Dragon Slayer I vanquished the last dragon. The village was tormented. Houses burned and crops would not grow in the blasted ground. The domestic animals had been turned to ash. People were starving. Always the last resort of the desperate, I must charge a high price. I have my own tithe to pay but that is of no import to this tale. The dragon was female, dull in colour and serpent sleek. Its face was equine but scaled in dull bronze, its eyes blazed, and smoke drifted from its nostrils as it glided in slow circles. I memorised the patterns of movement. I had no intention of getting myself killed when I finally had the last of the blasted monsters so close to oblivion. When the sun was at its peak, shining in the dragon's eyes, I took my chance. On the lowest point of its glide, I leapt from the treetops I’d been observing from and threw the rein around the slender neck, my shoulders screaming with pain when the slack was taken up and the dragon veered, snapping the leather against its flank. I landed painfully on its back, between the wings where the muscles were as hard as rock. Something in my side cracked and my breath left me. Another wound to ache on winter nights. When I got my senses back I pulled the sword from my back, pulled myself forward and stood up, gripping the rein and digging my heels into the hard shoulder scales. I would get one chance before the dragon bucked and I was broken to pieces on the ground below. Securely anchored, I swung my sword round in an arc, the sharpened blade slicing off the left wing and then the right. Then I lay down and clung on for my #life, hoping the dragon wouldn't turn over. The creature screamed and my ears rang with the sound. The speed was ripping the breath from my lungs and, when the impact came, I couldn't understand why the ground yielded until I felt the water. The dragon floated away from me, stunned by the impact and blood loss. I began to swim, too shaken to see but scrambling ashore somehow and collapsing, choking and weak. The dragon pulled itself alongside me. There was no fight left in our bodies. “I cannot fight if you wish to slay me,” the dragon rasped. The dull black eyes regarded me, pain and exhaustion in their depths. “The loch water has extinguished the flame in my innards and dampened my rage.” I could see this was true and knew my honour could not allow me to slay the defenceless. I agreed to let her stay there, swimming through the water as she had glided through the sky, if she left the humans in peace. She could do nothing else without wings and fire. So I showed mercy to the last dragon when I walked away from the banks of Loch Ness.