He pointed the bow at me, not as a threat but because it happened to still be in his hand while he gestured. Having a one-legged man with no depth perception pointing a loaded crossbow at one’s chest was mildly unnerving. “And you?” he asked. “Are you not a man?”
“I am.” I pulled one of the many broadswords I had to choose from out of its scabbard and attempted to wield it. It was weighted poorly. “Beyond that fact, how much are you prepared to know of me?”
I should mention that as much as I enjoyed the Coucy-le-Chateau, it was getting time to move on. I’d been there for nearly twenty years, and even a half-blind old warrior like Lance had taken note of the fact that I hadn’t aged a day. As I counted Lord Harsigny a dear friend, I felt I could trust him not to overreact. But it was only a matter of time before someone accused me of being a devil. The whisperings among the staff had already begun.
Lance squinted at me, uncertain how far he was willing to push this conversation, his curiosity waging a battle with an innate interest in keeping his understanding of the world untrammeled. He put down the crossbow. “I trust your wisdom, Serge. You know that I do. And I know that you drink from a font of knowledge most of us have never tasted.” (God, I miss the poetry of classical French.) “But I worry that in your zeal to… protect me, you are committing a fatal error. And that sword is much too heavy for you.”
“Is it?”
“Take the half sword.”
“What, that little thing?”
“It is sharp, and you will be able to swing it with speed and force. Speed is what matters in close combat.”
“I know that,” I said.
“I assume you will be facing an opponent who is not armored?”
“Not necessarily.”
He rubbed his face in exasperation. “It is a man?”
“An animal. But with a… tough hide, let’s say.”
“God save you, Serge. You should be bringing the dogs. You cannot face this thing alone.”
I wouldn’t be alone, but it struck me that that would be a bad thing to say.
* * *
We went through another hour of combat instructions with no more complaints from Lance that he should be going. I was pretty sure he still planned to follow me, but I didn’t bring it up because his advice was too useful to pass on.
I am actually extremely well-versed in a variety of combat techniques. If, for instance, Lance handed me a blow dart I could probably hit a fly in midair with it. The problem is that weapons change over time and from region to region, and sometimes I just don’t have the energy to keep up my studies. If I thought I could take my prey with a quarter staff, I’d probably be all set. But this was going to require steel, and the last time I had used a sword they were much lighter, and considerably flimsier.
At dusk I made my preparations. I was offered a suit of armor, but I turned it down. Those things are deathtraps, if you ask me. Sure if I’m jousting or attacking archers in a fixed position, armor might be good. But I needed flexibility, so I wore a light chain mail vest and the thickest leather waistcoat I could find.
My horse, Archimedes, was fitted with armor and a heavy saddle, neither of which he was accustomed to. He complained about it bitterly.
“God speed, Lord Venice,” Lance said as I climbed upon Archimedes. He handed me my sword and helped fix the crossbow to the side of the saddle.
“And you, Lord Harsigny,” I replied. “I expect I’ll see you in the morning, but if I don’t, take good care of the castle for me or I shall be forced to haunt you.”
A signal to the stable hand and the stable door was pushed open.
“And don’t follow me, my friend,” I added. “Some things are best left unseen.”
“I can barely see as it is,” he smiled.
I shook his outstretched hand. One way or another, I didn’t expect to be returning to Coucy-le-Chateau. I think we both knew it.
I rode hard through the small town and reached the gates in a matter of minutes. A casual onlooker might have assumed I was a messenger on a grave mission of some sort, which was fine.
Once past the gates I trotted alongside the wall for a ways before coming to a stop. I listened. The night was dead silent. Perhaps Lance had decided to take me at my word that it was best he not follow. More likely he’d wait an hour, rally his bloodhounds, and track me. But there wasn’t anything I could do about that.
Momentarily, I was joined by Eloise. She dropped from the wall and landed before Archimedes, who nearly unhorsed me in surprise.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, trying to calm down my mount.
“It’s a worthy battle.” She put a hand on Archimedes’ head. Most animals don’t react well to vampires at all, but Eloise seemed to offer him a soothing influence. “And I owe this beast for what he did to Louisa.”
“Would you like to ride up here with me?”
“I can keep up.” She looked at me appraisingly. “You know my motives. But why do you do this? You are no warrior.”
“It killed a woman,” I said simply.
“No, there is more. Something personal?”
“Can’t I do something noble out of an innate sense of duty?” I offered. Honestly, I didn’t know why I was doing it either.
“Perhaps.” She lingered.
“Are you trying to talk me out of this?”
“I am trying to figure out who you really are.”
“Same man I was last night.”
“Last night you smelled like turnips. Tonight you smell of leather and mystery.”
I smiled at what I took to be a compliment. “We’re wasting time. Can you still track him through the fresh snow?”
“Of course,” she said, bounding off. We followed.
There is something beautiful about vampires on the hunt. If they want to, they can outstrip a horse in full gallop, all the while appearing to move effortlessly. Like most vampires, Eloise did not run like a human might. She employed her arms as well as her legs, looking a bit like a large bloodsucking rabbit.
Every few minutes she would come to a full stop, listening and smelling the cold air for traces of an odor I had no hope of picking up myself. These moments were followed by a slight change in direction. We soon found ourselves at the edge of the woods.
I miss woods. It wasn’t at all long ago that much of the world was covered by forest. Now I have to hop on a plane to get to a decent one. This particular set of woods wasn’t terribly large but it was lush, and in the summer months utterly dark at all times. Visibility improved in the winter only ever-so-slightly. Our saving grace was that it was the second night of the full moon.
“It lives here, in these woods,” Eloise said, sniffing. “Precious little else does.”
“No wolves?”
“None I can detect. This thing could have frightened them off. It is large enough.”
The implication that there was such a beast that could have scared away a pack of wolves from its natural feeding ground would no doubt have terrified a lesser man. Okay, it scared the crap out of me too, I won’t lie.
She pushed on at a slower pace out of respect for Archimedes, who found it difficult to maneuver between the trees. Eventually we penetrated deep enough into the forest to make me question precisely where it was I had initially entered. At least Eloise seemed to know where we were going, although at times it appeared she had us traveling in circles. She stopped when we reached a small clearing.
“We are being followed.”
I looked behind us but saw nothing. “It may be Lord Harsigny. He’s probably got his hounds on my trail.”
“No, milord, not a man. The thing we hunt is hunting us.”
“For how long?”
“The past hour.”
I examined the clearing. It was the largest we’d come across since entering the woods. Visibility would never be better.
“We make our stand here,” I said.
She agreed. “You should turn; it comes from behind.”
>
I trotted Archimedes to the farthest point in the clearing and turned us around. Eloise stood in front of us in the center of the clearing and fell to a crouch.
“Can you smell it?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted.
“It reeks of brimstone. What manner of thing is this?”
That was what I was afraid of.
I lifted the crossbow and loaded a bolt. I could hear it now. It must have known we’d stopped and concluded stealth was no longer necessary. I could see trees quivering as it closed the distance.
And then it burst into the opening.
It was huge. I was eye-to-eye with it from atop Archimedes. It was covered head to food in leathery scales that I knew from prior experience to be greenish in the daylight but which appeared to be a shade of brown in the moonlight. Its face was triangular, ending in a large jaw with a slightly rounded snout, its nostrils emitting a gust of steam and its body a quiver of muscles. It was humanoid only in the most superficial sense, although it did stand upright. Its fingers—four of them, and no opposable thumb—ended in talons that looked like impressive weapons.
“Now you have seen it,” Eloise yelled over her shoulder as the creature fell forward onto its front paws and prepared to charge. “You tell me what it is!”
I raised my crossbow. “That,” I said, “is a dragon.”
* * *
Like so many other legendary creatures, humankind never quite got dragons right. Number one, they didn’t fly. Number two, never saw one breathe fire, although their breath was awful and they did smell like sulfur for reasons I have never been clear on, so people probably embellished that just a little bit. Number three, they averaged out at between eight and ten feet tall, which is a far cry from the enormous dinosaur-like monstrosities of myth.
Dragons weren’t traditionally very smart, which may have been a contributing factor in their eventual extinction. You’d think something this brutally predatory should have figured out a way to stick it out otherwise, like the demons have. But most dragons would just as soon eat each other as anything else, which is not the brightest survival approach I’ve ever heard. They were not, however, so massively stupid that they made a habit of eating humans. Even on some basic level, most of them understood that killing a human will attract more humans, and more humans is invariably bad. This one must have been pretty desperately hungry, then, when it went after Albert’s Louisa. And since it never got to eat her, we must have looked like filet mignon to him.
It was a male of the species—male dragons tended to be bigger—and he was considerably larger than average. Large enough to make me wish I’d brought a few dozen more people with me, plus maybe an extra vampire or two.
* * *
The dragon identified the immediate threat, which would be Eloise crouching in the center of the clearing. They took turns growling at each other, and it was clear the dragon recognized her from their previous encounter, and also that he wasn’t the least bit afraid. He even appeared eager for the rematch, as was Eloise.
With unexpected speed, the dragon pounced.
Eloise met him in midair, getting close enough to avoid his lunging claws and scoring a brutal hit on what would have been his unprotected manhood were he more man than lizard. He squealed, but I had to think it wasn’t too terribly painful given he was covered in heavy scales, even down there.
Eloise rolled to her feet and spun around to watch him land cleanly, and like that they were at each other again.
They shortly achieved a sort of détente, as she clearly had him outclassed in terms of quickness, but he was stronger and much better protected. So, while none of his fierce attacks connected, none of her furious counterattacks had any effect either.
“Are you going to fight?” she shouted at me, ducking a vicious swing and wondering where the hell her backup was.
“You’re doing fine,” I said.
Were I to insert myself into the battle, the best I could do was offer him something else to swing and miss at—or not miss, which would be infinitely worse—and my sword would fare little better than her nails, teeth and fists. I stood my ground.
I had a game plan. I really did. But there was no point to explaining it to Eloise since she was a critical element in that plan.
As they continued their furious skirmish, I took note that the dragon’s fighting style was almost all offense. It worked out well for him. Eloise was getting more and more frustrated as her every blow, cut, and slash glanced harmlessly off his hide.
“I thought you faced one of these before!” she yelled.
“Me? No. I’ve seen them. Never fought one.”
“This would be a good time to start!”
I was completely in awe of what I was witnessing. In my lifetime I had seen some extraordinary life-or-death struggles between countless manner of beasts, some quite fearsome. This battle between vampire and dragon topped them all.
In a telling sequence, I watched Eloise bring her palm up into the dragon’s long chin, a powerful blow that unbalanced him temporarily and sent him tumbling backward. Seizing the opportunity she dove hard at him.
Then I saw what I was looking for.
The dragon brought his right forearm up in front of his chin to ward off her attack and swung hard with his left arm. It was his first defensive maneuver.
Everyone has a weakness. The trick is figuring out what it is in enough time to take advantage of it.
But before I could do anything about my newfound knowledge, Eloise made a mistake. Ducking under his left arm, she sprang forward, leaving herself open for a shot with his right arm. He swatted at her head, connecting with a devastating impact that sent her tumbling backward and exposing her belly. He followed it up quickly with a coup de grâce, a deep slash across her stomach, that would have been mortal had she been human.
Bleeding badly, she fell to her knees. The dragon stood over her, looking eager to finally eat something and probably feeling pretty good about having won the battle, too. But before he got around to doing something more permanent to her, I fired my crossbow bolt. It struck him in the shoulder, penetrating just far enough to get his attention. I drew my sword and slid off Archimedes’ back. The dragon looked up at me, apparently having forgotten I was even there.
“Now you face me!” I shouted, not so much to be heard as to inspire a little belligerence on his part. I wanted him to forget about Eloise and focus on me. It worked.
The dragon roared. Terrible sound, that. Made my testicles shrink. I pointed my sword at him defiantly.
“You killed a human, lumpy. That’s against the rules. Now I have to kill you.”
And then the most curious thing happened. The dragon spoke. “Kill… me… ?” he grunted. Dragons don’t really have the right equipment—brains, vocal chords—to hold a conversation, so it was a guttural rasp at best. But I understood it all right.
“Yes, kill you,” I said defiantly. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”
I walked away from Archimedes—he was just about ready to panic—and staked a spot of nice open space, standing tall, in profile, sword in my right hand, behind me and partly obscured.
“KILL . . . ME . . . ?” he repeated. Maybe it was the only thing he knew how to say.
With a bloodcurdling bellow he charged, arms outstretched, leading with his claws. I was expecting just that kind of attack, as it was the one he’d opened with when he first closed the distance between himself and Eloise.
Then it was all a matter of timing.
I stood my ground until an instant before his claws struck, ducked straight down, then bounced up again. I brought my free hand up under his chin, popped his head back, and exposed the one place on his entire body he saw fit to protect, his neck. Next came my sword, which I lined up point-first with the soft spot in front of his throat. His momentum did the rest.
The dragon’s charge carried us both across the snow. The sword was jerked from my grasp, and as I flew through the air, I was forced
to alter my priorities slightly to make sure I didn’t end up crushed under him or the victim of a broken neck after an awkward landing. He ended up on his side a few dragon-sized strides away from me, unmoving.
I got up slowly. A sharp pain in my left side—the creature’s knee had slammed into me there when we tumbled—suggested I might have a few broken ribs to worry about in the days ahead. But I got off easy by comparison.
My sword was buried nearly to the hilt in the center of the dragon’s neck. I knelt down beside him and found he was still alive, but only just. His eyes, so bloodthirsty a moment earlier, looked sad now. Pleading.
“I warned you,” I said.
Putting the heel of my foot on his shoulder—which still had a crossbow bolt stuck in it—I managed to yank the sword free. The dragon’s head lolled backward, his body no longer obeying any commands. Then I swung the sword down at the still-exposed neck and cleaved his head from his shoulders. I could have let him suffer and die on his own, but I was feeling merciful. Also, I didn’t know enough about dragon physiology to be entirely positive I’d administered a mortal wound. Removing his head seemed pretty final, as is generally the case with most beings.
I watched the blood pour out of his body for a few seconds, then tossed aside the sword and went to check on Eloise.
There are actually a fairly large number of ways to kill a vampire. (Or, re-kill, I suppose, since they are supposedly already dead. I never entirely bought into that whole “walking undead” thing, though. I suppose that’s an argument for another time.) Chop a vampire up into enough pieces—or simply decapitate them—and they’ll stay dead. Fire works, too. And there’s the whole sunlight thing, which is extremely effective. But wooden stakes, as I’ve said, don’t work at all. Nor will gutting a vampire, although the latter will hurt a whole heck of a lot and take a very long time to heal.
Eloise was curled up in a fetal position and clutching her stomach. She’d managed to keep her intestines inside of her by holding them in manually. Not a pleasant sight. I could have finished off what the dragon had started, were I so inclined. This was probably what she was thinking when she looked up at me wearing an expression of pleading similar to the dragon’s.
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