Dragon Ingot

 



Part 1

Part 2


The Jirrah named Ritter was a tough one to read. He seemed to be both truthful and deceptive at the same time.

"I tell you," Morgan said. "I'm sure he is lying about this." He held out the golden dragon scale. The flickering lamp on his table reflected in a dozen directions off the angles and facets.

"Looks real to me," Evie purred as she regarded him with the utter disdain mastered by all cats. She was resting on a pile of wrinkled vellum covered in some kind of meaningless scribble. "Only one way to know for sure."

She was right. When it came to the unusual or arcane, she was always right.

"I hate to ruin it."

"Then don't. I don't care."

Morgan went over it again. They had come back to the dragon keep after a botched raid, and here was this Ritter character standing in the middle of their courtyard like he owned the place. He had seemed friendly enough, asking for help from Morgan and his dragon riders, knowing full well they were all wanted for every kind of crime the "civilized" folk could dream up.

"It might be the only profit we see this month." Morgan had been hoping to score big on that last raid, but the place had been filled with hastily-painted plague signs and fresh graves. Almost every cottage door was adorned with an "X" painted in red. The village had been almost entirely abandoned.

Now the whole crew was nervous, and chatter about "bad omens" and "maybe we'll get it too" was running through the barracks. Fights had broken out here and there, and even the dragons had become ill-tempered. He was dreading when someone popped up with an innocent Spring sniffle. Poor chap would likely get burned at the stake before he could stop them.

"Then do it," Evie purred. "Just quit your dithering; it's unbecoming. The minute the crew stops believing in you, your goose is cooked."

It took most of the morning to melt the dragon scale and cool it down to an ingot of pure gold.

"Well, it looks like we can eat this month," Morgan said as he hefted the weight of the gleaming metal, tossing it in his hand as if he was checking the ripeness of a lime.

Evie stopped licking her paw and regarded him with bored eyes. "You going to kill the Jirrah?"

Morgan pocketed the gold. "I guess I should. He'll want the scale back, but that's impossible now. And, without the scale, he's just another scruffy vagabond from the wasteland. No dragon will accept his story without the scale as proof."

"Very tidy," Evie said. She resumed cleaning her paw.

Morgan slipped a butcher knife into his sash. "Which dragon do you think should have his carcass?"

"Yours, of course."

"Of course," he said.

Neither noticed the raven that had been perched on the open shutter. Neither noticed her drop off and fly away.


Part 5

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