First-person account by a dragon of how he and a friend survive after nearly being slain by a misguided knight.
Hello. My name is Griswold. I’d like to tell you a story, if you’re willing to listen. It’s a true story. How do I know for sure, you ask? Because it happened to me. Not long ago, in fact. It’s about me, of course. But also about an old friend and a new one.
But, before I tell you my story, I suppose you’d like to know a bit more about whom you’re listening to, correct? Yes, I thought so. Well, as I’ve told you, my name is Griswold. And I’m a dragon. I’m nearly twenty feet from snout to tail. A bit small for my kind, really. My wingspan is equal to my body length. The wings themselves are thin; translucent skin pulled taut across elongated finger bones, quite like a bat’s wings. My scales are bright, gleaming silver.
What’s that? You’ve never heard of a silver dragon? We’re rare, to be sure, but we do exist. Silver dragons are an offshoot of the legendary Frost Dragons. Only we’ve adapted to warmer climes than our cousins have. The silver scales don’t make for good camouflage, so it’s just as well that we dragons have no natural enemies. Aside from humans, of course.
What? You’re human? Oh dear. I apologize for any insult. It was purely unintended. Well, I shall keep this as short as I can, as I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to a dragon tell a long-winded story.
As I was saying, I have silver scales. My eyes are the palest hue of blue, almost white. Like most dragons, I have four legs, well muscled, naturally, with three toes and a dewclaw on each foot. Each toe it tipped with a long, sharp nail. I have a ridge of plates, which runs along my back, reaching from a pair of crooked horns atop my head to my tail. There the plates rapidly become smaller until they vanish. And, yes, I can breathe fire. Though I rarely do.
Well, I promised you a story and so far all you’ve heard is what I look like. As I said, this story took place not long ago. I was lounging in the forest with my friend, Heather. She’s an Elf, by the way, named after the evergreen shrub with the small, pink flowers. To give you a brief idea of what she looks like; Heather stands five feet, six inches tall, a bit above average for her kind, and very thin. She has long honey-blonde hair that reaches to her waist, and the high cheekbones, upswept eyebrows, and gently pointed ears that are so typical of her race. Heather is a bard. She sings songs as a way of entertaining people. It’s a well-known and documented fact that we dragons love music, especially when the musician is a woman. That’s what drew Heather and myself together to begin with. But that’s another story for another time.
Where was I before I got sidetracked? Oh, yes. Heather and I were relaxing in the woods, in our favorite clearing. She was playing her small harp and singing. I was curled on the ground, dozing, taking solace in both her music and the afternoon sunshine as it warmed my scales. Then, out of nowhere, our leisure was interrupted.
A man, a human, clad in silver armor rode out of the forest on the back of a massive horse. The knight wore a peacock feather as a plume atop his helmet and his steed was bedecked in green and blue trappings that stood out starkly against his brilliant white coat. He carried a lance in his hand, and a broad-headed axe was slung across his back, while a sword was sheathed at the horse’s side.
The horse reared and turned at the sight of me, while the knight shouted at his steed to remain calm. He aimed the tip of the lance at me and bellowed a challenge.
Heather rose from her place to stand at my side, putting herself between the knight and me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
The knight, his voice muffled by the visor of his helmet, replied, “I have come to slay the dragon. Stand aside!”
“What has he done to you to deserve such a fate?” Heather countered.
The knight, evidently having not considered this before, tilted his head to one side before answering, “He is a dragon,” as if that explained all.
Heather graced the man with a dazzling smile. “So he is. And he has done nothing to you. Has he?”
“No,” the knight admitted. “But he is-”
“A dragon,” Heather said, cutting him off. “I believe we have already established Griswold’s race.”
“Griswold? The beast has a name?”
Before Heather could reply, I twisted my head to stare straight at the knight and said, “Beast? You come to slay an innocent creature and call me the beast?”
I was rather gratified to see the knight draw back in amazement. “It... It speaks?”
Heather nodded. “He speaks, yes. Quite fluently, in fact. Now, why do you wish to harm Griswold? Other than for the simple fact that he is a dragon?”
The knight remained silent for a time, then shrugged. “I know only that dragons are a menace to be slain.”
I replied with a huff of indignity before saying, “All dragons now suffer for the ill-considered actions of a few. As with all other races of beings, dragons are, for the most part, peaceful and content to live our lives and let others live theirs. From time to time, one causes trouble and draws the rightful ire of others. However, that stigma has been placed upon all dragons, due to the few who have run amok.”
Heather stroked my neck as she spoke to the knight. “He’s right, you know. We Elves are the same. Most are peace loving and gentle. But there have been a few who have not been. And you humans are the same. Am I right? Mostly, your people are kind and good. But there are those who are not. And those few have given humanity a bad name and a dark place in the minds of other beings. So why not let Griswold live in peace?”
The knight tried to rein in his skittish steed as he considered this. Finally, he pointed at me with his lance once more. “Prove to me that this dragon is gentle and I shall let him live.”
“How?” asked Heather.
“Is not our word enough for you?” I asked.
The knight laughed. “No, it is not. You plead for your life, she for her friend’s life. You would say anything to placate me, I think.”
“What do we do, Griswold?” Heather asked me.
“I don’t know,” I told her. “If the fact that I’ve not yet attacked him to defend myself doesn’t convince him of what we say, I don’t know what will.”
So we stayed there for hours, myself, Heather, and the knight, facing off, each side unwilling to give in to the other and unable to convince the other side to give in to them. Gradually, the sun moved across the sky and evening set in. Shadows crept across the clearing, growing darker and thicker.
“This isn’t a good place to be at night,” Heather informed the man. “Things live in these woods that abhor daylight and remain well-hidden in deep burrows and nests while the sun is up. But at night...” She shook her head slowly. “At night they come out to hunt.”
“You speak of panthers and such?” inquired the knight.
“Yes,” I replied in Heather’s stead. “But she speaks of other things as well. She warns you of creatures from the dark, shadowy recesses of the land of Faerie. And of spirit beings that have no physical forms of their own, yet seek to steal the bodies of others. And of things too horrid to give name to.”
The knight pulled nervously on his horse’s reins. “Yet beings such as you, who claim to be good and peaceful, frequent such a place of darkness and evil?” he asked skeptically.
“The forest is a different place during the day than at night. Different times, different beings out and about,” Heather said.
“Same locale,” the knight countered.
A knowing smile played across Heather’s lips. “As if the immoral denizens of your own society are out in the same force at day as they are at night?”
The knight inclined his head ever so slightly. “Point to the Elf. But I grow weary of this. Stand aside, or shall I be forced to strike you down to reach the dragon?”
“Hurt her,” I growled, “and you’ll be a charred cinder before you take your next step.”
Heather turned quickly, saying, “Griswold, no. Your talking like that will not help.”
“I won’t allow him to harm you,” I replied.
“He won’t,” Heather responded, her lilting voice soft. “If such were his intention, he’d have tried to do so before now, I’m sure.”
Longer still we three remained, Heather and myself watching the knight, while he stared back at us. The night grew darker; our clearing lit solely by pale light of the full moon as it took its place in the sky. Just when I was beginning to wonder if the stalemate would ever be broken, a chill wind wafted through the trees. Heather wrapped her arms around herself for warmth and pressed her lean form against my side.
“We shouldn’t be here,” she said, her voice made soft by fear. “Not after dark.”
The knight’s horse, having been calm for some time, evidently long since becoming used to my presence, began a nervous dance, prancing sideways first one way, then the other, tossing his head, his long, white mane flipping into his rider’s visor-covered face.
“Easy,” the knight told his steed.
The cold wind blew a bit more intensely. A foul smell, much akin to that of rotting garbage, accompanied it.
The knight raised his head and I could feel his gaze upon me even though I could not see his eyes. “Something is coming our way,” the man announced needlessly. “What is it?”
“Something that we warned you of earlier,” Heather told him. “One of the things Griswold and I wished to avoid.”
Before the knight could reply, thin tendrils of black mist, dark as the bottom of a covered well at midnight, crept into the clearing, curling among the trees. The chilly breeze and rotting smell reached new levels.
Heather covered her nose with both hands and pressed closer against me. I could feel her shaking with fright. “Griswold...”
“I won’t let it hurt you,” I assured her.
By now, the knight’s horse was thoroughly panicked. Rolling his eyes, the animal reared up, dumping his mount from the saddle. The knight crashed to the ground and the horse spun and galloped off, clods of churned earth rolling up from beneath his hooves.
“What about him?” Heather asked, releasing her nose with one hand long enough to point to the knight as he staggered to his feet, shouting for his horse.
Before I could answer her, streamers of the dark haze found the knight. At first, the ends of the vaporous extremities caressed his silver armor, as though attempting to express an overwhelming fondness for the knight. Abruptly, one of the tendrils stabbed into the thin gap where two pieces of plating came together at an elbow.
The knight screamed and thrashed, his efforts to shake off his attacker overbalancing him. He crashed to the ground once more, rolling around in a futile attempt at dislodging the offending touch of the black vapor. More and more strands of the mist jammed themselves into various gaps in the armor.
Beside me, Heather was speechless in horror at what we were witnessing. At last, I drew in a breath of air, allowing it to stoke the fire deep within my throat. I stretched my head forward, not wanting to risk Heather being caught in the inferno, and released a small puff of superheated air.
The flame burst forth from my mouth, a bright, blinding shade of blue, tinged white at the center. The moment my dragon-fire touched the Wraith it pulled back from the knight, as though shriveling in the heat. A high-pitched shriek issued from it as the fog dissolved, evaporated by my flame. In less than an instant, it was gone.
For several seconds longer, the knight rolled madly on the ground, screaming. Gradually, he fell silent and sat up. I could hear his breath rasping as he drew in long, hard gulps of air.
“What...?” he stammered finally, “What was...that...thing?”
“A Night Wraith,” Heather explained, her own voice returned almost to normal with the passing of the creature. “One of the dark things which roam the forest after sunset. If not for Griswold here,” she paused, lightly stroking my neck with her slender fingers, “it would have shunted your essence out of your body and taken your form for its own for a time.”
“Leaving you,” I told the knight, picking up where Heather chose to leave off, “nothing more than a wandering lost soul without a body until you forgot yourself and simply ceased to be.”
The knight rose to his feet, swaying unsteadily. “Thank you,” he said and lowered his gaze to the ground. “I came here to slay you, yet you saved my life.” He reached up and removed his helmet, revealing a craggy face and a mussed shock of light brown hair. “Your actions have truly spoken louder than your words. I believe that you are a peaceful being. Both you and your Elven companion. I wish you both well.” He turned and started for the trees.
“Wait!” called Heather.
The knight stopped, turning to face us once more. “Yes?”
“You cannot travel through the forest alone. Not at night,” Heather said. “How can you even think of doing it after what just happened here?”
The knight shrugged. “After what I came here to do and what has happened, how can you expect me to remain here with you and your friend?”
Heather looked to me, as if wanting me to vocalize the response I knew she was thinking. “Why don’t we begin anew?” I suggested and bowed my head slightly. “Hello,” I said. “My name is Griswold. And this is my friend Heather.”
“Might we know your name, kind sir?” Heather inquired.
The knight appeared stunned. “How can you-?”
Heather graced him with a gentle smile. “You’ve seen beyond your prejudice. You’ve learned a great deal since you first rode into this clearing a few hours ago. You deserve a second chance.”
After a few moments, the knight smiled. “Thank you. Both of you. And my name is Sir Gilbert Carver.” He bowed low as he said the last.
That was how Heather and myself met Sir Gilbert. The three of us remained in that clearing throughout the rest of the night. Shortly after sunrise, Heather and I escorted our newfound friend through the forest and to safety. Sir Gilbert’s horse, we found, had made it to safety as well. The steed was waiting rather impatiently a few dozen yards beyond the tree line when we emerged from the forest.
So, a happy ending all around for everyone concerned. Just as things ought to be, I think. Don’t you agree? Good. I thought you might. Humans and dragons agreeing on such things... There just may be hope for the world yet.
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