Glory Road

Chapter 12

When I led my bride back down that blessed hill, arm around her waist, Rufo helped us mount without comment. But he could hardly miss that Star now addressed me as: "Milord husband." He mounted and tailed in, a respectful distance out of earshot.

We rode hand in hand for at least an hour. Whenever I glanced at her, she was smiling; whenever she caught my eye, the smile grew dimples. Once I asked, "How soon must we keep lockout?"

"Not until we leave the road, milord husband."

That held us another mile. At last she said timidly, "Milord husband?"

"Yes, wife?"

"Do you still think that I am ‘a cold and clumsy wench'?"

"Mmm..." I answered thoughtfully, " ‘cold'—no, I couldn't honestly say you were cold. But ‘clumsy'—Well, compared with an artist like Muri, let us say—"

"Milord husband!"

"Yes? I was saying

"Are you honing for a kick in the belly?" She added, "American!"

"Wife...would you kick me in the belly?"

She was slow in answering and her voice was very low. "No, milord husband. Never."

"I'm pleased to hear it. But if you did, what would happen?"

"You—you would spank me. With my own sword. But not with your sword. Please, never with your sword...my husband."

"Not with your sword, either. With my hand. Hard. First I would spank you. And then—"

"And then what?"

I told her. "But don't give me cause. According to plans I have to fight later. And don't interrupt me in the future."

"Yes, milord husband."

"Very well. Now let's assign Muri an arbitrary score of ten. On that scale you would rate—Let me think."

"Three or four, perhaps? Or even five?"

"Quiet. I make it about a thousand. Yes, a thousand, give or take a point. I haven't a slide rule."

"Oh, what a beast you are, my darling! Lean close and loss me—and just wait till I tell Muri."

"You'll say nothing to Muri, my bride, or you will be paddled. Quit fishing for compliments. You know what you are, you sword-jumping wench."

"And what am I?"

"My princess."

"Oh."

"And a mink with its tail on fire—and you know it."

"Is that good? I've studied American idiom most carefully but sometimes I am not sure."

"It's supposed to be tops. A figure of speech, I've never known a mink that well. Now get your mind on other matters, or you may be a widow on your bridal day. Dragons, you say?"

"Not until after nightfall, milord husband—and they aren't really dragons."

"As you described them, the difference could matter only to another dragon. Eight feet high at the shoulders, a few tons each, and teeth as long as any forearm—all they need is to breathe flame."

"Oh, but they do! Didn't I say?"

I sighed. "No, you did not."

"They don't exactly breathe fire. That would kill them. They hold their breaths while flaming. It's swamp gas—methane—from the digestive tract. It's a controlled belch, with a hypergolic effect from an enzyme secreted between the first and second rows of teeth. The gas bursts into flame on the way out."

"I don't care how they do it; they're flame-throwers. Well? How do you expect me to handle them?"

"I had hoped that you would have ideas. You see," she added apologetically, "I hadn't planned on it, I didn't expect us to come this way."

"Well—Wife, let's go back to that village. Set up in competition with our friend the rumormonger—I'll bet we could outgabble him."

"Milord husband!"

"Never mind. If you want me to kill dragons every Wednesday and Saturday, I'll be on call. This flaming methane—Do they spout it from both ends?"

"Oh, just the front end. How could it be both?"

"Easy. See next year's model. Now quiet; I'm thinking over a tactic. Ill need Rufo. I suppose he has killed dragons before?"

"I don't know that a man has ever killed one, milord husband."

"So? My princess, I'm flattered by the confidence you place in me. Or is it desperation? Don't answer, I don't want to know. Keep quiet and let me think."

At the next farmhouse Rufo was sent in to arrange returning the longhorses. They were ours, gifts from the Doral, but we had to send them home, as they could not live where we were going—Muri had promised me that she would keep an eye on Ars Longa and exercise her. Rufo came back with a bumpkin mounted on a heavy draft animal bareback—he Kept shifting numbly between second and third pairs of legs to spare the animal's back and controlled it by voice.

When we dismounted, retrieved our bows and quivers, and prepared to hoof it, Rufo came up. "Boss, Manure Foot craves to meet the hero and touch his sword. Brush him off?"

Rank hath its duties as well as its privileges. "Fetch him."

The lad, overgrown and fuzz on his chin, approached eagerly, stumbling over his feet, then made a leg so long he almost fell. "Straighten up, son," I said. "What's your name?"

"Pug, milord Hero," he answered shrilly. ("Pug" will do. The Nevian meaning was as rugged as Jocko's jokes.) "A stout name. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"A hero, milord! Like yourself."

I thought of telling him about those rocks on the Glory Road. But he would find them soon enough if ever he tramped it—and either not mind, or turn back and forget the silly business. I nodded approvingly and assured him that there was always room at the top in the Hero business for a lad with spirit—and that the lower the start, the greater the glory...so work hard and study hard and wait his opportunity. Keep his guard up but always speak to strange ladies; adventure would come his way. Then I let him touch my sword—but not take it in hand. The Lady Vivamus is mine and I'd rather share my toothbrush.

Once, when I was young, I was presented to a Congressman. He had handed me the same fatherly guff I was now plagiarizing. Like prayer, it can't do any harm and might do some good, and I found that I was sincere when I said it and no doubt the Congressman was, too. Oh, possibly some harm, as the youngster might get himself killed on the first mile of that road. But that is better than sitting over the fire in your old age, sucking your gums and thinking about the chances you missed and the gals you didn't tumble. Isn't it?

I decided that the occasion seemed so important to Pug that it should be marked, so I groped in my pouch and found a U.S. quarter. "What's the rest of your name. Pug?"

"Just ‘Pug,' milord. Of house Lerdki, of course."

"Now you will have three names because I am giving you one of mine." I had one I didn't need, Oscar Gordon suited me fine. Not "Flash" as that name was never acknowledged by me. Not my Army nickname; I wouldn't write that one on the wall of a latrine. "Easy" was the name I could spare. I had always used "E. C. Gordon" rather than "Evelyn Cyril Gordon" and in school my name had shifted from "E. C." to "Easy" because of my style of broken-field running—I never ran harder nor dodged more than the occasion demanded.

"By authority vested in me by Headquarters United States Army Southeast Asia Command, I, the Hero Oscar, ordain that you shall be known henceforth as Lerdki't Pug Easy. Wear it proudly."

I gave him the quarter and showed him George Washington on the obverse. "This is the father of my house, a greater hero than I will ever be. He stood tall and proud, spoke the truth, and fought for the right as he saw it, against fearful odds. Try to be like him. And here"—I turned it over—"is the chop of my house, the house he founded. The bird stands for courage, freedom, and ideals soaring high." (I didn't tell him that the American Eagle eats carrion, never tackles anything its own size, and will soon be extinct—it does stand for those ideals. A symbol means what you put into it.)

Pug Easy nodded violently and tears started to flow. I had not presented him to my bride; I didn't know that she would wish to meet him. But she stepped forward and said gently, "Pug Easy, remember the words of milord Hero. Treasure them and they will last you all your life."

The lad dropped to his knees. Star touched his hair and said, "Stand, Lerdki't Pug Easy. Stand tall."

I said good-bye to Ars Longa, told her to be a good girl and I would be back someday. Pug Easy headed back with longhorses tailed up and we set out into the woods, arrows nocked and Rufo eyes-behind. There was a sign where we left the yellow brick road; freely translated it read: ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

(A literal translation is reminiscent of Yellowstone Park: "Warning—the varmints in these woods are not tame. Travelers are warned to stay on the road, as their remains will not be returned to their kin. The Lerdki, His Chop.")

Presently Star said, "Milord husband—"

"Yes, pretty foots?" I didn't look at her; I was watching my side and a bit of hers, and keeping an eye overhead as well, as we could be bombed here—something like blood kites but smaller and goes for the eyes.

"My Hero, you are truly noble and you have made your wife most proud."

"Huh? How?" I had my mind on targets—two kinds on the ground here: a rat big enough to eat cats and willing to eat people, and a wild hog about the same size and not a ham sandwich on him anyplace, all rawhide and bad temper. The hogs were easier targets, I had been told, because they charge straight at you. But don't miss. And have your sword loosened, you won't nock a second shaft.

"That lad, Pug Easy. What you did for him."

"Him? I fed him the old malarkey. Cost nothing."

"It was a kingly deed, milord husband."

"Oh, nonsense, diddycums. He expected big talk from a hero, so I did."

"Oscar my beloved, may a loyal wife point it out to her husband when he speaks nonsense of himself? I have known many heroes and some were such oafs that one would feed them at the back door if their deeds did not claim a place at the table. I have known few men who were noble, for nobility is scarcer far than heroism. But true nobility can always be recognized...even in one as belligerently shy about showing it as you are. The lad expected it, so you gave it to him—out noblesse oblige is an emotion felt only by those who are noble."

"Well, maybe. Star, you are talking too much again. Don't you think these varmints have ears?"

"Your pardon, milord. They have such good ears that they hear footsteps through the ground long before they hear voices. Let me have the last word, today being my bridal day. If you are—no, when you are gallant to some beauty, let us say Letva—or Muri, damn her lovely eyes! -- I do not count it as nobility; it must be assumed to spring from a much commoner emotion than noblesse oblige. But when you speak to a country lout with pigsty on his feet, garlic on his breath, the stink of sweat all over him, and pimples on his face—speak gently and make him feel for the time as noble as you are and let him hope one day to be your equal—I know it is not because you hope to tumble him."

"Oh, I don't know. Boys that age are considered a treat in some circles. Give him a bath, perfume him, curl his hair—"

"Milord husband, is it permitted for me to think about kicking you in the belly?"

"Can't be court-martialed for thinking, that's the one thing they can't take away from you. Okay, I prefer girls; I'm a square and can't help it. What's this about Muri's eyes? Longlegs, are you jealous?"

I could hear dimples even though I couldn't stop to see them. "Only on my wedding day, milord husband; the other days are yours. If I catch you in sportiveness, I shall either not see it, or congratulate you, as may be."

"I don't expect you'll catch me."

"And I trust you'll not catch me, milord rogue," she answered serenely.

She did get the last word, for just then Rufo's bowstring went Fwung! He called out, "Got ‘im!" and then we were very busy. Hogs so ugly they made razorbacks look like Poland-Chinas—I got one by arrow, down his slobbering throat then fed steel to his brother a frozen second later. Star got a fair hit at hers but it deflected on bone and kept coming and I kicked it in the shoulder as I was still trying to free my blade from its cousin. Steel between its ribs quieted it and Star coolly nocked another shaft and let fly while I was killing it. She got one more with her sword, leaning the point in like a matador at the moment of truth, dancing aside as it came on, dead and unwilling to admit it.

The fight was over. Old Rufo had got three unassisted and a nasty goring; I had a scratch and my bride was unhurt, which I made sure of as soon as things were quiet. Then I mounted guard while our surgeon took care of Rufo, after which she dressed my lesser cut.

"How about it, Rufo?" I asked. "Can you walk?"

"Boss, I won't stay in this forest if I have to crawl, Let's mush. Anyhow," he added, nodding at the worthless pork around us, "we won't be bothered by rats right away."

I rotated the formation, placing Rufo and Star ahead with his good leg on the outside and myself taking rear guard, where I should have been all along. Rear guard is slightly safer than point under most conditions but these weren't most conditions. I had let my blind need to protect my bride personally affect my judgment.

Having taken the hot spot I then went almost cross-eyed trying not only to see behind but ahead as well, so that I could close fast if Star—yes, and Rufo—got into trouble. Luckily we had a breathing spell in which I sobered down and took to heart the oldest lesson on patrol: You can't do the other man's job. Then I gave all my attention to our rear. Rufo, old as he was and wounded, would not die without slaughtering an honor guard to escort him to hell in style—and Star was no fainting heroine. I would bet long odds on her against anyone her own weight, name your weapon or barehanded, and I pity the man who ever tried to rape her; he's probably still searching for his cojones.

Hogs didn't bother us again but as evening approached we began to see and oftener to hear those giant rats; they paced us, usually out of sight; they never attacked berserk the way the hogs had; they looked for the best of it, as rats always do.

Rats give me the horrors. Once when I was a kid, my dad dead and Mother not yet remarried, we were flat broke and living in an attic in a condemned building. You could hear rats in the walls and twice rats ran over me in my sleep.

I still wake up screaming.

It doesn't improve a rat to blow it up to the size of a coyote. These were real rats, even to the whiskers, and shaped like rats save that their legs and pads were too large—perhaps the cube-square law on animal proportions works anywhere.

We didn't waste an arrow on one unless it was a fair shot and we zigzagged to take advantage of such openness as the forest had—which increased the hazard from above. However, the forest was so dense that attacks from the sky weren't our first worry.

I got one rat that tailed too closely and just missed another. We had to spend an arrow whenever they got bold; it caused the others to be more cautious. And once, while Rufo was drawing a bow on one and Star was ready with her sword to back him up, one of those vicious little hawks dived on Rufo.

Star cut him out of the air at the bottom of his stoop. Rufo hadn't even seen it; he was busy nailing brother rat.

We didn't have to worry about underbrush; this forest was park-like, trees and grass, no dense undergrowth. Not too bad, that stretch, except that we began to run out of arrows. I was fretting about that when I noticed something. "Hey, up ahead! You're off course. Cut to the right." Star had set course for me when we left the road but it was up to me to hold it; her bump of direction was erratic and Rufo's no better.

"Sorry, milord leader," Star called back. "The going was a trifle steep."

I closed in. "Rufo, how's the leg?" There was sweat on his forehead.

Instead of answering me, he said, "Milady, it will be dark soon."

"I know," she answered calmly, "so time for a bite of supper. Milord husband, that great flat rock up ahead seems a nice place."

I thought she had slipped her gears and so did Rufo, but for another reason. "But, milady, we are far behind schedule."

"And much later we shall be unless I attend to your leg again."

"Better you leave me behind," he muttered.

"Better you keep quiet until your advice is asked," I told him. "I wouldn't leave a Horned Ghost to be eaten by rats. Star, how do we do this?"

The great flat rock sticking up like a skull in the trees ahead was the upper surface of a limestone boulder with its base buried. I stood guard in its center with Rufo seated beside me while Star set out wards at cardinal and semi-cardinal points. I didn't get to see what she did because my eyes had to be peeled for anything beyond her, shaft nocked and ready to knock it down or scare it off, while Rufo watched the other side. However, Star told me later that the wards weren't even faintly "magic" but were within reach of Earth technology once some bright boy got the idea—an "electrified fence" without the fence, as radio is a telephone without wires, an analogy that won't hold up.

But it was well that I kept honest lockout instead of trying to puzzle out how she sat up that charmed circle, as she was attacked by the only rat we met that had no sense. He came straight at her, my arrow past her ear warned her, and she finished him off by sword. It was a very old male, missing teeth and white whiskers and likely weak in his mind. He was as large as a wolf, and with two death wounds still a red-eyed, mangy fury.

Once the last ward was placed Star told me that I could stop worrying about the sky; the wards roofed as well as fenced the circle. As Rufo says, if She says it, that settles it. Rufo had partly unfolded the foldbox while he watched; I got out her surgical case, more arrows for all of us, and food. No nonsense about manservant and gentlefolk, we ate together, sitting or sprawling and with Rufo lying flat to give his leg a chance while Star served him, sometimes popping food into his mouth in Nevian hospitality. She had worked a long time on his leg while I held a light and handed her things. She packed the wound with a pale jelly before sealing a dressing over it. If it hurt, Rufo didn't mention it.

While we ate it grew dark and the invisible fence began to be lined with eyes, glowing back at us with the light we ate by, and almost as numerous as the crowd the morning Igli ate himself. Most of them I judged to be rats. One group kept to themselves with a break in the circle on each side; I decided these must be hogs; the eyes were higher off the ground.

"Milady love," I said, "will those wards hold all night?"

"Yes, milord husband."

"They had better. It is too dark for arrows and I can't see us hacking our way through that mob. I'm afraid you must revise your schedule again."

"I can't, milord Hero. But forget those beasts. Now we fly."

Rufo groaned. "I was afraid so. You know it makes me seasick."

"Poor Rufo," Star said softly. "Never fear, old friend I have a surprise for you. Again such chance as this, I bought Dramamine in Cannes—you know, the drug that saved the Normandy invasion back on Earth. Or perhaps you don't know."

Rufo answered, " ‘Know'? I was in that invasion, milady—and I'm allergic to Dramamine; I fed fish all the way to Omaha Beach. Worst night I've ever had—why, I'd rather be here!"

"Rufo," I asked, "were you really at Omaha Beach?"

"Hell, yes, Boss. I did all of Eisenhower's thinking."

"But why? It wasn't your fight."

"You might ask yourself why you're in this fight, Boss. In my case it was French babes. Earthy and uninhibited and always cheerful about it and willing to learn. I remember one little mademoiselle from Armentieres"—he pronounced it correctly—"who hadn't been—"

Star interrupted. "While you two pursue your bachelor reminiscences, I'll get the flight gear ready." She got up and went to the foldbox.

"Go ahead, Rufo," I said, wondering how far he would stretch this one.

"No," he said sullenly. "She wouldn't like it. I can tell. Boss, you've had the damnedest effect on Her. More ladylike by the minute and that isn't like Her at all. First thing you know She will subscribe to Vogue and then there's no telling how far it will go. I don't understand it, it can't be your looks. No offense meant."

"And none taken. Well, tell me another time. If you can remember it."

"I'll never forget her. But, Boss, seasickness isn't the half of it. You think these woods are infested. Well, the ones we are coming to—wobbly in the knees, at least I will be—those woods have dragons."

"I know."

"So She told you? But you have to see it to believe it. The woods are full of ‘em. More than there are Doyles in Boston. Big ones, little ones, and the two-ton teen-age size, hungry all the time. You may fancy being eaten by a dragon; I don't. It's humiliating. And final. They ought to spray the place with dragonbane, that's what they ought to do. There ought to be a law."

Star had returned. "No, there should not be a law," she said firmly. "Rufo, don't sound off about things you don't understand. Disturbing the ecological balance is the worst mistake any government can make."

Rufo shut up, muttering. I said, "My true love, what use is a dragon? Riddle me that."

"I've never cast a balance sheet on Nevia, it's not my responsibility. But I can suggest the imbalances that might follow any attempt to get rid of dragons—which the Nevians could do; you've seen that their technology is not to be sneered at. These rats and hogs destroy crops. Rats help to keep the hogs down by eating piglets. But rats are even worse than hogs, on food crops. The dragons graze through these very woods in the daytime—dragons are diurnal, rats are nocturnal and go into their holes in the heat of the day. The dragons and hogs keep the underbrush cropped back and the dragons keep the lower limbs trimmed off. But dragons also enjoy a tasty rat, so whenever one locates a rat hole, it gives it a shot of flame, not always killing adults as they dig two holes for each nest, but certainly killing any babies—and then the dragon digs in and has his favorite snack. There is a long-standing agreement, amounting to a treaty, that as long as the dragons stay in their own territory and keep the rats in check, humans will not bother them."

"But why not kill the rats, and then clean up the dragons?"

"And let the hogs run wild? Please, milord husband, I don't know all the answers in this case; I simply know that disturbing a natural balance is a matter to be approached with fear and trembling—and a very versatile computer. The Nevians seem content not to bother the dragons."

"Apparently we're going to bother them. Will that break the treaty?"

"It's not really a treaty, it's folk wisdom with the Nevians, and a conditioned reflex—or possibly instinct—with the dragons. And we aren't going to bother dragons if we can help it. Have you discussed tactics with Rufo? There won't be time when we get there."

So I discussed how to loll dragons with Rufo, while Star listened and finished her preparations. "All right," Rufo said glumly, "it beats sitting tight, like an oyster on the half shell waiting to be eaten. More dignified. I'm a better archer than you are—or at least as good—so I'll take the hind end, as I'm not as agile tonight as I should be."

"Be ready to switch jobs fast if he swings around."

"You be ready, Boss. I'll be ready for the best of reasons—my favorite skin."

Star was ready and Rufo had packed and reslung the foldbox while we conferred. She placed round garters above each knee of each of us, then had us sit on the rock facing our destination. "That oak arrow, Rufo."

"Star, isn't this out of the Albertus Magnus book?"

"Similar," she said. "My formula is more reliable and the ingredients I use on the garters don't spoil. If you please, milord husband, I must concentrate on my witchery. Place the arrow so that it points at the cave."

I did so. "Is that precise?" she asked.

"If the map you showed me is correct, it is. That's aimed just the way I've been aiming since we left the road."

"How far away is the Forest of Dragons?"

"Uh, look, my love, as long as we're going by air why don't we go straight to the cave and skip the dragons?"

She said patiently, "I wish we could. But that forest is so dense at the top that we can't drop straight down at the cave, no elbow room. And the things that live in those trees, high up, are worse than dragons. They grow—"

"Please!" said Rufo. "I'm airsick already and we're not off the ground."

"Later, Oscar, if you still want to know. In any case we daren't risk encountering them—and won't; they stay up higher than the dragons can reach, they must. How tar to the forest?"

"Mmm, eight and a half miles, by that map and how far we've come—and not more than two beyond that to the Cave of the Gate."

"All right. Arms tight around my waist, both of you, and as much body contact as possible; it's got to work on all of us equally." Rufo and I settled each an arm in a hug about her and clasped hands across her tummy. That's good. Hang on tight." Star wrote figures on the rock beside the arrow.

It sailed away into the night with us after it.

I don't see how to avoid calling this magic, as I can't see any way to build Buck Rogers belts into elastic garters. Oh, if you like, Star hypnotized us, then used psi powers to teleport us eight and a half miles. "Psi" is a better word than "magic"; monosyllables are stronger than polysyllables—see Winston Churchill's speeches. I don't understand either word, any more than I can explain why I never get lost. I just think it's preposterous that other people can.

When I fly in dreams, I use two styles: one is a swan dive and I swoop and swirl and cut didos; the other is sitting Turk fashion like the Little Lame Prince and sailing along by sheer force of personality.

The latter is how we did it, like sailing in a glider with no glider. It was a fine night for flying (all nights in Nevia are fine; it rains just before dawn in the rainy season, they tell me) and the greater moon silvered the ground below us. The woods opened up and became clumps of trees; the forest we were heading for showed black against the distance, much higher and enormously more imposing than the pretty woods behind us. Far off to the left I could glimpse fields of house Lerdki.

We had been in the air about two minutes when Rufo said, "Pa'don me!" and turned his head away. He doesn't have a weak stomach; he didn't get a drop on us. It arched like a fountain. That was the only incident of a perfect flight.

Just before we reached the tall trees Star said crisply, "Amech!" We checked like a heli and settled straight down to a three-fanny landing. The arrow rested on the ground in front of us, again dead. Rufo returned it to his quiver. "How do you feel?" I asked. "And how's your leg?"

He gulped. "Leg's all right. Ground's going up and down."

"Hush!" Star whispered. "Hell be all right. But hush, for your lives!"

We set out moments later, myself leading with drawn sword, Star behind me, and Rufo dogging her, an arrow nocked and ready.

The change from moonlight to deep shadow was blinding and I crept along, feeling for tree trunks and praying that no dragon would be in the path my bump of direction led. Certainly I knew that the dragons slept at night, but I place no faith in dragons. Maybe the bachelors stood watches, the way bachelor baboons do. I wanted to surrender that place of honor to St. George and take a spot farther back.

Once my nose stopped me, a whiff of ancient musk. I waited and slowly became aware of a shape the size of a real estate office—a dragon, sleeping with its head on its tail. I led them around it, making no noise and hoping that my heart wasn't as loud as it sounded.

My eyes were doing better now, reaching out for every stray moonbeam that trickled down—and something else developed. The ground was mossy and barely phosphorescent the way a rotten log sometimes is. Not much. Oh, very little. But it was the way a darkroom light, almost nothing when you go inside, later is plenty of light. I could see trees now and the ground—and dragons.

I had thought earlier, Oh, what's a dozen or so dragons in a big forest? Chances are we won't see one, any more than you catch sight of deer most days in deer country.

The man who gets the all-night parking concession in that forest will make a fortune if he figures out a way to make dragons pay up. We never were out of sight of one after we could see.

Of course these aren't dragons. No, they are uglier. They are saurians, more like tyrannosaurus rex than anything else—big hindquarters and heavy hind legs, heavy tail, and smaller front legs that they use either in walking or to grasp their prey. The head is mostly teeth. They are omnivores whereas I understand that T. rex ate only meat. This is no help; the dragons eat meat when they can get it, they prefer it. Furthermore, these not-so-fake dragons have evolved that charming trick of burning their own sewer gas. But no evolutionary quirk can be considered odd if you use the way octopi make love as a comparison.

Once, far off to the left, an enormous jet lighted up, with a grunting bellow like a very old alligator. The light stayed on several seconds, then died away. Don't ask me—two males arguing over a female, maybe. We kept going, but I slowed after the light went out, as even that much was enough to affect our eyes until our night sight recovered.

I'm allergic to dragons—literally, not just scared silly. Allergic the way poor old Rufo is to Dramamine but more the way cat fur affects some people.

My eyes were watering as soon as we were in that forest, then my sinuses started to clog up and before we had gone half a mile I was using my left fist to rub my upper lip as hard as I could, trying to kill a sneeze with pain. At last I couldn't make it and jammed fingers up my nostrils and bit my lips and the contained explosion almost burst my eardrums. It happened as we were skirting the south end of a truck-and-trailer-size job; I stopped dead and they stopped and we waited. It didn't wake up.

When I started up, my beloved closed on me, grasped my arm; I stopped again. She reached into her pouch, silently found something, rubbed it on my nose and up my nostrils, then with a gentle push signed that we could move on.

First my nose burned cold, as with Vick's salve, then it felt numb, and presently it began to clear.

After more than an hour of this agelong spooky sneak through tall trees and giant shapes, I thought we were going to win "home free." The Cave of the Gate should be not more than a hundred yards ahead and I could see the rise in ground where the entrance would be—and only one dragon in our way and that not in direct line.

I hurried.

There was this little fellow, no bigger than a wallaby and about the same shape, aside from baby teeth four inches long. Maybe he was so young he had to wake to potty in the night, I don't know. All I know is that I passed close to a tree he was behind and stepped on his tail, and he squealed!

He had every right to. But that's when it hit the fan. The adult dragon between us and the cave woke up at once. Not a big one—say about forty feet, including the tail.

Good old Rufo went into action as if he had had endless time to rehearse, dashing around to the brute's south end, arrow nocked and bow bent, ready to loose in a hurry. "Get its tail up!" he called out.

I ran to the front end and tried to antagonize the beast by shouting and waving my sword while wondering how far that flame-thrower could throw. There are only four places to put an arrow into a Nevian dragon; the rest is armored like a rhino only heavier. Those four are his mouth (when open), his eyes (a difficult shot; they are little and piggish), and that spot right under his tail where almost any animal is vulnerable. I had figured that an arrow placed in that tender area should add mightily to that "itching, burning" sensation featured in small ads in the backs of newspapers, the ones that say AVOID SURGERY!

My notion was that, if the dragon, not too bright, was unbearably annoyed at both ends at once, his coordination should go all to hell and we could peck away at him until he was useless, or until he got sick of it and ran. But I had to get his tail up, to let Rufo get in a shot. These creatures, satchel-heavy like old T. rex, charge head up and front legs up and balance this by lifting the tail.

The dragon was weaving its head back and forth and I was trying to weave the other way, so as not to be lined up if it turned on the flame—when suddenly I got my first blast of methane, whiffing it before it lighted, and retreated so fast that I backed into that baby I had stepped on before, went clear over it, landed on my shoulders and rolled, and that saved me. Those flames shoot out about twenty feet. The grown-up dragon had reared up and still could have fried me, but the baby was in the way. It chopped off the flame—but Rufo yelled, "Bull's-eye!"

The reason that I backed away in time was halitosis. It says here that "pure methane is a colorless, odorless gas." The GI tract methane wasn't pure; it was so loaded with homemade ketones and aldehydes that it made an unlimed outhouse smell like Shalimar.

I figure that Stars giving me that salve to open up my nose saved my life. When my nose clamps down I can't even smell my upper lip.

The action didn't stop while I figured this out; I did all my thinking either before or after, not during. Shortly after Rufo shot it in the bull's-eye, the beast got a look of utter indignation, opened its mouth again without flaming and tried to reach its fanny with both hands. It couldn't—forelegs too short—but it tried. I had returned sword in a hurry once I saw the length of that flame jet and had grabbed my bow. I had time to get one arrow into its mouth, left tonsil maybe.

This message got through faster. With a scream of rage that shook the ground it started for me, belching flame—and Rufo yelled, "A wart seven!"

I was too busy to congratulate him; those critters are fast for their size. But I'm fast, too, and had more incentive. A thing that big can't change course very fast, but it can swing its head and with it the flame. I got my pants scorched and moved still faster, trying to cut around it.

Star carefully put an arrow into the other tonsil, right where the flame came out, while I was dodging. Then the poor thing tried so hard to turn both ways at both of us that it got tangled in its feet and fell over, a small earthquake. Rufo sank another arrow in its tender behind, and Star loosed one that passed through its tongue and stuck on the fletching, not damaging it but annoying it dreadfully.

It pulled itself into a ball, got to its feet, reared up and tried to flame me again. I could tell it didn't like me.

And the flame went out.

This was something I had hoped for. A proper dragon, with castles and captive princesses, has as much fire as it needs, like six-shooters in TV oaters. But these creatures fermented their own methane and couldn't have too big a reserve tank nor under too high pressure—I hoped. If we could nag one into using all its ammo fast, there was bound to be a lag before it recharged.

Meanwhile Rufo and Star were giving it no peace with the pincushion routine. It made a real effort to light up again while I was traversing rapidly, trying to keep that squealing baby dragon between me and the big one, and it behaved like an almost dry Ronson; the flame flickered and caught, shot out a pitiful six feet and went out. But it tried so hard to get me with that last flicker that it fell over again.

I took a chance that it would be sluggy for a second or two like a man who's been tackled nard, ran in and stuck my sword in its right eye.

It gave one mighty convulsion and quit.

(A lucky poke. They say dinosaurs that big have brains the size of chestnuts. Let's credit this beast with one the size of a cantaloupe—but it's still luck if you thrust through an eye socket and get the brain right off. Nothing we had done up to then was more than mosquito bites. But it died from that one poke. St. Michael and St. George guided my blade.)

And Rufo yelled, "Boss! Git fer home!"

A drag race of dragons was closing on us. It felt like that drill in basic where you have to dig a foxhole, then let a tank pass over you.

"This way!" I yelled. "Rufo! This way, not that! Star!" Rufo skidded to a stop, we got headed the same way and I saw the mouth of the cave, black as sin and inviting as a mother's arms. Star hung back; I shoved her in and Rufo stumbled after her and I turned to face more dragons for my lady love.

But she was yelling, "Milord! Oscar! Inside, you idiot! I must set the wards!"

So I got inside fast and she did, and I never did chew her out for calling her husband an idiot.