The Dragonslayer
-Winter-
The winter had been hard that year. So very hard…
The harvest had been sparse, and the town of Harmlos had fallen on hard times. Unable to feed themselves, the townspeople went in droves into the employ of the dragon Gier, who lived in the mountains beyond the town, and owned a great wealth from the mines within his domain. The work was hard, but it put food on the table. The dragon was a patron of the town and looked to its care, trading with them for its needs while helping defend the town against the raids of the beast-men of the East.
With the winter so harsh, and so much of the town in service to the rich dragon, some grew discontent with the current order of things. They were jealous of the dragon, and so it was their doom…
“Have we suffered enough!” The old man gestured with his staff, his hand clutching it like that of a vulture to the tree. “To long have we tolerated the unholy wyrm at our gates! Enough is enough! The beast feeds from this town as a parasite, and like all foul leeches, it must be cut at the neck to stop the flow of blood-from us, to him!”
As the crowd centered around the furious and stooped priest cheered, a voice in the distance and cold black night shouted out in dissent above the cacophony.
“What idiocy is this!” A fat man shouted above the rabble. “You fool spitting your venomous hate against such a noble breed as great Gier, what ails you, beyond idiocy?” The fat man shoved his way through the inflamed crowd. They seethed around him as he made his way, fearless, towards the plat-form from which the man with the vulture hands spoke.
“So easy for you to speak good of the leech, Komik. You have eaten well this winter.”
“What does my good-will have to do with your bad one?” Komik said, patting his round belly and laughing.
“My success does not foil nor enhance your self made folly. Its not my fault people would rather be warm in my inn than out here to hear the cold, both in the wind and in your breath.”
“Your success is only at the whim of the dragon!” The vulture-clawed man shouted, stabbing with his staff as one would with a lance. “The dragon steals from us and manipulates us! You are his pet, a fat mouse to please and even fatter cat!”
“How dare you, you crone in a man’s body! I should have-” Komik rose to mount the stage, but a quick motion by the tall and heretofore silent man stopped him short.
“Enough of this!” Intoned the Paladin Siegfried, axe-hand of the man whose claws are like that of the vulture. “We have all heard the words of Father Narr! What say you people?”
The people answered as the roar of bloodlust raged through the mass before the three men, droning out the feeble protests of Komik.
“The people have spoken.” Father Narr intoned grimly, clutching his staff in either weakness or ecstasy “So the voice of many have spoken! Death for Gier! Life for Harmlos!”
“Death for Gier! Life for Harmlos!” The crowd roared back.
Father Narr turned toward Siegfried, staring down at him from his ramshackle wooden altar.
“You know what must be done.” He said, his voice heavy with the weight of duty.
“And it shall be.” Siegfried replied, the mantle of duty settling onto his shoulders now, without a sound. He drew his axe then, and turned to make his way through the crowd and to the Dragon’s mountain.
“This is madness.” Komik said, moving into the path of the paladin laden with duty. “You know not what you do.”
Siegfried did not speak, and instead shoved the fat man into the icy mud of the stone street and marched on, his face stone and his doom set.
~*~*~*~
“Truly, you are like the stars when I look upon you, Gracia.” the great dragon Gier spoke to the maiden as she stood before him. He then turned to the man who painted her beautiful form. “And, truly, you Geschick are the only man I know who can bring her spirit to life upon the portrait.”
“We thank you lord.” Gracia said, her back proud and straight in the warm golden light of the dragon’s den. “It is your generosity that is truly great.”
“Indeed.” Said Geschick as he bent forward and lovingly stroked his brush across the canvas. “It is you kindness that should be praised.”
“Kindness, yes, but more so respect.” The Dragon said, rearing up from his great glistening hoard to look upon both of his friends as he spoke. “You are both of a great worth to me. Your talents I pay for, and your friendship I return. All value to be repaid in kind.”
Both the artist and the woman of beauty smiled and nodded, knowing the dragon spoke the truth.
“Such a sentiment, wyrm, and you should not be surprised it has come to this.” A grim voice intoned from the edges of the chamber.
“Who goes there?” The dragon challenged the phantom voice, rearing up as his great golden eyes went wide with sudden anger and fear. “Show yourself, coward.”
“I am no coward,” Siegfried said as he stepped from the cold darkness and into the light. “I am justice.” The grim paladin turned his face from the dragon to the man and woman who were with the great Gier in his lair.
“Harlot!” He spat at Gracia whose beauty is like the stars. “You have whored yourself to the dragon! And you artist, painting foulness for the beast! Both of your sins will be punished in turn!”
“How dare you!” Gier roared, raising to his full height over the grim paladin. “You come into my home and threaten my friends! You shall pay dearly for this outrage.”
“It is you who shall pay, beast!” Siegfried shouted in return, brandishing his axe. “This home of yours is stolen, and your friends and yourself are beasts to be killed! In the name of the people I judge you!”
“Fool.” The dragon said, moving from atop his hoard and in between the paladin of doom and his two friends. “A fool, yes, but a dangerous fool. It shall be for the best that both you and Narr die. Monsters like you will only keep killing until you die!” The great Gier then turned to his most valued friends “Run deep into the cave! Do not come out until I call for you!”
It was at that moment that Siegfried struck. Rushing forward the paladin of black iron charged the noble crimson cold dragon. As the beast turned to consul its friends, the doom laden paladin struck with his axe deep into the shoulder of the great wyrm. Gier let loose a shriek of rage and spun on the paladin, swiping the warrior away with his mighty claws. With another shriek, the great dragon let loose a torrent of golden flame upon the paladin. Siegfried though, was quick and brought his shield forward, blocking the killing blast.
Back and forth the golden-red wyrm and the black iron knight fought across the chamber. Back and forth claw and axe and flame traded blow for blow, never relenting, never tiring.
After what seemed hours of battle, the dragon Gier was backed upon his great pure gold hoard, striking with tail, claw, and flame at the persistent paladin of fate.
“Foolish man!” Gier roared in frustration. “Why will you not fall!?”
“I am the will of the people!” Siegfried roared in return, raising his axe to strike.
“Your will is the will of death!” And with that, the dragon inhaled to make another strike with his glorious breath of flame, but Siegfried was quicker still. As the dragon reared, the iron paladin struck across the noble wyrm’s throat, which split open in a glut of black blood and flame.
With a gurgling moan of surprise, the great dragon Gier fell upon his hoard, wounded and dying. This was not to satisfy the paladin of doom though. With another might effort, Siegfried raised his axe and struck again, savagely against the neck.
The dragon Gier warbled in pain and sorrow as the iron knight hacked at his neck. The dragon attempted to move, to get away, but Siegfried struck again. Gier, in ultimate horror and sadness, turned his head to look upon the half-finished beauty of Gracia and talent of Geschick, to see one last thing of beauty before he died. Then Siegfried struck a third and final time, and the great noble dragon of gold and crimson was no more.
Siegfried stood back from his bloody work and laughed. The room had grown cold and dark, and Siegfried laughed. Without another word, he reached into the pile of treasure beneath the ruined corpse and left the cave to move into the coming dawn.
~*~*~*~
The masses of Harmlos had gathered there beneath the dragon’s mountain cave, having come in the footsteps of their black champion. Father Narr waited above them, back bent with weakness and humble nature as Siegfried left the dead cave and came forward into the grey light of dawn.
“Death for Gier” Siegfried intoned as he held his hand forward. “Life for Harmlos.”
“Death for Gier” Father Narr said in return as his vulture like hands reached forward and took the treasure from his servant’s hand. He then turned towards the mass below him.
“Life for Harmlos!” He shouted, thrusting one crooked talon into the air. The once warm and shining gold had now become cold and black with the blood of the great dragon as Father Narr waved it triumphantly in the air.
“Life for Harmlos!” The vulture-priest screeched again
“Life for Harmlos!” The people shouted up, hands raised in supplication to the sky.
“Life for Harmlos.” Siegfried said quietly to himself.
“Life for Harmlos!” All shouted as one.
-Spring-
It had been months since the death of Gier the great noble wyrm. The jolly Komik, beautiful Gracia, and talented Geschick had all been hung as sinners and wyrm sympathizers. So had many others. All under the grim judgement of Siegfried the iron paladin and his taloned master, Father Narr. For some time the treasures of the dragon’s hoard lasted, and all men ate as they could and lived rich. As the people lived in easy upon the stolen black gold, Father Narr came and preached to them, speaking of God, Brotherhood and Duty. The people listened with easy ears and lazy minds, and they heard of God, Brotherhood, and Duty, and they did as Father Narr told them to. They prayed to his God, joined his Brotherhood, and did the duties that he told them, and for a time, it was not any worse than it was before.
Then the spring came, and with the spring came visitors. These visitors came with goods to trade for the gold and minerals dragged from the dragon’s mines. When they came, Father Narr appeared before them and told them of the slaying of the dragon, and of God, and Brotherhood, and Duty. Some men listened to Father Narr, and fell under his spell and stayed in the town with him and his Brotherhood. Others listened, some laughed, and left, and did not return. Father Narr cursed them as sinful and greedy, and told his followers to not speak with them ever again. They did not have to work hard to fulfill this commandment.
Late into spring, after many of the merchants had learned to stay from the town, a different visitor came to the town of Harmlos. From the Grey Pass came a Beast-man from the East…
The great hulking Beast-man came down the the dark and empty Grey Pass to the town of Harmlos, his mangy black body wrapped in a white woolen cloak. The word of his approach reached the town before he did, and all of the people, lead by Father Narr and Siegfried. The people met the great hulking Beast-man by the town’s edge, and greeted him warmly.
“Welcome o’ Great Man of the East!” Said Father Narr, spreading his talon-like hands wide. “Let it be known that all enmity betwixt us in the past has been forgiven, let us feast like the brothers we are!”
With this, the hulking Beast-Man laughed his hyena laugh and grinned his great hyena grin.
“Yes,” He said, laughing, “Brothers, I like that.”
“Come then.” Said Father Narr. “Let us feast!” and so the vulture priest lead his Brotherhood and his guest back to the town. Siegfried followed closely next to the hulking Hyena man and his beast-grin.
“What is it like there?” He asked, quiet in his black iron armor.
“It is not so different than here.” The Hyena man said, smiling as his golden eyes lit up as if by some joke only he knew. “At least, not for long!”
And then he let loose another hyena laugh.
~*~*~*~
So the great men of the town, talking priests and labor captains, took their places around the table once reserved for leaders and heros in the temple that had once been a hall of men. At the head sat Father Narr, Siegfried at his right hand, cutting his meal with a golden dagger raided from the dragon’s treasure. On the other end sat the black and shaggy Beast-man and his grinning and laughing hyena face. Meat, either bought with black-stained gold or cut under the lash of the labor captains, was passed around for all things at the table to eat. A rump of lamb was passed to the Beast-man at the far end, and the gift of food was fallen upon as a lion would a weak deer.
So they ate, all as loud as the next. Once they had glutted themselves upon meat they did so again upon wine, liquid black as blood, and then they sat in stupor, each like a well-fed dog. Each equal and the same as his brother next to him. So was the dream of Father Narr and his brotherhood. Then, the Hulking Beast-man spoke, with his glowing laughing eyes and his mangy black smile dancing in the candlelight.
“So it is true what has been said among my brother’s in the East. The great wyrm Gier has died!”
“Yes. What has been spoken is true.” Father Narr said, rising with a drink sodden smile. “Great Gier is dead!”
“No, not great.” Siegfried said suddenly, his face ever grim. “He shall not be remembered as great. Greatness is good and greatness is evil and should not be remembered. All things who stand above others are not great. Only those who stand equal are Great. So it is that Gier should not be Great, or Noble, but simply the Worm. The Worm Gier has died at last, and I… No, not ‘I,’ this body from which the paltry soul that I am speaks did so at the behest of the people! Long live the people!”
“Long live the people!” All the priests and labor-captains intoned. The Beast-man sat in silence with his laughing eyes and dancing grin.
“So it is true…” He said, quietly. He then rose up from his seat.
“My friends,” The Hyena-man began, “I am glad for your success in dragon-slaying. Long has Gier foiled the plans of my people, oppressed us, kept us back. I speak only truth now before you former men of Gier’s Harmlos. There is much in common between us now. I will say that my brethren will also be given great joy by the death of Great… no, you are right my dragon-killing friend, of the worm Gier. I would wish to stay for many nights but at the moment I must depart to tell my tribe of the good news.” The Beast-man then hefted his bags and turned to leave.
“Wait!” Said Father Narr, stretching one talon outward in gesture. “I would ask to speak to you of an alliance of our newfound and enlightened peoples.”
The Hyena-man turned and smiled, his eyes glowing bright yellow.
“Worry not o’ great Man of Spirits.” He said, his mangy mouth spread in a horrid grin. “I assure you that soon enough, your people and mine will join in a most beneficial fashion!”
Then the hulking Beast-man let loose a great booming laugh as if he had just told a great joke, and then turned and left into the spring night, marching with great haste towards the East.
-Summer-
So then the day wore on high the great stink of a thousand corpses clung to the wet heat of the season as the foul stench of battle and sun washed across the entire valley of Harmlos. On this heavy and reeking wind were born the screams of the dead and dying, and the wailing of those who did the slaughter. The Beast-men had come through the Grey Pass on the hottest day of the year at dawn, and as the scorching heat of the sun touched the land, so to did the scourge of the Beast-men. Sweeping from the mountains like a rotten black flame they poured from the once-Grey pass, spilling across the valley. They were like a plague who left no mercy in it’s wake.
The men and women of Harmlos had rallied under the threat of destruction and the bolstering words of Father Narr. The labor captains whipped them to task as Siegfried tried his best to teach the men to fight again, but many had become dumb and lazy in the last few months. Only the whips of the labor-captains or the fear of the Beast-men got them to move at all. Yet somehow they survived against the horde of the thousands of Beast-men. The war had raged for two months, and they persisted with great sorrow and great loss. Each day a bloody glut of attrition, down the the last day a savage struggle to live just long enough to see the dawn one more time…
So there on the field before the Town of Harmlos the two hoards struggled. The sounds of blade against stone against flesh ringing through the valley of death. In the center of the maelstrom stood Siegfried, great iron axe in hand and striking down all beasts and beast-men who came before him. He was a rock upon which the black waves came, broke, and fell back, and for hours he stood, tirelessly swinging and breaking charge after charge.
His great axe soon began to weigh upon him. His armor slowed each great swing . Men and women rushed to stand beside him, but they were broken just as he broke the waves. Only he remained constant, and only he remained standing.
One such woman stood beside him at a moment, jabbing with a former farm tool into the fur-sodden chests of the rushing Beast-men. Then she screamed, for a new Beast-man, hulking above the others and swathed in a white wool cloak, cleaved her open with his own great stone axe. Siegfried turned and shouted in rage.
“You! You liar and traitor!” He spat in rage. “You came into our house and took food from us, and this is how you return our kindness?!”
“Who said I lied?” Said the great hulking Hyena-man. “Father Narr? Father Fool? Did he not want our people to join? I am merely giving him his wish. This place is as he wants it, after all.” The great Beast-man laughed.
“Your tongue drips with lies!” Siegfried said, leveling his axe and shield.
“Brother, if you had but a mind you would know how wrong you are.” Said the hulking Beast-man, leveling his own.
The two then charged each other, stone axe striking against iron shield, whilst iron axe struck against hide shield. The clash shot sparks like lightning and made a crash like thunder. The two shoved back from each other, and the charged each other again, striking as a raging storm does upon the ground. Again they charged each other, and a third time, each strike a storm of savagery and fury.
“Why will you not submit to my iron?!” Siegfried huffed as the broke again, his arms weary with endless strikes and blows.
“You and your iron have become weak my brother. Without proper hands and proper thoughts to guide them you and your village have grown rusted.” He laughed weakly, revealing his own exhaustion in the process. He then stood straighter and Siegfried readied for another charge, but then the laughing Hyena-man sprung forward with a wrenching cough and spat a thick liquid from his gagging throat. Before Siegfried could move the thick ooze struck his face and he let loose a scream of surprise and pain as the liquid began to burn him without flame.
Laughing, the hulking Beast-man turned and let loose a cry, and in return a massive boar charged from the chaos towards its master. With a great feat of martial prowess, the Hyena-man grasped the great boar’s fur and swung himself onto it’s back. Mounted, the Hyena-man looked down with his golden flashing eyes and torrid grin at the helpless Siegfried.
“I am Böse, king of the Beast-men!” He declared, his eyes laughing even if his voice did not. “I never lie and am the most honest beast upon this field, so I tell you now, rusted and iron knight, you may have won this war, but the battle shall rage on soon enough. You gave up the only thing you had which could hold us back when you made your choice long ago. I shall leave you now-to ripen! For once you grow heavy with the weight of your choice and doom, you shall be much easier to pluck. Until then brothers!” With that, the king of the Beast lifted his great stone axe into the air and gave a mighty cry in his own tongue and all of his subjects relented their savage attacks. He then turned his mount and rode back across the plain, his army at his side and laughing all the way.
Some men rose up a chant in the distance of “Life for the Brotherhood!,” but most voices were silent.
Siegfried only moaned as he writhed and the poison ate through his flesh.
-Winter-
The winter had been hard. The crops had failed, but there were no men reap them anyway. The cattle had fallen to plague and pox, but there were no men to slaughter them and no women to milk them. There were only members of the Brotherhood left now, no men, no women, and they lived in perfect equality-they all starved.
Many had died in the war with Böse and his Beast-men. Many more still had run in the chaos afterward. Father Narr had damned those who ran to eternal damnation. The labor-captains had lashed those who stayed and did not work. Soon no one left, and everyone worked, and yet the world seemed to grow bleaker each day. There were no more homes, no more families, no more warm inns filled with joy, no more women of beauty or men of talent. Father Narr and his priests preached that the world was better than it had been before the death of The Worm, yet none could remember or judge it so. All people came to live in the temple, and each day the labor captains woke them and worked them, and each night the fell into sleep, enwrapped in terror by the wailing of the priests.
It was a house of the dead.
Upon the second story of this cold tomb lived Siegfried. He was still given special treatment, even though he had asked Father Narr for a lot with the rest of the Brotherhood. Father Narr had disagreed stating that the moral Siegfried gave to the people was duty enough to make up for his lack of labor. Being a symbol was a duty in and of itself, Father Narr had explained, gesticulating with those vulture hands. Siegfried did not understand, but he knew that Father Narr was far wiser and far more in touch with the will of God than he, so he and the rest of the town listened when Father Narr spoke.
“Even when he is wrong.” The tried and worn Siegfried muttered as he slumped in his chair. His body shook suddenly when he realized what he had said, and he forced himself to forget the thought as hard as he could and as quickly as he could. He grunted when he was done with the effort, and slid even deeper into the chair, his pallid limbs hanging over the sides.
The worn Siegfried hung from his chair, staring at nothing. He did not twitch, move, or think. It was only luck that he still breathed. His eyes drifted for a moment, and then he jumped with a shout as he saw Böse’s mangy face staring at him from the shadows.
It took him but a second more to calm down again. It was only his own face staring at him from a shadowed mirror. A trick of his mind, and not an easy one to make, but still, for a second…
Siegfried approached the mirror to look at himself again. A normal man would have flenched from the sight, but Siegfried was without vanity or soul. He approached the grisly mask Böse’s poison had left his face without emotion. Siegfried studied it quietly.
“What do you want?” He said to the mirror.
“What do you want?” The face in the mirror said back.
“Nothing.” Siegfried said truthfully. Father Narr had made his soul holy beyond such things as want.
The face in the mirror laughed. It sounded like Böse.
“Why do you laugh?” Siegfried said, staring at the mirror in terror as he took a step back, but the mirror did not reply again.
Siegfried turned and looked at the world around him. It was grey, and cold, and silent. Like a grave-stone, or a tomb. How had it come to this, he suddenly wondered? Why now, after the triumph of the Brotherhood, was life like this?
“The ones who ran.” He said suddenly, whirling on accusers and critics who were not there. “The ones who fled their duty with their selfish greed!”
The room remained silent. None opposed his answer.
“It was Böse!” He shouted louder and suddenly spun at the mirror. “Böse and his hoard did this to us!” No one challenged him and the room remained quiet as death. Siegfried stood, eyes darting around the room, his body tense, waiting for an attack of some kind to come at him from the too-still shadows.
None came. The room was without life.
“Life for the Brotherhood…” He mutter, shaking with unnamable fear. “Death for the Beasts…” Then he stopped shaking with a sudden pause. Life for whom? Death for who? It had been different once, long ago…
Then it came back to him, quickly now. The night of his battle with Great and Noble Gier. The years of warmth and happiness and safety before that horrible night. The slow death of months that had fallen upon the town afterwards.
“No, no!” He said, sinking to his knees before the mirror and crying, “Make it stop!” But it would not. Death for Gier, Life for Harmlos. That had been his cry that night. He could not un-see what he saw now. Death for Life, a fantasy. Life was always for life, he saw now, and all that could beget Death was more Death, until all the killers had died, one way or another.
He saw then, using his mind for the first time in a year, his choice, his fate, and his doom.
He then looked up into the mirror. Gier stared down at him. He stared into those terror-stricken eyes and that axe-torn throat. Then, slowly and horribly, he watched as Gier changed. The once noble and great dragon became a horrid and black caricature of itself. Siegfried realized that this was the Worm, the lie he had told himself to avoid the guilt of the murder of noble Gier. He then realized with ever mounting horror that he Worm was also himself.
“All value to be repaid in kind.” Siegfried and the Worm said as one, truly understanding it for the first time in his life. He turned away from his reflection in the mirror. He saw it lying there. The golden dagger he had stolen from his victim.
Siegfried stood and grasped hold of the dagger. He then lifted it above his head, staring into the silver-gold downturned point.
“All value to be repaid in kind.” He said one last time, then, laughing, drove the dagger into his right eye.
~*~*~*~
Father Narr threw open the door. He had heard the screams. He had run from his sermon to the second floor while his followers followed silent and confused. He had but a second to see his champion lying with his own hands wrapped around the murder weapon before they came upon him and saw the image as well. He franticly pushed them back with his grasping vulture hands and slammed the door shut behind him, but it was too late. They had seen what had happened…
“What are you staring at?!” Father Narr suddenly shouted into the terrified and whispering crowd. “It was the sorcery of the Beasts, no doubt! Now leave, quickly! Lest I call the labor captains to show you wretched sinners piety!” At mention of the feared captains, the crowd quickly dispersed in terror, back to the sermon hall. Father Narr did not follow. He needed time to plot and plan. Quietly he slipped downstairs and out of the back of the temple into the snow. He needed to be alone while he plotted.
Moving from the temple and into the empty skeleton of what had been a town whose name had already been forgotten, Father Narr stalked into the dark evening, muttering in fear and rage, thinking in small circles, no longer asking why or what, but only how. As he moved a storm of snow rose up without warning. He ignored it, clutching to his staff, the very same staff he had clutched on the night of The Worm’s death as he did now, and pulling himself along with that lone strand of wood as clutched to it in the night.
He walked and muttered and what was left of his mind spun, and he got nowhere. Then, before he could walk much father, he became lost in the snow and storm. He wailed to his god, and clawed at the air, but to no avail. He was helpless.
Then, without warning, he crashed into the snow itself.
With a wail, Father Narr fell to the ground, and with a sudden shudder of terror, he watched as the snow turned towards him. Woolen white snow which split itself to reveal a mangy black hulking body and flashing laughing yellow eyes.
“You!” Father Narr shrieked helpless into the wailing wind.
“Yes.” Böse said, laughing. “Me.”
“You killed him!” Father Narr wailed.
“I have killed many, but I tell you that the death here is only partially on my hands.” The great hulking Beast-men knelt down before the terrified Father Narr. “Would you like me too tell you who is really to blame?”
Father Narr sat in silence as tears of terror froze upon his face.
“You.” Böse said, pointing one black and mangy claw in the face of Father Narr. “You and your iron vulture claw of a knight, but not just you either. All of you. Every last one of you who cheered for the death of the Great and Noble Gier. For you see dear brother, Father Fool, on that night you all made a choice. There is but one thing which would have insured your victory of I and my kind, and that Father Narr-” Böse suddenly leaned forward and brought his curved and vicious claw to rest upon the temple of Father Narr “-is your mind.”
“I-I don’t understand.” Father Narr said, backing away.
“Of course not.” Böse said, laughing at the vulture-man’s terror. “You lie so often you even believe yourself now. I have no need to lie. I am honest. I will tell you Father Fool that the only thing that separates the humans from beasts like you and I is the Mind. Your doom was sealed at the very moment Gier’s was. Once you and your ilk had given the mind up, the land became one of brutes and beasts, and I tell you Father Fool, I am the best of both!” At that, Böse gave a great laugh, and, for once, Father Narr got all of the jokes.
“No!” He screamed as reality came rushing towards him. “No!” Father Narr leapt up and turned too flee, but Böse was far faster. With a savage and bestial roar, the hulking Hyena-man leapt forward and with a single mighty swing of his stone great axe, cleaved Father Narr in two.
Böse stood over the cloven corpse of the dead vulture-priest, and then turned back to the haze of snow and storm.
“Come!” He shouted to his pack. “Quickly before the trail is covered! We shall eat well tonight before we return home!” With that and a great laugh, Böse turned his flashing glowing eyes west towards a city of helpless walking corpses, and then charged, leading his beasts to feast and slaughter.
-Spring-
“How is it?” The great dragon Leben called out to the man who rode upon his back as he swooped low over the green and empty valley.
“Perfect!” The man with the flowing golden hair called down to his friend. “With the profits from the abandoned mine flowing in, the town should spring up in no time!”
“Perfect!” The great dragon shouted back, sweeping in low over the valley again, looking for a place to land.
“Over there!” Said the woman with he pale skin and black silken hair. “That hill will be a perfect to land.”
“Indeed” said the man with his flowing golden hair, shouting into the wind as the dragon descended one last time toward the earth. “Your eyes, as always, are amazing, my dear sweet Freude.”
“I know my lovely Pracht.” She said in return, smiling. “I thank you for your compliments.”
“I only speak the truth.” Pracht said, smiling. The dragon laughed at the two lovers as he landed gracefully on the soft spring grass. The two humans dismounted from their great friend’s back and looked out across the empty valley which glowed in the spring daylight, all the colors, greens and blue and browns and grays, alive with the warmth and life of the season. It was beautiful.
“So this will be the place of our new venture, my great friend.” Pracht said, his bright blue eyes sweeping across the fertile land. “Yes, the mine will provide great wealth for us and all who would work with us, and this land here only needs strong hands and strong minds to produce such a gross of crops as to put all the farmers of the world to shame.”
“Did not some great evil take place here in years past?” Freude said, her great deep eyes going wide at the memory of the story.
“It is not to worry.” The noble dragon Leben spoke. “The sins of the past hold no purchase on the future, which I am sure shall be bright.”
“It would not be possible my friend were it not for the gold which you have given us.” Pracht said, turning to his great and noble friend.
“Think nothing of it.” Said Leben, his great mouth breaking into a warm smile. “I know of you and your skills. I expect that both of us will be much better for this venture. All value to be repaid in kind.”
“All value to be repaid in kind.” said Pracht, a born leader of men as he gazed out into the radiant future.
“All value to be repaid in kind.” said Freude, a woman of great talent and beauty as she grasped onto the arm of the one she loved.
“All value to be repaid in kind.” said the dragon Leben one last time, his great wings stretching over those whom he valued as life returned, pure and free as it should be, to the valley once more.
~Fin~
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