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."

There is No Dragon part 2

They were about a hundred feet away from the village, very newr the spot where the man had fed himself to the monster the night before, when they saw two children standing in their way on the road. It was a boy about 12 years old and his younger sister. They seemed scared and even a little ashamed to be out there, but they looked at the two travelers as evil-ridden villagers should look at dragon slayers, with hope.
"There is a dragon," the boy said quietly, after a long moment.
"We know," Jared said.
"They don’t care," the little girl said, pointing at the village.
"They used to care, but they don’t any more. They used to try to fight him, but not anymore." The boy continued.
"Why not?" Zede asked.
" The Dragon would have killed us all, but the elders made a deal with hi8m. Whenever he comes down from the mountains, one of the villagers goes out to him and gets eaten. If he doesn’t get his meal, the dragon will burn the whole village and kill us all."
"That’s horrible!" Zede said. "Why don’t they want us to kill the dragon?"
"I told you," the boy said, beginning to sound desperate. "They don’t care. They’re used to him. They pretend he’s not there. Most of the people are scared, but they don’t think anything can be done."
"And, why have you come here?" Jared asked.
"Because we don’t want to be eaten," said the little girl. "Can you really kill it?"
"Yes, "Jared told him. Zede was grinning eagerly. "Show us to the dragon’s lair."
While the children took the dragon slayers to the cave that was the dragon’s lair, they told them all about the creature and the horrible arrangement that the villagers had made with him. The village had been built for a thousand, and as few as five years ago, there had been a thousand people there. Then the dragon came and in the first attacks, dozens were lost at a time. The boy, Edrickson, was only seven at the time, but he remembered it clearly. Some wanted to call for a dragon slayer right away, but most of the villagers to too proud to call for outside help and sent out their own men to kill it. A houndred men were lost before the elders somehow convinced the dragon to accept their deal. At first it was only sheep that were sacrificed. But the dragon tired of them after a few months, and demanded human flesh. No one wanted to agree to those gruesome demands, but after the dragon killed thirty more people and burned several buildings on the outskirts of the village, they accepted. They cast lots to decide who would go be the first, and have been casting lots ever since.
The dragon never announced his visits. At midnight, the chosen "sacrifice" emerged at the sound of the bell. He or she was required to signal the monster with the torch, and if the dragon happened to be hungry, as he was the night before, he ate. It used to be that only one villager would be taken per month. Then as the dragon grew larger and hungrier, once a week. Lately, the beast had grown so hungry that nearly every villager that went out was eaten. The man who had been the dragon’s meal last night was the father of these frightened children.
As they reached the cave’s entrance, Jared said to Zede, "I think I’ve finally figured out what I’ve been feeling from the village. It’s complacency. The villagers have accepted the dragon and their own death."
The cave was nothing unusual. As large, and foreboding , as any dragon’s lair. And it had the familiar smell of sulfur and burnt flesh. They suspected that this dragon would be, like most dragons are in the middle of the day, sleeping soundly. But it would surely smell their approach and wake up to face them, before too long. They had never lost a battle, but they had yet to fight an easy one.
Jared told Edricson and his sister to go back to the village and wait. If the two dragon slayers were successful, they would return to inform the villagers that, like it or not, their dreadful dragon was dead.
The mouth of the cave led to a long tunnel and the slayers went silently down into it. It was dark, but warm, and they could hear the beast ahead of them, breathing slowly in his sleep. Bones, both animal and human, lined the tunnels, as did bits and pieces of the dragon’s treasure, including gold, diamonds, and other precious jewels. It was not unusual for dragons to acquire a massive fortune.
Then they were in his chamber. The walls glowed red in the heat of the dragons breath and in the dull glow they could see the beast. He was the largest dragon that they had ever seen, probably because it was so well fed. His treasure was immense and once the dragon was killed, the treasure would belong to the towns people. That was the way of things with dragon’s treasure, a sort of compensation for the months and years of suffering that the monster caused. Usually, newly liberated villagers chose to pay the dragon slayers out of the riches they inherited, but Jared doubted that he and Zede would ever receive any of this treasure.
Zede drew his sword and Jared grabbed his large battle ax with a blade stained black with the blood of countless evil monsters. They split up and flanked the sleeping monster. Jared on the right and Zede on the left. They were poised to strike, when just as they expected, the dragon’s eyes, both over a foot in diameter, popped open. His head reared up and he roared in surprised rage.
"How dare ;you attack me? We have a deal!"
"I’m not from the village," Jared shouted , "You have no deal with me!"
He dove at the beast, driving his ax deep into it’s leg. Zede plunged his sword into the monster’s other leg. The dragon roared, spitting white fire, and swinging his spiked tail wildly.
"Many will die for this outrage!" the dragon roared.
"The only one who will die today is you!! Zede roared back, "you overgrown firefly!"
they continued their assault, knowing that their little weapons would do little more than enrage the dragon. In fact that was the plan. In this tight space, the dragon couldn’t get at them. He would have to leave his lair to get away from the painful pricks and nicks of the dragon slayers’ weapons. Then as they had done so many times before, Jared and Zede could deliver the death blow.
It took a little longer than usual, but the dragon did shoot down the tunnel and out into the air. Jared and Zede were right on his tail. When they emerged from the dragon’s lair, they saw him flying straight into the air, large and black and spitting fire furiously. Then as the dragons always did, he turned and flew back at them intending to fry them or eat them or both.
They were ready. In addition to the ax and the sword, Jared and Zede each had a bow and arrow. Their bows ere perfectly normal, but their arrows had been given to them by a good wizard and they had a power that no evil force could withstand. The wizard had recognized Jared’s gifts and Zede’s ferocity and gave them this special gift. If two of the arrows hit the dragon, one in each eye, the thing would die almost instantly no matter what its size. Knowing that with this dragon’s size, the magic arrows were their only chance at defeating him., they took aim.
They fired. Their aim was perfect and the arrows struck the dragon in both of his eyes. Ordinary arrow may have irritated him or even blinded him, but these arrows shot pure and white light into the beast, a light which flashed from his eyes, nostrils, mouth and every hole in his body caused by Jared’s and Zede’s weapons, and the dragon flailed violently for a moment and then fluttered to the mountain side with a kind of bizarre grace. It was dead.
From where they stood, triumphantly, Jared could see the village. With the dragon dead, the sense of evil was gone, but the complacency from the village remained. Jared had the feeling that they might not welcome the news of their liberation. He had a strange idea that some may even mourn the monster. He shook the unbelievable thought from his mind. It was time to deliver the good news, whether they wanted it or not.
"The dragon is dead!" Jared announced as he and Zede entered the village for the second time that day. This time nobody gathered around them. Only Edrikson and his sister were waiting and they were overjoyed. The other villagers, on the street, ignored the dragon slayers. One or two gave them an annoyed look.
"The dragon is dead!" he repeated more empathically.
This brought the four leaders out to meet them. Still only the two children were interested enough to take notice of the meeting.
"We told you, dragon slayer, there is no dragon."
You’re right about that," Zede said. "We killed him!"
"There never was a dragon!" the four leaders said in unison.
"Yes there was!" the young girl cried out. "There was, there was, there was! He killed my papa, he killed my mother. But now he’s dead, and we’re safe!"
"Quiet child!" one of the leaders scolded. "We don’t talk of such things."
"Like it or not sir," Jared said, " accept it or not, your dragon is dead. You know where his lair is. Go there and you will find his treasure. We have taken none of it. It is your to do with as you please."
"since there was no dragon, " the youngest of the leaders said, "there is no treasure. Now please go.
So these people wouldn’t admit that there was a dragon. They wouldn’t rejoice in their freedom. They wouldn’t even claim the treasure that was not rightfully theirs. Jared couldn’t believe these fools. He turned to face the two children who had so bravely come out to ask their help.
"You, at least are free," he told them. "and since they don’t seem to want any of it, the dragon’s treasure is yours as well. Enjoy it. Share it with any villager who chooses to acknowledge the dragon and its death"
The little girl hugged Jared and gave Zede a kiss on one hairy cheek. He blushed and looked away embarrassed. "Thank you" she whispered.
The two dragon slayers left the village, whose name they never cared to learn, and when they reached the road out of town they bent and wiped the dust of the village off of their boots.
In the end, the children could convince only 3 other people to go to the dragon’s lair and collect the treasure. They took as much of it as they could carry and left the village behind them forever. Although they left much of the massive treasure for any of the others who might want it, the story goes that no one ever came to claim the rest of it.

There is No Dragon Part 3

That night, at midnight a bell rang, and a woman from the village stepped outside with a torch in her hand. She walked to the edge of the village to signal for the dragon, who would never eat another one of them. She waved the torch in the air and stood there for at least an hour. Waiting for the dragon that the village denied ever existed. Waiting for the dragon that was never going to come again. And then she waked back to the village relieved that this dragon that was and was not, hadn’t been hungry this night.
Two dragon slayers watched from the top of a nearby hill.
"What’s wrong with those people?" Zede asked.
"I don’t know," Jared answered. "It’s almost as if they’re afraid to be free!"
"Well, I’ll be a fairy princess!" Zede mumbled as they both turned and walked away.