Bjorn and Echo

Bjorn has to watch his footing closely while keeping his head on a swivel. Deadman’s Forest is not where he wanted to be, but that is where the beast landed. He struck its wing with an arrow from his bow as it was heading back to its cave in Mount Stonebeard. Bjorn was hoping to bring the dragon down before he reached the forest beneath the mountains, but the creature flapped on, however awkward, until it tired out halfway over the forest.  

In the forest no light shines through the densely intertwined branches of the canopy above. Below, the way is thick with shrubbery and fern, moss and root, stone, insects of various kinds and sizes, snakes that can end your life with one bite or squeeze it out of you slowly, wild cats that can take down horses, packs of wolves, and worst of all, bear. Bjorn has three scars across his dead left eye and bite marks on his neck from his encounter with a bear two years ago. He doesn’t want another.

Bjorn isn’t a tall man, or at least not the tallest in his clan, but probably the widest by a good margin. His shoulders are about the wingspan of an eagle and his chest is like two boulders, his arms as big as an average man’s head. He is a hairy man who prefers to go without a shirt. He has a beard tied into a single braid and a bald head. Bjorn carries with him a round wooden shield and metal war hammer along with a dagger sinched in his belt, leaving his bow and arrows with the horse at the edge of the forest.

Bjorn had been visiting with the old shepherd, Ayebard, on the outskirts of the village when the dragon swept in on the sheep, grabbing one for its dinner. Bjorn had never seen a dragon before, only heard tales told by men in the Great Hall of Fires where men’s tales of triumph around horns of mead tend to be a little embellished. The creature he saw was not the size of a king’s castle. He would say from nose to tail it was the size of a lion, which he thought was plenty big. Its wingspan, however, was the width of twelve men. Bjorn imagined it perched on its talons, upright with its wings spread and could see how men could so easily exaggerate its imposing size.

Bjorn hears a rumble of a growl and a hiss. He proceeds with caution, not knowing what lies beyond the brush. He makes his way around to get a better view. He spies what can only be described as half lizard, half bird. It had talons and wings like a bird, dark green scales that almost looked black in the darkness of the forest, and its tail was like a lizard's. Under its wings it had arms with little clawed hands like a bat, and its eyes were bright yellow and shaped like a cat's.

“I know you’re there, human,” a deep voice says. “Have you come to finish what you started?”

“Aye, demon. Send you back to hell I will.”

“I do not know what demons are or where hell is, but questions I have of you before you try to end me.”

“Is this some devil’s trick? I come forth and you consume me with fire from your mouth?”

“If I breathed fire, I would have done consumed you and been done with you already. I know where you are at. I can smell you. Why do you assume I breathe fire?”

“All who have faced a dragon to live and tell the tale say they breathe fire through their mouths.”

“Hmm, our breath is considerably hot. We use it to cook our food before eating. I assume it could be uncomfortable for humans. Our scales are resistant. I never gave it much thought.”

“So, are you a young dragon? Is that why you are so small and cannot breathe fire?”

“No, I’ve been alive for three-hundred-seventeen cycles of seasons and I’m of average size, not that there are many to compare myself too anymore. As I explained to you, we simply do not breathe fire.”

“Since you know where I’m at, I’m going to stay here for the time being. Go ahead with your questions,” Bjorn says leaning against a tree and letting his hammer rest.

“Why do your people hunt us?”

“It all started when you dragons crossed our borders and started eating our property – goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs.”

“What are borders?”

“They’re imaginary lines we draw on maps to keep people from trespassing on other people’s land.”

“We are not people. We do not know invisible lines and we don’t know property.”

“Property is what a human owns, what belongs to him. Humans own animals and breed them for food so they don’t have to rely on hunting to feed their large numbers. When you take our animals, we either starve or we start hunting all the wild animals, and it takes a lot of wild animals to feed us. Honestly, there are not enough wild animals.”

“Are deer and fish your property?”

“No. Now I have a question. Why has your kind attacked people in the past?”

“Your kind kept killing us off. We had to send a message to leave us alone, but it made matters worse. Now we only come down from the mountain to feed.”

Have you ever heard all about someone, rumors and gossip painting pictures that hang in the museum of your mind as indicators of what that someone will be like when you meet them. Then when you meet them for the first time, they are nothing how you imagined. That’s what’s going through Bjorn’s mind as he considers his next action.

“What now, human? Need I remind you that even though my wing is injured, my legs work fine, yet left you unharmed the entire time we spoke.”

“Aye, and I you.”

While Bjorn is considering helping his natural born enemy, a wolf howls from just across the clearing where the dragon lies. Two, three, four more wolves answer within the same proximity.

Bjorn picks up his hammer and pushes his way through the underbrush. “Who would have thought I’d go down fighting with a dragon instead of against,” he says as he approaches the winged serpent. “Let me pull that arrow out, maybe you’ll be more useful.”

The wolves have scent of the dragon’s blood. They smell weakness. Slowly, they emerge from the shadows of the forest; teeth bared. The wolves have them circled from north to south, circling to the east, spreading to cover the west and any chance of escape.

The first wolf darts towards Bjorn who takes a heavy swing with his hammer, but the animal darts back. Another one does the same to the dragon but is knocked off its feet by a slap from the dragon’s tail. Another grabs the dragon by his wing, pulling him down sideways. Bjorn knocks the wolf away with his shield and tries striking it with his hammer but misses. Another wolf lunges onto the dragon’s back, clawing as it slides back to the ground. The dragon lets out a furious roar and breathes its breath on an attacking wolf, singing its fur. Bjorn, with hammer in hand, brings it straight down on the head of the wolf who attacked the back of the dragon, leaving it dead. Another wolf lunges at the dragon’s throat, but the dragon catches it out of thin air, the wolf’s bones crunching like twigs under a man’s foot in the dragon's mouth. The three remaining wolves, one slightly burned, scatter into the forest.

“I’m glad you were here human. I could not have fought off those wolves alone.”

“Aye, and I get to walk out of here alone and with it getting dark. What of you? Can you fly?”

“Now that the arrow is loose, I should have no problems.”

“Aye, I am Bjorn, Son of Hjorn. Might you have a name dragon?”

“I have not heard it for some time, but it is Echo.”

“Echo, we have two wolves. Let us feast on one to celebrate victory and friendship, a truce between you and I, and on every full moon, I will bring a ram from our property to share with you as a symbol of our friendship.”

Bjorn guts and skins one of the wolves for Echo to roast. The two conversate over their meal sharing many stories of adventure, learning that they aren’t all that different, for we all have those little things that make us different, but they shouldn’t stand in the way of recognizing the things that make us the same.