How to Slay a Dragon Page 4

  Greg took the proffered watermelon gratefully and bit off a huge mouthful. He chomped away for a few seconds, trying his best to ignore that it tasted like pineapple, and spit out the seeds. “Look, maybe you are as lucky as you say, and maybe you’re not, but I can tell you one thing. I’m not. There’s no way I can win a fight against a dragon. Unless . . . hey, you don’t think maybe lightning could strike it dead while I’m cowering at its feet, do you?”

  Lucky smiled. “If you stick close to me, maybe.”

  If he could have found it within himself, Greg would have laughed. “No thanks. I’m not going within a mile of that lair.”

  “Sure you are, Greghart.”

  Greg frowned.

  “Okay, sure you are, Greg. The princess is counting on you.”

  Greg felt a twinge of guilt. He’d forgotten about Princess Priscilla. What would he do if Kristin Wenslow had been taken by a dragon?

  In a way, he supposed, she had. Manny Malice may not breathe fire, but he was as close to a dragon as they had at Greg’s school, and there Greg found his answer. He had run from Manny Malice. He would run from Ruuan as well. Better a live coward than a dead hero, he’d always believed. Sure people would still sing about dead heroes from time to time, but aside from that they got little attention. Unless they managed to get a holiday named after them. Even then, it’s not like they got to enjoy the day off.

  By the time both boys finished eating, their stomachs ached. Greg used a squirming branch to leverage himself to his feet while Lucky somehow pushed the remaining half of watermelon and the sword back into his pack and slung it over his shoulder, and then the two were off again.

  Already Greg’s joints were nearly as stiff as the surrounding bone. As reluctant as he was to reach the dragon’s lair, he hoped it wasn’t too much farther. After all, what difference did it make if a dragon was waiting for him at the end of this journey if he marched himself to death before he got there?

  “How much farther is it?” he asked.

  “To the dragon’s lair?” said Lucky. “Oh, a very long way. We’ve hardly started.”

  “But it can’t be too far. You said we’d be out of this forest before nightfall.”

  “Out of the forest, yes, but still a long way from the lair.”

  Greg groaned. He considered arguing again about turning back, but knew it would do no good. Besides, he could barely talk under the exertion of the pace Lucky set for them. Instead, Greg pondered his case silently, so he would be ready to argue next time they stopped to rest.

  He pondered a good while.

  Noon came and went long before Lucky took another break, and then it seemed he only stopped because the trail had come to an abrupt halt in the middle of the forest. Greg wouldn’t have minded so much, except that the woods once again swallowed up the trail behind, and he was fairly certain that what little clearing remained was gradually growing littler. Thick vines snaked down from the trees to block out the sun, until Greg could barely make out Lucky’s face.

  “Uh, Lucky?”

  “Yeah, Greg?”

  “What happened to the trail?”

  “Oh that. It’s gone. We’ve reached the center of the forest.”

  “What do you mean, ‘It’s gone’?”

  “Do you see a trail?”

  Greg shot him a look.

  “Relax, Greg, this is the Enchanted Forest, remember? It has some . . . tendencies . . . you might not be aware of.”

  “What kind of tendencies?” Greg asked, mimicking the way Lucky emphasized the last word.

  “If you must know, it likes to open up clear paths to its center to lure in travelers.”

  “Lure in? Wait, likes to?”

  “Yeah. The paths close after you pass, and once you reach the center they end altogether. Then you’ve got two choices.” Lucky set down his pack and dug around inside until he found the sword he’d used before to cut the watermelon.

  Greg found Lucky’s calm demeanor more maddening with each passing second. “What two choices?”

  “Well, you could try cutting your way out. That’s one reason I brought this magic sword . . . .”

  “I thought the sword was for fighting Ruuan.”

  Lucky chuckled. “No, the sword is for you to feel better when you fight Ruuan. Dragons are covered with layers of dense, leathery scales that not even the sharpest of arrows can penetrate. Besides, even if you did break through, what good would a short blade like this do? Ruuan’s easily three hundred feet tall.”

  “Three hundred feet? Give me that!” Greg snatched the sword from Lucky’s hand and whirled toward the nearest vine. The blade buried itself halfway and lodged so tight it took Greg two full minutes of diligent puffing to wiggle it free. “I thought you said this was a magic sword.”

  Lucky shrugged. “It’s also a magic vine.”

  A dozen chops later the vine finally severed. The loose ends swung down and swayed to a stop, then lifted up again like the heads of two serpents and wound around each other, braiding together to form a barrier more impenetrable than before. Greg couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight. “How are we supposed to cut through that?”

  “We can’t,” admitted Lucky, “but remember, I said we had two choices.”

  Greg considered the sword in his hand in a way that would have made Lucky uneasy if he’d been paying closer attention. “What’s the other one?”

  “We sit and grab a bite to eat,” Lucky said, plopping down next to his pack. “Eventually a new path will open.”

  “Wait, that doesn’t sound like much of a trap.”

  Lucky smiled up at him. “Depends on why it opens.”

  The warm rush of relief Greg had felt heightened to an irritating burn.

  “If we’re lucky, someone will enter the forest and a new path will clear to the center to trap them,” Lucky elaborated. He paused to

  loosen the straps on his pack. “Once it does, we can just follow their path out.”

  “But won’t the path close behind them as they come?” Greg asked. “We’d have to be at the edge of the forest to make it out in time.”

  “True. It helps if they’re slow and you’re really fast—and even then it usually takes quite a few people entering the forest from the same spot before you can expect to reach the edge.”

  “Lucky, this is never going to work.”

  “Of course not. No one is ever crazy enough to enter this forest.”

  “We did,” Greg pointed out.

  “Yes, but we were fulfilling a prophecy, and I’m extremely lucky, remember?”

  Greg felt his heartbeat in his temple. “What if we didn’t have this amazing talent of yours to protect us? You said a path might clear because someone entered the forest. Why else would one open up?”

  Lucky dug through his pack until he retrieved a huge sandwich that rivaled the watermelon in both width and length. He handed it to Greg, then pulled out a second for himself.

  “Usually the paths open toward danger,” Lucky said between chews. “You know, like when there’s a monster nearby.”

  Greg froze in mid-bite.

  “Don’t worry. That’s if you’re not lucky, remember? Now, eat up. We need to be ready to run when the trail reappears.”

  Greg glanced around the encroaching forest. “Wait . . . what kind of monster?”

  “No one knows,” Lucky said. “Anyone who’s ever seen one didn’t live to talk about it.”

  Greg found he couldn’t speak.

  Lucky’s teeth flashed. “Relax, Greg. I was just trying to get you to loosen up. If you must know, there are twelve known varieties of monsters in this particular forest.”

  Greg strained to scan the bushes. The bushes scanned back. “Twelve?”

  “Right. Oh, and about two thousand unknown varieties.”

  Greg’s head snapped Lucky’s way.

  “Kidding, Greg,” Lucky said, hands held high. “Just kidding.”

  The glare Greg offered might have blinded Lucky h
ad the boy not turned the other way at the last second. Greg bit into his sandwich and chewed angrily. As hungry as he was, he found it difficult to enjoy. Twelve varieties of monsters still seemed plenty.

  Lucky, on the other hand, smiled happily while he ate. He provided fresh strawberries for dessert, atop of shaved ice from his pack, still hard despite the heat of midday.

  After the two boys finished, Lucky stowed away Greg’s sword and the leftovers and had Greg stand and stretch his legs so he’d be ready to run when the moment was right. Five minutes later, when Greg heard a tremendous rustling and the forest suddenly pulled back to reveal a wide path stretching far into the distance, Greg stayed put. The moment seemed anything but right. He thought the path looked about as inviting as a handshake from Manny Malice.

  “This is it, Greg!” Lucky scooped up his pack and tore off down the trail. “Run!”

  Still Greg waited, hoping to catch a glimpse ahead before he ran blindly into the jaws of an awaiting monster. But he didn’t wait long. Talent or not, being at Lucky’s side while facing a monster was still better than facing that same monster alone. A second later Greg found himself sprinting toward the danger just as intently as he wanted to sprint away from it.

  “Wait up!”

  Despite his vast experience at running for his life, Greg found it hard to catch Lucky. Not only could the other boy run fast, but he maintained his pace long after Greg began to tire (though if the truth were told, Greg had really begun to tire about five hours earlier and wouldn’t have been surprised to turn around and find a tortoise drafting in his wake).

  Lucky noticed Greg lagging. “Come on, we’ve got a lot of distance to cover.”

  “C-can’t. N-need to rest.”

  “No time for that now,” Lucky said between full, even breaths.

  The two boys ran until Greg was so exhausted he expected to keel over and die at any moment, probably before he hit the ground, given where he was. This thought alone spurred him onward. Fortunately Lucky looked to be tiring too. Greg thought he spotted a single bead of sweat forming on the boy’s forehead.

  “This is odd,” said Lucky.

  What is? Though Greg tried to actually voice the words, he found himself too exhausted to utter a sound. He hoped Lucky somehow heard.

  “If my sense of direction isn’t deceiving me, I’d say we’re running southwest.”

  “So?” Greg said, though to Lucky it would have surely sounded like a grunt.

  “The southwestern part of the kingdom’s almost completely vacant. No one lives out here but Greatheart and his family.”

  “Who?” Greg barely gasped.

  “Greatheart. I’m surprised no one’s mentioned him. He is the most famous dragonslayer in all of Myrth, after all.”

  “What?”

  Greg had no trouble speaking up now. He managed to grab Lucky’s tunic and pull the boy to a stop. A lone branch wandered over and brushed the path smooth behind them, where Greg’s heels had left two ruts in the dirt.

  “There’s a dragonslayer named Greatheart living in your kingdom?”

  “Sure. Everyone’s been talking about him lately. Can’t really blame them. The Greathearts have always been at the center of any prophecy involving dragons. Until now. I guess it’s just a sign of the times.”

  “A sign of the times?” Greg doubled over, panting. He thought the sandwich he’d had for lunch was going to come up for one last look around, but still he struggled to speak. “Don’t you think it makes more sense that this Greatheart is the real dragonslayer you’re after?”

  “I can see how you might think there’d been a mix-up.” As always, whenever he said something Greg found particularly ridiculous, Lucky turned and stalked away.

  “Of course there’s been a mix-up,” Greg called after him. “I’ve never even seen a dragon.”

  “Well, even the Greathearts had to start somewhere,” Lucky called over his shoulder. “Come on, we need to hurry.”

  “Wait, you mean you still want to go through with this? We’ll be killed.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m too lucky to be killed on this journey.” Lucky stopped abruptly and turned. “Of course, if your theory is right, I suppose you could be killed.”

  It was precisely that moment when a deafening roar split the air. True, Greg didn’t have a lot of experience with these things, but he was fairly sure it was not the sound of a monkeydog.

  He stopped as if one of the vines had wound its way around his ankle and pulled taut. “What was that?”

  Lucky inhaled once deeply to catch his breath. “Not sure, but it sounded like an ogre. Anyway, I’m betting we’ll know soon enough.”

  “An ogre? How bad is that? Please tell me they’re all bark and no bite.”

  “Ogres don’t have bark, Greg. Those are ents. Ogres are covered with hair, and they’re pretty much all bite.”

  “Please tell me they’re afraid of people.”

  “Afraid? No, they love people. Why, they hardly eat anything else.”

  The trembling roar split the air a second time, so loud even Lucky craned his head toward the sound. Far in the barely perceptible distance something was moving, growing larger as it approached. Greg wished it would stop. It looked plenty large already. What bothered him more was the way the forest closed in behind it as it came, cutting off any chance of sneaking by.

  “Yep,” said Lucky, “it’s an ogre.”

  “Well don’t just stand there!” Greg screamed.

  Lucky nodded, and Greg watched helplessly as the boy rummaged through his pack and the ogre moved closer.

  “Hurry!” Greg insisted.

  “Here it is,” said Lucky. Without so much as a “Ta da!” he pulled the magic sword from the tiny bag and held it out to Greg.

  Greg stared back at him. “What are you giving it to me for?”

  “Well, I’ve never killed an ogre.”

  “You think I have?”

  Lucky thrust the sword into Greg’s hand and spun him around, and willing or not Greg held the weapon up in front of his body. The blade was nearly as tall as he was, and so heavy, Greg could barely lift it. He knew if he let the tip drift even an inch or two out of vertical, he’d never be able to hold on, and if he tried and failed, he might be catapulted from the forest. In a moment of hysteria he wondered if this might be a means of escape he’d overlooked.

  The ogre grew closer. And, unbelievably, taller. In a flash Greg relived the countless times his storybook Greg had defeated creatures just like this. But those had been stories. This was a real ogre with a real taste for human flesh, and Greg would have given anything not to be the human whose flesh was about to be tasted. “Lucky!”

  He didn’t know what he expected Lucky to do, but certainly it wasn’t anything like what the boy did. With no apparent concern for himself, Lucky jumped into the path of the approaching monster, threw up his arms and roared.

  The ogre stopped short, insomuch as is possible for a fifteen-foot tall monster, and eyed Lucky with suspicion.

  Lucky eyed it back.

  Not to be outdone, the ogre eyed him a second time, or maybe it just forgot it had eyed him once already. Oddly, it stepped aside, perhaps afraid of the bright orange tunic Lucky wore. Then it spotted Greg and growled. Lucky had been right. Greg should have stuck with the brighter outfit.

  Greg tried to will himself invisible, but no such luck. The ogre charged, and just as in Greg’s story about the giant, the ground trembled under its every step. Greg trembled more. He raised his sword high and tried his best to appear menacing.

  Surprisingly the ogre slowed, as if it recognized the power Greg wielded. Coincidence, more likely. As proof, it howled and resumed its charge.

  Greg turned to run, but a tree grabbed his arm, spun him around, prodded him toward the ogre. He shifted nervously from foot to foot, tried to judge when to begin his swing. The ogre closed to twenty feet . . . fifteen . . . ten.

  Five.

  Greg was so concerned about t
iming he forgot to swing at all. At the last second he lowered the sword, ducked under the ogre’s outstretched arms, and scrambled between its massive legs. The dim-witted ogre stared at the ground between its feet and scratched its head. Greg rose behind it.

  Too late, the ogre turned. Greg gathered all his courage and lashed out at a thigh.

  With a howl the creature swatted the air. Greg felt the sword tear from his grip and heard Lucky scream. The blade had lodged into the trunk of a tree, pinning Lucky by the fabric of his tunic.

  Greg looked for only an instant. His mind raced wildly, but didn’t like any of the thoughts it came up with. Even with the help of a magic sword he hadn’t been able to defeat the ogre. Now here he was, unarmed, facing the heightened rage of an injured monster. Lucky screamed a warning, and the ogre lashed out with a crushing blow that nearly flattened Greg’s skull.

  Greg ducked and rolled and scuttled backwards, beyond the ogre’s reach, and then he was up and moving, racing to the tree where Lucky was pinned. He grabbed the hilt of the sword, put his weight behind it.

  The ogre lumbered closer. Surely Lucky would have screamed another warning if Greg hadn’t planted a hand over his mouth for leverage. With a pop the blade pulled free, and Greg spun to face his doom. “Do something, Lucky!”

  Precious seconds passed while Lucky returned to searching his pack. He pulled out the remaining watermelon half from lunch and threw it at the ogre, but the beast batted it down. Apparently its tastes lay elsewhere.

  Greg hefted the sword again, his vision blurred by tears, his hands still stinging from the previous blow. With a determined yell he thrust up and out. Again the ogre swatted the blade from his grasp.

  Greg knew in that moment all hope was lost. If this were an entry in his journal it could be none but the last. The Mighty Greghart was going to lose this battle, and when battling ogres, one loss was surely all you got.

  The beast raised a huge ham-fist into the air. Greg cringed and closed his eyes.

  “This way, Greg!”

  One eye popped open. Miraculously the trees had pulled back to reveal a single point of light. Lucky bent and scooped up the fallen sword but didn’t return with it. He just kept running toward the edge of the forest.