The Dragon's Prize

by Sophie Park

  The castle sat on the top of a small hill at the edge of a river. The Riprock mountains lay two weeks’ travel to the west, one ferry journey and a long wilderness trek away. The road from the castle proper into the capital wound down the side of the hill, switching back and forth to keep the grade reasonable for cart traffic, before reaching the sprawling slums and warehouses of the dock district. A cluster of noble estates and villas clung to the edges of the road, where they would obscure most of the women’s view, but from up here they could see the entire city spread out before them.

  “This is what we’re trying to save…” Mira’s eyes were misting up at the edges.

  “Gives you some perspective…”

  “Can the queen really raise a hundred thousand gold if we fail?”

  “I don’t know.” Sandra shrugged. She wasn’t an accountant, and on a guard’s salary she’d barely ever had more than ten gold to rub together at a time. “It seems impossible, but I guess she can take out loans from other kingdoms. Maybe she just has it lying around in the treasury?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Don’t worry. If we fail, we won’t be around to worry about the financial situation of the kingdom.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Wasn’t it? I’m here to help. I’m a helper.”

  “You sure are.”

  Sandra gave Lightning a nudge forward and he started walking down the road. They would reach the ferry in less than an hour, and once they were across the river their journey would really begin. The eastern half of the kingdom was well-populated: filled with industry, farms and villages. The western half was a dark, impenetrable forest pierced by only a few roads and populated by only a few intrepid logging towns. There were too many creatures in the west for civilization to make a real dent on its wild darkness: goblins, orcs, owlbears, trolls and worse. Dragons.

  Sandra and Mira were not prepared for the welcome they received as they turned the first switchback into a square surrounded by massive villas. The crowd was mostly obscured by the bulk of the estates so that Sandra didn’t see it until she and Mira were almost upon it.

  When they appeared, the crowd lit up with wild cheering. People threw handkerchiefs, flowers and other favors. Women held children high so that they could see Sandra better, and people were climbing all over the exteriors of the estates to get a better view.

  Sandra looked back at Mira, who had a patently panicked expression at the site of so may people making so much noise.

  “My fellow citizens!” Sandra raised her voice and shouted over the crowd. People quieted enough that she could be heard. “I promise we will find and destroy this foul beast!”

  Sandra drew one of her many swords and held it high in the air. With a subtle nudge of her knees, Lightning reared back in the air and kicked with his hooves, whinnying defiance to the sky. The crowd went nuts, then opened a small path for them to go through. Sandra took the cue and kicked Lightning into a full run. He obliged, happy to get some real exercise after being cooped up in the castle for so long.

  Annie was less happy about the situation, but had no trouble keeping up. Mira shrieked, then caught herself and turned the shriek into a rousing battle cry.

  People hanging from trees showered the two of them with flower petals and the noise of the cheers followed them down the road to the city, thundering off the side of the hill so even people in the streets below could hear it.

  When they were out of sight of the crowds and starting to charge through the dock district Sandra slowly reined Lightning in. He fought her at first, wanting to keep up the pace, but she knew that was a bad plan. They had a long way to go and if he tired himself out now he would not have a good time. Reluctantly he yielded to her touch. Annie was all too happy to settle back into a stately walk.

  “Whoa!” Mira bounced back and forth in Annie’s saddle, wild-eyed from the ride. “That was intense!”

  “They needed some hope.” Sandra nodded her head back toward the distant crowd, whose roaring they could still hear. “A little bit of flair can go a long way.”

  “Warn me next time?”

  “Annie knew what was going on.” Sandra turned around and reached back to pat Annie’s head. “She might be grumpy, but she’ll take care of you. Don’t worry!”

  “She certainly is grumpy…”

  “You’ll get used to her. You have at least a month together before we’re back at the castle.”

  They both fell silent. They weren’t coming back to the castle, victorious or not. That thought cut through the heady joy of the frantic ride and brought them right back into the dark reality of their situation.

  There were only a couple more blocks and they reached the waterfront. This time of the day it bustled with activity as sailors loaded and unloaded all manner of goods. Some bound inland, some bound for the ocean, it was as if a dragon had not just rampaged through the castle hours ago. This far away from the castle, this far away from the world of the nobility, would they even notice if the prince never came back? The people cheering the two warriors had obviously noticed, but did they know that the prince was gone? Maybe all they knew was that a dragon attacked.

  “Ladies!” The ferryman was a small man, hunched over and wearing clothes that could charitably be described as rags.

  “Hello.” Good sir almost rolled off of Sandra’s tongue, but the sight and smell of him halted those words.

  “How much for the two of us and the horses?” Mira cut in, smiling sweetly as she said it. Sandra surreptitiously moved to the side so that Mira could have a better line of sight with the ferryman.

  “Five silver.”

  Sandra made a shocked choking noise in disbelief.

  “What!? Outrageous!” Mira shook her head vehemently and made a motion to turn Annie around. Luckily it was the right motion, and Annie pointed her head toward another boatman on the dock.

  “Wait… wait!” The ferryman took a step forward, reaching out to Mira. Sandra rattled her sword ominously.

  “Ready to be reasonable?” Mira turned only her head.

  “Look… it’s expensive to take horses! And how would I know if they can tolerate the passage?”

  “How much do you normally charge for horses.”

  “That’s how much.”

  “…” Mira’s eyes grew ever-so-slightly smaller as she drew her face into a disapproving frown.

  “…”

  “…”

  “Fine! 5 copper for all four of you and your gear.” The ferryman blinked first, turning away and stomping toward his barge. “And we wait a half hour for more passengers.”

  Mira looked over to Sandra, then looked meaningfully up at the sky. Time was wasting. Sandra nodded.

  “10 copper and we go now.” Mira jumped down from Annie and held the reins loosely in her hands. It signaled the move of the negotiation from ‘will we go with you’ to ‘how we go with you’.

  “15.”

  “9.”

  “You can’t do that! You can’t go lower.” The ferryman look flustered.

  “The longer we spend arguing, the less time we save. The less time we save, the less it’s worth to us.”

  “12 and that’s my final. If we go without any cargo or other passengers, it will look bad when I arrive on the other side.”

  “11. If you arrive with a royal guard and her squire, then you look important.”

  “Squire?” The ferryman’s face screwed up in confusion as he looked at Mira. Mira tilted her hip out and rested a hand on it, looking impatient. “Squire! Of course! Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I just did.”

  “Quite right. Okay! 11 for the both of you to go now.”

  “Great.” Mira almost held out a hand to shake on the deal, then thought better of it. Instead she lead Annie toward the flat surface of the man’s barge. For someone whose personal hygiene was so questionable, the barge was actually quite clean.

  Sandra, not wanting to ruin the delicate negotiation which had just
gone on, jumped down from Lightning and rummaged through her personal coin purse. The idea that this trip would cost money had not occurred to her until now. Did she have 11 copper? There! She pulled out a silver and a copper and held them out to the ferryman.

  He hesitated.

  “What’s this?”

  “11 copper.”

  “No, it’s a silver and a copper… what am I gonna do with a silver?”

  “What? Just a second ago you wanted 5 of them!”

  “Oh.” The ferryman looked disappointed. Sandra wasn’t sure what he’d been trying to do, but he desultorily grabbed the money out of her hand and headed onto the barge.

  There were hitching posts available in the middle of the barge, and they each secured their reins so that Lightning and Annie couldn’t go anywhere if they got spooked and tried to bolt. Lightning seemed perfectly at ease on the barge, like he’d done it before, but Annie was dancing around and generally unhappy with the situation. As the ferryman unmoored them and started poling across the river, Sandra went over to Annie and lay a calming hand on the nag’s side.

  “Shhh. Shh. It’s okay.” She checked the reins and quickly untied and redid the knot. Mira looked sheepish.

  “Never done this before.” Mira looked down and away sheepishly.

  “No problem.” Sandra gave Annie a pat, then went back to Lightning. Lightning ‘harumphed’ and gummed Sandra’s hair. She wasn’t familiar enough with him to know what it meant, so she just patted him too.

  The trip across the river was short and uneventful. Other boats plied the river’s murky waters, scudding up and down its length, but only a very few went to the other side. There was a small dock over there with another ferry attached to it and an unhappy collection of buildings surrounding a central Tavern. While the western bank of the river had a significant guard presence and was still technically inside the capital, no one wanted to be that close to the black forest if they didn’t have to. Sandra didn’t blame them. The ominous mass of trees looming just beyond the small outpost of civilization was not inviting.

  Even in the daylight, the path was quickly swallowed by the forest’s verdant darkness. The canopy hung thick and tall, blocking all but the most intrepid light from reaching the bottom. The trail was overgrown with vines and roots and looked like it would be a treacherous journey. She even thought she could hear the howling of wild animals just out of view. It was a stark contrast to the bustling urban center on the eastern half of the river.

  “We’re going in there?” Mira came up behind Sandra, and couldn’t keep the worry out of her voice.

  “We are.” Sandra nodded.

  “You know, this is the last time I try to save your life.”

  “Noted.”

  They stared. The creaking of the barge and sloshing of the river water was the only sound as they approached their destiny.

  *

  The first day they made camp before night in a small clearing to the side of what could generously be called a road. The horses were doing quite well considering the circumstances: Lightning had obviously been this way before and knew where to pick his path, and Annie was content to follow him. The roots and other detritus covering the path made the way treacherous, but Lightning could almost sense where the sinkholes and other dangers lurked and avoided them by instinct. Sandra was happy to let him take the lead, but as the already poor light began to dwindle near evening, she called their little expedition to a halt for the day.

  After Sandra dismounted, unpacked Lightning and brushed him down, the strength the potion had given her earlier finally drained out of her body. She yawned and collapsed onto a fallen log without even stripping off her armor.

  “You okay?” Mira piled her own packs with Sandra’s and was going over Annie’s coat with a stiff brush. Annie was sweatier than Lightning and looked like she could use the rest, too.

  “Yeha. Just… tired.”

  “Well, you did fight a dragon.”

  “Ha. I suppose so. It feels like it happened years ago.”

  “I know what you mean. Time seems lost in this place.” Mira looked up into the canopy, which was so thick with pine needles that you couldn’t see the sky. “Like an endless green cavern, you know?”

  “Yeah. I’m here too.” Sandra took a deep breath of the cool forest air. Autumn was just settling onto the kingdom, but here in the forest there was a rough chill that could sap the strength from your bones if you weren’t careful. It was a good thing Mira thought to pack so many extra blankets. “It’s hard to imagine that we’re only a few miles from the capital. It’s like another world in here.”

  Mira nodded, then collapsed onto the log beside Sandra. There was an old fire pit in the middle of the clearing which suggested others had stopped here as well with the same thought as the two of them. It was nothing more fancy than a circle of stones with some ashes in the middle, and some thoughtful soul had left a small pile of wood and kindling off to the side.

  “Good choice of site.”

  “Thanks.” Sandra desperately wanted nothing more than to sleep, but there was work to be done before that happened. She groaned as she stood up, and put a hand on the middle of her back to help steady herself. Muscles stiffened from a day of riding grumbled and fought back against her attempts to stretch them out again.

  Once the trial of standing was completed, she set about the business of making camp. She put feed bags on Lightning and Annie, who were happy to ignore the two humans in favor of dinner. She started the fire, stripped off some of her extra armor and was about to start building a stew when Mira came over. Sandra had been busy with the business of making camp and only barely registered Mira’s disappearance. The former maid put a gentle hand on Sandra’s wrist and held up a small bundle of herbs.

  “Know much about cooking?”

  “Stir food together and add fire, right?”

  “Ummm… yes, I suppose that’s the basics of it all.”

  “I’m kidding. You’re right, I don’t really know how to cook.”

  “Let me.” Mira was already rummaging in her pack to find cooking utensils. “That’s why I’m here, after all”

  “Well, if it doesn’t bother you…”

  “I think your cooking would bother me.”

  “Point taken.” Sandra collapsed back onto the log. With her heavy chain gloves, helmet and shoes off she felt unnaturally light. “You know, this is the first time I can remember ever being out of the capital.”

  “Really? You make camp like a pro.” Mira balanced a skillet on the fire and started to pull some of their road meat and bread out of the pack.

  “They train us.” Sandra shrugged. It wasn’t the part of guard training that she’d really enjoyed, but she knew the value of it. “In everything… I’ve just never had a chance to put it to use.”

  “Well, then it’s an adventure!” Mira flashed a grin, then set about making a stew. She chopped the dried meat and hard bread up, then added the herbs and some tubers she’d found in the forest while Sandra was busy with the horses.

  “Right. Adventure.” Sandra combed a hand through her hair and tried not to feel useless watching Mira’s expert meal preparation. “Those are always grand and exciting. I don’t remember much about stews or camping in the epics.”

  “They cut those parts out.” Mira shrugged. “I imagine most great adventures consist of a whole lot of nothing followed by the very small exciting part that they actually tell you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Anyway, there will be excitement enough when we get to the mountains.” Mira’s knife skills were impressive, and soon the skillet was bubbling and smelling far better than anything Sandra could have prepared. “Speaking of which, do you have a plan?”

  “Kill the dragon. Save the prince. Profit.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good then.” Mira sent her a wicked grin. “No worries.”

  “None.”

  “You’ve got it all in hand.”

  “I do.”
/>   They stared at each other, smiling.

  “We’re going to die.”

  “No, come on. We’ll think of something. We have weeks!” Sandra gestured at the forest all around them. “And basically nothing to do but plan.”

  “Or brood on our imminent deaths.”

  “You can go, you know?” Sandra suddenly got serious. “There’s nothing stopping you from leaving.”

  “Loyalty?”

  “To the prince?”

  “To you.”

  “You know, I’m not that great a person.” Sandra laughed bitterly. “I got us into this mess in the first place, didn’t I?”

  “And now you’re risking your life for no other reason than to save your kingdom!”

  “I’m a guard. It’s sort of what we train for.”

  “I don’t see any of them out here.” Mira stopped for a moment to stir the stew and keep it from burning. “Just someone they were ready to execute and a maid who got herself stuck in the middle of it.”

  “Well.” Sandra couldn’t think of a good response to that. “I guess they trained me better than the others?”

  “I guess.” Mira took a quick taste of the stew, then added a few pinches of salt from a small bag in her pack. “You’re not a dog, you know?”

  “What?”

  “You make yourself sound like… a tool. A dog.”

  “Mira…”

  “No, listen. You’re the best of them, and they can’t even see it! They treat you like a bad taste in their mouths.”

  “Mira… thank-you.” Sandra couldn’t help but feel proud and happy hearing Mira say those things. She stood up, which was much easier this time, and hugged her friend.

  “I just hope I can help.”

  “Well that stew smells great.”

  “It’s trail rations and scavenged plants.” Mira shrugged, then pulled the skillet off the fire. “Not exactly fancy fair.”

  “Better than just trail rations.” Sandra considered the fire she’d made. “Or burnt trail rations.”

  “I don’t think you can burn them.” Mira smiled. “They’re basically leather and rock.”