Prince charming's Arc

Chapter 19 of 30

The scholar had barely cleared the bend when Prince Charming saw the smoke. A thin gray line rose from the road past the tower. He rode out and found them at a bend in the ditch — six travelers, maybe seven, with a cart, a cookfire, and two mules tied to a birch. A woman was sketching the mountain on a scrap of hide. Two boys sharpened sticks. An older man in a red coat waved him down and asked, cheerful as a merchant, whether the dragon flew at dusk or at dawn. They had the poacher's story between them like a shared coat. They passed pieces of it back and forth. One said the beast had eaten a horse. One said it had spared the man to send a message. They were not afraid. They were curious, and curiosity had brought them in a group he could not pick off one at a time. Prince Charming dismounted. He did not lie this time. He told them to watch the ridge and be quiet. Then he took a pebble from his pocket, walked to a flat stone at the roadside, and set it down the way he set stones by the birdbath. He waited. For a long minute nothing came, and the older man began to laugh. Then the shadow crossed the road. The dragon came low over the trees, close enough that the mules screamed and pulled their rope free. It landed on the ridge above them in full view — horns swept back, wings half open, red inside the black. It did not roar. It looked down at the camp and held there, one clawed foot on the rock, tail curled along the ledge. The woman dropped her sketch. The boys ran for the cart. The older man's mouth stayed open and no sound came out. Prince Charming spoke plainly. He said the story in the tavern was soft. He said the true dragon did not send warnings twice. He said the road behind them was still open, and the road ahead was not. They packed in under ten minutes. The cart rattled off the way it had come, and Prince Charming stood in the ditch until the dust settled. On the ridge the dragon stayed where it was, watching him. He had spent the creature's real body to clear the road, and every traveler in that cart would carry the sight home. The lie was finished. From now on the mountain would be guarded by the thing itself, whether he asked it or not.