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Dreamer, another part of my mind said, laughing at me. Why not lie back down and wait?
I wouldn't do that.
Instead, I fought my way to my feet. With a leg that wouldn't do much of anything but throb, getting up was difficult-and agonizing. I stood and limped toward the dragon's head, making a wide circle and watching it closely. It was slow going. I had to step forward with my right leg and then drag the left leg up into place. The leg would hold me, but I couldn't do much else with it.
I had to stop and fight back the waves of pain every few steps. I had never dreamed that so much pain was possible.
For the first time, I got a chance to see just how damn huge that dragon really was. I don't think I could possibly exaggerate its size. You could have put a football field on its back and left room for cheerleaders. The neck and tail were each longer than the back. Its thighs were like those old redwood trees with roads cut right through their trunks. A circus could have used one of its wings for its big top. The teeth were big enough to serve as headstones. It was as tall as a four-story building. New York City and Chicago could have met for a barbecue with steaks for everyone from its meat, with enough leftovers to stuff the entire NFL.
Big. Maybe a quarter mile long.
I don't know how long I stared at the dragon, ru
Eventually, I got around in front of the dragon. My elf sword had split the top of its snout from between nostrils the size of basketball hoops to between eyes the size of hula hoops. The eyes were open, though the fletching of one of A
The dragon moaned and moved its head from side to side, just a little.
"I hope you're hurting as much as I am," I said, very softly. I rubbed a sleeve across my eyes. They were watering constantly from the pain. Getting to my feet again was as painful as the first time, and just as slow. I stood there-ten feet from the dragon-and looked up at it. Its eyes were definitely out of reach, even with Dragon's Death, as long as I was on the ground.
I came close to giving up then. The only way I would be able to reach this dragon's eye to put that long thrust into it would be to climb up on top of the snout. Even if I could manage that, all the beast would have to do was toss its head to throw me far enough to finish the job of killing me.
Static electricity started to pop and crackle all over me again. I got hot-roasting. The wizards were dueling over me again. I glanced toward the battlements of Castle Thyme. Parthet was still there. He didn't seem to be looking at me, but somewhere past me, past the dragon. I turned my head and spotted the Dorthini wizard. I didn't have an up-close-and-personal view this time, so I couldn't see the expression on his face, couldn't tell if he was nervous or ready to gloat.
The Etevar was next to him, holding his horse quiet, watching.
I advanced on the dragon again, slowly, still dragging my left leg, using it only as a prop to hold me up. When I got right up to the dragon's bleeding snout, I was temporarily out of his sight. I rested there a moment, in the shade, trying to gather my strength, and my nerve. With only one good leg, I was going to need both arms to climb, so I slipped Dragon's Death into its clips on my back. Then I got my toehold at the corner of the dragon's mouth and scrambled for the top of its snout.
The head rolled to the side. I held on to a couple of knobby wartlike projections until the rolling stopped. Then I got up-on one knee with the other leg trailing behind-and drew Dragon's Death again. The whistling started immediately. I rammed the point of the elf sword into the dragon's uninjured eye and leaned in and down, uncertain that the blade could even reach this monster's brain. I pushed and twisted, and the dragon bucked and tried to roll its head again. For an instant, I was dangling from the sword's hilt, holding on desperately. The dragon flapped its wings a couple of times but couldn't generate enough lift to get off the ground. It couldn't even get its chin more than a couple feet of the ground.
When the beast quieted down again, I maneuvered back into position. This time, I put all of my weight behind the sword until the guard was sinking into the eyeball itself.
And then the eyeball popped like a gigantic zit and foul-smelling crud gushed all over me, topped by gallons of black blood. It came so hard and fast that for a moment I thought I was going to drown in it. I choked and gagged and retched so hard that I almost lost my grip on the elf sword. My hands were deep in what was left of the eyeball now. The dragon moaned, then screeched and gave one last violent shake that tossed me and the sword to the ground. More blood-barrels of it-spurted from the wound and poured down on me. It was all I could do to get my face free of the flash flood.
As the dragon died-with a noisy death rattle that sounded like someone dropping a junkyard on a tin roof-the line that no mortal could kill a dragon and live through it also died a final death… or would if I somehow managed to get up and limp away. There would be a new old wives' tale. Only a mortal who has killed a dragon can kill one.
A big if: I wasn't at all sure that I would be able to get up and move away from the dead dragon. Only my continuing pain convinced me that I wasn't already dead. Unless death didn't end the pain-not a very comforting possibility. I got my hands and arms under me, and rested my head on an arm to keep my face out of the pool of blood. I was soaked, covered in blood and gore and goo and dust-stinking, rancid. Father and Vara seemed to call to me again, and I had to bite my lip to keep from saying, "I'm ready. Carry me off."
It wasn't just the pain, though a new throbbing in my head was so severe that it almost eclipsed the roster of other pains through my body and left leg. I was groggy with the pain, probably delirious-or near it. Retching, vomiting, came in cycles and kept me weak. There was also exhaustion and a sudden fear that I could never escape the smell of death, the stink of the dragon's blood and i
The smell of the goop I was lying in was what finally made me fight my way to my feet. The slippery footing made it harder than ever. I needed the elf sword as a crutch now, and that is one thing that it wasn't very good at. The damn think kept sticking into the ground. I swayed so wildly that I thought I was going to fall again. I don't know how much time passed before I even thought to look for the Etevar, his wizard, and his army. I can't even say how long my fight with the dragon lasted-probably not half as long as it's taken me to tell the story.
I stumbled away from the dragon, looking for dry, solid ground, trying to get out of the shadow of the damn thing before I collapsed again.