Chapter Four

 

The next morning, Shazza followed a thinly track round a mountain covered in pines. She came to the place Fo mentioned, what he’d called an “inglorious hole next to a pile of shitty rocks”. The hole was still a huge portal for Shazza, but much smaller than Fo’s cavern; it had marks at its entrance where something had struggled to squeeze in.

                  Charlie wasn’t far inside, because there wasn’t very much inside to speak of. He made room to let Shazza in, squishing himself against his wall until his tail came back around and whomped him in the face.

                  “I’m sry, I’m still movin’ in, I don’t have much furniture yet,” he said, in a deep-ish voice that didn’t have quite the same, or any, of the amplification of Fo’s.

                  “Yeahnah, it’s fine, no worries,” Shazza said, repositioning herself to stop her feet sliding in the mud.

                  Charlie was a brown dragon less than half the size of Fo, with a skerrick of thinning, pale feathers atop saggy leather. His forehead was wide and blocky, casting a wave over his narrow, mossy green eyes, the rest of his face buried in a forearm. He shifted and his soggy tail whacked him again.

                  “Can I offer you a uuhh…” he looked about the bare cave, “can I offer you a dirt?”

                  “Nah, ta, I had some berries and stuff not long ago.”

                  “And ya didn’t bring any?”

                  “Nah, sry.”

                  He sighed: “Figures.”

                  “How many berries would it take to satiate you?”
                  “Ohhhrrr… a lot, yeah, it’d take a lot. I don’t eat ‘em much because I tend to eat the whole bush and it’s… not great, it’s rabbit food with fruit in it at that point. But if you mean, like, picked berries… I dunno how many bushes I’d go through.”

                  “I only had a couple of berries, so, yeah, and I ate ‘em already.”

                  “Ohr, yeah, well… still, you’re a guest in a stranger’s home ‘n all.”

                  “Oh, this is your… home?”

                  “Uuuuh… one of ‘em… yeah. But times are… well anyway what do you want? What’s the… why are you here?”

                  “I was talking with Fo yesterday.”

                  “Orh yeah, that drag. Spose he told you I was a major downer?”

                  “Yeah, pretty much.”

                  “Did he? What else did he say about me?”

                  “That was about it.”

                  “Figures.”

                  “Yeah, yeah. So, anyway – I was hopin’ to slay a dragon and I was wonderin’ if I could slay you? Fo said you might be into it.”

                  Charlie lifted his head and gave Shazza more attention.

                  “You wanna slay me?”

                  “Yeh.”

                  “And… I’d be… dead?”

                  “Yeh.”

                  “How long would I be dead for?”

                  “Uuuuh… forever.”

                  The sad lookin’ dragon gave her more attention still.

                  “Are you sure about that?”

                  “Yes. That is how it works, yeah.”

                  “But what if I came back?”

                  “Back from…? What?! Death is permanent, ya realise that, right?”

                  “You can’t promise that.”

                  “Everything I’ve ever slain is still dead, I promise you that.”

                  “Well, what else have you slain?”

                  “Uuuh – we get mice in the field sometimes, it’s not nice but they eat the corn-flake cobs ‘n that. Aaaand… what else? Some fish of course, couple ‘o fish. Spiders. Eurgh. Yeah, slay them. Uuuh… yeah, probably a few other things, I dunno, you lose track after a while.”

                  “Would I be the first dragon you’ve slain?”

                  “Yeah, ohr yeah, for sure.”

                  “Well, that’d make me special wouldn’t it?”

                  “I mean, it’d make you the first, but yeah, the quantum of the event, the slaying part, my part, that’s pretty special for sure, that’s why I came here, I’ll always remember me slaying you.”

                  It was hard to see through his loafy brown scales, but it looked as though Charlie might be blushing. He shifted and his tail hooked his nose, then he flinched and scraped his bum on the wall of the cave. He groaned.

                  “Okay, yeah, get into it.”

                  “Yeah? For real? I can slay you?”

                  “Yeah, fuck it, you’ll save me the hassle. Is that your weapon, what is that, bombs?”

                  “No, this is just food and stuff…”

                  “So you did bring food?!”

                  “I have a rifle, a gun, I borrowed it from Gary Ranger, just give us a sec and I’ll set it up, hang on.”

                  “Yeahnah, do your thing. I’ll just be over here, in my conservatory, thinking of the really great last meal I’m not gonna have.”

                  Shazza took her backpack off and looked for somewhere to put it that wasn’t a slick of mud. The best she could find was a small bumpy rock that would at least stop it from sliding. She unslung the .222 and unzipped it from its case. She looked for somewhere to put the case, tried holding it under her arm – no good – and then between her legs – but she needed more grip in the mud – so she folded it and stuffed it into the top of her backpack. She reached into a compartment in her bag and took out a couple of bullets, put most of them in her pocket, loaded one into the rifle.

                  “Okay, are you ready?”

                  “Orh yeah, absolutely, let’s do this, carn.”

                  Shazza pulled the trigger!

                  The rifle ripped back into the socket of her shoulder. Shazza felt as though she were being yanked apart like a wishbone. The gun flipped up, but she hung onto it by good fortune of its strap.

                  “Fuck me!” She screamed. “Orh! Orrrrhhh! Fuck! Fuck!”

                  “What happened? Did it work, am I dead?”

                  “No, fuck! The kick of that thing obliterated my shoulder. Did I get you? Is it painful? How you doin’?”

                  “Yeah, nah, all good, I felt a ting on my neck here a bit maybe, I dunno.”

                  “Wow, you are tough.”

                  “Sry about that.”

                  “Nah, it’s not your fault, you’re a dragon, orh, fuck, my shoulder.”

                  She took another bullet from her pocket, her teeth bared in pain as she juggled it into the barrel of the rifle. She lifted it, nestled it in her arm, groaned and released it, let the rifle hang again. She sighed until it became a hiss through gritted teeth. She rolled her shoulder, rubbed it.

                   “Okay, I guess I’d better aim for somewhere softer.”

                  She breathed rapidly, exhaled, lifted the rifle and settled it tighter against her arm, pushing into the pain, and pulled the trigger. Charlie reeled back, screaming, his head smashed the roof of the cave. He winced and scratched at his face. Shazza slid backwards, screaming, her shoulder becoming limp, the rifle dropped into mud.

                  “Ow fuck! My fucking eye! You shot me in my fucking eye!” he said.

                  “Ow! Fuck! Fuck! My shoulder! Fuck!” she said.

                  “Ow! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he said.

                  “Fuck me! Fucking ow!” she said.

                  “Ow, fuck my life, fuck! Why’d you shoot me in my fucking eye?”

                  “It’s soft there!”

                  “Well now I’m…” Charlie began, and opened the eye, tendrils of red splitting across it like cracked ice, “I’m not blind but you are ugly and you are blurry in that order!”

                  “Orh, fuck you!”

                  “Gah, it stings, it really stings! Aaah, bugger me bum, I’ll do it myself.”

                  Charlie let go of his eye, left it watery, bloodshot and shut, and dug his long black claws into the brown leather of his chest. He tore it open, revealing his heart, and light fell out of it like a split star, inking the cave in a kind of cosmic aura it had never imagined, a millennia of light, instantly.

                  “Shoot it!” He roared, as mud bubbled.

                  Shazza shielded her eyes. She felt blindly into her pocket, took out another bullet, fought the searing glow and the pain in her shoulder to load it into the rifle. She took a deep breath and then squeezed it from her lungs, and she raised the gun and fired.

                  The dragon screamed and let go of its chest. Darkness resumed.

                  “Ow! Fuuuuck! How did you miss again?!” he roared.

                  “Orrh my shoulder! Fuck! Fuck! This doesn’t get any easier! I think it’s dislocated now, fuck!” she seethed.

                  “OWW! Fuck! I’m right here, this cave is tiny! How did you get me right on the tittle?!”

                  “Because yer dragonboob was too bright and – wait, what? The tittle?”

                  “The tittle, it’s the part between the finger and the claw, this bit, it fuckin’ hurts when someone shoots you in it!!!”

                  “I think that’s called the quick.”

                  “What would you fuckin’ know about quick?!”

                  “Okay, fuck! Just… hang on… mnnnngggh.”

                  She reached into her pocket again, took out another bullet. She uncocked the rifle and the spent casing spun out to splat in the dirt. She punched the bullet into the chamber, cocked the gun.

                  He gripped his chest, grimacing.

                  “You ready?” She screamed.

                  “Fuck, I dunno, just do it.”

                  “One… two… three!”

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