How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [42]
Nathan wedged a foot against the body and jerked loose his staff. He crouched and stroked the monster’s fur. “I don’t understand. Bollywomps are usually such gentle creatures. I’ve never known one to attack.”
Greg rose unsteadily to his feet and leaned cautiously forward. “You sure this is a bollywomp?”
“Your tunic, Greg,” said Lucky. “Are you okay?”
Greg glanced down at his side where Lucky was staring. His tunic was slashed wide open, and beneath the ragged edges of cloth, a red stain nearly as bright as Lucky’s hair ebbed across his skin. Nathan said something, but from a long way off. For a moment Greg felt as though he were falling. Then something hard struck him sharply across the back of the head, and day turned instantly to dark.
Damaged Hart
“What happened?” Greg asked when daylight finally fought its way back into his vision. He was lying on the hard-packed trail, staring at a faint blue sky through a thick canopy of tree branches. Rake sniffed around his mouth, checking for breath.
“You fainted,” said Lucky.
“I did . . . why?”
Then he remembered. He bolted upright. “The bollywomp!” A sharp pain exploded in his side, and he fell backward again, coughing and gasping for air.
“It’s okay, Greg,” Lucky assured him. “It’s gone now. How do you feel?”
“I-I don’t know,” said Greg, and this was true. He couldn’t decide whether he felt more as if he’d been repeatedly beaten with a hot poker or as if someone had tried unsuccessfully to turn him inside out.
Nathan’s face appeared between Greg and the sky. His usual smile had been replaced by a disturbingly sober expression. “You’re going to be fine, son. It’s only a shallow wound. It could have been much worse.”
Greg looked at Nathan helplessly. “I thought you said bollywomps wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Normally, they wouldn’t . . . Lucky, could you give us a moment?”
“Um, sure.” Lucky meandered off toward the edge of the clearing, returned hastily for his walking stick, and left again.
“Listen, Greg,” said Nathan, once Lucky was out of earshot. “I know that boy has you convinced he has nothing but good fortune all the time—”
“He is awful lucky,” Greg interrupted.
“That depends on how you look at it.”
“You mean like with your eyes open?” Greg said. He tried once again to sit upright, but he might as well have tried to fly.
“The boy is lucky in the sense that King Peter took him in when he had no one else,” Nathan said, “but I’m afraid there is little more to it than that.”
“King Peter took him in?”
“About a year ago, when the boy’s parents died and left him alone. It only made sense. Everyone already thought he had royal blood anyway.”
Greg’s side stabbed at him until he shifted to a more comfortable position. Yes, he decided, it definitely felt more as if he’d been turned inside out. “Why did they think that?” he asked.
“His hair, obviously.”
Greg offered Nathan his best blank expression.
“Haven’t you noticed?” Nathan said. “Lucky’s the only one in the entire kingdom outside the royal family with red hair. I guess you could say that was one more thing he was lucky about.”
“What happened to his parents?”
“Killed by trolls, I’m told. You saw how his carefree attitude disappeared when we spotted those beasts yesterday.”
Greg nodded. “Wait a minute. I thought you just met Lucky when you met me.”
“I did,” said Nathan, “but I’ve known King Peter most my life.”
Perhaps it was more like the beating, Greg debated, as he tried once more to sit upright. “What does all this have to do with Lucky’s talent?”
“Don’t you see? Lucky’s the kind of boy who could get struck by lightning twice in one week and still tell you how lucky he was not to be killed.”
“I don’t understand.