The great city was nothing like Elizaveta had said it would be.
Amelia didn't know what to think. Nearly every shop was closed. Every building in the town was decorated with black crepe. The streets were empty and the few people that were walking about all looked haggard and frightened as if something might swoop out of the sky and snatch them up. It was so quiet that Amelia could make out the individual clop-clop clop-clop of every horse she passed. She received distrustful looks from every person she saw, and a few even placed their hands on their sword hilts as if they suspected her of robbing them at any moment.
She entered the first inn she saw, relieved to be out of the public gaze. The innkeeper eyed her when she approached the bar.
"Some ham if you please," Amelia said, pointing to the pig roasting over the huge fireplace. She slapped a gold coin onto the counter and added, "I'll need a room for the night as well."
The innkeeper, a rather rotund man with beady eyes, gawked at the coin for a moment before snatching it up. He bit it once and seemed satisfied with the result.
"Well, this will also cover your breakfast tomorrow," he said.
Amelia nodded, situating herself on a bar stool. "What's up with this city?"Has the plague been through recently?" she asked, blunt as ever.
The innkeeper paused in the act of placing the coin in his belt. His eyes glazed over as if he was stuck in an unpleasant memory. "If only t'were the plague," he whispered, shuddering once. "No, we have a far greater problem." He leaned in close as if the nearly empty room was crowded with people eager to hear his great secret. "There is a hill two leagues away from our city, and deep in its heart lives a dragon."
Amelia gasped. Roderich had come across a dragon once, but that had been long ago. Dragons were nowhere to be found these days excepting the northern mountains.
"Every week we must send up a youth or maiden for it to feed on, otherwise it will ravage the entire kingdom. It's been twenty years, and now there is only one youth left: our prince. Tomorrow he goes to be devoured."
"That's horrible!" Amelia exclaimed. The door opened and a group of men entered, one of them raising his hand to catch the innkeeper's attention. The innkeeper shrugged and returned to his business. Amelia stayed quiet while her meal was served, and she waited until the innkeeper had finished serving the travelers before calling him over.
"Why hasn't anyone killed the dragon?" she asked.
The innkeeper laughed at this, his wide belly jiggling over his belt. "More knights than I can count have lost their lives trying. It's no use, we must feed the dragon or die. Still," he added, wiping the inside of a mug with a dishrag, "the king has promised that any man that slays the beast will have half his kingdom."
"What if a woman kills the dragon?"
This time the innkeeper almost choked on his own spit, he was laughing so hard. Amelia didn't ask any more questions, but when she went to bed her heart was pounding in her ears.
Amelia's nose caught the scent of smoke and sulfur first, so strong that she sneezed five times in a row. She let out an irritated 'ugh' and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Looking ahead, peering through the trees, she saw the land rise up into a large hill. About halfway up the hill the grass and trees gave way to bare ground and burnt stumps. At the very top she saw what looked to be the ruins of a church, the stones blackened and crumbling.
Picking up her pace, her scabbard thumping against her thigh, Amelia left the safety of the trees and started climbing the hill. The sky was a steely gray, but streaks of pink and orange announced the coming of dawn. She didn't know exactly when the dragon would expect it's meal or when the prince would arrive to be eaten so she needed to hurry, find the perfect place to wait and watch.
As she climbed, the grass progressively turned browner and drier until she reached the tenuous line where vegetation no longer had any hope of surviving. From then on a dry crunching sound followed her as she waded through ash and sticks of charcoal that used to be branches. Upon reaching the church Amelia had to take a moment to swallow a few mouthfuls of water from her skin. She leaned against one of the pillars for support only to jump back when it wobbled dangerously, the stone under her fingers literally crumbling into dust.
Hoping that the rest of the church would provide better shelter, she walked through the broken archway that had once been a door.
"Oh," she whispered, her voice small and echoey as she peered down the giant hole that used to be the chapel. Charred fragments of benches were scattered about. The pulpit was precariously against the only wall that looked to be stable. It was almost as if...
"Holy crow!"
She could just imagine it: a fire-breathing dragon clawing its way through the hill, bursting from the ground (possibly scattering an entire congregation as it did so) and decimating the entire hillside. No wonder the kingdom was afraid, all the legends she'd ever heard about dragons said that they feared the divine and holy.
A gust of wind, hotter and drier than fifty furnaces, shot out of the hole. It stirred up a cloud of ash and dust as it swirled around the ruined chapel before gushing through the broken windows and door. Amelia was nearly swept off her feet as the wind pushed her back towards the entrance. She settled for crouching by the archway and covering her face. When the wind finally died down a bass growl shook the entire church, so deep and pervasive it could have come from the hill itself.
Still crouching, Amelia slowly approached the lip of the crater. She didn't know what to expect when she cautiously leaned over and peered down the hole, but she was disappointed nonetheless. There was nothing but impenetrable darkness that stretched towards the bowels of the hill. No flicker of flames, no glint of scales, no glowing reptilian eyes, nothing. She sat back on her haunches with a huff of disapprobation, one hand falling to the hilt of her sword.
It seemed like the only thing to do was wait.