Sleek flattened his ears but stepped lightly through the undergrowth around the basin. Cador moved his hand from the pommel of his sword to his breast. He couldn’t feel it through the mail and leather, of course, but he wore a medal about his neck, given to him by his mother before she died, stamped with the image of St Michael. He pressed his hand against his chest and through clenched teeth, began to pray. ‘Holy Michael, Archangel of our Lord and saint who vanquished Satan the Drag …’ He couldn’t quite get that word out, for the very real, very unvanquished dragon in the basin to his right had once again licked the air with its massive tongue. ‘Oh Lord,’ he tried once more, but his throat had gone quite dry. The dragon’s fangs, he noticed at this point, were large. Very large. Perhaps as long as his arm. ‘Help me, help me, help me,’ he croaked. ‘Please … Help me.’
‘Well! Since you said please, I’m happy to help. Haw!’
Merlin’s voice, rough and cawing, grated at his ears and Cador glanced around wildly, expecting to spot the naked old man in the trees. But all that perched there was a crow, clicking its beak at him.
‘You think I’m fool enough to get close to that serpent’s den? Haw!’ the crow snapped, ruffling its feathers. ‘You can hear me, but I’m miles away. This bird has generously agreed to carry my voice. It’s an arrangement we have. Let’s see. You have a spear. Won’t do much good. But maybe it’ll distract her.’
It took Cador a moment to realize that ‘her’ meant the dragon. ‘It’s a she?’
‘Yes, a lady. Haw! It’s a female. Some day it might even be a mother. That makes it all the more important for you to kill her. Battling a dragon takes great courage. There’s only one way to kill her, and that’s to get close. No arrow, not even a lance, can slay a dragon.’
‘Wonderful,’ Cador said, clenching his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. He rolled his shoulders back and gripped the shaft of the spear he’d just been told was useless. ‘So it sounds as if I oughtn’t to try to kill this dragon by myself. Rather, I’ll get back to King Evan and we can all go …’
‘Ah. No offence to you knights, but I’ve found that you have a tendency to avoid danger if you can. Quite understandable! It may even be judged a sign of intelligence! But I fear that if I let you go back to your king, he will want to gather an even larger army and make this into some sort of quest that might take months. And I have an interest in this dragon being vanquished much sooner than that. She tramples all the greenery and gobbles the mushrooms. Nothing left for poor hungry Merlin. Besides, you asked for my help.’ The crow hopped from one branch of the oak tree to another. Causing, Cador thought, an awful lot of noise.
‘No I didn’t. I was praying.’ He glanced to his left, where gorse grew in thick bunches, making a silent and swift escape impossible. With some reluctance, he glanced to his right. The dragon had extended more of its length from its hole and now its neck, long and sinuous, quested about the basin. Sunlight dappled down, setting its green scales sparkling. It looked almost to be made of liquid, it was so shiny and smooth, and in the way it moved, rolling like an ocean wave. Cador felt himself transfixed …
The crow squawked at him. ‘Haw! Worst prayer I ever heard. Help me? Really. Now listen. You can charge. Maybe you’ll get lucky. But in all likelihood, you won’t. You have to get close.’
‘How close?’ Cador asked. The wind gusted through the trees, setting oak leaves flapping, and he shivered inside his mail shirt. The crow just bunched its feathers up and pulled its neck in, staring implacably down on Cador.
‘Inside the reach of her claws. Right up against her.’
Beneath him, Sleek sidestepped and Cador reached out a gauntleted hand to rub the horse’s neck. He wondered if Sleek was bothered by the foetid smell of the dragon, which the gust of wind had not managed to dispel. ‘That’s very close,’ Cador said, keeping his voice low. He stared down through the branches into the basin. The dragon had, at least, withdrawn back into its lair.
‘You have to strike at her heart.’ The crow’s beak clicked.
Without the sight of those terrible fangs and the horrible tongue, Cador felt his courage returning. What did this wizard, this dirty old man, know about fighting dragons? He gave Sleek one more pat on the neck, ruffling his grey mane, and said, ‘Conjuror or not, I must tell you that I have no intention of killing …’
‘Are you sure?’
And with that teasing phrase, the ground beneath his mount’s hooves gave way, spilling Cador and Sleek down the side of the basin. The horse stumbled, nearly falling. Cador cried, ‘God in heaven!’ The horse found his footing, but, compelled by magic or some force of nature, continued his hurtling descent, with Cador as an unwilling passenger. He got his wits about him, raised his shield and couched his spear; how he wished he were back on the pitch at Winchester, tilting against a human opponent. But ahead of him loomed the dragon, all its hideous length spilling out of its lair, and who had ever jousted with a dragon?
Sleek reared up as they reached the basin’s bottom, and Cador had to pull hard on the reins; the horse gave a terrible shriek but dropped his hooves to the ground, jolting Cador hard. The breath rushed out of him and then he sucked at the air, drawing in a lungful of foul vapour, damp and rotten, the effulgence of the dragon. He coughed; his lungs burned. He felt Sleek restless beneath him, threatening to rear once more, and so he dug his spurs into the horse’s sides, driving them both forward.
Forward, towards the terrible beast, which had itself reared up, its head high above Cador, its belly – the scales there silver-grey-white – exposed. Cador spurred Sleek again, aiming them towards that underside, hoping they were moving fast enough that the dragon couldn’t lower its head to strike in time.
He lifted his shield so that it would guard against the dragon above him. Another shriek echoed in the basin – not Sleek this time, but the dragon – a noise like ten falcons, shredding the air. Cador struck the serpent, his spear hitting the grey-silver scales of the serpent’s underside and bouncing off, as if he were jousting a castle wall. The impact threw his shoulder back, sent him spinning in the saddle, then out of the saddle, tumbling to the ground, knocking the breath out of him again. He rolled over, got his feet beneath him and watched Sleek gallop away. At least one of them was safe.
‘Told you,’ Merlin’s voice mocked, ringing in his ears. ‘Go for the heart.’
Cador thought that if he ran, he might make it; his blow had stunned the dragon. A bit.
Take that back. The dragon was merely swinging away to land a killing blow. Cador drew his sword and dodged as the neck flicked out. Snap of jaws on empty air.
‘Cut inside!’ Merlin insisted.
Cador could summon no better plan, and so, instead of putting distance between himself and the dragon, as every instinct in him screamed to do, he steadied his sword and shield, and, as the neck drew back to strike, he rolled around a rock and darted past the clutch of claws, stepping against the serpent’s belly. He saw the wisdom of Merlin’s advice – this close, the serpent couldn’t wildly lash out at him. But the dragon began a questing descent with its neck, mouth open, fangs (they had to be as long as his legs) bared.