A Questionable Quest

Chapter 11... in which I follow a knight who follows a dragon

It had been Van's call, but we decided to wait out the night in our makeshift camp. "It would be nearly impossible to fight a dragon in the dark," he'd explained.

Needless to say, no one slept particularly well that night. Not even Jester.

When I finally did close my eyes, succumbing at last to the exhaustion that had been pulling at me for hours, I dreamed of knights in shining armour getting gobbled up by dragons the size of mountains.

It seemed like both minutes and days later when I jolted awake. The red morning sky greeted me angrily, and Van was dumping a skin of water onto the campfire. I blinked. It must have been early, but no grogginess seemed to flood my senses, like other mornings.

Maybe because I was still blinking my dreams away -- and could still see that dream dragon bearing down on me, flames building in its open mouth, teeth glistening, roar rattling around in my-

GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

I froze.

Not a dream. Definitely not a dream.

Van had straightened, and was staring at the treeline, face intent. The morning light silhouetted him perfectly and a slight breeze ruffled his (still perfect) hair.

I coughed a laugh.

He looked at me. "What?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing." I pushed myself off my blanket with a groan. "You looked like a knight for a second, that's all."

"I am a knight."

"Not yet, you're not."

He shot me a glare. I grinned.

GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

"Has it been doing that all night?" I doubted it -- I don't think I would have slept a wink if it had. Still... that might have explained the dragon dreams.

Van shook his head. "That's the third time. You slept through the first. I was impressed."

"My sisters always said I could sleep through an ogre attack and live to tell the tale." I vigorously shook my blanket. Bits of leaves and dirt fell off. Then it, too, was stuffed in my travel sack. "I'm ready."

Van cast an eye over our now-deserted camp. "Me too." He tossed his last bag atop Jester -- and that was when I noticed his attire.

Jester huffed and threw his head regally. "Which way?"

One finger jabbed at the woods, where a small path was just visible leading away from the clearing. It curved around a large tree -- a maple, maybe? -- and out of sight. I nodded, pulled my own sack onto both shoulders instead of just one (if we were about to fight a dragon, I'd need both hands). My feet carried me towards the path, brushing past Van with a clink.

"Nice armour."

The clop of hooves told me Jester wasn't close behind me, likely led by Van. I stepped around the large tree and began making my way down the hill with careful steps. "So," I used my hand to leverage myself from a large boulder onto the ground. "How far away do you think that dragon is?"

For a short while, Van said nothing. Then, his voice came, from a few feet behind my left shoulder where he led his horse down a less treacherous path. "With a sound like that..." I maneuvered around a tree. He followed suit. "...could be about a mile off."

"A mile. Really?" I had assumed it would be further away... atop a mountain... or something. But apparently not.

"Yeah, but it really depends."

"On what?"

"Age, situation, tree density." We both cast a glance at the trees around us -- thick as three lumberjacks side-by-side, and a good distance apart.

"Huh."

We moved without talking for a while. The rhythmic clop clop clop of Jester's steps filled the silence. I tried not to think about where we were going.

And what awaited us at once we were there.

The image of Van being gobbled up by a dragon unbiddingly pierced through my mind.

I shook it away. No. Not going to happen.

Not if I had anything to say about it.

"So..." I cleared my throat. Fortunately, it wasn't shaking. Not like my hands. "What's the plan? You know... once we find this thing."

"We fight it." Van raised a brow. "And kill it."

"Oh, okay." I nodded. Bit my lip. "But how?" I pushed aside a low-hanging branch. "I mean it's a dragon." Sidestepped a boulder. "It's gotta be, what, a hundred heads high? And as heavy as a mountain?" We curved around a huge tree, then another. "And it breathes fire."

"So do you." Van's voice sounded amused. I looked back.

He was grinning.

"Yeah," I ground out, "but I'm not a dragon."

"No," he agreed, "you're not."

"And did you hear this thing's roar?"

"Tati."

"It shook the boulders near us from a mile away.

"Tati."

"How are we supposed to-"

"HEY!" My mouth snapped shut. Van shot me a frustratingly stunning I'm-a-knight-in-shining-armour-and-I-can-defeat-a-measly-dragon grin. I wanted to growl. How did he not understand what we were walking into? It was a dragon. People died fighting dragons. Knights died fightin-

"I can practically hear your brain reprimanding me, you know." Jester stomped a hoof (whether he was agreeing, or simply adding nothing to the conversation, I had no idea). "We're going to be fine."

"How do you know that?"

"Because," said Van, rounding another large tree, "you know magic, and I've trained as a knight. Between the two of us-" he moved around yet another monstrous trunk, I followed "-any dragon that comes against us we can easily-"

He stopped.

Jester stopped.

I stopped. Raised a brow. Moved to stand beside the other two. We all stared.

It was my turn to grin. "-kill?" I finished for him.

Directly in the center of the path stood a dragon.