Digory the Dragon Slayer

by Angela McAllister

  At last the night air grew so chilly that Digory had to get up and walk around. He pulled Enid’s portrait out of his saddlebag. It must have been freshly painted when she gave it to him because it was very badly smudged now, but the sight of her smudgy face and hedgehog hair made him feel braver, so he tucked it inside his armor for luck. Barley walked over and nuzzled Digory’s ear as if she knew something was going to happen, as if she wanted to give him a little bit of encouragement, too.

  “Good-bye, my friend,” said Digory. “I don’t think I’ll return from this adventure. If I am not back by morning, you must go home to Batty-by-Noodle without me.”

  However, if Barley really could read Digory’s lips, she paid attention only to the last few words and, turning clumsily around, walked off with a snort into the night.

  Poor Digory was left to face the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath alone. He wanted his lute, he wanted his friend Enid, he wanted his mother. He would even have been pleased to see his sister, Ethelburg, at that moment. She’d be a good match for a dragon. But there really was no turning back this time. Digory lit a torch, gripped the hilt of Burdock’s magic sword, and slowly stepped inside the cave.

  Chapter Five

  The Fate Awaits

  The dragon’s cave was horribly cold and clammy.

  This must be shiverous, thought Digory, and I don’t like it! He also didn’t like the tummy-churning stench of rotten meat and the spooky echo of water dripping in deep, dark caverns.

  Digory held the torch before him and stepped slowly through the winding tunnel. With each step he knew he was closer to the dragon, and farther away from escape. The tunnel sloped down and then opened out into a chamber as large as King Widget’s banquet hall. This must be where the dragon devours his prey, Digory thought nervously. But there weren’t any bones to be seen—just a heap of colorful stuff lying by a rock. When Digory looked closer he discovered it was a pile of maidens’ cloaks and jewelry, shoes, and crowns. He went weak at the knees.

  “This is only his closet,” he said with a shudder. “And I don’t think any of these guests will be leaving!”

  Suddenly, a sharp draft blew through a crevice in the rock and put out his torch! Digory stood very still. All around him there was darkness, and somewhere ahead of him was darkness with a dragon in it, or maybe two.

  His bravery fizzled out like the flame.

  “No one can be expected to fight a d-d-dragon in the d-d-dark,” he said to himself, trying to stay calm. “No one could complain if I t-t-turned around now and went b-b-back.”

  But which was the way b-b-back? Digory crawled around on the knees of his tin suit, trying to find the tunnel entrance. When he reached a cave wall, he stood up and took a few steps forward. It felt like the tunnel b-b-back, but it was really …

  The Tunnel to the D-D-Dragon’s Lair!

  As Digory stumbled blindly through the cave, the rotten smell grew stronger and a clatter of small rocks fell in front of him. Just as he was starting to suspect this was not the tunnel b-b-back after all, a terrifying snort sent more rocks tumbling at his feet. The jaw-gripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragon must be there in the darkness ahead—but where?

  Poor Digory was petrified. He shuddered and shook until his armor rattled like a peddler’s cart. The sound filled the cave with a deafening echo.

  Then the dragon spoke.

  “WHAT GREAT ARMY OF KNIGHTS COMES TO MY CAVE?” his deep voice boomed.

  In an instant, Digory realized that the dragon could not see him in the dark. He shook his tin leggings, and sure enough they sounded like a hundred knights shuffling impatiently. Digory felt a little braver. “If only I can fool this dragon,” he said to himself, “I might have a chance to escape.”

  So he took a deep breath and imagined he was Ethelburg playing pretend.

  “I am Sir Digory the Dragon Slayer,” he shouted sternly, “and I come here with my army to slay the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath, and … um … anyone else who crosses my path.”

  The dragon was silent. Digory heard the scratching and scuffling of clawed feet.

  “WHY SHOULD I BE AFRAID OF YOU, SIR DIGORY? THESE JAWS OF MINE HAVE SNAPPED OFF THE HEADS OF A THOUSAND KNIGHTS.”

  Digory swallowed hard. He tried with all his might to imagine that there were a thousand knights behind him.

  “You should be afraid, dragon,” he replied, “because these are the fiercest knights in the land.” He rattled his armor for effect. “One of them slayed the Great King Troll, and another killed a two-headed sea serpent with his bare hands.” Digory was quite pleased with this. Making up stories was just like making up songs.

  The dragon grunted, as if deciding whether to believe him or not. But Digory was just beginning to enjoy himself. He found it easy to imagine things in the dark.

  “All my knights carry magic swords,” he continued. “They can change any creature to stone with just one strike. I, myself, have slain one hundred mountain lions with a slingshot while wrestling with the Ferocious Four-Fanged Beast of Batty Woods, single-handed.”

  Now Digory was really feeling the part. He slapped his thigh with his hand and it made a deafening clatter.

  “WELL, I HAVE THE BONES OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND KNIGHTS FOR MY BED,” boasted the dragon. “MY NOSE IS AS KEEN AS THE WIND, AND MY EYES ARE SHARPER THAN THE EYES OF AN EAGLE. MY CLAWS CAN RIP DOWN CASTLE WALLS, AND MY LONG TONGUE MAY PICK A JUICY MAIDEN FROM HER BED. AND WHEN I HAVE DEVOURED MY FILL, I DRINK THE FIRE OF VOLCANOES FOR MY THIRST.”

  But this did not frighten Digory, now standing proudly at the head of a great army.

  “Ha! What good are your eagle eyes against a wizard’s spell?” he jeered. “I have twenty wizards in my army who will make gruesome spirits appear before your eyes and tie your tongue into a knot that may never be undone. At my command they will turn your claws into ribbons and your nose into a pumpkin.”

  “BUT I HAVE SET FIRE TO GREAT FORESTS WITH MY BREATH!” bellowed the dragon.

  Digory the Invincible laughed. “And I have the teeth of a hundred dragons on my helmet!”

  As he listened to the booming echo of his own words, Digory felt as fearless as a true knight. He drew Burdock’s sword from its scabbard and the sound of a hundred swords drawn echoed through the cave.

  But as Digory took one step forward into the darkness, he heard a small, whimpering snivel.

  “Oh, please don’t hurt me. I’m only small, really,” sobbed a trembling voice. “I haven’t been telling the truth. I can’t really tear down castle walls with my claws. I’ve never even seen a castle. In fact, I’m still so young that my claws aren’t even grown yet.”

  Digory, who’d worked himself up into a great state of heroic chivalrousness, felt suddenly disappointed.

  “You mean you aren’t a jaw-gripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragon after all?” he said in amazement.

  “Oh, no, Sire,” sniveled the dragon. “The jaw-gripping, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty one is Horrible Gnasher, my father. This evening we set off on my first hunting trip, but I got lost in the woods. I found my way home, and now I’m waiting for him to return. He’s going to be so angry when he gets back. He’ll be really mad. Really, horribly, blood-spittingly, bone-gnashingly furious.”

  Digory heard the little dragon sniff his tears away and suddenly felt ashamed of himself. His father had always brought him up to tell the truth, and here he was telling dragon-sized lies in order to trick a poor creature who’d never done him any harm.

  “Quick,” cried the dragon in a trembling voice, “I can hear my father’s great wings beating over the woods. You’d better flee with your army of knights before he scorches you all to cinders!”

  Digory didn’t need to think twice about the dragon’s advice. “Thank you for your warning,” he said. “I shall go, but first I must tell you that I haven’t been telling the truth either. I’m not really big and fierce,” he sa
id. “I’m just one boy alone, who doesn’t know how to slay a sausage. My army of knights was only an echo. I’m very sorry that I frightened you.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel much better,” said the dragon, sounding happier. “I’m not afraid now that I know that you are only one boy, alone.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Let me give you some light to help you on your way …”

  Suddenly, there was a deafening roar, and a jet of flame shot across the cave, lighting Digory’s torch and revealing not a small, trembling little dragon but AN ENORMOUS JAW-GRIPPING, FLESH-RIPPING, BONE-CRUNCHING, SNOUT-SNARLING, BLOODTHIRSTY DRAGON AFTER ALL!

  HEEEEEEEEELLLLLP!

  “TRIED TO TRICK ME, EH?” snarled the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath, rolling his red eyes.

  “Well, you tried to t-t-trick me t-t-too,” stuttered Digory, horrified.

  “YES, BUT I TRICKED YOU BETTER!” the dragon replied with a nasty, drooling smile. “AND NOW ALL THIS TRICKING HAS MADE ME HUNGRY, SO I’M GOING TO GNAW THE FLESH OFF YOUR SKINNY BONES FOR BREAKFAST.”

  Digory suddenly remembered to be terrified. His hair stood on end, his teeth chattered, his knees knocked, his blood ran cold, and his legs turned to jelly. This was it. This was shiverousness and Digory knew it was going to be the last feeling he would ever have.

  The dragon crept slowly toward Digory, like a cat ready to pounce …

  Digory had one thought. Would it be better to blow out the light and be gobbled up in the dark, or to start running away and be gobbled up from behind?

  Gnasher stopped close enough for Digory to feel the heat from his charred nostrils and smell his rotten breath. The dragon eyed him up and down.

  “I ALWAYS PREFER MY LITTLE TIDBITS PEELED,” he said with a gruesome grin. “I FIND ARMOR SOMETIMES STICKS IN THE THROAT. WILL YOU REMOVE IT, OR SHALL I?”

  Digory began to pull off his gloves obediently, when the dragon opened his mouth to lick his lips. With amazement, Digory saw that the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath had no teeth! There, inside his gruesome snout, was a pair of gums as pink as a baby’s bottom!

  Digory couldn’t help himself—he started to giggle! His fear of being crunched and chewed by razor-sharp fangs suddenly dissolved into uncontrollable laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed until he got the hiccups.

  “Who’s afraid of being sucked to death by a toothless … hic… dragon!” he chortled.

  “Who’s afraid of a … toothless dragon!” echoed a hundred sneering voices out of the darkness.

  The Horrible Gnasher was completely taken aback. No one had ever laughed at him before. He shrank against the wall of the cave, confused for a moment.

  In an instant, Digory saw his chance. With a flourish he drew Burdock’s sword once more and sliced the air like a true knight.

  “Stay back, toothless dragon!” he cried. “This is a magic sword, and I shall turn you into a lizard!”

  The dragon didn’t want to be turned into a teeny, tiny, slimy thing that scrambled around in a pond. He swung about with a whip-crack of his tail and roared away down a dark passage, cursing and hissing foul-smelling steam.

  Who Wants a Chance to Escape?

  At this point, of course, you or I would have turned tail and run in the opposite direction as fast as our tin boots could carry us. But Digory was actually beginning to act like a true knight. In fact, Digory was growing into a truer knight with every moment he spent in the Horrible Gnasher’s cave, although he didn’t notice this himself. Digory didn’t think twice. He chased after the dragon, brandishing Burdock’s sword along the dark, winding tunnel.

  Suddenly, there was an earsplitting avalanche of rocks ahead and billows of dust shot back along the passage. The dragon’s roaring had shaken down a rockslide and blocked its escape.

  Digory stumbled blindly forward, coughing and spluttering, until he found himself face to face once again with the Horrible Gnasher. The trapped dragon turned and reared angrily. Sparks and cinders sputtered from his flaring nostrils. Digory raised the magic sword high above his head.

  “I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO SLAY A SAUSAGE,” hissed the dragon. “YOU LIED AGAIN, DIDN’T YOU?”

  Digory trembled uncomfortably for a moment, but he wasn’t going to be tricked again. If he delayed using the magic sword, the dragon would surely roast him with its flaming breath, like a miserable sliver of bacon.

  “I’m not going to slay you,” he shouted through the smoke and dust. “I’m just going to turn you into a lizard so that you’ll never be able to devour anybody again.”

  “BUT SOMETHING MIGHT DEVOUR ME!” exclaimed the dragon, and with a terrible roar he drew a deep breath to ignite the flame in his throat.

  Digory’s chance was running out. He pointed the sword toward Gnasher’s head but, to his horror, he realized he didn’t know what to do next.

  “Burdock never told me the magic words!” he gasped.

  “BURDOCK?” said Gnasher in surprise, suddenly coughing out his flame. “BURDOCK—A SNIVELLING RAT IN A TATTERED BLACK CLOAK GAVE YOU THAT SWORD?”

  “Um … yes,” replied Digory, sensing in an instant that things were about to take a jaw-gripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty turn for the worse. “Burdock the Wizard gave me this magic sword and n-now I shall turn you into a l-l-lizard!”

  “WELL, IF THAT IS BURDOCK’S SWORD, THEN THERE’S MORE MAGIC IN MY ELBOW!” laughed the Horrible Gnasher and, with a flick of his tail, he flung the sword out of Digory’s hand and back along the passage. “YOUR BURDOCK IS NOTHING MORE THAN A COMMON THIEF AND TRICKSTER,” he gloated triumphantly.

  “But he told my fortune,” protested Digory (believing in his heart that the dragon was unfortunately telling the truth). “Burdock knew who I was and what I had come to do.”

  Hearing this, the dragon narrowed his eyes and slowly stretched his front foot toward Digory, with one hooked claw extended.

  Digory froze into a statue of shiverousness.

  “ANYONE COULD TELL YOUR FORTUNE, SIR DIGORY.” Gnasher smiled widely and gently pulled the label on Digory’s back around to his chest. There were the words “Sir Digory the Dragon Slayer” telling all.

  Digory’s heart dropped with a thud into his boots. So that was how Burdock knew Digory had been struck twice by a sword but not wounded—from the knighting ceremony. And that is how he knew why Digory had come to the forest!

  “AND I SUPPOSE HE TOOK SOMETHING FROM YOU AS WELL?” The dragon obviously knew all about the tricks of Burdock’s trade.

  Digory remembered his precious lute, and he felt as glum as cold pudding.

  “WELL, NOW I AM GOING TO TAKE SOMETHING FROM YOU TOO, SIR DIGORY THE DRAGON SLAYER—I SHALL HAVE YOUR SCRAWNY FLESH FROM YOUR GRISTLY BONES!” And the dragon picked up Digory by his breeches with one claw and carried him back down the passage to the great chamber. As Digory swung from Gnasher’s grasp, he spotted Burdock’s sword among the rocks and with a swipe picked it up.

  This may not be magic, he thought miserably to himself, but I expect a proper knight is always gobbled up with his sword.

  The Trouble with Teeth

  Now, although Digory had felt suspicious of Burdock from the first moment they met by the bush, he had somehow trusted the Wizard’s words. I hear music, I hear laughter. You’ll live happily ever after. But here, in his darkest hour, not even a trickster’s promise could comfort him.

  Gnasher carried Digory to the corner of the great chamber and dropped him onto an enormous bed of bones. Digory shuddered. His feet rested on a huge rib cage, and a hollow-eyed skull stared up at his elbow.

  “NOW, WHERE WERE WE? AH YES, YOU WERE REMOVING THAT ARMOR,” snapped the dragon, licking his scorched lips. “HELMETS ALWAYS STICK IN MY GUMS.”

  Digory did what he was told. He had no bravery left and no more shiverousness. He felt so beaten that he didn’t care whether the dragon ate him from the back or the front or tossed him up in the air and swallowed him whole. He t
ook off the helmet, with the tooth Betsy had so proudly welded on the top, and laid it beside him on the bones. As the dragon watched closely, Digory spotted something in the pile. He reached out and picked up a huge, white thing that was almost as big as the helmet itself.

  “THAT WAS THE LAST TOOTH TO GO,” the dragon sighed. “I CHEWED TOO MANY MAIDENS WEARING BRACELETS AND CROWNS. I WAS TOO IMPATIENT. THAT WAS THE PROBLEM.”

  Digory looked at the tooth on his helmet. Then he looked at the real dragon’s tooth beside it. What a fool he’d been to mistake one for the other.

  The dragon suddenly became impatient again and began to pace up and down.

  “HURRY UP THERE, BOY. I MAY NOT HAVE ANY TEETH, BUT I SHALL SNAP YOUR THIN BRITTLE BONES WITH MY TONGUE IN AN INSTANT.”

  Digory pulled off his last boot and the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath opened his foul-smelling jaws.

  “Good-bye, sweet Enid!” Digory cried out and shut his eyes …

  … but nothing happened.

  Digory kept his eyes shut. He was so afraid that he wouldn’t have opened them for a thousand gold coins. Still nothing happened. “This torture is even worse than being gobbled!” he squirmed.

  A Fate Worse Than Death?

  At last the Horrible Gnasher spoke.

  “SWEET ENID, DID YOU SAY? IS SHE A MAIDEN? IS SHE REALLY SWEET?”

  Digory couldn’t believe his ears.

  “She’s a princess. She’s my f-f-friend,” he blurted, opening one eye a crack.

  “AH, SO SHE’S A PRINCESS INDEED! MMM … PRINCESSES ARE ALWAYS SWEET—EVEN THE HUFFY ONES.”

  “She isn’t huffy at all!” cried Digory.

  “GOOD!” said the dragon. “LET’S GO AND EAT HER ANYWAY. I HAVEN’T HAD A JUICY PRINCESS FOR A MONTH.” And he turned tail and began to hurry down the passage toward the cave entrance. “I’LL SPARE YOUR SCRAWNY BONES WHILE YOU LEAD ME TO HER CASTLE,” he called out hurriedly behind him. “COME ALONG. ARE WE HEADING NORTH OR SOUTH, EH?”