by Lisa Cach
He hefted the stomach like a shot-put, holding it in his palm beside his head. He squinted down at Belch, taking aim, then with a heave lobbed it into the air. The mistress pressed up beside him at the rail, watching as the gory bag arced through the steamy air, then went down, down… .
It hit Belch on the side of his snout with a plurp, then plurped once more onto the ground. It began to leak, a trail of purplish red oozing onto the stone.
They waited.
“Maybe he’s not hungry,” the mistress said.
“A bellyful of sheep shouldn’t stop him from such a treat as that. It’s not my French toast, granted, but what dragon could pass up a meal made by you? Or does he suspect you of drugging him? Have you done it before?” He grinned at her.
“Just because you got sick—”
His grin faltered. “How did you know I was sick?”
“I …”
“Did you sneak into my room?” he asked. His grin came back, stretching wide. Was it possible? “You did, didn’t you?”
“No. Why should I do such a thing? You looked pasty this morning, is all. And a bit sweaty at supper.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I am not lying!” she squeaked.
He leaned close to her. “Hey, I’m glad you came to check on me. I was afraid you didn’t care.”
“I don’t. I wasn’t there.”
“Oh.” He made a disappointed face, as if he believed her. Perhaps he almost did: She wouldn’t really have done what he remembered, would she? “Then the beautiful woman I saw must truly have been a dream.”
He sighed and cast a sidelong glance at her to see if she was taking the bait. Not that he could tell, given that damn hood, which had slipped back into place. She held a certain stillness, though, a certain angle to her head that told him she was listening.
“What did—” she began.
Below Belch jerked his head, snapped up the dragon treat they’d lobbed down to him between his jaws, tilted his head back, and gulped it down. All three motions were accomplished in a matter of moments.
“Holy moley, did you see that?” George burst out, leaning out over the rail. “Hell’s bells, and to think I almost went down there!” He felt a nervous sweat break out along his skin.
Just noise and flash, he told himself. Noise and flash, nothing more. He hoped.
The mistress was silent.
He turned to her. “I owe you one.”
She shifted her weight and crossed her arms over her stomach, holding herself. “Owe me one what?”
“One favor. For saving my life.”
She didn’t answer.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Of course not. Why?”
He shrugged, still watching her. She uncrossed her arms and started picking at a fingernail, scraping out a bit of dried blood from underneath.
“I think the powder should take at least an hour to work,” she finally said. “If it works.”
“You think it might not?”
She shrugged.
He would say she was acting peculiar, except everything she did had an air of secrecy and peculiarity to it. She was one hell of a repressed, mysterious chick.
George paused. They always said the quiet ones were the wildest in bed. He wondered what fantasies traipsed through her mind in the black hours of the night.
“Tell me about this dream woman,” she said at last, breaking the silence.
So that was it. She had been fighting against her curiosity.
“I shouldn’t say. It’s not a fit description to give to a nun, being filled as it is with lustful imaginings.”
“Lustful imaginings?”
“They’re indecent.” He waited, trying to keep a straight face.
“I do not think I would be offended … if you wish to tell me.”
“They would appall you.”
“I am of stronger stuff than you think,” she insisted.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“If you’re sure …” He leaned back against the rail and looked up at the cavern ceiling, his voice taking on a wistful tone. “She was like an angel from the darkness, come to comfort me. I could see nothing of her at first—I could only hear her soft voice and feel her gentle touch on my forehead.” He lowered his gaze. “But then she bent down and I felt her lips on my own.”
The hood jerked toward him. “She kissed you?”
“I told you it wasn’t fit for pure ears. I should stop here.”
“No, no. Tell me more.”
He raised a brow as if in question, playing her as he would play the audience at a CUW event. No one was safe from the Saint! She didn’t know what she was up against, the poor sheltered creature.
Or was he the one who didn’t know? That fierce look he had seen in her eyes gave him pause.
“Her lips tasted like honey. All my chills and pains faded away. I was grateful for her presence, and then she went even further, taking me to a heaven such as few men have known here on earth.”
“Heaven? How so? What did she do?”
“She opened her robe, and she was naked beneath. Such breasts! Round and high, and nipples like … like … cherry pits.”
“Ugh!”
“Not ‘ugh’! Hard, delicious cherry pits, pink from the flesh of the fruit.”
“As if the flesh had been chewed off? This is a terrible story. I do not wish to hear any more.”
“It’s not terrible. It’s beautiful.”
“Cherry stones and”—she choked on the word “and nipples? I do not wish to hear of such things.”
“They were perfect nipples! I wanted to suck on them!”
The shoulders beneath the mistress’s robe shuddered.
“You would like it if you tried it. Just like my French toast.”
“You should keep your foreign ways to yourself.”
“I’m trying to broaden your horizons. To get you to try new things.”
“I am content as I am. I do not need this sucking, this talk of chewed cherry stones.”
He laughed. “Don’t you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest as if protecting the cherries therein. “No. Nor do you, I should think.”
Then she retreated to rocklike silence, quiet coldness answering his feeble attempts at engaging her further.
At last he gave up and found a seat on the ledge of the doorway, his knees up high and his arms resting on them. The mistress remained standing on the platform, her back to the cavern wall, holding herself steel-spine straight as if afraid to relax in his depraved presence. He watched her.
A subsequent half-hour of impatience and a sore, chilled butt prompted him finally to stand and pick up his sword. He looked out over the rail, down at Belch where the beast lolled on its beach. It was hard to tell, but the dragon’s eyes looked, if not closed, then at least halfway there—as one might expect a drugged lizard to look.
George tested the edge of his sword against his thumb. It seemed sharp enough.
He sensed the mistress watching him from her frozen silence. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“Now?”
“No time like the present. Looks like he’s as drugged as he’s going to get.”
She clasped her hands together before her belly, her knuckles showing white. “You are sure you want to do this? It is not too late to change your mind.”
“And let down Emoni and all the virgins to come?” He shook his head. “I hope I’m a better man than that. So …” He stood still, feeling that this was an anticlimactic beginning to his great battle. “Do I get a kiss for good luck?”
She made a rude noise.
He shrugged. “I thought not.” He rolled his shoulders and took a few practice swings, making her step back the way one steps back when certain the other person is about to cut off their own foot in clumsiness.
He took one last look at Belch to be sure the dragon hadn’t moved—he hadn’t�
��one last look at the mistress—she hadn’t moved, either—then gave her a wink and headed down the slippery stone stairs of the cavern to the beach below.
He pretended the stairs were the ramp down through his screaming fans, the wrestling ring what was waiting for him at the end of it, its surface reflective white under the hot lights. His theme music was playing, fireworks were blasting, his muscles were pumped, and he was ready to kick some ass. His opponent was waiting for him, and surely that was a look of worried, deflated cockiness on its reptilian face.
Faking it or making it, the Saint was going to take care of business.
Chapter Fifteen
Alizon watched George go, unable to take her eyes from him. She stepped to the edge of the platform where she would have a better view. She did not want to watch, any more than she ever wanted to watch the sheep being eaten, but something within compelled her to do so. She did not know if it was a sense of guilty responsibility or a simple, sick, morbid fascination.
At the moment, she was not half sure that she didn’t want George to get thoroughly thrashed by Belch. Not killed, perhaps, but whacked a few good times with his tail.
Cherry stones. How dare he!
Suck on them? She thought not. As if she would ever let him!
A brief imagining of him lowering his head to her bare breast—taking her nipple into his warm, damp mouth—filled her mind, and her body responded, twisting and tightening deep inside.
Treacherous body! Treacherous thoughts! Bite him, Belch, bite him!
George crept down the slick stone stairs, his steps light and graceful despite his size. He was still wearing the old shirt he had found, with those silver hose and boots, and the black bands around his knees. He had tied back his long dark hair, and a thick shadow of beard covered his jaw. He carried his sword with ease and wore an expression she had not seen on his face before: one of angry determination. He looked as if he had a personal grudge against Belch—as if the dragon had eaten his own sister.
It was a surprising change from his usual demeanor. She felt a quickening of her heartbeat. Maybe this battle was not as pre-determined as she had thought.
Her hands tightened on the rail. Despite the dull sword, despite the false sleeping powder, might George kill the dragon after all?
He reached the bottom of the stairs, jumping onto Belch’s beach as if he belonged there and was looking forward to the upcoming fight. If he was afraid, she could see no sign of it.
He tossed his sword from hand to hand and stalked toward Belch. As he neared he got a good grip on the weapon’s haft with his right hand, and ten feet from the dragon he stood with feet wide apart, head lowered and a glower on his face.
Belch lay still.
“Candy-ass lizard,” Alizon heard him say.
Candy-ass? He could not mean the dragon’s arse was sweet, surely.
“Virgin-eater. You think you’re a tough guy, chomping little girls?”
Why was he talking to Belch? Alizon wondered. Why didn’t he just strike him?
“You’ve been ruling over this island for too long, lizard-breath. Saint George the Dragonslayer is here to send you back to Hell!” The odd man shook out his shoulders and snapped a sudden glare at his foe. “Well? Got nothing to say?” He strutted back and forth. “I thought not.”
Was he going to talk the dragon to death?
With a belligerent, wide-legged gait George stomped a circle around Belch’s prone body, stopping every few feet and eyeballing the beast as if he had caught it trying to sneak a piece of his French toast.
Strike him! Do something! she wanted to scream. The suspense was chafing her, making her crazy with impatience even as she was fascinated by George’s dawdling, wanting to see what odd thing he might do next.
Or wanted to see if Belch might strike first.
George inched closer. Near enough for Belch to whip his head to the side and take his leg off, if he so desired.
“Iguana,” George said, with a sneer.
He stepped over Belch’s foreleg, as big as George’s own thigh, and leaned up close to the beast’s half-closed eye.
“You’re nothing but an overgrown gecko.” He flicked a fingernail against one of Belch’s teeth that stuck out along the side of his mouth.
A gurgling sound came from the dragon’s gut. George jumped, then made a show of relaxing, shaking out his arms and stalking away from Belch, his back to the serpent as if it was not worth watching.
Belch’s eye opened.
Alizon bit down on a screech of warning.
George took a few practice swings at the air, then turned. As he did so, the eye shut again. He circled, coming around to the end of the dragon’s tail. Suddenly, with no warning, George ran at Belch: ran up his tail, over his ridged back, his footsteps light and quick, as if crossing thin ice, his balance neatly kept. He stopped only when he reached the dragon’s shoulders, standing there with feet apart and sword raised two-handed above his head.
Alizon’s breath caught in her throat.
Belch’s eyes opened.
George turned the sword around so that its point was facing down, ready to pierce Belch’s neck, but then he paused. He stood there, sword raised.
Now! Do something! Alizon screamed in her head, and she did not know if she meant the plea for Belch or his foe.
George’s shoulders heaved, his sword rising slightly for the downward, fatal plunge.
Alizon clenched the rail and whimpered deep in her throat.
The point of the blade came down, and in the same moment Belch shuddered and rolled. The blade skittered off the side of his armored neck, and George lost both aim and leverage. His feet danced on Belch’s hide, his body swaying and his arms flailing. He kept his balance and his footing, though, the look on his face one of wide-eyed, hard-jawed concentration.
Alizon felt her own jaw and neck strain against the impulse to shout his name.
Belch rolled onto his back, exposing his soft yellow underbelly. George’s feet slid and pranced on that smooth surface, then Belch erupted into a thrashing frenzy, rolling and bending and sweeping his tail.
George lost his footing, bounced off the dragon, and fell to all fours on the ground halfway down the beach. The stirred mist swirled over his hands and knees. Belch snapped his head toward him, jaws opening. George twisted out of the way, the dragon’s jaws slamming together where his torso had been a moment before.
Alizon keened in her throat. She did not want to see the first gout of blood. She did not want to see when George lost the first limb, or to see Belch tossing the knight’s carcass in the air like a half-eaten sheep, guts spilling out, head missing.
George gained his feet again, and he had kept his hold on his sword. Belch bellowed, and George echoed the sound, hollering the cry of a warrior and charging his opponent, running up the dragon’s foreleg, again finding his perch on the beast’s back.
The serpent bucked and thrashed from side to side, trying to dislodge him. George used his sword like a walking stick, digging its point into Belch’s hide to keep his balance. Then, when for a moment his footing was secure, he raised the blade again and this time struck deep into Belch’s neck.
The monster went wild, tossing and twisting, bellows of pain and rage reverberating off the walls and shaking the hollows of Alizon’s chest. The very fog seemed to take the shape of waves, shivering to the sound. George was thrown from the dragon’s back, his blade still protruding from Belch’s neck.
Alizon lost sight of him for a moment as a thick wave of mist rolled across the cave. Belch reared up onto his hind legs, stubby forelegs clawing toward the wound he could not reach, his cries throbbing through the air.
George rose up out of the fog and danced to the side as Belch came back down, the dragon’s body slamming against the ground. He stood gaping for long moments at the thrashing beast, as if unable to believe that he had caused it such pain; then he regained his wits and rushed forward, grabbing the blood-covered hilt of his sword
and trying to tug it from the monster’s neck.
Belch yanked away as George pulled his blade free, but the sudden loosening caused him to lose both his balance and grip. The blood-slicked sword flew free, disappearing into the mist. Belch’s tail flashed round and thwacked against the back of George’s legs, buckling them, then the beast lunged for his fallen foe.
Once more, George rolled out of the way with a skin of air to spare. Next, in a move Alizon had never imagined, the knight arched his body and leapt in a single motion from flat on his back to standing crouched on his feet. Belch came at him again, and he sprang into the air, somersaulting over the beast’s head to land on the other side.
Alizon’s mouth dropped open.
Belch’s wound was oozing blood, but the gash was plainly more of an aggravation than a threat to the monster’s life. He bellowed in frustration as George continued to dance around him, his foe’s eyes flicking from him to the mist-covered ground.
“Mistress!” George shouted. “Where’s the sword? Can you see it?”
His calling to her surprised away Alizon’s ability to speak.
“Mistress!”
“To your right!” she cried at last, her voice hoarse, then clearing as it gained volume. “But I cannot see exactly where!”
The knight somersaulted and rolled, searching the ground as his foe stomped and snapped above him. He found the sword at last, and rose up with it, swinging at Belch’s head as the dragon swung his great jaws toward him.
Man and dragon connected, and George was swept off his feet, flying through the air and landing with a splash in the steaming water.
Belch galloped after him, his belly slapping the water and throwing up spray as he surged into his element. Alizon leaned over the rail, searching for sign of George, knowing the water was deep and Belch was swift within it. Her heart was racing.
Belch sank beneath the mist, and for a moment all was quiet, the white fog smoothing over the dying swirls of his passage.
Suddenly there was a gasp and a splash, and Alizon threw herself to the floor of the platform and stuck her head out around the corner of the low wall where it stopped at the stairs. Thirty feet below, under the platform, George was climbing the rocks out of the water.
