Read Online Dragonslayer: A Novel by Wayland Drew - Free Book Online

veered away, but too late. There arced up to meet it a projectile that shrieked like a wild owl past its head and tore away a membranous portion of wing. Simultaneously, the heavy thud of wood on sinewed wood rose from the compound below. As it began to tumble, Vermithrax glimpsed in the midst of clustered men a rocking, squat implement such as it had never seen before, with a single vibrating arm upraised.
    Terror followed. The dragon foresaw itself crumpled like others it had known who had lost their concentration, or suffered seizures, or had unknown accidents befall them. Its left wing would not function properly, and Vermithrax was almost on the ground before it recovered and, with an enormous effort, swooped out of the tumble, the torn edge of its wing flapping. High and safe again, it had circled angrily and watched the frenzied reloading of the machine. The scene was suffused with a crimson haze of rage, and when Vermithrax at last dipped its wings and began its swoop, torrents of flame leapt from its nostrils like twin rivers, and the roar sent frightened rooks flapping in the valley.
    On the first pass, the dragon incinerated the catapult crew; they flared with liquid sounds, engulfed in a wash of fire. With a flick of its head, it caught two more, smaller ones, as they ran screaming toward the river—caught them but did not kill them, so that they were still scrabbling beside the path and mewing piteously when the dragon descended again, this time not fast, but with the aroused majesty of its species, the gouts of flame sweeping in wide arcs as its snout swung, consuming the tortured unfortunates beside the path, consuming those others who were running shrieking from their huts, consuming the huts themselves in a conflagration that spread through the cornfields and which, despite the later rains, would smolder for days amidst the forests. The destruction of the village was complete; Vermithrax saw to that, for it made yet one final pass through the smoke and mayhem, from east to west this time with again that terrible swinging of its head. Then it rose, aided by the heat from its own fires, its anger spent. It rose, above the crests of the hills and above the emptied valley, and in the dusk it turned away from the sun. Its shadow, even with the frayed wing, was magnificent on the countryside below.
    Shortly after this incident, Vermithrax had come to Urland, its belly empty, its spirit hot with hate and loathing. The Blight then had been a high, craggy, boulder-strewn bowl among the mountains above Swanscombe, but Vermithrax had been attracted to it by its spaciousness and by the honeycomb of passages beneath it that led to the lake of fire. It had come low across the shadow-bound village of Swanscombe with a sound like the whirlwind, casually gouting its pain and frustration. In seconds, with sweeping washes of flame, it defoliated the area within a half-league radius of the ledge on which it had perched; and, when no immediate challenge arose, it had twisted about, lithe as a monstrous snake, and vanished into the central passageway of the labyrinth.
    The dragon's arrival paralyzed the village. During the first day no one was to be seen, and by evening the complaints of cattle with swollen udders echoed in the hills. After dusk on the first night, furtive villagers scampered along the laneways close to the walls, to gather in the village's central meetinghall, the Granary. In the meeting that ensued, several hot-eyed young heroes offered to do battle with the dragon for the preservation of the village, and at last one of them, Baeldaeg—a splendid young warrior, eighteen years old, and the best runner and wrestler in all of southern Urland—was chosen by lot. For the remainder of the night he girded himself for the coming conflict in the stoutest leather, the finest iron, the largest shield. His lance and sword he adorned with talismans given him that very night by hopeful maidens. At dawn he went forth to