Samuel and the Dragon

This day was just like all the rest-dreary, dull and fatiguing. The rain fell relentlessly with no hope or relief in sight. It had been coming down in sheets for hours and the thunderheads still were hanging low on the horizon. Sharp cracks of thunder gave warning to more impending gloom, lightning illuminated the surroundings, causing once familiar sights to appear strange and twisted.

Samuel looked around him. The trees had lost most of their leaves and the ground had metamorphosed into thick, pasty mud. Samuel plodded through the ankle deep mud toward his horse and with great difficulty he mounted and led his horse through the thick decaying woods. With a lightning flash, the horse reared, Samuel was flung onto a pile of decaying leaves.

The weather had become even more sickening and soul depressing. Samuel could almost feel the impending destruction and gloom the storm would bring. Samuel stared up at the clouds, black as the blackest night, that were stalking him ever so patiently. Gripped by some distant and ancient fear, Samuel let out an ear-shattering scream.

He leapt up from the ground and mounted his horse once again, and galloped off toward the castle he saw on the horizon. There he would be safe. But safe from what? He had no idea. Clutching his sword close to his body he looked back over his shoulder. The rain had stopped and a mist had started to settle on the ground. Amorphous shapes started to emerge, and noises once familiar now somehow seemed strange. Samuel tried not to think about it and tried to concentrate on his journey.

A muffled roar somewhere in the mist startled Samuel. Clutching his sword even closer to himself, he looked deeply into the murky swirling mist behind him. Something moved. But what? Samuel did not care to find out, he urged his horse to go faster by digging his spurs into its ribs. He looked back again and saw something that few people have seen and even fewer have lived to tell about. What he saw made his blood freeze and his hair stand up on end. A dragon! Samuel looked back at the castle.

“Almost there!” he thought, as he dug his spurs even deeper into his horse’s side.

Indeed he was almost there, but almost does not really matter when dealing with a dragon. Samuel nervously glanced back-Nothing! Where could it have gone? He could almost feel the castle gates, he was very close and soon he would be safe. Another quick glance over the shoulder. Still nothing but the mist and the amorphous shapes contained within. He was a few hundred feet from the castle now. But he did not see nor hear the dragon take to the sky, over take him, nor had he realized this until the dragon landed in his path. Samuel tried desperately to bring his horse around but that was the last thing that he ever did.

After gorging itself on both man and beast, the dragon let out a blasting roar, flapped its wings and flew off. Overhead the thunderheads still hung low in the sky, the sky was still gloomy, but the sun was trying to break out through the clouds and the tree branches swayed gently in a calm breeze. Once again the land was quite.