Where Dragons Dwell

"There weren't always dragons in the Valley," the village headman revealed. The large, opulent chair he sat in creaked in complaint as he leant back, suggesting it was every bit as old as the person that sat in it. Thick legs swung up and over the edge of the large oak desk dominating the small office, and the heels of well-used, black leather boots came to rest upon its surface. The headman lifted his left hand and pinched a scruffy grey beard between fat thumb and index finger, the ring finger having been taken off behind the knuckle and reduced to a badly-healed stump. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened as deep thought passed behind them. "I seem to remember a time when nothing bigger than a cow could be found down there, but when Hellsmouth reminded us how it got its name more than dragons sought escape from the mountain's fiery temper."

"We didn't come here for a history lesson, old man!" snapped Quintain Deepdale, who occupied a chair as ornate as it was tatty on the opposite side of the headman's desk . "Just tell us where your problematic lizard is so we can go kill it. Then you can pay us, and we can be on our way." The elf's finely-pointed nose creased in distaste. "The ale at the tavern here is like nixie piss," he grumbled.

The elf's human travelling partner, Helmut Dullblade, waved a placating hand to calm his skinny companion, but he could not refute the statement; the wine was no better. If he didn't get a decent drink soon he would be just as frustrated as the elf.

Encased in thick, battered leather and heavy, dented plate, Quintain was always as ready to join another's fight as he was to start one of his own. Helmut, on the other hand, preferred more civilised attire, although he scarcely allowed his friend to charge into the thick of it alone. Helmut wasn't rich by any means, but gold spent to hide the fact that he was more than what he appeared was money well spent; the people he met tended to underestimate him, and that was just how Helmut preferred it.

The human's eyes narrowed to slits as he leant forward. "Your notice asked for adventurers, Gaizel. Dragonslayers, to be precise. What didn't it ask for? What are we going to have to deal with before we meet your dragon?"

The headman's gaze shifted sharply from the impatient elf and focused on the younger human sitting beside him. "Manticore. Harpy. You do know what they are, don't you?"

Helmut matched the grizzled old man's stare without blinking, and smiled easily. "I studied for five years at Kolburn University, Gaizel. The library there has bestiaries detailing things even you haven't met."

Gaizel the Ironheart is what they called him in his prime, a stern and redoubtable figure of honest strength. Helmut had read about him at the library, too. He liked knowing who he was getting involved with. The man had won accolades aplenty for his exploits, hunting and killing all kinds of nasty creatures to protect and make a little safer the land for miles around Kolburn. In his retirement he had become headman of Amberdown, the centre of a farming community perhaps twenty miles from the city. Helmut had discovered Gaizel was the kind of man that tended to handle problems with action rather than words, and in that way was more like Quintain than himself. Even so, Helmut appreciated the man's simplistic, principled outlook: if it hurt the innocent, it deserved to die.

"Reading about monsters isn't the same as fighting them."

"Perhaps," Helmut conceded, "but knowing your enemy is half the fight. The other half is aggressive application of steel and spell, and if you didn't think we could do that you wouldn't have asked to meet with us."

Gaizel regarded the two mercenaries across the table from him, his sneer changing to a grim smile. "Couldn't have said it better, and were I ten years younger I would have gone after the bastard thing myself." Gaizel shook his balding head. "Might be I still shall if you don't come back for the reward."

Considering the width of Gaizel's shoulders and that his shirtsleeves looked like silken sacks full of rocks, Helmut held no doubt that the man was still a more than capable swordsman. Quintain seemed inclined to disagree, however. "Oh, we'll be back, old man," the elf assured, roughly. "Just make sure to count the gold you'll owe us accurately, or you'll wish you only had dragons to contend with."

"On the subject of gold," Helmut interrupted swiftly, seeing angry contortions begin to play upon the older human's face as he lowered his feet slowly back to the floor. "There was the small matter of preparation costs your notice announced you would cover."

Gaizel didn't take his blazing eyes from the elf as his right hand, the one with a full compliment of fingers, went beneath the table. His arm jerked sharply and before long a small velvet pouch landed on Helmut's side of the table with a metallic jingle. One side of Gaizel's mouth curled, his voice little more than a growl. "Fifty silver shields." The man clearly didn't like parting with coin.

Quintain surged out of his chair, left hand finding the surface of the table while his right arm flicked up and back, sending the edge of his wolfskin cloak aside. There was only one purpose to that movement, and the elf's hand quickly shot back down to his waist where the hilt of his longsword waited jutted up from its scabbard. "We agreed a hundred!"

A stumpy finger stabbed out as if to pierce the elf's heart. "You demanded a hundred," Gaizel countered, just as hotly, but he remained seated. "I'll not pay for work not done. You'll get the rest when I have a dragon's head on my floor!" The older human's ravaged finger tapped heavily on the table top with each word. Any discomfort the action produced only fuelled his growing fury.

"Gentlemen, please!" Helmut cried, tapping the table with his palm. He paused to allow both antagonists to understand that further discontent would serve to get them nowhere. The old man and the elf glared at each other for long moments, neither willing to back down.

The elf might have been fifty pounds or more lighter than the old man, but while age may not have affected his strength much Helmut doubted Gaizel's reflexes were at the same standards they had been during the man's youth, and so fell way short of those of his elven friend. Quintain would likely have the point of one of his many weapons diving into the human's throat before the other could raise one to defend himself.

"Quintain?" Helmut warned, darkly.

"Bah!" the elf spat, lurching around and stomping loudly out of the headman's office without a backwards glance. A slammed door confirmed the elf's absolute departure. Gaizel stared at his office door for long moments, perhaps hoping the elf-sized tornado would come howling back in for another go. Helmut's soft voice drew the older man's eyes away from it.

"You had better hope fifty is enough to get us what we need for the task at hand, old man," he said, collecting the purse of silver from the table top before Gaizel could recover it and call the whole deal off.

Gaizel's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You threatening me, too?"

"Not at all," Helmut responded lightly, lips curving pleasantly. "Dragons aren't mindless beasts - do you know that? If it kills us, it'll work out where we came from. Then what do you think it will it do?" Gaizel blinked, looked away. His disfigured hand clenched involuntarily.

Helmut adjusted his posture while the other human considered his words, but it was not for comfort's sake he did this. His left hand lifted as if to scratch the front of his neck and his fingers slid down to continue the motion, hooking over the lip of the fine, blue cotton doublet he had purchased for the meeting. It was an innocent enough gesture, and would have been just that had Helmut's fingertips not sought to brush against the amulet concealed beneath his clothing. His digit made a full circle around the sapphire embedded within the torc's bronze body.

Helmut felt like he was drinking warm milk, and there was a taste of honey at the back of his throat. "Angry dragons don't make for good neighbours," Helmut continued matter-of-factly, the soothing magic of the amulet seeping through the flesh of his neck into his words, empowering them with reason and suggestion. "You're responsible for many innocents here. Families, of course. Women and children. How much will it cost to put swords in their hands and clothe them in armour?" The older man pulled in a long drag of air. "How much would it cost to bury them?" Helmut thought Gaizel paled a little after that remark.

"Very well," the headman said at last, clearly subdued by Helmut's sorcerous insinuations. "Take this." He slipped a ring from his remaining index finger and flipped it toward the younger man. Helmut snatched it out of the air with an expert's palm. "Should be good for about fifty shields."

Helmut half-bowed as he stood, and said, "Many thanks, m'lord." Gaizel wasn't a lord, of course, but a little exaggerated politeness went a long way to ease a bruised ego. While on his way toward the exit, Helmut heard the headsman's voice behind him.

"I hope you're worth it."

Helmut didn't stop, his response quiet enough to go unheard. "So do I," he said.

Helmut made his way out of the headman's house and found himself alone in the wide village street. There was no sign of Quintain, but since the tavern was a short walk across the dirt track serving as the main thoroughfare, there was not much effort involved in figuring out where the elf had gone. No matter the elf's disgruntlement at the quality of the ale there, it remained the only source of ale available. Helmut sighed as he moved to join his friend, going over in his head everything he had figured out so far, everything that had brought him here.

The advert Helmut and Quintain had found in the city of Kolburn begged for brave adventurers to enter Amber Valley and slay the dragon that had been seen there, preying upon farmers' livestock. Thanks to the library of Kolburn University, Helmut knew about dragons just like he knew about manticore and harpies, and it was exactly what Helmut had been after.

The man had read that dragons were akin to great, winged lizards with four legs ending in talons as sharp as swords. Their mouths were filled with dagger-like teeth, while their tails could deliver blows like huge battering rams. This physical might was not the limit of their power, for some reports claimed the creatures had magic at their disposal, too. Unfortunately, this was the limit of information presented in the records of dragons, for those that went hunting the creatures rarely came back to speak of what they had encountered. The mention of magic use was a lure to the mage, of course, but it was the latter fact that piqued Helmut's interest most.

A dead dragon boasted a hunting party's success, so when the hunters failed to return logic dictated that the dragon had bested its enemies. That, in turn, suggested the dragon was still around and so raised the expectation that said dragon would continue the activities that had drawn it the baleful attention of the hunters in the first place. However, in many instances where hunters had supposedly been beaten the dragon was not seen again afterwards, either. There had been a couple of cases where each had killed the other, the bodies eventually found by those that followed to investigate, but this was the exception rather than the rule.

Helmut had to ask himself: why does a dragon leave if they defeat those sent to kill them?

Helmut didn't think the dragon feared the involvement of more hunters looking for gold and glory. He doubted any creature possessing the physical qualities of a dragon would fear anything other than a bigger dragon. Even so, every time a dragon was seen to be active in an area groups of capable people were hired to dispatch it. Every time. But dragons could fly, so surely they landed to fight only when they wanted to; they picked the battleground in terrain that suited them. This served as evidence that dragons were as smart as those that hunted them, perhaps smarter, and any intelligent being could predict the consequences of their actions. Dragons knew the response their appearance would trigger, they knew hunters would be sent after it. Therefore, it made sense to believe that a dragon wanted to be confronted by hunters.

While Helmut considered the motivations a dragon could possess for seeking such a conflict, he gave thought to what happened to those the dragon killed - it was typical for none to be seen again, living or dead. It was doubtful the dragon consumed the bodies, for if dragons had a taste for man-flesh then more than livestock would be taken when one of them came for tea.

What if the dragon took the hunters' corpses away with it, as some kind of trophy? There were many barbarian tribes in the eastern steppes that sent their youth to hunt the natural predators of the region to prove their manhood; was this a dragon's coming of age ritual? Surely there were more worthy opponents to prove that?

The three words of his earlier fact - living or dead - still echoed in Helmut's mind like resounding drumbeats in the night, becoming a question rather than a consideration: living, or dead? The man would never forget how it had felt when the premise first occurred to him, how every one of his limbs had frozen up. For a moment he had scolded himself a fool for even contemplating the idea, but he could not escape the possibilities that surged through his brain afterwards.

Helmut had initially concluded the fight's result based on the intentions of the hunters: which was to kill the dragon. He had arrogantly assumed that the dragon sought an identical outcome, and therefore wondered only about what happened to the dead bodies - the "not seen again living or dead" factor. But when that factor became a question shortened to just three words, "living, or dead?" everything changed.

What if there were no dead bodies at all? What if the hunters were still alive when the dragon left? Those thoughts prompted other, more intriguing ones, such as: where did the dragon go, and why did it take the living hunters with it?

And there was only one way to find out.