The Last Dragonslayer

Chapter 1: The Death He Did Not Deal

The dragon died on a Tuesday, which Piotr Blackhand found almost insulting.

He had tracked Vermithrax the Crimson for three months across the Ashfall Mountains, sleeping in caves that still smelled of sulfur, eating dried meat that tasted like boot leather, and dreaming every night of the kill that would cement his legend forever. The last wild dragon in all the realm. His final hunt.

Instead, he found her curled in a hollow between two peaks, her scales faded to the color of rust, her breath coming in shallow wheezes that sent only thin wisps of smoke into the morning air. She was ancient—older than the kingdom itself, older than the dynasty of kings who had paid Piotr's wages for four decades.

He stood at the mouth of her dying place, his dragonlance heavy in his hands, and watched her go.

It took three hours. Her eyes, each one larger than his head, found him sometime during the second hour and held him there. He saw no fear in them. No hatred. Only a vast, tired recognition, as if she had been waiting for him and was mildly disappointed that he had arrived too late to matter.

When her final breath rattled out and her great body settled into stillness, Piotr sat down on a rock and did not move for a very long time.

He was sixty-two years old. He had killed his first dragon at twenty-two, a young bull that had been terrorizing sheep farms in the eastern valleys. The farmers had pooled their savings to hire him—a blacksmith's son with more courage than sense and a spear he had forged himself. He still remembered the way the dragon's blood had steamed in the cold air, the way the farmers had looked at him afterward like he was something more than human.

Forty years. Thirty-seven dragons. Each one a story, a scar, a notch in the handle of his lance.

And now this. An old creature dying in her sleep while he watched, useless as a sword at a feast.

Piotr stayed with the body until sunset, then began the long walk down the mountain. He left his dragonlance leaning against the cave wall. It seemed wrong to carry it now.

The journey back to the capital took two weeks. He walked most of it, though he could have afforded horses, carriages, anything he wanted. The noble houses had paid him well over the years—dragon hearts for their alchemists, dragon scales for their armorers, dragon teeth for their trophy halls. He had a house in the city with seven rooms he never used and a vault of gold he never spent.

None of it seemed to matter anymore.

He arrived at the gates of Thornwick on a gray afternoon, his boots worn through and his beard grown wild. The guards recognized him immediately—everyone in the realm knew Piotr Blackhand's face—but something in their expressions had changed. They looked at him the way men look at a storm cloud on the horizon, uncertain whether to seek shelter or stand their ground.

"Master Blackhand," one of them said, "the Council has been asking after you."

"Have they."

"They've sent messengers to every inn between here and the mountains. You're to report to the High Chamber at your earliest convenience."

Piotr grunted. His earliest convenience would have been never, but he suspected the Council would not accept that answer.

He went to his house first. It smelled of dust and disuse, the hearth cold, the larder empty. He washed, trimmed his beard, and put on the formal clothes he kept for audiences with nobility—black leather and silver clasps, the traditional garb of a licensed dragonslayer. The outfit felt like a costume now, something worn by a character in a play he had stopped believing in.

The Council of Noble Houses met in the High Chamber of the old palace, a vaulted room with pillars carved to look like dragons in chains. Piotr had always found the decoration ironic. The noble houses claimed to fear dragons, but they loved to surround themselves with images of the beasts—conquered, contained, decorative.

Seven lords and ladies sat at the curved table when he entered. He knew them all. Lord Aldric Harworth, whose grandfather had hired Piotr for his first major hunt. Lady Margery Duncastle, who had once offered him a seat on the Council itself. Duke Brennan Coldmoor, whose family controlled the domesticated dragon farms in the southern provinces.

And at the center, in the highest chair, sat Lord Regent Cassius Varen, the young man who had inherited rule of the realm three years ago when the old king died without an heir. He was thirty, soft-faced, with the look of someone who had never held a weapon heavier than a dinner knife.

"Master Blackhand," Varen said, "we are relieved to see you alive. The reports from the mountains were... concerning."

"I'm sure they were."

"Is it true, then? Vermithrax is dead?"

"She is."

A ripple of reaction moved through the Council. Relief, mostly, but something else too—something that looked almost like disappointment.

"And you killed her?" Lady Duncastle asked.

Piotr considered lying. It would have been easy. He could have claimed the kill, collected his fee, maintained his legend. No one would ever know the truth except him and the dead dragon in the mountains.

But he found he could not make the words come out.

"No," he said. "She died of old age. I watched."

The silence that followed was profound. He could see them recalculating, reassessing, their faces shifting through expressions he recognized from decades of dealing with nobility. They were not mourning the dragon. They were not even particularly interested in how it had died.

They were trying to figure out what to do with him.

"That is... unexpected," Lord Varen said finally. "The last wild dragon, gone without violence. Some might call it a blessing."

"Some might."

"It does present certain complications, however." The Lord Regent steepled his fingers. "Your contract with this Council specified payment upon confirmed kill of Vermithrax the Crimson. Since you did not, technically speaking, kill her..."

"Keep your gold," Piotr said. "I don't want it."

More silence. This was not the response they had expected.

"Master Blackhand," Duke Coldmoor said carefully, "you must understand the position this puts us in. For forty years, you have been the realm's solution to the dragon problem. You have killed every wild dragon that threatened our borders. You have maintained the peace that allows our farms and cities to prosper."

"And now there are no wild dragons left," Piotr said. "Problem solved."

"Yes, well." The Duke shifted in his chair. "That's rather the issue, isn't it? The problem is solved. Which means we no longer need a dragonslayer."

Piotr felt something cold settle in his stomach. He had known this was coming—had known it for years, really, as the wild dragon population dwindled and each hunt became longer, harder, more desperate. But hearing it spoken aloud was different.

"You're dismissing me."

"We prefer to think of it as a retirement," Lady Duncastle said smoothly. "With full honors, of course. A pension. A title, if you want one. You will be remembered as the greatest dragonslayer in history."

"And if I don't want to retire?"

The question hung in the air. The Council members exchanged glances, and Piotr saw something pass between them—a silent communication, a decision already made before he had walked into the room.

"Master Blackhand," Lord Varen said, "let me be direct with you. You are a dangerous man. Perhaps the most dangerous man in the realm. For forty years, that danger was useful to us. It protected our borders, eliminated threats, maintained order."

"But now?"

"Now there are no wild dragons. The only dragons that remain are the domesticated ones—the farm dragons, the draft dragons, the ones we've bred for labor and commerce. They are valuable property, Master Blackhand. Very valuable."

Piotr understood then. It was not about gratitude or honor or even money. It was about control.

"You're afraid I'll start killing the tame ones."

"We are concerned," Lady Duncastle said, "that a man who has spent forty years hunting dragons might find it difficult to stop. The domesticated dragons represent a significant investment for many noble houses. Duke Coldmoor's farms alone are worth more than the entire treasury."

"I've never killed a domesticated dragon in my life."

"We know. And we appreciate your restraint. But circumstances have changed, Master Blackhand. The wild dragons are gone. Your purpose is... concluded. We think it best if you accepted your retirement gracefully."

"And if I don't?"

The threat was implicit in the silence that followed. Piotr looked around the table at the faces of the men and women who had hired him, praised him, paraded him through the streets after every successful hunt. He saw no friendship in their eyes. No loyalty. Only calculation.

They were afraid of him. They had always been afraid of him. They had simply hidden it better when they needed him.

"I understand," he said quietly. "I'll take the pension."

Relief flooded the room like water through a broken dam. Smiles appeared, congratulations were offered, hands were shaken. Lord Varen personally thanked him for his years of service. Lady Duncastle promised to commission a statue in his honor.

Piotr walked out of the High Chamber feeling like a ghost—present but no longer solid, visible but no longer real.

He was retired. The last dragonslayer, with no more dragons to slay.

He went home to his empty house and sat in the dark until morning.