Story © Lupine 2002

By Lupine.

Many thanks to Danyal Herder for giving me the idea. WARNING! X-rated. X for X-plosions!

Oh woe, gentle reader! Oh misery, oh fie! For unto the peaceful and anciente kingdome of Albion came the foul and deadly menace of a Dragonne, which verily like a tempeste of flame and fire did rip through the heart of that land. And the shadowe of the Beaste, cast wide and dark across the realm seemed with it to bring doome and despair, and its breath was the very reeking, fiery furnace of Hell itself. From his mightye throne before the Round Table, the brave and just King Archie the Lion did dispatch three knights, pure of thought and noble of virtue, on a Quest. To them he offered the highest honour and privilege that all of Chivalry aspired to: slaying a Dragonne! The three Greate Warriors did set upon their venture to Save the Land with hearts high and oriflamme flying proudly before them. They marched through the ancient and revered forests of their kingdome, towards their destiny…

The clearing looked harmless enough: it was a mossy open space surrounded by forest, criss-crossed with six or so rough animal trails that wound into the undergrowth. It had a puddle of thin mud that in winter, when there was more water about (but which was usually frozen solid), was a fairly decent pool of clean water. Here and there was enough light breaking through the canopy for the occasional tuft of grass to make a decent living. Birds chattered and sang in the treetops all around, innocently and joyously shouting; "My tree!" "Look at the wings on that one!" and "What a big tail I’ve got!" The undergrowth was alive with mysterious rustlings as various animals went about their daily business of eating each other, marking their territories and making lots more animals.

There came an unnaturally loud rustling from down one of the trails, along with a distinctly unnatural clonking and clanging, like saucepans banging into each other. Everything in and around the clearing froze, then as one organism turned and sprinted away (or crawled, or flew, or burrowed, whichever) to other parts of the forest. They knew trouble when they heard it. The sounds got louder as whatever made them approached the clearing, sometimes veering off in one direction or another as though it was blundering about like a blind bull. The forest went absolutely still: even the leaves fell in hushed voices. There was a final rending sound of wood, and a knight broke through to edge of the clearing. It was impossible to mistake him for anything else. He was dressed entirely in steel armour, the long arm-and-leg guards made of interlocking segments and none too few rivets. The elbows and knees were especially complicated. His torso was covered by a broad breastplate, surmounted with an iron collar set between bulky shoulder guards into which his helmet was attached, and tapering down to a narrow waist. The helmet was definitely impressive, roughly stylised into a stag’s head, and with a massive pair of antlers rearing out from the top. He was carrying a shield (also with a stag’s head emblazoned on it), had a large broadsword in a scabbard by his hip, and had an incongruous leather pack slung over his shoulder.

The knight looked the clearing over, his helmet squeaking slightly as it turned. Apparently satisfied, he strode forwards boldly, with the kind of stride that one uses when they just know they’re making a heroic entrance. And it would have been, had the antlers not tangled in the branch just above his head. He was brought up short, seemed to dangle by his head for a moment, then crashed backwards with an undignified squawk. He collided with the knight walking right behind him, making its armour ring like a bell. They staggered around and disentangled themselves with various curses and threats to anything within range. Then the second knight grabbed the branch in one hand, the antlers in another, and yanked. The first knight yelped in pain and stumbled into the clearing, followed by the other. The antlered warrior hobbled around a bit, clutching his helmet. Then, seeing that there was nothing that could be used as a comfy seat, he made a disgusted noise and sat on the ground with a clang. His gauntlets reached behind his head and fiddled with some catches, then pulled his helmet off. It revealed a rust-brown stag, very similar to the helmet except with more sweat and a scowl on his features. The antlers were actually his.

"Bloody trees." He muttered sourly, rubbing his smarting head. From the other suit of armour came a strange metallic noise that sounded suspiciously like tinned sniggering. This knight wore identical armour except for the shield, which had a roaring lion’s head on it, and the helmet, which was strangely blank and didn’t seem to match the armour very well at all. This knight also unsnapped and pulled off its helmet, revealing (surprise surprise) a tall, good-looking lion. The first thing you’d notice about him was his mane. It was a very good mane. It glowed a vibrant red-brown, and seemed to expand out like a well-shampooed and conditioned dandelion as soon as the helmet was gone. It seemed impossible that so much hair could have been crammed under it. Sir Leonard grinned maliciously at the stag.

"Not their fault, Buck. You shouldn’t have such damn great things waving about like that when you’re marching through a forest. Get them cut off: these trees have been here a lot longer than you have." The stag made a deeply unflattering statement about trees, which didn’t reply but quietly determined to make the ground he slept on as hard as possible. He then scowled at the grinning lion.

"So in that case, why don’t you get your mane cut off, Leo? You know that’s against the Code of Conduct: bad helmet safety." Sir Buck was rewarded with seeing the smirk vanish instantly, to be replaced by an answering scowl.

"The first person to touch my hair, dies." The lion ran a paw through it, and then disdainfully threw the helmet across the clearing. It landed in the muddy pool and half sank. "There, I won’t need that now we’re out of sight." It was Buck’s turn to snigger.

"That’s the fourth helmet you’ve ‘lost in combat’ this month. One day they’ll twig, and then you’re going to be for it. It wasn’t even yours, this time." The lion had borrowed the Keep’s spare whilst they made him a new one. Leo shrugged, and tried to wipe a few specks of mud off his armour before they rusted on. Buck grated his teeth at this. Leo’s armour gleamed due to near constant polishing and scouring. Uncharitably (if not accurately), he’d decided that the sole reason was so that Leo could see his face in it. Buck’s own armour was decent enough, and he cleaned it when he needed to, but it had still acquired the patina that comes from frequent use. Right now, it was filthy from their little treck. Several puddles had also taught him that rust had put a small hole in the left foot. Besides, Leo spent an absolute fortune on polish, which was a crime in Buck’s eyes.

Just then, as Buck was helpfully about to point out an imaginary smear on the centre of Leo’s backplate, there came a renewed crashing from the forest and Sir Ursos trudged into the clearing with a very annoyed expression on his muzzle. The stag greeted him with a cheerful.

"What kept you?" Sir Ursos (known to friends as Bruno) growled and dropped the three large, heavy packs he was carrying.

"What! How am I supposed to keep up if you two go diving into those tiny gaps in the undergrowth?" The bear didn’t have standard armour, mainly because of his size. Being seven feet tall didn’t help matters, but the main problem was one of sheer girth, and the fact that he tapered in the other direction. His breastplate had had to be beaten out a lot to accommodate the expansive bulge of his front, and he was easily twice as broad as the other knights. His helmet was an open one to accommodate his chubby, ursine features better. That, and he didn’t need it much anyway. A large war-axe hung from his side. Both Leo and Buck had trouble even lifting it. One sight of the bear picking his teeth with the sharp end put people off fighting him. Right now, they had the grace to look slightly sheepish. Bruno’s scowl wobbled a little. "That, and I sort of stopped for a snack." The other two rolled their eyes at each other. There you had the main reason for Bruno’s width. His appetite was infamous. Buck sighed and tapped the bear’s front, which boomed like a gong.

"That stomach of yours is going to get you in trouble sometime soon. You shouldn’t be so greedy." Bruno stared at him, and laughed incredulously.

"That’s rich, coming from you. I’ve never known anyone else dive into a wishing well to get the coins from the bottom."

"Hey!" Buck glared up at him. "It would have made my wish come true!" Neither could keep a straight face, though. Bruno caught sight of Leo trying to polish his armour’s elbows.

"You’ve got terrible helmet hair, Leo." The lion wrenched up his mirror-polished shield and stared into it, then watched his ‘friends’ collapse with helpless giggles at the expression of total horror that had flickered across his face. He snarled.

"Enough with the hair already!"

A little later, they were back on the move, deeper into the forest. This time they let Bruno go first, mainly to clear a decent path. He shouldered through a spinney of bracken, flattening most of it to the floor. One particularly flexible branch whiplashed back and nearly knocked Buck off his feet. The choice phrases he used to let off steam blistered the air. He then sighed irritably.

"Remind me: who’s idiot idea this was again?"

* * *

The Great and Revered Merlin the Wizard watched the three knights tramp into his workroom. It was the most impressive space in the Keep after the Throne Room. A good twenty feet across, totally circular and topped with a massive glass-paned dome. This illuminated the benches, stands, alembics, magic circles, stuffed alligators and complicated assemblages of glassware essential to any magical practitioner’s art. Currently there were low-lying clouds, so unfortunately a good deal of the splendour was lost on the three. There was an uncomfortable silence for a bit, and finally Sir Leonard asked, a little hesitantly,

"You wanted to see us, Master Merlin?" Ah, taking the initiative. A bright chap, by all accounts. Merlin approved.

"Indeed I did." The old raven put a warm smile on his beak and dropped the invisibility spell, seeming to appear out of thin air in front of the three. To their credit, they only took a pace or so back before recovering. But then, most knights didn’t have the imagination to be scared of things appearing out of thin air. It was a useful trait in their line of work, and it was what the wizard was counting on now. "His Majesty has urgent need of your services." He watched with approval as three suits of armour swelled with pride, Sir Ursos getting the best value for money. They all straightened up a bit.

"His Majesty’s wish is my command."

"I am sworn to his Sword."

"It is my honour to Serve." Merlin’s smile widened. He turned, and made a show of studying a long, expensive and highly occult piece of bubbling glassware before rounding on them.

"Have you heard the rumours of a Dragon terrorising the Kingdom?" The three relaxed a little, and nodded. There had been talk of nothing else for the last week. Patently absurd. Everyone was getting rather sick of it. Sir Buck gave a slightly contemptuous snort, forgetting himself and losing his aspect of awed deference.

"There are plenty of rumours, Master Merlin, each one more wild than the last. The ‘dragon’ has supposedly smashed down Tintagel Castle in the West, burned the whole of the North Forest to ash, and eaten a suspiciously large number of farmers’ herds in the South East, all of which are claiming compensation from the king, and all at the same time. They had a lot of explaining to do when Sir Lancelot and the others turned up to find the animals still there." He laughed. "We even heard the rumour that the dragon had burned down the Keep! The messenger who rode in here to tell us felt slightly silly. There probably isn’t even a dragon at all. Like the last three scares, and back at the new millennium when they said Judgement day was coming. No one’s seen a real bone fide dragon for centuries." Merlin cut in.

"This dragon is very much real, I am afraid."

"Everyone says that they’re exti- ex… eh…" Buck trailed off with a gulp, going slightly pale. Merlin fixed him with a look.

"Really? Is it not written that in darker times such beasts terrorised the land?"

"Yes, but-"

"And is it not common knowledge that the greatest heroes of chivalry fought and bested many foul and fell creatures of cunning and avarice?" His expression made Buck cringe.

"Yes, of course it is! Its just that-"

"You would deny the teachings and history of your faith of chivalry itself, and claim that dragons do not exist?!" Merlin seemed incensed. He had grown a lot in this last sentence, and the room seemed to be darkening around him.

"Yes! I mean no! I-I…" the stag stuttered to a wretched, cowed halt. Both of the others had taken a few paces backwards. The wizard took a deep breath and shrank back down to normal. The room brightened, and he carried on.

"You have been granted a great honour," he said, stressing the word. The pleased, massively eager smiles returned to the three faces. Except for one, where it slowly melted away again, to be replaced by an uneasy expression.

"What is His Majesty’s command?" Sir Leonard asked in a slow voice. Merlin didn’t like that. He could see unfortunate conclusions clicking into place. Maybe a bit too bright.

"His Majesty commands that you set out at once, and slay the dragon." He watched as Sir Buck’s and Sir Ursos’ smiles became vaguely panicked, and as Sir Leonard’s face solidified into a grim ‘I thought that was coming’ look. Merlin smiled briskly and ruffled his wings. "So, good Sirs, you had best be off to prepare. Make all haste! You ride to your destiny! The honour of all chivalry rides with you-"

"Excuse me, sir." Sir Leonard interjected humbly. The three knights shared a long look.

"What?" Merlin asked, a little irritably. That had been a good speech.

"When you say His Majesty commands ‘us’, was he actually that specific, as in asking for the three of us, in particular, name by name?" Sir Leonard asked slowly, as if he were working the sentence out as he went along. Merlin blinked, caught off guard.

"No, of course he didn’t."

"So theoretically, it would be entirely possible to send three completely different knights to slay the dragon, causing the same net result, and still obeying the orders of the King." Merlin scowled. This looked dicey. No knight had ever used words like ‘theoretically’, or a phrase like ‘net result’.

"You have been selected for this task." He said sharply, dropping his jovial tone completely. The three flinched a little, not wanting a repeat performance of an angry Merlin. He might include special effects this time. "It is his majesty’s order that you slay the dragon. Let me make it quite clear that this is considered a great privilege. Every knight in the realm would kill for an opportunity like this." Sir Leonard gulped, but carried on doggedly.

"Then surely, Master Merlin, it would be honourable to send another three? There are certainly more skilled and more deserving knights." This was true. It would actually be quite hard to find three knights less worthy of such an honour. It could be done, but it would involve a lot of effort. In fact, seeing as how they’d finished quite near the bottom of the lists for their classes, it was surprising to Merlin that they’d been made knights at all. They weren’t stupid, or incompetent, or even plain honest-to-goodness lazy, their instructors said. They’d had years of experience of dealing with those sorts. Almost every knight could be classified into at least one category. It was more their attitude. They had never really gotten into the spirit of the thing. Merlin knew that, and was sending these three specifically because of that. But you couldn’t really tell them that they were going out with the sole purpose of being Dragon Fodder. It’d be bad for morale.

"After all, it would only be just and right to do so." Leo added humbly. Despite himself, Merlin was impressed. The lad was right, in accordance to the principles of chivalry: Justice, Honour and Humility. He was stymied. Damnation! The raven sighed to himself. It was at times like this that he wished he was still just ‘The Amazing Merlin and his Beautiful Assistant Doris’. He had actually trained as a court jester, and as such was several IQ points above the average knight (and His Majesty was very average), but when faced with intractable problems like this he began to regret his career change, despite the benefits. If only he hadn’t gone for the impressive look when the King and himself had met! Well, he was stuck with it for now, and if it did all go pear-shaped he still had his old caravan around somewhere. And Doris, too, for that matter. If only he could remember how to turn someone back from a frog… oh well.

Merlin sighed again. If principle or spiritual arguments alone weren’t going to work, he’d have to appeal to the more mortal sides to their nature. He chose his next words carefully.

"A gruelling and parlous Quest like this would of course tax the most meritorious of our valiant knights-" Sir Ursos looked confused, and was moving his lips as he translated for himself, but the other two were looking less happy by the second. ‘Gruelling’ and ‘parlous’ were not reassuring terms when in connection with work. He hurried on "-and as such, any knight that did willingly undertake this task would prove their honour and courage beyond question, and show themselves more than worthy of joining the exalted ranks of their brethren seated with His Majesty at the Round Table." He took a few deep breaths, and watched the information register on their faces. It took some time, but when it did they all looked a little stunned. They shared another long look. Merlin couldn’t read minds, but he could almost see the conversation hanging in the air:

The Round table? THE Round Table? Do we know what that would mean? Yes, but hang on. We know what slaying dragons would mean too. Fire, screams, alarums, lashing tail, great big sharp teef-ike-iss, possibly roasting in our own foil….

Sir Leonard coughed uncertainly, but seemed to get something on a grip on himself again. Table or no table, violent fiery death was violent fiery death.

"That’s… very just and proper, but I’m afraid I don’t see how-"

"The Table, of course, is famous in story and song for the great deeds of its members. And," Merlin unexpectedly dropped his strident tone to a confiding smile "some of the banquets thrown on it have been pretty memorable too. I’ve had to be summoned to stop it from collapsing under the weight, once or twice. You wouldn’t believe the things they’ve done with venison to-"

"Gwoarr..." Merlin broke off as Sir Leonard glanced sharply at Sir Ursos, who’s stomach had just emitted an audible growl, and who was staring into the middle distance as though he could see the Holy Grail. The bear looked surreptitiously at the other two, who gazed back stonily:

C’mon. The Round Table? Song and story? With added feasting! No way. Dragon, remember? Scales, big teeth, fire, lashing tail. Uh-uh. Oh…

Then they turned at least two sceptical looks on the Wizard. Well, he had laid it on a little bit thick. Merlin shrugged, conceding the point, and began pacing around the room. "But what am I doing, discussing frivolities like that when the Kingdom is in such peril from a dragon, no less? Forgive a rambling old bird." Merlin looked grave, "Apart from the mortal danger it places the peasantry in, this dragon also seems to share its species’ hereditary instinct to steal and hoard gold-"

"What!" Sir Buck looked shaken.

"Indeed. Gold, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, all kinds of riches. Runners from all over the Kingdom have reported that towns, villages, even a few castles have been ruthlessly pillaged by this Serpent. ‘Ere now it has half the Realm’s gold for its ill-gotten bed. I pity the poor soul that tries to relieve the beast of all that wealth." Sir Buck’s expression went very, very thoughtful, then suddenly became a lot more righteous and eager for a fray. He looked over to Sir Ursos, then both turned and stared at Sir Leonard, who found stony looks a lot less effective this time.

Half the kingdom’s wealth. Rubies. Gold! The Round Table. Banquets! No. Dragon. Big scales, razor sharp teeth. No. Lots of gold! Huge banquets! Rubies! Hello? Teeth. Fire! Gold! Screams! Lashing banquets! with claws and horrible big rubies!

I don’t believe this! Do you want to get Riches! Feasting!

Yes, but a gold dragon!! Venison, too. But… but a ROUND TABLE GROANING WITH GOLD AND BANQUETS!

"Of course, if the kingdom were to be saved, the joy felt by everyone would be so overwhelming that anything might happen. Even spurious rumours about extensive debts from amoral and illegal gambling amongst our honourable and valiant knights might be written off."

"His Majesty’s wish is our command!"

"It will be our honour to slay the foul beast!"

"We’ll get ready at once!" Merlin beamed approval over the three curiously opaque faces.

"Then go. Your selfless devotion to duty is an example to all knights. Destiny awaits you." The three knights departed. Merlin sagged, and started to preen himself in relief. Knights had been dispatched on a quest to slay the dragon. Of course, there’d probably be a huge row amongst the other knights when they found out just whom had been sent, but after a while only the most terminally brave and honourable would quieten down in case they were sent next. Merlin did feel a little guilty about the whole thing, but at least if those three did get eaten then it wasn’t too much of a waste of teaching resources, and they wouldn’t need three extra seats at the Round Table.

Destiny; sometimes defined as ‘What one has coming to them.’

However, there was a feeling at the back of his mind. Other knights… well, of course, as nice a bunch of people to ever yell ‘Gadzooks!’ and race around on horses bashing each other over the head. But they had a disadvantage when dealing with a dragon. They would automatically fight fair. Merlin felt that was now only a remote possibility. Unfortunately, either way, he still couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that, somehow, Albion had Done It Again…

* * *

So in fact blame could equally be laid at Sir Buck’s feet too, and the others unfeelingly took the opportunity to point this out. The stag scowled after them, heaved himself upright and staggered on.

"I still want to know how that old buzzard knew out about the betting horseshoe (knights were more familiar with these than rings, and besides, the Stables ran it with a hoof of steel). I wouldn’t put it past him to have placed bets himself."

"What I want to know," Bruno put in irritably, "is why is it that I’m carrying most of our gear?"

"Because you’re the biggest and the strongest, and so can carry more stuff." Leo said reasonably. "You know that we couldn’t get horses in time."

(In fact, the Stables had flatly refused. The horses had heard about their quest, and had hurriedly organised a strike over pay and risks-of-being-barbecued-alive-by-dragons. One had seen Sir Ursos looking speculatively at the saddles, and had had to be led away by some kind stable-hands.)

"Well, why aren’t I carrying the food supplies, too?" he retorted mutinously.

"Because we wanted to keep them as supplies." Buck sniped. Bruno sulked, and as if by magic produced a low-quality parchment bag from somewhere inside his massive armour, although the others were at a loss as to how he could fit himself and all these snacks in there. Leo suspected misspent Divine Summonation lessons. The bag had a dark grease-stain soaking into it, and a cheap logo inscribed on the side in octopus ink, along with the legend ‘Khan’s Rib Shack’. The bear tore the top off the bag and pulled out what looked like the haunch of some inoffensive animal that had been roasted over a fire until the skin was charred black and the meat still raw (‘Try the new flame grilled range!). It was coated in strange, pungent substances whose taste was impossible to describe yet bizarrely addictive (‘You’ll never forget our barbecue sauce!’). Drooling a little, Bruno bit into it down to the bone.

"Mmm… I absolutely love this stuff." he said with his cheeks bulging, grievance forgotten. Both Leo and Buck shuddered slightly: they couldn’t stand cold takeaway.

It was a three-day march from the Keep to where the dragon had last been seen by reliable sources, and so a five-day trudge our three heroes. They finally came to a footsore halt at the end of a small valley, which rose up into a rocky spur that could have become a mountain if it had just tried a little harder at school. There were several large crags and overhangs leaning into this little gully, and hard plateaux of rock jutted out at random through the grass. A small stream trickled through it, the remains of the watercourse that had carved this valley. It was fed from water dribbling down a half-hearted cliff at the top end of the valley, which had nevertheless managed to produce a small plunge-pool at the base. All three were now liberally speckled with grit and grime, despite Leo’s unceasing efforts to remain pristine. Buck’s left leg had developed a highly irritating squeak, which had not improved matters. Almost immediately, Leo dropped his stuff and was struggling out of his armour, which could take a highly experienced knight over half an hour to put on properly. An important thing to get right: if iron underwear chafes, you really know about it.

"What’re you doing?" Buck asked, sitting on a convenient fallen tree and tugging his helmet off. It was a struggle: a whiplashing branch had bent it slightly out of shape.

"I am going to wash, or spifflicate." Leo retorted as he got his breastplate off, leaving him in a kind of leather vest with a chainmail shirt over it, and metal legs. He examined his dishevelled appearance in the water’s reflection and nearly cried. He’d never feel clean again! If any of the delightful ladies at the Keep whom he pleased to court had seen him like this, they would have fainted. Or more likely laughed, which would have been even worse. With no thought for half measures, Leo leaned over, dunked his entire head in the water and scrubbed hard. Buck looked genuinely surprised.

"You cleaned yourself up just before we left, didn’t you?" Both he and Bruno, who like more usual knights could spend weeks without even a bucket being emptied over them, had much higher tolerances to dirt. Leo’s head re-emerged slowly and subjected them to a look that should have done the work of prime blue-edged dragon’s breath.

Bruno grinned and slapped Buck on the back, then caught him before the stag was catapulted to the floor.

"Heh, I’ll admit that I’ve been cleaner. Besides, now Leo’s found somewhere to pretty himself up again we won’t be going anywhere for hours!" He deftly set to work on various complicated catches on his own front and back armour, and shrugged out of it. Bruno had been grumbling about marching in full armour since day two, but without horses it was simpler to wear it rather than carry it. It may have been Buck’s imagination, but he fancied that the bear’s stomach bounced down and expanded by an inch or two when released. He sniggered.

"What?" Bruno asked next to him, scratching an itch on his side in obvious relief.

"Its just that I hadn’t realised you now needed a girdle to fit into your armour!" He grinned at the stretched chainmail shirt encasing Bruno’s torso, which didn’t quite manage to cover all of his gut. The bear’s black scowl made Buck smile all the more, but it suddenly transformed into a terrible grimace and he backed away, his eyes watering.

"Gods, that… is… horrible." Buck choked, vaguely green. "It… it smells like a bear’s armpit!" Bruno grinned maliciously: that statement was perfectly accurate.

He aired his divested armour, the almost visible funk that clouded around him slowly dissipating.

"Well, you’re no crisp spring breeze yourself, right now. You going to freshen up too?"

"Why should I?"

"Because I’ve got to march downwind of you for another few days. And that squeak of yours is beginning to make me want to rip your leg off."

Grumbling, and looking oddly furtive about the whole thing, Buck set to work freeing himself, his antlers occasionally bashing into things as he struggled. His body-armour fell to the floor with a clang, and he set to work getting his leg armour off too. Leo, head now out of the pool and rummaging around in the packs for the soap he’d packed, glanced up and then did a double take. Bruno, who had begun rooting through the carelessly unguarded provisions, caught the movement and looked up too. Both grinned. Buck looked up, feeling the pressure of their stares.

"What?" Leo sniggered.

"The blacksmith get your measurements wrong the last time you had a fitting?" As well as the usual leather and mail, Sir Buck had a number of rough sacks tied around different exposed patches of his body, looking as though he was wearing special protective padding. He suddenly looked guilty.

"No. I just thought they might… come in handy." Bruno blinked, baffled, but Leo had a sudden brainwave, and smiled nastily.

"In case we should suddenly have the need to move a lot of bulky stuff, like as much dragon’s gold as we can carry?" Buck bridled.

"Hey! Who said anything about ‘We’?"

"We did."

"Besides, three people can carry a lot more gold than just one."

"Ah, but the point is it then gets split into three. Same difference." Buck looked triumphant.

"Yes, but ‘All you can carry’ means different things for different people." Leo patted Bruno on the shoulder and smiled meaningfully at Buck. The stag fell into a very thoughtful silence.

"You make a good point." Leo grinned in acknowledgement.

* * *

"It’s funny," Buck commented a few hours later when they’d set off again, "this doesn’t look like dragon country." They were now ascending into the wilder foothills. More large crags of rock reared up at crazy angles, cutting the landscape into a series of valleys and ridges. The stream was faster and muddier here, the ground around it treacherously soft, as they’d discovered. There were also a lot of wild-looking trees clustered about. And we all know how dangerous wild creatures are.

"How can you tell?"

"Lack of scorch marks." Buck replied, still craning his helmet to scan around. They were back in armour (Leo’s miraculously spotless again). Things were a bit more tense up here. It was one of those absences where even quiet starts to sound too loud after a while.

"Well, this is near where it was seen last. I’ll be glad when we’ve found it."

"I’ll be glad when we’re back at the Keep and tucking in at the round table." Bruno said firmly. "By the way," he asked as they came to a slightly more hospitable patch of ground, in the lee of a jagged outcrop of granite, "What’s our plan?"

"Umm…" Leo stopped and considered. "1) Go forth; 2) slay dragon; 3) go home. That’s the traditional approach." All three shared uneasy looks. As concise and finessed as the plan was, easily within the grasp of any knight, it was slightly lacking in technical details.

"About point two." said Bruno bluntly. "How?"

"Umm…" There was an uncomfortable silence, which lasted quite a while.

"Not a problem: knights always slay the dragon." Buck said in an attempt at reassurance, but the look on his face made it unclear about whom he was trying to reassure. "We’re the good guys. We’ve got to win." The silence came back again. He had a sudden vision of scales as tough as steel, a set of sharp teeth as big as boulders, and more importantly a pair of smoking nostrils above them. Bruno was lost in thought for a while longer.

"What, you mean it’ll see us coming, know that we’re going to win no matter what, and just kill itself to save time?" For some reason the nostrils seemed to be getting bigger. Even if a dragon did kill itself, or was killed (although ‘how?’ loomed treacherously again) wouldn’t it explode, seeing as it was a creature of fire? That would cause a lot of damage, especially to the knight that killed it.

"Well…" Leo finally spoke, resorting to example. "We know how dragons were slain by knights in the past, right?" There was another, worse silence. It was odd: there were lots of tales and songs about heroes vanquishing dragons single-handedly, everyone had heard them lots of times. But whilst full of dramatic and flowery statements about long and hard battles through a night and a day, details like ‘Sticke your sworde here, here and here, minding ye well their clawes and fanges, they’re vicious Brutes.’ were very sparse. The legends now seemed a bit suspect too, in this new context. When it came to the relevant bit, it always kind of mumbled through and hurried to the most important part, where the dragon was dead. It was like your ears had stopped listening just at the vital time. Once, they remembered, their old ‘Noble History of Chivalry’ master had been pressed on just how the famous Sir Eugene had slain his Dragon in one of their lessons. The squire who’d asked had been made to help clean tack for a month for being Cheeky. In fact, when you really thought about it…

"I always thought he looked bloody shifty for the rest of the day!" Buck nearly exploded. "I’ll bet no-one even remembers how those knights actually managed to kill dragons any more! Probably a freak lightning strike or something-"

"That’s lovely," Leo interrupted him crossly, "but how do we propose to set about it this time? I’m asking because I don’t particularly want to come across this dragon, wait for him to throw a fireball at us, and then have to look in the manual to see what we do next."

"We could always charge it head on." said Bruno, master tactician. "That’d give us the element of surprise-"

"WHAT?!" Most people, when they discover that the basic principle of education of any kind is to in fact tell lies to the students, can understandably become quite upset, especially when the lies concern big things like being flash-toasted. Buck was coping remarkably well under the circumstances.

"Yes, you see because it won’t be expecting us to rush at it like that-"

"Because no-one’s been insane enough to do it!

"Ah, but then it won’t have time to do anything before we reach it-"

"Because it’ll be shaking too hard from laughter!"

"And then we’ll have the advantage-"

"WHAT?!" Bruno was getting a bit sick of Buck saying that.

"Yes! We’re a lot smaller and faster than it-"

"You’re not. And I’d rather test that when running away and hiding!"

"So it’ll be at a disadvantage if we fight it paw-to-paw, up close and personal!"

"I don’t WANT to fight a dragon up close and personal. I want to fight a dragon by being well out of range, and preferably using that feathered hocus-pocus merchant who got us into this as bait! No, I say we scout around very, very quietly, find that dragon from a long way off, and when it’s asleep we drop a rock on its head!"

"Hold it!" Both of them shut up and looked expectantly at Leo, who was wearing an oddly pleased expression. Very odd, considering the prospects the future entailed. He began to grin. "We’re thinking about this the wrong way." There was another silence, but this time the texture radiated puzzlement.

"What, you mean we should be thinking of how to get the dragon to kill itself?" Buck groped for meaning. Leo, much to the others’ bamboozlement, burst out laughing: it hadn’t been that funny a joke.

"No! But don’t worry, there wont be any problem with that dragon after all!" Buck and Bruno looked relieved. Leo always had a plan.

"Whew. What’re you going to do? Best it in mortal combat?"

"No!" Leo frantically tried to stop laughing enough to breathe, leaning against the granite for support. "There isn’t a dragon!"

The stunned silence that greeted this lengthened. "You said it yourself!" Buck just began to look panicky,

"No I didn’t!" Bruno had given up already, and was just staring. The lion sighed.

"‘He looked bloody shifty for the rest of the day.’ And you said it back in Merlin’s room, too: ‘No one’s seen a real bone fide dragon for centuries.’"

"So?"

"So; there never were any dragons!" Buck and Bruno gave him extremely worried looks.

"Are you feeling ok, Leo?" The lion elaborated.

"What is it that knights are really famous for? What is it that sets our Orders apart from a bunch of hired thugs who enforce a tyrannical and oppressive Monarch’s laws?" The others considered for a second.

"Chivalry?"

"Right! Chivalry. We protect the weak, fight for justice and all that. Now, what is that symbolised by? What is chivalry most renowned for?"

"Killing dragons, mate."

"Yes! The most historical and noble thing about knights is slaying dragons to protect the Kingdom. That’s what makes peasants support us, and therefore the Kingdom. So, what in fact would we have to do if we didn’t have dragons?"

"What?"

"We’d. Have. To. Make. Them. Up." Leo gave them the beaming grin of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

"WHAT?!" Both of them shouted it this time.

"Exactly." Leo smirked. "I’ll bet good money that this is going to be one of those totally wet situations where there isn’t actually a monster, just a metaphor that symbolises our own inner failings or somesuch, and we’re meant to spend our time wandering around and incidentally gaining valuable insights about ourselves."

The bemused silence following this statement was deeply uncomfortable. Bruno scratched an ear.

"Umm… Leo? I don’t think it’ll be like that: it isn’t raining." Leo growled.

"Look, forget I said that. It isn’t important. What is important is that the first knight that ‘killed a dragon’ probably had his reasons, or maybe the King at the time planned the whole thing as a popularity stunt. But the result was; bang! Instant noble warriors, great deeds, romantic accompaniments and the Realm United under the King’s Protection against Foul Monsters. All without having to actually fight anything." Leo was pacing now as his mind raced ahead. "Now, that’s the kind of image you’d want to hang on to. So Chivalry adopted Dragon Slaying, suddenly digging out all these legends where old knights past have done just that. No-one’s going to argue, because everyone knows they killed a dragon just recently. Because everyone says they have. And so even before the blood’s dry it’s become an established fact that dragons exist, and that you need knights to slay them. Everybody’s happy."

The others gaped, stupefied.

"Blimey!" Buck was lost in admiration. It had that horrible, slightly unbelievable level of complexity to it that was very persuasive. "You make another very good point."

"Thanks." Leo smiled, whilst Bruno still gaped dumbly at him. Buck thought ahead as certainty took hold like the roots of a tree.

"You’re right. It is so easy to believe that there used to be dragons, isn’t it? I mean, there’s something old and vicious and terrible about them that just makes you want to believe that they were real."

"Thanks!"

"But that’s just it: no-one believed that there were dragons alive today. I thought it was just me, because everyone knows they used to exist. But come on, these are the Dark Ages! I mean, dragons are meant to be… umm…"

"Reptiles, mate."

"That’s it. Lizards. Giant Lizards!"

"Kinda like real distant relatives of Komodo Dragons. Connected way back"

"Yeah… Anyway, have you ever seen a lizard grow to that size?" Buck laughed. "It’s just not possible."

"Could be magic, chum." The stag shook his head.

"No, no. Not permanently, that’s for sure. Magic’s not that powerful. Besides, when have you ever seen any other lizards with wings?"

"Well, mate, the Frilled Lizard has a fascinating-"

"Shut up!" Buck said, peeved.

"Geez. Sor-ry."

"And then there’s the whole fire-breathing aspect." Leo put in. "That really makes things too fantastic. Fire-breathing? Fire burns! It’d cook itself from the inside! But as a scare story, it adds a really nice gothic touch of horror, something really bizarre and terrifying. Very mythic. Just right for something you’d love to loathe. A hideous, slavering monster that you can really fear!"

"Strewth, bloke!"

"So why were we sent out to slay this dragon, if it’s not real? Why didn’t they tell us? And why did Merlin gave us all that spiel back in his tower when I said there wasn’t one!" Buck glowered at being reminded. Leo shrugged, but then had a sudden inspiration.

"It’s like Buck said: no-one remembers how those knights actually managed to kill dragons any more! It’s been hundreds of years since the last ‘dragons’. My guess is that they’ve forgotten that they weren’t real in the first place."

"Cor!" Buck gaped. But the bear still looked a little uneasy.

"So if it’s not a dragon, what are we actually chasing?" That stumped Leo. In the end he just shrugged it off.

"Rumours maybe, Bruno. Superstition. Something nasty happens, like a couple of buildings collapse or there’s a freak fire, and the peasants blame a dragon because that’s all they can understand." Bruno nodded slowly, and Buck butted in again.

"So, what are we going to do?" Leo grinned wickedly.

"We’ll follow the traditions of chivalry."

"Huh?"

"We’ll make it up! All we do is wait for a few more days, dirty our gear a little, then go and give them what they’re waiting for: the heroic tale of how we vanquished the great and terrible dragon!"

"Strewth, mate, that ain’t sporting!"

"So? After this, I’ll be more than happy to put my feet up on the Round Table."

"You’re right. All this conspiracy and thinking is for the birds. Give me jousting every time." Buck laughed suddenly. "I still can’t believe Merlin actually thought there was a real dragon in the Kingdom. Never trust rumours. Or wizards, for that matter!" He grinned broadly in relief. "Dragons! How ridiculous can you get?" He laughed again. "It’d be like believing in… in giant jumping rats!"

"With pouches on the front? Big feet? Good on yer! They’re kangaroos, mate."

"Kangaroos? Look, for God’s sake will you stop talking gibberish!" He glared at the others angrily. "And what’s with that weird accent? And just how the hell are you… managing it without… moving… your…?"

He shut up. All three of them looked up. Leaning his forearms on the edge of the cliff and wearing an interested expression, the dragon looked back.

He was huge. He was terrible. Dark green scales glinted all over his massive hide, like fish-scale armour. A leathery pair of wings was folded across his wide back, obscuring almost all of its length. Four strong, powerfully muscled legs looked short and stubby on his long, pear-shaped torso, ending in reptilian feet with curling claws longer than swords, and which gleamed like steel. His tail was almost as long again as his body, as thick as a tree-trunk at the base, slowly tapering down to about the thickness of a thigh. It was topped with sharp ridges of scale like a crocodile’s back. His neck looked normal for the scale of his body, melding seamlessly into the beast’s head. A massive, square muzzle supported row after row of tombstone sized fangs, leading into a cavernous maw. The head had reptilian ancestry, with raised nostrils and ridges running back to broadly spaced eyes under thick, scaly brows. The eyes glowed yellow, each slit pupil a gash of utter darkness. Two large, long whiskers sprouted from the corners of his chin like a catfish, a central wispy beard accentuating them. A yellowing pair of horns reared up from the top of his skull, in between large, raggedy gargoyle ears. He was armour-rustingly terrifying.

He was grinning, too.

"G’day." The knights backed away without appearing to move a muscle, which is a good trick.

"Nnghh…"

"Dr-dr…" The dragon frowned slightly, putting considerable stress on three bladders.

"You blokes ok?" The knights blinked a little at this, and their retreat faltered. After a few moments agonising pause, Leo took a step forwards again.

"Umm… Avuant, ancient serpent-" he flinched as the dragon bellowed. But there words were actually:

"Hang on a tick, mate, I’ll be right with yer!" With that the dragon stood and leapt down the cliff as through he were jumping off a log. On impact he spread his wings to balance himself. The blast wave uprooted a nearby tree, and knocked Buck off his feet. "Whoops! Sorry, chum: I don’t know me own strength." He grinned apologetically as Buck struggled upright, stuttering.

"Umm… no p-problem." Leo rallied a bit and tried the traditional opening again, but his heart really wasn’t in it.

"Avuant, ancient serpent! Foul fiend, prepare to be slain by our righteous…" He tailed off as the dragon burst out laughing.

"Strewth Mark, don’t stop! You pommies are a riot!" The knights looked at each other for a few moments as the dragon pounded his fist on the ground in mirth.

"Dragons don’t exist, eh?" Buck fixed Leo with a withering look that promised more later.

"Why does he think we’re apples?" Bruno asked quietly, with a preoccupied expression. Buck shrugged helplessly.

"I guess when you’re that size its all the same." Bruno wasn’t reassured. The stag turned to the dragon, flinching slightly. "But we’re not a riot, umm…"

"Call me Dragon, mate." The dragon smiled, calming down and getting back up.

"…Dragon… we’re knights." The dragon’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

"Real knights, no bludging?" His muzzle split into a big grin. "Bonzer! I’ve always wanted to meet meself some proper knights! There ain’t any back home."

"Umm… back home?" Leo was rapidly losing his grip on the conversation. "Where are you from?"

"I’m from good old Oz. Down under." Bruno blinked, his eyes like saucers.

"Under… underneath the world?" Everyone knew the world was flat. The dragon shook his head.

"Nah, mate! Its… well… never mind. Don’t worry. Anyway, I flew over here on me travels to have a look round and take in the sights."

"And half the gold in the kingdom." Buck put in, with lesser deference than before. The idea seemed to be preying on his mind. Dragon had the grace to look a little sheepish.

"Well, that’s kind of an instinctive reaction, you know sport? It’s a dragon thing. You see something yellow and shiny, you just gotta have it. Besides," he brightened up a little, "everyone gets souvenirs when they’re on their travels, right mate?"

"Huh?"

"Aww, you know: little knickknacks and stuff you give to yer mates as presents, or keep in a draw somewhere. Yer cant go back without a mess of stuff." Dragon explained patiently.

"You must have a lot of friends," Buck replied slowly, "or very big draws."

"And I’ve got a bad back, me. Yer can’t trust foreign beds, neither. Does wonders for yer back, a pile of gold does." Dragon was sweating a little under Buck’s hardening stare.

"So are you going to give it back?"

"Here! Stone the flamin' crows, sport! You can’t expect me to remember every poxy little village and hovel I’ve… found stuff in!"

"That’s ok, you can give it to us and we’ll sort it out for you."

Dragon was now the one looking shaken, but he got a grip on himself and smiled down at the knights. There was something oddly furtive about his whole personality that somehow made you forget that he was a walking three-tonne furnace.

"Hey, we’re all mates here, right?"

"Actually…" Leo, self-preservation still having a grip on his mind, hated himself for contradicting a giant, fire-breathing dragon. He wanted to be his friend. "I’m afraid that we’ve kind of been ordered to… vanquish you. Sorry." he added. There was something about Dragon that made the whole idea sound silly. He didn’t seem the kind of dragon that you vanquished. Dragon’s large brows beetled as a new frown slid onto his face.

"Are you coming the raw prawn?" They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension for a while, then Leo hazarded,

"No… we’re not. Why do you ask?"

"What’s a prawn?"

"I meant: are you serious, mate?" Now Leo was the one looking sheepish

"I’m afraid so. It’s a knight thing, this time. Fierce dragon terrorising the land, orders from the King, boldly riding forth, noble duty, you see? Sorry." He added again. Dragon thought about this for a while, different emotions flitting over his face. Leo, Buck and Bruno all got ready to run. Or dive into the nearest source of water. Finally, Dragon shrugged and smiled again.

"Ahh, no worries, mate. She’ll be right."

"What?" All these surprises weren’t good for the nervous system. Each knight felt as though they’d aged three years, and lost several pounds in sweat.

"As long as it ain’t nothing personal, I can’t really get upset about it." Dragon explained reasonably, in the face of all common sense. "I can’t really ask you blokes to not do your job properly and disobey the King of Pommieland on account of me, can I?" He took a few steps back and flapped his wings a little, as though limbering up. "How do yer want to do this, then? Do you geezers take turns or something?"

The knights hesitated.

"Well… you see… we don’t really want to have to vanquish you if we can avoid it." Buck said uneasily. "Besides, three on one isn’t really fair." Dragon smiled.

"Hey, that’s real sporting of you, mate."

"I mean, a load of the knights back at the Keep would just charge straight in at have at you, but we’ve got to know you a little now, and it’d be bad manners to try and chop pieces off of you."

"Much obliged, cobber. Yer doing me a big favour." They hesitated some more, painfully aware of just how much ‘big’ applied to Dragon. They thought fast.

"After all, you’re not from here, are you? You wouldn’t have known that being a dragon in Albion would mean you had to be slain by knights. Its not really right, seeing as you didn’t know the rules before you got here."

"You’re practically a visiting dignitary."

"You mean… I should get let off for me first offence?" Dragon looked a bit confused. Buck nodded slowly.

"Could be, could be. Maybe if we to just fine you instead?"

"Well, that’d be real decent of you blokes." Dragon smiled. "How much, sport?"

"Oh… say, half the kingdo-"

"Hang on." Leo glared at Buck. He looked at Dragon and smiled. "You said you were only going to be staying for a while, whilst you’re on ‘your travels’?"

"Too bloody right, mate." Dragon grimaced a little. "Haven’t been able to get a cold one here for love nor… well, I haven’t been able to get one." Something implied that he hadn’t tried either approach.

"A cold one?"

"Yeah!" Dragon looked puzzled. "You know: beer?" Now he looked almost pleading. The knights looked blank.

"Never heard of it."

"Strewth!" Dragon fell back a few steps as if he’d been hit hard on the head. "If I’d known that then I’d never have come here at all!" Leo looked pleased.

"So there’s even less reason for you to stay, or come back again either, right?"

"Yer dead on, there, sport." Dragon shuddered again. "No beer!"

"So," Leo smiled graciously, "why don’t you head off back home, and we explain to His Majesty for you? It seems to be the happiest solution. We don’t have to hurt you, and you don’t have to get hurt." Or have to hurt us, he added mentally.

"You would? Good on yer!" Dragon beamed at this peaceful resolution, but then his expression clouded over again. He lowered his head and looked at the three knights, worried. "But won’t yer get into trouble, mates? I mean, you’ve been sent out here to cash me chips in, not something I want, you understand, but if you go back and tell him that you ain’t done the job, or that you’d let me get away, they ain’t gonna be happy. Royalty gets kinda touchy about that kind of thing, blokes. A bunch of girlie pooftas in tights, the lot of them." Buck choked a little at this description of the King. "Well, they won’t mind." said Leo, anxious to draw this negotiation to a successful conclusion. "They aren’t too bothered about the whole vanquishing part, as long as there isn’t a dastardly dragon festering somewhere the Realm. Their own words, not ours." he said hurriedly as Dragon’s frown deepened.

"But high up toffs like that get always get real shirty when yer don’t do just as they say. Sorry mates," Dragon looked regretful, "I couldn’t have that on me conscience, not real decent blokes like you. It wouldn’t be sporting."

"Well, how about we tell them that we couldn’t find a dragon? That they made a mistake, and that there was never a dragon here. We could say it was something else, like a lightning strike, or a flash fire!" Leo was beginning to get a bit hot under the collar himself. If it wasn’t one thing, it was a bloody stupid dragon that couldn’t take a hint. Dragon was looking decidedly thoughtful now.

"Yer mean, like you blokes were saying just now?"

"Sorry?"

"All that guff about ‘scare stories’, ‘old legends’ ‘hideous, slavering monsters’ and dragons not being real?" Dragon’s voice took on a slight edge. Buck and Bruno glared at Leo, who tried to back and fill.

"Ahahaha, we were just theorising aloud about that, you understand, nothing quothed in stone…"

"But yer mean they’d believe that kind of thing?"

"Well… sort of, but-" He stopped short as Dragon let out a deep sigh that nearly removed all the leaves on the trees behind the knights.

"Sorry blokes, no can do."

"WHAT?" Dragon shrugged regretfully.

"It’s bad enough everyone going on about how dragons are ‘hideous’, ‘monstrous’, ‘vile’, ‘wicked’ and all that, but I cant have yer saying that now we’re just a figment of yer imaginations, too."

"But… but…"

"Sorry, mates." Dragon shrugged. "’S a matter of principle. Can’t have yer bludging dragons like that, even if it’d help meself. Can’t have a dragon bludging like that, either ‘cos dragons don’t bludge on their mates."

"But… we… you…" Leo was reduced to incoherent spluttering. Dragon sighed again.

"Looks like we’ll be doing this your way after all, mates. Nothing personal, of course. And what’s worse, now I can’t go until we’ve got this settled."

"WHAT?!"

"Sorry. Matter of principle at stake, blokes. Yer sure there aren’t any cold ones on this poxy island? Or anything to drink apart from water? That don’t taste right, either." Bruno shifted about a little.

"There’s always mead." Dragon grimaced.

"Eurgh! No thanks mate, I’d rather drink a warm billabong. But I’ll say one thing for yer, you pommies sure know how to make some decent tucker." He smacked his lips noisily, and a hind leg patted the bulging paunch that hung down a little way.

"Umm… don’t mention it." Leo muttered, totally beaten, now.

"Best darn grub I’ve tasted in a while. ‘Specially… now what was it…? Oh yeah… ‘Khan’s Rib Shack’. You blokes ever heard of it?"

"Heard of it?" exclaimed Bruno, nearly drooling already. Buck snickered and nudged him.

"If you go past, you have to prize Bruno away from the door with a lance." The bear glared at Buck, but it faded as natural enthusiasm for all things edible took over again.

"They’ve really gone big-time, now. Got shacks in half a dozen of the major towns."

"Yeah," Dragon nodded eagerly. "I’ve been to most of ‘em."

"Huh?" Dragon silently flapped his wings by way of explanation. "Oh…"

"Strewth, they do good takeaways. Can you clue me in as to where I can find ‘em all? You know how boring it is to go to the same place every night."

"Sure." Bruno had the list memorised in case Questing happened to take them within a hundred miles or so of the nearest outlet. "There’s one outside the Keep, of course, then one in Windchestnut and Horsechestnut, Thanetstone, a little one in Abergavenny, one in…" the bear trailed off, and his eager expression faltered. "Umm… how do you get portions in your size?"

"Same as you, probably." Buck sniggered again. Bruno’s growl promised pain. That same guilty look came back into Dragon’s eyes.

"Werl…" he shifted from foot to foot, "I just got a take away." The knights just waited. After talking with Dragon for five minutes, you just knew there was going to be more. "A proper take away. Kind of… walls n’ roof included." He shuffled about under their stares. Bruno’s expression wasn’t one you wanted to see again. He might as well have admitted to dropping small, fluffy kittens into icy rivers one by one for kicks.

"The whole shack?" Under the right stimuli, Bruno’s brain could work very fast. "Well, then you’d better know not to bother with the Keep, then. The food is terrible. It’s a real let down. Dirty and everything. And they’ve had an outbreak of the plague in the shack recently. Had to close it. And it burned down too, I hear."

"This Keep." Dragon said, looking even guiltier. "Big, tall, stone pointy place? Real posh. Loadsa flags? ‘Bout two hours that way?" There was a dull sound that could well have been three hearts sinking. Bruno nodded very slowly. Dragon looked uncomfortable. "Well, it weren’t burnt down, then. More sort of pulled up, yer might say…"

"Oh, gods." Leo muttered to himself. The Keep! Things were not looking rosy for them. Bruno stared at him for a few moments, pressure mounting inside. Then he gave a wordless yell and tried to leap at Dragon, apparently with the intent of ripping his throat out with his bare hands. But Leo and Buck, who’d suspected a bad reaction to the news, leapt and dragged the bear backwards. Bruno was still trying to race forwards, his legs still working, and rage was adding to his strength and weight advantage. The result was a stalemate. Dragon backed away a bit, unnerved by the sheer power of the fury driving Bruno.

"I can see how yer might be a bit upset over that."

"Oh no," Leo panted ad he tried to stop Bruno reaching his axe and hacking through them to get at Dragon, "he always gets suicidal like this when he finds out that someone’s eaten all the food before he could." Dragon gave the bear another worried look, who was going purple in the face with his exertions.

"Well, I’ll be off and give yer all a chance to calm down then, ok blokes? It was bonzer meeting yer," he added, taking off before they had a chance to reply, or let Bruno go, "See yer later!" He rapidly gained height and pounded off over the treeline, leaving Buck and Leo to cope with the apoplectic Bruno.

"Calm down, you big lunk!" snarled Leo, swinging round as the bear tried to turn and race after Dragon. After a few minutes, the bear finally seemed to get a hold of himself again, and the others felt safe enough to let go. Even then, he was not happy. His face was like thunder.

"I say we find that dragon, and then we get him."

"I agree." Buck said darkly. "I’m not letting that scaly magpie sleep on a 24-carrat mattress.

"And if he’s been to the Keep, going back and saying we haven’t got rid of him isn’t going to look very good in the Keep records, especially when we’re stripped down to washroom servants." Leo added coldly. "That is, if they don’t strike us from the records altogether and banish us for terminal incompetence." He looked thoughtful. "What we need now," he said, "is a plan…"

* * *

It often surprised people to know that Sir Ursos had a talent for woodwork. Back when all the other squires had been trying to master the straight line, he’d been building his first trebuchet. He was, as one knight had thoughtlessly put it, built for sieges.

The ballista was rough, but beautiful. Even with just one axe, it had only taken them a day to make. And knowing Bruno, it would function perfectly. The base was solid oak, the enormous bow had been fashioned in a textbook manner from an unfortunate ash-tree, and the vines tying it all together were taut and accurately placed. They didn’t have solid steel siege-buster arrowheads, but the axe had put a razor point on the small, truncated tree that was now loaded. Buck and Leo were aiming it as Bruno hauled back on the windlass. The ropes were thrumming under the tension.

"I hope this plan of yours works." Leo muttered, sweating as he hauled the siege-bow’s front around on its rough wheels.

"It won’t be very accurate," Bruno grunted as he put a few more pounds of torque on the tortured vines, "but Dragon’s as big as a building, and it’s easy to hit them."

"Speak of the devil." A large shadow flitted over them as Dragon glided overhead between them and the sun. His wings beat insolently slowly, as though gravity was more of an option than a rule. Beginning another lazy glide, he glanced down and waved jauntily when he saw them, not changing course in the slightest.

"G’day, blokes!" Unable to resist, they waved back as they swung the ballista under Bruno’s directions.

"Do you think he knows what this thing is?"

"Who the hell cares? Let’s just hit him with it!"

"Bruno?" The bear didn’t look up from the sighting groove.

"Yes Leo?"

"Don’t miss." Dragon was ahead of them now, flying slowly at a slight angle to them. They fired.

The missile hurtled upwards on a nearly flat trajectory. Bruno had been slightly over-enthusiastic with the power, and the air behind it almost sizzled. With rising whistle, it closed on Dragon within heartbeats. Hearing a near supersonic noise approaching from dead astern, the dragon peered behind him. Totally unfairly, he rolled fluidly to one side and grabbed the bolt with his hind-feet, accelerating hard to match trajectories perfectly.

"Strewth! They’ve gone and made some kind of stick chucker! That’s a beaut throw!" He gave the stake the once over, and shook his head sadly. "I knew these pommies had no idea. It won’t fly properly straight!" Without apparent effort, Dragon put a precise 52° bend in the 12-inch bore length of oak and let it go. Almost immediately, the air resistance started it spinning…

In a slightly numb voice, Buck said,

"It’s coming back." There wasn’t even time for a reply as all three stared with horror. The monstrous boomerang continued its arc, tilting down low. It swooped in, scything the tops off the ancient trees in its path with a rending noise like that of a supersonic banshee on banned substances. It caught fire, and appeared to grow far larger than it should do. Time got stuck in treacle, sound deepening and dopplering horribly as all three leapt as far from the platform as they could, heartbeats pounding in their ears. Whilst still in the air, there was a deafening explosion, and the fireball blew them all out of the clearing. Time accelerated in a rush, and bits of ballistic burning wood followed them.

Leo picked himself up first, out of a small brook where he’d undergone a painful and unwelcome bath. Pieces of ballista littered the clearing, with only a minority still in the burning crater with most of the kamikaze stake. A new grey cloud hung overhead, slowly blowing away. Leo staggered forwards as the others appeared. Bruno looked severely shaken, and was still vibrating. Calling him ‘dishevelled’ would be to miss out on the perfect opportunity to use the description ‘blackened wreck’. Amazingly, Buck’s antlers were still intact and unbroken, but now had a large broken-off branch wedged across them. The stag stared around at the new landscape, and said bleakly,

"Well, that went about as well as could be expected. Does anyone apart from Bruno have a new plan?" They all flinched as a grey shadow passed back over them, and then glared after Dragon’s retreating silhouette. They were almost sure that they could hear sniggering.

"I’m all for dropping that rock on his head."

"Rock? He’s just been promoted to mountain." Buck gave the wreckage another dazed look.

"You can’t drop a mountain on him! It’d be too quick and painless." Bruno glowered angrily, enraged mostly about the humiliatingly frivolous way his toy had been destroyed. "I’m going to rip his wings off, barbecue them and have the rest of him as a takeaway!" Leo sighed.

"The main problem is his flying. A trap’s probably our best bet. One that keeps him on the ground. But then we’d need bait, and we forgot to pack several tonnes of food.

"Use Bruno." retorted Buck unfeelingly, and ducked away from the bear just in time. "Or gold. The wealth of the other half of the Kingdom should do.", he added bitterly, his ire rising again. Leo laughed humourlessly.

"It’s a shame we don’t have a maiden to tie up." The others looked at him.

"Business first, pleasure later. You’ll just have to wait until afterwards. Leo." The lion flushed.

"I meant, that’s the sure fire way to attract dragons."

"Yeah…" Buck nodded thoughtfully. "Back in the Old Days, people were always sacrificing virgins to them…" he trailed off, thoughtfully, and then grinned.

* * *

"Let go of me!"

"Calm down!" Buck pulled the last few knots tight. "Think of it as a sacrifice for King and Country." Leo snarled and struggled futilely against the ropes. "We couldn’t find a maiden, and you’re the most girlie-looking out of us, especially with all that hair." He grinned maliciously. "Besides, no one actually said that it had to be a female virgin…" He pulled some of the mane over the lion’s face, and made sure that the flamboyant riding cloak (taken from Leo’s pack) hid his armour sufficiently. Leo glared at him, tied firmly to the stake, a few feet from the fast-flowing stream.

"You had better pray that this doesn’t work, and Dragon doesn’t turn up: because when I get free I’m going to get traditional on you!" Buck just sniggered and pinched Leo’s cheek.

"You’re beautiful when you’re angry, did you know that?" He stifled his laughter as a raucous bellow boomed through the air.

"Owww-aaah… Waltzin’ Matilda, waltzin’ Matilda, you’ll come a (Hic!) sumthin’…"

"Remember," Buck hissed, "act like a girl!" He sprinted for cover. The sun was briefly blotted out, and Dragon’s silhouette wobbled over the tree-line, carrying something in one paw. He approached, flapping noisily, and spied the figure struggling in the middle of a wide clearing. He banked, overcorrected, stalled, and landed unsteadily next to it. The barrel he’d been carrying splintered messily as it hit the ground. Dragon had given in and dying for a drink, had tried Bruno’s suggestion about mead. He peered hazily from under his brows, grinning jovially.

"G’day Miss! What’s a (Hic!) pretty girl like… like-li-like you doin’ (Hic!)… doin’ in a placelikedis? He breathed alcohol all over Leo and lurched a step forwards, but stumbled back. "Huh?"

If he’d still been a lithe, willow-slim hatchling of a dragon, then the trap wouldn’t have worked. But Dragon enjoyed overindulging his appetite and his thirst, and paid for both by bulging more than he should be bulging. Consequently, he was now sinking into the boggy mud around the stream, already up to his shins. Squinting, he struggled to free any one of his legs, which were feeling a bit wobbly in any case. With a jubilant roar, Bruno and Buck raced from their hiding places and bore down on him, weapons drawn.

For those of you not familiar with it, mead is the original Man’s drink. It’s the ancestor to ale, from before the time people learned how to strain the lumps out. These hops aren’t just fermented, they’re stewed. It has the colour and consistency of gravy, and sits just as heavily on the stomach. Without the protective skill of quaffing, now sadly dying out, no one would ever have been able to finish more than a yard of it. It is also dangerously flammable. With several firkins’ worth sloshing about inside, it was beginning to react with Dragon’s pyrogenic body chemistry. Blinking blearily, he breathed out another cloud of nearly pure alcohol, and belched. The fireball erupted through the air, concussive shock-waves blasting ahead. Half way across the distance, Buck and Bruno threw themselves flat on their faces.

"Ooh, ‘scuse me, Miss." Dragon hiccuped politely. "Heartburn. Jus’ a second…" he turned his head away, shut his eyes, breathed in deeply through his mouth and blasted huge jets of flame out through his nostrils. Fuelled by the mead, the boiling lances of fire were blinding white. No dragon had ever flamed that hotly before, ever. The stream vaporised, and the mud flash-dried, cracking and partly glazing over with ceramic. The sky turned red, and was seared with purple afterimages.

Dragon stopped and thumped his chest. "Ah, that’s better!" Negligently breaking his feet free of the baked-hard clay, he reached over and, plucking Leo up with him, launched himself into the air. The shrill screams that trailed after them as they rose could definitely have been female, a fact which Leo was never allowed to forget. The take-off wobbled again as Dragon winced.

"‘S’alright, Miss, I ain’t gonna- Stone the flaming crows! It ain’t a flamin’ Sheila after all!" There was another astonished burst of flame, and the screams changed pitch as Leo was dropped faster than a beer than had gone warm. He hit the stream below with a splash. Dragon carried on rising unsteadily, muttering darkly about the dubious dress-sense of these bloody Pommies.

After a while, Buck and Bruno very cautiously raised their heads. When nothing happened to them, they both stood up very slowly, leaving perfect impressions of themselves in the hard ground. Dried mud cracked and fell off their armour. Miraculously, they were unscathed. Blinking to get rid of the pulsating lights and afterglow across their vision, they both scrambled to where they’d heard the splash. The stream was flowing perfectly again now, in its own pottery channel. Fortunately, Leo had hit a soft bit. Drenched yet again, soaked in mud and his sodden cloak ruined he had only just crawled to his knees at the edge when the others found him, but he still had the strength to glare at them both. Before he could say anything though, the horrified expressions on their faces stopped him.

"What?" They both just pointed at his face. Reaching up, he explored his handsome features with a nightmarish sense of dread. Relief flooded him as he found everything in its place. "There’s nothing-" reaching up further, his hands touched his bedraggled mane, and discovered the frizzled, wispy swathe burned through it from front to back, like a reverse Mohawk. There was a strong smell of burned hair.

By no means cowards or strangers to danger, both Buck and Bruno backed away from the expression that contorted Leo’s features. It wasn’t mere rage. It was a Wrath capable of death and destruction of biblical proportions. He rose up like the Angel of Vengeance himself. "This," he hissed to himself, "means war."

* * *

Early morning the next day found them sitting on the slope of yet another valley still deeper into the highlands. It was quite small, with a carpet of moss in the rocky bowl and a few trees cluttering it. Across its floor was a cousin of our old friend the stream, but rushing deeper and faster, being fed by a substantial waterfall at the far end. It disappeared from view where the valley narrowed into a gorge, more of a crack through the countryside. The walls of the valley rose up in a jumble to meet the several bulging peaks encompassing them. It was quite easy going to climb into or out of the valley, but at about two o’clock in the morning, when the knights had arrived, nothing is easy, or very enjoyable. The time before that had been spent frantically following Dragon’s trail, spurred on by Leo, who kept fingering his maimed mane and twitching, and aided by the off-key singing bawling out in the distance. They’d decided not to try and get closer in the dark, but to wait until it was light. Buck and Bruno had had to almost knock Leo out to stop him racing on further, but in the end even he had fallen asleep from exhaustion. After several long hours of sleep, they were now waking up, cramped and uncomfortable in the morning mists.

"Ok," Buck declared with ill temper, "we’re here. Any idea what to do next, genius?" He glared at Leo, who was already pacing back and forth, examining the valley below.

"We look for the entrance to his Lair, of course." the lion replied, either ignoring Buck’s tone or not even noticing. He was smiling now: his first instinct, borne of knightly training, had been to race after Dragon and have at him on the spot, but now natural cunning was reasserting itself.

"That shouldn’t be too hard, if that fat lizard’s got to squeeze himself through it." Bruno said cheerfully, scrambling up to look. There was a short pause whilst he scanned the walls. "Um… actually…" the slopes of the valley were rough and jumbled, but despite that they remained unbroken. There definitely wasn’t a hole large enough for a dragon to use as an entrance. But they were sure that they were very near: the deafening volume of the singing testified to that, and it had continued long into the small hours, so they’d had no trouble pinpointing it more accurately. But there was absolutely no sign of anything in the valley in the cold light of day. There didn’t even seem to be any animals scurrying around: just the morning wind sighing in the trees and a deep, almost subterranean-

"Snoring?" Buck said incredulously, as it changed pitch and became clearer, as though someone had just rolled onto their back and opened their mouth wide. It was indeed: absolutely terrible snoring. Special effects managers would have paid anything for it; it would cost a fortune to reproduce such an abhorrent sound artificially. The closest description is that it was a cross between a pig’s grunt and someone sawing logs, amplified, protracted and tortured almost beyond endurance. It was a bachelor’s snore. Leo’s smile just got wider and wider.

"It’s coming from the far side of the valley," he said.

"From inside the mountain?" All three turned and stared at it. It didn’t qualify as a mountain by a long way, but hill suggests gentle slopes and grass. This was bare granite, with a few strata of slate running through the sides. It didn’t rear proudly, either, more sort of skulked guiltily on the skyline. It seemed the perfectly appropriate place for Dragon to stay in.

"Still can’t see a way in." Buck muttered pessimistically, joining the other two. He was still put out that his own plan had failed so abysmally. "Do we start a boring and no doubt laborious search of the countryside for large holes, then?"

Before Leo could respond, the snoring broke off with a sudden half-strangled snort. This was quickly followed by a whooshing, roaring bellow of pain that was hurriedly stifled, and which trailed off in an agonised whimper. The knights looked at each other and smirked evilly. Mead also packs one hell of a hangover punch. A thick, tarry cloud of smoke puffed out from a point near the summit that was obscured by a low ridge of rock, but what really drew the knights’ attention was a corresponding hiss and puff of steam from the waterfall, too. Leo’s smile got even wider, and he pointed down at it.

" I say we start there, don’t you?"

But before they got any further they were interrupted by a series of echoing moans, and loud crashing noises that shook the landscape accompanied by more pained whimpers, as though someone were trying to stumble blindly about a cluttered room and crash noisily into things as quietly as possible. The knights took shelter in a stand of ash trees just before there was a heavy flapping sound, and Dragon rose unsteadily from the side of the peak. Even flying he looked terrible: he was hunched over and cringing against the growing sunlight. He half flew, half stumbled down the slope to the plunge pool at the base of the waterfall. There was the sound of a leaky suction pump, and the level of the pool visibly dropped before the waterfall caught it up again. Stepping back and shaking his head (very gingerly), the reptile turned and began a lumbering run-up down the valley. He then glided off into the distance. The trees sprouted knights.

"What now?" Buck groaned. Leo’s glassy smile was beginning to get to him. It continued to do so. The lion had planned to creep into the lair and deal with dragon there, either driving him off, or preferably killing him in an enclosed space where they’d have the advantage. This development, he decided, would work even better.

"We go inside the lair," he replied shortly, "and hide ourselves until he’s come back and gone to sleep. There’ll be less chance of him hearing us approach, then, and he’ll be off his guard." The others hesitated a little.

"Umm… isn’t that slightly Un-Chivalrous?" Bruno asked. Buck nodded uneasy agreement. His morals were a little rusty, but they’d had chivalry drilled into them so much that it was like a second set of reflexes for the brain. The idea of killing something in its sleep was an uncomfortable one. Leo gave a derisive snort, running a paw through his mane.

"Do you want to go down and challenge him to fair and honest single combat in the open?" Put like that, it sounded very silly all of a sudden. "Or do you want to do it my way, and live very richly happy ever after?" The lion turned and strode down the slope. The others followed. Bruno was lost in internal debate, and slightly worried about Leo, but Buck’s eyes were now as bright as gold crowns.

Upon reaching the falls and the decently sized pool beneath them, Leo immediately scrambled around the edge to peer behind them. He gave a shout of triumph and the others followed his slippery, unsteady route until they stood with him. There was a small gap between the torrent of water and the rock of the cliff-face, and behind that they could see black shadow where rock should have been. Buck and Leo slipped easily behind the falls and into the darkness, but poor Bruno got soaked down one side, and had to squeeze to fit his wider bulk into the gap. Once inside, it became apparent that things were more than they seemed: light through the water revealed a shadowy cavern far larger than the entrance, the pool continuing as a shallow puddle a little way in. Obviously the pounding water had worn the hole into the side of an existing cave. Leo chuckled.

"‘Rule one of hunting for entrances-"

"-Always look behind the waterfall.’" they all finished simultaneously. After some searching they found enough bits of dry kindling and vegetation near the back of the cave to make some torches. The flickering light revealed that the far end of the cavern the walls and ceiling shrank slightly to form a large, uneven tunnel that led up and back into the rock-face. They followed it, their footsteps clanking loudly in the mineral silence all around them. A few minutes walking showed them a dim light up ahead. They passed through into a much larger double cavern, which was half full of gold.

It was a natural underground fissure that water erosion had worn and expanded, light coming in from a large crack in the ceiling. There was a faint breeze blowing in through the hole, which was a good thing because it was dissipating the ghastly stench that still lingered: have you ever smelled a room after someone’s been sleeping off a booze and curry binge? It looked a mess, too. The light fully illuminated crushed piles of wreckage and masonry, which appeared to have just been dumped on the floor at random. The hoard was tucked back in the shadows, piled high and wide, spilling out on occasion. Well, would you want your bed open to the skies if it rained? Sunlight sparkled sharp and clear off the metallic edges, but in the firelight the gold glowed with the warm, beguiling lustre that only gold has. The whole cavern was silent, and the echoes of their movements strangely muffled. There was an almost reverent feel to the place, possibly being generated by the totally obscene amount of wealth accumulated. Who needs a bank to save in when you’ve got a dragon: the interest rates are far higher. Buck and Bruno removed their helmets, and all of them spent several minutes just staring, transfixed by wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, like moths around a flame. Finally, Buck swallowed dryly and reached out, as though frightened to touch the gold in case he found that it was just a dream. But his fingers sank into the cold, warmly glowing mass, and the reassuring solidity of solid gold pressed back around his fingers. They could already tell that they were fondling a 24-carrat majority, just from the texture. Leo patted him on the shoulder, grinning.

"Do you think those sacks of yours will be enough?"

"Enough? Enough?" Even an army couldn’t carry enough!" The others glanced away, because it was unseemly to watch people drooling. "But we could carry more than those sacks. Oh, a horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" But he didn’t really mean it: if anyone from the Stables got their hooves on this lot, no one would ever see it again. With a manic whoop of joy, the stag jumped forwards and scrambled up the pile, dancing from object to object like a child in the world’s most expensive sweet shop. But even better, a child that knows they can have everything they see, and they won’t feel sick if they eat it all! Quite happy to forget absolutely everything and everyone, Buck began roaming over the mass, outlined by glow from his torch and illuminated from beneath by the red and orange reflections in the gold. Following his lead, Bruno scrambled up and began to wade through it, delving his paws deep as though fishing for salmon. Still retaining some of his faculties, Leo contented himself with walking around what edge of the heap he could, sometimes picking up a golden object and examining it with feline curiosity. Totally engrossed beyond reasoning, several hours just flew by for the pair on the hoard. It was like being lost in a dream, with the edges fuzzy but the centre of attention outlined in dazzling detail. When it came to gold, Dragon hadn’t been selective about shape or size, but he had been about quality. There was no puny layer of leaf or false pyrite here. And it wasn’t just gold, although that predominated. They discovered pockets of gems, which glowed like coloured fire in the torchlight, and in some places pure silver gleamed coldly up at them like water under the moon. They laughed and called to one another, brandishing various valuables, sometimes dragging one another over to gawp at some new find, or to squabble over what the value might be.

Finally, Bruno began to come out of his trance.

"I’m hungry."

"Well, eat something." was Buck’s impatient reply. He was currently trying to work out just much gold they could physically lift and carry off with them.

"There isn’t anything." Bruno grumbled. "That greedy Dragon’s eaten everything here. And we can’t eat gold." Mention of their erstwhile victim made both feel a little uneasy: they’d both completely lost track of time. Reluctantly, they made their way back to the edge of the hoard and stepped onto solid rock, scattering riches. Buck blinked and looked around.

"Where’s Leo?" Just then, a sound on the verge of hearing belatedly registered in the self-preservation centres of their brains: flapping! A shadow passed across the crack overhead, then steadied over it. Without consulting, both knights sprinted in the same direction and leaped over one of the heaps of wreckage. They crouched down as silently as they could, trying not to breathe too loudly. The flapping rapidly got louder, and was accompanied by other noises; heavy grunts, strained gasps, muttered comments of ‘Strewth!’. Dragon drifted into view through the hole, carrying a large square object by each of its four corners. It looked very large and heavy, even for him. One or two small bits slid and dropped away from the rest, crashing into the ground, adding to the cacophony of his wings beating the air. A plume of flame caused by the exertions illuminated the cavern briefly, and made the gold scintillate. After a few moments hovering, he unceremoniously dropped the large object, which rapidly expanded to house-sized and then shattered on impact. Rough bits of timber flew everywhere. It looked like it had been a barn. Dragon dropped from view, and Buck risked peering around the side of his cover. He had landed on top of his cargo, puffing heavily and unintentionally setting fire to a few of the planks. He beamed approval on the contents, which were hidden from view.

"By gods, at least these Pommies sure know how to do a decent barbie! Sure hope they get cracking and build a couple more of these ‘takeaways’. Good thing they reheat easy, too. I hate cold takeaway…" He let rip another snort of flame. A familiar flame-grilled scent billowed up and wafted over Buck, and a gurgling rumble rang around the cavern like a trumpet blast.

Without shifting a muscle, Buck revolved on the spot and stared incredulously at Bruno, in time to see his stricken expression as a thick tail whip-lashed around the bear’s middle and hoisted him skywards. Dragon turned and glared at the struggling figure. He boomed angrily:

"Here! Looks like I’ve found meself a thief! And nobody bludges on me and gets away with it!" He peered closer as he brought his tail up, his brows drawing down like wings of doom, then pulled his head back and blinked, wide-eyed. "Strewth! It’s one of you blokes!" Bruno struggled and tried to yank his axe free, only to find that the tail was crushing it against his side. But the movement wasn’t lost on Dragon. He smiled, and it had big, sharp teeth in it. "So it’s back to plan A, huh mate? Good on yer. I like blokes that stick to their principles." He gazed at the struggling figure and sighed regretfully. "It’s a real shame I’ve got to do this, but it’s on principle too. Nothing personal, you understand." He took a deep breath and flared his nostrils. Just at that instant, Bruno’s single-minded stomach gave another loud grumble. Dragon blinked, blowing off a sheet of flame over the bear’s head. He looked hard at Bruno for a second, then broke into a smile that was definitively draconic. It suggested that things were about to get personal.

"You hungry, bloke?" Bruno nodded blankly, still staring into the dragon’s nostrils and sweating coldly.

"Uh-huh."

"Good!" Reaching down, Dragon scooped up a pawful of Khan’s finest and rammed it at him. The bear’s eyes went wide and he spluttered as the wall of food was pressed against him, nearly choking as he swallowed huge, greasy mouthfuls. As he ate, more of the pile subsided to replace it, keeping his cheeks crammed full. Dragon smiled as he watched Bruno eating. "Lovely grub!" he declared cheerfully. "And plenty left, so keep chomping, mate!" Very slowly, he tipped his paw towards the bear’s muzzle, forcing the food into his mouth. The bear grunted and continued struggling even as he swallowed, hardly having a chance to chew. But his struggling soon lessened as the task of eating overtook him and his belly filled with heavy food. He got into a rhythm of sorts, snatching deep breaths between the massive mouthfuls as he was made to work through the small hill of rich, tangy edibles. Fortunately, there were very few bones and no packaging, and he was able to spit inedible bits out if he was quick enough. The bear’s middle gave a satisfied gurgle, now that it was being filled at last, and being filled very generously with its favourite contents. Bruno half-smiled and licked his lips, which were now smothered in sauce. The tantalising smells filled his nostrils, saturating them, and all that he could think of for the moment was the food.

But the pile of food continued pressing against him, still seemingly as large as ever, and Bruno began to feel full. The content signals from his gut were beginning to become a little more urgent as more food came its way, and his taste buds were awash and overloaded with flavours. He was producing saliva by the bucket-load to deal with this extreme eating. The bear began to slacken off, closing his muzzle against the pile. There was a metallic clang as a large claw rapped against his armour over his stomach, and a reptilian chuckle.

"Oh, you ain’t full by a long way, bloke." The pile of food suddenly crammed hard against him, blocking his view. He had to carry on eating or suffocate! He opened, and another cheek-bursting mouthful flooded him. He kept on eating through the vast pile, his jaw muscles starting to ache. His middle now groaned with food, and there was an answering metallic groan from his armour as his stomach swelled inside it. As the involuntary gorging continued, Bruno’s previously rounded belly stretched and grew, forced out by the size of this ‘meal’ with the warmth softening and loosening him up. From his hiding place, Buck gaped as he watched the bear’s armour begin to expand around his torso, growing wider and rounder. He’d seen Bruno looking one and-a-half-times the bear he had after some fairly spectacular binges, but this was on a different level. Grinning widely, Dragon crammed the food against Bruno, forcing it into him. The armour creaked and squeaked as it stretched, the plates of metal shifting and sliding against one another as they fought against the growing pressure contained within them. Bruno’s eyes went wide as he felt his mail beginning to squeeze tight against him. His eating was becoming laboured, but he kept it up. The pile of food was now almost visibly shrinking, but then the bear was definitely visibly expanding. He began to sink a little as the weight the tail was supporting increased. His upper armour grew rounder and rounder, spreading out over the scaly tail wrapped around his hips. It was also being pressed up by the inexorable growth within it, and a thin rim of brown fur was visible beneath it, pressing against the tail. The creaking was getting louder and shriller as the armour began to be hard pressed by its nearly overflowing contents. There were a few small ‘pings’ from beneath it, and the armour swelled a little more, protesting at every millimetre. More bear wedged out from underneath. Bruno moaned weakly, squeezed from inside and without. His chubby arms were being lifted up as his sides swelled outwards, pressing against the shoulder-sockets.

Finally the last mouthful was swallowed, the bear really having to force it down. He resembled a rotund charicature of himself, swollen armour creaking like a galleon in a storm. His eyes were glazed, and he mumbled dazedly as his head sank back against his swollen torso. He was now only a few feet from the floor, the tail trembling along its length with the effort of holding the bloated bruin up. Dragon grimaced.

"Strewth, you’re getting heavy!" Bruno was lowered until his feet touched the ground, and the tail loosened its grip. The bear’s bulk shifted minutely as the external pressure was reduced. It was too much. There was a series of loud ‘pop’s as various catches exploded off, and a gap appeared on the bear’s side. It spread rapidly and catastrophically between the two plates, more catches giving way, or the metal tearing where they didn’t. Bear flesh bulged solidly out of the gap, and the armour vibrated and squealed as more seams gave way. Bruno burst out of his forged steel armour like an insect outgrowing its exoskeleton. Several parts ricocheted off nearby rocks. This time the bear’s exposed bulk expanded by about a foot, bouncing heavily and knocking him onto his back. He lay, pinned beneath a truly gigantic stomach, over twice as big as it had been. The fur was stretched over it, and the stuffed midsection didn’t wobble, it rocked heavily back and forth. The leather and chain-mail still clung to it, now definitely a girdle, with the stomach bulging out from underneath its rim. The links were stretched out of shape, several burst, and the leather was being pressed through the gaps. His face glistened with grease, and there was a thick ring of sauce covering half his face. A deep, resonant belch echoed around, followed by a faint moan. But Dragon wasn’t done yet. Grinning with cheerful malice, he cleared piles of rubble away from the sides of the latest wreckage, and lifted the entire base of it with one paw! Buck could see mounds of food glistening on the platform, easily as much again as that last pawful. It was a definitely dragon-sized portion. He loomed over the bear, grinning. Bruno saw the next ‘helping’. His pupils shrank down to pinpricks, and he frantically tried to scramble away, with about as much success as a beached whale. Dragon reached over him and cupped one massive paw over the bear’s muzzle, then began tipping other’s load through this makeshift funnel. The bear’s eyes bugged out of their sockets, and he managed to holler:

"Hmmmph…" before he was swamped. His mouth didn’t even try to chew this time, and food just shoved its way down his throat, him half-swallowing to stop it clogging. He stared up at the hand in horror and disbelief, cheeks swelling hugely. His belly swelled like a bladder being blown up, or like the moon rising over the horizon. The strained and stretched links gave one-by-one before this bloating juggernaut, plinking and pinging. Smiling and whistling tunelessly, Dragon carried on tipping as space appeared in the funnel. Chicken, beef, duck, goose, venison, grouse, potatoes, bread, thick brown sauce, red oily juice, hot grease and roasted fat. Again, Bruno gave an involuntary moan as the tastes pounded his muzzle. The stuffing didn’t just affect his belly: his chest rose and swelled too, pushed up by his growing belly, and his lower torso filled and bloated along with it. The chain-mail finally burst, giving way in a long seam all at once, flapped limply down and almost immediately being swamped by the small hillock of bear expanding over it. Now free from constriction, his growth accelerated. Bruno’s horizons began to vanish as his bulk swelled upwards, but also stretched and spread wider, wider and wider still. Inexorably, his limbs were pushed outwards by his expanding frame until he was spread-eagled around himself. But it wasn’t just food now. It may have been a trick of the light, but already his limbs looked rounder, his arm and leg guards tighter, and his plump features chubbier than before. Along his sides there was a thick, bulging roll of fat ripening, too. Rotund didn’t even begin to describe him now. Immense, maybe, or vast. Dragon had to shift out of the way to give the ballooning bear more room. The funnel was half-empty now, but not getting any emptier. Dragon tossed the platform away and pushed his paw in, using it like a plunger, making Bruno’s cheeks swell even larger as food was rammed into him up to bursting point. With a final thrust, Dragon shoved the last few cubic feet of food into the bear blimp with his thumb, then stood back and admired his handiwork. Bruno whimpered slightly, his eyes crossed and the size of a barn. His bulk didn’t even rock now, too huge and heavy. And it was almost totally round, the skin quivering very slightly, stretched almost beyond endurance. He blinked, and another monstrous belch rolled around the room before he passed out.

Dragon sniggered and very lightly prodded his new piece of cavern-furniture, which was big enough for him to use as a bean-bag. Then he heard a muffled clank and whirled round. A jet of fire illuminated Buck (who had already weighed up the merits of helping Bruno, or using the distraction to escape) creeping away behind him, halfway to the tunnel. He had already started to sprint. Another blast of flame, aimed this time, made him throw himself to the floor, but he half-rolled, half-bounced back to his feet and was moving again almost instantly, with a speed borne of terror. Unfortunately for him, Dragon’s tail lashed out again, but in this instance knocked him sideways and sent him tumbling. He fetched up near the hoard, and the dragon advanced on him.

"I should’ve guessed you drongos would’ve all been here together." He growled irritably, his dander well and truly up. He picked Buck up in one paw and shook him suspiciously. The stag rattled, and out fell a few small but immensely valuable objects, which he had quietly ‘pre-reserved’ from the hoard when no one was looking. Dragon turned glaring eyes on him, and they glowed like molten fire. An angry Dragon looked much less amiable than the usual Dragon. Buck made a helpless and entirely unconvincing gesture which intimated ‘Hehe, how did those get there?’ Dragon carried on staring at him, and Buck swallowed noisily. That may have been a mistake, because it seemed to spark an idea. Dragon looked over at the recumbent bulk of Bruno, then at Buck, then back at Bruno again. A wicked and delighted smile lit his muzzle. "Bloke, this is yer lucky day. I’m gonna give you all the gold yer can handle." Relief steamed off the stag and he sagged back against the hoard with a nervous laugh. Dragon laughed with him, and then dumped a huge double pawful of gold on top of him. Buck surfaced, spluttering and spitting coins, swallowing some of them and coughing.

"That’s the way, bloke! Let me give you a hand with that…" One dreadful paw thumped down around Buck, pinning him on his back in a scaly cage. Then he saw the tail looming above him, before it snaked down and around towards his head. The very tip flicked his muzzle. Quite reasonably, Buck responded by biting it, and discovered that dragon scales are very hard indeed. Harder than teeth, anyway. With his jaws and head still ringing, he suddenly found his mouth being wedged open by the end of the tail! In a dazzling display of prehensile dexterity, a long length of it coiled itself around that point, winding out wider and wider until it had formed a cone shape. Or a funnel.

Dragon had found himself a new hobby.

He grinned down at Buck. "Yer better put it all in a safe place!" He sniggered, and stretched out one leathery wing towards the hoard. He dipped the trailing edge down, and then scooped it through the gold like a paddle through water. A huge swell of valuables washed forwards, driven by this gigantic shovel, straight at the funnel. Buck twisted and fought like crazy to get out of Dragon’s grip, but he froze when he saw a golden, glittering tidal wave approaching him. It was like a surfer being confronted by roaring, city-crushing tsunami: he’s looking up at more water than he ever dreamed existed, and he then discovers that water can be more powerful than his worst nightmare. A sudden explosion of solid objects pushed into Buck’s mouth and forced themselves down his throat. He gulped, and then gasped, stunned. He’d probably just swallowed more money than he owned. His eyes watered as the metal shoved down, expanding his oesophagus like a mouthful that’s too large. But fortunately for him gold is soft so there were no sharp edges, only smooth, worn ones. The perfect swallowing metal, in fact. Buck had always had a strong taste for gold, and now he was getting the chance to be promoted to a connoisseur. The funnel shifted, tilting itself, and a steady flow of gold started down Buck’s throat after that initial mouthful. The incredible weight of the gold behind forced the contents of his muzzle down his throat now matter how hard he closed it, but at least his gaping jaws did reduce the flow and acted as a sort of filter, as did the tail tip wedged there. Chewing at that didn’t have any effect except to loosen his teeth, and gold isn’t that soft. More gold pushed over his tongue, a whole mess of sovereigns by the feel of them. And he discovered that gold did have a taste: it tasted like gold looks, rich and mellow and earthy. It had lustre in it. He grunted and struggled again feebly, but suddenly discovered the terrible weight in his stomach, pinning him down. He moaned around the small fortune in his mouth, and finally tried to spit some of it out. Even then there was still something abhorrent to him about refusing gold of any kind. But the pouring flood of wealth was against him, and it swept into his body like a tide sweeping through a narrow channel into a lake beyond, or water going down a plug hole.

Dragon grinned and took a larger sweep with his wing, producing a great wave of onrushing money, and an undercurrent in the great pile that briefly made it ripple like liquid. A fresh torrent of gold forced its way into Buck. He moaned again as a terrible fullness hit his mind from his stomach: gold doesn’t compress, or take up the least amount of room that it can. He could feel it trying to back up down his throat, so in desperation Buck swallowed hard. His stomach gave and stretched to accommodate it, and his armour creaked. Whereas Bruno’s armour was convex, and capable of expansion, Buck’s matched his svelte frame, and curved in. Now that Buck was becoming convex himself, and with unyielding solidity, there was nowhere for the armour to stretch to. Buck felt the pressure on his middle as his armour squeezed him like a vice. He was forced to swallow another mouthful, and the pressure redoubled, harder than anything he’d ever thought physically possible. He could feel the outline of coins and bars against the inside of his armour through his skin! He gave another moan, but this was cut off as another golden wave smacked into his open jaws and pressed in like leaden earth. He couldn’t tell if he was being buried alive or drowned. Then there was a ‘Spang!’ and a sudden, blissful release of pressure as his armour gave away along the side seams, splitting open like a chrysalis. Buck’s stomach bulged outwards, packed and slightly irregular due to its contents. With less resistance now to slow it up, Dragon began forcing more and more gold into Buck. The tail opened his jaws wider like a wedge, and the stag’s cheeks bulged hugely. It was the most expensive meal of his life.

As he continued growing, past Bruno’s original impressive size (a thing Buck had sworn he would never do), his middle began to press and squeeze against Dragon’s paw, which was removed. Immediately Buck tried to get away, but received a nasty shock when he couldn’t even heave his swollen body an inch off the floor. Dragon laughed loudly at Buck’s futile squirming, pinned at the stomach by the lead weight of gold filling him. The stag reached backwards and tried to pound on the dragon’s tail with his fists, but it didn’t have the slightest effect. His stomach kept on swelling, his loose, lean and elastic skin stretching to accommodate its contents if not with ease, then with surprisingly little resistance. The chain-mail undershirt and leather vest didn’t stand a chance against Buck’s expansion, bursting far more quickly than Bruno’s had. It was like a rock was growing in his stomach. The stag moaned weakly and began to feel light headed as his middle started to go numb: he felt cold inside from all the metal, and his mouth was now as dry as a bone. But, to satisfy the curious, he had discovered that gold had a huge variety of tastes, or perhaps his taste buds were just playing tricks. Whether it was differences in purity, forging or in the veins of gold where it was hewn from he didn’t care about in the slightest. Mixed in the gold were more mineral flavours from gems, and occasionally the acrid taste of silver patina. Another major plus of gold is that it doesn’t tarnish. Dragon was shovelling enthusiastically now, and had actually made an appreciable dent in half the gold in the Kingdom. Buck now contained about 1/36, and was swelling fast. No one would have believed that he could stretch that much. As he grew, his now mammoth middle became more spherical. Each sweep of the wing brought the rushing, watery sound of gold coins clinking and rattling over each other, a fortune being counted and pushed into a groaning, struggling safe. Occasionally Dragon paused and squeezed the ballooning belly, apparently to gauge its capacity. But each time he grinned and scooped more gold into the makeshift funnel. And more, and more, and more…

Finally he couldn’t even press his fingers into Buck’s side: it was like trying to force your hand into a cliff. He stepped back, hot and panting from his exertions. He began to exercise and loosen his stiff and aching wing, which had developed a nasty twinge. He pulled his tail out of Buck’s mouth with a ‘pop’, and tried to get some life back into it. Whilst doing so, he surveyed the result of his efforts with immense satisfaction. At some point he had rolled Buck onto his stomach to make it easier to sweep in gold from the top of the hoard, and now the stag lay on top of it like a beached whale. Almost bigger, it looked as though a normal stag were riding one, or like a small frog lying over a water-balloon. If you looked closely, you could see the stretched skin on his sides where stag joined belly. His eyes were open, but glazed, and he was panting heavily. He hiccuped occasionally, and it sounded like there was a coin jumping about in his throat. His stomach wasn’t spherical anymore, but a gigantic fat ovoid lengthways up his body. It contained a majority of the hoard, and his arms reached nowhere near the edges. Dragon reached out and patted Buck’s side. There was the ‘glink’ of money and Buck bounced ever so slightly, like the worlds largest ever sack of cold hard cash. It was getting quite warm now. It might have been another trick of the light, but his skin had a slightly golden sheen to it now. Various other bits of gold had caught in his fur. The stag let out a faint moan, and this was echoed by Bruno, who was just about conscious again, although shocked speechless, and completely incapable of motion.

Dragon burst out laughing.

"Now I’ve got me some real souvenirs to bring back from me travels! No one’ll ever believe this unless I show them!" He surveyed both of them with a thoughtful grin, which deepened. "And if I keep at it, in a couple of days I’ll be able to carry all me gold home with me. And I’ll be able to push a bit more tucker into fatty, too." He tried to pick Buck up, and almost strained something trying. "Strewth!" he wheezed as he let go, Buck rocking back into place, "Ah well, yer can’t take it with yer…" Grunting and straining, he managed to shove and slide Buck over to Bruno. They collided with tectonic slowness and stopped dead like warm, furry icebergs. Buck was marginally the larger, but both were truly huge. Dragon scrambled on top of his trophies and laughed again. With all three the cave was getting downright cramped. He patted them and smirked.

"I’m gonna have meself a real comfy bed of gold tonight. King sized, too."

Just then a torch flared up on the other side of the cavern, and a mighty voice rang out,

"Too bad you won’t be alive to make use of it!" Dragon whirled. His eyes fixed on the illuminated figure of Leo, sword drawn and smiling unpleasantly. The pose made him look every bit the classical knight of Yore, and that’s the one sure thing to wind a dragon up: its pattern recognition at a genetic level.

"It you! The third drongo! And the woofter cross-dressing bloke!" He snarled and advanced. Leo backed away slowly, still brandishing his sword. He sneered.

"‘Drongo’ and… ‘woofter’ I may be, but that’s better than being a fat, scaly wowser like you." Dragon faltered and gasped for breath, going purple in the face and his eyes bugging wide. Leo laughed and continued his highly inventive tirade. "You’re gonging like a possum’s armpit and no mistake! You’re a wonger! A complete mungo!" Dragon started to go red, and seemed to swell on the spot. Leo posed, and pointed his sword at him dramatically. "You, ‘mate’, are a DIRTY ROTTEN BLUDGER!"

Dragon let roar an enraged howl, and he sprang madly at Leo. The lion turned and pegged it back down the tunnel. Dragon crashed through without slowing, removing part of the wall as he went. The walls shook as Dragon pounded through, accelerating and gaining fast on the hapless knight in front of him. Leo was half-way across the second cavern and closing on the little exit when Dragon burst into it. The reptile saw, bellowed in fury and leapt, thumping his wings hard. He bore down on Leo faster than a cheetah. He took a deep breath and sighted down his nose. A vast column of boiling yellow-red fire roared at Leo with a deafening whoosh preceding it, torching the cavern all around. Seconds before he was crisped, feline reflexes threw the lion forwards and rolled him through the hole and into the waterfall as the fire struck. A second later Dragon’s head rammed through the hole, still billowing vengeful flame. His shoulders hit the cave walls and he stopped dead with a landscape shaking ‘THUNK’. Dragon’s eyes gaped like saucers as his head jerked up short. The full fury of the waterfall poured into his wide-open nostrils and mouth. He tried to wrench it back, but the tightly fitting hole acted like a collar. Water poured all the way in through his complicated plumbing, past all the gaping one way valves designed to stop this kind of thing, vaporising as it met flame roaring outwards. It was lucky for him that the pressure didn’t burst something. Liquid water inexorably forced its way back and back until it finally hit his flame chambers. There was a god-almighty ‘whoosh’, and the landscape vanished in steam.

* * *

Leo finally dragged himself out of the pool like a bedraggled rat, still clinging to his sword. The torch had gone out. Most of the rest of his mane was badly singed, and the end of his tail had caught fire just before he’d hit the water. He was grinning like a maniac. He got up, armour sloshing for the second time in this adventure. He turned and peered into the thick, ash-choked clouds now enveloping everything. Everything was silhouettes and shades of grey, which rapidly faded into the fog. He heard a tremendous crash, followed by an equally large splash. The water rippled, and Dragon reared up in front of him in a spray of foam. His eyes were wild, his waterlogged beard and whiskers bristling. Bits of weed tastefully decorated his left ear, and water sparkled all over his scales like miniature jewels. He took another deep breath and flamed right at Leo. A great whoosh of steam poured out of his nostrils and over the lion. There was a marshmallow soft ‘whump’, like a dandelion exploding, and the remains of Leo’s hair frizzed out into a bad perm job. He grinned up evilly at the bewildered Dragon, who was pawing at his muzzle and desperately trying to squint up his own nostrils. Another cloud of steam obscured things, and there was a disturbing gurgling noise from his nose. Some water trickled out of it. Dragon’s fire was Out.

"Hah! That’s dampened your enthusiasm!" Leo gloated, dancing a frenzied little jig on the edge. His plan had come off a treat. "It worked, it worked! I thought you’d be stupid enough to chase me through that if I got you mad! Not so hot now, are we? Haha! Die!!" Feeling much braver, he leapt at Dragon, sword swinging.

Mistake. That long prehensile tail snapped the knight out of the air, and dangled him in front of Dragon’s face. Each burning yellow eye filled his vision, bloodshot with rage around the edges.

"I am so gonna get you, bloke…" he turned and waded back across the pool and under the waterfall, snorting steam. It was falling harder than before, and the hole was a great deal larger. Rubble from Dragon’s exit lay under the clear water. The reptile sloshed out of the water, his stomach bulging and heavy with more inadvertently swallowed water. He stood in the very shallows, and gave Leo a terrifying smile. Then he shoved his muzzle against Leo’s like some gross parody of a kiss, and blasted steam into him. Leo’s eyes went wide as his cheeks and neck blew up, the steam filling them and rushing downwards. His armour tightened all over. His fingers and toes swelled and tautened, followed by his limbs, puffing up and immobilising the joints. He wiggled them franticly until his swelling body froze their sockets. Even his tail blew up like a long sausage. Dragon took another deep breath and blew again. Leo began to swell further. His limbs and neck bulged out of gaps in his tightening armour whilst his torso expanded rapidly. His breastplate creaked once as the ballooning cat pressed against it, quivered as the pressure rapidly became unbearable, then burst off. He rounded out fast, his stomach growing especially rapidly. His arms and legs were forced straight out from his body, gauntlets and guards bursting off as they got rounder and rounder. Soon Leo was just in his underwear as he continued blowing up under Dragon’s influence. The dragon shifted his grip and held Leo between his two paws, blowing rhythmically and occasionally squeezing to check on pressure. Leo’s muzzle began to disappear as his cheeks stretched and swelled further, his neck bloating out and holding his head. His chest started to vanish into his growing stomach, his long limbs beginning to look stumpy in comparison. His chain-mail was like a second protective covering over his ballooning torso. Another long blast from Dragon’s nostrils made the lion bulge further, stretching it out taut. With an expert swipe, a single diamond-hard claw sliced though the metal and only the metal, its tip never touching Leo’s skin. It fell cleanly away from him and, smiling viciously, Dragon took another very deep breath…

Pretty soon, Leo’s body was totally spherical, with a faint bulge where his chest might have been. His head protruded at the front, held out of his body’s bulk by his swollen neck, which looked like his head was stuck through a tyre. His bloated cheeks and muzzle, each of which could be housing a beach ball (had they existed back then), had sent his whiskers every which way, although his mane retained its perm. He was almost as wide across as Dragon’s arm-span, who was now straining to keep a hold on Leo’s sides as he puffed, resting upright on his haunches and pressing the fuzzy balloon against himself as he blew. Fur and scales squeaked together. Leo’s arms and legs were double balloons dipping in around the joints, sinking and being absorbed by the stomach. Dragon gave another small puff, and his fingers and toes popped out into miniature balloons, their housings swelling into uselessness. Dragon squeezed him lightly and gave another enthusiastic puff. Leo’s belly stretched further and started to turn translucent through his stretched and separated fur. Whether Dragon intended to blow Leo up until he burst wasn’t certain, but an ominous sound that suddenly came from deep within Dragon made him pause. Leo blinked at him. Then Dragon suddenly felt Leo shift in his grasp, pushed up by something. With a horrible start he felt himself still pressing against the lion, and he realised that it was his own belly! He dropped his balloon to reveal his middle slowly rounding out. Distracted, his tail lashed like a cat’s and stuck Leo. Squeaking, the feline balloon bounced off two walls and then rolled into the water, where he bobbed. Very rapidly, the current pulled him out until he drifted into the waterfall. The force of the water span him like a demented waterwheel, the force keeping him sucked against it. Yowls and squeals blurred and took on a vibrato as he was put through a spin cycle.

Not noticing and still looking shocked, Dragon poked experimentally at his stomach. It dipped and distorted around the finger, but popped back out again immediately, resuming its round shape. And the size wasn’t hanging like extra weight, more like a really bad case of bloating. It carried on bulging steadily, Dragon’s eyes matching it. Now very rounded, his middle started to expand in earnest outwards, the scales on and around it starting to stretch, taking on a faint sheen. Unfreezing, Dragon dropped onto all fours. His stomach bounced on the ground momentarily, pressing up into him. Then his ears detected a faint sound from within, a strange almost-bubbling, accompanied by a low hissing. Horrible realisation dawned. The steam! All that water in his belly! He huffed out as hard as he could, sending great billowing jets of steam out. But it didn’t seem to have any effect. His sides were beginning to bow out, and he could feel scaly skin pressing on his shoulders and hips. He desperately carried on venting steam, and made for the exit. The reptile staggered, finding his sense of balance all wrong, feeling lighter than he should. He struggled on, legs now bonging against the growing obstruction of his stomach, which was now bouncing more regularly on the ground. The bubbling was becoming louder, as though a large kettle was finally coming to the boil. He raced as fast as he could manage to the hole trailing steam, by which time his legs were being pressed outwards from his body by, well, his body. He squeezed his head and shoulders through, but then there was a loud, scraping squeak and he stopped, his front end being bucketed on by the waterfall. His ballooning torso was too wide for the gap, and now squeezed against it. Snarling and cursing, Dragon put both front paws on the side of the rock and heaved himself forwards. He didn’t budge an inch, and the remaining rock walls were too thick to be broken down. He felt his stretched, scaly skin touch down on the ground and stay there. Weight started to vanish from his feet as the curve of his stomach started to dominate his shape. Starting to seriously worry, he changed directions and tried to back up, struggling backwards. The now large ball of his middle dragged firmly along the floor, squeaking again. He got back a few inches, but then motion stopped and he found himself backing up onto his belly! Lashing his tail in frustration, which made his entire rear body wobble and bounce, he scrabbled for purchase with his hind legs, only to discover he could only just reach the floor with his toes! He struggled madly, then yelped in fear as he suddenly found himself, instead of lithely wriggling backwards, rocking from side to side on a massive balloon! He gave a faint moan as an intensely gassy feeling rose from inside him, the steam pressing him outwards. His feet left the floor and slowly began to slide up the balloon’s sides, having to spread wide around it as it expanded between them. His chest also began to vanish into the broadening curve, and the hole around him tightened.

Panicking, Dragon blindly tried to heave his hefty bulk up off the floor, flapping his wings to wrench himself back from the hole. To his utter astonishment, he bounced off his ballooning stomach high into the cave, head and front legs dragged backwards through the hole. It seemed to take a long time for him to fall back down again. He landed on his stomach in the middle of the cave and then bounced back further, tumbling and rolling unsteadily. He came to rest back on his stomach, the remaining water in it sloshing and acting like a weight inside him, similar to those free-standing, inflatable punching bags. His chest was now stretched down and out with his ballooning body, and he was swelling around the shoulders. Frantically, Dragon continued to try and relieve the pressure by blowing steam. His front feet began to lift off the ground, his entire weight supported by his stomach, which bulged out more broadly. He felt jagged rocks press hard into him but dragon scales are tough, even when stretched that tight. Then his view began to rise as his mammoth, rotund body continued to swell, rounding out and pushing his back and legs upwards. He’d filled a good part of the cave to start with, and now it was getting very cosy. Dragon doggedly kept on puffing, but he started to run out of breath. He finally wheezed to a stop, unable to carry on without his lungs imploding on him. His expansion seemed to accelerate, and he felt the underside of his stomach press out further along the floor of the cave as he seemed to rise taller and taller. Dragon looked down to see a curved horizon of green scales expanding across his vision. The scales looked lighter than they should have done in their stretched state, looking thinner. He lifted up further, and could feel the edges of his underside lifting off the floor as his middle rounded up again under the growing pressure inside him. He teetered and wobbled nervously on this expanding ball, suddenly feeling very light and unstable. His limbs were hoisted higher and flatter by the rising surface around them, now spread-eagled across his own stomach. Uncontrollably, his tail thrashed again in panic and he tilted to one side. He fought for balance and failed, then was shocked again when, instead of rolling, he very rapidly hit a side of the cavern and bounced back, only to collide with the other side before he’d tilted more than a few degrees.

"I’m huge!" he exclaimed in numb terror. "And it ain’t stopping!" He realised that he could no longer hear and bubbling inside him, just a steady hiss. All the water had evaporated, but the heat was still making it expand! He let out a stunned grunt as his back bumped into the ceiling, just before one side pressed against the rock wall. He began to squeeze against the two, distorting as his sides pressed and flattened along the surfaces, until his other side hit the other wall. Dragon whimpered and shut his eyes as his body continued to swell, squeezing him until he filled the entire cave.

* * *