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Incredibly, the elf was also still alive. Somehow. He got to his knees slowly, in obvious pain. I shook my head, marveling that anyone could take that amount of abuse and not only survive but be able to get to his feet afterward. But the elf couldn't walk. He stumbled and fell back to his knees and crawled toward his sword. He had to inch his way, and he collapsed twice before he reached it. The dragon started waddling after the elf, moving just as slowly. The missing foot was hampering him, I guess, as much as the blood he had lost.
Without warning my companions, I mounted and kneed my horse, aiming him toward the combatants and giving him a slack rein. A
The elf used his sword to help him get to his feet, though it was a clumsy crutch, digging into the sand. When he picked up the sword to hold it out toward the dragon, he swayed, obviously unsteady, but he managed to raise the sword over his head, and he sliced forward, biting into the dragon's snout-but that snout butted the elf and hurled him and his sword away. The blade stuck in the sand, a cross to mark its owner's grave… but not yet. The elf crawled toward the sword again, determined and somehow able to move, however slowly. But this time, he just couldn't make it all the way. He collapsed eight feet short of the mark. His face flopped into the sand. Then he lifted his head a little and looked at the blade, a hopeless distance away.
But the dragon wasn't ready to continue the fight immediately either. Its head was also down in the sand, one open eye watching its quarry while it tried to gather strength to finish the battle.
I reached the elf and dismounted a few feet short of where he lay sprawled. My plan was to carry him away from the dragon, do what I could for him. After the fight he'd put up, I didn't want to leave him to be part of the monster's supper. The elf warrior was fair of face and hair, his skin as pale as A
The elf opened his eyes and looked up at me. "Take my sword, Hero," he said, struggling with the words, "and slay me this dragon that I may die in peace."
I looked from the elf to the sword that was as tall as I am, then on at the dragon that was the size of an airliner. Sure thing, I thought. I recalled hearing someone say that dragons couldn't be killed by a mortal, and Parthet's inability to name one who had. But when I looked at this dragon, I thought that-maybe-most of the work had already been done.
"If I can," I told the elf as my companions arrived.
"Highness…" Lesh started, but I waved him quiet.
I pulled the claymore from the sand. It was the largest sword I had ever held, but it didn't feel nearly as heavy as I'd expected. I had handled a couple of claymores once, but I'd never had the chance to practice with them. I held the blade straight out in front of me and walked back to the elf. If he was concerned that I might use it on him instead of on the dragon, he didn't show it.
"A deep thrust, straight through an eye," he said. The words came out singly, labored. A little blood flowed from the corner of the elf's mouth. "Aim for the middle of the back of its head." I nodded. The elf closed his eyes for a second. As I stalked closer to the dragon, though, the elf lifted his head to watch.
The dragon was also watching me. One amber eye stared, tracking my movements. The head waggled weakly. The dragon couldn't raise its head out of my reach, though it tried. Its wings fluttered weakly. It tried to turn away, tried to interpose a wing between us, but it couldn't move fast enough to avoid me. I hoped it was too weak for one last burst of defiance.
This all seemed to be happening in slow motion. I guess my mind was ru
I slashed at the dragon's snout when it opened its yap-a gaping food hole that I could have walked into without bending over. The mouth slammed shut again.
An eye was going to be quite a reach for me. Maybe the dragon had a pinhead in relation to his size, but the head was still bigger than an elephant. I moved around to the side. The eye, about the size of a soccer ball, looked down at me from just above the top of my own head. I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on the elf's sword. Behind the head, the dragon's thin neck curled back to a body that was taller than a two-story building. The head tilted my way, bringing my target a little closer. I stepped forward and thrust the sword into the eye with every bit of my strength (and whatever "strength of Vara" being Hero of Varay was supposed to give me), leaning into the hilt with my shoulder, pushing until the dragon's renewed thrashing around pulled the sword out of my hands-and out of my reach. I backed off fast, almost tripping over my own feet in my hurry to get out of the way. Black blood and purple goo spurted from the eye. The dragon flopped and twisted for minutes before it was finally still. The head lolled over, the wounded eye staring blindly into the sand.
"I think it's dead," I mumbled-too softly for anyone to hear, I think. Then I pulled the sword out of the eye, cleaned the blade in the sand, and carried it back to the elf.
"Well done, Hero," he said. Then his eyes closed for the last time. I knelt and felt for a pulse in his neck. Nothing. It was strange-not that he was dead, but the way I felt. Not long before, I had been ready to fight him, but now I was mourning his death. I looked up at A
"He wasn't your father by any chance, was he?" I asked.
A
I wasn't about to get into a discussion about that.
"I guess we should bury him," I said instead.
"Even I wouldn't dishonor him so," A
"Whatever you say." I felt tired suddenly, fatigue just trying to swallow me whole. I stabbed the claymore into the sand at the elf's head. "I wish I knew his name. He was really something fighting that dragon." A true hero, I thought. I looked down. The magic I had felt from him before was gone. A supposed immortal had found that he wasn't, not by a long shot. I shook my head and started to walk toward my horse.
"You're not going to leave his sword, are you?" Harkane asked. His voice actually sounded pained.
"Why not?" I asked.
A
"Why? I didn't kill him."
"It will seek you out if you abandon it, though. That is the way of such weapons."
Again, I couldn't argue the point. I didn't know what I was talking about. I pulled the blade from the sand. Harkane pulled loose a heavy sash from the elf's body. The claymore hadn't been in a normal sheath. Two spring-loaded C-clamps closed over blade and guard. I strapped on the rig and tried it. With proper pressure, the clamps freed the blade-very smartly.
There were a bunch of fancy characters etched high on the flat of the blade, above the blood cha