Owen staggered backward, sword in hand, leaving the dragonlances in the snow. I could tell that the knight was fairly well floored at the immensity and sheer terribleness of the dragon. It must have been obvious to him right then that what Fizban said was right. You can't fight a dragon with a sword.
"Work some magic, Wizard!" Owen shouted. "Distract it!"
"Distract it! Right!" Fizban muttered and, with a great deal of courage, I thought, the old wizard leaned out from around me (I was in front of him again) and waved his hat in the dragon's general direction.
"Shoo!" he said.
I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but dragons don't shoo. In fact, being shooed seems to have an irritating effect on them. This one's eyes blazed until the snow started melting around my shoes. It began to suck in a deep, deep, deep breath and I knew that when it let that breath out we'd all be permanently frozen statues down here beneath the mountain forever and ever.
The wind whistled and snow whirled around us from the dragon's sucking up all the air. And then, suddenly, the dragon went "Ulp!" and got an extremely startled and amazed look in it eyes.
It had sucked up Fizban's hat.
Fizban had been waving his hat at the dragon, you see, and when the dragon started sucking up air it sucked the hat right out of Fizban's hand. The hat whipped through the air and in between the dragon's fangs and the "Ulp!" was the hat getting stuck in the dragon's throat.
"My hat!" wailed Fizban, and he swelled up until I thought he was going to burst.
The dragon was tossing its head around, choking and wheezing and coughing and trying to dislodge the hat. Owen dashed forward, not bothering to take the time to give the knight's salute to an enemy, which I thought was sensible of him, and stuck his sword (or tried to stick it) in the dragon's throat.
The sword's blade shivered and then shattered. The dragon lashed out at Owen, but it couldn't do much except try to thump him on the head since it was still trying to breathe around the hat. Owen stumbled away and slipped and fell in the snow. His hand landed on the dragonlance.
It was the only weapon we had except for my hoopak, and I would have offered him the hoopak at the time only I forgot I had it. This was all so thrilling.
"Save my hat!" Fizban was shrieking and hopping up and down. "Save my hat!"
Phuey!
The dragon spit out the hat. It flew across the cave and hit Fizban in the face and flattened him but good. Owen leapt to his feet. He was shaking all over, his armor rattled, but he lifted the dragonlance and threw with all his might.
The dragonlance struck the dragon's scaly hide and broke into about a million pieces.
The dragon was sucking in its breath again. Owen slumped. He looked all defeated and hurting. He knew he was going to die, but I could tell that didn't matter to him. It was the thought that his wife and little boy and maybe all those villagers too were going to die that was like a spear in his heart.
And then it seemed to me that I heard a voice. It was Flint's voice, and it sounded so close that I looked all around, more than half-expecting to see him come dashing at me, all red in the face and bellowing.
"You doorknob of a kender 1 Didn't you hear anything I said? Tell him what I told Theros!"
I tried to remember it and then I did remember it and I began to babble, "When you throw the lance, it will be the strength of your faith and the power of your arm and the vision of your eye that will guide the lances into the evil dragon's dark heart. That's what Flint said, sort of, Owen, except I changed it a little. Maybe I was wrong!" I shouted. "Try the other lance!"
I don't know whether he heard me or not. The dragon was making a lot of noise and snow was falling and swirling around us. Either Owen did hear me and took my advice (and Flint's) or else he could see as plain as the hat on Fizban's face that the lance was our last and only hope. He picked it up and this time he didn't throw it. This time he ran with it, straight at the dragon, and with all his strength and might and muscle he drove the lance right into the dragon's throat.
Blood spurted out, staining the white snow red. The dragon gave a horrible yell and flung its head from side to side, screaming in pain and fury. Owen hung onto the lance, stabbing it deeper and deeper into the dragon. The lance didn't break, but held straight and true.
Blood was all over the place and all over Owen and the dragon's shrieks were deafening. Then it made a terrible kind of gurgling sound. The head sank down onto the bloody snow, shuddered, and lay still.
None of us moved — Fizban because he was unconscious and Owen because he'd been battered about quite a bit by the dragon's thrashing, and me because I just didn't feel quite like moving at the time. The dragon didn't move, either, and it was then I realized it was dead.
Owen crouched on his hands and knees, breathing heavily and wiping blood out of his face and eyes. Fizban was stirring and groaning and mumbling something about his hat, so I knew he was all right. I hurried over to help Owen.
"Are you hurt?" I cried anxiously.
"No," he managed and, leaning on me, he staggered to his feet. He took a stumbling step backward, like he didn't mean to, and then caught himself, and stood gasping and staring at the dragon.
Fizban woke up and peered around dazedly. When he saw the dragon's nose lying about a foot from him, he let out a cry, jumped to his feet in a panic, and tried to climb backward through a solid wall.
"Fizban," I told him. "The dragon's dead."
Fizban stared at it hard, eyes narrowed. Then, when it didn't move and its eyes didn't blink, he walked over and kicked it on the snout.
"So there!" he said.
Owen could walk some better now, without using me for a crutch. Going over to the dragon, he took hold of the dragonlance and jerked it out of the dragon's hide. That took some doing. The lance had bit deep and he'd buried it almost to the hilt. He wiped the lance in the snow, and we could all see that the tip was sharp and finely honed as ever, not a notch or crack anywhere. Owen looked from the good dragonlance to the broken dragonlance, lying in pieces underneath the dragon's chin.
"One broke and one did what no ordinary lance could do. What is the truth?" Owen looked all puzzled and confused.
"That you killed the dragon," said Fizban.
Owen looked back at the lances and shook his head. "But I don't understand…"
"And whoever said you would. Or were entitled to!" Fizban snorted. He picked up his hat and sighed. The hat didn't even look like a hat anymore. It was all scrunched and mushed and slimy.
"Dragon slobber," he said sadly. "And who'll pay for the dry cleaning?" He glared round at us.
I would have offered to pay for it, whatever it was, except I never seem to have much money. Besides neither Owen nor I were paying attention to Fizban right then. Owen was polishing up the good dragonlance and when he was done with that, he gathered up the pieces of the flawed dragonlance and studied them real carefully. Then he shook his head again and did something that didn't make much sense to me. He very reverently and gently put the pieces of the broken dragonlance all in a heap together, and then wrapped them up in a bundle and tied it with a bit of leather that I found for him in one of my pouches.
I gathered together all my stuff, that had gotten sort of spread out during the running and jumping and hat-waving and dragon-fighting. By that time Owen was ready to go and I was ready to go and Fizban was ready to go and it was then I realized we were all still stuck down in the cave.
"Oh, bother," muttered Fizban, and walking over to the back part of the cave, he kicked at it a couple times with his foot, and the wall tumbled right down.
We were staring out into bright sunshine and blue sky and when we quit blinking we saw that what we'd thought was a wall wasn't. It had only been a snow bank, and I guess we could have walked out anytime at all if only we'd known it was there.