The Dragon's Prize

by Sophie Park

  After the fight with Daro, Sandra fell. Wind rushed past her face and howled in her ears. It chilled her nose and exposed skin and frosted her metal armor. Darkness enveloped her, and it seemed that it would be nothing but darkness forever. How far did this hole go?

  The middle of the world?

  The end of the world?

  It was so dark she couldn’t even see the walls around her, and there was no indication it would ever get brighter. Was the lair in darkness? Would she die without seeing the light again?

  Wait.

  There.

  What was that?

  Just out of the corner of her sight, a wink of light. She turned her head but it was gone.

  There! Another. She whipped her head around, and this time caught sight of it. A dim, golden light floated in the air near her, falling with her. Was it a feather? Another appeared, then a fourth. Then dozens. All around her, glowing feathers appeared.

  She looked down, and instead of endless darkness she saw endless feathers. They started to crowd up around her, putting a welcome pressure on her chest that slowed the fall. Feathers tickled her skin and brushed past her nose. They fluttered around her hair, and now it was clear that they were cushioning her fall.

  What was going on?

  Ground!

  Even with the help of the feathers, she bounced off the ground when she hit it. The shining golden feathers sprayed everywhere in a shimmering burst, and she rolled along the hard stone until bumping up against a pillar of rock. She blinked twice to clear her vision of the blinking lights, swiping her hand through the air to brush feathers away.

  What happened?

  As she batted at them, the feathers started to disappear as fast as they came. In the dying light of their passage, she noticed that the wings on the ring on her finger were flapping furiously. The queen’s ring!

  “Ha! Ah ha!” Sandra laughed out loud. “Feather fall! It’s a Ring of Feather Fall! Brilliant!”

  The darkness closed in around her quickly, choking out the light and leaving her alone at the bottom of an extremely deep hole. Alive! At least she was alive!

  “She could have mentioned that.” Sandra shook her head. How could the queen know she would even have the ring on? Well, that was unfair. It never once occurred to her not to wear it. The queen wanted her to succeed, so anything she gave would be useful.

  Still.

  A little heads up would have been nice.

  Saved from imminent death, Sandra pulled out a sunrod she’d taken from the mayor’s house and cracked it on her knee. About a foot long, it was made of a stiff yet pliant outer shell filled with a normally opaque liquid. When you cracked the outer shell, exposing the liquid to air, it started to give off a bright light that needed no fuel and did not burn. Normally she wouldn’t carry something so extravagant with her, but since the mayor was paying…

  She stood up and had a look around the bottom of the hole she found herself in. Now that she could see, it was filled with a variety of stone pillars like the one she’d bumped up against. They all reached about five feet in the air and ended in wicked points. At the bottom of a hole like this, she was pretty sure they weren’t natural, which meant the dragon built them. Several of them had aged, broken rib cages wrapped around them and dry bones littered the ground.

  “Classy.” Sandra shook her head. If the fall didn’t kill you, the spikes would.

  One wall of the hole opened up into a very wide, very tall passage which seemed to lead deeper into the mountain. It had to be at least fifty feet tall, and as much as twenty wide. Well, it was a dragon’s lair, there had to be a way for him to fit inside, right?

  Shrugging, she walked forward. There was nothing else for her to do right now, although she could stay at the bottom of the hole and worry about Mira.

  Tempting.

  However, without a weapon, she stood absolutely no chance when the dragon showed up, so her only option was to head deeper and try to find something. Hopefully his armory was unguarded. After all, who could be expected to survive that fall?

  The wide tunnel wound around for perhaps two hundred feet before Sandra started to notice coins on the ground. They clinked and tinkled under her feet, and she brought the sunrod around to look at them.

  “Copper?” Mixed in with the copper pieces were a few silver. Platinum? Sandra picked one up and examined it in the light of the rod. She bit it. “Silver.”

  Shrugging, she dropped it back on the ground. She wasn’t here to loot the place, at least not yet. There was still the problem of a very live and angry dragon to deal with. Once that was done, she could move on to assessing the value of its hoard.

  At the end of the tunnel, it opened up into a large circular room filled with stuff.

  So much stuff!

  The ground slanted down from the path until it met an impressive pile of coins. Most of them looked to be more silver and copper, but near the middle of the pile she definitely caught the twinkle of gold. Sprinkled through the pile was also a number of gems that shone in the light of her rod, and she could see several bolts of cloth and metal ingots. She took a few steps into the room, which could easily fit the entire castle inside it with room for a few extra outbuildings, and grimaced as the coins slithered and clinked under the boots.

  “Real smart.”

  She skated her way back out of the pile of coins and skirted the edge of the pile, using the wall to help her keep her balance on the thin lip of rock which surrounded the coin pit. She’d seen a few open caves around the edges of the big middle area, and it was these she was heading for. There was nothing obviously dangerous or weapon-like in the pit, so there was no reason to go making a bunch of noise.

  “Hmm.” The first tunnel she came to twisted around out of sight. She considered it. It might be trapped, and while she was pretty good at spotting them in the wilderness, the cave all looked the same to her…

  There wasn’t much choice, really. Either she found a weapon or she waited for the dragon to come and eat her.

  Daro.

  Daro the dragon.

  What a ridiculous name.

  She headed down the tunnel, glad that there were no stray coins inside this one to give away her presence. The tunnel curved around a ways before opening into a large room. Not nearly as big as the coin pit, this one was styled after a human bedroom. There was a big four poster bed in one corner, and fancy carpets were strewn haphazardly on the ground. They didn’t seem to follow any particular pattern, so she guessed that he didn’t spend a lot of time in here.

  Wait.

  Over there.

  Swords!

  Sandra headed straight for one wall, where a number of swords hung in a weapon rack. They looked like ones he personally used because they were all clear of dust and looked like they received regular coats of oil to keep the leather and metal from wearing out. Sandra nodded in approval, then looked them over.

  Most seemed like regular, high-quality swords. There were a couple of more exotic weapons: a khopesh and one of those katanas that Master Wu favoured.

  “Ah ha!”

  In the middle of the rack was a strange, curving blade. It was a traditional backsword design, but the blade extended back over the handle to provide a measure of additional hand protection. The blade itself was covered in intricate scrollwork, and it gave off a noticeable blueish glow. If the sunrod ran out before Daro arrived, this would provide enough light for her to continue searching the cave.

  “Perfect.”

  Sandra reached for it, then stopped. She looked more closely at the rack itself, searching for catches, wires or any sign that the thing was trapped. She would certainly cover something so valuable with traps.

  Nope.

  None.

  Not that she was necessarily the best judge of such things. Deadfalls and spike traps she could notice. Hidden darts covered in poison?

  Only one way to find out.

  She licked her lips.

  She rubbed her hands against
her thighs. Once. Twice. Licked her lips. Rubbed her hands.

  She reached out. Stopped. Rubbed her hands together.

  Licked her lips.

  Finally, she worked up the courage and grabbed the hilt. Nothing bad happened, so she freed it from the weapon rack.

  “So light!” The hilt had just enough heft to it that she felt like she was holding something, but the blade itself might as well not have been there. It whistled through the air as she took a couple of practice swings, seeming to almost slice the wind around it.

  She could feel the magic tingling in her hands as she held it, working up her arm to reinforce her elbow and shoulder. She felt strong just holding it.

  On the rack where the sword had been, she saw a small piece of paper. Looking at it, although she couldn’t read, the icon was clear.

  3.

  “Three?” Sandra wondered aloud while she buckled the sword across the top of her hips at the back. “What… oh! Plus three!”

  They’d briefly covered magic weaponry in the guards, not that any of the guards were ever expected to have something so wondrous. The paladin’s sword, while powerful compared to her own, was probably a faint plus one enchantment. Good enough, she’d thought. This one was far better.

  Nodding in satisfaction, Sandra went over to a case with smaller weapons.

  Daggers, knives and short swords, none of them were magical but they were in good condition and well crafted. Sandra found good homes for at least half of what was in the case before she was satisfied she’d rearmed herself well enough.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t find any bows or crossbows. Maybe somewhere else?

  The rest of the room was filled with books, scrolls and furniture. Some looked expensive, but Sandra had no way to evaluate which were rare and worth keeping and which were useless scraps. Sandra searched through some of the wardrobes, looking for anything useful, and finally did find something.

  Tucked away in one of the dressers was a drawer filled with potions. Most were cure light and moderate, which Sandra tucked away where she could, but one stood out. It was a clear bladder which felt like leather, reinforced with an intricate silver frame and filled with a small amount of green liquid. The liquid glowed, giving off a faint light, although Sandra was sure that if she poured it out it would be as bright as day. There was a small label, which she couldn't read, but she recognized the first letter: H.

  “Heal?” Sandra picked it up and rolled it around in her fingers. It was smaller than her palm and seemed so unassuming. “I didn’t know they made these.” Carefully, she threaded a thong through the silver harness and hung the potion from her neck. A single Heal spell could take a person from the very brink of death back to perfect health in a single moment. She hoped she would never need it, but it was the ultimate bit of life saving.

  Satisfied that she had everything she needed to deal with Daro should he come down here, Sandra headed out of the bedroom and skirted around the edge of the pit again. There was one more cave to look in, and she hoped it would have something else helpful.

  A bow, maybe.

  A ballista?

  While she was hoping for things, maybe it contained an ancient and powerful warmage willing to help her cause.

  Where was that dragon, anyway? Sandra hoped he was just gloating over his victory in front of Mira and not taking his time killing her. No. Don’t think about that. Until the dragon came down here, there was nothing she could do about it.

  The other room turned out to be a kitchen and pantry.

  With a cage hanging in it.

  Sandra stopped at the entrance to the cave and squinted up at the cage. It looked about the right size to hold a person, and the stench coming from the grate on the ground underneath certainly smelled human.

  The prince?

  “Prince?” Sandra’s breath caught when she said it. This was the culmination of everything she’d worked for, day and night, for weeks.

  “Wha?” The cage rattled and a head poked out between the bars. “Who?” Bedraggled hair fell down around sunken eyes and pallid cheeks. Could that really be the prince? “Sandra!?” He sounded shocked.

  “It is you! You’re alive!”

  “You’re alive?”

  “What?” His words cut through Sandra’s jubilance. There was something about the way he said it, like he expected her to be dead.

  “They let you come?”

  “What? No…”

  “This is ridiculous! That bastard captain was supposed to take care of this situation!” The prince’s hands gripped the bars and he stuck his head out further, craning it to look around the kitchen. “Where is he?”

  “…” Sandra could feel her teeth grinding together and her knees turning to water. It couldn’t be true. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, you know! We rigged that little match so we could have an excuse to get rid of you. I goaded you into hitting me, although if I had to do it again I’d find some other way. That really hurt…”

  Sandra stared at head sticking out of the cage.

  All those years.

  All this work.

  All her hopes. Dreams. Secret desires.

  This was how we repaid her?

  The cage hung almost ten feet off the ground, Sandra found herself jumping and catching the rim of it in her fingers. The cage swung wildly and she hauled herself up so she could be eye-level with the prince. In shock, he backed up to the other side of the cage and watched her warily.

  “Are you serious!?” She was yelling. “You bastard!”

  “G… guards!” He found his voice and yelled around her. “Stop her! Do what you should have a long time ago!”

  “There’s no one here, you ass!” Actually, she was screaming. “I’m the only one who came!”

  “The… the only one?”

  “The only guard.” Sandra calmed down a moment and remembered to include Mira, who had done so much on this trip and without whom Sandra probably would not have made it. “Mira came too.”

  “Mira? Pretty Mira?”

  Sandra grit her teeth and glared, still hanging from the cage.

  “It’s such a shame that she was going to have to lose her head too…”

  “You!” Sandra huffed, but couldn’t find the words.

  She dropped back to the ground, crouching with the landing to avoid hurting herself, and stamped in an angry circle around the kitchen. She stopped and turned over a convenient table.

  That helped.

  She picked up a chair and threw it against the wall, smashing it into thousands of pieces.

  “Now I understand!” Her rage found voice again. “I get it!”

  “Get what?”

  “I get it! Why the other guards didn’t come!”

  “I still can’t…”

  “No! Shut up! No more talking from you, your royal bastardness!”

  “You can’t…”

  “I can talk to you however I like!” Sandra grabbed a knife and threw it at the cage. It clattered against an iron bar near the prince’s head and fell to the ground. “I nearly lost my life because of you! So did Mira! So you’re going to listen!”

  “…”

  “Good! I understand now why no one else came! You’re not worth it!” Sandra puffed angrily through her nose. “You’re not worth a life! Certainly not mine, and not Mira’s! The stability of the kingdom is worth the ransom, but that’s it!”

  “That’s a little harsh-…”

  “Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!” Sandra howled this time. She threw another chair against the wall. “If Mira’s dead because of you, you’ll pay in blood!”

  “You can’t, I’m the prince…”

  “Oh yeah? Oh yeah! What are you gonna do? Have me executed?” Sandra laughed. It was a harsh, brittle sound. “That didn’t work, remember? Maybe you could exile me? Oh wait, your mother basically already did that!”

  “She…”

  “Well, it’s that or go back to the block, so… you know�
�” Sandra finally felt the anger drain out of her, leaving her, well, drained.

  She sighed and leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She could feel tears, bitter tears that were years in the making, working their way to her eyes. She squeezed them shut and tried not to think about it. Later. Later, when there was no dragon, no kingdom, just her and Mira. Then the tears could come.

  Speaking of dragons, a blood-curdling roar cut through the air and Sandra heard the sound of something huge coming down the hole she’d entered through.

  “You didn’t kill the dragon!?”

  “I’m working on it!

  “Work harder!”

  “What makes you think you’re getting out when I do kill it?” Sandra’s voice was low and dangerous this time.

  “What? I’m you’re…”

  “Would-be assassin. I should kill you now.”

  “You wouldn’t…”

  “Shut up now, or I just might.” Sandra glare at the cage was white-hot with rage, and the prince immediately quieted down. She hoped he would stay like that.

  Her hope that the dragon was falling dead down its hole was proved false when a massive pair of wings snapped open and the dragon flew into the big room that held most of his hoard.

  Daro.

  His name was Daro.

  Sandra’s breath caught in her throat when she saw what Daro was carrying. A figure: small and feminine. Clutched in his hand and flopping around wildly.

  Mira.

  Was she okay?

  “Thrilling!” The dragon’s voice boomed out through the cavern, echoing around inside the coin pit in particular. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Let me down!” The figure came to life when Daro landed. She beat her hands against his scaly grip and struggled as hard as she could against the captivity.

  She was alive!

  “Sure. There’s nowhere to go.” The dragon had an ugly laugh in either form. He dropped Mira into a pile of silver coins. She let out a small shriek and fell to her hands and knees, struggling to find purchase in the slippery medium. “I wonder where your friend is?”

  “What?” Mira looked up from the coins at the dragon, then looked around the cave. “She fell down that hole! She can’t possibly be alive! Oh, Sandra…” That last part was little more than a choked whisper.