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​In a seat at the bar of The Wailing Griffon, a tavern in the slums of Ranara, an aging warrior talks as much as he drinks, and he drinks way too much. These are his tales...

The Job with the Ridiculously Large Tree
by Nathan Dain

​The legends of my greatness exceed my memory, so I shall be modest, and only tell you what I remember.

For most of a day, I had been climbing with an old friend of mine, Katrinka, up the stairs of the World Tree Lillalilaltha (or something like that. Elven is always a bitch to get right, what with all those “thith”s and “lil”s and “thuth”s, not to mention every damned word is usually fifteen syllables long. I guess that's what a language looks like when the people who created it can live for damned near forever.) Anyway, Katrinka looked up the never-ending stairs almost imperceptibly curving gently left around the outside of the trunk, then back to me, and said, “You know, we could have just taken the elevator.”

She was getting winded, and had a look of annoyance in her eyes.

I shook my head, “No. No, we couldn't. I wasn't about to step in that thing. If it had been a dwarven elevator, sure. But it isn't, it's elven. And I don't trust elven elevators because—”

Her eyes of annoyance rolled as she finished my sentence, “Because you don't trust magic.”

“Exactly.”

Magic and I aren't on good terms. It's unpredictable, unstable, and not something you want to rely on when your life is on the line. I know lots of people go on and on about finding magical items in the wild while exploring, but in my experience if you find a body loaded down with enchantments, and you weren't the one doing the killing, the vast majority of those things are cursed: they obviously didn't help the fellas wearing them, and the victors didn't bother grabbing them, bad news all around. Not to mention, magic, or anything touched by it, seems to have a mind of its own, and it seems to like me just as much as I like it. Hence, I don't trust it.

Katrinka on the other hand, loves the stuff. Everything on her has an otherworldly shimmer advertising that her matching silvery full plate armor, shield, helmet, and sword are all filthy with enchantments. I've never asked what any of it does, and would rather not know. Everything said and done, I'll just stick to my very non-magical dwarfstar steel, thank you very much.

Turning to Katrinka, I smiled, “You could have just gone up and waited for me.”

“Like that beast wouldn't have attacked as soon as I showed up? I don't think so. If we're splitting the pay, we're splitting the work.”

A small singsongy voice called out from her hip, “Would have been better.” Oh yeah, that's right, I hadn't mentioned it, but Katrinka's sword was not only magical, it also talked, like way too much. Ironically, its name was Silencer. “Master could have killed the beast and taken all the money. Big Hairy Man never helps.”

Glaring at the sword, I pointed my finger, “You, shut up.”

“Alright you two, don't start now.” Katrinka's shoulders slumped as she said it. “Bram, just let it go.”

Being above such petty things, I shrugged and kept climbing.

The elves of... Lillithithill? had called on me for this job. Like specifically sent out one of their highly arrogant scouts on the rumor that I was visiting a nearby pub after one of my harrowing adventures, and asked me to come save the World Tree. (For the record, there isn't just one world tree, there's at least five just in the realms, but elves are pretty full of themselves and think that their tree is the right and proper tree believing all of the others are just overgrown weeds.) Apparently, they'd found that a dragon had taken roost in the upper branches of their tree when three of their gardeners failed to come back down from a weekly pruning on account of being eaten.

I've got a bit of a reputation as a dragon slayer, I don't mind saying. It falls well within my skill set: tremendous form, near-godly reflexes, and the strength to plunge Kelly, my great sword, right through their thick skulls. Mind you, dragons aren't terribly bright, but they're squirrelly as hell and typically breathe with the heat of a few dozen charquets. The trick is to dodge, a lot.

Well, I hadn't dropped any dragons for a while, and my previous job hadn't paid as well as I'd hoped, leaving my Sorcerer Sam's Sack of Seriously Staggering Amounts of Storage seriously close to empty. (For those of you who are quick on the uptake, yes, a Sorcerer Sam's Sack of Seriously Staggering Amounts of Storage is a magic item that just so happens to store a seriously staggering amount of stuff, and yes, I just got finished saying how magic and I aren't friends, but a Sorcerer Sam's Sack is really useful, and if it somehow spontaneously stopped working or went wonky, at worst, I'd suddenly be standing in a pile of gold and gems at an inconvenient moment, not at all like having your own sword randomly decide to spin around and skewer you, which might be a thing if said sword is of the magical variety. I find my magical tolerance is all about priorities and evaluating risk, and a bag rates pretty favorably on that scale.)

Point being, I took the job. But when I got to the elves' root-city, Katrinka and her horrid sword Silencer were already there.

The two of us are old friends, mostly from the fact that there aren't many in our line of work that survive for any length of time. Weirdly enough, a lot of newcomers have a really odd concept of what armor should look like. You would be amazed at the number of young warriors that prance into battle wearing nothing but a butt-flap and boots—well and a boob-sling for those who require them. What wouldn't surprise you is how short their careers tend to be. Katrinka and I never subscribed to that aesthetic, and as long as I've known her she'd always been at least as well armored as myself, albeit a bit more shiny.

I don't see her very often, and not because we're both highly competitive. The two of us actually work well together, and I definitely consider her a friend, even if I don't really want to hang out with her after the fact. That's mostly because she always draws the most attractive people in the bar to her bed be it barmaid, bartender, or bard, before I get a chance at a go. That's not to say we haven't shared a bed on several occasions. We have, but that competitive thing only works so well between the sheets. It usually takes us a few days to recover.

So, I take that back: I don't see her very often because of the fact that we're both highly competitive. But there we both were, and I was thinking that teaming up again would be great fun. And this time we'd get to kill a dragon... after a day's climb up and around an insanely large toothpick.

We continued climbing the steps in silence for another half an hour or so—which is the easier way to do things when Katrinka was armed for combat: conversation usually becomes frustrating what with the damned sword interjecting non-stop, and I find that if I don't speak, it normally won't either. I kept my focus primarily on the polished stairs organically formed from the bark as we ascended, not out of any fear of heights even though we were an astounding way up and the view from there was breathtaking, but more out of the fact that after so many steps the mind becomes inured to the repetition and the odds of a misstep rise.

As the sun was well on its way to the distant mountains we came upon the first of the low hanging branches, and the first neighborhood of the tree-city. The branch was roughly the width of a city block, and stretched out to the right into the open air at least a good half-mile. There was also literally a city block resting on the flattened top half of the branch, consisting of tall elegant buildings with white pointy rooftops and little red, blue, and purple pennant flags flicking listlessly in the gently breeze. Parks of deep green grass and pail wood benches filled the spaces in-between, and stoic couples walked or sat in leisurely curiosity at our arrival. To the left, a grand archway led into the depths of the trunk, accepting the street and continuing the city motif as far as line of sight presented, though those buildings were shaped out of the wood of the trunk itself, seamlessly grown to fit the needs of the elves, and were lit by massive floating orbs a good forty or fifty feet in the air.

Within moments, the elder stood up straight, maybe just clearing five feet—which was tall for an elf—and made her way toward us from a nearby bench. I knew she was old, like geologically old, but in accordance with all of her kind, her beauty was beyond stunning, so pristine it would cut if you came too close. Indicating a small banquet suitable for a two tonne rabbit heaped on a table on the grass, she nodded ever so slightly. “Master Thunderfist, Lady Fearstriker—“ Katrinka had taken the title Fearstriker “—I'm glad you made it in time for supper.” Her mouth formed the words, but the statement came off as a bit exaggerated. The elder had no hint of gladness in her tone, nor did is sound as though she was remotely capable of the emotion. Mild contentment, maybe, but “gladness” was a stretch. The possibility of happiness was right out.

“We made good time.”

With obvious disdain, she nodded, “Yes. By the standards of traveling by the stairs, you progressed acceptably.”

Katrinka's equipment was less diplomatic, “Hairy Man sucks balls.”

“Silencer, hush.”

“Well, he does. His fault we haven't killed dragon yet. Sucky, suck suck.”

The elder raised an eyebrow, smiled coldly, and turned back to me. “The sword has a point. Your penchant for avoiding the amenities of the World Tree has caused this endeavor to take longer than is desirable. When do you think you will engage with the task we hired you for?”
I don't like being put on the spot, especially by an ancient animated statue and an upstart sliver of mouthy cutlery that would hopefully one day get reincarnated as a shovel for horse manure. Turning to the snooty elder, I returned her smile. “Remind me again why you so desperately wanted to hire me? Was it because elf lives are too valuable to lift a weapon, or is it because all of your little spells don't land on a widdle dwagon?”

“Bram.” Katrinka said it softly, but those big floppy elf ears are known to pick up everything no matter how old they are.

I'd made my point, and I was hungry, so I pushed past the stony expression of the elder, and headed for some dinner of elven wine: notoriously potent stuff, just what I needed.

If you didn't know, dragons are basically giant flapping balls of magic. It's the only way they can get around the natural laws of physics. By all accounts, they shouldn't be able to fly and, whatever they spit out of their mouths usually doesn't make sense on a number of levels. They usually shoot fire, but when they do it's unnaturally hot, and if they're one of the rarer ones that vomit out all sorts of other things, their magical composition only becomes more obvious. The Great Scholar Pratchett had written Ye Truthe About Dragons years ago, and though he got a few things wrong, the most important bits are pretty spot on: they're massive leathery sacks of magic, claws, and teeth that like to eat people... and if not disposed of properly, they tend to explode, usually causing a disproportionate amount of destruction in their wake.

Most people don't know what to do with that kind of knowledge. Many might say, “Well, then, if they're magic, you should fight them with magic.” And I've always thought that was the dumbest response ever muttered. It's like saying, “Fight fire with fire.” Are you daft? Putting two arsonists together never solved a problem unless your problem is that you don't like having flammable things around. Not to mention, dragons shrug off incoming spells like basilisks shed acid, that is, if they don't consume the free-floating energies all together. It was why the beasts were such problems for the elves.

I prefer fighting magic with steel, especially if it's dwarfstar steel. And no, the great dwarven artisans of the Hraggalgglal Citadel aren't paying me to hock their wares. The metal is really just that good, and highly effective against arcane thingies. Magical beasties in particular really hate the stuff, mostly when it's been sharpened to an edge and hacking into them.

We sat, and Katrinka and I began our wind-down. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that elves were vegetarian. And not the good kind of vegetarian that feasted on warm crunchy bread and buttery cheeses, but the kind that only ate about one of four-thousand salads, which I'm convinced is only one salad with four-thousand names. Additionally, for entertainment, the elves decided stoic, monotonous, epic poetry spoken in their indecipherable language would be fun. So, after some very bland green leaves, which I didn't eat, and a few flagons of equally bland yet very potent wine, we were led to an inn to sleep off the effects of the booze and the exhaustion from their entertainment. And, I guess, from the day-long hike.

Sunrise came way too soon—I think it had something to do with being so high in the sky; there was nothing but clouds to block the sun from assaulting us before it was supposed to—and the subsequent climb of the day brought new views. There was, of course, the same reoccurring view every two hours or so as we completed the circumference of the tree, changed only by an increased elevation of several hundreds of feet, but the barren trunk that had dominated our ascent the day before was now filled with occasional and sporadic city branches. For the most part, each new city block looked much like the one before: elegant towering buildings of stunning grace laced with grasses and flowers, and lots of curious skinny people casting their impossibly beautiful glances of snobbish disapproval at every turn. We never stopped to chat, though the higher we climbed, the icier our hosts became, which I thought was odd. We were there to save them and their precious tree, after all.

Katrinka claimed they were just worried. I've no idea how she could tell the difference between a snotty look of disdain from a snotty look of concern, but I learned years ago that she has better insight into these sorts of things, and took her word for it.

As evening descended we reached the last of the neighborhoods, this one surprisingly devoid of aristocratic pricks, and obviously that meant there wasn't an elf to be seen. No one was there to greet us, and all the doors and windows were closed up tight.

I understand the urge to lock yourself up when there's danger out, but I'm not sure they knew that their silly little buildings wouldn't stand a chance against a multi-tonne beastie if it decided it wanted inside for a snack. Most structures just aren't meant for that kind of interaction, especially the kind constructed out of frilly scrolled woodwork and pretty little banners.

From one such building off to the right of the intersection of street and stairs, a door cracked open and a small voice called us over. After sharing a glance, we shrugged and did as asked, soon to find out that the owner of the voice was our contact for this city branch. The jittery elf hurried us in, bolted the door, and leaned a table against it for good measure. Much like the night before, we were offered various grasses and leaves, and just like the night before, I stuck with the wine. Thankfully our hosts weren't in the mood to offer entertainment.

Two days in, and the third promised to get interesting. I was tired, but not so much as to regret not having taken the elevator. Katrinka, however, was long past the point of annoyance with me, though I was fine with that. She'd get over it, and the hours of silence had presented a nice meditative experience of mind, body, and stairs.

We set off the next morning with the refreshing expectation of the rough and tumble fight we'd been hired for, and it didn't take long to start noticing the reason the last city branch had been cowering.

Unlike the day before, the path before us wasn't simply stairs, but bridges and slopes, and twisty elegant series of landings, touching from branch to branch with large airy spaces oddly contoured and contained by clusters of leaves larger than most buildings. We were finally in the heft of the boughs, and I have to say, it was pretty. The higher we climbed, the larger the landings became, some of which would have been mistaken as hills if we'd been on the ground. Where there were flat spaces to walk on, there was grass, and smaller trees, and gardens overflowing with flowers of every shape, size and color. And there was fruit everywhere. Like really good fruit.

That was the moment I realized the elves were total dicks.

As lovely as everything was, there were also signs that not all was right in the World Tree. Splintered branches and exploded blackened pits in the thick bark indicated we were getting close to something with a really bad temper. The destruction kinda looked like fire damage, but something wasn't right. Holding up my hand, I whispered, “Shhh. Do you smell that?”
Katrinka stared at me.

A few years back I had the displeasure of working with a man who was entirely too clever for his own good. He was highly educated, terribly inventive, and liked to build things that boomed, zapped, or generally caused unusual forms of destruction. One such device hummed unhealthily, whorled with lots of tiny gears, and occasionally popped small lightning bolts across the room. But what I remember most was the smell. Right before his workshop burned down, and over the burning embers of various tables and scorched metal doohickeys, there was a strong scent of off-kilter fresh air. The nut-ball had gleefully called that scent ozone.

It was that exact smell I was smelling right that moment.

Softly, I muttered, “I think we've got a rare one.”

Taking the hint, Katrinka responded just as quietly, “In what way?”

“Lightning breath.”

“Shit.”

“Big Hairy Man go first.” At least the sword said it in a whisper.

There was still some climbing before we finally rounded a clump of house sized leaves and spotted the thing. It was bigger than the leaves, covered in brilliant orange, tan, and gold scales, and was in a massive clearing, rolling around on its back in a patch of sunlight.
Katrinka gasped, “My gods, that thing is huge.”

I had to admit, this one was larger than most. It was no wonder the elves had called for the most prestigious dragon slayer in the land: if that thing decided to go boom, it would easily kill whoever had been close enough to strike the final blow, as well as probably taking out a sizable chunk of the World Tree's bough. Katrinka's reaction, though, didn't instill me with confidence. “You have killed dragons before, haven't you?”

“Well, of course I have. I usually just cut their heads off with Silencer.”

I looked at her sword, then the dragon, then back to her. “Yeah, that's not gonna happen. The diameter of this one's neck is at least twice the length of that little thing.”

“Who you call little, Hairy Man?”

“My point is, we'll need to stab it, without something magical, probably quite a few times, and it'd be best if we could get it in the face. Through the eye would be good. If we can get a spear through it's brain, that should give it pause.”

Katrinka slumped a little and bashfully looked away. “Um, I didn't bring any spears.”

“What? Are you sure you've killed actual dragons before? You weren't thinking of a wyvern or maybe a griffon?”

“Hey, don't get snippy with me. I've taken down a few, they just aren't my normal fair. And I didn't know we'd be going after a small mountain.”

“Please tell me you at least have a few non-magical weapons.”

Her jaw set, and she stared at me defiantly.

“Seriously? Was cutting off its head your only plan of attack? You know you can't hit it where it matters, right?”

“I'm not an idiot.” It came out as a defensive hiss, but she was definitely flustered. “I didn't know they got that big.”

“Fine, fine. Don't get your armor in a bunch.” That whole thing about a dragon's tendency to explode had something to do with how their vitals interacted with magic. You poke the heart, boom. You poke a lung, boom. You poke the stomach, super boom with a side of acid. The one thing Katrinka had gotten right was that cutting off the head was a pretty surefire tactic that offered little risk of explosion. Not sure why that was the case, but I guess with that sword of hers, it was normally an easy way to do the job. I also wasn't sure what poking it the the brain with one of her enchanted deathtraps would do.

I sighed, “Leave the head to me, you work on its ankles and wings, and try to keep it from moving around as much. Just to be safe, try not to stab it anywhere along the trunk. I don't want a surprise spleen to be the death of us. You do have arrows, don't you?”

She glared.

After a little more muttering and pointing, we'd settled on an approach. She'd start by turning invisible, one of the tricks her armor was capable of, and sneak up behind the thing. I guess she had a way to keep herself quiet as well, but I didn't bother asking. If she says she can do something, I'm usually inclined to believe her.

For my part, once it squealed out in pain, I was to rush straight at it, dodge whatever it threw at me, then lob a few spears through its eye, maybe give it a few whacks with the sword for good measure. That was all we bothered planning, because that's as far as plans were usually good for. After that, they inevitably went horribly sideways.

Katrinka vanished, and I picked my way to a bridge that was broad enough that it really couldn't be considered a bridge except for the fact that where I crouched in waiting and where the dragon was rolling around like death-dealing, palace-sized pussy cat were even larger suspended islands of wood than the arching stretch that connected them. Hunkering down behind one of the few unsinged hedges on my side of the bridge, I held my breath as the massive beastie froze, all four legs straight in the air, then whipped its torso completely around with laborious momentum that belied its tremendous mass, and landed in an elongated crouch.

At first I thought it had heard me, then ruling that out, I guessed it had maybe sensed my partner creeping up on it. Both thoughts were wiped away as the thing drew in a massive breath and hacked, spitting up huge gobs of electrical discharge, and eventually dislodging and hocking up a fully armored, half chewed chest and right arm of must have been an elf. The mutilated hunk of body soared through the air and landed a few dozen feet from where I'd chosen to wait, and then the dragon snorted once, tromped around in a thundering circle, and curled into a ball of shimmering scales with a satisfied sigh that could have blown over a moderately sized shack.

I may have mentioned it before, but I am not a stealthy man. That's by no means because I'm clumsy. I'm not. But try attaching an entire kitchen's worth of pots and pans to your body and tell me how quiet you are sneaking up on someone. Same thing with a full suit of armor. It's for this reason that I usually just rush into combat instead of doing that creeping, hidey thing. And by “rush,” I don't mean I charge in willy nilly, well not normally anyway. I like to collect my thoughts, prepare myself mind and body, grab whatever murderous whacking tools I might need, and proceed with great speed, on my terms, when I'm good and ready. In this instance, that meant digging into Sam's Sack and pulling out a variety of doohickeys I only handle on the rarest of occasions.

The first doohickey was what sailors called a harpoon gun. It was large and unwieldy, and had hoses, a coiled rope, and a canister for air that took about half an hour to pump up with the little lever thingy sticking out from its side. It was so big, in fact, that it barely fit through the mouth of the sack. Even so, it was always the first thing I retrieved when taking down dragons.

The second was less of a doohickey, more of a special type of ammunition, though I still only use them for special instances and that was because they were terribly expensive. It was an arrow tipped with a somewhat fragile vial, and in that vial was a black syrupy concoction I purchase down in Spiretop Keep near the Spineridge Mountains. The merchant there is highly secretive about what goes in it, but she assures me that it's one-hundred percent non-magical. (Just to be sure, I take every batch to an independent party and have it tested. She's never steered me wrong so far.) And, of course, to fire the thing, I pulled out my finely crafted mechanical bow, constructed by the renowned Gnomic artisan Fuzzyfoot.
Finally, there were the three five-foot long, dwarfstar steel tipped javelins and quiver I'd mentioned to Katrinka: great for a good brain piercing when that was called for, which was the whole reason we were here in the first place.

There were a few other devices I typically pulled out when going against a dragon, like the razor-disc slinger I usually use for the wings, and the plus-sized bolo launcher for binding feet, but since Katrinka was taking over that part of the operation, I'd decided to keep those happily stored lest I wound up looking like a one-man, marching battalion.

It didn't take long to get everything in its place on my body, but within moments of my being ready, from its almost cute curled-up nap, the dragon snapped out its wings in surprise and flung its neck out straight with a deafening roar of pain. Apparently, Katrinka had made her move.

I still couldn't see her, but that might not last, so I stood up with the arrow nocked and bow fully drawn in an attempt to make that advantage permanent. The arrow twanged with phenomenal speed, yet even so, the bow was released and falling to my feet before the projectile had even struck. As always, my aim was true, though what I hadn't realized was that the beast's head was even bigger than I'd previously thought. The shattering of the vial, and black viscous cloud that smeared out from it, obscured any blood that might be coming from the dragon's right eye, but the shadowy cloud spread out a few feet to either side before clinging to the small scales of the brow and snout, not yet reaching the other eye. And by that, I mean this thing's eyes were at least eight feet apart.

I was a bit disappointed. That was a total waste of a very expensive arrow: I could have done just as well with a regular arrow alone. Oh well, at least one of its eyes was out of commission. That was something.

The monstrous creature was just beginning to realize what was happening and I already had my second tool of death up and aimed. Unlike the bow, this one had a trigger, and as I pulled it an ear-piercing hiss and chest thumping whump announced the launch of the harpoon, much like a corked geyser sounds when it finally lets loose.

Don't tell me you've never corked a geyser as a kid. No? Well, it's great fun.

Just as the arrow had, the harpoon flew true, trailing a long corkscrewed tail of rope quickly unfurling into a elegant arc through the air. The missile thunked into the dragon's neck, maybe a foot or two beneath its jaw, and I realized right that moment that I had seriously underestimated this thing's size. So far, it looked like I was shooting toothpicks whittled for gnomes at an alligator. Highly skilled shooting with astounding accuracy, but still tiny little toothpicks.

The gargantuan gold and brown wings were now fully extended, nearly spanning the entire width of the green in which the beast stood, and it was quickly collecting its bearings, when its left wing shredded. That's really the best way to describe it. Massive leathery membrane one moment, ravaged mass of dripping flesh the next. All that was left was the leading arm that had originally framed it flapping erratically with obvious pain, mimicked by the right's slower more powerful twitches. Unfortunately for the dragon, the right wing was still moving all the air it was supposed to, and instantly flung the beast off balance, causing it to stagger drunkenly to its left.

And now we had a very large, very pissed off dragon on our hands.

I never did find out what Katrinka used on that wing. I should ask her next time we team up.
Anyway. The harpoon gun already on the ground, I took this as my best opportunity to get in close by making a beeline across the bridge, not once taking my eyes off of its.

Its right eye was a blackened mess, but its left eye was wild, and still locked on me easily enough. Immediately, the beast sucked in a torrential breath, filling its lungs and preparing its first and most devastating attack. Licks of blue flickers crackled from its fang tips, caressing its tongue as the air rushed into its mouth. The monster's eye drilled its gaze into me as if that alone could kill me, and I'd only closed half the distance between us when the dragon let loose.

Dragons are not smart. Well, no smarter than your average flying predator with projectile weapons that shoot out of their mouths. They rely on instinct, whereas I approach combat with well-reasoned, thought-out tactics. And let me tell you, the gut reaction to leap and duck one way or another when a large creature is hurling magically enhanced forces of nature at you is near overwhelming, but experience has informed me that their ability to shoot birds out of the sky with pinpoint accuracy by super-powered loogie depends on their ability to see with both eyes. Take one out, as I'd managed to do just moments before, and sighting along their snout is thrown off by degrees.

I'm not one to dwell on my preternatural focus and phenomenal mental fortitude, but armed with my exacting insight I didn't even flinch, only closing my eyes for a moment to keep the flash from disorienting me. The blinding bolt of lightning highlighted bright veins in my eyelids, raised every hair on my body, singed the leather on my backpack, and missed me to my left by fully two feet.

It took a moment for it to grasp the inconceivable reality that it had missed, and by the time it did, we both knew there wasn't enough time for it to spit out another blast of shock juice. Instead, the monstrosity shifted its full weight onto its left front and right rear legs, freeing up its right front leg for a proper greeting of tooth and claw.

Drawing near, I realized my toothpick/arrow analogy hadn't quite prepared me for what I was actually up against as my original assessment was proving wrong enough as to be viscerally disturbing. My perspective from across the bridge had been thoroughly lying to me, because while I'd known the beast was large, and was increasing by size by the moment, running full speed and still only approaching it, I quickly came to understand that this one was by far the largest I had ever gone up against. Its claws were fully as long as my arm, and standing as it was, I'd have to jump just to swing my sword at its belly.

The first moments of engagement are all about timing: duck when you should've dodged, and splat; strike when you should've deflected, and splat. Really, any mistake when rushing headlong into a dragon usually ends with a splat. I was just about to draw one of the javelins with my right hand and launch myself into the first of many exquisite acrobatics, when just behind its right hind leg and inside the arc of its colossal snaking tail, Katrinka manifested in a flicker of sudden existence. Not there one moment, there the next. And she had Silencer raised and poised to hamstring the foot directly in front of her.

That's part of what I love about the heat of battle: tactics change as opportunities arise, and a clever mind, such as mine, can take advantage of that new information. Still weaponless, I entered the radius of the beast's reach, and everything happened very quickly: the dragon's raised claw began to descend, Silencer bit deep into the ankle of the hind leg, and the tension of my coiled muscles I'd intended to use for a dodge instead unwound as a tremendous leap. There was also a deafening roar as the monster's muscles clenched in pain and twisted to the side, slamming its claw into the ground instead of me to keep a semblance of balance. Which, in turn, dropped its shoulder low as I flung myself into the air, allowing me to smoothly grasp the long trailing rope dangling from the beast's neck.

I wish I could say that in one fluid motion, I swung in a magnificent arc over its back and around its neck, while drawing my sword and cleaving through its throat, but alas, physics and momentum weren't on my side, and I instead managed to get just a little way along its body, landing precariously on its front shoulder and darting my hand out to grab one of the many raised scales that protected its spine.

For its part, the beast swung its massive head around to its right in an attempt to survey this new situation. From the position it's head ended up, I was all but invisible to it, but Katrinka was standing in the open surrounded by dragon, somewhat helpless with the handicap of not being able to stab it anywhere that mattered.

My goal at this point was fairly clear. I needed to get to its head and get whacky with my sword, but two things stood in the way: one, with the angle of its neck and the sheer distance between where I was and where I wanted to be, even with the rope, I'd never be able to reach it without having its mouth aimed at me; and two, without an additional distraction, Katrinka was going to be in trouble.

In a maneuver I hoped would resolve all the issues at hand, without letting go of the rope I vaulted over the spinal scales, and with my free hand, plunged one of my spears a good foot into its left shoulder. It didn't like that much, momentarily forgetting about the crunchy little fighter at its tail, and lurched while whipping its head around trying to get a better view of what just bit it in the back. Not giving it time to spot me and testing my balancing skills against a heaving mountain of flesh, I quickly tied off the rope to the shaft of the spear, then began pulling myself up the length of its neck by my new tether.

It was a bit like trying to cross a rope bridge on a steep incline during an earthquake, while the bridge is trying to eat you.

That said, I made good progress. With the beating we'd already given the thing, the dragon was much less bouncy than it might have been, and was having quite a hard time in the maneuverability department. Despite that, I was about half way up, and considering where I should place my sword, when my bridge vibrated with another ear-splitting roar and we all jolted around to the right.

Katrinka had apparently been feeling left out, because when she finally came into view, she was standing next to a gaping rend along the base of the tail that was at least as long as she was tall. She was also clearly winding up for another devastating slice.

I know she's an amazing fighter, but I had to wonder what she was thinking. The tail is not a vital target. All she could hope to do was really piss it off, and that she had done remarkably well. I've never known animals to show hatred, but this monster was leaping past rage, and on to something more personal. It also chose that moment to do something I'd really hoped wouldn't occur to it that it could do.

It rolled.

Such a simple thing, but from something that was as big as this thing was, it was a truly lethal attack. Tipping toward its right, and at the now scrambling Katrinka, its whole body rumbled into the ground with explosive force. My partner vanished from view in a instant, but I had my own skin to worry about. The rump was already down, followed by a twisting hind left leg; the shoulder thudded with the crash of a felled tree, and the neck, the part I was still trying to balance on, was fast approaching impact.

With perfect timing, I threw myself toward the ground ahead of the potential death-log while gripping the rope, and used it to swing even further underneath the neck than would be possible by simply leaping. Landing hard, I tucked and rolled the opposite way, only to have a mass of scale and bone slam less than an inch from my leg and continue rolling away.
Back on my feet, Kelly was in hand and I was running, angling my charge up to where the head was just touching down. If I timed this right, I could deliver a two-handed blow with my full weight across its throat just as it exposed its jaw on the way round.

My sword was raised, I was nearly in position, and the beast was half-way through its rotation when everything froze at a bloodcurdling scream. A high-pitched screech of abject pain from the distant nether regions pulled me up short, but more surprisingly, the dragon convulsed its roll to a complete stop, all four feet straight in the air. The cry was like a screaming baby, or a freshly skewered rabbit, too sharp and small to be Katrinka, who confirmed my suspicions immediately by popping up on the other side of the tail holding her hands in the air.

My heart sank.

Her hands were empty. Silencer was gone, presumably shrieking in terror as the dragon's body pulled it in and absorbed it. I sternly called out, “What happened?!”

Even from the length of the dragon away, I could see the whites of Katrinka's wide eyes, “It just slipped. I didn't expect that thing to roll...”

Then the dragon hiccuped, the shrill scream cut short, and a ripple of lightning shuddered along the surface of the beast's skin. A deafening whimper thrummed out from the soon-to-be extinct monstrosity, and I shouted one word, “Run!”

Neither of the avenues we used to approach were close enough, and we both knew it. Instead, we charged the closest edge of the immense leafy clearing. Katrinka was lighter on her feet, but I was sufficiently motivated to keep up. I dared a glance over my shoulder to see that the dragon had swelled, and that first lick of electrical discharge had been joined by an army of friends. The beast was glowing, little cracks of light spiderwebbed across its scales.

And then we were at the edge. Katrinka held out her arm, both to keep her balance, and to protectively keep me from careening off. And as I slid to a stop, very aware of all the hairs on my head lifting to stand on end, I spent a brief moment to take in the scenery. There were a lot of branches, even more leaves, but directly below us was pretty much nothing. It was a very long way down.

Then a bowel rending whump shook the branch letting us know we'd run out of time. I grabbed Katrinka's hand as the beast detonated, and as the wrath of a thousand thunderstorms roiled towards us, we did the only reasonable thing we could... we jumped. After all, intentionally throwing yourself from an unfathomable height is completely different than just falling from one.

​You know how it is.  

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