Chapter two

It was raining. Again.

Norman was sitting under an overhanging rock, which was large enough to shelter him, his horse, and the fire he'd built, eating a rabbit he'd snared earlier that day. He looked out at the rain and grimaced. This was the third day in a row of miserable rainstorms, broken only by brief respites in which Norman could go out and try to gather dry firewood and fresh meat to round out what was left of the food he'd brought with him from home. And he'd only been traveling for a week! At this rate, Norman would never find another town, much less a dragon to slay!

With a heavy sigh, Norman stretched out in his bedroll and went to sleep.

The next day dawned amazingly, startlingly, bright and clear. Norman whistled as he set about cleaning up his temporary camp and preparing his horse for travel. When he had everything packed and the horse saddled, he swung up on its back and headed toward the road. Suddenly the sky grew dim for a moment, as if a cloud had scudded in front of the sun just briefly, but when he looked up, Norman could see not a single cloud up above him, but there was a dark shape like a very large bird up ahead, heading in the same direction that he was. Could it be a dragon?

Norman was excited, though a part of him wondered what he would really do if he confronted a dragon. Would he be able to slay the beast? Or would he end up as dinner, instead? Norman could see that the flying whatever-it-was was circling lower a few miles up the road, evidently preparing to land. He spurred his horse to go a little faster, hoping he would reach the spot before the creature decided to take off again.

As he drew nearer to the creature's apparent landing place, Norman realized that he really should have some sort of plan. Try as he might, though, all he could come up with was to try to sneak in very quietly, hoping the beast wouldn't hear, see, or smell him. Then, once he'd seen what he was dealing with, he could challenge it to a duel, or something. He really wanted to fight the creature fairly. After all, if he didn't, how would he know whether or not this dragon (if, indeed, that's what he was going to be facing) was really the fiercest dragon in the kingdom? Somehow, this logic all made perfect sense to Norman.

After a while, Norman judged he was close enough to where the creature had probably landed, and that it was time to continue on foot. He left his horse hobbled in a small grassy meadow, and continued along a game trail into the shadowy forest. He tried to look for signs of a rather large creature's passage, but couldn't find anything. He was just about to give up and return to his horse, when he noticed a very large, very odd, rock formation. Norman knew it was odd, he just couldn't figure out exactly why it was odd. He walked around it, studying it closely. The color was right, it matched other rocks in the area. The lichens and moss growing on it seemed normal, as well. What in the world made this pile of rocks different?

Norman was puzzled. He decided to climb up on the rocks to get a better look at them. Starting at a point where the rocks came out in a long, tapered point, Norman climbed up what was almost a small hill. When he reached the top, he looked closely at the rocks he was standing on, but still couldn't see anything obviously out of place about them. He'd been using a short, broken branch as a sort of walking stick in order to help him keep his balance while climbing. Now he started tapping on the rocks, listening for any clues that might tell him why these rocks seemed so out of place. No results, except that the rocks almost seemed to be moving. But that couldn't be, could it?

Giving up for the moment, Norman found a small crack in the stone nearest him, and jabbed his stick down into it so he could sit down. This time there was no doubt about it--the rocks moved! With a violent shudder, the rocks shifted under Norman until he fell to the ground, his stick landing beside him. He watched in amazement as the rock pile changed color from mottled grays to emerald green and purple; and with the color change, he could see that what he had thought was a pile of rocks, was, in reality, a dragon. Which he had just woken up by jabbing a stick into it. Norman had an idea that he was in very big trouble.

To be continued....