How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [17]
Don’t trip!
In his mind, Greg saw the ogre’s foot slam down on his back, squashing him like a jelly doughnut. His brain shut down after that. He focused on the light ahead.
He ran and ran until the booming footsteps faded and all he could hear was his own labored breathing. Finally he risked a glance over his shoulder . . . and actually smiled. The ogre had given up the chase. Greg’s heart raced, his limbs trembled, and his whole body ached, but he had never felt more exhilarated in his life. With a scream of glee he broke from the forest and was hit by a welcome wash of sunlight.
Unfortunately, he was then hit by something more substantial. Greg crumpled to the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs, as the welcome light gave way to an unpleasant blackness that crept in from the corners of his vision.
He was out of the woods, but not out of trouble.
Hart to Heart
“You all right?” Lucky asked.
Greg answered once the sky stopped spinning. “W-what happened?”
He sat up slowly and looked around. Every muscle in his body ached. He was in a large clearing surrounded, as clearings often are, by forest. Behind him the trees stood dense and foreboding, but those ahead seemed less nightmarish, more like the woods back home.
A nearby moan caused him to notice a sandy-haired boy sprawled out a few feet away. He looked two or three years younger than Greg, but heavily muscled for his size.
“Who’s this?” Greg asked.
Lucky gently patted the boy’s cheeks. “Looks like Greatheart’s little brother, but I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years.”
“Greatheart, the dragonslayer?”
“Not just any dragonslayer, Greg. The greatest dragonslayer Myrth has ever known.”
“What a break. Now we can get his brother to slay Ruuan.”
“No,” said Lucky. “He’s Greatheart from Myrth, not Greghart from Earth.”
Greg waged a battle with his own body as he fought to stand.
The younger boy was starting to wake. “Oooh . . . what happened?”
“Sorry,” Greg said. “I guess I ran into you. You were standing at the end of the trail.”
With a groan the boy pushed himself to a seated position. “No, I was standing at the beginning of the trail. I thought I heard an ogre and decided to take a look.” He shook his head to clear it. “I remember now. The forest pulled back when it saw me coming . . . and then he ran past me,” he said, pointing at Lucky, “and then I saw you, and . . . I don’t remember much after that.”
“You okay?” said Lucky. “Can you stand?”
The boy inspected his limbs with the bluest eyes Greg had ever seen. “I guess so . . . no thanks to him.”
“I said I was sorry,” Greg reminded him. “I was being chased by an ogre, after all.”
“Big deal. My brother gets chased by ogres all the time, and he never thinks twice about it.”
“Then you are Melvin Greatheart,” Lucky said.
“Melvin?” said Greg. Perhaps, he realized afterward, he should have tried it without the snort.
“Yeah,” the boy snapped, “what about it?”
“Nothing,” Greg answered carefully. “It just doesn’t sound like the name of the brother of a great dragonslayer, that’s all.”
“What would you know about it?” said Melvin. He struggled to his feet. “Wait’ll I tell Marvin what you said. Why, he’ll ride you out of here faster than a band of goblins.”
“Your brother’s name is Marvin?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Nothing.” Greg didn’t really care what the dragonslayer’s name was, as long as he could convince everyone that it was Marvin who was destined to slay Ruuan. Greg tried to help Melvin to his feet, but the boy yanked his hand back and would accept help only from Lucky.
“Well, if you’re all right,” Lucky told Melvin,” we need to be on our way.”
“Wait,” blurted Greg. “It’s getting late, don’t you think? Maybe we should be looking for a place to stop for the night.” Lucky shot him a warning glance, but Greg looked quickly to Melvin. “Hey, how about we stay with you?”
“That’s okay, Melvin,” said Lucky. “We’ve troubled you enough already. We’ll just stop at the next house we see.”
Melvin frowned.