town like Halfknot, where Varney ran the Dragon Defeated, people relied on travelers for their extra coin. And when the gods, elves, Zhentarim, and who knew what else kept disrupting trade, well, then, it meant everyone got very nervous and hoarded what gold they had.

But with the Year of Maidens passed and the Year of the Helm begun, Varney wanted to encourage customers to stop saving and start spending at the Dragon Defeated. Advertising Mrs. Varney's meat pies as being made from the best ber-rygobblers hadn't done the trick. In fact, some unkind bard had started a song about "Mrs. Varney's Rat Pies."

As Varney served Guerner's round, a woman blew through the tavern's door with a cold, wet wind and an offer to repaint the Dragon Defeated's sign. Varney just knew that her offer was all that was needed to start his great idea attracting a little cash to his tavern.

Small and fair-haired, the painter's skin held that ruddy brown tinge of a wanderer who spent most of her time outdoors. Spots of color sprayed across her hands, the marks of her trade.

"I was heading east," the painter said, "but the roads are rivers of mud and I'm tired of slipping and falling every third step. So I'm stopping in Halfknot until the roads dry out. I'm painting signs for the baker, the butcher, and the hostler. I'll do yours too in return for a few meals."

Varney promised as many meat pies as the painter could eat.

The next morning, Varney, the painter, and Mrs. Varney discussed a new design for the Dragon Defeated's well-weathered sign. The current placard depicted a group of men attacking a rearing white dragon.

"I noticed your sign when I first came to town," said the painter, standing underneath it, ignoring the rain dripping on her head and down her neck. "That dragon is simply awful. The neck is all wrong, the head's too small, and those wings! They look like a bird's wings, not a dragon's!"

"Can you add a princess, dear?" asked Mrs. Varney, who was a sentimental soul. "You know, one of those girls all dressed in fine silks with a little tiny crown perched on top of her curls, being rescued by the lads? Like in the stories my granny told."

"Well," said the painter. "I don't know as much about princesses as I do about dragons, but I can draw one. What else?"

"Can you make the chaps in the sign look like those three over there?" asked Varney, pointing a thumb at Silver, Bates, and Nix, who were walking down the street. The gnome, the dwarf, and the human were still arguing about who knew more about dragons.

The painter looked them over. "Don't you want something better? I'm not sure that they'll attract the customers."

"I want it to look just like them," said Varney. "I've got an idea about those three."

Once the repainted sign was flapping in the gusts of winter wind, Varney nailed another smaller sign next to his door advertising free beer on the slowest night of the tenday in return for a good dragon story.

Much to the town's surprise, Varney lived up to his promise. Every storyteller got one free beer-small and a bit watered, but free. Also, Varney had every listener and storyteller put a coin or a button or a packet of pins in a cup. At the end of the evening, the best story was awarded the cup, with the tavern's own "dragon defeaters" Silver, Nix, and Bates acting as judges. Of course, food and additional beer were charged at Varney's usual rates, and the winner most often stood the company an extra round, all of which meant that Varney's coin box started to fill up very nicely.

So Varney's idea worked, as Varney liked to tell friends and relations in later years. More people came to the Dragon Defeated, just to hear a story well told, and after a few ten-days, as the weather improved and travel became easier, the promise of a free beer and the possibility of winning a cup of coins and buttons spread up and down the roads, drawing more out-of-towners and regulars from other taverns. All sorts of strange folk began to appear at the Dragon Defeated to compete with their story.

Silver, Nix, and Bates took to strutting around town because of their positions as "dragon experts." The dwarf even promised to give Malaeragoth's sapphire scale to the first person who managed to astound all three judges.

On the night of the "unfortunate incident," as Varney described it in later years, the Dragon Defeated was packed with a lively, hard-drinking crowd of humans, dwarves, and gnomes. A human fighter with well-oiled leather armor and a really big sword slung across his back finished his tale of hand-to-claw combat with a green dragon with a thump of his fist on his chest. The audience looked between him and the judges, waiting to hear what the trio thought.

"Well," said Nix, cleaning his teeth with an ivory toothpick, "if you'd lunged a bit more and ducked less, you could have finished the fight in half the time. If you're going to go hunting dragons, you can't be afraid of being nipped on the arm or leg. Bites heal. Look at my scars. Besides, we heard something similar from a man from Triel last tenday, didn't we boys?"

"Yup, I don't think that story is worth even a button," said Bates, who was known throughout Halfknot as a dwarf so cheap that he wouldn't give away the time of day for free. There was a running side bet going at the Dragon Defeated that no one would ever get Malaeragoth's sapphire scale from the dwarf. "Besides, I like to see a bit of proof, I do. Anyone can tell a fancy story, but not everyone can produce solid evidence."

"I think the whole thing showed a lack of finesse," Silver said, washing his fingers in a porcelain bowl. "With a little bit of guile," added the gnome, using his embroidered hankie to dry off his fingertips, "he could have had the head off that creature and been out of the forest without even pulling that really big sword out of its scabbard. If he'd studied his dragons before he went, he'd have known how to handle them. Everyone knows that you're most likely to find green dragons there and those type of dragons are cross-eyed and easy to confuse."

"You're wrong," said the sign painter, sitting in the corner nearest the fire and eating one of Mrs. Varney's meat pies. "A green dragon is not that easy to kill and they're never cross-eyed."

A number of heads turned to stare at the woman. She smiled slightly at the three dragon experts and continued to eat her pie with calm, deliberate bites.