Chapter 19: Chapter 19

“Who the hell are you?” Nya asked as she blinked against the fog. The man, dressed in a black shirt, open wide enough at the collar that she could see a tuft of dark hair across his chest, black pants and boots, all of it with red piping along the seams, with dark hair and intense dark eyes, staring at her with a smoldering glare, paused several paces in front of her. The fog seemed to dissipate for a moment, and behind him, Nya could see nothing but the jagged tops of the mountain. No trees, no plants, no buildings, no animals. No dragon.

“Wh-who are you?” Nya stammered, her sword out in front of her as she prepared to defend herself. As far as she could see, he wasn’t armed, but he might be some sort of a sorcerer or something. As concerned as she was that the monster she’d come to kill had disappeared into thin air, she had to deal with this mysterious person first. He didn’t look threatening as he stood across from her, sizing her up, but he didn’t look happy either. Nya had faced off against many an angry, muscular man in her life. This guy was built like a slab of stone. Muscles on top of muscles. He was tall, too. At least a foot taller than her. He was glaring at her, which made his handsome face look dark and not quite as attractive as he would have if he’d been smiling. But it didn’t intimidate her. Nya had fought Rok enough times not to let a crotchety personality dissuade her in battle.

“Who am I?” he repeated, shaking his head. He folded his arms across his massive chest. “Who are you? What the hell are you doing?”

“Who am I?” Nya repeated, realizing that was exactly what he’d just said to her. “I’m Princess Nya of Frindom, and I have come to slay the dragon that terrorizes our kingdoms. That’s who I am! Now, if you’ll kindly step aside so that I can find him, I would greatly appreciate it!”

“Find him?” the man in black repeated before he gave a slight chuckle and shook his head. Whatever he found amusing about that statement, he didn’t elaborate at the moment. Instead, he continued his inquiry, as if Nya owed him an explanation. “If you are princess of Frindom, what are you doing in Goodhorn?”

“I don’t owe you any answers, sir,” she said, being overly polite, though she didn’t think she owed him that either. He had a strange accent, something that reminded her of the lands far to the southwest of her own kingdom. South of Beelzanborg, the evil empire to the west. She could understand him easily enough, but he pronounced words so differently than her, it took a bit of her concentration, and since she was already having trouble concentrating on anything other than his physique, if he had produced a weapon and came at her, she would likely fold like a bad hand of cards.

“Fair enough,” he said. “Perhaps you don’t owe me any answers, but I’d like to have them just the same.

Nya arched an eyebrow at him, thinking she was wasting too much time. “Do you know where the dragon is?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he told her quickly.

“Will you help me find him if I answer your questions?” she said, doubting he would.

“Of course.” His answer surprised her. She wondered if he was here hunting the dragon as well.

Nya sighed. She needed to find the quickest way to answer his questions so that she could get on with her hunt. “I am at Goodhorn because I snuck out of my home, Castle Redrock, and rode here to destroy the dragon. I could never do that in my own kingdom. My father would put a stop to it.” He had put a stop to it. He’d literally restrained her during the last Dragon Moon to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

He cocked his head to the side and stared at her. “But why?” he asked her, causing Nya to pull her head back and crinkle her eyebrows. “Why do you want to kill the dragon?”

Her assumption that he also wanted to kill the dragon went out the window. “Why?” she asked, as if he’d asked her why she was breathing or why she allowed her heart to beat. “Because! He’s pure evil. He snatches children away from their families in the middle of the night and devours them! He demands these sacrifices from all of the kingdoms, and if he doesn’t get them, he burns the villages to the ground!”

The man in black’s reaction to her outrage was the opposite of anything she would've ever imagined. Rather than gasping in shock or shouting with outrage, he laughed. He actually chuckled at her. Dropping his head and shaking it slowly as he moved his hands to his hips and studied the rocky ground by the tip of his black boot.

The outrage was all Nya’s. “You laugh? You dare stand there and laugh as I tell you what the evil dragon does? Do you think that what I say is not true?”

“I know that what you say is not true,” he replied, causing Nya’s eyes to widen. “I’m sad to hear you say it, but it’s not at all the truth of the matter. I know that as fact.”

“Fact? Not true?” Nya wanted to run him through just for being so smug and incorrect. “Of course it’s true! I’ve seen it with my own eyes, time and again. For years! It would’ve happened again this very night if I hadn’t distracted the bastard!”

The fog was back. It billowed around them for a moment before it dissipated enough for her to see his eyes again. He was still staring at her, but there was a hint of a smile in those dark eyes as he took a few steps closer to her. Nya didn’t retreat, only stared back at him. “You’ve seen it? With your own eyes?”

“Yes!” Nya assured him. “I have. Many times!”

“Which part of this preposterous assertion have you seen exactly?”

“All of it!” she shouted. She couldn't understand why this man couldn’t believe that the dragon, a savage beast if she’d ever seen one, would devour children.

“You’ve seen the dragon eat children?”

Nya was about to shout, “Yes!” again when she realized she hadn’t, in fact, seen the children being eaten. She’d only seen the dragon carry them away. Everyone knew that he ate the children, though. What else could he possibly do with them?

Still, she had to admit that she hadn’t actually seen that much with her own eyes. “No, I haven’t seen him eat the children.” she said, with a twitch in her shoulder. “But of course he eats them! Do you think he carries them up to his nest and erects a tea party for them?”

“And… what makes you think it’s only children he takes? This fellow tonight. Was he a child?”

Again, Nya was thrown for a loop. She had thought it was odd that the man waiting for the dragon’s arrival was a prisoner, not a child. But… she couldn’t admit to this man that she was wrong on two counts, so she countered with, “I don’t see what difference that makes!”

“It does make a difference.” He was back to folding his arms again. “You say that this dragon only eats children, yet this man was not a child. He was a dangerous prisoner, wasn’t he?”

“I have no idea who he was,” she said with a shrug. “He might’ve been.”

“Do all of the other kingdoms provide only children, except for Goodhorn?”

“I don’t know,” she told him. “Frindom does.”

“Perhaps Frindom is doing it wrong. Or maybe they chose to only choose a child when the dragon only requests that they give him someone--not necessarily a child.”

She wanted to take a moment to contemplate his point. Was it possible that Frindom was the only kingdom that was sacrificing a child every year? Why would they do that?

She couldn’t let him distract her, though. “Why should he take anyone?” she asked, jabbing her sword in his direction.

“In exchange for his services,” the man replied with another smug shrug.

“Services?” Nya almost laughed. It was absurd. “The dragon provides no services to our kingdom!”

“Of course he does.” He didn’t seem angry, only slightly annoyed. “When was the last time the dragons from the north swept down and lit a village among the twelve kingdoms aflame? When was the last time the dragons from the south flew up and destroyed a fishing vessel out on the lake or wiped out a field of sheep or milk cows?”

Her mouth dropped open. Who was this man that he could ask her questions like this? As if the dragon who stole their children during the Dragon Moon could single handedly hold those other thunders of dragons at bay! “I don’t know!” she shouted back at him. “But the dragon did set a village on fire in another kingdom when they didn’t make their sacrifice during one of their Dragon Moons.”

“Do you know that, or is that just a rumor?” he asked.

“I know it!” she said. That wasn’t true. Not exactly. She hadn’t been there or anything. But she trusted her sources! Of course, those were the same people who’d told her that sacrifices must be children. And they’d never said anything about the dragon providing any sort of services for the kingdoms.

He shook his head. “I doubt that. I’m so sorry to disappoint you, Princess. But your understanding of the dragon and all that he does is far from correct.”

Nya couldn’t believe her ears. Nor could she trust the man in front of her. “And how the hell do you know?” she demanded. “Who are you? Some sort of a… dragon expert?”

“Yes,” he said, his face completely serious now. “I am some sort of a dragon expert, particularly when it comes to this specific dragon.”

Nya placed her free hand on her hip, coming completely out of her defensive stance. “And who are you exactly? You know who I am, after all. What’s your name? Who are you?” she repeated.

He chuckled and ran his hand through his dark hair, which caught the light of the moon and made it look like satin threads. “My name is Slate,” he told her, looking her right in the eyes. “I know the dragon well, Princess, because… I am the dragon.”