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The Dragonslayer's Quest

The high mountain forest was lush and green, the day cool and bright. Puffy fair weather clouds dotted the sky like errant sheep. Through shadows and bright splashes of dappled sunlight rode a very curious sight. A man on horseback was not, of itself, particularly curious to find but a knight riding alone without retinue it was, even then, not particularly curious.

But a knight bedecked in all the hues of the rainbow was most certainly curious indeed. The mounted knight's armor was a garish mixture of brilliant hues. His couriasse was a vibrant red that drank in the light without offering a gleam of polished metal in return. His pauldrons a deep indigo, greaves and sabatons blue, vambraces and gauntlets a silvery white. Many of the smaller components that made up his plate were of different hues as well though not so garish as the outer shell. His helm and the gambeson were both an unrelieved black to match his night black steed though without its gloss. At the right of his high saddle hung a great sword in a purple scabbard and a large kite shield of similar hue hung at his opposite side.

In contrast, the saddle and barding of the muscular destrier was a much less ostentatious affair in basic browns with little decoration, even the standard cup was empty revealing he rode for no lord or land.

He rode alone in the alpine forest, confident none would challenge him for he was a well armed rainbow, indeed.

High Knight of three different orders and association of a couple dozen others, Grand Marshal, commoner by birth and royal by station and deed, Jarl of Duer Ghaoth, Duke of Tyrn Al'Chagel Bar, and presumptive heir to the throne of Amyre, Dragon Slayer Dirsche Swinson admired the day.

It was just cool enough not to swelter within his dragonhide armor, a blessing worth his mount's weight in silver, he would admit. The sky was a vibrant blue and the breeze refreshingly crisp through the visor slit of his helm. The mountain smelled of green, rich earth, and pristine water, the forest unbroken for leagues. There was neither homestead nor town within a half day's walk allowing him much enjoyed peace and solitude.

Quite too good to be out hunting yet another dragon.

He was alone on his hunt, as was his wont, having lost his hangers' on long ago, eschewing their servile pampering and whispering in his ear to further some political machination or another, all too often to their own benefit.

Dirsche had been raised tending pigs, not princedoms, and preferred the simple life of a commoner. He certainly did have his ideals, and unvoiced political aims which seldom aligned to the voices whispering in his ear. But it was not yet time to proclaim them.

That time would be coming, however, once he completed his latest task.

Ah, but how different life would've been if he had not thrust his baron's boar spear into one of the few vulnerable spots on the Black Terror, the dragon Ygdransair. He had been but a lad of twelve, at the time, and the rampaging dragon had laid waste to the village of his birth. Many died, many fled, a small number had sought shelter in the remains when the king's knights arrived.

The black beast slew half of them, taking a stand against those who remained in what was left of the Swineson farmstead where Dirsche alone remained, hiding in a smashed sty among dead and dying pigs.

Six of the original fourteen knights remained and set upon the dragon from all sides, goading and stabbing at it with great spears of ensorceled wood and adamant heads. One spear came to rest feet from where Dirsche sheltered, its bearer catapulted out of sight by a mighty sweep of the great black tail.

One more knight fell on the next charge, forcing the dragon that was many times the size of they and their mounts by multiples of ten, back grudging step by step. Dirsche, in a fit of terrified desperation, snatched up the spear.

At his first touch upon the smooth wooden shaft the aura of dragon terror evaporated, whisked away leaving behind no more fear than the caution he might have felt when facing down an angry sow. Pulling the spear to himself Dirsche crouched and grasped the shaft, waiting for some opening he could use, or to be stepped upon as the dragon retreated closer toward the sty it had already smashed to faggots.

And then Baron Thadell, the local Lord, was swiped from his saddle, pinwheeling thrice before plowing into what remained of the Swinson's croft, his armor shredded to ruin and the flesh beneath worse. That was when the boy saw his opening, one of the few places the dragon was vulnerable as it stood astride the sty and bellowed its rage at the four remaining knights.

Grasping the spear and raising it aloft Dirsche stormed from his shelter without a cry, aiming for the weakness he had spied beneath the dragon's lashing tail.

With all of the strength, which was not inconsiderable for a hard working lad of twelve, he drove the spear up and forward even as the dragon backed up before another charge. Unerringly the spear found its target, sinking unresisted by dragon scale through cloaca, rectum, and bowel before slicing lethally into the black monster's villainous heart.

In its shock at the sudden agony the dragon lurched and then collapsed back, sitting upon the unfortunate lad and plunging him into the fetid darkness behind his spear. That spared him the dragon's death throes, if indelicately.

Bathed head to heels in dragon blood and more noisome substances he was hailed as a hero. Once he had been dragged from beneath the dead beast's tail, and made feast upon its skewered heart, the knights had taken him to squire. He learned sword and shield, letters and numbers, hunt and court, until he became a knight true.

No one called him Sir Swineherd any more. Slaying seven dragons in thirteen years tended to quell pejoratives. That he was kind and charitable, to a fault, with peasant and nobility alike, winnowed out many of his detractors in short order. While he might not best his challengers at joust how many could claim to have slain three dragons, much less seven?

Sir Dirsche, the Rainbow Knight, rode his shadow black warhorse from the fringes of the forest into a meadow of lush greens and colors. Flowers swayed their vibrant hues in a verdant green carpet of grass. Across the clearing, nestled at the base of a sheer rock wall, was a modest lake of crystal clear water. As he rode closer he could see great schools of trout, and some other far larger fish, suspended in the shimmering depths. Deeper still was a vast, black blot of far deeper water.

The maw of the dragon's lair.

Moving away, to a large stone upthrust from the earth, he dismounted with a creak of dragon leather armor and saddle leather. Unlimbering shield and scabbard he leaned them against the stone. He then set about removing his mount's saddle and barding, carefully setting it neatly in the shade of a tree at the forest's edge. He did this before bracing any dragon lest his demise leave his mount in the wild, alone and burdened, unable to escape its encumbrance. His mount, long inured to dragon fear and the clangor of battle, would not stray far unless beset directly.

With a pat to the muscular shoulder he let it amble away to graze. Taking a casual seat upon the stone, shield and sword close at hand, he drew a simple tenor recorder of age whitened bone from his belt. Raising it to his lips he began to play. Though he heard little more than a breathy warble he felt it vibrate against his lips and beneath his fingers through his gauntlets. Though he could not hear its music, he knew that the dragon most certainly would.

For a quarter hour he played idly upon the flute, unable to follow a tune as he could not hear it, until he saw the surface of the lake ripple as if disturbed from within its depths. Something moved in the dark shadows deep within the lake, causing its surface to bulge like a river flowing over a large rock beneath the surface. He tootled a sharper riff and, abruptly, the waters of the lake surged upward before exploding in a great, frothing fountain. A large, green shape launched from the falling water, churning up grass and flowers as it bounded ashore and slew to one side. Great turves of earth were gouged up by powerful talons and unhomed fish flopping wildly about in the grass as the water retreated staining the crystalline waters with mud. A great serpentine neck raised an angular, arrow shaped head high, mighty wings beating to flatten the flowers and grass. "Desist that cloaca spawned cacophony!" it roared with the sound of a tea kettle well past boiling.

Sir Dirsche did, lowering the recorder to eye it speculatively. "Cloaca spawned? Well, can't say as I've ever heard it thus described." He opined ruefully, not reaching for either sword or shield. "But then, human ears are deaf to it." Turning slightly upon the rock to gaze up at the furious dragon's wrathful visage.

It, or rather 'she' if the villagers had been truthful, was quite an image to take in. Overall she was primarily green in hue, from a deep emerald along her back fading to lighter hues along the underside of her throat and wings. Below those vast wings her smooth flesh was striated with blues, greens, and aquamarines interspersed with rosettes of red or ocher or orange in the manner of a trout.

Quite pretty in a deadly, predatory way.

Piercing eyes, slitted like a cat's and the pure blue of azure, pinned the knight where he sat.

Giving a courtly bow from atop the stone the knight offered a warm smile. "I am Sir -"

"I know who you are!" she roared again, mantling those mighty wings. From nose tip to tail she was four or five horse lengths, those wings easily six. Not huge, as dragons went, but not small in the least. "Dragon scourge." she hissed in wroth. "A slayer who dons the hide of his slain!"

Sir Dirsche looked himself over and nodded. "Well, yes, I am that." He admitted with a self-effacing shrug. "As I know you, mistress of the lake. Rather than butcher your true given name with my woefully inadequate human throat, how might I address you? The locals, I am learned, often call you Jade."

Not mollified by his civil tone and unthreatening posture the dragon loomed and glared. "And why come you, scourge? To add yet another hue to your vile plumage?" She growled, shuddering the earth beneath her daunting form poised to strike.

The knight shook his head slowly, "Nay, mistress of the lake. I came to bargain, and to offer a story, as the local village folk do when they visit."

The dragon's angular head tilted slightly, untrusting. "To bargain with a story? In full caparison of my slaughtered kin? Do you take me a fool, scourge? You'll not have my hide this day, unless you breathe as a fish does!"

Dirsche nodded and glanced down at his dragon gauntleted hands. "I fear you are most observant and no fool, mighty mistress of the lake. Nor am I. One does not brace a dragon at the lintel of their lair with, ahem, 'cloacally spawned' music without expecting a less vocal and more violent greeting."

Azure eyes narrowed, cat-like pupils widening slightly, "Then why have you disturbed me with your annoying shrill?" She coughed a furious growl.

"As I said, to share a story and, perchance, enter into a bargain."

"What bargain?"

"In due time, great one. If I might ask one question? Have you mastered the art of draconic shapeshifting?"

Gaze hardening the dragoness snorted a plume of steam from her narrow nostrils. "Of course." she snarled dubiously. "No dragon ventures from the lair of its parents that cannot assume a less conspicuous form."

"Magnificent, you are." Sir Dirsche clapped his gauntleted hands once. "If you may, great mistress, a display?"

The large head drew back slightly in distrust. "That you may cut me down in some weak form? No." Her snarl showed a distressing array of gleaming ivory points. "You presume far too much, scourge."

The knight conceded the point with a rolling wave of one hand. "I have not taken up my sword, mistress, nor shall I. I merely wish to see you change, the manner would be entirely your choice."

"Why?" Though not the previous teakettle shriek or coughing snarl her voice still growled with irritation.

"Surety, mistress. A formality, only, before I continue with my parlay."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I shall leave, peacefully, and speak naught of our parlay, or this place, to any other." He replied succinctly, still unmoving from his stone perch, hands clasped upon his knee with complete aplomb despite bracing a dragon. "Or, perhaps, continue my serenade."

The dragon's ear-frills rose in surprise before backing in disgust. "I should eat you for that alone! If the taste would not sour my gut and reverse my gorge." She glared down at him unmoving upon his seat of stone, sword and recorder both within easy reach. Indeed, the toe of his sabbaton tapped lightly at the butt of the sheathed weapon leaning against the stone. "Oh, very well, if it will bring you to vacate all the more swiftly."

With a long suffering sigh the dragoness raised one stout foreleg and extended it,flexing the deadly, clawed foot. Typical of dragons it had three forward toes and one, opposable, to the rear. When his gaze shifted to it she gave a quick shake and, too quickly for his eyes to follow, it was a hoof. Another shake and it was a massive paw, diminutive upon the end of her great foreleg, like a bear's. With a third shake it was a silvery white gauntlet identical to Dirsche's own.

Throughout the display the knight had not moved other than to nod approvingly. "Amazing. Impressive. I've never encountered a dragon who had such control. Usually it's everything or nothing."

"Such control is common for my line, and I have proven more adept at the ability than most even then." She boasted with draconic pride, another common vice. "Again, why do you ask?" Somewhat mollified by the strange seeming peace of his presence her voice calmed to a mellow, rolling rumble passibly pleasing to the ear.

"Are you familiar with King Arso, who rules the land of Amyre, which encompasses these mountains within its demesne?"

The dragoness nodded her great head slowly. "By name and deed, if not his person. He is not one who champions the slaying of my Kind."

"He is not." Dirsche agreed with a nod, "Though he has been occasioned to that task, aiding in the removal of two. It was after the first that I became his squire and, in time, he patroned my elevation to knighthood and a landed title.

"You see, he has no surviving heirs, no prince or princess to carry his rule after his passing. Had his dukes known of his secret intentions, that I be adopted as his heir, then I, too, would likely have met my end by mysterious ague." He sighed and frowned at the labyrinthine perils of politics though he had come to master the noisome game. "Now, alas, that he has reached a point where he fears he will never sire one capable of becoming his heir but merely a regent amidst less honorable men. He seeks one who would be a worthy successor to his throne, and his honor. You see, he cares more for his kingdom than his mortality. He would that a land where fair folk, fur folk, and all other manner of magic life are treated fairly and equitably under just laws."

"Including dragons." The dragoness rumbled with another slow nod, relaxing from her intimidating mantle-winged pose. They rustled like becalmed sail cloth as they folded along her gleaming, dark emerald back.

The knight nodded as well. "Just so, providing they do not torch villages or denude local livestock without recompense from their own hoards."

"And so, your king?" She prompted, settling couchant with the slow grace of a great cat.

"Well, rather than proclaiming me outright as his heir, just one among many who court his favor that they might become such, or regent should he sire one more ill fated child, he set forth a challenge. To each prospective supplicant, whose desires were well and openly known, and to myself despite never having openly stated a desire for such, was given a challenge. To each it was a different, yet always difficult, if not impossible, task. These tasks were laid each before us with the fullness of his court and commoners to witness and cry these requirements loud and far."

"And yours was?" He certainly had her interest now, that huge head bowing low enough he could meet her slit-eyed gaze without looking up.

"Difficult, but far from impossible, though it has taken me a surprising time to reach this point. You see, the locals are quite enamored of you, great mistress of the lake."

"Jhydeshaii." She rumbled quietly with a slight sideward tilt of her head. "Jade."

Dirsche bowed his head in acknowledgment of the privilege she had extended, even with the bastardized shortening of her True name which he could never have pronounced even had he known it. "An honor, mistress Jade. My king set to me a quest that seemed, at its initial presentation, a very simple task. I was to procure, from a dragon, a prized treasure."

"Simple, indeed." Rumbled the dragoness, Jade. "For one who has captured the hoards of seven slain, and grotesquely paraded, dragons." Her voice was wry, still disgusted by the garish rainbow hues of the knight's armor.

"Ah, at first it would seem, indeed. Though those slain forswore the justice of the kingdoms they rampaged through, laying waste to village and town, slaughtering the peasant folk and their lords without care or concern. Many were sought to brace those particulars. Many failed. I always attempted parlay, at first, as I have entered into with yourself, most noble Jade. They ignored my entreaties and met their dooms. I found them beyond reason, beyond thoughts higher than those of a rabid animal. I admit that I do not look back upon those encounters with any pride or pleasure, Milady, on as necessary tasks."

"There is no word that translates for that condition, sir knight, but 'rabid' would be an apt facsimile in your tongue." Her visage was disquieted, ears-frills and spinal crest laid flat, lambent azure eyes downcast.

"Alas, and indeed so. As such their attention had wandered from their hoarded treasures, so I am not so mightily rich as one might imagine. You, alone, probably possess as much as any three of them together."

"Of that you wish some treasure. Of those things which are mine."

"A special treasure which no dragon I have encountered has. And I have, indeed, met many dragons, Milady. Not all have subsumed to the madness that claimed those whose memories I wear. I most certainly respect them for their majesty and power, and they grudgingly respect me for my own strength. But none would part with even but a single copper farthing from their hoards to lend veracity for my claim to the throne. I have spent much of the last year seeking you, though I have known of you, your reputation, for many years."

"A year, seeking me? Am I so reclusive that it would take such a time to come to my door with your music to make the ears bleed?" She chortled softly with a shake of her head, then nodded toward the edge of the forest some distance away. The knight turned to follow her gaze, soon spying a large stack of woven baskets, buckets, and other vessels neatly arranged in the shadows of the trees, left by the local people bearing gifts when they came to call. "I am not so difficult to find that the villagers do not visit me regularly."

"Ah, as I said, Milady. They are most enamored of you. And they are, also, most distrusting of me." He waved one hand to take in his rainbow hued raiment. "For my earned reputation precedes me wherever I travel. They feared my intentions and mislaid me, where I was not outright spurned in my inquiries. Months I was sent in errant circles, to this mountain or that, to some distant loch or misty cavern rife with Draugar." He laughed warmly and shook his head. "Nay, I had stalk the locals as might a thief, following them and failing time after time, for they know these trails far better than I, until I was able to discover this fabulous clearing and the lake of your lairing."

Jade bobbed her massive head slowly with a slight drawing at the corners of her great maw in the barest of smiles. "And so, now you are here with your melodious music." Her rumbling observation was laced with sardonic humor. "And ostentatious plumage. What, then, would you request of me? Even should I allow it you would need to breathe like a fish to reach it."

"Nay, majestic Lady, there is no need for that. You have already borne the treasure I seek directly to this meeting."

The dragon's great head tilted slightly, drawing up and back to look down at him, brilliant eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Did I now? And what, pray, have I brought to you that you could not find among the hoards you have already captured?"

"Your heart."

The emerald dragon's eyes shot wide, pupils narrowing to slits before growing round as she drew in a shocked breath. "My -" She gaped with a growing growl that rapidly approached the earlier angry steam kettle shriek. Abruptly her maw gaped and her tongue drew up along the roof of her long, deep maw lined with deadly sharp teeth to expose a pair of vents along its root. With a quick, muscular ripple of her powerful throat she sent two streams of steaming blue-green liquid from them.

The knight sat more fully upright when her head drew back, one hand raising in a brief, staying gesture before lifting to slap down the visor of his night black helm. The liquid, thick and viscous, splashed across his seated form and the rock beneath, hissing and popping angrily. The stone chirped and sang as the acid ate into its ancient surface, the grass and flowers about it simply melting without protest. "NO!" She bellowed at the still seated form in the mist created by her acidic expectoration. "You shall not slay me, scourge!"

As the rock beneath him began to dissolve the knight stood and flicked his hands down to rid them of the viscid, clinging acid. "I do not -" he began, his voice hollow and muffled within the chamber of his helm, as she raised her head even further back and up, wings flaring out to mantle the clearing. As swift as any housecat one massive foreclaw lashed out, batting at the knight four times in rapid succession. Only one connected, sending him toppling back from his perch to roll and quickly rise to his feet, retreating quickly to avoid the subsequent rapid-fire strikes. He abandoned both sword and shield, still propped against the stone and dripping acid wholly unaffected.

"Milady, I -" He began as he heard the sharp rush of air and saw the rapid expansion of her dappled green breast. "Oh, bother."

Seeing that he did not seem to be affected by the sizzling, hissing bite of the acid she shifted to another form of assault available to all of her kind. Lowering her jaw further, laying her tongue back down to cover the vents that discharged acid, she exposed another pair of far larger vents just to either side behind her rearmost teeth. As the knight seemed to slump slightly in defeat she released her breath and a stream of fluid from those vents. Instantly her breath ignited the fluid in a brilliant gout of bright blue flame that retained that hue for several feet, fading to yellow-orange before bathing across stone and knight in a roaring torrent of searing heat.

Deadly acidic steam hissed up from both the stone and the knight as her fire instantly turned the viscid liquid into vapor. From the stone and extending another thirty or more feet the beauteous green and dappled colors of forest flowers were charged black in an instant before wafting away as so much ash. Only the knight, his now fallen weapon and shield, and the glowing rubble of the rock he had perched upon remained as her breath petered out and the flames stopped.

The knight stood where her strikes had left him, untouched but for the lingering wisps of smoke where her acid and fire had seared away the dust of his travels. Stunned at the spectacle the dragon lurched back a step and snarled but the knight merely raised one hand in a staying gesture.

"I may have, hmm, phrased that wrong, fair Jade." His voice was hollow but touched with wry, self-effacing humor. He sketched a bow as far as the varicolored armor allowed. "My apologies. I did, it seems, neglect one small bit when I explained the quest the king set upon me."

"That the treasure you seek not be the flesh of yet another dragon?" She rumbled, eyeing the man. Of course, the dragon hide he had donned would protect him just as it would any dragon. She had hoped that their deaths would negate that protection but, clearly, it did not even weaken it.

"In a manner, milady, yes. You see, to ensure that I did not simply present a treasure of my spoils, or vanquish yet another to procure theirs, I was set a specific limitation. The very limitation that had me seek you, specifically, when no other trusted me enough to extend such a boon."

The dragoness scoffed, a roil of steam wafting past her bared fangs. "I would wonder why." She snarled with a wave of a taloned forearm at the figure he presented replete in his stolen skin.

"Indeed." He actually chuckled, cautiously levering up the face guard of his helm. His face wrinkled at the stench of boiled acid and charred earth. "He bade me bring back a treasure from a dragon's hoard, without harm to the dragon from whom it was gifted." He stressed the last as he spoke, biting back the cough that the fading acid and smoke tickled in the back of his throat. "Of their own free will."

"And you believe I would do this? Simply surrender up a treasure from my lair willy nilly? And you choose my heart?" Her voice rose from rumble to growl to bellowing roar as she spoke, steam billowing as she spat the last word.

"Yes, magnificent mistress of the lake." He stepped forward several paces and she drew up, glowering down from the impressive height of her majestic form as he stood before her, within easy reach of both talon and fang, to gaze back up at her. "Indeed I so chose, fair Jhydeshaii. For, you see, if I complete this task before all of the others sent on their own quests, I will be king of these lands.

"And a king needs a queen."