The Woodsman: Chapter Ten

 “Good morning!” he shouted.

The dragon sleeping at the top of the hill opened her eyes and blinked in disbelief at the foolish man standing beneath her.

Tyler smiled at the magnificent beast sitting atop the hill above him. Dragons were beautiful, like standing in front of a raging forest fire or funnel cloud coming straight at you. Deadly but unique forces of nature.

“May I use your name, Miss?” Tyler shouted, standing upon a large boulder down the hill.

The dragon blinked again, her rasp-like voice cutting through the air like grinding stones making sounds into words. “Does it matter if you are dead, insect?”

“Vaishali, is it?” Tyler smiled, his arms to each side. “That is a dragon’s name, lovely. It has this ring of death and destruction to it as well. May I ask who gave you the name?”

Vaishali’s eyelids lowered, and her upper lip pulled off her teeth. “My mother.”

He raised his hand as if he meant her no harm and turned as he sat upon a large stone. He kept his back to her; even though he did not want to, he could still hear her move if she lunged down the hill at him.

“I don’t mean you harm, noble beast. I am sorry to bother you, and I would never think of doing this in normal circumstances. If you wish to be left alone, let me know.”

“Or I could just kill you,” she said, and he heard the wheeze in her lung with the reply.

“True,” he said, “but you should save your energy for enemies who threaten you, Milady.”

Silence.

And more silence.

“I am waiting,” she said, and he could feel the penetrating gaze upon him from above.

“A death mage,” he said. “I have a powerful sorceress, one I hope to make a mother someday like yourself, and he nearly killed the woman I now love. He is likely watching you now and planning how to slay a dragon.”

“As if the fool could,” came her reply.

“Forgive me for saying,” and he counted his last possible moments on this world before his following words came, “but death magic would be powerful against a dragon with a sword stuck in her lung.”

She growled so loud pebbles slid down the hill around him, bouncing off the rock and the vibrations shaking him to his core.

The following words hit him like a storm. “Did you come up here just to antagonize me, human?”

“No,” he said, “I came up here to make a deal.”

“A deal,” and he could hear he raise her head by the change in tone of the voice in her throat, “can only be made by someone with something to offer. You come here weak, powerless, and alone. And you torment me with your observations. You should be”

He cut her off purposefully. “The millions of golds my love’s people flee with. I offer you a cut in return for their safety. There is a small fee for crossing your land, and they are allowed to continue their way.”

Silence.

He continued. “And a larger cut should you guarantee their safety as they cross your lands. Specifically, removing those who would take your gold and give you no tribute.”

He smiled.

She huffed out her nose. “I could take tribute, but no safety offer is guaranteed.”

He turned, looking over his shoulder and into her bestial eyes.

“I could guarantee yours.”

Her face turned to rage, and she leaned down the hill towards him. Stones rattled and slid down the slope under her front claws.

Time to press the point. There were times to be meek when confronting a dragon and times to show bravery. This was the latter.

He turned and stood, walking up the hill towards the beast. It felt like walking into the heart of a storm, and he could feel the blasts of her heaving breath jet down the mountain like gusts of hot wind. Every step up the rocky slope felt like stepping into his own grave.

“We both know what I am offering,” he said as he pointed toward the wound on her side, caked blood from the numerous times she reopened the wound evident on her scaly hide. “I pull that sword from you and seal the wound. I can reach it; you cannot.”

She pulled back, and her throat tensed as if she would breathe fire upon him and end this. She coughed instead, trails of smoke rising from her nostrils. “You could push the blade deeper and kill me if you get your hand upon that hilt, human.”

He kept climbing towards her, his own eyes narrowed like a dragon’s.

“The difference is, I need you alive to kill my enemies, Vaishali. If I kill you, I do the death mage’s job for him, and he kills me and my future wife and her people. This way, you live, my love and her people, and most importantly, I live. You live to raise your young, and I stay alive to have my own. And the pain and suffering you feel end.”

He stopped on a boulder within several steps and addressed her.

“And you get paid for your troubles.”

He folded his arms and waited. He did not avert his gaze from her or pretend weakness. He needed to stand firm in his offer and show confidence in it before her majesty. Either he would die or follow through with his part of the deal.

Vaishali swallowed. “Millions?”

He nodded. “I told her she was stupid.”

Vaishali cocked her head to the side. “Ten percent is all I can fly home with.”

He smiled. “I can’t let my love get away that cheaply. How about we raise it to twenty percent, bury it in a few spots for you, and you can haul it home at your leisure?”

Vaishali smiled.

He stepped towards her again, and she lowered her head to come within feet of his face.

“And I will make it half if you can guarantee the death mage and the swordsman chasing her are both dead.”

Vaishali’s grin deepened as she showed her massive, sword-length fangs.

“Deal.”

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