by Sean Gibson
Rummy assumed the latter, and gestured to his water canteen. Nadi shook her head, but Rummy silently insisted. Nadi gritted her teeth and flapped her arms more emphatically. This confused Whiska, who grew concerned that Nadi had seen an owl (Ratarians hate owls, whom they view as blood enemies and try to kill at every possible opportunity). She growled softly and twisted her hands in opposite directions to suggest strangling an owl. Nadi shook her head again and tried her fire breathing bit one more time, but this just caused Rummy to reach into his pack for a little bit of bread he had squirreled away at some point and push it into her hands in the hopes that it would alleviate what he assumed was a burning sensation in her mouth from eating a hot pepper.
Whiska, of course, misinterpreted this to mean that Rummy hoped to lure in the owls with the bread and wagged her finger at him before pantomiming a little mouse crawling across her hand, which would prove much more effective in luring the owl in close so she could strangle it. Rummy thought that perhaps Whiska was suggesting they could dance their way past the dragon, so he pointed to his left foot and held up one finger and then a second to suggest that he had two left feet and that his effectiveness would be limited if the group chose that approach. Whiska, in turn, assumed that Rummy wanted to stomp on the mice (not once, but twice to make sure they were dead), which caused her to shake her head in vigorous disagreement, as she knew that owls would not take as great an interest in dead mice as they would live ones. She pointed at Rummy’s foot, shook her head again, and then made her mice crawling motion again, the fingers on her right hand skittering across the palm of her left hand even more excitedly than before.
At that moment, Borg stepped forward and held us his hand to stop the silent dialogue between Whiska and Rummy. Nadi nodded, relieved that someone else had stepped in to end the confusion. Borg looked slowly and deliberately at everyone in turn before pointing to his stomach and then rubbing it vigorously. He then mimed shoveling food into his mouth before patting his stomach contentedly.
Apparently, Borg was hungry, and the moral of the story is that hand gestures can be confusing.
Nadi somehow managed to slap her hand over her eyes without making a sound.
She pointed down the tunnel and motioned for everyone to move. After about a hundred yards, she pulled everyone in close (none too gently, I might add) and whispered, “The entrance to the dragon’s cavern is just up ahead. It’s sleeping, as you might have guessed from the snores. We go in hard and we go in fast.” She looked at Whiska. “What’s the strongest thing you’ve got?”
“Fireball,” replied Whiska far too loudly, causing Nadi to flap her arms and start hissing. “But, I don’t think that’s going to do much good against the dragon.”
“What’s the strongest thing you’ve got that might hurt the dragon?” Nadi asked pointedly.
Whiska scratched her chin. “Probably a lightning bolt. Yeah, I bet that’ll light that oversized iguana up like a St. Chaffin’s day kindlesparker.”
“Good.” Nadi turned to Borg. “Can you get out in front so that, when the dragon wakes up, you’re in position to give it a good whack?”
Borg nodded (eventually).
“What about me, Nadi?” asked Rummy, looking nervous.
“You should…hmmm. Good question. Whiska—do you have any of those healing potions left?”
Whiska looked sidelong at Nadi. “One.”
“Good—give it to Rummy.” She looked at Rummy. “Stay on the perimeter of the battle and jump in to give it to whoever might need it the most. It’s likely that we’re all going to get hurt, so use your best judgment.”
Whiska nodded as though Nadi had just confirmed her deepest, darkest suspicion. “I knew it—I knew it! You want me out of the way! You want my cut of the treasure for yourself, you honey-tressed trollop! Well, you won’t get it—it’s mine. Mine! I’ll kill the dragon myself if I have to! Why, I’ll—”
“Are you done yet?” asked Nadi coolly.
“No one’s trying to take your share of the treasure, you festering, flea-ridden farce,” I said, deciding it was high time someone put Whiska in her place. “Though if you want to kill the dragon by yourself, I think we’re all in favor of that.”
“If you mention fleas one more time…”
“You’ll do what?” I got right up in Whiska’s face.
“Turn you into cockroach jelly.” Whiska sounded deadly serious.
“Okay, fine—I won’t mention fl…those things again,” I replied. I really didn’t like the idea of becoming any more gelatinous than I already was. “But, come on—if you don’t trust everyone in this group by now, you’re not going to, and you might as well leave. This is it, Whiska—the end of the grand adventure. When you walk into that cavern, you’re either walking into legend or into a coffin.”
“That’s a rather less cheery view of it than I’d like to take,” said Rummy.
“Quiet,” I said before turning back to Whiska. “You need to make a choice right here and right now—you either trust that no matter what happens in there, Nadi, Rummy, Borg, and I have your back, or else you walk away and find your own way out. Because we’re all in this together, and I can tell you that no matter what danger you’re in, I’ll put myself in harm’s way to try to get you out of it—even if your mangy carcass is infested with tiny bugs that suck your blood and make you itch.” Well, at least I obeyed the letter of the law.
Nadi put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a grateful squeeze. Whiska sighed, reached into a belt pouch, and withdrew a small vial, which she handed to Rummy. “Here,” she grumbled. “Don’t waste it. Make sure someone’s actually dying before you give it to them.”
“Thank you,” said Rummy, tucking the vial into the front compartment on his own belt pouch (which, incidentally, looked like what’s colloquially known in certain parts of Erithea as a “fanny pack,” and I should note that fanny packs are generally considered the purview of a class of mothers who have utterly given up on trying to impress anyone and fathers who had never once impressed anyone, though it looked pretty good on Rummy). He pointed to it. “Everyone knows where it is, so if I get turned into dragon flambé, make sure you get it back so you can put it to good use. Oh, and if that does happen, and any of you make it out alive, please tell my daughter that I died a good death. You can lie if you need to. And tell her that I love her.”
“I love…cockroach jelly…on toast,” said Borg.
“Your what?” asked Nadi, eyes going wide.
Rummy shrugged sheepishly. “My daughter. Have I not mentioned her?”
“Does this look like the expression of someone who is hearing something she has heard many times before?” asked Nadi, pointing toward the aforementioned wide eyes.
“So, no,” replied Rummy. “I suppose maybe I haven’t.”
“Why, exactly, did you choose not to mention this little fact previously?” I asked.
“Well, this is the first time I’ve felt truly imminent death,” answered Rummy. “It didn’t seem relevant absent those circumstances.”
“What did you do, pay a goblin to let you do the creaky accordion to her?” asked Whiska.
“No, no payments changed hands,” replied Rummy, unruffled. “She was fully complicit.”
“…but it was a goblin?” asked Nadi tentatively.
“Yes.”
“Oh. That’s…well, that’s interesting,” said Nadi.
“I’m kidding,” said Rummy.
“It wasn’t a goblin?”
“No, I don’t have a daughter. Do you honestly think any self-respecting woman of any race would have relations with me? I don’t even think the non-self-respecting ones would want to. I’m not really interested in that anyway. Besides, I’d be a terribly indulgent father. Probably annoying, though, too, what with all the prestidigitating.”
“So, there’s been absolutely no point to the conversation we’ve had for the past five minutes while we’re in earshot of a sleeping, and presumably very deadly,
dragon?” I asked.
“I suppose not, no,” said Rummy agreeably.
Nadi bit down on the hilt of her sword in an effort not to scream in frustration. A moment later, after she had mastered her emotions, she beckoned for us to follow her. She held her sword at the ready, which suggested that she was either prepared to take on the dragon or ready to cut off the head of the next member of our group who delayed our progress any further. I decided not to delay things any further.
There’s a moment before you go into a dangerous situation—a dragon’s lair, a wizard’s tower, the annual nuptial dress sale at Cataflan’s Millinery—alongside a group of trusted companions where you almost feel giddy, like laughter is the only way to release the immense anxiety that’s built up over what you’re about to do. (Vomit and diarrhea are alternatives, of course, but messy ones, and they don’t make for a cute footnote, so we’ll just say that we all got the giggles before we went into the dragon’s lair, even if we all know what Borg was doing instead, though I’m not sure that had anything to do with nerves or anxiousness and everything to do with his ridiculously overactive bowels and terrible dietary decisions.)
Once the laughter had subsided, Nadi led us into the lair, where I paused for a moment to take in the scene. The dragon lay before us, snoring contentedly, little spurts of flame snorting out with each breath. A massive treasure hoard surrounded the beast. Gold, silver, jewels, swords, armor, shields, statues, jewelry, and, inexplicably, a huge pile of carrots were scattered across the room, heaped haphazardly here and there—including beneath the dragon, where rested a pretty significant portion of the treasure.
Rummy couldn’t help but let out a low whistle, which brought swift retribution from Nadi in the form of a hand slapped over his mouth with considerably more force than was necessary.
We froze as the dragon snorted, inadvertently immolating a small, purple vase near its left nostril and melting more gold coins than I’d seen in the past year. Fortunately for us, the dragon didn’t wake, and Nadi very reluctantly withdrew her hand, though the glare she fixed on Rummy served as a pointed reminder for him to mind his breaking-and-entering-a-dragon’s-lair P’s and Q’s.
I breathed out a long, slow (but silent) sigh of relief.
Whiska could barely control herself. Her eyes looked like carriage wheels, immense and round and driven to arrive at the destination before her. I tried to stop her, but half-hearted silent entreaties, it turns out, are pretty ineffective when it comes to stopping really avaricious Ratarians from getting closer to treasure.
Nadi moved to intervene, but she saw the wild look in Whiska’s eyes, and, instead of trying to stop her, simply mouthed, “The plan.”
I nodded and grabbed Rummy, pulling him back toward the perimeter and clearing the way for Borg to get closer to the dragon. Nadi held her sword at the ready and waited for Whiska to look at her, which took a while, given that she spent several minutes gazing lustily at the treasure. Finally, through sheer chance, she made eye contact with Nadi, who pointed toward the dragon, started to gesture for Whiska to cast her lightning bolt spell, realized that her gesture might be misinterpreted and result in a lengthy dissection of what she may or may not have meant and ultimately lead to the dragon waking up and eating all of us before we could even start to fight it, and decided instead to just nod with her chin toward the dragon and hope Whiska could figure it out.
Fortunately, Whiska figured it out. With one last, longing look at the treasure, she set her staff down on the ground so that it leaned against her, pushed the sleeves of her robe up her skinny arms (they promptly fell right back down), stretched her fingers, picked her staff back up, and began to chant very quietly, raising the staff as she neared the end of the incantation.
Just before Whiska finished, Nadi raced forward and struck the dragon across the snout with her blade. The blow didn’t do a ton of damage (though it did open up a nice gash), but it did serve to make the dragon pick its head up and blink, trying to clear the sleep from its eyes. Its head swiveled toward Whiska just as she unleashed her spell.
I’ll say this for Whiska: she may be rude, boorish, greedy, selfish, insufferable, and smell like a three-day-old piece of rotfish, and she may not have the most extensive magical training, and she is not good at creating decent clothing, and she does this annoying clicking thing with her teeth when she’s eating, and she never picks up a bar tab, and orange is her favorite color, which is just weird, but when she wants to do damage to something, she doesn’t mess around. Her lightning bolt hit the dragon square in the face, and the beast’s head shot up into the air and snapped back so hard I thought its neck might break.
In case you’re wondering, hearing a full-throated dragon’s roar in a relatively small cavern where the sound can bounce and echo and reverberate is not good for your ears (particularly if you have sensitive part-elven ears, which tend to bleed under those circumstances in my experience).
On the plus side, we had the advantage, and we pressed it. Nadi rushed back in and redoubled her efforts, striking hard on the dragon’s soft underbelly. Borg waded in and smashed his club into the dragon’s left foreleg, though I think his attack produced more sound than it did damage. Even Rummy got into the act, picking up a fist-sized rock and flinging it with expert aim toward the dragon’s snout, bouncing it off the upper part of its right nostril. I stood heroically off to the side, observing and recording the story of these brave heroes (mainly because I knew that my tiny knife couldn’t do much harm to the dragon, and, even if it could, I had no intention of getting close enough to it to even give it a shot).
Even though we had the element of surprise and drew first blood, we were still fighting a dragon, and those things are big. Also, tough, and, in this case, incredibly angry.
The dragon’s neck swiveled to the right as its head swooped back down, its gaping maw open wide to reveal row upon row of massive (albeit strangely rounded) teeth. It snapped at Borg but missed, though it did manage to bash its lower jaw into him, sending him crashing hard into the closest wall. It then turned its attention to Nadi, who danced backward and frantically tried to parry tooth with sword.
To my surprise, Whiska raced over to Borg and knelt beside him. She patted him gently on the shoulder as she leaned down and said something into his ear. He nodded, and she slipped her hand underneath his arm and helped him to his feet. It was easily the nicest, most tender thing I’d ever seen her do.
As the dragon inhaled, however, I suspected it might also be the last thing I ever saw her do, period, because I was about to become a barbecued half-elf kabob.
Borg heroically raced (well, insomuch as Borg can race…but “heroically ambled” just doesn’t quite create the level of dramatic tension we’re going for) right into the path of the flame, hoping to shield us as much as possible with his body, even though I’m pretty sure fire melts rocks, too. He stood tall, even as Rummy ducked and cowered like a rented mule (okay, so, he may not have been alone in doing so). I covered my face, but kept my fingers spread just wide enough to bear witness to Borg’s immolation, figuring that I could literally do nothing less to help him than to play the role of silent observer—and, subsequently, incredibly beautiful chronicler of his life, assuming I didn’t suffer the same fate.
It turned out, though, that Borg flambé wasn’t on the menu. Instead of unleashing a rock-melting stream of flames, the dragon started coughing and sputtering, falling back on its haunches and bracing itself against the wall with its front legs as it hacked, spat, and generally made the kind of sounds a cat makes a few hours after it eats a fluffmouse. After several moments of this (and watching it cough up what looked like fiery phlegm), Borg walked over to the dragon, put a comforting hand on its haunch, and patted it gently. “Are you…all right?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned that the creature who had just tried to turn him into char might be suffering from a case of the coughs.
The dragon hacked a few more times, sniffled mightily (sucking back in a fairly le
ngthy stand of orange, flaming snot, I might add), and nodded. “Yes,” it said hoarsely. It cleared its throat. “Yes,” it said again. It coughed softly. “I think I’m better now. Thank you for asking.” Its voice was surprisingly soft, deep and resonant, and I found myself thinking that he would make a great bard…
Well, except for the fact that he’d probably eat his audience.
The dragon pawed at its nose, sniffed again, and looked at us, blinking repeatedly to clear the smoke that lingered around its face.
(Side note: would we call a dragon’s feet “paws”? I don’t know if you’d call dragon feet “paws.” Hooves? I don’t know what the actual term should be. They’re definitely not hands, and not small—not in the slightest.)
“Well,” said the dragon, “what do we do now?”
“I’m pretty sure this is the part where you try to eat us,” replied Nadi. She raised her sword. “But don’t expect us to go down easy.”
“Yeah! We’re not Flendarian courtesans!” yelled Whiska, raising her staff.
“Why would I eat you?” returned the dragon, disgusted. “Are your pockets lined with lettuce? Are you filled with radishes? Are your feet made of sweet potatoes?” It licked its lips hungrily. “Are they?”
“Um…no,” replied Nadi, clearly confused.
“In fact,” added Rummy, “not a single one of any of our body parts is made of vegetables.” He paused and cocked his head. “In fact, I don’t think that any of us has eaten a vegetable in a week.”
“Oh,” said the dragon, disappointed. “I guess I’ll just kill you with fire, then, seeing as how I wouldn’t particularly enjoy eating you.”
“I don’t…like vegetables,” said Borg.
“That’s ridiculous!” roared the dragon, tipping its head back and waving dismissively with its right front leg (paw?). “How can you not like vegetables?” It shook its head and focused on Borg. “I like you—you’re polite—but you’ve got terrible taste.”
