There is No Dragon Part 1

"There’s one here, Zede," Jared said. "I can almost smell him. Zede sniffed the air. "All I smell is roasted mutton and sheep dung!" the dwarf said. "But if you say so…"
Jared and Zede looked down into the valley at the tiny village. It was dusk and the small houses, no more than wood and mud huts, were all closed up. The few windows they could see were lit with candle light and smoke came from the chimneys, but there wasn’t a soul out on the streets. That was a sure sign. There were no animals either. Even the sheep, whose dung Zede had commented on, were out of sight. Another sure sign. There was a monster of some sort in the village, or near the village, and the people who lived there were avoiding it at all costs.
"Shall we go down?" Zede asked. His hand was already on the hilt of his little sword and his eyes were blazing with blood lust.
"Not yet, my friend," Jared said. "I think there’s something wrong with this place."
"Besides the fact that there’s a monster?"
"I don’t know," Jared said. He stared down at the tiny village and it’s abandoned streets. If there was a monster or a dragon or some sort of demon terrorizing this place, why hadn’t Jared heard of it? He was a dragon slayer and monster killer after all. Famous throughout the kingdom, and if any city, town or village had a monster problem, Jared and his partner Zede were usually the first to be called. But he hadn’t even heard of this village.
They had come across the place by accident, while returning from a successful mission battling three trolls who had kidnapped the young daughter of a town’s mayor. A short cut through this valley had revealed the little village. Surely, if they did have a monster problem down there, word would have reached Jared.
And, in addition to smelling a monster, he also detected something else.
Jared couldn’t actually smell evil, even though many monsters, troll goblins, and dragons did have terrible odors. But he did have a sort of sixth sense, not really magic, but also not exactly normal, and he knew where he would find an evil force. He could also sense certain emotions in people. It was rare that he would sense anything more than fear in an evil-ridden area, and that inherent fear was so common in such situations that Jared barely noticed it anymore. But from this village, he sensed something worse than fear. He didn’t know what the feeling was, but there was something emanating from the people in the village that he never before encountered when dealing with an evil force. That something frightened him.
"Let’s wait here for the night," Jared told Zede. "We’ll watch the village. Maybe we’ll see something that will help us, and explain this strange feeling I have. We’ll go down at sunrise."
Zede looked disappointed. He had been ready for a night of dragon hunting or monster hunting. But, he’d been traveling and fighting with Jared for over ten years and he had learned to trust the man’s judgment
"If you say so. But since waiting here is your idea, you build the fire and set up camp." The dwarf pulled his bow from his back. "I’m going to find us something to eat. I’m starving!"
That night, while Zede snored away loudly (how did such a little man make such a large noise?), Jared watched the village. He had barely eaten, which hadn’t bothered Zede in the least since there was more rabbit meat for him! Jared was too distracted by what he felt coming from the village.
Four hours after the sun set, while their campfire was little more than glowing embers and his trusty companion was sleeping away his supper, Jared finally saw movement in the village. First, he heard the distant sound of a bell ringing. Then he heard what sounded like children crying. Then he saw the door of one of the houses open and a figure stepped out into the darkness. The children’s crying grew louder but it was muffled when the door closed again.
The figure was that of a man. He was carrying a lit torch and began walking in the direction of Jared and Zede. The village was about half a mile away from them, but Jared’s eyes were keen, and he could see the man’s determined, yet somehow reluctant stride towards the edge of the village. Had the villagers seen them camping out there and decided to brave the monster and send someone out to see who they were?
"Zede!" Jared called, "Wake up!"
Zede grunted, snored, and rolled over. Sighing Jared picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the dwarf. The rock bounced off his ample rear end and he sat straight up with a start.
"How dare you, you little goblin scum!" He shouted. "I’ll run you through!" "Be quiet, Zede," Jared said, with an amused sigh. This wasn’t the first time that he had awakened the dwarf. There was a reason he’d thrown the rock at him. Zede had grabbed his sword, which was lying a foot away from him and was swinging it wildly. If Jared had tried to wake him up within reach of that deadly little blade, he would have indeed been run through.
"What is it?" Zede asked, lowering his sword.
"Someone’s leaving the village. He may be coming to meet with us."
They watched the man as he walked down a path about a hundred feet past the edge of the village. He stopped there, held his about his head with both hands, and swung it in an arch three times.
"What’s he doing"" Zede Asked.
Before Jacob could answer, they heard a familiar sound. It was wings, large and reptilian, flapping in the night air. Then they saw a burst of yellow-orange light which illuminated a gigantic dragon who was circling the village a hundred feet in the air. The man waved his torch again.
"Well, I’ll be a fairy princess! Zede exclaimed, "He’s signaling the beast.
Jared felt like saying that that was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. The villager did appear to be signaling the dragon and the dragon turned towards the torch’s light. Dragons are unnaturally fast, and this one was huge. It opened its enormous mouth as it swooped down toward the man, and chomped him up in one bite. The man made no effort to escape. He had allowed the dragon to eat him.
"Did you see that? He fed himself to it! That’s unheard of!" Zede exclaimed. "I saw" Jared whispered, his unease about this place growing. "Something is terribly wrong here, Zede. Terribly wrong!"
The next morning, Jared the Dragon Slayer and his partner Zede the Ferocious walked down the valley into the village. In the light of the early morning, the village looked almost normal. As in every other village and town they went to, the two were greeted first by a crowd of curious children. This was a small village and this "crowd" consisted of no more than twenty boys and girls, most under 10 years of age and most towering over Zede by nearly a foot. Then came their apologetic, but equally curious parents who cautiously inspected the two travelers who were obviously warriors. Finally came the prominent people of the village, in this case four men, two elders who could have been twins, and two in their early forties.
All of it seemed normal enough on the surface, but Jared still felt strange. These people were hiding something and that weird feeling was stranger than ever. The entire population of the village, which looked like it numbered less than two hundred (though the village looked to be built for a thousand) was standing around watching as the four village leaders approached the visitors. The strange feeling was strongest from these four. Even Zede seemed to sense it.
"Who are you?" one of the old twins demanded. "What are you doing here?" this was a rather harsh greeting compared to what Jared and Zede were used to. Villages tended to welcome them, not interrogate them. Especially villages with a nearby killer dragon.
"I am Jared the Dragon Slayer, and this is Zede the Ferocious."
"Dragon slayers eh? We asked for no dragon slayers."
"You do not need to ask for our services," Jared explained, "My friend and I will dispatch your dragon this very day, at no charge to you."
"It’s what we do!" added Zede.
"We have no need of you here!" one of the younger men said. "Go you way!"
"But we say the dragon last night, we saw it kill a man!" said Jared.
"A vivid dream, friend, no more than that. There is no dragon here!"
"Are you daft man?" Zede asked the elder who had just spoken. "We know what we saw! We can kill it for you! We can save you!"
"Save us from what?" the other young man asked. "There is no dragon here!"
That feeling had grown even more intense. Jared looked to the villagers hoping to find support. Usually, people in their circumstances looked to welcomed them has saviors and heroes. Most of these people were looking at them as some sort of interlopers. No one seemed to want help with the problem that was so clearly there.
"Doesn’t’ any of you wish to be rid of that beast?" Jared asked them.
No one replied. Instead, starting with the older people, the villagers turned away from them as if they had lost interest. In a moment, every man, woman, and child, except for the four village leaders, had disappeared into the buildings from which they had come.
"You see," one of the elders told them, "Your services are neither wanted nor needed." Now, please leave our village."
"But we’ve never left a monster alive before!" Zede reminded Jared as they walked away from the village"
"We’ve never been turned away before," Jared replied.
"But there is a dragon!" Zede shouted. "We both saw it!"
"I know that, Zede," Jared said, "but they don’t seem to care."