A few hours later, I was looking at a picture of what was unmistakably a dragon. Wings, long tail, lizard-like head. Its wings were smaller than the dragon Kathy had been, and I wondered if it could actually fly using them. The goblin artist had managed to capture a sense of intelligence in its eyes, despite the crudity of his drawing.

He had not, however, seen it firsthand. He was drawing from the reports of others. Apparently most of the goblins who had actually seen the dragon were dead. A few saw it and managed to flee. Two had even been breathed on and lived, despite the earlier claim about its breath bringing instant death. They had both fainted, and the prevailing theory was that by laying very still they had escaped the dragon’s attention.

There was a little figure next to the dragon that looked sort of human.

“What’s this? A goblin, for scale?”

The artist shook his head. “That’s a witch. She appeared around the same time as a dragon. Tall and skinny and ugly, kind of like her.” He pointed to Valeria.

Yeah. I was not going to get into an argument because he called my wife ugly. I knew better. Besides, I had a necromancer’s curiosity about other things. “So,” I asked the emperor, “What did you do with the bodies?”

“The dragon ate them,” the emperor told me. “Do you really have a dick? Because I’m not dealing with anyone who is dickless.”

“And I’m not showing it off to anyone who isn’t prepared to start sucking,” I retorted.

He blinked like five times. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t smart to gamble on his homophobia, but given his misogyny, I thought it was a good bet.

“Uh, moving right along,” he said.

“Did anyone see the dragon eat them?”

“Uh, no. Of course not.”

“Did you find the bones afterwards?”

“Uh, no. But a thing like that probably eats goblins bones and all.”

It very well might. Humans ate small fish that way, after all. I didn’t know how else to account for the missing bodies. Surely deer and other forest animals made more efficient eating than goblins, but who knows? Maybe goblins tasted particularly good to dragons.

“Kathy, may I ask you a personal question?”

“Um, sure. Wait. How personal?”

“I’ll just ask, and you can decide whether to answer it. When you were a dragon, did you have any urge to eat the orcs? Or any one else?”

She shrugged. “I don’t remember being hungry. But maybe I just hadn’t worked up an appetite. I – well, I think I thought about eating someone just to demonstrate what would happen if you crossed me.”

I nodded and turned back to the goblins that were nearby: the emperor, the artist, and the emperor’s bodyguard. “Where does the dragon live? Any idea?”

“We think he lives in a cave in the middle of the forest,” the emperor said. “Some of us used to live there, and we haven’t heard from any of them since the dragon came. Also, there’s a lot of trees knocked down near there now.”

I nodded. A forest was a strange place for a large creature like that, especially one that could fly. The trees must get in the way. On the other hand, if you could just knock them down, maybe it didn’t matter.

“And how big is that cave?”

“It’s really deep,” the emperor said. “We’ve never explored the whole thing.”

“Big enough for the dragon, with plenty left over?”

The goblin shrugged. “I guess.”

I debated just letting the matter go. The goblins could settle on the plains. I could get wood from the Haunted Woods. The beastkin were now safe. But how safe was everyone, really, with a dragon on our doorstep? The orcs had been helpless against Kathy, and they were skilled warriors. On the other hand, we had compound bows.

For the first time, I wished we had rifles instead.

From the sound of it, it seemed like this dragon breathed poison gas of some sort, rather than fire. Thanks to stocking up on prepper supplies, we had some gas masks. Four, if I remembered correctly. We could probably use our precious filament to 3D print some more, although that was a very limited resource, but even so I didn’t think we could outfit all our archers.

Of course, it was still a giant monster with sharp claws and teeth. In the woods, we might be able to use the trees to protect ourselves somewhat from its physical attacks. Maybe. But the last thing I wanted to do was to chase it from its forest home and have it looking around for other places to ravage.

I certainly did not owe it to the goblins to get their home back. But I couldn’t just ignore a danger so close to us, either. I gave orders to keep the goblins contained, and spent the next two hours figuring how best to approach it. Could we take it down? Could we negotiate with it?

As it turned out, none of my plans were worth a damn, and keeping the goblins together was one of the worst things I could have done.

Our first inkling that something was wrong was a dot in the sky. Then it grew bigger.

I think the goblins saw it before any of us. They started trying to break out, and of course my soldiers pushed them back.

It was gold, with a long, sinuous, almost snake-like body, and wings. Snake-like, but thick, too, as wide as a house. Its head was the size of a car. And it was unmistakably heading right toward us. Official source is noᴠelfire.net

Gren was by my side. “Do we shoot it?”

“We certainly get ready to,” I replied. “Spread your archers out as much as you can, while keeping them close enough to command.”

Orcs and trolls who had been relaxing were scrambling to grab their weapons.

“I hope it attacks,” Zargaza said.

“What?” I wasn’t sure I heard it correctly.

“Our people have a score to settle with dragons.”

I would have thought her people would have developed a good instinct to run from dragons, but I was glad to have them by my side. “Maybe it just wants to talk.”

“I don’t think it can talk. I had to change into human form to have a conversation,” Kathy said.

I started barking orders. “Don’t attack it unless it attacks us first.”

Technically, it didn’t attack us. It flew over my army and then dived at the goblins we’d neatly rounded up for it. And then it breathed, belching a chartreuse smoke all over them. The goblins breathed it in, and fell over.

Dammit, they were my prisoners, and that made me responsible for them. I wasn’t sure what I could do, but maybe if I got close enough, I could teleport and stab it in the eye or something. I ran forward, but there were a throng of orcs and trolls in the way. Some were running away. Some were running towards.

Zargaza was one of the latter. She had a big axe in her hand, and a gleeful expression. Beside her ran Valeria, looking grim. I yelled, but it was simply too noisy for me to take effective command.

With one big sweep of its right claw, the dragon caught Zargaza and swept her aside. Valeria swung at its snout with her sword. The steel bounced off of the golden scales, and Val barely managed to avoid getting bit. Wisps of yellow-green smoke still came from the things nostrils, although it was more dispersed. Hopefully it would be a while before it could do its full breath attack again

I needed to end this and end it fast.

Dimension Step.

I teleported right over the monster’s face, reaching into my bag and pulling out my katana at virtually the same time. Its yellow eyes were nearly as big as I was, so they made an easy target. I swung the sharp blade down at what I expected was soft tissue.

It snapped its eyes shut. My sword bit into the golden scales, in the way fingernails might bite into hardwood. In short, I scratched it. It flicked its head and I fell to the ground, hard.

Kendala and Valeria charged it, trying to get to its neck. It swung a claw at them and sent them both flying. I watched Valeria crash to the ground thirty feet away, and she didn’t move. Kendala managed to roll and get to her feet.

Demons and the humans who served L’shan charged from opposite sides, and were swept aside like blocks at the hand of a child who is bored of building and wants to see it all fall down.

A flight of arrows bounced off the dragon’s golden hide. A couple stuck, but didn’t seem to seriously bother it.

I teleported out of the way of a claw that threatened to crush me. In retrospect, the dragon was actually going after some running goblins nearby, who ended up as small splats on the ground.

How the hell could we fight this thing? Everything was going to hell. Valeria and Zargaza, possibly dead. I couldn’t hardly command anyone with all the noise.

Kathy landed next to me. “We need to get it in the air, so that the archers can shoot at its belly.”

“How do we do that?”

“Give me the crown.”

“No. We can’t go that road again,” I said.

She reached into my bag. “Lesseth, let me have it,” she said.

“Don’t, Lesseth,” I said. I didn’t know that I had a better plan, but there had to be one, right?

I don’t know whether Lesseth was cooperating with Kathy, or if the bag’s magic just meant that when Kathy reached in, she got what she wanted. But her hand came back out with the silver crown, and she put it on her head.

“Run, everyone!” I yelled. And I ran myself. “Except archers!” I amended, hoping that I hadn’t just caused a complete panic.

Kathy transformed. One moment, she was a slender blonde with wings. The next, she was a giant silver dragon, nearly the size of the golden one in front of us, and there was a bunch of ripped clothing on the ground. She flapped her wings, and the gust made me struggle to stay standing.

She flew toward our giant golden foe. Aloft, she had the advantage of being able to use gravity to bear down on the other dragon. Her opponent rose into the air to deny Kathy that advantage. Together, they both rose, higher and higher. They were soon too far away for me to use Dimension Step or Life Drain, and I knew better than to think my archery would be useful.

I teleported to Gren. “When you see its belly, shoot. Kathy thinks it’s vulnerable there.”

“Daring Dragon Damsel. I hope she’s right.”

Gren barked orders, and Lysandra echoed them. Thirty arrows were nocked, and bows moved to point upward.

I looked for the fallen. I found Talos, shakily getting to his feet. Some of the paladins were still moving, too. I set them to work helping the others. Zargaza was badly injured, but not fatally. Bronwyn was doing what she could, too.

Captain Hornung stood over Valeria as I approached. He shook his head.

“She’s not –” I said.

“I’m sorry, Abby. I know what she meant to you.”

I really, really hated the past tense.

But I also knew that I still had enough mana to bring her back. Was now the time? She couldn’t do anything about a fight in the air. I nodded, very slowly.

“She was very brave,” Hornung said.

I nodded, trying not to shed tears. I looked upward, where the two dragons fought. The golden dragon had its teeth clamped around the silver ones neck. The silver’s claws were tearing at the golden scales, and some of the scales were falling from the sky. Kathy was making more weak points.

There were a dozen arrows in the gold dragon’s belly, and two in Kathy’s. It had to be hard to aim properly in a battle where the two dragons were twisting constantly in the air, locked together almost as if one beast.

Then, suddenly, Kathy went limp, and started falling.