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and hope the
dragon would not notice me.
    The dragon held the man out on the tips of
his talons, blew a stream of fire at him till he was cooked, then plunged the
dead man into his mouth. I closed my eyes, sickened, and pressed my hands to my
ears. Still I could not shut out the sounds of the dragon's teeth crunching the
shepherd's bones.
    Finished with his feast, the dragon licked
his jaws, looked about, and sniffed. I hunched up close to my small spruce
tree.

"Rosalind!" My morlicr's voice came
from somewhere up mountain . The dragon turned and
pricked up his ears.
    "Rosalind! Come
back!"
    He lifted his head higher.
    "Rosie! Oh, Rosie!
Answer me!"
    Slowly the dragons wings unfurled. He would follow her call and do to her what he'd done to the shepherd!
    I leaped from my hiding place. "Dragon."
    He turned. I could see his nostrils flaring,
green about and red within.
    Blood pounded in my ears.
    I searched the moonlit ground for a weapon:
bushes, slender grass, pebbles. Nothing.
    The dragons tongue lashed out like a devil's
whip. He lowered his head, saying, "Sweet morsel." Dragons know many
human languages, being sharp-witted and slit-tongued, so the words did not
surprise me. But the voice did: a voice like stones thrown into a river, deep and clear and sharp all at the same time. I
could tell by the tone the dragon was female.
    She inched closer,
belly to the ground like a stalking cat. The gold of her underside was the color of my gloves. Her eyes were large
as lanterns, slit with yellow fire. These were the
soft
spots; all
else was scaly armor.
    "I am not afraid," I said, my heart
thrusting in my ribs. The dragon stopped and peered at me. This was not what
she was used to hearing, nor what I'd meant to say.
    The dragon blinked and seemed to smile.

"You're nothing but a winged
lizard!" I shouted. "It's sure you sleep on a flat rock in the sun
and your brains are all in your gut!
    The dragon's mouth opened, her dagger teeth still red with the shepherd's blood. "The morsel has no
fat," she said. "But I see she has a fire in her belly." Then
lifting her head, the dragon breathed flames into the sky. I felt the heat
across my face and chest. The firelight shone like a thousand bluebells in a
starry field. I swallowed hard, my tongue swelling in my mouth.
    She bent closer, smoke swirling about her
head. Lifting her forearm, her five-taloned claw gleaming black and washed in moonlight, she paused, then lowered it again. Her
eyes had fallen on my gloves.
    "Gold," she whispered.
    Quick I tore them off and tossed them at her
feet. The glittering threads of my gloves distracting her, I seized the
moment, thrust out my hand, and scratched her right eye with my talon.
    She roared, rearing back, and the ground
shook beneath her. I ran to the right. She caught me in her claws, like a wee
mouse to a cat. I worked to breathe in her grip, and with every gasp my chest
was shot with pain.
    Now we were face to
face. Drops of blood pearled along the gash beneath her eye. The smells of blood and burnt flesh
filled my nose, and
I felt as helpless as a worm in a robin's claw. I thrust my arm out again to make a second wound, but I was too
far back.
    Some trance shrouded the dragon as she stared
at my naked hand: my scaly blue-green claw, the sharp black talon still wet

with her blood. A shiver raced
across her back and made the dry sound of
rustling leaves.
    Afraid to move, I kept my hand stretched out.
    The dragon was so still that a yarrow moth
lit upon her head and stayed there opening and closing its wings in the
moonlight.
    I felt a calming come
over me then, a peace down to my core. And
though she had me in her grasp and I could not kneel or cross myself as I'd been taught, I loosed my soul to meet my end. In
a twinkling, with a shift of soul, I was prepared to wheel upward into heaven.
But I wasn't ready for what happened next.
    The dragon's warm wet tongue thrust out and
wrapped about my arm. It twisted like a serpent, the slit ending