Chapter 3: Lair of the Beast

“Watch out!” Iden shouted, his boot dislodging a rock. It rolled down the steep incline towards Isabelle, picking up more loose stones as it went, until it had formed a kind of miniature rockslide. She dodged out of its path, taking cover behind a nearby boulder, the stones clattering against it as they cascaded down the mountainside.

“Careful where you step!” she yelled back, peeking out to glare at him.

They were really far up now. Iden had seldom seen the clouds from above, they created what looked like a snow-white ocean below him that extended all the way to the horizon. The mountainside seemed to vanish into the fog, as if the peak was all that existed now. He could make out a few far-off mountains jutting above the clouds like snowy islands, but they were far away, hazy and indistinct. Above him, the sky was such a deep blue that it was bordering on black. A clear, azure sky was usually joined by the warmth of a summer’s day, but the heavens were as cold as ice water up here. The wind howled, strong enough to buffet him in his suit of armor, creeping through the joints as though he had been submerged in a frozen lake.

“It has to be close,” he said as Isabelle climbed up to meet him. He reached down to offer her his hand, the girl reacting as though she intended to refuse it for a moment before taking it. He guided her up, the both of them taking a moment to rest on a relatively flat outcrop. “The highest point is in sight,” he continued, glancing up at the craggy peak. “The dragon’s lair must be below that, a cave that winds deeper inside the mountain, presumably.”

“So what, are we going to circle the peak until we find it?” Isabelle asked. “I can’t feel my fingers, I fear that if I spend much longer up here, I will freeze in place like a statue.”

“Something tells me that we’ll not have to search for very long,” Iden replied, pointing above them. “Look!”

She followed his gaze, turning to see the mouth of a cave. It looked like a giant had bored out a cavernous hole in the sheer rock face with an appropriately sized auger, leaving a deep tunnel that was sheathed in dark shadow. As they climbed up towards it, Iden noted that it was tall and wide enough that a stagecoach could have passed through it unhindered, or a dragon of the same scale that the old shepherd had described...

They wasted no time, hurrying inside to escape the cold, the wind making an eerie wailing sound as it rushed down the winding passage. The walls and ceiling of the cave were rough and uneven, and their footsteps echoed like they were standing inside a grand cathedral. There was moisture everywhere, every surface seeming to glisten such that it almost seemed to have been sculpted from wet clay. There were mineral deposits that had dripped from the roof, creating long, drooping stalactites that resembled icicles. The longer ones were broken away, evidence of the dragon’s passing perhaps. The floor was lined with snow that had seeped inside, along with a few loose stones here and there.

“It’s so dark,” Isabelle murmured, “as black as pitch. How will we see once we’re down there? I don’t want to get lost...”

“I came prepared,” Iden replied, struggling to take off his pack. He knelt to fish inside it, and then withdrew a wooden stick. It was a makeshift torch, one end wrapped tightly with a bundle of cloth. Next, he pulled out a vial of oil that he had wrapped in rags to prevent it from breaking during his journey. He upended it over the fabric, soaking it with the flammable substance. He struck his trusty pieces of flint together, and after a couple of attempts, he succeeded in creating a spark. The torch flared to life, burning brightly, and he raised it above his head to illuminate their path. The shadows were driven back by the wavering light, and before them, the tunnel wound its way deep into the mountain.

“Would you do me a favor and carry my pack and torch?” he asked, hefting his heavy tower shield in one hand. “That way, I can be at the ready should the beast surprise us. I can’t say how keen its senses are, but I doubt very much that we will happen upon it before it notices that we’re here.”

“I suppose so,” she replied, taking his torch from him and stooping to lift his pack. It was heavy, but she didn’t seem to struggle with it, despite her small stature. She was a farmhand through and through. Iden closed his visor, and lifted his pike, angling it forward as they began their journey deeper into the bowels of the mountain.

It wasn’t long before they came across evidence of the beast. Iden stopped, prodding at the ground with the haft of his pike.

“Look,” he began, “see where the dragon’s claws have scored the very rock beneath our feet? It must have passed through here many times.”

“Will your armor withstand a talon that can score stone?” Isabelle asked.

“We’ll find out soon enough...”

They proceeded on, making their way along the winding tunnel. Iden felt like he was exploring a giant rabbit warren hewn from stone, the slight incline in the passageway informing him that they were descending. This couldn’t be a comfortable abode for a creature the size of a dragon. There must be a chamber in the belly of the mountain, large enough for the thing to stretch out, and spacious enough for it to store its hoard of gold...

“Oh!” Isabelle exclaimed, Iden stopping and raising his shield.

“What is it? Do you see something?” he asked. Visibility was not as good as it could have been with his protective visor lowered.

“There’s something shiny here,” she continued, stooping to pick something up. “It’s a gold coin! I only spotted it because it was reflecting the torchlight.” He heard a clinking sound as she dropped it into her vase for safekeeping. “I can have this one, right?”

“I don’t think that parting with one coin is going to bankrupt me,” Iden muttered, “just stay behind me.”

“If you insist...”

The passageway finally began to widen as they ventured onward, and as they rounded a bend in the rock tunnel, the cave opened up into a vast chamber. It was just as Iden had predicted. The ceiling extended perhaps fifty feet above their heads, great, stout columns of slimy rock seeming to hold it aloft like pillars. The ground was surprisingly level save for a few scattered stalagmites, fledgling monoliths that reached towards the roof of the cave like bony fingers rising from the grave.

And there, in the center of it all, was the dragon’s treasure horde. If one were to somehow lift an entire bank vault, upending its contents onto the floor like someone pouring a drink from a jug, the result might look something akin to this. It was piled in a vast heap, two or even three times as high as a man was tall, spilling out around the surrounding columns of rock almost like a liquid. The sparkling, glittering mass was made up of what must be millions of gold and silver pieces, and there were even more extravagant treasures within the pile. Iden could make out bejeweled goblets that sported beautiful gemstones, rubies and emeralds glinting under the flickering light of the torch. There were crowns and tiaras, scabbards encrusted with precious stones, riches beyond imagining.

The dragon hadn’t merely collected these trinkets in the same way that a bird might steal baubles to line its nest, the beast had been decorating its lair. Iden could see a shining suit of gilded armor that looked as though it might once have belonged to a high ranking Paladin, it was standing upright against one of the pillars, a long spear of impressive craftsmanship at its side. There was a heraldic banner sporting the colors of a house that he did not recognize, tattered and decaying, but held aloft by a golden pole that had been driven into the rock like a stake.

Like a moth drawn by the light of a candle, Iden was transfixed for a moment, taking a couple of faltering steps towards the heap. Everywhere that he looked there was something new to entice him, from scattered coins to chalices forged from solid gold. How had the dragon accrued such wealth? How many merchant caravans must it have raided, how many keeps must it have plundered?

“What do you think?” Isabelle whispered, holding the torch aloft. “Is it everything that you imagined?”

“And more,” he muttered, his breath misting as it escaped the vents in his helmet. “The dragon does not seem to be here, it might be out hunting for food. Perhaps we can stage some kind of ambush, and ... hey, what are you doing?”

Isabelle marched past him, approaching the pile, and he watched as she placed her golden vase gingerly upon it. She drove it a little deeper into the mass of coins so that it would stand upright, a few of them rolling across the floor as they escaped.

“There, everything in its place,” she said as she stood back to appraise it.

“Don’t you need to present your offering to the dragon?” Iden asked, confused. “Or will it pick up your scent and know you that way?”

She spun around to face him, her auburn hair and her long skirt fanning outwards with the motion, a broad smile on her face. Suddenly, there was a flash of light as a torch flared to life on the far wall of the cavern. It burned with an intense, blue heat that slowly faded into a warmer yellow, more of them following behind it. Before his eyes, a ring made up of dozens of them ignited one by one, as if an invisible person was walking between them and lighting them with a candle. They illuminated the whole cave, casting even more light on the treasure horde, but his gaze was firmly fixed on Isabelle.

“I warned you that the real fool would be revealed once we reached the dragon’s lair,” she giggled, her voice echoing off the rock walls. As he watched, her eyes began to change. The vibrant green that he had so admired shifted in hue until it was a shining amber, her round pupils becoming the vertical slits of a serpent. They seemed to glow beneath her brow, radiating an infernal heat, like balls of molten metal plucked from a forge.

Dark smoke billowed from the corners of her mouth as her laughter became riotous, her teeth no longer flat, but pointed like the fangs of a wolf. Her clothing caught fire, the flames engulfing the fabric as quickly as it had the torches, and in a moment the girl was sheathed in the roaring blaze. Her shawl was reduced to charred fragments, carried away by a gust of wind that made the torch that she was holding flicker, the burning remnants of her blouse and her long skirt falling away from her slim frame to expose the porcelain skin that lay beneath.

Even in his fear and confusion, he could not keep his eyes from wandering. Isabelle was just as perfectly sculpted as he had imagined, her hourglass hips tapering into a slim waist, her flat belly lined with two rows of subtle muscle. Her breasts were firm and pert, wobbling softly with her cackling, full enough to make for an admirable handful. Her thighs were as smooth as glass, and between them was a tuft of hair as red as that of her head.

There was something growing across her flawless skin, however. It began at the tips of her fingers and toes, her flesh taking on an unhealthy, purple pallor. Her skin began to crack, hardening into iridescent, blue scales. They sprouted from her body, spreading rapidly until they covered her forelimbs, talons like black hooks growing from her fingers. From beneath her long hair emerged four gnarled horns, twisting and spiraling, her delicate features elongating into a snout.

There was an audible thud as a long, thick tail dropped to the ground behind her, growing ever longer as he watched. It was coated in the same shining scales in shades of blue and green, long, striped spines rising up from it like colorful knitting needles. Her body too was ballooning in scale, her stature now far greater than it had been only moments before. Eight feet, nine feet, the slight girl was now towering over him like a monster as he took refuge behind his shield.

A pair of great, leathery wings unfurled from her back like those of a gargoyle, their flapping making the torches sputter. Her face was already that of a dragon, and the last vestiges of her smooth skin were soon replaced with a mosaic of beige-colored scales along the underside of her tail and her stomach, her breasts vanishing into a barrel chest. She dropped to all fours, her wicked claws sparking on the rock, her muscles expanding to support her new frame. Her reptilian maw opened to reveal rows of sharp teeth as long as his index finger, slaver drooping from her scaly lips as she pulled them back in a snarl, black smoke pouring from her nostrils like the snorting of an angry bull.

Standing before him was a dragon that must have been nearly thirty feet long from nose to tail, the crest of sharp spines that ran down her back shaking to make a menacing racket that approximated the rattle of a venomous snake. The powerful legs that held her body aloft rippled with muscle beneath her shining hide, as thick around as the pillars of rock that surrounded her, her tail as girthy as a tree trunk. It dragged across the floor, sending a few errant coins scattering, her scales shifting in hue from sapphire to emerald depending on how they caught the light.

“What will you do now, Hedge Knight?” she rumbled. Her voice was so deep that he felt it rattle his teeth, penetrating him down to the bone, the deep contralto somehow still maintaining its feminine quality despite the bestial maw that was producing it. She watched him with her fiery eyes, a head as large as his torso suspended on a weaving, serpentine neck.

Isabelle had ... no, there had never been an Isabelle. This dragon, this beast had been his companion the entire way, making a mockery of him. She had eaten his food, he had let her ride his horse, he had slept in the same tent as her.

“What is this?” he demanded, aiming his pike at her from behind his shield. “Some kind of dark magic?”

“I was under the impression that you didn’t believe in magic,” she crooned, raising a forelimb and examining her talons in the same way that a human woman might check her fingernails for dirt. “You believe only what your eyes tell you. So what say you now, buckethead? What do your eyes see?”

“My enemy,” he replied, trying to put on a stoic front despite the trembling in his hands. He angled his long pike over the top of his tower shield, ensuring that his entire body was obscured, at least as much as it could be when seen from such a high angle. He had been prepared for this, he had trained for this scenario. That Isabelle had tricked him didn’t change his strategy, there was a still a dragon standing before him.

“So you still mean to slay me?” she asked, those burning eyes scrutinizing him from beneath her scaly brow. “You would plant your spear into the heart of a young, naive farm girl?”

“You are no farm girl,” he snarled.

“Oh, but I am,” she replied with a toothy grin. “Not moments ago, I was Isabelle. I was so youthful and radiant, did you think that I had not noticed the way that your eyes traced my figure when you thought that I wasn’t paying attention? Why should my transformation change that?”

“You’re a monster,” Iden spat, “you’ve been terrorizing the people of the village down in the valley.”

“Terrorizing?” the great beast gasped, feigning outrage. “So I ate a few sheep, what of it? Dragons need to feed too, you know. I paid the shepherd for his trouble, he won’t be going hungry on my account.”

“I came here to bring down a dragon, and that’s what I mean to do,” Iden continued. “I can’t leave this cave empty-handed, I’ve staked everything on this venture.”

“Then it’s the gold that you crave?” she said, a tongue as long as his arm escaping her jaws to wet her scaly lips. She glanced behind her, her massive head pivoting on her sinewy neck, watching the mountain of riches shimmer in the torchlight. “Mesmerizing, isn’t it? Look at the way it catches the light, every individual coin glittering like a field of stars. What use has a dragon for wealth, you might ask? I do not live in a castle, I do not wear extravagant clothes, I do not entertain guests with revelry and excess. I have no need of guards, servants, or standing armies. Gold is my weakness, the chink in my armor. It holds a strange power over me, I lust for it, and perhaps you do too?”

“I share no such obsession, wealth is merely a means to an end.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked, amusement twisting her reptilian features into a smile. “I saw how my collection transfixed you. For a moment, you forgot all about your task. You were on edge all the way down the tunnel, but when you caught sight of my hoard, you dropped your guard.”

“Enough of your games, dragon,” he shot back. “You know all too well why I’m here, I told you as much while you shared the warmth my campfire, and ate of my food.”

“A fun diversion,” she chuckled, “I get so terribly bored sometimes. I was out searching for additions to my collection, and I happened upon that lovely vase. I like to wander in human form from time to time, perusing markets and shops for trinkets. I don’t mind parting with coin for an item of greater merit. On the way back to my cave, I stumbled upon you while your horse was drinking from the stream. It is fortunate that you weren’t a brigand. Had you tried to rob me, or ravish me, well...” She bared her fangs, each one as sharp as a butcher’s knife, catching the light like pearls. “You would have discovered my true nature far sooner.”

Iden didn’t reply, glaring at her through the slats in his visor. She rolled her eyes, loosing a sigh that was chased by a plume of black smoke.

“How woefully trite. I really thought that you might be different from the others, Iden. There are less dangerous ways to test your mettle, you know.”

“Have at you!” he bellowed, taking a step forward.

“Very well,” the dragon conceded, “have it your way then...”

She reared back on her powerful hind legs, towering over him, as tall as a church steeple. Her chest inflated as she sucked in a gulp of air, and then she spewed it back out as a column of roiling fire. The flames engulfed him, and he took refuge behind his shield, the heat of it searing him even from within his armor. It just kept coming, the fire splashing against the rock floor, his shield beginning to glow red like an iron in a forge. He endured it, sweat starting to pour from his body as the very air around him seemed to cook. He held his breath, knowing that the heat would char his lungs from within.

She finally relented, and he peered up over his shield, watching as twin columns of smoke billowed from her nostrils.

“You were right about the shield,” she said, “I would have to melt the very rock beneath our feet to slag steel. But can it withstand a strike from my claws?”

He had barely enough time to recover before she lunged at him, his tower shield ringing like a bell as she struck it. He braced himself, but she was too strong, and he was thrown to the ground. It was like taking a hit from a war hammer the size of an anvil, or a cannonball swung on a chain. His armor clattered as he rolled away from her, and his shield was thrown from his arm, the impact dazing him. When he was able to recover enough to struggle to a knee, his armor still uncomfortably hot from her fiery breath, he spied his shield resting on the cave floor a good ten feet away. It had been scored by her talons, leaving three deep furrows in the metal.

He lunged for it, but his armor made him slow, and the dragon swung her tail like a whip. It knocked the legs out from under him, sending him toppling end over end, and once again he found himself on the cave floor.

“Will you yield?” she asked. Iden didn’t reply, he scrambled to his feet again, and lunged for his shield. He heaved as he lifted it off the ground, taking up position behind it, angling his pike towards her. “Still undeterred?” she added, flexing her massive wings. “So be it.”

Iden loosed a war cry as he charged towards her, his pike resting atop his shield, and he threw all of his weight into a strike. He drove his weapon towards her chest like a javelin, lunging with all of his strength, aiming the bladed tip at her heart.

She batted the weapon away before it made contact with a casual wave of her scaly hand, throwing him off balance. He recovered, going in for a second strike, and once again she deflected his spear with alarming ease. Her winding tail crept up on him, tripping him, sending him crashing to the ground in a clattering heap.

“You’re far too heavy,” she muttered, watching him lean his weight on the haft of his weapon as he climbed to his feet. “That armor is doing you no favors.”

She wasn’t wrong, he was growing exhausted, and he hadn’t even landed a hit on her yet. He had been expecting to face an animal of no greater intellect than a bear or a lion, but her mind was as keen as his own. Perhaps even moreso...

Iden cast his shield aside, gripping his pike with two hands, and charged in. If he could get close, he might be able to mitigate the advantage of her long reach. She swung one of her massive, clawed hands at him, and he heard the air whistle above his head as he ducked under the deadly blow. He stabbed at her belly with the sharp spearhead of his pike, but it glanced off her scales. They were as hard as iron. He swung the weapon in a cutting motion, the steel sparking against her hide.

He was lifted off his feet by her tail, the thick trunk of it hitting his midsection and throwing him across the cave. He came down on one of the stalagmites, his armored back slamming into the growing pillar of rock, and it shattered into pieces. The wind had been knocked out of him, and he slid to the cave floor, gasping for breath. The helmet was stifling him, obscuring his vision, and so he flung it off. As it rolled across the ground, he shook out his mane of long, dark hair, his sweat glistening in the torchlight.