Swords & Heroes Story #0

To Catch a Dragon's Eye by Lyndon Perry

May 14, 2024

Test run, folks! The first ‘real’ S&S story arrives in two weeks - B. Harlan Crawford’s “A Hiss from the Mound.” But for today, let’s give my own flash fiction a go and see what “Sword & Sorcery One Story at a Time” looks like via Substack.

I’ll probably start with an image or graphic up top. Then the title and author. After that, the story, followed by copyright and credits. Then you can ‘heart’ it if you like it and leave a comment or start a discussion thread. Finally, I’ll include some author and project links and a few ways you can support that week’s contributor. Fair enough?

Then let’s rock.

To Catch the Dragon’s Eye by Lyndon Perry

Martan announced to his family, “I’m heading to the dragon pools.”

“Is it your day already?” his mother, Secilia, asked.

“Florian is ill, so the Knight asked me to watch the waters this afternoon.”

“Which you are only too eager to do,” scorned his sister Reysenti.

“Are you insinuating something?”

“I’m declaring that you are greedy and it will get the best of you one day.”

“Just be careful,” his father, Renaldo, said. “Don’t catch a wyvern’s eye.”

“I’m not a child,” Martan chided. “If some drake happens to be admiring itself in its mirror, as they often do, I simply disturb the waters and go on to view the next dragon’s lair.”

“And you get paid a silver for just looking into pools,” Secilia wondered, amazed.

To the humble family that worked the land, a silver was quite the sum for a day’s worth of gazing into a few pools of enchanted waters. But for the Knight’s watcher, after what he’d seen stockpiled in those wyvern’s caves, it wasn’t nearly enough.

“The Knight is generous,” he said ambivalently. “I best be off.”

Martan set out for the dragon pools, a nascent idea worming its way to the forefront of his mind. He talked himself into the daring plan as he walked to his assignment.

“Why should I alert the Knight when a dragon’s lair is left unattended, so that he might jump through the pool and steal the treasure himself? Yes, he rewards me with a recovered trinket. But what would it hurt if I did the deed myself? I’d be stealing from the drake, not the Knight. Surely, my master would never know, and I could provide my family with quite a boon.”

With that simple reasoning, it was decided. If he gazed into the waters and saw an unattended pile of treasures in a wyvern’s cavern, he would slip through the pool himself. It would take but a moment to fill a pouch with some gemstones and coins, then he would step through the dragon’s mirror and come back through the magic waters, the Knight none the wiser. How difficult could it be? He’d seen his master perform the trick a number of times.

When he arrived at the pools, his master admonished, as usual, “Send up a flare when you spy an empty lair.” The Knight chuckled at his daily instructional rhyme and departed, leaving Martan alone to monitor the smattering of ensorcelled tarns.

It took but a moment for the humble farmer’s son to position himself before, what looked to the average person, a simple puddle of water. He spoke the enchantment the Knight had taught him, and before him shimmered the first image of a wyvern’s lair.

Staring at him was Rimrunt, a relatively young narcissist who only left his mirror to hunt for food and treasure, and that very rarely. Martan splashed the puddle before he could catch the dragon’s eye, thus ending the charm. He quickly moved to the next watery portal.

Repeating the spell, another drake appeared. This one was Zimrod, a familiar, disgusting face. The fierce winged lizard was dread among the distant lands he inhabited; but he, too, liked to admire his reflected image. The Knight had stolen from this beast before, but on this day there would be no raid.

Already bored, Martan disturbed the waters and inched over to the next pool. Speaking the charm, an image of a sparkling mound of gold and silver coins appeared. The Knight’s watcher grew excited. There was no dragon in view. From the cavern’s markings, it looked to be Daigaria’s lair.

She must be out hunting, he thought. Look at that pile of treasure. How easy it would be to slip into the reflection and grab a handful…

A beautiful golden drake entered the purview of the scene dashing Martan’s dreams of an easy spoil. “Drat it, dragon.” He splashed the water and pouted.

He composed himself and moved to the next small tarn more determined than ever that, if given the chance, he would cross the mirrored boundary between his world and a dragon’s bounty.

Once more, Martan spoke the secret enchantment and a new image wavered into recognition. It was the lair of Ulvan the Slayer. He was a monstrous brown fire dragon who terrorized villages located some thousand leagues to the north. The Knight had often stolen from him, for Ulvan, it seemed, was always on the hunt.

The Slayer must be absent his cavern, Martan thought, for that mountainous pile of sapphires and rubies, jewels and jewelry, silver and gold is without guard once again.

A twinge of conscience cautioned the young man to send up the flare and await the Knight to come and dare the thieving deed. But gazing upon the massive prize, Martan espied an especially lustrous gem. An emerald it must be, the size of which he’d never before encountered, let alone imagined. It lay among the heap like a gleaming beacon, calling for him to come and simply snatch it.

Quickly squelching any inhibition, the watcher spoke a second enchantment, one he’d heard the Knight utter on numerous occasions, and threw himself into the pool that encased the image.

Next instant, Martan was stepping out of a mirror and into the wyvern’s lair. Ulvan was nowhere to be seen. The emerald was all that could be seen. It enraptured the young man. It bewitched him. He had to have it.

As he moved to the mound of treasure, the treasure mound rose up before him. No, not the treasure; up rose the head of a dragon whose emerald eye glistened in lust and vengeance. The jewels and rubies and coins that had hidden the drake cascaded down atop the cavern’s invader.

In a rasping inferno of a voice, the fierce dragon spoke. “You are no knight who caught my eye, but you will do.”

The last thing Martan knew was the roar of Ulvan the Slayer’s fiery breath.

** ** **

To Catch the Dragon’s Eye © 2022 by Lyndon Perry. All rights reserved. (Dragon & Knight image by Jo-B via Pixabay, used by permission.) To connect with Lyndon, visit his LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/LynPerryWriter

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