Epic (14 page)

Back inside, Erik strove to keep his thoughts on simple tasks. Each time he strayed into contemplating the battle with the dragon, his stomach gave a lurch. Never one for introspection at any time, he believed it could only be unnecessarily wearing and fruitless to have daydreams now. Once, when Erik was little, Harald had taken him with him to Fircone village. That journey involved crossing a swaying rope bridge over a river that cut deep into a sandstone shelf. At the time, the height and the rush of water had seemed immensely dizzying. Since then, Erik had become taller and more familiar with the bridge, which had lost its capacity to cast a spell of fear and invitation. In his hand, Erik had been holding one of his favorite toys, a model horse. Looking at the racing froth of the water far below, Erik had been mesmerized and the grip on his horse had loosened. In his mind he could see it falling, slowly turning over and around, as it dropped irretrievably from him. It was a real effort to wrench himself away and keep his toy. Now, the image of slaying the dragon felt just as disorientating. If he dwelt on the fantasy of success, there was a real danger that it would paralyze his will, and result in his failure.

Although it was still a little early, Erik decided it would be better to enter the game. Being Cindella made him feel stronger, more capable. Gathering up his orange pieces and a large glass of water, he went upstairs to the equipment.

It was relaxing to harmonize with her self-assured character.

A violent blast of color and sound dispelled the darkness.

It was still raining in the game. Cindella was high enough into the hills that wisps of the low-lying clouds slowly drifted along the valley sides just above Erik’s character.

“Hi, Erik. I couldn’t sleep.”

B.E. was there. His elf had harnessed the donkey to the cart in preparation for their departure.

“Ya. I’m surprised I got any.”

They sat beside each other on the cart, listening to the rain on the leaves of the trees all around them, neither wanting to talk about the coming encounter. Slowly the morning began to brighten and the rain became little more than a faint drizzle. Bjorn and Injeborg suddenly materialized before them.

“Great, I’ll just get Sigrid.” B.E. disappeared.

 

By late afternoon, they reached the valley of the dragon. There was no longer a path, and while they took turns to lead the donkey, everyone else walked beside the lurching cart to prevent the stacks of arrows from rolling out. All around them, craggy boulders and piles of white stone broke through a thin layer of grass-covered soil. Vegetation was scant here; a brave purple flower did its best to bring cheer to a drab landscape.

As they worked their way along a slightly rising valley, the ground grew increasingly rocky and the walls rose like cliffs. The donkey stopped and would not budge.

“Never mind. Let’s leave it,” said Erik. “We are not far now.”

“Is it safe to leave the donkey here?” asked Sigrid.

“Oh, yes. No other creature would dare hunt this close to the Red Dragon.”

They unpacked the cart, each taking a huge load of arrows onto their back; even with that, the cart remained half-full. Not far ahead was a large black boulder. Cindella threw down her load beside it and scrambled up.

“Come up. I’ll point out our positions.”

Black openings appeared all along the walls of the cliffs, each a potential cave entrance. A rock floor completely devoid of flora stretched away to where the walls encircled the desolate valley. Ominously the ground was pockmarked with swathes of ash and strewn with bones and rusty fragments of armor.

“Don’t worry,” Erik laughed nervously. “Most of those are mine.”

Bjorn shook his head. “I’m glad you know this place. It is impossible to guess which cave holds the dragon.”

“That one.” Cindella pointed dead ahead to the end of the valley. There, where the limestone walls seemed to have been blasted open by a duel between powerful wizards, a large black cave gaped with brooding menace.

Using the scars of previous deaths as guides, Erik gave them their positions, and pointed out the places beyond which the dragon should not be allowed to cross for fear that it would be able to reach them with a blast of fire. Each character made two trips to the cart until their arrows were stacked up waist high beside them. Although Erik had said that it was safe, they moved in complete silence and with a restraint that almost kept them from breathing as they took their marks.

“Ready?”

Once the others gave the go-ahead, Cindella made her way to the vicious-looking scar in the valley wall. Close up it was a huge opening, set deep in black shadow. That was near enough. Cindella picked up a stone.

“Hey in there, you have visitors!” She hurled the stone into the cave, where it was quickly lost in the darkness. Another and another followed. The stones sent up a resounding clatter as they landed, one after the other, until the stone that made no sound at all.

Cindella turned and sprinted away as fast as she could, nimbly leaping the larger rocks.

Thunder shook the valley, deafening everyone; the ground itself quivered from the noise, as though it were trembling in fear. The dragon had given angry notice; it was coming out.

A snakelike head appeared first, high above the ground, evil intelligence in the eyes; then, with the sound of glass breaking, a foot with diamond-sharp claws slapped onto the ground. Lithely, the scaled body of the monster emerged from the shadow of its cave. Another great roar stunned them all, leaving their ears ringing. Then Inry’aat stretched its magnificent wings, awesome in power and vibrant with a pulsing scarlet color that spoke of the burning heat of the creature. It was immense, and for a moment the impossibility of killing such a powerfully fierce monster overwhelmed Erik.

Then B.E. fired and his arrow embedded itself in the body of the dragon, like a tiny splinter. Immediately the monster snapped its head around to glare at the little elf that had dared to attack. It took one shuddering step toward B.E. when another arrow hit into its flank from the other side. Again, the frighteningly swift turn, followed by a slower, careful placement of its great taloned leg. And now B.E.’s next shot landed.

So the pattern took shape. It was fourteen shots—and at the back of his mind Erik had felt the miss coming—before Bjorn pulled his bow down as he released and the arrow shot away off the ground. At once, Sigrid fired and, although her arrow bounced back from the thick scales of the dragon, the blow was sufficient to turn it from B.E.

By the time of the next miss, Erik had lost count. Again Bjorn snatched at his shot and again Sigrid had it covered. For the next hour, they kept a mesmerizingly steady rhythm to the fight. Arrow, snarl, step, arrow, snarl, step. Shot after shot, keeping the dragon turning in a small circle, back and forth, very rarely faltering, but always picking up the rhythm again on the back-up shot. It was hard to miss such a great creature. For Erik the fight was perhaps the most demanding, for he was not firing but stood poised, anticipating a double miss, never having a moment’s relaxation between shots as responsibility passed from one side of the valley to the other.

A second hour passed with absolutely no change to the pattern, except that the sky began to darken and shadows reached out from the valley walls towards the battle. The third hour was equally hypnotic. You forgot everything but the pattern. Shot and shot. Step and step. Three hours of concentration. Yet nothing seemed to change. The dragon seemed as full of potential for destruction as ever, an explosion barely held in check by a flimsy weaving of arrow shots. The only change to Inry’aat since they began the fight was that it now had a layer of shafts lining its upper body like thin patches of fur.

Another hour of concentration; still there was no room for error; should Inry’aat escape the pattern, they would all be immolated in seconds. So they had to maintain the dragon in its tight oscillations, keeping it that vital step away from the point from which it could blast one of them with its explosive gouts of flame. It was a little like a spinning top Erik had owned years ago. You pumped a shaft up and down to make the top spin incredibly fast, then let go. Properly done the toy seemed to be motionless, except perhaps a slight swaying, but in actual fact the toy was whirling around so fast that if it strayed onto even a small imperfection in the ground, it would fly several feet in the air. Similarly Inry’aat was moving back and forth in a tight area, constantly at the point of unleashing its volcanic power, constantly readjusting to a new target, apparently harmless but on the brink of effortlessly destroying them all.

“Erik!” shouted B.E. “I need you to transfer arrows from Injeborg to me.”

“Ya. And I will need the same from Sigrid,” Bjorn called out from the shadow that had slowly moved out from the cliffs to cover him.

Of course! They should have divided up the arrows better. The main archers were hitting nearly twenty times more often than the reserve person. His own supply was much greater than he needed; he had not been called upon to fire once.

“Very well, keep concentrating, I will deal with it.”

Suddenly his fear of failure was accompanied with another emotion that had to be pushed to one side: shame. If they died, he would never forgive himself for making such a stupid mistake.

Watching the dragon all the while, he carefully made his way to Injeborg. Now was the really dangerous moment, when he had to put his bow down to gather up the arrows. Glancing at the witch, Erik felt a surge of affection for her, with her velvet sleeves rolled back, bow at the ready. She did not turn to look at him, her whole concentration set on containing the fiery power of the dragon. Cindella ran swiftly to B.E. and stacked up the arrows beside him. He made a second run until B.E. had a great pile, while Injeborg was left with just twenty arrows.

The others had held the pattern all the while, and it was with a great sigh of relief that Cindella picked up her own bow again. Then she skirted around to the other side, where Sigrid stood equally attentive. Once again, the awful moment when he had to put down his bow. In this situation there were just two consecutive misses between them and disaster. Hurriedly he managed the redistribution, watching all the while. Shot, turn, step, shot. And the crisis was over. Bow in hand, he went back to his position.

“We still have my bundle left if we need!” he shouted out to them all.

The struggle was well into its fifth hour before Erik realized that there was a change taking place.

“Look, its head!”

Inry’aat was glaring at them more malevolently than ever, now that its eyes were a red glow against the growing gloom, but it held its head closer to the ground than when it had first come into view.

No one responded; they were too vigilant, keeping up the pattern of shots that held the dragon in place.

Slowly, imperceptibly slowly, the dragon was lowering its head. Erik counted twenty shots then tried to gauge the change; it was minute, but it was happening. He quickly calculated, underestimating if anything their progress. Another hundred arrows was about ten minutes, six hundred then to the hour. But that was only about a quarter the distance to the ground, so four hours, and two thousand four hundred arrows—if they even had that many! His own bundle was less than a thousand.

“Distributing my arrows now!” he cried out. Kneeling, no longer able to see his friends in the shadows, Erik watched the arrows soar out of the darkness into the body of the dragon as he retied half his arrows into a bundle that he heaved onto his back.

As he was partway around to B.E., the double failure happened. It was strange, because the sense that they would inevitably miss while his hands were not free, which had accompanied Erik all through the first redistribution, had gone. These misses were completely unexpected. Suddenly the dragon was taking a second step towards Bjorn. For the first time in nearly five hours, it was outside of its pattern and gathering pace. Having held the situation for all that time, they were about to succumb in moments.

With Cindella’s bow on the ground, this was the only action she could take that might save them.

“Hey, Red Ears! What’s the matter? Your fire going out?”

Inry’aat whirled around as though stung with a particularly sharp arrow. Bjorn waited for it to move towards Erik and back into position, then he fired. The dragon turned back to face him. By now B.E. had his next arrow notched. The moment of disaster was behind them. The pattern was resumed.

“Fire and destruction, I thought we’d lost it,” muttered B.E. as Erik deposited the arrows at his feet and untied them.

“So did I. So did I. Keep it going.”

B.E. did not reply, but fired his next arrow.

Agonizingly slowly, Inry’aat’s head sank and sank, until it was no higher than their own. Night had come, but as the shadows of the valley had merged with the dark clouds overhead, it became evident that the arena in which they fought was dimly lit by a purple radiance that came from the dragon. As time passed, the quality of this light changed, gradually becoming more violet and losing its intensity, this process also marking the decline of the dragon.

Still Erik winced as he reestimated their arrow supply against the withering of the monster before them. Just as he was convincing himself that they did not have enough, Inry’aat gave out a desperate melancholy sigh and slumped to the ground, its head hitting the rock with a distinct crack. All color emanating from the body faded quickly, leaving just a hint of a purple glow around the body, like the very edge of a rainbow.

“Keep firing!” shouted B.E. “Remember the wyvern. Keep firing until every last arrow has gone.”

So they did, all of them joining in. Erik thought it strange, as he bent his bow, that after seven hours of battle, this would be the first time he had fired on the dragon. When all the arrows were gone, they drew their weapons.