The startled warbeast broke into a run, moving forward under the dragon's next howling lunge. This time the monster spat forth a jet of flame that seared the grass where the warbeast had stood a moment earlier, and Garth congratulated himself on his decision to dodge.
He watched intently as the creature turned again; it moved smoothly and gracefully, but was not actually very fast in maneuvering. It seemed unable to bank more than a few degrees; Garth guessed that, perhaps due to its size, it was not as stable in flight as a bird. A sufficient tilt might bring it down. He wondered if there were any way to use that against it, then forgot about aerodynamics as it swept down toward him again.
He sent Koros sideways this time, turning the warbeast out of its path. He misjudged slightly, or perhaps the dragon had allowed for his motion, and he felt the heat of its fiery breath at his back. Koros roared in pain; the fur of its tail had been singed.
Garth patted the warbeast, apologizing, as he considered the situation. The traditional method of dragon-slaying, according to legend, was to find some minute chink in the creature's armor and strike at it. He had seen no sign of any flaw in this dragon's defenses-but then, he had been too busy dodging to study it very closely. Still, the armor on this monster seemed almost unnaturally perfect-countless rows of fine golden scales in flawless, gleaming array.
The dragon was not making another attack, he realized; instead, it was circling, far out of reach. It appeared almost to be waiting for something, as if to see if the overman still intended to fight. Garth considered retreating, then dismissed the idea. When diving, the dragon moved with the speed of a falling stone, and it could probably catch him from behind before he could reach the forest. It might, he thought, be trying to coax him into just such a foolhardy maneuver.
He watched it wheel about, and an idea struck him. The thing was gigantic, and as it made the far part of its turn, he glimpsed its broad, smooth back, as wide and solid as the deck of a ship. If he could get atop it, he could hack at it at his leisure; with its limited aerodynamic ability, it might be unable to dislodge him. He had used a similar technique against a monster once before, the great worm that lived beneath Dыsarra; though that particular creature had not had the benefits of flight, flame, and armor.
The difficulty lay in getting onto the thing, but even that might not be impossible. He looked down at Koros' blackfurred back, shoulder muscles rippling under its hide as it shifted its stance. He had seen the warbeast leap to and from low rooftops, and bound over crowds of humans. It could almost certainly manage the jump he wanted.
Of course, he was not at all certain that he himself could manage his part of the feat he planned, but if he did not, it would probably mean nothing worse than a long fall. He could take a fall. He could see little to be lost by trying; the dragon could slay him just as easily if he did not make the attempt.
The dragon still circled smoothly in the sky above the mound; he turned the warbeast toward it and gave the command to charge.
Koros roared, so loudly that Garth's ears rang, and began bounding up the slope. Seeing this, the dragon turned and came to meet the overman and warbeast, bellowing and screaming and smoking like a burning city. As they drew nearer to one another, Garth gauged the distance carefully and, when he judged the moment to be right, shouted the command to leap.
Koros leaped, jaws wide and claws out, to attack the dragon; the warbeast was roaring with bloodlust. Garth felt the leap as a great surge upward; so smooth was the movement that he hardly realized when Koros left the ground. As the dragon loomed up before him, a gleaming coppery wall, he leaped himself, flinging himself upward from the saddle to grab at the monster's neck.
He struck hard against a shining red-gold flank and clung desperately, digging fingernails into the overlapping of the scales and scrambling upward with his feet.
His faithful mount, thrown off course by his own jump, hit the dragon full in the chest, then fell away, yowling with pain and anger, as its fangs and claws failed to penetrate and grip the gleaming armor.
Garth watched, concerned, as the warbeast fell. When Koros landed, catlike, on all fours and rose, apparently unhurt, Garth turned his attention back to his own situation with great relief.
He had a precarious purchase on the monster's shoulder, the wind whipping about him as the dragon sped through the skies. With all his superhuman strength, he forced himself upward against the hard scales and, with muscles straining, managed to haul himself up atop its back.
When he felt that he was reasonably secure between the mighty shoulders, he looked the beast over. He was surprised to discover that the scales felt fully as metallic as they looked.
The dragon seemed to be searching for something, looping back and forth across the mound and the meadow below, and Garth realized that it was unaware of his presence on its back.
It could feel nothing through its armor and thought that he, too, like Koros, had fallen.
He smiled, brushed aside a lock of black hair that had fallen into one eye, and drew his dagger. He had lost his sword in his leap, releasing it without conscious thought when he had to find a fingerhold, but his axe was slung across his back, and the dagger's sheath was secure on his belt. He set about prying at the scales on the back of the dragon's neck, wedging the point of the knife beneath their overlapped edges and working upward.
The scales tore loose and fell, tinkling down past the dragon's wings into space. To Garth's surprise, the monster did not react. He leaned forward to look at the spot of hide thus uncovered, as the wind of a high-speed turn lashed at him.
Beneath the scaly armor was a fine wire mesh, and beneath that, Garth could faintly make out a myriad of gears, chains, springs, and sprockets, ticking quietly.
He sat motionless for a moment, absorbing this discovery of the dragon's true nature. Quickly, he reached a decision; he could not kill this thing, obviously, and now he decided that he did not want to destroy it. He sat back and waited.
It was almost pleasant, crouching atop the broad metal back of the dragon as it swooped through the air. Garth had never flown before and found what little he could see from where he sat to be intriguing indeed. The wind was fresh and exhilarating when the monster was not in one of its sudden turns or dives, and the view was amazing.
He did not have to wait long; after a few more passes across the hillock and meadow, the dragon looped back up across the riverbank, then soared gracefully down into the gaping mouth of a cave on the eastern shore, at the base of the hillock. It braked by cupping its wings forward.
Inside the opening, it folded its wings and settled neatly to the ground, landing with a heavy thud and a mild bump. Then, in a scant second, it froze into total immobility, losing completely its incredible semblance of life and becoming a mere metal construct.
Garth glanced up and about and saw that the entire inside of the mound was hollow. Nor was it a natural cave; stone arches braced the ceiling, and niches were occupied by flaring oil lamps. Three young men stood off to one side, well away from the dragon; they had not yet noticed its unwanted passenger.
The smoke that still streamed from the creature's nostrils suddenly thickened, and a loud hissing came from somewhere beneath the overman; then the smoke stopped entirely, leaving a thinning cloud to obscure the chamber's sooty upper reaches.
Garth leaned over the dragon's shoulder and watched as a door in its belly swung open, just barely visible to him beyond the curve of chest and foreleg. Three men crawled out, then two more, and finally two more still.
Garth lifted the axe off his back with his right hand, keeping his drawn dagger in his left, and vaulted down to the cave floor. He landed in front of the party of seven that had emerged from the dragon, with the other three humans to his right. The jump was longer than he had realized in the poor light, but he managed to catch himself and keep from sprawling, though it was not the dignified and dramatic entrance that he had hoped for.
The men froze, staring at him in astonishment. He stared back.
After a moment of stunned silence, Garth demanded, "So it was all a fraud?"
The faces of the men were blackened with some sort of gritty dust, but Garth thought he recognized one of them as a person he had seen in the village where he had eaten that morning. It was this man who answered. "No, no...I mean, not originally. There was a real dragon once, really there was."
"But he died," another man said.
"We fed him poisoned sheep," a third added. "It was really very simple. My grandfather told me all about it."
"And you built a new one, so that no one would know it was dead. Why?"
The men looked at one another; it was plain to Garth that they were terrified of him, overawed by this huge inhuman warrior they faced, and none wanted to be the first to give an answer he might not like.
"Why?" Garth demanded again, brandishing his axe.
There was a sudden babble of response as they all decided simultaneously that not answering might be even more dangerous than speaking unpleasant truths. "To frighten off outsiders and keep away invaders," one replied.
Garth lowered his weapons; everything was suddenly clear. Orgul was a peaceful valley; any warriors it might once have had to defend it must have died fighting the dragon. Yet it was surrounded by avaricious warlords who would gladly turn it into a battlefield-the Baron of Sland, for example, would undoubtedly be delighted to have an undefended target for conquest that was not a part of the Kingdom of Eramma and thus not covered by the terms of his predecessor's surrender. While the dreaded dragon had lived, though, no one had dared to attack; the tales had kept potential invaders away, assuring them that the monster could destroy an army.
The Orgulians had not meant to harm anyone, but merely to protect their homes. They had not slain Garth with their toy even when they had a chance. They could have burned him to death three times over, yet had not. He could not hold against them their desire to defend themselves and to frighten away a menace to their security.
It was impressive indeed, this device of theirs, and obviously a needed precaution; stories alone would not have staved off adventurers forever, but the sight of a dragon flying overhead, perhaps snorting fire and smoke, would deter all but a dedicated lunatic such as Garth.
He looked at the great machine and asked, "How does it work?"
The change in the human faces was dramatic as the tension suddenly dissipated. "Oh, it's most complex!" a young man, perhaps only a boy, exclaimed. "Come and see! There is a furnace for the smoke and flame, and one man works that, and there's one to each wing, while another serves to guide them. I control the tail, and Deg, here, controls the claws, and then there's a man in the neck. It's all most intricate, and all clockwork, all mechanical, machinery like no other. It takes all ten of us all day to wind it."
Garth nodded in response to the youth's enthusiasm, and a tentative smile appeared here and there among the humans. "Who made it?" he asked, though he thought he knew the answer.
"Why, old Petter, the toymaker, did most of it, designing and building most of the machinery. The smith built the framework, and the tinker and three apprentices made the scales. Gerrith the jeweler made the eyes, and the whole village worked on it where we could. Every town in Orgul helps in mining coal for the furnace now.
Another man interrupted, asking desperately, "You won't tell anyone, will you? It's all that keeps the Baron of Sland away!"
Garth's grin faded. "I should tell the old man who sent me here-but no, I need not do that; I can tell him, truthfully, that the dragon is dead. I will say nothing to any other, and I think that you need not worry about the old man; he speaks little and will keep silent about it."
"That's all right, then," someone said. Relief was evident on several coal-darkened faces.
"Would you like to see inside?" the young man asked.