'I have no intention of dying, man.'
'Do you suppose that any of the dragon's victims did? Please, my lord, turn back. You can do nothing for us. You would only throw your life away.'
Garth was becoming annoyed by this manifest lack of faith in his prowess. 'My life is my own, to throw away should it please me to do so,' he said. 'I have come to fight your dragon and I am not to be turned aside so readily, frightened by mere words.'
The spokesman bowed in acknowledgment of Garth's words, but said, 'We do not seek to frighten you, my lord, only to advise you. It would be foolish to waste your life in battling the monster.'
Garth's temper, already frayed, gave way. 'You are the fools,' he called, 'to refuse a chance of freedom from this menace! I am Garth, Prince of Ordunin, Lord of the Overmen of the Northern Waste, who brought the White Death to the black city of Dыsarra, who stole the sword of a god, who has fought the beasts of Death himself! I have come here to slay the dragon and I will have no one tell me that I must not!' He realized, as he finished his speech, that without consciously intending to, he had drawn his sword and was flourishing it about.
The little group of humans had clustered together and backed away from him a step or two, toward the inn. The spokesman looked back at his companions for support and, finding little, said nothing further.
His anger spent, Garth returned his sword to its scabbard and added, 'But first, I have not eaten recently and would prefer not to face death on an empty stomach. Is this building whence you all came an inn, where an overman can break his fast?'
The spokesman reluctantly admitted that it was.
The inn was called the Sword and Chalice, though its signboard had fallen years ago and never been replaced. Garth had a goat sent out to his warbeast while he himself consumed a hearty meal of roast beef, carrots, and ale. He ate surrounded by a ring of wary villagers, silently watching his every move. He steadfastly ignored their presence and made a point of paying no attention to their comings and goings.
He paused in the midst of his meal at the sound of women screaming in the plaza, but a quick glance out the door reassured him. The screams were in response to the warbeast's eating habits. Koros had killed the goat with a single blow of its paw and immediately devoured it, hair, hooves, and all, though the warbeast spat out the horns and larger bones. Those villagers who happened to be watching had been horrified to see a living animal reduced so quickly to a spatter of blood and a few scraps.
When Garth had eaten his fill, he rose, tossed a gold coin on the table, and walked back out into the plaza. The circle of villagers parted before him, then coalesced into a single mass and followed him out-all save the innkeeper. He had not expected to be paid, and took a moment to hide the coin before joining his fellows.
Half a dozen villagers were watching in fascinated revulsion as Koros licked the blood from its paws. They were maintaining a safe distance, Garth noted; he was pleased by that. It showed that they respected the beast's power.
'Whose goat was it?' he demanded loudly.
A woman timidly raised a hand in an affirmative gesture. He tossed her another of his gold coins, which she caught deftly and quickly pocketed.
A boy at her side whispered something and was hushed. Garth noticed men and women staring at him, at the warbeast, and at the broadsword on his hip and the battle-axe slung on the saddle. He looked around, but the spokesman was nowhere in sight. Choosing a man at random, he remarked, 'I take it you see few warriors around here and fewer overmen.'
The man gaped at him, then gathered enough wit to reply. 'Yes, my lord. Very few. The dragon keeps them away. No overmen, ever.'
'I would think that many would come to try their skill at dragon-slaying.'
His unhappy respondent glanced to either side, but saw no sign that any of his townspeople were willing to take over the burden of the conversation.
'No, my lord,' he replied, 'not anymore. Long ago there were some, but the dragon killed them all, and after a time they stopped coming. There were never overmen, though; only the men of the Baron of Sland, or roving mercenaries and adventurers.'
'They stopped coming?' Garth said, encouraging him to continue.
'Yes, my lord. After all, there is no reward offered, no great prize to be won.'
'Nothing but a chance for fame and glory, and the risk of death, more easily found elsewhere, to be sure.' Garth nodded, then swung himself up into the saddle.
'Forgive me, my lord,' the man said, gathering his courage, 'but why...ah, why have you come here? Why do you bother with our accursed and wretched valley?'
'Your valley does not seem wretched to me, man. I have come here out of boredom, people of Orgul; I grew weary of a life of quiet and decided, on a whim, to come here and aid those the dragon oppressed. I have lived for more than a century and adventured in many lands, but never before have those I came to aid tried so hard to turn me away.'
'But, my lord,' someone protested, 'we seek only to prevent the loss of another brave-'
'Enough, human,' Garth interrupted. 'Tell me, now, which road is most likely to lead me to this vile monster?'
Reluctantly, the man pointed to the western road, and with a word in the warbeast's triangular ear, Garth rode on.
CHAPTER THREE
The road he took from the plaza appeared to run through the village's commercial area; the houses on either side held small shops, displaying fine rugs and fabrics in their many-paned windows, or delicate carvings, or gleaming pots and kettles, or other goods. A blacksmith's forge trailed smoke into the blue of the sky, but the smith was not at work as the overman passed.
Even though the people he encountered shied away from him, averting their eyes and hurrying out of sight, he enjoyed the ride. This village, it seemed to him, was more the sort of place he might have liked to live in, if he were to live among humans, than the wastelands of the north. Skelleth might be flourishing, but it was stop cold and dirty and gray, huddled on a barren plain against the long harsh winters; this village was bright and cheerful, trailing off without a border into the surrounding green of field and forest, rather than being chopped off short by a ruined city wall. The sunlight was warm on his back, the breeze fresh with the smells of abundant greenery.
Garth found it quite impossible to believe that this was the home ground of a dragon as terrible as the one he had heard described. He puzzled anew at the Orgulians' insistence that he turn back.
Looking about, he wondered idly whether overmen had ever lived in this delightful valley, back in those long-lost legendary days before the Racial Wars, before his people were driven into the barren Northern Waste. For centuries the overmen of the Waste had believed themselves to be the only ones to have survived those bitter wars, but recently Garth himself had discovered that others still lived on the Yprian Coast, a region nearly as desolate as the Waste itself. Could there be more, scattered about the world? Might some still linger in the hills around Orgul? Garth found that an appealing fancy; this country was one he would have enjoyed calling his home, and it pleased him to imagine that it might not wholly be wasted on humans.
His musings were interrupted when his eye caught a sudden movement in one of the village shops; he turned to see what had drawn his attention.
The last of the buildings that lined the street was a strange little shop on the left, its mismatched windows full of whirling, whirring clockwork toys. Fascinated, Garth stopped his mount, swung himself to the ground, and went over for a closer look. He was in no real hurry, he told himself; the dragon had reportedly gone its way for decades, and another few moments would surely make no difference.
The shop's display held dozens of intricate toys, full of gears and springs, which did amazing and delightful tricks. An armored warrior, with head and hands of china, swung a miniature sword in long, swooping strokes, narrowly missing the bent-over back of a mechanical smith striking sparks from a half-formed steel rake with a stone hammer-the head of which, Garth realized, must be flint, a clever method of creating the sparks that
