《The First Dragonslayer》


 The Tragedy at Rankelberg

    ¡°Faster, you lazy nag,¡± grumbled Hansel deVetica, right hand playing over the whip that lay on the seat beside him while his left held the reins.


    The horse that drew his wooden cart continued at the same slow, meandering pace through the forest, as if she cared not a fig for her master¡¯s orders. Hansel grabbed up the whip, then, and he would have struck the worthless mare, if not for an arm that grabbed hold of his elbow from behind.


    Hansel rounded on the other man, a snarl on the merchant¡¯s lips.


    ¡°You dare lay a finger on me, dog?!¡± Hansel growled.


    The hand pulled away in an instant, and the young man shrunk away, raising his palms in the universal gesture for, No threat.


    Hansel allowed himself to exhale. His expression must have visibly calmed a bit, because the whippersnapper spoke then.


    ¡°My apologies, sir,¡± the young man said, speaking in his queer foreign accent. ¡°I just hate to see you waste good horseflesh, that¡¯s all. I told you I grew up around the animals. Your wee nag is giving it all she has, and she does nae have many good years left to her. If you whip her, maybe she moves faster for a little while. Or maybe she collapses then and there. Patience, sir. That is all I counsel.¡±


    ¡°Laying hands on your master and talking back,¡± Hansel said, sneering. ¡°You must be feeling awfully bold this evening. Remind me, how long does your indenture contract have left on it?¡±


    ¡°Sir, I was just trying to¡ª¡±


    The horse interrupted them with a loud whinny, and Hansel was forced to pull his attention back toward the front of the cart. The nag was rearing up on her hind legs, seemingly out of nowhere, as if there was something frightening in front of her.


    ¡°Control yourself, you stupid beast!¡± Hansel roared. His hand clenched the whip tightly now, and his eyes darted from side to side. He was thinking less of whipping the nag now, more wary of the possibility that there were wolves in the trees nearby, or perhaps bandits.


    A shadow passed suddenly overhead. Hansel¡¯s eyes were lowered, looking for whatever had spooked his horse, so all he noticed was a large area of darkness that disappeared almost as suddenly as it had appeared.


    In the back of his mind, he thought, As if it was a swift-flying bird, but much too large to be a bird in flight¡­


    Then the nag was on all fours again, and Hansel¡¯s eyes crinkled as his expression turned confused.


    No bandits? No predators?


    He pulled on the reins and uttered a low, quiet, ¡°Whoa¡­¡±


    The horse slowed and then quickly stopped, and the cart with her.


    Hansel turned back to his indentured servant, Adam.


    ¡°Check that none of our cargo is loose, boy,¡± Hansel said. ¡°Something strange got into this horse. I would not be surprised if she got a whiff of one of those strong spices and¡­¡±


    His voice trailed off as he got a look at Adam¡¯s face. The boy was petrified, and for once, seemingly not of Hansel.


    The merchant snapped his head back to the front and quickly scanned the area again to see if any bandits had come out of the woods since he turned away. But he saw nothing new.


    Hansel frowned.


    ¡°Did you not see it, sir?¡± Adam asked, his teeth chattering.


    ¡°See what, boy?¡± Hansel asked. ¡°Is this when the horse reared?¡± He turned back in time to catch Adam nodding.


    ¡°There was a great, massive, scaled creature with wings and a long tail,¡± Adam said. ¡°Rising up out of the horizon like the Great Leviathan from the good book¡­¡± Adam began quietly praying in that strange tongue of his, and Hansel found himself resisting the urge to strike the servant once again.


    You can sell his contract to another merchant once you get back to one of the larger cities, he thought. The boy¡¯s not truly cut out for this work. He scares too easy, jumping at shadows and such. Now he¡¯s seeing mythical creatures¡­ Even if he does have a good head for numbers, you also need the stomach for this business.


    The small village of Rankelberg, where they were headed, would not have any merchants worth nearly what Hansel had accrued through long years of trading combined with three dangerous journeys to the Spice Islands. They were only stopping there because it was Hansel¡¯s home, and he wanted to drop off some of his profits before they continued towards the city of New Eristrea.


    I¡¯ll just keep from giving away my intent for now, he thought. Keep the boy doing his best work for me. Once he calms down, at least¡­


    Adam continued uttering his prayers and showed no signs of stopping, however.


    Come on, you pussy¡­


    After another minute, Hansel simply shook his head, dusted himself off, and started the nag moving again.


    The next part of the journey was quiet, except that after a minute, Hansel began to smell something coming from the air before him.


    Smoke.


    As he raised his eyes from the area immediately in front of them, he saw thick columns of smoke rising up from someplace ahead, stark and ugly against the glow of the setting sun.


    It was an unwelcome sight, especially in a densely wooded forest.


    Hopefully it turns out to be somewhere on the other side of the village, Hansel thought. He hoped he would not have to turn back. It was getting late for travel.


    He commanded the horse to slow down. It would not do to rush headlong into a forest fire. Not when a fortune in highly flammable spices sat just inches behind him.


    They continued the ride, the air growing worse and worse, but no fire coming into view, until finally they rounded a corner. Then Hansel could see it: the village and the fire.


    No¡­


    As the horse drew them closer, all Hansel could do was grit his teeth and take in everything as his field of vision encompassed more and more of the village.


    Each second made the view more disturbing. Every building his eyes fell upon was already thoroughly engulfed in flames. It had been a modest settlement, only perhaps twenty families in their little wooden cottages. Now there would not be two twigs left unburned in the whole village.


    And there was something else.


    Where are all the people? Where is the fire brigade?


    Not a creature stirred amid the flames and smoke. Hansel would notice other strange details later, when he recounted the story. The fact that the fire seemed to somehow be contained entirely within the borders of the village. The way that even the cone of heat given off by the flames barely reached outside of their radius.


    There was something strange about how the settlement burned. Something horrific and unnatural.


    But Hansel¡¯s conscious mind ignored all of that for the moment.


    My house, he thought. My family. I have to go to them!


    His cottage was larger than the rest, and it was therefore set at one of the village borders, a location chosen so that he could cut down as many trees as needed to make all the space he might want.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    The result of that now, though, was that Hansel had no direct line of sight. It was the furthest building away from the forest path.


    Hansel snapped the reins, ignoring the cries of protest from the back of the wagon, and the nag burst into motion.


    As soon as the beast crossed the threshold of the village, it was as if the wagon and its passengers had stepped into an oven. Thick streams of sweat seemed to flow from every pore, and Hansel found even his eyes much tearier than they had been, despite having only traveled a few feet.


    Ignore it, he ordered himself.


    But the horse slowed, choking out ragged breaths that suggested the beast was having trouble getting enough air. Smoke was all around now, as if it had been largely contained within a bubble before, but now the bubble had burst.


    Hansel was not worried about the nag¡¯s wellbeing in that moment. She could die for all he cared, so long as she accomplished this final mission. He snatched up the whip and cracked it over the horse¡¯s back.


    ¡°Go, you wretch!¡± he demanded.


    The horse went.


    The wagon shot through the central path of the burning village, the horse running like it was the one on fire instead of the only feature of the landscape that remained intact.


    Hansel passed the burning house that belonged to Mayor Richard, the village blacksmith¡¯s smithy¡ªwhere even the anvil and furnace were slowly melting away¡ªand the local war hero Georg¡¯s cottage, which was almost completely burned to ashes.


    But he barely noticed any of those things in the moment.


    Hansel¡¯s eyes remained peeled for any signs of living villagers¡ªnone were forthcoming¡ªand he looked out for his cottage.


    Finally, as he passed through the thickest of the veil of smoke, he saw it. His cottage was as embroiled in flames as any of the other buildings.


    This was also where Hansel took note of his first dead body. He had surely passed others, but as he saw this one, his eyes truly registered the image.


    A male corpse, it seemed to him, charred to a crisp. Burned beyond recognition. Barely more than a skeleton and ashes.


    About the size of a teenager, his mind suggested, unbidden.


    His heart seemed to stop.


    My son.


    Hansel was hardly aware of what he was doing as he stopped the horse, leaped from the wagon, and flung himself onto the body.


    ¡°My son¡­¡± he moaned softly, cradling the blackened figure in his arms.


    As he tightened his grip, bits of the body began to break apart. The head tumbled from the shoulders, and the rib cage that Hansel was trying to embrace snapped and burst. Bits of bone and charred flesh fell from his grasp and struck the ground.


    Where they hit, they disintegrated into ash. As the last bits of the corpse fell away and shattered into gray-white dust, Hansel knelt, stunned, amidst the ashes.


    All that remained of the body he believed to be his son¡¯s was a soot stain on his shirt.


    ¡°A nightmare,¡± Hansel thought aloud. ¡°It must be a nightmare.¡±


    He drew back and slapped himself hard across the face. The blow drew tears from his already watery eyes, but it did not wake him from his slumber.


    ¡°No. Real? It cannot be real¡­¡± Hansel giggled madly. ¡°Just a dream, just a dream¡ª¡±


    ¡°Master! Master!¡±


    Hansel¡¯s attention was pulled back from the scene of his despair by his servant¡¯s voice, yelling urgently from behind him.


    Stupid boy, he thought. I am losing everything that matters to me in life¡­


    Hansel turned, and his eyes widened. A stray spark from the village seemed to have caught the wagon on fire. There was a blaze burning across the wooden seat where Hansel had been just a minute before.


    That fire is spreading much too fast, Hansel noticed dimly. I have never seen the like without accelerant. Maybe the spices?


    Then he realized what he was thinking. The spices! His whole fortune was in that cart, now that his home had become an inferno. He could start over, make a new life in a different town, if only he had the spices.


    As Hansel reevaluated his situation, he observed that Adam was struggling with the fire. The servant was trying, clearly sincerely, to put out the flames, using a towel from the back of the wagon to beat at them.


    But Adam was as ineffectual as his master might have expected. Somehow, instead of the flames diminishing, the servant had managed to set the towel itself on fire.


    Hansel took a step forward, ready to join Adam in the effort to save the merchant¡¯s worldly goods, when he saw the flames lick their way from the towel onto Adam¡¯s bare arm.


    It was Adam¡¯s scream that stopped Hansel in his tracks. The young man¡¯s voice became unnaturally high and loud, and as Hansel watched, the flames ran up the lad¡¯s arm, to his shoulder and then his neck.


    Adam began to tear off his burning clothes and fling them away from his body, but there was no use. The fire had already spread to the skin underneath, and it seemed to like the taste of the boy.


    At some point, Hansel was aware that he had stopped moving forward, transfixed by the sight and the sounds of his servant slowly burning to death in front of him.


    He shook himself. He was not normally a man to be paralyzed by circumstances. Whether it was pirates, robbers, or wolves, he always reacted appropriately.


    His eyes scanned the ground quickly, and he came upon a full wooden bucket of water. The kind that the fire brigade used.


    He didn¡¯t stop to think about why it was still there, only grabbed it by the handle, pointed it at the wagon, and threw its contents in Adam¡¯s general direction.


    The water flew through the air and hissed as it passed near the wagon¡ªthen seemed to disappear.


    What?


    It took Hansel a moment to process that the water had evaporated on contact with the flames. This inferno was like nothing he had ever seen before.


    The wagon was lost now, clearly. He could tell that much. So was Adam. As Hansel watched, the indentured servant let out one final moan, then crumpled to the floor of the burning wagon and lay still.


    The nag whinnied, and Hansel recognized that the horse was still not on fire.


    He spun, looked at his own house, and decided no one within could still be alive amid such pervasive, all-consuming flames. He forced himself to forget the wife and daughter whose bodies he had not seen or touched, whose deaths he had not confirmed in any way. Then Hansel rushed toward the horse, and he unhitched it from the wagon at a speed he had not been capable of for years.


    The merchant threw himself over the horse¡¯s middle and smacked it on the rear, and then they were galloping forward, out of the strange, hellish world that had been Rankelberg.


    Hansel and his horse made their way to the nearest town, Weisston.


    There, he told his story in hallucinogenic verbiage to the first man he saw.


    Hansel finished, ¡°No survivors. Nothing left. All dead. All lost.¡±


    He collapsed and was rushed into the town doctor¡¯s house, where he slept for three days. When Hansel awakened, he repeated the same story, but with less certainty. He kept stopping and asking for assurance whether what he had seen was real or a nightmare.


    An assurance that no one could give him.


    When a group of men, acting based on Hansel¡¯s strange story, made an expedition to the isolated village, nothing remained of Rankelberg. The party ended up wandering for a time, because they did not recognize the site when they found it.


    Eventually, one of the men who had spent time in the area realized that one of the larger clearings they had repeatedly passed in the forest had a large amount of strangely colored soil. They returned to the spot, and upon further examination, they realized the dark soil was actually ash. There were also melted lumps of iron scattered over the ground where metal had been.


    Nothing beside remained.


    The party looked for clues, but they came up empty, and at any rate, all had work to get back to. If, as it seemed, there were no survivors, there was little point in further investigating what was likely the work of raiders from the neighboring Kingdom of Vangul. They would report what had happened to the local lord, and he would do something about it or report to his overlord, and so on.


    The tragedy at Rankelberg, as the incident came to be known, would go down as a mystery much theorized about in ensuing years.


    Hansel, the last survivor of Rankelberg, would gather a colorful reputation about him. He spent the last of his gold coins on liquor in the days following the attack, and he seemed to remain in a state of perpetual drunkenness ever after.


    He was always either deep in a bottle or looking for work in exchange for more alcohol.


    Normally, such a man would be the object of disgust in Weisston, but given the aura of tragedy that hung over Hansel, he became more an object of pity than anything else.


    Twenty years passed, and in the sleepy town of Weisston, little changed.


    Nothing much happened, until one day, when Hansel was in the local tavern¡­


    He had a little money that afternoon, and he was buying drinks for the other men around him, currying favor after a fashion, so that they might take care of him similarly when he was not so flush. Even after his breakdown, Hansel¡¯s shrewd merchant brain was always seeking opportunities for gain.


    Then a certain man stepped through the tavern doors.


    He looked to the bar and caught the tavern keeper¡¯s eye.


    ¡°Water, if you have it fresh and pure,¡± the man said. ¡°If not, I will have beer.¡± Then he flipped a gold coin onto the bar, with remarkable coordination despite being almost ten feet away from where the coin landed.


    That got the tavern keeper¡¯s attention. He was a man used to taking copper coins, or silver when he was lucky and the money for the harvest had been good.


    ¡°Yes, sir!¡± the tavern keeper exclaimed eagerly. He set to work cleaning a glass for the new patron.


    Hansel had been deep in his own drink and his own drunkenness, but something about the newcomer¡¯s voice tickled his brain.


    He turned his head, and his eyes shot open.


    ¡°You!¡± Hansel croaked.


    The newcomer turned and looked at Hansel, and the man¡¯s eyes seemed to show a flicker of recognition. That was when the face fully registered with Hansel.


    ¡°You¡¯re dead, man! Dead!¡±


    The newcomer appeared unruffled. But the tavern keeper glared at Hansel.


    ¡°Hey, Hansel, we tolerate your antics around here most of the time, but this fellow is a stranger in town. Don¡¯t you scare business away from my establishment!¡± He turned to look at the stranger¡ªwho Hansel was quickly becoming increasingly certain was not a stranger at all, but Georg, Rankelberg¡¯s old local hero. ¡°My apologies, stranger. If he¡¯s bothering you¡ªthe town drunk, you see, he really doesn¡¯t mean any harm¡ªI will happily turn him out of doors.¡±


    Georg dismissed the tavern keeper¡¯s concern with a sharp shake of the head.


    ¡°I can handle myself,¡± he said. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. And I¡¯ll take my drink over there.¡± He pointed to a table in the most distant corner of the room.


    As Georg walked toward his table, Hansel realized suddenly why the veteran was so easily recognizable even twenty years later.


    He has not aged a day, Hansel thought. Even as Hansel himself had grown gray and white hairs everywhere, wrinkles in places he did not know a man could have wrinkles, and stiff, leathery, sun-damaged skin, Georg was still the same tall, lightly tanned, dark-haired, bearded figure he had always been. Not a single white hair. How?


    As Georg took his seat, Hansel, ignoring the tavern keeper¡¯s dirty looks, rushed after him. Without waiting for an invitation, Hansel slid himself into a seat opposite from Georg.


    ¡°You¡¯re Georg,¡± he said breathlessly.


    Then the tavern keeper was at Hansel¡¯s elbow, grabbing him by the wrist.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, Hansel,¡± he began.


    ¡°I told you that it was all right,¡± Georg said dismissively. ¡°Please release him. And, on second thought, bring two ales.¡±


    Hansel looked up at Georg¡¯s face and saw a hint of pity in his expression, before it disappeared and the neutral expression in the man¡¯s steely eyes returned.


    The former merchant waited until the tavern keeper had released him and returned with the two ales before speaking again. As the establishment¡¯s owner walked away, Hansel finally allowed himself to broach the subject that had not left his mind for twenty years, with the one man who might have an answer for him.


    ¡°What happened to our town, Georg?¡± he asked in a low voice. ¡°Tell me. Please.¡± His tone descended rapidly into pleading as he thought of the family he¡¯d lost. ¡°I have to know.¡±


    Georg sat quietly for a moment, sipping his ale. The silence felt like a refusal¡ªperhaps even a rebuke.


    ¡°You owe it to me,¡± Hansel added defensively. ¡°As a¡ª¡± As a friend? No, they¡¯d never been friends. Georg had always been a queer sort, haughty and aloof, and Hansel had always kept his distance from anything that smacked of darkness or violence. It was an instinct with him.


    ¡°As a neighbor,¡± Hansel finished.


    Georg regarded him in silence for a moment more, dark eyes steady and appraising.


    ¡°I owe you nothing,¡± Georg said finally. He opened his mouth to say more, but those first words were more than Hansel could stand.


    The former merchant reached across the table and grabbed Georg by the wrist. To Hansel¡¯s surprise, however, he was unable to so much as stop Georg from raising his mug to his lips. It was as if Hansel had grabbed hold of a moving ship and was trying to stop it with his bare hands.


    Georg took another sip of his drink.


    ¡°I owe you nothing,¡± Georg said again after he had swallowed, ¡°but I will tell you what happened anyway. I hope the answers will bring you some peace. I understand you have had a difficult time in the ensuing years. You should go ahead and drink, too. It is a long story¡­¡±

 2. The Tail Begins

    ¡°How much do you know about my service in the war?¡± Georg began.


    Hansel stared at the man for a moment, baffled.


    ¡°Why would I know¡­?¡±


    ¡°I know that some rumors probably circulated, and I was trying to gauge how much I have to tell and how much you may have already heard about my past,¡± Georg replied.


    ¡°What does that have to do with the destruction of our village?¡± Hansel asked. ¡°Some old enemy of yours held a grudge? Raiders from the Empire, perhaps?¡±


    ¡°No mere raiders,¡± Georg said.


    ¡°Who, then?¡± Hansel asked, trying to control his growing impatience. It was starting to feel as if the other man was only jerking his chain. But the former merchant had every reason to keep his feelings in check. The mysteriously ageless man across from him was his only chance of learning what had happened to their village.


    ¡°The story starts with the war,¡± Georg said. ¡°When we fought to get out from under the Braeden Empire¡¯s influence, I was a member of an elite unit. As such, I was read into certain secrets that go to the heart of our continent¡¯s history. Secrets that are drenched in blood. They were uncovered as a result of much that did not make sense, and many events that seem impossible in retrospect. The Immortal Emperor, for instance. And the fiery fields. The first and most important secret was¡ª¡± Georg stopped talking and put a finger to his lips, urging silence. Then he placed his palm to the side of his mouth to block anyone other than Hansel from seeing his lips, and Georg mouthed the words: ¡°Dragons exist.¡±


    Hansel¡¯s first impulse was to laugh.


    That is your secret? You believe in monsters from out of a child¡¯s bedtime stories? Georg, seeing you after all this time had passed, and observing that the man who everyone thought was dead had not apparently aged at all, somehow I thought that you must be coping much better than me with the tragedy. But it seems that madness has taken you. The affliction looks good on you, to be sure, but madness, it must be.


    He opened his mouth to say words to that effect, then froze.


    Georg¡¯s cold eyes looked into Hansel¡¯s, judging, appraising¡ªgiving Hansel the strangest sense that Georg knew just what the former merchant was thinking.


    Think carefully before you speak, those eyes seemed to say. I chose to speak to you out of generosity on my part. After all that I have done and seen, I will not be mocked by the likes of you, merchant.


    Hansel swallowed hard and pressed his lips closed again. The silence hung over the table for a minute, then two, the atmosphere between the two men thick as a fog. Each waited for the other to speak.


    But at last, Hansel acknowledged to himself that Georg could wait longer. The other had the patience, either of knowledge or of faith driven by madness.


    ¡°How can you expect me to believe that?¡± Hansel finally asked.


    Georg chuckled mirthlessly. The sound was so cold that it was almost metallic.


    ¡°After what you saw in the village, is it so hard to believe that the supernatural was involved?¡± the warrior asked.


    Hansel flashed back to the insane behavior of the flames that he had witnessed¡ªhow they caught seemingly anything except the ground on fire and then burned the object until there was nothing recognizable left, only horrifically charred remnants.


    ¡°Even with what I saw,¡± Hansel said slowly, ¡°even with the loss of my senses that the years have brought¡ªeven after witnessing a fire that burned even the metal in the blacksmith¡¯s forge¡ªstill. I still need some proof that it was¡ª¡± He lowered his voice, feeling ridiculous as he did so¡ª¡°dragons.¡±


    ¡°Oh, if you want proofs, I can show them to you,¡± Georg said, shaking his head. ¡°Evidence abounds if you know what to look for.¡± He parted the cloak he was wearing, to show the armor he wore underneath. ¡°Here, have a look at this.¡± Georg tapped the chest of his armor.


    Hansel squinted. In the mediocre lighting of the inn, it was difficult to tell for a moment, but gradually, his eyes comprehended what they saw. The gentle glint of the firelight off of the material told him what he was looking at.


    ¡°I do not understand,¡± Hansel said firmly.


    ¡°You do,¡± Georg insisted coldly. He closed the front of his cloak again, and a moment later, the bartender stepped into view.


    ¡°Can I get, er, either of you gentlemen anything?¡± the man asked.


    Hansel ignored the skeptical look the bartender directed his way and simply shook his head.


    ¡°I request nothing but quiet without interruptions while I finish my drink,¡± Georg said. He gave the bartender a thin smile and then drew a silver coin out and held it out in the bartender¡¯s direction. ¡°Here.¡±


    The man¡¯s eyes went wide. ¡°No, no, sir, I cannot accept that. I have not brought your change from the coin you gave me earlier. I just thought that I might offer you something else, considering how, er, valuable your custom is here.¡±


    ¡°Well, please consider the remaining value of the coin a tip, then,¡± Georg said, lowering the silver in his hand. ¡°I only want quiet. If I would like to make another purchase, I will approach you.¡±


    The bartender bowed his head and, muttering apologies, quickly made himself scarce.


    ¡°How do you do that, anyway?¡± Hansel asked.


    ¡°Pay a serving man to leave me alone?¡± Georg replied, wearing a slightly amused smile. ¡°All it takes is money.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Hansel said. ¡°How did you know he was coming? You did not look in his direction, but you closed your cloak as if you were worried about him seeing what you were wearing, under there¡­¡± His voice trailed off as his mind returned to what he had seen beneath Georg¡¯s cloak.


    ¡°That was simple situational awareness,¡± Georg replied. ¡°It is perhaps the most basic skill I possess. You had some form of it as a merchant, I have no doubt. It is part of why I was willing to speak with you. But as a warrior in this fight, I have had to go beyond the normal capacities of a human. The universe is made up of matter and energy. In my journey, I have learned to tap into energies that I never understood existed before.¡± Hansel had the feeling he was hearing an ongoing process described, rather than something that had been accomplished in the distant past. Georg sounded like a man on a quest to him.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    ¡°This is also why you appear not to have aged in the last twenty years?¡± Hansel asked.


    Georg simply nodded.


    ¡°I do not understand how any of this works,¡± Hansel seethed. ¡°What in God¡¯s name¡ª¡±


    ¡°First, you must accept what it is you are seeing,¡± Georg said, interrupting Hansel¡¯s blasphemy. He opened his cloak again, and Hansel saw again the strange clothing item that had drawn his attention before. ¡°You will not be able to grasp what I tell you if you are not willing to properly acknowledge what your own eyes are telling you. You are observing something that few humans have ever seen, but it is real. Accept it. Explicitly acknowledge it. Not to me, if you do not wish to, but to yourself. The rest of the discussion requires this leap of faith. If you cannot accept the basic premise, nothing else of what I say will be believable.¡±


    A dragon¡¯s scale, Hansel thought silently, staring right at the manifest impossibility in front of him. It is a dragon¡¯s scale, forged into the center of Georg¡¯s armor. It cannot be anything else¡­ Somehow, a mythical creature¡¯s parts have found their way into his possession. Maybe dragons are real. Hell, something mad has to have happened. What else could explain that day¡­?


    Hansel almost lost himself in memories then. The burning village had never truly faded for him. The fires were dancing in his eyes when Georg spoke up again and snapped him out of his trance.


    ¡°All right,¡± said Georg, looking Hansel directly in the eyes. ¡°We can begin.¡± This reaction subtly enhanced the former merchant¡¯s sense that Georg was somehow reading his mind.


    Hansel just nodded dumbly. He was beyond asking questions for now.


    ¡°When I joined the Royal Army, we were all tested for aptitude,¡± Georg began. ¡°There were some who were better with spear, some who had trained with bow and arrow from a young age, some who were good with sword and shield, some who understood the terrain better than others, some who were suited to cooking¡ªyou get the idea. A specialty and a place for everyone.


    ¡°Well, my story was a slightly uncommon one. The King selected me and two dozen others for a special unit. I could see that we all had unusually high aptitude in close quarters combat and good balance, combined with a certain something that I could not put my finger on at the time. The selection criteria for the unit were opaque, but I did not ask questions. Perhaps I should have¡­ At the time, I was simply honored to be chosen by His Majesty. You remember the patriotic fervor that everyone felt back then.¡±


    Hansel nodded, although he personally had thought the patriotic fervor of the Autonomy War was misguided and a bit foolish. That had been a different time for him, when all he saw was the value of coin¡ªbefore he lost what was truly valuable.


    ¡°We were given special training,¡± Georg continued. ¡°Told that we were the most promising warriors of a generation. We were told many things over long weeks spent sparring and meditating and camping in the woods. We were guided up into the mountains and instructed to bathe naked in cold rivers every day, to purge ourselves of impurities. The training went on so long that I sometimes wondered if the war was not over already, in the time spent to prepare us for it. I knew there was far more to our training than what the normal conscripted men were put through. There were a thousand rituals to daily life, a disciplined routine that grew more stringent with each day¡­ And, in retrospect, I can say that we were brainwashed.¡± Despite the words coming out of Georg¡¯s mouth, the warrior was smiling as if recalling fond memories.


    Perhaps, from his point of view, he was.


    ¡°Brainwashed?¡± Hansel asked, just to have something to say¡ªso that Georg would know that he was, in fact, listening to this strange digression.


    ¡°Well, over the course of those months, in addition to drilling greater military competencies into us while other men, in more honorable branches of service, were fighting and dying, we were also told that our unit was in an especially honorable field. Which was frankly a crock of excrement. You see, underneath it all, we learned in the end that we had been selected as a squad of assassins. The King wanted to send a message to the Empire by removing a high value target. That was what they were training us for. To go off and kill a member of the Imperial Family.


    ¡°When do the dragons come into the story?¡± Hansel wondered aloud. An assassination mission might make for a fascinating story, in normal circumstances, but he could not see how this related to the dragon that Georg claimed had destroyed their village. Hansel would listen to Georg¡¯s story all day and into the night, if he had to, but the longer it took the warrior to get to the point, the higher the odds were that the two would be interrupted, and perhaps the mystery would go unexplained.


    Georg sighed. ¡°I understand the desire to get to the point, neighbor. I was coming to it. I mentioned the legacy of the Immortal Emperor. Well, that was one of our Royal Family¡¯s first clues that the Empire¡¯s ruling caste was, at the highest levels, nonhuman.¡±


    ¡°What are you saying?¡± Hansel asked.


    ¡°You are aware of the story of the Immortal Emperor?¡± Georg said.


    ¡°I have heard the myth,¡± Hansel replied mildly, almost shrugging before he noticed how annoyed his conversation partner looked.


    ¡°Do you remember that I asked you to suspend your disbelief?¡± Georg asked.


    Hansel nodded.


    ¡°This is one of the areas where you will need to simply try to take what I say at face value,¡± Georg said. ¡°The Immortal Emperor was real. The Empire had a ruler who reigned for over five hundred years. He ruled only two hundred years ago, but people in the Kingdom have convinced themselves it was a myth, because it was just long enough that it falls outside anyone¡¯s living memory, and it does not fit with our experience of the world.¡± The warrior¡¯s voice seemed full of contempt for a moment.


    ¡°What does this legendary emperor have to do with the story?¡± Hansel asked, careful not to use the word ¡°mythical¡±.


    ¡°He was a dragon,¡± Georg said insistently, lowering his voice when he spoke the word ¡°dragon.¡± ¡°The Kingdom¡¯s adventurers had gathered information about dragons wherever it surfaced for many years. Its scholars had spent the same period analyzing the history of the Empire, looking for weaknesses and verifying information about their government and their nobility. When the current King took the throne, he put these two groups together, and they discovered something. There was a common pattern among the Empire¡¯s ruling nobility. They seem to live unusually long lives. The King¡¯s scholars used a mathematical technique they called ¡®statistics¡¯ to compare lifespans between different regions and peoples. They compared the nobility of the Empire to the nobility of the Kingdom and the common folk of each region to each other. Nobles of the Kingdom lived a long time, but not an inhumanly long time, compared with commoners from either the Empire or the Kingdom. Commoner lifespans were short in both nations. But the imperial nobles seemed, sometimes, to live for centuries, based on records. It was impossible¡ªfor humans¡ªbut consistent with legends of the dragons, their long lifespans, and their mystical powers, including the power to shapeshift.¡±


    The warrior had dropped almost to a whisper every time he mentioned dragons, which did almost as much as anything else about his manner to convince Hansel that Georg was serious.


    ¡°So, you believe that the top nobility of the Braeden Empire are¡ªare dragons,¡± Hansel verified, lowering his own voice when he spoke the last word. ¡°Including the Immortal Emperor.¡±


    ¡°At the time the Immortal Emperor lived, our record-keeping and technology in general were so primitive that the dragons at the helm of the Empire were comfortable in throwing their impossible longevity in our faces. Perhaps hoping that humans would see that they did not age and die like us, and we would be cowed into submission to a superior race. Even now, when they act more subtly, we still have records that show many nobles of the Empire live an impossibly long time. Perhaps they only ¡®die¡¯ when a dragon grows tired of a particular identity and decides to become his own ¡®descendant.¡¯¡±


    Hansel shuddered. ¡°Eternal tyranny.¡±


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Georg agreed.


    ¡°What did you come back here for, Georg?¡± Hansel asked. ¡°After all these years, after the village was burned to ashes, there is nothing left for you anymore than there is for me.¡±


    Georg¡¯s voice shook slightly as he answered. ¡°I want to kill the monster responsible.¡±


    ¡°Why do you sound so afraid?¡± Hansel asked.


    That disturbed Hansel more than any of the borderline insane things that Georg had said since the two men met up. There was a steel in Georg that seemed unbreakable, yet he had seemed genuinely afraid of the prospect of killing a dragon. Were the beasts so terrible, so monstrous, that even this ageless warrior who¡¯d had twenty years to prepare did not believe he could manage the deed?


    Georg hesitated, and for the first time, Hansel saw a flicker of what looked like despair in the man¡¯s eyes.


    Finally, Georg said, ¡°No one has ever done it before.¡±