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What Dragons Prefer

by Dayle A. Dermatis

“Dragonslayer,” he greeted, his smile slick beneath his well-oiled mustache. “Thank you for coming to aid us in our time of terror.”

“I prefer ‘Dragonseeker,'” I said politely. “It is not enough to have the skills to slay a dragon–one must learn about him as well. To know one’s enemy is to destroy him.”

And most people knew so little about dragons. I knew, for example, that dragons only fed once every twenty years, and then usually only one human. Is that such a bad thing, really, when wolves kill so many deer in the forest to survive, or humans kill sheep because roast mutton is so tasty? But people panicked if they saw a dragon glide far overhead on the highest currents, or if they caught a faint whiff of its acrid scent when the wind turned just right.