Ow! my aching bones. That was the most embarrassing joust ever.” Ivan said to me, and he laughed to a deep throaty conclusion.

  “Aye, I’m glad I can barely remember that joust, being drunk off my arse on mead as I was. "Har, har!” I said, “but I am glad you fell when you did.”

  “Yes,” said Ivan laughing. “I wouldn’t have a head right now.”

  I could smell food frying and adore the first-class treatment from the servants in the tavern, preparing greasy tasting beef steaks as we were welcomed to the cool bathhouse inside the Inn on this scorching humid day. We bathed in blue painted wooden tubs with red dragons on the side, and the armor bearers brought our tunics, trousers and smooth, glittering plate mail to our separate rooms. Goin was worried so he offered me a heavy sack of gold coins for I and Ivan's, and Ledge’s stay at the Inn. I almost dropped the sack, it would have scattered coins all over the bathhouse and brought anger and dumbfounded Lady Janice, maybe I should’ve dropped it.

  When Ledge was a child, his parents would bathe him every day. He has not taken a bath in two weeks. A weight has been lifted off of him, he looks lighter by the way he moves, and more energetic, or maybe it's the steaks, he does seem bloated though.

  “Sir Goin Windart, may I ask,” said Ledge, “have you seen Lady Janice?”

  “I have not since she gave me the sack of coins,” said Goin with darting eyes, heaving, and puffing with frustration, “I thought she was in your care.”

  “What news has ye, father?” I asked.

  “For us knights of Atlantivanne.” Replied Goin whole heartedly then he shook his head. “King Annon gave us this quest to slay the Dragon Zarlock, we must follow through, with or without Lady Janice I am afraid.”

  “We don’t need her,” I said bright and astutely.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I know you have bad blood with her, son, but she is the only dwarf to have survived a dragon,” said Goin, “or slayed one.”

  “I can slay a dragon too,” my voice felled myself, “and I will slay Zarlock.”

  “I believe in you Sir Rune, that you can slay the Lord of Dragons, I will follow you to Spiral Fang. I am a dragon tamer!” said Ledge.

  Goin hesitated then shook his head, “We have no choice in the matter. The king’s Dragon Slayers will meet us at sundown. We are to travel in the guise of night from the most southern forest until we will build a ship and set off.”

  Ledge looked glum at me cheering. An hour later we left the Lion Dragon Inn and met an envoy of the king with four Dragon Slayers holding lances and shields. We mounted our ponies and headed off. A strong peasant helped pull a rickshaw with carpentry tools for constructing the ship, and rope if needed.

  The company and I trotted and rolled along a winding solid road marked with grey, fresh smelling cobble stones and hedges. A black bear was minding its cubs scavenging and tasting wild red berries from thorny bramble bushes, careful not to prick their noses and paws.

  “Let’s camp here,” said Ledge as he rubbed his smooth, shiny plate mail where his belly was famished. He had indigestion, tasting his stomach acid and smelling his own bloated odor. Off the road the pots and pans in his pack clinked as he got off his black pony. I could hear his stomach growling.

  “We are not even halfway to the logging village of Dunharn,” Goin said as he joined Ledge, his own belly growling also.

  I watched my companions camping to the side of Dunharn Road as a rider galloped towards me. All alone and mounted. I raised my shield to brace for impact, pulling my hammer as I saw the rider raise their lance towards me.

  I was knocked clean off my pony as the lance impaled my body armor and shield. Everything went black, and I would wake up in the worst agony of my life much later.

  “I did not think it would go through,” the rider dismounted to help me.

  Goin drew his hammer and overwhelmed the black rider with blow after punishing blow. “That was my son, you bastard.”

  Now sprawled on her back, the black knight removed her helm while she was being crushed.

  “It is me, father. Stop,” said Lady Janice, pale as a ghost with crickets clicking and buzzing in the backdrop in the white moonlight. Cold beads rolled down her rosy cheeks. It looked as if she were tasting her own tangy tears as she smelled the green downs in agony.

  “I was only teaching Rune a lesson; I did not mean to hurt him.”

  “Hurt him? He’s dead!” said Goin.