The dragon, the fox and the bard
The dragon, the fox and the bard
By Strega
Elias knew he was in trouble. In fact, he could hardly imagine how things could get worse. Scratch that, he thought. It could drop me. That would be worse...barely.
The dragon's wings thundered as it flapped, then settled down to a long glide. All he could see below was forest. Even the hills were wooded, and it was too misty to make out the Lortmil mountains to the west or the bay to the east.. A slow-moving river below was more green than blue. Falling into water wasn't as bad as landing in trees, maybe...? But no, the curved black claws gripping his backpack had hooked far enough around to enclose his torso, too.
It was as green as the forest, the dragon. Glittering scales caught the light like wet leaves. It didn't seem all that big for a dragon, or at least from the stories he had heard of dragons. Its body was perhaps five feet across and from nose to tailtip, sixty or so feet. It was hard to judge as it undulated through the air, but the stuffed red dragon head he'd seen in Greyhawk had been half the size of this entire beast.
The wiggling it had taken to look around dislodged something from his back. Elias cursed and grabbed for the lute, but it dropped into the green haze below. Fine woodwork and expensive, gnome-made catgut dwindled to a dot and vanished into the trees.
"Damn it! That was my best lute!" Elias pounded at the claws holding him, too angry for a moment to think of the consequences if the dragon actually let go. It ignored him as it had ignored his every action since it plucked him off his horse.
"Damn it." He had sung songs about dragons and their amusing "color coding". If it's 'metal', gold, silver, or such, it's friendly - probably. If it's a 'color', red, blue, green, black or white, it's bad. And the brighter the color, the younger the dragon. Really old and powerful wyrms could be spotted not just by their massive size but by the weathered, less colorful scales.
"This one must be pretty young." He was talking to himself now, but that was nothing new for a bard, and it kept his mind off his probable fate. The good news was he wasn't already inside the dragon. The bad news was, it seemed awfully likely that he would end up there. But if it was hungry, why hadn't it eaten his horse?
"A dragon this size might be weighed down by a horse. It'd have trouble flying...no." On second look, the dragon wasn't that small, and his had been a small riding horse. Even if it had eaten the whole thing, it'd have been able to fly.
It must have some other reason for carrying him off, or he'd be in its belly by now. Ransom, maybe? Why kidnap a wandering bard when it could have carried off a rich merchant from a caravan?
The dragon let go of him with one claw and made a gesture. There was a shimmer, then the view steadied save for an occasional ripple as though he looked through a thin sheen of water. Elias guessed that he and the dragon were now invisible. They must be approaching its lair.
Sure enough, a few minutes later it swooped down on a green hill. To his eye it looked like any of the other green hills, but with a tilt of its wings the dragon slid through a diagonal gap in the trees. As it came to rest on the hillside Elias looked up and saw only green. From above the canopy had appeared unbroken. Only from a certain angle was the gap visible.
The dragon's head hooked back under its chest toward Elias, but not to eat him. Carefully it transferred him from its claws to its jaws, giving him no chance to wiggle loose. He was collecting a fair share of scrapes from claws and teeth, but if the alternative was sliding down a dragon's gullet he could accept them. The shimmer dissipated as the dragon dismissed the Invisibility spell.
There was a dark, root-rimmed hole in the hillside, hardly wider than the dragon's body, and into this it proceeded with Elias hanging in front. There was much rustling and scraping as it folded its wings to fit. Some of the claw marks left from the excavation of the tunnel were clearly not those of the dragon.
As it slithered into the cave its bulk blotted out the light, but it could apparently still see. After a minute or so of forward movement he began to be able to make out shapes, and he realized there was light coming from ahead. They emerged into a cavern lined with vegetation.
High overhead, gaps between roots allowed dusty shafts of light in. Roots and earth formed the walls of the cavern, which was two or three times the size of a large barn. Leaves and sprouts grew from the roots, and if there had not been an earthen roof overhead Elias might have thought they were in a meadow.
The dragon paced forward, and Elias saw the dragon's hoard. Silver and copper and a sprinkling of gold coins formed a bed that could not have housed the entire dragon. It was still more wealth than he had ever seen in one place, and that left out the chests and barrels pushed over to one size. Who knew what riches they contained? Then again, one was stamped with "Salt Pork", so perhaps not so many riches.
He heard water running and saw that a small stream had cut a channel down the side of the cavern. Movement next to the stream caught his eye, and he saw the cage.
It had blended in with the background because like the walls of the cavern, it was made of wood. Twisted roots as thick as a man's leg were wound together in a crisscrossing pattern, leaving gaps a man could have slipped through. But it was no man in the cage.
It took Elias a moment to decided what he was looking at. Orange and white and chocolate-black fur, like a fox...it was a fox, an enormous fox, half the size of the dragon! Only instead of a head it had a foxman body, arms, and head. Like a centaur, but with a fox body and fox-man uppers. A...foxtaur.
"Hello. Sorry to meet you in circumstances like this," the fox said. "My name's Hialfi."
"Elias," Elias said as the dragon carried him closer to the fox. By the big cage was a smaller one, and the dragon dropped him in through the open top. It slid a woven-root top onto the cage and weighed it down with a rock as big as Elias's body. Then it stepped back and glared at him through the root bars. A annoyed snort filled the air with a biting stench that burned his nostrils.
"She wants you to strip," the fox said. "Pass all your things through the bars to her. She'll probably give you back some clothing after she checks it for weapons."
Elias didn't see any alternative, so there in front of the foxtaur and dragon he pulled off his pack and stripped. The fox pretended interest in the motes of dust dancing in the sunbeams, but the dragon watched him through narrow eyes as each item of clothing was removed. Naked, Elias turned around so the dragon could see he wasn't hiding anything, then began to pass his possessions through the bars.
It poked a claw at each item, flattening out his clothes before sniffing them. When it was satisfied that no tricks were afoot it pushed his linens back through the bars. Before he was allowed to put those on it spun a claw in the air and Elias obediently turned a circle once more. Then he was allowed to put on what amounted to a loincloth.
The dragon was going through his pack now, winkling out his rolled-up clothes, coin pouch, song books. It tilted its head as it examined the cheaper of his lutes.
"Oh, you're a bard. That's good, she likes music. Makes me sing for her sometime, but I'm terrible at it. No singing voice."
Elias looked up at the fox. Even with it lying down he had to crane his neck. Standing up, the fox would be almost three times as tall as he was. A strange sound came from its midsection, but he was already speaking. "I've never seen a creature like you before. Wait, I heard a song a while back-"
The foxtaur winced. "I can guess. "The tale of the lonely fox, by Renfield."
Elias whistled. "Wow. Was any of that true? The bulette?"
The fox was grinding his teeth. "Let's not talk about that. Dragons can be very jealous creatures. And by the time you heard that song, I'd joined the monastery."
"They let you join a monastery?"
"I have a good reputation around here....well, around the towns where that song was written. I'm afraid I didn't stay a monk long. More problems."
The dragoness picked up his lute between two claws and shook it. She sniffed it, then pushed it back through the bars to Elias. She then gave the fox a long look, and flicked her tail.
"Oh, boy," the fox sighed. "Here we go. Play something romantic, please."
Elias' fingers found the strings without thought, and he began to pluck out a slow melody. "Why?"
The dragoness did something to the wall of the big cage, and it swung open. There did not seem to be a lock or even hinges, as far as he could see. Some sort of plant-affecting magic. The foxtaur stood up and stretched; he was every bit as big as Elias had thought. Now that he was out in the light the bard could see his ragged ears and the scars across his face and chest.
Big as the foxtaur was, the dragoness was bigger. Her tail curled around beneath the foxtaur, rubbing him in a very private - but very obvious, now that he was standing up - place, and the fox arched his back. "I thought she was going to eat me when she chased me down. Maybe that's what she wanted, but she changed her mind." The fox let out a series of hissing syllables, and the dragoness replied, rolling onto her back. As the fox lowered his head and began to lick, her hindpaws came up to stroke his chest. Her tail kept rubbing, and the fox's white-furred sheath began to expose an enormous canine - or, the bard supposed, vulpine - erection.
Elias's fingers stumbled on the strings, but he found the rhythm again as the dragoness shot him a poisonous glance. The bard, who had seen some odd things in his time but had to credit this as the oddest, began to sing as the fox stepped forward. The dragoness' wings wrapped around the big fox as he mounted her, but they didn't cover everything, and Elias watched as what must have been three feet of fox cock slid into her. The instant he entered the fox started to hump powerfully. It almost looked as though the foxman upper half was just along for the ride, except he panted and yelped in obvious pleasure. The dragoness, for her part, hissed and clawed his flanks gently.
Elias had watched lovemaking before, even lovemaking between dissimilar species. But watching a gul wolverine-man sodomize a centauress didn't hold a candle to what he witnessed now. The sheer size of the lovers and the wet, squelching noises their coupling produced! He had to raise his voice and pluck the lute for all he was worth to even be heard. Eventually the dragoness hissed, raked her claws down the fox's forelegs, and settled back satisfied. A moment later the fox let out a high-pitched yelp and froze, arched up tight over the reptile. Big muscles in his haunches pumped as he strove to force himself in still deeper.
The fox moved to dismount, struggled, and then finally pulled out his member, adorned now with a knot as wide as Elias' waist. Quarts of translucent goo spilled out of the dragoness as she pawed playfully at the fox. But not too playfully; one languid wave of a claw and the fox obediently returned to his cage.
The fox sighed as the dragoness first closed the cage door, then curled up in a scaly heap outside it. "I'm sorry you had to see all that. It amuses her to bring people here when she's in the mood. Sometimes she finds volpa and brings them here, that is the worst."
"You're kin to the foxpeople, then? Did their Maker make you too?"
"I was a volpa, but it wasn't the Maker who changed me. No, it was just a carnival wizard. I was young and stupid and he said he could grant me a Wish, so I Wished 'To be stronger.' I had some problems with bullies, you see...I woke up the next morning like this." The fox shrugged. He looked around, as though seeing the cavern for the first time. "I guess I've been here a couple of months now. She brings someone by every few days, like she brought you."
Elias heard again what he'd heard before, but this time he realized what it was. The big fox's belly was rumbling emptily. Just then there was a noise at the entrance: Elias saw goblins coming in bearing baskets. Some of the baskets were full of fish, others fruit. Two of the goblins lugged in a small but heavy chest, which they opened to show the dragoness the coins within. She nodded in satisfaction.
Two more goblins entered, pushing a bound hobgoblin before them. The terrified hobgoblin was pushed up to the dragoness, who looked him over with great care and then sniffed him. Then, a sudden snap of her jaws.
Elias watched with horrified fascination as the bulge made its way down the dragoness' lengthy neck, until the almost certainly still-living hobgoblin disappeared into her thicker body. Her forked tongue flicked, and she waved a paw to indicate that the goblins could leave. Lazily she poked a claw into a basket, then popped the impaled fruit into her mouth. As though in afterthought she flicked an apple to him.
Without thinking he took a bite out of it. It was sour, but edible. Then he looked at the fox. "Isn't she going to give you anything?"
The big fox's ears dropped. "I'm afraid my meal is already here."
"That's right," came the hissing voice. It seemed the dragoness spoke Common. She rolled over, snapped up the last bit of fruit she'd been rolling around on her tongue, and reached for the rock holding Elias' cage shut.
"Wait-" Elias said as she pulled him out of the cage. "There are goblins or hobgoblins or he could just eat what they brought you!" The dragoness grinned, exposing altogether too many sharp teeth, and stuffed him through the bars of the big cage and into the fox's hands.
"I'm sorry, Elias. If I don't eat you, she will, and she will not be gentle about it. I tried refusing to eat people when she first started bringing them. I can still hear their screams, sometimes." He turned Elias around so they were face to face. "She won't give me any other food...."
"You'll get used to it," the dragoness hissed behind Elias. "Now be a dear and eat your dinner."
The fox hesitated until Elias reached out to pat his cheek. "It's all right. If I'm going to be eaten, I'd rather it by you. You seem like a nice guy. I just wish I could write a song about all this."
"I wish you could, too," said the fox, and opened his mouth.
His long muzzle held four canine fangs the size of Elias' hands, and jagged teeth behind those. The bard tensed for the crunch that would take his head off his shoulders, but instead the fox turned him so his shoulders faced up and down and shoved him in. Elias's shoulders hit the tongue and palate, but the big fox gaped wider and kept pushing. His muzzle was too narrow to let the bard fit in if he was crossways to it, but angled the way he was, his shoulders slipped past and into the gullet. Things were suddenly wet and dark and hot around Elias.
"What the hell," he said, only to have his voice muffled by the wet flesh all around him. I didn't expect him to swallow me alive!
That was what the fox was doing, tilting his muzzle back and stuffing more of Elias in. the gullet tensed around the bard as the fox gulped, and the bumpy tongue arched up to give him a push. In one gulp he was taken to the hips, dangling head-down in the stinking gullet. Hialfi tosses his head back again, and Elias' hips slipped through the tightness at the back of the fox's jaws. The hungry fox was salivating profusely and licking the bard as he slid in. Lubricating him for easier swallowing.
The padded fingers left Elias' legs, but only because he was far enough in that the fox was sure of his meal now. The muscular throat tensed and rippled around him, pulling him in and down. Elias began to kick belatedly, reflexively. He had been almost calm as the fox opened its mouth, but he had expected a sudden, crunching end. Not a slow and slithering gulp that would ultimately send him alive into a foxy stomach.
The fox snapped his jaws again, and Elias' calves lay on the bumpy tongue. He kicked, hit hard fox teeth, and yelled as the muzzle closed tight around his feet. Well, he had said it was all right for the fox to eat him....
The big fox swallowed, the gullet tensed around Elias, and he found himself sliding downward. His toes scraped across the fox's teeth a last time, then it was was just soft gulletflesh all around. Layers of slime lubricated the walls, and the bard had not even a pen-knife to scratch them. His fingernails left tracks in the slime as he slid downward, hit a turn (because of his L-shaped body, he thought in passing), and then was pushed horizontally by the still active swallowing muscles.
He hit a soft resistance, some sort of valve in the throat, then pushed through into a bile-stinking place of fleshy folds and hot liquid. However reluctant the fox had been, he was very hungry, and his stomach was ready for Elias. Gallons of acid sloshed around, moved by the pulsating walls. Every inch of the bard was coated in seconds, and already his skin began to burn.
Elias sank into the gurgling fluid, thick folds of stomach wall massaging it into his flesh. Somewhere along the way he had lost his loincloth, not that it would have provided any protection. Made of linen, it might survive the trip through the fox. He would not.
_ It would have been more merciful had you bitten my head off_, Elias thought as he sank into the pool of digestive juices. But maybe she wouldn't even let you do that.
Then all was still in the stomach, save for the gurgling and churning needed to turn the bard into nutrients for the big fox.
The dragoness poked the fox in his newly plump belly until he obliged her with a belch, and she let out a hissing laugh.
"See, that was not so bad."
Hialfi's ears flattened. "It could have been a goblin, as he said. Or a gnoll. You know I like gnolls." He had been hunting gnolls when she caught him, and maybe he would have gotten away had his belly not sagged under the weight of his meals.
She just laughed, and both sated and amused, curled up outside the cage to sleep.
There was a loose rock in the corner of the cage, and below that a seemingly bottomless crack. Into it he would deposit what was left of the bard, when he body had extracted all that could be extracted. Perhaps one of his meals could escape that way, if he could ever get her to not watch every minute from cage-entry to final belch. It was too late for Elias now. Even if Hialfi managed to retch him up, the dragoness had stroked his belly and waited long enough to be sure he was dead.
Each meal was worse than the last, even though, thankfully, she had not fed him any volpa for a while. Yes, if he did not eat them she would, but she wouldn't be bringing these particular people in at all if she didn't know he hated to eat them.
Hialfi scratched another mark on the wall with a claw. Seven marks, seven kidnapped humans. Four elves. Three volpa. Half a dozen halflings. A whole family of praka. Three gnomes. Two dwarves, Three half-orcs (he didn't feel so bad about those.) All carried back to the cave and gulped down alive, save for the few he managed to surreptitiously kill to spare them the pains of digestion. All dead because of him.
One day he had to simply stop eating. He'd tried it before, seen people torn apart in front of him. But if he still refused to eat, eventually - hopefully - she would stop bringing him innocents. Bring him goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls. Even a bugbear or two, he was pretty sure he could get his jaws around a bugbear.
His meal had not been a large one. Hialfi settled down to digest what he had eaten, little though it was after months of bad feeding, and decided.
Elias would be the last. He would just stop eating until she brought him something besides innocents. Even if he starved.
Now, if he was just strong enough to resist the temptation. He was already hungry.