You want the story of Tave and the fourth dragon. That’s the one with the sword, I expect. People always ask about the sword. They seldom ask where a cook is meant to find forty breakfasts after his stove has been eaten.
I was taking flour through Dry Bend. It wasn’t dry that year. The ford stood brown above the posts and kept us waiting on the bank for three days. Tave arrived on the second evening, carrying the long bright sword and a paper sewn inside his collar. He took it out before I gave him supper.
The paper said a man marked by the morning star would defend the road against four dragons. A little scar shone beside his right eye. If you wanted to see a star there, you could. If you wanted to see a badly healed cut, it was there too. I thought he was hungry, which wasn’t in the prophecy.
“Three already,” he said.
“Good. Beans?”
He accepted them. He described the first three while he ate: one as big as the mill, another with wings that hid the sun, and the third so clever it could count his footsteps through stone. He had no hides or teeth to show. He said bringing trophies was beneath a defender of the road. Bringing a large paper to supper apparently wasn’t.
Our wagons stood in a curve above the ford. I had my stove beside the middle one, sheltered from the wind, and a little box of iron scraps to weigh down the cloth over the bread. You keep scraps when you cook on that road. Dragons like iron warm. They will follow a hot wheel rim for half a day and leave a wooden house alone. A convoy cools its axles whenever it stops, and ties the cooking stove to something you can unhitch in a hurry.
Before the night watch, he carried our full water barrel from the lead wagon to my stove without asking for the handcart. I had to help him set it down; strength had not told him where my toes were.
Tave said he would take the night watch. The drivers were tired of listening to him and quite pleased to let him listen to something else. I pointed out the stove rope and the scraps. He assured me that his fourth dragon would not reach the wagons.
The little one came at dawn.
Little is a comparative word. It was about the size of the lead wagon, with folded ears and a long pink scar over its nose. It sniffed the bank, then crossed between two wagons, ignoring the horses. They did not ignore it. One pulled a peg out of the mud, and I spent the first part of Tave’s heroic encounter holding a frightened mare by her lead.
He stood between the dragon and my stove. He had taken off his coat, though it was cold enough for my breath to show. The sword looked excellent in that light. I could have sold the picture for enough to replace the stove.
“Back,” he said.
The dragon leaned forward. Tave struck its nose with the flat of the blade, which was a fairly restrained beginning. It opened its mouth and took the blade halfway down.
Tave pulled. The dragon pulled more politely, without moving its feet. The sword parted just above the guard. The dragon chewed. I heard a squeak like a hinge being persuaded to work.
“Hot stove!” I shouted.
Tave looked at the stump of his weapon instead. It had cost him seven months’ wages. He told me that later, while I was explaining the cost of my stove.
The dragon put a forefoot through the stove rope and lifted its nose beneath the firebox. My breakfast kettle rolled off. The stove tipped against the center wagon, wedging under the front axle. Its hot firebox pinned the corner of a flour sack to the wheel. The canvas began to smoke.
Tave dropped the sword hilt. He shoved his shoulder under the wagon’s front corner and lifted. The axle rose off the stove; I kicked the firebox clear and nearly lost a boot to the grate. Two drivers threw the kettle’s water over the smoking canvas. Tave kept the corner raised while I pulled the pinned sack out from under the wheel.
“Down,” I said. “Slowly. I still have two feet.”
He lowered the wagon and sat hard in the mud.
That part is true. I had plenty of reason not to embellish it. If he’d dropped the wagon while I was reaching beneath it, this would be a much shorter story.
The dragon carried my stove a little way upstream and lay beside it. It warmed the metal with a short yellow breath, then bent one corner gently into its mouth.
Nobody wanted to rush it. The ford was still high. We could retreat up the road, but we had horses straining at their ropes, one axle skewed sideways and a wagon we’d have to repair before it rolled a yard. The dragon was close enough that I could hear it enjoying breakfast.
I took the iron scraps from my box. A driver, Neve, had a small brazier that she used at night when her hands hurt. I asked for it and her coal. We made a fire above the bank, away from the flour. Tave wanted to borrow another sword. Neve told him hers was for people and she wasn’t lending it to breakfast.
“You can carry this,” I said, pointing to the brazier.
He stared at it. “Toward the dragon?”
“Away. We’re going uphill.”
We heated the scraps, dropped them into Neve’s spare kettle and hooked the kettle onto a pole. Tave took one end, Neve the other. I walked behind carrying the coal bucket. The dragon raised its head as we passed. Tave began to stop.
“Keep your end level,” Neve said.
It followed. Iron clinked in the kettle. At the stony shelf above the ford we set it down and backed away. The dragon laid one folded ear on the ground, warmed the kettle with its breath and settled. It had no interest in us once the metal stopped moving.
We left Neve’s coal bucket there too. She complained, but not much. I promised to find her another.
Down at the wagons, Tave held the bent axle while the drivers reset its pins. There was no prophecy for that, and it took most of the morning. He had a bruise from his neck to his waist. He ate cold beans at noon without describing any dragons.
The ford dropped the next day. We crossed in pairs. From the far bank we could still see our visitor curled on the shelf, muzzle resting where the kettle had been. The stove was no longer a stove. I cooked supper over stones, which is an ordinary skill that people applaud only after something extraordinary has deprived you of your equipment.
Tave stayed with us until the junction. He rolled his paper and put it back inside his collar. Before he left, he asked whether I would tell people he had defended the road.
“You lifted a wagon,” I said.
“Will you tell them that?”
I have been telling them that for years. They keep giving him back the sword. Now I hear he cut the river in two and sent the dragon home inside a cloud. I don’t dispute it at market; I sell my pies while they talk. But if you’re taking his story farther up the road, put the wagon in. And put Neve in. She carried half the kettle, and unlike the sword, she came back whole.
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