The Screaming Skull

by Rick Ferguson

  You can’t become a Tenth-Level fighter, however, without slaying your first dragon. It’s damned arduous work unless you’re packing an arsenal of enchanted armor and weapons that renders the contest moot—and goddamn it, that’s another thing that pisses me off about the Red Book of Westmarch. Once that certain famous halfling bore the One Ring of MacGuffinness, the coat of magic chainmail, his magic short sword, and the magic phial given to him by the hot elf queen, he was invincible. What could have touched him? That fucking halfling was packing so much heat that he could have marched into the dark lord’s tower through the front door and kicked his ass into the street. The wise know better than to make a sucker’s bet.

  The challenge of becoming a Lord is that dragons seldom wander around waiting to be slain. Fortunately, most dragons had learned long ago that the best way to avoid drawing against every gunslinger in town was to agree to the fix. A would-be Lord need only approach a dragon and negotiate the terms of defeat, which typically involved a stake in the hero’s future income. Was it a pussy move? Sure, but it beats incineration by dragonfire. I would live, and the dragon would get paid. Everybody wins.

  After six weeks of sending out feelers, I finally located a likely prospect: a young green dragon holed up in a rocky gorge near the Beradon Forest in the Kenwood—very near Amabored’s future camp, in fact. It was customary to negotiate through intermediaries, so I called in my old shipmate Phoebes from the Lordship to proxy me. Riding out from Castle Darien with a folder full of my press clippings and a good-faith offering—two heavy chests full of hard-won booty from my stash—Phoebes returned a week later with good news: The dragon was willing to talk. Phoebes had even gotten a look at the beast: Its given name was Formidabilus Quercus Viridans, or Greenoak the Terrible. Young and undersized at only 500 years old, Greenoak possessed a treasure hoard far smaller than his appetite. Having drained the local villages dry of tribute and fair maidens, but not yet fearsome enough to assault any of the nearby castles, Greenoak saw that a deal was in his best interests. In exchange for swallowing a little pride, the dragon would stay flush without risking my blade in his heart. Where was the downside?

  Phoebes, James, and I journeyed to an inn at the Valen Crossroads and met the dragon’s proxies, a pair of rogues named Zereth and Tarkin, half-elven and gnome respectively. I introduced James as my second. We murdered a plateful of pork chops, swilled a half-dozen rounds of ale, fired up our pipes, and got down to business.

  “The sticking point, as I see it, is the matter of the dragon’s proposed death,” said Zereth, drawing prissily on his slender elvish pipe as he studied the contract we had proposed. “Greenoak the Terrible has a reputation to uphold. It would irreparably damage his career to be slain by a mere Ninth-Level hero. Were you Eleventh or Twelfth Level, we’d have some wriggle room. The dragon proposes that, instead of slaying him outright, you merely wound him and drive him from these lands. Might not that outcome satisfy honor?”

  “How can death damage his career?” I asked. “Wouldn’t death end it?”

  “Come now, sir,” Zereth said, “Surely you can’t think this matter would end his rampaging. The contract merely provides that he departs these lands forthwith. Should he settle in another land outside an as-yet-undetermined radius from his current lair to seek a similar arrangement with another hero, word of this matter might precede him. He simply can’t die by an unsuitable hand.”

  “Sorry, I can’t bend on this one,” I said. “I can’t reach Tenth Level until I’ve slain a dragon, and you’re telling me I can’t slay this one because I’m not already there?”

  The half-elf stowed his pipe and made a show of gathering up his scrolls and papers. “As it appears we are at an impasse, may I wish you the best of luck in your quest, good sieur. I’m sure you will find a hatchling suitable for your purposes. Good day to you.”

  Before I could retort, Zereth and his sidekick bowed low before us and walked out of the inn to their waiting horses. I jumped up to grab them, but James stayed me with a hand on my arm.

  “Don’t cave just yet,” he said. “They’re bluffing.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “For fuck’s sake, it took me six weeks to find this lizard.”

  “The ranger is right,” said Phoebes. “The dragon’s hoard is light—big mistake on his part to let me see it. No self-respecting würm could show his face at the Gathering with such a hoard. They’re playing hardball, that’s all.”

  “That’s right,” said James. “Lay back and wait for your pitch. We’ll bed down here. If they don’t return in the morning with a counter-offer, then you can still take the deal.”

  James was right. As we were mopping up our breakfast the next morning in the inn’s crowded common room, the gnome reappeared through the door bearing a fresh scroll.

  “We told Greenoak that you were a man of stature,” Tarkin told us. “He believes you can still work together. Please give this most generous offer your full consideration, with the understanding that it is indeed final. Should you choose to accept, you may call upon us at the Blue Balrog in Falcastle. Good day to you, sieurs.”

  The gnome backed out of the inn, and the three of us laughed at our good fortune. I clapped James on the back.

  “You have a keen instinct for bullshit, my friend,” I said. “Let’s see the offer.”

  James perused the scroll. “Not too bad,” he said. “They’ve upped the percentage from five to ten. You’ll need to take a wound yourself, but that’s not a problem.”

  “Is that all?” I asked. “Phoebes, tell those two limp dicks that if the dragon will take seven percent, they’ve got a deal.”

  14

  You’ll have noticed how cocky I was. Pride goeth before the fall, however, and a guy who steps in dog shit is likely to have shit on his shoes. One week later, I rode out of Falcastle on my rented horse, tarted up like a whore on the Sabbath in my gleaming chain mail, polished cuirass, and pressed tunic. My kite shield bore my personal coat of arms, a sea drake rampant on a blue field. My oiled and sharpened battle-axe hung strapped to my back. My beard was trimmed to perfection. James and Phoebes rode at a respectful distance behind me. Tilting my visor, I waved at the few huddled villagers lining the main drag to see me off. A couple of children blew noisemakers while the old women—there were no comely maids left in town—tossed a few meager flower petals before my path. A band played desultorily. We stopped at the edge of town, where the meager crowd gathered for a half-hearted chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and then quickly dispersed. I was left staring like a fool at the scroll bearing the speech I had written that morning.

  “Is it so bloody obvious that the thing is in the bag?” I asked. “I thought these were goodhearted folk.”

  “You thought they were gullible,” said James. “What’s a little pride when you have a chance to stay in the clover?”

  “Fuck you.”

  We rode off under a sky frowning with rain for Falcastle Gorge, site of the famous Battle of Falcastle, where King Margordon II came to grief with two hundred of his men against the imp warlord Bloodboil the Black. The king and his men were buried where they fell, in the Glittering Cave at the bottom of the gorge through which the Blackguard River flowed. As the fix was in, I had no chance of joining their boney sleep—or so I thought.

  There was yet no sign of the dragon, but I was early to the show. We were supposed to tangle a little before he clawed me and I buried my axe in his underbelly, just deep enough to draw blood. As a precaution, I had quaffed the Antidote potion that Phoebes had procured for me. Dragons come in a variety of hues, and each breed boasts a terrifying breath weapon: red dragons breathe fire, black dragons spit acid, blue dragons hurl ball lightning, copper dragons ooze magma. Generally smaller than other breeds, green dragons breathe a noxious mustard gas that can melt the skin from your bones and turn your lungs into shredded wheat. Should the dragon get a little too method in its acting, the potion would counteract the worst of the effects. I
’d probably vomit, but I could blame it on the pitcher of Bloody Caesars I downed at the inn that morning.

  A cold drizzle began to fall as we traversed the wooded hills and dales leading to the proving ground. Around a bend in the trail, the gorge suddenly yawned open before us, its sides plunging steeply down into the twisting valley carved by the fog-draped Blackguard River, which wound through the gorge and into the Glittering Cave before flowing into the Beradon about twenty miles southeast. Across the valley, a few scores of peasants sat camped on Half-Moon Rock, a thin two-hundred-foot-high limestone peninsula thrust out from the opposite edge of the gorge. Some of the villagers had come out after all—which meant I would have to put on a respectable show.

  “We’ll wait for you here,” James said, handing me his flask for a parting swig. “Don’t take too long.”

  “No sweat,” I said, and spurred my horse. Descending the winding trail, I was swallowed up by the mist, which was oddly warm for such a chilly day. The air was filled with a vaguely acrid, burnt stench as if somebody had struck the world’s largest match. To either side of the trail, the flattened underbrush told of a deer herd that had fled in a hurry. No birds sang.

  And then I saw it: a crimson bulk perched on a rocky outcropping near the river. The beast raised his long scaly neck to regard me with its gleaming cat-eyes. His stinking smog-breath boiled out before him. The valley mist wasn’t mist at all—it was dragon breath. This was no green dragon, against the deadly breath of which I was safely inoculated; it was an honest-to-god, fully mature, fire-breathing red dragon, against which I had no protection at all.

  “Sold out! Motherfuckers!” I cried out. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

  “Greenoak sends his regrets,” the dragon grumbled, his voice a rumbling rockfall. “He was detained. I am called Redfang the Terrible. You will find me a suitable opponent in his stead, I trust?”

  “Is the deal still on?”

  “Alas, I fear not,” the dragon chortled. “The fight is regrettably to the death.”

  There was no running away—the beast would be upon me in a heartbeat. There was only one thing for it.

  “Then let’s rumble,” I said, and charged.

  Having never faced a dragon of any stripe before, let alone the deadliest kind, I could only default on the Guild’s textbook training. Dragons have poor peripheral vision, so avoid a direct line of attack. My big-ass kite shield would afford me some protection against the blasts of hot plasma, so long as I avoided standing near anything flammable. Once its breath had ignited, it took about two minutes for the dragon to recharge. With no chance to get near the beast’s belly, my best bet was to leap onto his back and aim blows at his neck. And if there was any to be found nearby, my best defense was—

  —water. That was it. Enveloped by the darkness of my impending death, I saw yet one small sliver of light: If I could get to the Glittering Cave, the river might absorb the worst of the flames. And if I had my history right, the cave might give me an even greater advantage.

  The dragon wasted no time on parlay. Redfang reared back, unhinged his jaw, and let fly a blazing plasma tornado. The full-throated roar was deafening. I hit the dirt and cowered under my shield, which grew red-hot in my gloved hands.

  Every bush and tree within twenty feet of me exploded into flames. When the fires subsided, I noticed my hair burning beneath my helm. I cast the helm aside, swatted down the flames, and leaped back up.

  “Try again, shitbird!” I bellowed, and then charged the beast again. The dragon rose from his perch, his great, tattered pterodactyl-wings beating the air. As Redfang soared over my head, he swung around and smote me with his great spiked tail. I flew sprawling. Axe and shield spun out of my hands.

  Rolling to my feet, I grabbed the axe. Before I could make it to the shield, the dragon landed on it—those fucking lizards don’t play by gentleman’s rules. To the dragon’s left, about a hundred chains away, lay my goal: the mouth of the Glittering Cave, into which the Blackguard flowed on its long journey underground. I sprinted toward it. If I didn’t make it inside, I was fucked.

  I risked a look over my shoulder. The dragon reared up again—and then shrieked in pain as two arrows pierced the soft wattle beneath his plated neck. Those would come from James. Then came Phoebes driving his horse over a small defile, reigns in one hand and trident held aloft in the other. As the dragon whipsawed around, Phoebes drove the trident into his side and spurred his steed away.

  Skidding to a halt, I raised my axe on high.

  “Back off!” I cried. “He’s mine!” At the sound of my voice, the dragon wheeled about. I made sure he saw me.

  “That’s right, hot pocket,” I growled. “Come and get it.”

  As the dragon took flight, Phoebes drew up his steed—good. Whoever set me up thought I stood no chance against a red dragon. Of that notion, I aimed to disabuse him.

  Plunging head-first into the river, I swam into the cavemouth dragging my axe along with its leather strap in my teeth. Behind me, the cave exploded in dragonfire. I dove deeper beneath the water’s surface, the river boiling above me, and swam close enough to the bank to find my footing and pop up again. As a defensive position, the cave was good enough; the river would presumably save me from immolation, while the low roof would keep the dragon grounded.

  And then, the turn: Fishing into my belt pouch, I whipped out the Raise Undead scroll that Amabored had so casually tossed to me lo those many years ago when we were adventuring outside Redhauke. I unrolled it and read the incantation. The parchment, made from human flesh, turned black and disintegrated in my hands.

  Around me, the cave floor rumbled. Clods of rock and dirt exploded like boils popping. Bony, decayed hands clawed out of long-silent graves. The clacking of bone on bone was maddening. Then, I was surrounded: my own skeleton army, two hundred strong, the long-dead bannermen of King Margordon II lining both banks of the river. They raised over their rotting skulls the rusted and pitted swords and shields they had last raised in doomed defense against an imp horde. Grimly eying the dragon from the dark recesses of their black eye-sockets, the army awaited my command.

  Redfang the Terrible entered the cave, smelling my blood. Gripping the haft of my axe, I stared into the lizard’s merciless eyes.

  “Bring it, bitch,” I snarled.

  15

  I could recount every dodge, parry, and thrust of my epic battle with Redfang the Terrible, but what’s the point? You know how it turned out. When I’m in a reminiscing mood, like now, I imagine how heroic I looked to the cheering onlookers when, battered and slimed black with the dragon’s blood, I staggered from the cave dragging his severed head behind me. Had the villagers known that a skeleton army turned the tide, would it have lessened their admiration? If you think it was easy cutting off that fucking beast’s head, then I invite you to tangle with one yourself.

  At the time, vanquishing Redfang the Terrible did more for my rep than any other line on my resume. I became known as a big swinging dick. Had there been any fair maidens in Falcastle, or even not-so-fair ones, I could have had my pick. Instead, all I had was the pick of my hands. Even from onanism I abstained, however, as I was obsessed over Zereth and Tarkin, those treacherous cockmonglers. Who the fuck were they? Why try to kill me, and with such an elaborate scheme? Was it Melinda? Jaspin? Maybe even Koschei himself?

  That it was my own father behind the bushwhack, driven as he was by his compulsive need to test me, to temper my steel for future rule or destroy me in the process, never occurred to me. Had it, I would have commenced promptly with the long journey back to Tradewind to cut off his head and drag it also through the streets.

  “Put the word out,” I advised Phoebes. “Anybody who locates those two assholes and brings them to me alive will win a chest of auratae and the protection of my shield.”

  “Whoever did this, they kind of did you a favor,” James said. “Get yourself an agent and make some hay out of it. You might pay for your keep from sp
onsorships alone.”

  And so, I did. After receiving my Lordship along with a commemorative Tenth-Level staff, I purchased a plot of land on credit near Stallion Rock, a horse-head-shaped granite hillock on the Kenwood frontier. Pledging vassaldom to Princess Arianna’s father, King Argentine III, I hired a contractor, and within a year was toasting the King’s health at a grand fete in my new castle, which I dubbed Redfang Keep. The dragon’s head I stuffed and mounted over the fireplace. When I was off campaigning, Phoebes, now ensconced as my steward, would charge the locals admission to look at it. He also made a mint selling off the scales, the teeth, the organs, and anything else that any superstitious twit was convinced would bring good health or make his prick hard.

  That year was the eye of the hurricane, one of those verdant periods in life when you can almost convince yourself that the good times are here to stay. I longed to share my good fortune with Cassie, who was back in Collanna defending the family estate in the wake of her father’s death at the hands of the Plague Knights. Since the fall of Helene, the Chaos Hordes had fallen quiet; other than skirmishes along the frontier between what remained of the Free Kingdoms and the lands that Koschei had once again enslaved, we could almost be forgiven for shirking the Quest to concentrate on leveling up. Complacency is an evil curse; it creeps up on you, diverts your attention to the trivial, and wraps a layer of fat around your heart. Cassie wasn’t complacent, and her bitterness at my own lack of urgency became a wall between us. She wanted to love me, but I made it so fucking hard on her that she didn’t dare—until I breached that wall, and I made her mine.