The damp warmth of the pine forest surrounded Usashibo. He scrambled across a small waterfall. Thick boughs shielded him from the sun and freed the ground from undergrowth. The terrain remained level, and Usashibo quickly neared the isolated clearing where legend claimed the dragon lived. In the three days since he had left Rumiko, he existed only to slay the dragon. The rigor of solitary sword practice and travel occupied every waking moment, though Rumiko haunted his dreams.
Stray beams of sunlight pierced the forest’s canopy. In the distance, a head-high wall of brambles signaled an end to the trees, the edge of the dragon’s clearing. Usashibo squatted near the base of a tree. The muscles at the nape of his neck tightened. A wave of warmth passed through him. His chest prickled with the first drops of sweat.
The scene was a sharp contrast to Usashibo’s imaginings. The hollow whistle of a songbird echoed from the edge of the clearing. A brown and black beetle peered cautiously from beneath a loose curl of bark above his shoulder. No evil presence exerted its control over the woodlands. But perhaps the clearing would be different.
Usashibo’s left hand rested on the mouth of his scabbard, and his thumb overlapped the sword’s guard. He crept from tree to tree, paused, and peeked through the wall of briars. In the center of the clearing stood a cottage surrounded by a garden similar to his own. Usashibo stared, unable to believe that anyone would dare to live this close to the dragon.
Usashibo circled the clearing, searching for a gap in the wall of thorns. At the far edge, he found a path that led through the garden to the cottage. He pushed through the briars and emerged into the sun. As he blinked, eyes adjusting to the light, a man stepped through the cottage’s door. Although Usashibo had never seen this man before, much about him seemed familiar. The powerful shoulders and mocking eyes marked him as a warrior, even without the two swords resting in his belt. Usashibo’s left hand resumed its position at the mouth of his scabbard. The two men stared at each other in silence, mirror images separated by clusters of red and gold blossoms.
Wind ruffled the strange man’s wide black pants. Slowly, he moved toward Usashibo, feet skimming the ground but never losing contact. Just beyond sword range, he stopped and met Usashibo’s stare. He grinned, and the creases that formed at the corners of his eyes made him look immeasurably older. “A champion of dragons. Ten years so soon.”
Usashibo forced himself to relax; tension would slow his reactions. From the combination of ease and precision that permeated the man’s movements, Usashibo knew he followed the way of the sword with a dedication most men cannot imagine. He knew this man shared his obsession to master his sword and himself and the isolation it brought. Curiosity broke through the strange feelings of companionship welling in Usashibo’s mind. “How did you know I am a champion of dragons?”
A smile again crossed the man’s face. “The way you walk, the way you hold your shoulders, and the unconquerable look in your eye. The last man I fought recognized me as I now recognize you. I was the last champion of dragons.”
Usashibo’s eyes narrowed accusingly. He feigned wiping sweat from his palm on the left side of his jacket to bring his hand nearer the hilt of the sword. “The last champion died fighting the dragon. He never returned.”
The man’s hand also casually drifted to his sword. “And you saw the body? Why should I return to people who inspired me, drove me to achieve beyond their dreams, then condemned me as different. They made me become the dragon, as shall you if you survive me.” The man unsheathed his sword slowly and raised the blade, hilt gripped two-handed near his shoulder. “You cannot escape them. I’ve lived many places. All people are the same. It’s easier being alone.”
Usashibo drew both his swords and retreated two steps. His short blade hovered at waist height, the long one poised above it. The thought of killing the only person who truly understood the hell he survived appalled him. “I don’t want to fight you.”
The man lowered the tip of his sword until it nearly touched the ground. “You don’t need to know who’d win? If you’re afraid, you’re a disgrace to the swords you carry.”
The possibility of losing this combat had never occurred to Usashibo. Surrender would render the years of training and self-denial meaningless. The minutes of immortality during this fight had cost too much to be given up now. After sacrificing Rumiko’s love, one man’s life would not keep Usashibo from his goal. Despite the bond he shared with this man, or because of it, Usashibo knew he must kill the dragon he faced. In the quiet of my soul, I am invincible.
Usashibo thrust with both swords. The man dodged and retreated. The two men circled. They probed each other’s defenses without fully attacking. The man struck for Usashibo’s forward leg. Usashibo leapt above the attack. The man lunged again. Usashibo batted the blade aside with his short sword. He countercut at the man’s wrists. The man jerked his sword back and caught Usashibo’s blow near his hilt. Spinning away, he cut beneath Usashibo’s guard. Pain seared Usashibo’s thigh. Reflexively, he lowered both swords to block the blow which had already landed. The man’s sword arched toward Usashibo’s undefended head.
Usashibo dropped his short sword and pivoted away. As the blow descended, Usashibo blended with the man’s movement. His free hand caught his opponent’s hilt and continued the forward motion. Pulled off-balance, the man stumbled. Usashibo drove his long sword into his opponent’s chest. He continued the cut as his blade slid free. The man dropped to the ground.
Red froth bubbled from the man’s mouth as he clutched the wound. “Brother, you did not disappoint me.” A final smile crossed his face before death glazed his features.
A horse’s whicker snapped Usashibo’s attention from the man he had killed. Snatching up his short sword, he whirled, poised for combat.
Rumiko sat astride a dun stallion at the edge of the clearing, bow in hand, arrow nocked. She answered Usashibo’s question before he asked it. “If he’d won, I’d have killed him.”
Usashibo lowered his swords and stared at his wife, puzzled. The entire situation confounded him, and the burning cut on his thigh clouded thought further. One question pressed foremost in his thoughts. “Why didn’t you shoot him before the fight?”
A shy smile lit Rumiko’s face. “When I heard him talk, I knew he was right. You had to fight.” She shrugged. “That’s the way Miura Usashibo is.”
Suddenly, Usashibo realized the force that had driven and shaped his life had disappeared. The dragon was dead. The joy he should have felt at Rumiko’s revelation lost itself in the void the dragon had filled. For the first time in Usashibo’s life, he experienced panic. Tears welled in his eyes.
Rumiko’s grin broadened as her horse danced sideways. “I understand Mimasaka has been plagued by a demon for three hundred years.”
An inner warmth and new sense of purpose suffused Usashibo. There are many dragons and only one Rumiko. “Let’s go home.”
TWO YARDS OF DRAGON
L. Sprague de Camp
Eudoric Damberton, Esquire, rode home from his courting of Lusina, daughter of the enchanter Baldonius, with a face as long as an olifant’s nose. Eudoric’s sire, Sir Dambert, said:
“Well, how fared thy suit, boy? Ill, eh?”
“I—” began Eudoric.
“I told you ’twas an asinine notion, eh? Was I not right? When Baron Emmerhard has more daughters than he can count, any One of which would fetch a pretty parcel of land with her, eh? Well, why answerest not?”
“I—” said Eudoric.
“Come on, lad, speak up!”
“How can he, when ye talk all the time?” said Eudoric’s mother, the Lady Aniset.
“Oh,” said Sir Dambert. “Your pardon, son. Moreover and furthermore, as I’ve told you, an’ ye were Emmerhard’s son-in-law, he’d use his influence to get you your spurs. Here ye be, a strapping youth of three-and-twenty, not yet knighted. ’Tis a disgrace to our lineage.”
“There are no wars toward, to afford opportunity for deeds of knight
ly dought,” said Eudoric.
“Aye, ’tis true. Certes, we all hail the blessings of peace, which the wise governance of our sovran emperor hath given us for lo these thirteen years. Howsomever, to perform a knightly deed, our young men must needs waylay banditti, disperse rioters, and do suchlike fribbling feats.”
As Sir Dambert paused, Eudoric interjected, “Sir, that problem now seems on its way to solution.”
“How meanest thou?”
“If you’ll but hear me, Father! Doctor Baldonius has set me a task, ere he’ll bestow Lusina on me, which should fit me for knighthood in any jurisdiction.”
“And that is?”
“He’s fain to have two square yards of dragon hide. Says he needs ’em for his magical mummeries.”
“But there have been no dragons in these parts for a century or more!”
“True; but, quoth Baldonius, the monstrous reptiles still abound far to eastward, in the lands of Pathenia and Pantorozia. Forsooth, he’s given me a letter of introduction to his colleague, Doctor Raspiudus, in Pathenia.”
“What?” cried the Lady Aniset. “Thou, to set forth on some yearlong journey to parts unknown, where, ’tis said, men hop on a single leg or have faces in their bellies? I’ll not have it! Besides, Baldonius may be privy wizard to Baron Emmerhard, but ’tis not to be denied that he is of no gentle blood.”
“Well,” said Eudoric, “so who was gentle when the Divine Pair created the world?”
“Our forebears were, I’m sure, whate’er were the case with those of the learned Doctor Baldonius. You young people are always full of idealistic notions. Belike thou’lt fall into heretical delusions, for I hear that the Easterlings have not the true religion. They falsely believe that God is one, instead of two as we truly understand.”
“Let’s not wander into the mazes of theology,” said Sir Dambert, his chin in his fist. “To be sure, the paynim Southrons believe that God is three, an even more pernicious notion than that of the Easterlings.”
“An’ I meet God in my travels, I’ll ask him the truth o’t,” said Eudoric.
“Be not sacrilegious, thou impertinent whelp! Still and all and notwithstanding, Doctor Baldonius were a man of influence to have in the family, be his origin never so humble. Methinks I could prevail upon him to utter spells to cause my crops, my neat, and my villeins to thrive, whilst casting poxes and murrains on my enemies. Like that caitiff Rainmar, eh? What of the bad seasons we’ve had? The God and Goddess know we need all the supernatural help we can get to keep us from penury. Else we may some fine day awaken to find that we’ve lost the holding to some greasy tradesman with a purchased title, with pen for lance and tally sheet for shield.”
“Then I have your leave, sire?” cried Eudoric, a broad grin splitting his square, bronzed young face.
The Lady Aniset still objected, and the argument raged for another hour. Eudoric pointed out that it was not as if he were an only child, having two younger brothers and a sister. In the end, Sir Dambert and his lady agreed to Eudoric’s quest, provided he return in time to help with the harvest, and take a manservant of their choice.
“Whom have you in mind?” asked Eudoric.
“I fancy Jillo the trainer,” said Sir Dambert.
Eudoric groaned. “That old mossback, ever canting and haranguing me on the duties and dignities of my station?”
“He’s but a decade older than ye,” said Sir Dambert. “Moreover and furthermore, ye’ll need an older man, with a sense of order and propriety, to keep you on the path of a gentleman. Class loyalty above all, my boy! Young men are wont to swallow every new idea that flits past, like a frog snapping at flies. Betimes they find they’ve engulfed a wasp, to their scathe and dolor.”
“He’s an awkward wight, Father, and not overbrained.”
“Aye, but he’s honest and true, no small virtues in our degenerate days. In my sire’s time there was none of this newfangled saying the courteous ‘ye’ and ‘you’ even to mere churls and scullions. ’Twas always ‘thou’ and ‘thee.’”
“How you do go on, Dambert dear,” said the Lady Aniset.
“Aye, I ramble. ’Tis the penalty of age. At least, Eudoric, the faithful Jillo knows horses and will keep your beasts in prime fettle.” Sir Dambert smiled. “Moreover and furthermore, if I know Jillo Godmarson, he’ll be glad to get away from his nagging wife for a spell.”
So Eudoric and Jillo set forth to eastward, from the knight’s holding of Arduen, in the barony of Zurgau, in the county of Treveria, in the kingdom of Locania, in the New Napolitanian Empire. Eudoric—of medium height, powerful build, dark, with square-jawed but otherwise undistinguished features—rode his palfrey and led his mighty destrier Morgrim. The lank, lean Jillo bestrode another palfrey and led a sumpter mule. Morgrim was piled with Eudoric’s panoply of plate, carefully nested into a compact bundle and lashed down under a canvas cover. The mule bore the rest of their supplies.
For a fortnight they wended uneventfully through the duchies and counties of the Empire. When they reached lands where they could no longer understand the local dialects, they made shift with Helladic; the tongue of the Old Napolitanian Empire, which lettered men spoke everywhere.
They stopped at inns where inns were to be had. For the first fortnight, Eudoric was too preoccupied with dreams of his beloved Lusina to notice the tavern wenches. After that, his urges began to fever him, and he bedded one in Zerbstat, to their mutual satisfaction. Thereafter, however, he forebore, not as a matter of sexual morals but as a matter of thrift.
When benighted on the road, they slept under the stars—or, as befell them on the marches of Avaria, under a rain-dripping canopy of clouds. As they bedded down in the wet, Eudoric asked his companion:
“Jillo, why did you not remind me to bring a tent?”
Jillo sneezed. “Why, sir, come rain, come snow, I never thought that so sturdy a springald as ye be would ever need one. The heroes in the romances never travel with tents.”
“To the nethermost hell with heroes of the romances! They go clattering around on their destriers for a thousand cantos. Weather is ever fine. Food, shelter, and a change of clothing appear, as by magic, whenever desired. Their armor never rusts. They suffer no tisics and fluxes. They pick up no fleas or lice at the inns. They’re never swindled by merchants, for none does aught so vulgar as buying and selling.”
“If ye’ll pardon me, sir,” said Jillo, “that were no knightly way to speak. It becomes not your station.”
“Well, to the nethermost hells with my station, too! Wherever these paladins go, they find damsels in distress to rescue, or have other agreeable, thrilling and sanitary adventures. What adventures have we had? The time we fled from robbers in the Turonian Forest. The time I fished you out of the Albis half drowned. The time we ran out of food in the Asciburgi Mountains and had to plod fodderless over those hair-raising peaks for three days on empty stomachs.”
“The Divine Pair do but seek to try the mettle of a valorous aspirant knight, sir. Ye should welcome these petty adversities as a chance to prove your manhood.”
Eudoric made a rude noise with his mouth. “That for my manhood! Right now, I’d fainer have a stout roof overhead, a warm fire before me, and a hot repast in my belly. An’ ever I go on such a silly jaunt again, I’ll find one of those versemongers—like that troubadour, Landwin of Kromnitch, that visited us yesteryear—and drag him along, to show him how little real adventures are like those of the romances. And if he fall into the Albis, he may drown, for all of me. Were it not for my darling Lusina—”
Eudoric lapsed into gloomy silence, punctuated by sneezes.
They plodded on until they came to the village of Liptai, on the border of Pathenia. After the border guards had questioned and passed them, they walked their animals down the deep mud of the main street. Most of the slatternly houses were of logs or of crudely hewn planks, innocent of paint.
“Heaven above!” said Jillo. “Look at that, sir!”
“That”
was a gigantic snail shell, converted into a small house.
“Knew you not of the giant snails of Pathenia?” asked Eudoric. “I’ve read of them in Doctor Baldonius’ encyclopedia. When full grown, they—or rather their shells—are ofttimes used for dwellings i this land.”
Jillo shook his head. “ ’Twere better had ye spent more of you time on your knightly exercises and less on reading. Your sire hath never learnt his letters, yet he doth his duties well enow.”
“Times change, Jillo. I may not clang rhymes so featly as Doctor Baldonius, or that ass Landwin of Kromnitch; but in these days a stroke of the pen were oft more fell than the slash of a sword. Here’s a hostelry that looks not too slummocky. Do you dismount and inquire within as to their tallage.”
“Why, sir?”
“Because I am fain to know, ere we put our necks in the noose! Go ahead. An’ I go in, they’ll double the scot at sight of me.”
When Jillo came out and quote prices, Eudoric said, “Too dear. We’ll try the other.”
“But, Master! Mean ye to put us in some flea-bitten hovel, like that which we suffered in Bitava?”
“Aye. Didst not prate to me on the virtues of petty adversity in strengthening one’s knightly mettle?”
“ ’Tis not that, sir.”
“What, then?”
“Why, when better quarters are to be had, to make do with the worse were an insult to your rank and station. No gentleman—”
“Ah, here we are!” said Eudoric. “Suitably squalid, too! You see, good Jillo, I did but yester’een count our money, and lo! more than half is gone, and our journey not yet half completed.”
“But, noble Master, no man of knightly mettle would so debase himself as to tally his silver, like some base-born commercial—”
“Then I must needs lack true knightly mettle. Here we be!”
For a dozen leagues beyond Liptai rose the great, dense Motolian Forest. Beyond the forest lay the provincial capital of Velitchovo. Beyond Velitchovo, the forest thinned out gradatim to the great grassy plains of Pathenia. Beyond Pathenia, Eudoric had been told, stretched the boundless deserts of Pantorozia, over which a man might ride for months without seeing a city.
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