The elders looked at each other, and the cooper Ethern stood up. He knotted his strong hands together as he spoke.
"Thank you for answering our call," he began. "When will the rest of your party arrive?"
"We're it," Gethred said with a crooked smile. "The Company of the Argent Hawk, five strong. I am Gethred Hesthell of Everlund. This is the Vigilant Isildra of the Temple of Helm, Bragor Ironhand, Murgolm Stoyevsk of Vaasa, and Erzimar Dal Tirza of Innarlith, our wizard."
Ethern studied them, rubbing thoughtfully at his long jaw, then asked, "Will five of you be enough?"
"That depends on your dragon," Erzimar replied. "We can't help you if you've got an ancient red to deal with. If that's the case, I would advise you to pack up your belongings and abandon the town." He noted the stricken expressions on the elders' faces, and added, "Anything short of that, we can likely help."
"It's big, but not that big," the cooper said. "Strong, quick, with a heart as black as a rotten tree. A wicked beast."
"And it's damnably clever, too," Rothas muttered.
Erzimar leaned back in his chair and studied the elders. He could see at once that they were scared. Frightened out of their wits, really. No one wanted to meet his eyes. The townsfolk stared at the floorboards or shifted their feet, nervous.
"Listen, Ethern-for what it's worth, we've slain dragons before. We took a black up near the High Moor, and a young but strong red in the Sword Mountains. We know what we're about. Now, tell us the tale from the start."
The cooper looked at his fellow elders, who offered weary shrugs and nods for answers.
He turned back to the Argent Hawks and said, "It started about four tendays ago. We started losing livestock. That's not unusual-trolls raid the outlying homesteads from time to time. But we couldn't find any tracks. It was rainy then, and the pastures muddy. Trolls dragging off cows would have left plenty of footprints.
"Of course, we figured out later that the dragon was taking the livestock on the wing. Anyway, after this had gone on for several nights, we assembled a company of watchmen to guard the pastures. Two dozen archers, in groups of four, plus a few folk who have experience fighting monsters: Elzur, our town sorcerer; Brother Stort, a cleric of Lathander; and Selran, here-" the cooper nodded at a tall, sandy-haired fellow who stood in the back of the room, staring blankly at the floor-"who's stalked gnolls in the hills."
"Didn't know enough to be scared, yet," Rothas, the innkeeper, said.
"Five nights passed with nothing out of the ordinary," the cooper went on, "and some folks thought that whatever it was had moved on. But on the sixth night… on the sixth night it was the dark of the moon. As best we could make out later, it came against Elzur and the archers with him, and killed them all with its breath before they even knew it was there. Then it turned on a nearby homestead. Counting Elzur and our watchmen, ten people dead in one night. That's a hard thing in a town the size of Pelldith Lake."
"I can imagine," Erzimar said. "Go on."
The cooper cleared his throat and said, "Well, we knew we had real trouble. We sent for a company of adventurers, a band of sellswords who were exploring some old ruins nearby. They agreed to help us out. The Fellowship of the Sundered Shield, or the Shield Fellows, they called themselves.
"The Shield Fellows searched the countryside for a couple of days-Selran went with 'em, because no one knows the lands nearby better-and they found a dragon's cave in the hills a few miles off Two tendays ago they set off to go deal with the monster. But none of them came back. The dragon killed them all. Only Selran returned to tell the tale."
Erzimar shifted in his seat, looked up at the straw-haired tracker leaning against the back wall, and asked, "You saw the dragon take them?"
The fellow looked up. His face was streaked with sweat, and his eyes seemed pale and unfocused, as if he looked on distant and terrible things.
"No," Selran managed. "They hired me to serve as a guide to the area, and to help watch their mounts. I did not enter the cave. The dragon called out to me when it was done. Told me to run back home and carry its demands for tribute." He cast his gaze down to the dusty floorboards again. "Its name is Serpestrillvyth."
"Did you pay its tribute?" Erzimar asked Ethern.
"We tried. We scraped together a thousand gold coins, twenty head of cattle, six casks of good wine-it wasn't easy. Then, when we sent the wagon to the place the dragon had told us to, a band of trolls attacked and took it all. We think the dragon put them up to it, because the very next day it killed a little boy, and told his father that the town had better come up with another ransom to replace the one the trolls took."
Bragor the dwarf nodded, his beard spilling over his mailed chest, and said, "Aye, that's an old dragonish trick. Steal the ransom you demanded, and get paid twice."
"We argued long and hard over whether or not to pay again. Alderman Torbath argued most vehemently against it. He pointed out that we might as well spend the coin to hire dragonslayers to rid ourselves of the monster."
Erzimar looked at the elders and asked, "I'm sorry, but I don't recall-which one of you is Torbath?"
The cooper looked away and said, "He's not here, sir. He's dead. The dragon crept right into the middle of town one night and killed him in his bed."
"It found out that Torbath was going to be trouble, and it took care of him," the innkeeper said. He coughed awkwardly. "After that, we sent out word that we needed a dragonslayer."
"The dragon seems well informed about the town," Gethred murmured to the wizard in Elvish.
"It's not unexpected," Erzimar replied in the same language. "It could be a sorcerer of some skill; a lot of dragons are. A few divination spells would easily let it keep an eye on things here. I've warded us against scrying, just in case."
"It could have someone spying for it."
"Or it could have spies, yes. We won't rule out anything yef,"Erzimar answered. He turned his attention to the tracker leaning against the back wall, and spoke in Common again. "Selran, did you see the dragon?"
"I did. Just a glimpse of the monster, as it called out to me from its cave."
"What color was it, and how big? The size of a horse? An oxcart? A house?"
"I'm not sure about the color. It was dark. As far as the size, I would say it was as big as a large draft horse." The tracker looked around the taproom. "It could fit through that door, but not by much. It would pretty much fill this room with its wings and tail and all."
Erzimar nodded. An adult, most likely, but not particularly old and strong, at least as dragons went. Dragons grew throughout their lives, and the really old ones could be tremendously large and powerful. He glanced back to the town's spokesman.
"Have you seen it breathe anything? Fire, acid, lightning?"
"Its breath is a foul, choking, poisonous mist. It can kill everyone in a good-sized farmhouse by blowing its poison in a door or window."
"Those who die from its breath-is their skin eaten away? Puckered and split?"
Ethern paled, but he nodded and said, "Yes, that's the way of it."
"It's a green, then. No doubt about it," Bragor muttered.
He leaned over to Murgolm and explained the conversation to the Vaasan in Dwarvish.
"Can you help us?" Rothas the innkeeper asked.
"Yes," said Erzimar. "It's not to be taken lightly, but we've defeated dragons of that size before. Not a green, but we know what we need to do, I think." He glanced at his companions, searching for dissent and finding none. Then he turned back to the aldermen. "Let's discuss a suitable fee for slaying your dragon."
They rested in Pelldith Lake for the rest of the day and all of the next. The company armed and provisioned for an expedition to the dragon's lair, and they hired the tracker Selran to show them the way. They rode out into the hills above the town in the brief cool hour just after sunrise. Selran rode in the lead, dressed in a sweat-stained jerkin of leather sewn with iron rings, a long bow of yew across his back.
The day was still and sweltering. A distant line of thunderheads slowly gathered in the hazy west, but the low thunder rumbled throughout the afternoon without ever drawing closer. They climbed over endless thicket-covered ridges and splashed through boggy dells, shallow and scummy after the summer drought.
An hour before dusk Selran led them to a ruined hunter's lodge by a reedy lake.
"We're still five miles from the dragon's cave," the ranger said. "I don't dare bring the horses any closer, or it might sniff them out and find us in the night."
"We'll fortify this place with our spells, just in case," Erzimar replied. "It wouldn't do to let Serpestrillvyth catch us sleeping."
While the mage worked his magic and laid his wards, Gethred and Murgolm tended to the horses, and Bragor saw to the cooking as best he could without lighting a fire. Isildra and Selran stood guard, watching the darkening sky and the warm, still woods. The ranger stood in the shadows of the trees and watched the Argent Hawks at their tasks, his face set in a stony frown.