Терри Пратчетт - The Colour of Magic

He let go.

Twoflower grabbed the bars and pulled himself up.

“See anything?” said Hrun, from the region of his feet.

“Just clouds.”

Hrun lifted him down again, and sat on the edge of one of the wooden beds that were the only furnishings in the cell. “Bloody hell,” he said.

“Don’t despair,” said Twoflower.

“I’m not despairing.”

“I expect it’s all some sort of misunderstanding. I expect they’ll release us soon. They seem very civilised.”

Hrun stared at him from under bushy eyebrows. He started to say something, then appeared to think better of it. He sighed instead.

“And when we get back we can say we’ve seen dragons,” Twoflower continued. “What about that, eh?”

“Dragons don’t exist,” said Hrun flatly. “Codice of Chimeria killed the last one two hundred years ago. I don’t know what we’re seeing, but they aren’t dragons.”

“But they carried us up in the air! In that hall there must have been hundreds—”

“I expect it was just magic,” said Hrun, dismissively.

“Well, they looked like dragons,” said Twoflower, an air of defiance about him. “I always wanted to see dragons, ever since I was a little lad. Dragons flying around in the sky, breathing flames…”

“They just used to crawl around in swamps and stuff, and all they breathed was stink,” said Hrun lying down in the bunk. “They weren’t very big either. They used to collect firewood.”

“I heard they used to collect treasure,” said Twoflower.

“And firewood. Hey,” Hrun added, brightening “did you notice all those rooms they brought us through? Pretty impressive, I thought. Lot of good stuff about, plus some of those tapestries have got to be worth a fortune.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully, making a noise like a porcupine shouldering its way through gorse.

“What happens next?” asked Twoflower.

Hrun screwed a finger in his ear and inspected it absently. “Oh,” he said, “I expect in a minute the door will be flung back and I’ll be dragged off to some sort of temple arena where I’ll fight maybe a couple of giant spiders and an eight-foot slave from the jungles of Klatch and then I’ll rescue some kind of a princess from the altar and then kill off a few guards or whatever and then this girl will show me the secret passage out of the place and we’ll liberate a couple of horses and escape with the treasure.” Hrun leaned his head back on his hands and looked at the ceiling, whistling tunelessly.

“All that?” said Twoflower.

“Usually.”

Twoflower sat down on his bunk and tried to think. This proved difficult, because his mind was awash with dragons.

Dragons!

Ever since he was two years old he had been captivated by the pictures of the fiery beasts in The Octarine Fairy Book. His sister had told him they didn’t really exist, and he recalled the bitter disappointment. If the world didn’t contain those beautiful creatures, he’d decided, it wasn’t half the world it ought to be. And then later he had been bound apprentice to Ninereeds the Masteraccount, who in his grey-mindedness was everything that dragons were not, and there was no time for dreaming.

But there was something wrong with these dragons. They were too small and sleek, compared to the ones in his mind’s eye. Dragons ought to be big and green and clawed and exotic and firebreathing—big and green with long sharp… Something moved at the edge of his vision, in the furthest, darkest corner of the dungeon. When he turned his head it vanished, although he thought he heard the faintest of noises that might have been made by claws scrabbling on stone.

“Hrun?” he said.

There was a snore from the other bunk.

Twoflower padded over to the corner, peering gingerly at the stones in case there was a secret panel. At that moment the door was flung back thumping against the wall. Half a dozen guards hurtled through it, spread out and flung them selves down on one knee. Their weapons were aimed exclusively at Hrun. When he thought about this later, Twoflower felt quite offended.

Hrun snored.

A woman strode into the room. Not many women can stride convincingly, but she managed it. She glanced briefly at Twoflower, as one might look at a piece of furniture, then glared down at the man on the bed.

She was wearing the same sort of leather harness that the dragonriders had been wearing but in her case it was much briefer. That, and the magnificent mane of chestnut-red hair that fell to her waist, was her only concession to what even on the Discworld passed for decency. She was also wearing a thoughtful expression.

Hrun made a glubbing noise, turned over, and slept on.

With a careful movement, as though handling some instrument of rare delicacy, the woman drew a slim black dagger from her belt and stabbed downward.

Before it was halfway through its arc Hrun’s right hand moved so fast that it appeared to travel between two points in space without at any time occupying the intervening air. It closed around the woman’s wrist with a dull smack. His other hand groped feverishly for a sword that wasn’t there… Hrun awoke.

“Gngh?” he said, looking up at the woman with a puzzled frown. Then he caught sight of the bowmen.

“Let go,” said the woman, in a voice that was calm and quiet and edged with diamonds. Hrun released his grip slowly.

She stepped back, massaging her wrist and looking at Hrun in much the same way that a cat watches a mousehole.

“So,” she said at last. “You pass the first test. What is your name, barbarian?”

“Who are you calling a barbarian?” snarled Hrun.

“That is what I want to know.”

Hrun counted the bowmen slowly and made a brief calculation. His shoulders relaxed.

“I am Hrun of Chimeria. And you?”

“Liessa Dragonlady.”

“You are the lord of this place?”

“That remains to be seen. You have the look about you of a hired sword, Hrun of Chimeria. I could use you—if you pass the tests, of course. There are three of them. You have passed the first.”

“What are the other—” Hrun paused, his lips moved soundlessly and then he hazarded, “two?”

“Perilous.”

“And the fee?”

“Valuable.”

“Excuse me,” said Twoflower

“And if I fail these tests?” said Hrun, ignoring him. The air between Hrun and Liessa crackled with small explosions of charisma as their gazes sought for a hold.

“If you had failed the first test you would now be dead. This may be considered a typical penalty.”

“Um, look,” began Twoflower. Liessa spared him a brief glance, and appeared actually to notice him for the first time.

“Take that away,” she said calmly, and turned back to Hrun. Two of the guards shouldered their bows, grasped Twoflower by the elbows and lifted him off the ground. Then they trotted smartly through the doorway.

“Hey,” said Twoflower, as they hurried down the corridor outside, “where” (as they stopped in front of another door) “is my” (as they dragged the door open) “Luggage?” He landed in a heap of what might once have been straw. The door banged shut, its echoes punctuated by the sound of bolts being slammed home.

In the other cell Hrun had barely blinked.

“Okay,” he said, “what is the second test?”

“You must kill my two brothers.” Hrun considered this.

“Both at the same time, or one after the other?” he said.

“Consecutively or concurrently,” she assured him

“What?”

“Just kill them,” she said sharply

“Good fighters, are they?”

“Renowned.”

“So in return for all this…?”

“You will wed me and become Lord of the Wyrmberg.”

There was a long pause. Hrun’s eyebrows twisted themselves in unaccustomed calculation.