The Knight, the Dragon, and the Heiress (Short Story)

Chapter 1

Knight's P.O.V.

It was the afternoon of a beautiful day in Late Spring. The final contest of the competition was underway for Princess Maylis Blanc's hand in marriage. Princess Maylis Blanc is King Jourdain Blanc's daughter and heiress of his domain.

'And she will be mine.'

The last contest consisted of archery. My only competitor left was one of King Blanc's other knights. That knight has been running on luck but that will change shortly.

The first one up is my competitor and he launches the arrow into the bull's eye of the target. The observing crowd howled in applause.

"Your turn, Lord Sheffield," he says as he walks away with a satisfied smirk.

I stepped up to properly position myself in front of the target. I set the arrow in the right place of the bow, aim the arrow towards the target and shoot. The arrow lands dead center in the target and even splits the other knight's arrow in twain.

The crowd is in an excited uproar exclaiming 'He won! Lord Sheffield won! Congratulations!' While the crowd is flooded with chaotic excitement, King Blanc rushes over to me with his daughter, Princess Maylis, on his heels.

"Well done, Mason!" the king says with a most gratifying grin in his lesser extravagant clothing since the tournament takes place in the field.

"My liege." I say while I flash a smile and bow to the king and his daughter. "It was very easy to win with thy highness' favor for my victory."

'But specifically it was the amulet.'

"Ugh, pig," I hear Maylis grumble under her breath while the king still gazes upon me like a pathetic child he is.

"So when shall we arrange the wedding?" asks King Blanc excitedly.

"The sooner, the better to make this beautiful thing the one and only Lady Sheffield." I say to the king while I grab Maylis' hand and kiss it as she's giving a blasé expression for everyone else to see but a deathful look in her eyes directed towards me.

"Then we will make preparations right away and the wedding will most likely happen in a few weeks" calls the king while he's walking away with his guards beside him "Oh, Maylis, Please present Lord Sheffield his prize."

"Yes, Father," Maylis shouts back. "I'd rather you stay here, Lord Sheffield."

In her claret-colored outfit enfolding the curvature of her body and adorned with golden jewelry to attest she is royalty, Princess Maylis walks toward the ornamented platform sitting next to the peasants' stands. She looks back at me probably wondering why I'm not dead yet because of my malicious staring. But she must've remembered of her betrothal to me and gives a sour face.

Princess Maylis grabs the prize of a jewel encrusted sword and saunters back in the direction of my location. As she is walking back, a ferocious wind rages blowing everything wild. Then there was an inhuman roar originating from the nearby high hills.

'No, it can't be!'

An enormous, crimson-scaled creature with fierce determination in its disposition soared past the hills and now is flying towards Princess Maylis. I sprint to Maylis with full power while the rest of the public is screaming their heads off because of the dragon, in fact, even shouting 'dragon!' too. With the crowd running in all sorts of directions I find it extremely difficult to get to Maylis. And in the instance I finally pass through the swarm of people; the dragon snatches Princess Maylis up causing her to start bawling.

I run toward the dragon still gliding close to the ground.

'Hopefully with using the amulet I can catch up to Maylis and grab her from the dragon's clutches.'

The moment I think about that, the dragon soars skyward in the direction of the high hills while Princess Maylis is now shrieking.

I heard King Blanc cry from his castle, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"