St. Petrus, the Dragonslayer

by Ronald Larsen

So you’d like to hear the true story of St. Petrus the Dragonslayer, eh? Well now, I’m just the one to tell it, because I was the dragon involved, Elmirus, by name.

I don’t exactly appear to be slain, now do I? So, here’s the way it really was.

Before Petrus went dragon hunting and became a “saint,” he was a tenant farmer’s son, living some distance from Ephesus in what you humans now call Turkey. He was poor in several ways: no money, no education, no real skills, but he wasn’t stupid.

He was poor at social skills, too, pining after beautiful blonde Softa, but he was too shy and tongue-tied to court her or even talk to girls. He also generally forgot to bathe and had a problem with garlic breath. In other words, he was a real mess, even for a human.

As for me, a couple hundred years before Petrus and I had our “epic battle,” I lived deep in the mountains of Romania. As a young red whelp, I never was attracted to female dragons. Most of ’em didn’t excite me, and a couple that did decided I didn’t excite them. So I was a reasonably comfortable bachelor of 75 when I met the beautiful Esmirelda: red-orange scales, a few delicate feathery whiskers, coquettish demeanor, sweet voice, the cutest red-orange fire-breath. Just the nicest looking female dragon I ever saw.

She came to Romania to visit her aged uncle, who lived in our mountains. To tell you the truth, she excited me from my tail to my talons. I guess she had a similar feeling for me, ’cause we denned up together shortly after we met. Life was pretty good for the next 25 years, but Es started wanting more. At first, she just “suggested” we should have more, but after a while the suggesting turned into bitching.

Our den wasn’t big enough, the area around it wasn’t nice enough and, most importantly, I didn’t bring home enough gold. It’s true that dragons are attracted to gold, but I never did see why some dragons want a huge pile of the stuff. Dragons can’t eat it, can’t spend it, can’t use it in any way, except to sleep on. We had a comfortable pile of gold, one big enough for both of us to rest on nicely, but other dragons in the neighborhood had a whole lot more, and ours wasn’t enough for her.

I put up with her fussing and complaining for the next 75 years, but enough is enough. On the first day of our 100th year, she started in on me again. I said, “Okay, okay, I’m going over to the next kingdom for more gold.” But I kept on going to the mountains in Turkey. I found a smallish cave and moved in. Of course, I needed to collect a pile of gold to sleep on from the humans around there. And those people herded some fat tender-looking animals, so I snacked on a few.

However, the natives didn’t appreciate having me as a neighbor. Soon, a couple of knights in shining armor — well, actually tarnished armor — showed up on my mountain with lances and swords. They came riding into the mouth of my cave, intending to kill me.

I kind of hate to admit it, but after 75 years of Esmirelda’s bitching, I was in no mood to put up with some jackass humans carrying big pointed toothpicks. Okay, I’ll admit it. I’d gotten cranky. The cave wasn’t big enough, I hadn’t accumulated enough gold yet for a really comfortable bed and, since I was getting older, I had to interrupt my sleep too often to use my privy.

So, I had no patience with those idiots. One blast of red fire later, all that was left of them and their horses were some fluffy gray ashes and a couple piles of blackened, melted metal. Up to now, I hadn’t had any experience torching humans and horses, but the ashes smelled interesting. I figured I’d handle the situation differently if it happened again.

The next few weeks were uneventful. I wasn’t hungry at first. I spent some of my time enlarging my cave and the rest of it sleeping. But then I helped myself to a couple of oxen down in one of the nearby valleys and, about two weeks later, I saw six knights on horseback coming up the mountain, followed by a kid riding a pack mule.

I moved into the back of my cave and waited. Soon, they showed up on the plateau in front of the cave. They stopped in front, told the kid — they called him a squire — to wait for them and lined up in a row. Then the fat leader yelled, “Charge!” and they all came riding into the cave, screaming with lances set and shiny swords drawn.

I gave them a blast of red flame, set on low, and damned if it didn’t cook them nicely in their shiny metal suits, kind of like cooking roc’s eggs. The armor shells held the heat in, cooking them evenly and holding in some of the juices. Once I got the hang of opening the metal shells, they were good eating. Since the horses didn’t have decent armor, they got a little charred, but they weren’t bad-tasting either.

While I was busy, the kid stampeded away. Going after him seemed like more trouble than it was worth, so I let him go. I had plenty to eat anyway.

I guess the kid went back and spread the news, because every month or so another group of scruffy knights showed up for my dining pleasure. Sometimes they had lances, sometimes arrows, sometimes poison darts. If traffic got a little slow, I’d fly down to one of the valleys and torch a couple of haystacks and maybe a dilapidated barn. That would get the humans riled up and they’d start coming again.

It was always the same: brave knights ride into the den of the evil dragon intending to kill him, knights get toasted, dragon dines well. I had a good thing going. However, one day I realized I was getting homesick, Esmirelda’s bitching notwithstanding.

A couple weeks later, I sensed one human way off and not a very dangerous one at that. He was traveling slowly, and would take days to get to my lair, so I didn’t pay much attention to him. But, one afternoon, I woke up from a nap to sense one scrawny guy with wild yellow hair standing outside my cave. He wasn’t wearing armor and didn’t carry a weapon that I could sense. But I sure could smell him. Humans generally don’t smell very good, but this one absolutely reeked.

He yelled in a high shaky voice, “Dragon come forth. I would speak with you.”

This was unusual. None of those other clowns had wanted to talk. So I came to the front of my cave and asked, “What do you want to talk about?”

He said, “I’m Petrus the Stinky and I came to force you to stop raiding my people.”

This was getting interesting. I said, “How are you going to do that, pray tell?”

“I challenge you to a duel,” he announced.

“What kind of duel?” says I.

“You breathe fire, right?”

“Right.”

“So do I. I challenge you to a breath duel.”

“How is that supposed to work?”

He said, “Since I’m smaller than you, I blast you with my breath first. Then, if you still can, it’s your turn to blast me. If I win, you leave. And, I guess if you win, I leave, so to speak.”

This was too funny. I’d never heard of anything so crazy and I told him so.

He said, “I got kind of drunk at a town festival one evening and boasted that I could defeat the evil fire-breathing dragon. So the townspeople plopped me on my horse and hustled me out of town in your direction. As I was leaving, the beautiful Softa handed me a rose, blew me a kiss, and said she’d be waiting to hear all about it when I got back. So I had to come. I stopped by the family farm, picked up a couple weeks’ worth of food, and here I am, knees shaking but ready for battle.”

“If you make it back, which is very doubtful, you might learn that a beautiful female can turn out to be more trouble than she’s worth,” I told him. “I did, and that’s why I’m here.” But, I thought to myself, I might go back someday, too.

“I don’t have a decent life back there, and it would be even worse if I chickened out. I might have a chance with Softa if I make it, so I figure do or die,” Petrus said.

“Go for it,” said I.

He walked right up in front of my nostrils and belched. It was a humongous belch, almost as good as a small dragon’s. The bastard had been eating nothing but garlic for days, tons of it. His garlic breath almost suffocated me, stung my eyes closed and made me so nauseous. I almost threw up.

After a few seconds, I opened my eyes, then opened my mouth to blast him with red fire. But his garlic breath had affected me so badly, all I could manage was a feeble puff of pink smoke that made him cough.

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “You win.” I could have weaseled out, torched him, and ended the whole thing right there, but we both started laughing and laughed so hard we cried.

“Okay,” I said, “I’m feeling better about life. If you can get your girl, I’m going to go back and make up with Esmirelda.”

One group of knights had dumped some supplies near the cave. Petrus got some of those smelly blanket-bag things they slept in and some ropes and helped me bag up my gold, most for me, but some for him. I took my stash and flew away, making a swing down the valley so the folks in his town could see me leave, then flew back north to Esmirelda and home.

I heard later that Petrus loaded up his gold, trekked back down the mountain and told the townspeople how he vanquished the evil dragon. I think he got the girl. The King knighted him and made him Sir Petrus, the Dragon Vanquisher. But you know how humans can’t resist embellishing a good story; and now, a hundred years later, he’s remembered as St. Petrus, the Dragonslayer. That’s okay. He’ll always be Petrus the Stinky to me.