even the small ones. A burn that never healed would be torment indeed. I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance.
For every moment I hesitated, Liz hung helpless for Candora’s pleasure. Perhaps I could bluff my way through with the broken shell, and claim that someone else, either Laura and her dad or Liz and Marion, had broken both eggs and this was all that was left. Not that I expected to free Liz without killing Candora, but he was a pro and I’d have to put him off-balance to stand a chance. The one thing I couldn’t do was give the bad guys access to what might be a real dragon’s egg.
The egg shifted again. It made a wet sound, like something sliding around in the liquid interior. It spooked me, and I turned toward the entrance. Then I froze.
I heard a sound like a sail rippling in the wind, followed by the noise of nails scraping on rock. Something obstructed the tunnel opening. Backlit by the moon, it was a roughly triangular silhouette that reached from floor to ceiling, and held before it that same blue-flaming brazier. The cave suddenly filled with the nauseating gas stink.
The blue light was low to the ground, and swayed back and forth as much as the narrow tunnel allowed. I heard a sound like heavy cloth or leather rustling. Something snorted, and for a moment the blue light flared enough for me to plainly see what now blocked the only exit.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered.
TWENTY-EIGHT
So there I was, a middle-aged sword jockey face-to-face with a genuine fire-breathing dragon.
At least it wasn’t a big one, no more than eight feet from nose to tail tip. At its widest its body was as big around as my thigh. Its neck arched so that its head hung about a foot off the floor, where it swung slowly back and forth, inadvertently mimicking the action of a man swinging a lantern. Its legs were long, but in its resting position they folded up close to its body. The tail provided a counterbalance to the neck so that, except for the feet and the knuckles of its two huge, opaque wings, nothing touched the ground. Those wings were what really blocked the light, and the way they were folded brought the tips together over its back and created the triangular shape.
The blue flame glowed inside its mouth, flickering behind its small, even teeth. When it breathed even slightly, the light flared and the gas smell grew stronger.
Still, small or not, it sure as hell had me cornered. I stayed very still, wondering if it even knew I was there. Perhaps it was one of those animals that could only see movement, and if I remained immobile it would eventually go away.
Almost as soon as I had that thought, the long neck slowly straightened, extending down the tunnel toward me. It halted and snorted again, illuminating me with a puff of its eerie blue flame that popped almost in my face. The stench was unbelievable. The dragon’s serpent-like head was roughly the size of my foot, with a mouth that split almost the whole length of its skull. I wondered if, like a snake, it could dislocate its jaw and swallow things much larger than its head.
It clearly saw me, and just as clearly wasn’t pleased to find me here. It opened its mouth wide, and I saw down its throat, where the flame seemed to originate from two jets where other animals might have saliva ducts or poison glands. I gritted my teeth against the expected jet of flame. I’d contemplated many ways of dying, but being cooked alive by a mythical monster had honestly never been one of them.
It belched another warning puff, and the whole cave lit up blue like the landscape during a thunderstorm. Then its head withdrew, and it took a step back. It couldn’t be afraid of me, yet it was clearly hesitating. I realized why: I was beside the other egg, and if it attacked me, the egg might be damaged or destroyed. At least I hoped that was what was going on, because I suddenly had an idea that depended on me being right about that. For my plan to succeed, I also had to be right about the way Doug Candora’s mind worked, and what he’d do under given circumstances. That was asking a lot, of my brain particularly.
But the advantage to my plan was that, for the most part, all I had to do was wait. Since there was no way to get around this animal, it seemed an especially good plan.
I sat on the stone floor and settled back against the wall. My metal-capped boot scraped loudly on the stone, and the dragon’s head retracted like a startled snake and resumed its arched-neck position near the floor. Another surge of the noxious gas filled the tunnel, but no jets of fire spurted from its mouth. Whatever sparked it to flame must be voluntary.
The creature ruffled its wings in what seemed to be a display of some kind. Trying to intimidate me? Warn me off? Attract me as a mate? It spread its feet wide and let its belly settle to the floor. The long neck leaned to one side until it draped over a rock protruding from the wall. Then it remained motionless except for the fire in its mouth, its black eyes fixed on me.
It seemed content to wait me out, which was exactly what I wanted. Now all I had to do was sit patiently as well, and hope that I was right about the dragon, and Candora, and that Liz could withstand her ordeal a while longer. Yeah, that’s all I had to do.
Well, that and survive the toxic air that grew more foul with every moment. I’d been smart enough to bring the canteen, so using slow movements I poured water into my hand and wetted down the cloth around my mouth and nose. I doubted that it would do more than delay the inevitable suffocation, but even a few moments might make the difference.
My eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness and I could study the creature in much more detail. Its skin was shiny, with smooth, close scales like those of a snake. In color it was mostly black, although there were iridescent stripes along its sides. The belly scales were broader, also like a snake’s, and lighter in color. The wings reminded me of bats more than birds, as their skin seemed to stretch between elongated “finger” bones. A single clawed digit protruded from the wing’s main joint, and with the wings folded this knuckle rested on the ground to help with balance. The wingtips rose to the cave roof and had to bend slightly to fit.
I was most amazed by how fast the thing had grown; even if it had hatched immediately after Laura and her father hid the eggs, it had tripled in size in a very short time. I didn’t know enough about dragon lore to know if this was typical, or how big it might ultimately get. If Tempcott’s relic was genuine, it could ultimately quadruple in size.
Like most reptiles, it sat very still and watched me with a steady, unblinking gaze. I could hear the rippling flame inside its mouth surge with each breath.
Time passed slowly, and staying conscious became my overriding goal. I found it harder to keep my thoughts straight, and my head thundered from lack of clean air. The sight of Liz, stripped and battered by that asshole Candora, would not go away, nor the sick feeling I had gotten as I turned and left her there, dangling and displayed. Had she understood that it was all a plan to save her? Or was she so delirious from her torture that she thought I really was leaving, that I didn’t love her?
What kind of man did that to the woman he loved, anyway? I knew what kind: the same kind who let his childhood sweetheart be raped and murdered in front of him because he wasn’t strong enough to defend her, that’s who. And that guy was me, just as much now as when I was a sixteen. If I couldn’t save Janet then, how could I save Liz now? And suddenly Janet was there, standing beside the dragon, her body torn and violated, looking at me as she’d done then, as Liz had done this very night, with eyes that pleaded and begged, saying, Why can’t you save me, Eddie? If you loved me enough, you could save me. The soft flesh she’d entrusted to me was now being obscenely used by strangers mere yards away, and hands touched her and threatened to carve her up and did carve her up right in front of me.
And there was me, young and supposedly strong, screaming and straining, fighting the blows and ropes and sword thrusts that bit into me, and there was me turning and walking out of the hut leaving her hanging naked and bleeding, and her eyes, following me above the gag, following me helplessly until the light faded from them and I knew that my failure was the last thing she’d ever see…
“Hey!” a voice cried. “You in the hole!”
