The Last Battle of Salus

Twelve-year-old Choir Christian.

I found this short story on my computer while cleaning out my documents folder; I wrote it for an assignment in sixth grade on May 5, 1998. There are a lot of errors but give me a break, I was twelve. I was very proud of it at the time and received high marks. If for no other reason, I post this for posterity.

Hail my friend, I am known as Salus.  Now I am old and retired, but when I was young, I rescued fair maidens, slaughtered dragons, and stood for truth and justice.  My most difficult, dangerous, and sadly last deed was fighting a thought to be extinct dragon.  It begins in my quarters in the King’s castle.

“Salus, Salus!  Come quick, the king summons you on a extremely urgent matter.”  Of course, I quickly sprinted to the chamber where the king meets with the nobles of the land.  In that chamber, I found that a dragon had taken up residence very near to many Villages.  Adding that he had burnt down a few of them already and eaten the cattle, sheep, and other livestock of the rest of them.  I was ordered to go right away but I refused.

Only a few witnesses survived to tell what what the dragon looked like. I went to the witnesses and found out that the dragon was about five huts tall and looked about 5,000 stones (Measurement of weight).  This was the biggest one I had ever fought.  In addition, they told me of the colors of the skin.  I was confused, for they told me of different colors on the same places of the body.  I found out they lived a long distance from one another, so I simply thought it changed color.  The strange thing is that those kinds of dragons were thought to have been destroyed by a mighty mage long ago.  Maybe the mage was not as observant as we thought.  Either that or the witnesses had bad eyesight.  To find out, I went to their homes.  I found that only one witness had eyesight problems.  I could not discover any more, though, for the dragon destroyed another town and was heading toward the castle.  The king ordered me again to go kill it this time or else!

I did not rebel this time, but suited up in the enchanted plate mail the king’s wizard gave to me, armed myself with a blade at my side, lance and shield filling my hands, and mounted my trusted and sturdy horse Shadow, and was off.  When I arrived at the home of the dragon, I quickly prepared to battle.  Then a roar echoed in the air and it must have scared my horse.  I fell off as Shadow fled.  Knowing I could no longer use the lance, I dropped it, unsheathed my blade, and prepared once more for battle. 

Then I heard footsteps, loud ones, yet I saw nothing, I was confused, but luckily, I was tired, because when I closed my eyes, I saw the dragon and everything else around me. I did not advance, though.  Only stupid knights did that.  Instead, I raised my shield to defend. He was huge, truly five thousand stones, and the height of five huts.

 His wings were the lengths of about six huts, and the color of his skin was the white of all whites.  Then the dragon hurled a ball of fire, but I quickly evaded it and before it could attack again, I ran toward it holding my blade straight and tried to jab in the chest it but missed.  That angered the dragon even more.  Luckily, I dodged his swinging claw and once more advanced, but missed again.  This time I was not so lucky, and was tossed ten feet across the ground.  I only had one more chance.  Since I lost my weapon and shield, the only thing left to do was to get the dragon to miss me and hit himself.  I could only achieve this if I was able to move more freely, so I had no choice but to take off my armor.  I knew that one hit and I would perish.  I ran up to it, and luckily he missed. Instead he hit himself and punctured his lung, and he died.  Sadly he did not miss me completely and badly damaged my arm, so I could not fight any more and had to retire.

  

Well my friend, now that you heard my story I bid you farewell.  Oh, I almost forgot. I do guess that you are wondering why the witnesses saw different color dragons, right?  Since the dragon was white, the witnesses saw the dragon as they wished to see it. Since white contains all colors. I also did not tell you that the witnesses’ dragons never had any shades as the colors of their skin.  The reason I saw white is that my mind is open to all things.  Now that should cover it all, so fare well.