Sean E. Britten

All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Copper Dragon

A monstrous shadow drapes itself across the prairies of a new frontier, a young, male dragon in the process of carving out a territory for himself. A cattle baron and his posse set out to destroy the beast, and not all of them will return.

======

The beast came with the sun at its back, so Hutcherson didn’t see it until it was already on top of them. Its scream split his skull and struck him to the ground, hands instinctively going to his ears. Fire exploded out of the sky. When the heat of it washed over him, Hutcherson genuinely believed he was already burning for a brief second. He rolled and kept rolling until he reached his little camp beneath the shade of a squat tree.

Flames ripped across the dry pasture and left a blackened trench, sand turning to smouldering glass. Cattle scattered ahead of the inferno. Half a dozen weren’t fast enough and living flames clutched at their backs. Hide and flesh burned. The cows screamed, a sound Hutcherson had never heard before and never wanted to hear again. Burning and crying out until their voices quit, the animals ran. Brawny, two thousand pound animals, thick with meat and muscle, fleeing like mice.

Hutcherson made it to his pack and snatched his rifle, a heavy calibre Fencaster Thunderbird 77 with a lever action. Nearby, his horse, a dishwater grey mare named Pistol, shrieked and tottered on her hind legs. Her front hooves sliced at the air. A vast, winged, predatory shadow swept overhead and blanketed them both. Hutcherson had little in the way of cover. Just a few pathetic trees so dry and dead they’d looked like they were on the verge of immolating in the heat of the day before the dragon even showed up.

Panic spread even faster than dragonfire through the two hundred or so members of the herd Hutcherson had been guarding, circling, stampeding, and turning into a churning maelstrom of dust and beef. Hutcherson crawled forward with the Thunderbird rifle tucked against his chest. The dragon descended again and unleashed its fire breath. It cut through cattle like a scythe through wheat, heat and smoke, the smell of hot meat and burnt hair washing across the dry prairie. 

Dust and smoke billowing from under its wings, the dragon hovered over the chaos it had created. Untouchable, with batlike wings that stretched the length of half a dozen horses at full gallop. Its body looked sinewy but iron strong, covered in pale tan scales with striations of dark brown. A thick neck supported a blunt head crowned by a dozen horns that protruded from the top of its skull. Smoke wafted from its nostrils.

Hutcherson raised the rifle to his shoulder and worked the lever. The beast was about four hundred yards away. When he fired, recoil hammered his shoulder and the barrel thundered. He was sure the bullet hit but the flying reptile showed no reaction. Its hide was too thick even for Hutcherson’s buffalo-sized bullets to penetrate. He aimed for its eyes. Working the lever action, another shot pocked one of the dragon’s cheeks. The monster flinched, and turned its attention in his direction.

Cattle massed below. The dragon vomited a stream of fire in a lethal arc, so bright it hurt to look at. More animals spilled sideways, fire digging into their ribs and roasting through their hides. With flapping wings, it propelled itself in Hutcherson’s direction. The creature’s tail hung stiffly behind it, helping to steer the beast like the rudder of a ship. At the end of its tail, a stack of yellow husks like those of a rattlesnake clattered a belated warning at the dragon’s approach.

Hutcherson scrambled backward, staying low to the dirt and carrying his rifle with him. Fire filled the sky. It simply erased the tops of the nearest trees, reducing them to floating ash in the time it took to blink. Pistol whinnied and broke free from her rope. Too late, however, as flame ripped across her spine and set her mane alight. The horse screeched and took off at a wild gallop. A short distance away, she dropped and rolled, kicking, but as hot as dragonfire was it wouldn’t go out. The animal rolled over, again and again, and died.

Finding a ditch, Hutcherson threw himself down it and tucked himself into a ball around his rifle. A wall of heat filled the air behind him. Loud as the crackling blaze was, he couldn’t hear himself scream as he buried his face in the dirt. Fire burned the back of his neck, threatening to ignite his clothing and hair. And then the terrible heat retreated, and the crackling flames fell away. Wings thundered overhead but then the sound of them faded as well.

Ash showered from the air as Hutcherson crawled out of the ditch. Having turned away, the dragon darted after the cattle. With jets of flame it herded them, pushing them together and then driving them apart to keep them stampeding and confused. Its tail rattled. Finally, at random, it fell on one of the cows and hauled it off its hooves. Bleating, the animal struggled in the dragon’s talons. Hutcherson watched the dragon shrink against the blue of the sky, moving rapidly, carrying the cow like a hawk with a field mouse, until it disappeared into the south-west.

“Well, shit.”

xXx

“You damn fool!” Mr Briggins raged. “Thirty head of cattle, gone! Maybe more, and you just let the blasted thing fly off?”

Mr Briggins gripped his hat and used it to beat Hutcherson around the head and shoulders. The whole household and a dozen of Briggins’ men watched the scene out in front of Briggins’ sprawling house, a few trying to hide their sniggers. All Hutcherson could do was stand there and take it, burning with humiliation. Briggins was a hard man who had worked his way up from nothing. Or from less than he was now, anyway. But he was an older man, leathery and grey of hair. Hutcherson would have preferred that the boss take a swing at him, try to knock him down like a man, instead of slapping him about like a disrespectful child.

“Mr Briggins, there weren’t nothing I could do!” Hutcherson said. “I took my rifle, I fired, I hit it, but it didn’t make no difference! The Thunderbird could take down a basilisk, maybe the occasional ogre, but a dragon? You would need a dozen men or more.”

“Then why didn’t you come and get us?”

“There weren’t time! It just appeared, started killing everything in sight, and left.”

Burnt cattle were sown all across the pasture on the other side of the ranch, between fused and blackened trenches. Some of them were roasted down to the ribs. Everything stunk of smoke, burnt hair, and cooked meat. Hutcherson’s horse, Pistol, lay dead among them. Some of the animals hadn’t even died by fire. The panicked stampede had led to broken legs and broken necks, their fallen bodies stomped into the dust.

“You’re full of excuses, ain’t you?” Briggins said, with one last smack across the side of Hutcherson’s head.

Briggins stormed away, seething. None of the men spoke as, cheeks flushed, Hutcherson raised his head and met their eyes. On the porch, he locked gazes with Geraldine Briggins, Briggins’ daughter. She was as beautiful as her father was leathery and hard, cream skin, blonde hair pinned back to expose the tender curve of her neck. Her eyes were wet with sympathy. Hutcherson felt an odd mix of emotions. He should have been embarrassed but part of him was pleased to elicit such a soft reaction from her.

“Where did it go, this dragon, after it did all this?” Briggins asked.

“South-west, sir, toward mesa country,” Hutcherson said.

Briggins turned to his head man, Lotz. “I want to call a meeting at the town hall tonight. Make it happen, we’re going to raise a posse to go after this dragon! Get the word out that there’ll be money, a reward, I’ll take as many as can ride and shoot a gun.”

Lotz organised the men, including Hutcherson, to head into town. Briggins’ enormous ranch surrounded the township on two sides. Travelling around town and the outlying homesteads in pairs, they got the word out about Briggins’ meeting.

The town hall teemed with people after suppertime that night. Curiosity if nothing else brought people out. Some talked about taking down the dragon but many looked amused to hear of Briggins’ poor luck. The man had made himself plenty of enemies with the tactics he’d used to buy up all the pasture he could in the surrounding area. He’d done things like convincing farmers to take out loans they couldn’t afford or pressuring the bank to close out certain accounts, buying up more supplies and manpower than he needed just to deny them to others, and then buying up homesteaders’ lands for a steal when they bottomed out. Only the wall of men Briggins placed between himself and the crowd discouraged confrontation.

“This dragon represents a mortal peril to all of us and our holdings!” Briggins said. “To this entire town!”

“Seems like it’s only a threat to you so far, Briggins!” a voice interrupted.

“You don’t know nothing about dragons then,” Briggins said. “It ain’t conducive to their nature to stop. They don’t just take one animal at a time when they’re hungry, like a wolf or a dire coyote might, they just destroy, destroy, destroy. They’re fire personified, all they do is gobble up everything put in front of them.”

“Sounds like someone we know,” another voice said in a stage whisper.

Briggins ignored the last comment but his eyes swept the room. He seemed to fix every individual with his steely stare for at least a split-second. Hutcherson stood at the back of the room, along with other Briggins men. He kept his face neutral.

“I’m recruiting a posse to go after the dragon! I’m paying fifty coin to every man who comes along, if we’re victorious at our task. And if it’s possible to identify the man who takes the fatal shot at the beast, then an additional five hundred coin for him!”

Excited murmurs rippled through the hall. Some people turned to their fellows with smiles, nodding along, while others shook their heads gravely.

“Fifty coin ain’t worth your life,” someone said.

“Five hundred might be!” another added.

“If you want to come along, see my men at the front of the room!” Briggins said. “We embark at dawn tomorrow, from here at town hall!”

Hutcherson followed most of the crowd outside, where they gathered on the rutted street. People continued to talk and gossip about what Briggins had said. Some men from the town stayed behind and lined up at the front of the room to be recruited.

As Hutcherson stopped at the corner of the town hall, Briggins’ daughter Geralide approached. Her eyes were wide and swimming with concern. Making her way across the cratered ground, she had to hitch her skirts with both hands.

“William,” Geraldine said. “You have to talk him out of this, he’s going to get people killed!”

“With all due respect, Miss Briggins, but I don’t know why you think he would listen to me,” Hutcherson said.

“I’ve told you to call me Geraldine.”

“Geraldine.” Hutcherson smiled. “Your father has no reason to listen to me. I think we both know that when he gets something in mind, ain’t nothing about to dislodge it.”

“You’re the one who saw this dragon though! You know how dangerous it is.”

“And that’s exactly why he wants to be rid of the varmint, before it comes back.”

“From everything you’ve said, it sounds like a young male. It’s making itself a new territory so it’s extra aggressive, that’s all. It’s marking its territory.”

Hutcherson laughed. “How did you become such an expert on dragons?”

“I’ve read about them.” Geraldine looked embarrassed. “They’re intelligent creatures, very intelligent. Not like the old stories, of course, they don’t talk or horde gold, but they can be bargained with. If people are willing to make offerings to them and show that they’re not a threat, they’ll leave us alone.”

“Offerings?”

“Like, the occasional cow or other animal. If we feed it, it won’t take them for itself.”

“Well, I don’t know about all that, but it doesn’t matter. Your father won’t listen to me. Why haven’t you spoken to him?”

“He won’t listen to me either.”

Geraldine looked genuinely frightened. Looking around to see who might be watching, Hutcherson stepped forward and took her forearm. He held it for a few brief moments, trying to instil as much comfort in her as he could with the gesture before letting go and stepping away. Geraldine gave him a small, sly smile and looked around as well to make sure no one was watching them.

“Don’t worry, your father will want to keep me close. I’ll make sure he’s safe.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about.”

xXx

As promised, the posse set out at dawn the next morning. Around forty men on horseback formed the group. Half of them were Briggins’ men, most of those that worked for him except for a small crew that stayed back at his ranch. The rest were men from town lured by the promise of wages or even a shot at a five hundred coin reward. Some of the horses drew wagons heavy with equipment and supplies. At the back of the procession, a few of Briggins’ men led half a dozen cattle. These would serve as bait.

Briggins rode ahead of the others, forging the path, with Lotz beside. Hutcherson along with several others formed a protective shield around him. All of the men carried rifles, Hutcherson’s Fencaster Thunderbird 77 strapped across his back, with the exception of Briggins. A LaVet Chimera revolver rode the holster that slapped against Briggins’ thigh. Iron and brass with a polished ivory grip, the Chimera had a cylinder of six bullets, as was normal, but also had a secondary smooth-bore barrel beneath the first capable of holding and firing 20 gauge buckshot shells.

It wasn’t long before they left what little trail there was and continued into untamed country. Fortunately, the land was largely gentle. Low brush poked through the dry earth, the few trees scrawny and far between. Wagon wheels cut new tracks in the dust. It had been dry enough lately that a couple of streams they crossed were nothing but weak and warm trickles.

“Looks like we’re on the right track,” Hutcherson said.

Hutcherson had experience as a tracker. Given dragons travelled by air, however, there was little to track. Little but not nothing. Hutcherson spotted a stain on the ground from a good distance away and steered the horses toward it.

“What is it?” Briggins asked.

“Dragon scat, it’s fresh.”

The scat looked like bird guano, copious amounts of it splashed across the dark red soil. Mixed up in it were tangles of hair and shards of bone. Based on the splatter, it had fallen from a great height.

“This way,” Hutcherson said. “It was flying in this direction.”

“Lead the way, you’re the expert,” Briggins said.

They rode on together, Hutcherson, Briggins and Lotz all now leading the posse. The other men on horses, wagons, and cattle followed. Hutcherson hesitated but what Geraldine had told him was circling around his head. If Briggins considered him such an ‘expert’, maybe there was a chance, a small chance, that he would listen.

“You sure this is the way we should be going about this, boss?” Hutcherson said.

“What do you mean?” Briggins looked at him with suspicion.

“The dragon, I think what it was, I think it might be a young male. It’s making a new territory for itself so that’s why it’s extra aggressive. It’s setting down some ground rules between us and it, I don’t know if it’ll be back.”

“So what would you have us do instead, Hutcherson?”

“Maybe if we make it offerings, like they used to do in the old country, you know? We could strike a bargain with the thing, we pay it off so it don’t just take the cattle for itself.”

Briggins looked at him with a cruel kind of amusement. “Hutcherson, you ever hear the story of the farmer and the rattlesnake?”

Hutcherson hesitated. “Yeah, of course I have.”

“There was a farmer one winter, was out walking in the snow when he came across a rattler, half-dead, half-frozen, laying on the ground,” Briggins continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “Well, pity just about broke that poor man’s heart, so he picked up the rattlesnake and he brung it back to his house. He lay that snake down in front of the hearth and pretty soon the fire, well, it warmed that snake right back to life, and you know what happened next?”

“I think I do, sir.” Hutcherson’s face looked dark with embarrassment and anger.

“First chance it got, the rattler reared up and it bit the farmer right on the neck. And as the farmer lay on the floor dying from the rattlesnake’s poison, he said, why? Why did you do this thing to me when I have shown you nothing but kindness? And you know what the rattlesnake said?”

“Because it’s in my nature.”

“That’s right! Now I already told you what the nature of a dragon is and how it is not congenial with the ambitions of man. It is fire personified, what we build, it will destroy, if it is left unchecked. That’s why we’ve got to destroy it first.”

“Understood, sir.”

Briggins rode on beside Hutcherson, but the topic wasn’t completely forgotten. “You’re not going soft on me, are you, boy? I thought you was a stone killer. How many men did you kill in the Frontier Wars?”

“Enough,” Hutcherson replied.

“Mayhaps you should think about your own nature, boy. Offerings, ha. Dragons don’t know nothing from negotiating, and even if they did, I sure as hell don’t.”

Sheer rock walls rose out of the ground, their tops flattering into sprawling mesas. Box canyons riddled their way between them to form a maze of passageways. Some canyons, the posse could only fit through in single file and the wagons could barely squeeze into. They negotiated their way along, careful not to lose their sense of direction.

“We need to get to higher ground,” Lotz said. “We can’t see anything from down here.”

In the midst of the canyons, they reached a waterhole where they could rest the horses and cattle. Dismounting, Hutcherson, Lotz, and several more of Briggins’ men climbed the nearest slope. From the plateau they could see across the network of mesas in all directions.

“How do we find this thing, in this maze?” Lotz said.

“If it knows we’re here, it will find us,” Hutcherson said, and an idea slowly dawned on him.

Spotting nothing, the men descended the rock face again. They dusted off their hands and clothes as they returned to Briggins. Dozens of faces watched them expectantly.

“We draw it to us,” Hutcherson said. “That’s what we have the bait for, right? We could search for days and not find it until it finds us. So by creating a box here or in another space, somewhere there’s room enough for everyone to take cover and shoot. When we’re ready, we draw it to us.”

“Of course,” Briggins said. “Start getting the men into position. I’ll have Lotz prepare one of the cows.”

“Prepare? Prepare it how?

xXx

Mooing, one of the cows lingered, staked out, alone by the watering hole. The animal sensed something wrong but it didn’t pull against the rope holding it in place. Bundles of dynamite dangled heavily down the cow’s sides. All wired together, more dynamite had been tied to the cow’s back and against its breast. Two dozen sticks of it, a vast overkill if the intention was just to kill the animal itself. A single cable snaked from the cow to a shelf of rock. One of Briggins’ men waited behind the rock holding a plunger wired to the dynamite. Briggins hunched beside him, along with Hutcherson, Lotz, and another couple of men.

“We draw the dragon here, it sees the smoke, then it sees the cow,” Briggins said. “When it takes the bait, we blow the dynamite and wipe the critter out. If that doesn’t finish the job, the men unload into it until it stops moving.”

Along the shrunken shoreline of the waterhole, a bonfire crackled and dumped smoke into the air. The other cattle were tucked away in an adjoining canyon along with the horses and wagons, minded by some of the posse. The rest of the men spread around the clearing, tucked into hidden cracks and crevasses, sweating in the heat of the day with rifles ready.

“Make some noise, boys! Bring it here!” Hutcherson yelled.

Across the open canyon, members of the posse began to whoop and holler. A few men, as they’d been told to do, fired their guns directly into the air. The noise went on for several minutes and then tapered off. Nervous faces watched the sky but there was no sign of the dragon.

“Maybe it don’t live around these parts after all,” Lotz said.

“Or we just ain’t loud enough, come on! You boys with the dynamite, ring the dinner bell!” Briggins said.

Several of the men across the canyon carried individual sticks of dynamite with fuses. At Briggins’ insistence, they lit the sticks one at a time. As fuses hissed, they pitched the dynamite up and over the lip of the nearest plateau. Each stick exploded with a thunderous crack, casting red dust into the air. Stones spilled down the side of the mesa. The cow in the middle of the canyon bleated and tried to pull away but the stake it was attached to had been driven too deep into the ground. A ripple of panic went through the horses and cattle in the nearby box canyon. Some of the men whooped and fired their guns again. Hutcherson watched the sky, filled with dust and smoke from the blasts.

A screech cut through the air from the distance as the explosions faded. Hutcherson recognised it immediately. The men who’d emerged from cover during all the shooting dived back into the rocks and readied their guns. The man holding the dynamite plunger nervously checked his connections.

“It’s coming!” Briggins yelled. “Get ready!”

The dragon’s scream didn’t come again. An anxious silence settled over the canyon. Small noises, like a wickering horse or someone slipping cartridges into the chamber of a gun, seemed to carry a long way. Briggins, peering out from behind the rock, clutched his heavy Chimera revolver.

Carrying over the mesas, Hutcherson heard the snap of batlike wings. Suddenly, a dark tan shape soared above the canyon. Men stiffened but they knew their orders were to avoid shooting until the dragon had been drawn to the boobytrapped bait. Their nervousness felt like a palpable and shared thing as the dragon circled, breezing through the last of the dust hanging in their air. With pumping beats of its powerful wings, the dragon paused to hover high above the water in the centre of the canyon. It was well outside the blast range of the dynamite attached to the cow. The stiff tail, hanging underneath the dragon, rattled in warning.

“Wait, wait,” Briggins told the man with the dynamite plunger. “Wait until it gets closer.”

Men shrank against the rock as the dragon’s sharp eyes scanned the rock walls. It had to be able to see them, it had to, but it didn’t react. The unlucky cow staked by the water bleated and tried to get away, tossing its head from side to side. Still descending, the dragon studied it as well. Maybe it would think it was an offering, Hutcherson hoped. Would it understand what the bunches of dark red sticks were, hanging off the cow’s sides like strange fruit?

“Wait,” Briggins said.

With unbelievable force, the dragon coughed and vomited a hurricane stream of orange flame. It beat down on top of, and consumed, the cow strung with dynamite before the animal had a chance to protest. The cow disappeared behind a storm of flame. Hutcherson took a few fractions of a second to understand what was going to happen and then ducked, burying himself behind the shelf of rock.

“Get down!” Lotz yelled.

Ignited by the flame, all of the dynamite wired to the cow exploded. The flames suddenly increased tenfold. The thunder of the blast didn’t even seem to make a sound, it was just a wall of pure force. The top of the waterhole turned to foam. Stones were ripped into the sky. Men were blown backward or flattened against the rock. Echoes rolled over the plateaus and up and down the canyons of the mesa country. As the flames and smoke faded, absolutely nothing remained of the unfortunate cow who’d been used as bait. A gaping, blackened crater stood in place instead.

The dragon shrieked. Many of those reeling from the blast were thrown into panic. Several men managed to recover enough to sling their guns into position and open fire. The cracks of gunfire sounded small and sad after the thundering blast of the dynamite. Bullets pecked at the dragon’s scaly flesh. It circled, wings beating. Its tail rattled beneath it and it screamed again.

The dragon breathed a fresh stream of fire, so bright it rivalled the sun, at a shelf of rock where several men hid. Their screams were cut short by the roar of flame as they were instantly incinerated. Bullets continued to punch into the dragon’s back as more men opened fire all around the canyon.

Hutcherson picked himself up, raising his rifle as well. Briggins, Lotz, and the others struggled to recover from the blast. The man holding the now-useless plunger still cradled it in both hands, unsure of what to do with it. In spite of the futility, Hutcherson fired his rifle, used the lever to chamber another round, and fired again.

The dragon swivelled and vomited streams of fire at different parts of the canyon. Men were eradicated in the time it took to draw breath. But while individual bullets did little damage, the sheer number of men firing seemed to overwhelm the giant reptile. Folding its wings, it suddenly let itself fall and dropped into the waterhole. The surface of the water boiled with movement after the explosion. With a mighty splash, the dragon disappeared entirely into the deepest part of the pool.

“What is it doing?” Briggins demanded, his Chimera revolver unfired.

Bullets pocked the surface of the water but didn’t penetrate. Hutcherson stayed close to their shelter of rock, rifle aimed. A couple of quick thinking men lit sticks of dynamite and hurled them into the pool. They exploded, casting frothing geysers into the air, but nothing else stirred. The gunfire and movement tapered off. The dragon didn’t reappear, not even to breathe.

“Where is it?” Briggins said.

“It’s still in there,” Hutcherson said.

“All of you, advance! Get closer and shoot it!”

None of the men reacted. The surface of the waterhole turned calm but the beast lurked below it. Briggins pointed his gun not at the water but at the closest men who’d refused to follow his orders.

“Move forward, go! If it shows itself then shoot!”

Cautiously, around half of the remaining men approached the water’s edge. A couple held more sticks of dynamite. Hutcherson and Lotz joined them with Briggins lingering behind.

The dragon’s head and serpentine neck erupted from the water, followed by its enormous wings. Steam billowed off the creature. Mouth open, it unleashed a stream of liquid fire that slammed into the nearest men. Flame ripped through their bodies like they were paper dolls. Hutcherson reeled backward, again shielding his face. Dragonfire arced toward them but thankfully passed overhead. The heat was unimaginable.

Water blasting off the surface, the dragon snapped its wings and flew straight up. Gunshots rattled and scored its flesh. It retreated, gaining altitude quickly before turning and fleeing in the direction from which it had appeared.

“After it!” Briggins said. “After the beast!”

“You must be joking!” Hutcherson said.

“We have it on the run!”

The remaining men gathered in the clearing. The dragon had killed sixteen and those remaining looked witless with shock. Luckily, most of the horses hadn’t bolted during the battle.  Some had gotten away but there were enough for the remaining men to ride and to draw the wagons.

“Get the dynamite, get all of it!” Briggins said. “We’re going after that lizard.”

Briggins looked unaffected by the loss of so many men. His zealotry was palpable, daring the men to step out of place.

“Like hell I am,” one of the men said, not an employee of Briggins but one of the recruits from town.

The man spurred his horse around in a circle and started back the way they’d come. He hesitated only to see if anyone else was following. Briggins aimed his revolver at the man’s back.

“That’s my horse, and my guns!” Briggins said. “You want to go back, you’re doing it walking and unarmed!

“Like hell!” the man replied, and he kept riding.

“Get off that damn horse or I’ll shoot!”

The man from town ignored him, very slowly and deliberately trotting his way onwards while sitting high in the saddle. Briggins aimed for several long moments and then fired, his shot hitting the man in the back. He yelped and slumped sideways before the horse reared and threw him off its back. He looked to be dead before he hit the ground, blood spreading through his shirt.

“You saw it, he was a damn thief! I warned him!” Briggins turned on the others. “Gather those wagons and let’s get after it!”

Briggins had enough loyal men left to keep order. They collected the horses and wagons, readied the guns and dynamite. Hutcherson went with it resentfully. Along with the horses, they herded the remaining cattle as well.

“It’s wounded! We’ve got to take advantage while we can,” Briggins said. “Don’t you see, there’ll be no stopping it otherwise! It’s in their nature, they have to dominate all creatures under them! It’ll destroy us all in the long run if we don’t get it now. Your livelihoods, your families, the whole town!”

xXx

The posse travelled in the direction they’d seen the dragon escape, looking for its nest. The canyon they followed widened into a larger split in the earth. Multiple horses or a pair of wagons could travel abreast. Briggins directed Hutcherson and Lotz to follow him up a path along one side of the canyon. They tracked the rest of the posse from on high. From the plateau, on horseback, they scanned for the creature’s lair. Lotz had a battered telescope which he removed from his pouch.

“Dragons make their nests up high, so they can see their territory for miles in all directions,” Lotz said. “We’ve got to look for a cave or an opening in one of the higher mesas.”

“And then what? We throw in a few sticks of dynamite? Try to shoot it when it comes back out?” Hutcherson said. “It didn’t work so well the first time.”

“The dragon won’t let us get that close, but when it comes we’ll be ready,” Briggins said.

“Ready how? The cattle again?”

A vicious gleam showed in Briggins’ eye. “This time, the cattle will just be decoys. The real bait are those wagons down there. Look at those crates, do you think you could hit one from up here? Of course you can, that’s why you’ve got a reputation as a sharpshooter. When the dragon attacks, we’ll hide until it attacks the wagons and then, at the right moment, set off the dynamite.”

“But what about the men? All the men down there?”

“That’s the bait, the dragon could see something wrong the first time but it won’t expect us to sacrifice all those men.”

Hutcherson said nothing. The man was insane, he thought. So quickly consumed with the idea of killing the dragon he could think of nothing else. Lotz looked disquieted but if push came to shove he’d remain loyal to Briggins.

The canyon curved and furrowed like the course of a river. Hutcherson, Briggins and Lotz continued to follow the lip of it as the twenty-something men below pushed along with the horses, wagons, and five cattle. The cows didn’t like travelling out in front and the men behind them were forced to constantly hassle them into moving. In the distance, they spied a cave mouth which Briggins and Lotz took to be the home of the dragon. Its sides were sooty and black, and it sat on the side of a rock pillar extending above the other mesas.

“We spy the beast’s lair, boys!” Briggins hollered down into the canyon. “Keep moving, we’ll give you warning if it emerges!”

The posse entered a fatter section of canyon a short while later, with a dirty streak of water down its centre. Suddenly, a dry rattling caught the air. Like that of a common rattlesnake but much louder, it bounced off the walls of the canyon. The procession drew to a halt. Panic rippled through the men and transferred to some of the horses, causing them to whinny and start to rear up.

“Where did that come from?” someone yelled.

Another rattle echoed through the canyon. Men spun on their saddles. Hutcherson scanned up and down but he couldn’t see anything, and the noise seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Behind the posse, a formation of rock began to creep forward. Colour shivered on its skin. Some dragons in the old world could hide in plain sight by changing their scales to colours and patterns that blended with the world around them. Not enough was known of dragons in the new world to say whether they had the same ability, until now. Batlike wings emerged from rock, a head crowned with horns, a tail and rattle.

“There, there! Shoot it!” Briggins yelled.

Flame jetted from the dragon’s open mouth. The last of the rock pattern bled from its scales, leaving tan streaked with darker striations. Fire licked some of the horses’ back legs and the wheels of the wagon at the back of the posse. Horses screamed and men cried out, trying to stay free of the incredible heat. The dragon appeared more interested in trying to herd them than hitting them full force with its fire breath. Men tried to bring their guns to bear but the panicking horses made poor platforms to shoot from.

“Shoot it!” Briggins bellowed, and he turned to Hutcherson. “Wait until it’s on top of the wagons.”

Men pitched themselves off the horses, landing on their feet and scrambling for cover. The dragon scuttled straight up one vertical wall of rock like a bat. Its fire breath blasted over the heads of the men and horses, and the cattle. Animals broke away and ran if they could, taking off down the canyon. Hutcherson watched it all happen as he, Lotz, and Briggins all dismounted from their own horses.

A small knot of men got together and opened fire, a barrage of cracking gunfire. The dragon turned and vomited molten heat. It glassed the rock the men were attempting to shelter behind and washed over them, destroying the trio before they could draw breath to scream. When a panicking horse caught its attention, the dragon incinerated it as well. Flames ripped right through the horse’s body and flung it sideways in a scatter of burning limbs.

As men sprinted across the canyon, the dragon took to the air again. Gusts billowed off its wings. With only a few sweeping motions, it picked itself up and hovered above the centre of the box canyon. Bullets pattered against its skin like thrown grains of rice.

“Now, now! Do it now!” Briggins said.

The dragon hung above the wagons. Any explosion would no doubt scorch it, maybe drive some shredded wood from the crates into its belly, but there were men using the wagons as cover. If Hutcherson blew the dynamite and both wagons went up, he’d probably kill every man left in the canyon.

“No, I won’t do it! It’d kill them all,” Hutcherson said.

“They’re dead anyway, do it!”

“I’ll do it.” Lotz started forward, unlimbering his rifle.

“No!”

Wielding the stock of his rifle, Hutcherson launched himself at Lotz. The men turned but Hutcherson drove the butt of his stock into his ribs. Lotz yowled and dropped his gun. He went for his sidearm. Hutcherson hit him again in the bicep, turning Lotz’s arm numb. With his other hand, however, Lotz lunged and clawed Hutcherson across the side of the face. The two of them wrestled. Hutcherson jammed the body of his rifle into Lotz’s midsection, levering him off.

Suddenly, Briggins’ heavy LaVet Chimera revolver exploded. Hutcherson felt the bullet from it whine right past his ear. Automatically, his hand went to the side of his head and he turned toward Briggins. Lotz used the distraction to slam Hutcherson from behind, driving him to his knees. He barely kept hold of his rifle.

“Take his rifle,” Briggins said. “Take the shot.”

“I can’t, boss, my arm.” Lotz tried to raise his right arm but it remained, for the moment, too limp to be of use.

Briggins trained his gun at Hutcherson’s head. “I’m afraid my eyes aren’t quite what they used to be. Take the shot.”

“No,” Hutcherson said.

“If you don’t take the shot in the next three seconds, I’ll blow your brains all over the place. I may not be a sharpshooter but my eyes aren’t so bad I’ll miss at this range.”

Hot wind gusted across the plateau. While the three of them had been distracted, the dragon had gained altitude and lifted above the edge of the canyon. Sharp yellow eyes took in the little human drama in front of it. Drifting sideways, it came down on the mesa and landed. A few gunshots chased it from below but it ignored them.

“Ah, ah,” Briggins gawped.

Raised stiffly behind it, the dragon’s tail rattled. It walked forward on the points of its wings. Briggins and Lotz looked stuck dumb by the beast.

Still on his knees, with a burst of inspiration Hutcherson flung his arms up over his head. One hand on the Thunderbird rifle, rather than use it he flung it to the side and threw himself on his face.

“Lotz, Lotz! Throw away your gun and get down!” Hutcherson said.

“What?”

“Throw away your gun and get down, like this!”

As if facing a wall of banditos, or perhaps lawmen, Lotz used just two fingers to slide the handgun from his holster. He showed it to the dragon and then threw it aside before dropping to his knees. Following Hutcherson’s example, he prostrated himself as if in worship. Briggins, still on his feet, stood between them and the dragon.

“What are you doing? What’s the idea of this?” Briggins said.

“Take him!” Hutcherson yelled. “Take him, please!”

The dragon’s gaze went from the two men on the ground to the third man, the sacrifice. It didn’t matter if the sacrifice was willing or not. Briggins started to bring his revolver around. The dragon serized on him, jaws hinging open and coming down on the rancher. Teeth like hunting knives crunched. Briggins’ arms and legs stuck from the sides of its muzzle. The Chimera revolver was flung from his grip and landed a short distance away in the dirt.

The dragon raised its head. Teeth smashed together and a powerful tongue pulled its meal deeper into its jaws. It looked back down at the two men flattening themselves against the ground. Its face was unreadable. Heart thundering, Hutcherson remained where he was and didn’t shift a muscle. Finally, the dragon’s wings unfurled to their full length with a snap. Raising itself off the ground with thundering beats, the dragon took off and circled away in the direction of its nest.

xXx

Geraldine Briggins hurried to the parlour as she heard horses’ hooves on the path up to the house. Not waiting for the servants, or a knock, she snatched the door open. The movement caught William Hutcherson in the act of crossing the porch. His eyes widened in surprise and then softened.

“Miss Briggins,” Hutcherson said.

“Daddy, where is he? Is he with you?”

“Miss Briggins, I’m sorry.”

“What happened?”

Carefully, Hutcherson gave the young woman an edited version of the events out in mesa country. A version that Lotz, well known to be Briggins’ most loyal man, would back him on. None of the other survivors had seen enough to know any different. At one point, Hutcherson handed Geraldine her father’s LaVet Chimera as evidence. The dragon lived, he told her, but had made it clear that it could be bought with offerings.

“Well.” Geraldine, with the practicality of a young woman who’d been raised on the frontier, swiped at her tears with the heel of her hand. “I’m going to need to make arrangements.”

“Of course, Miss Briggins.”

“And as for running this ranch, I’m going to need help with that.”

Hutcherson gave an unreadable smile. “Of course, Geraldine.”

======

Sean: Something about the ‘Copper’ Dragon spoke to me of an old west-type of setting, which I think is my favourite kind of setting to see mashed up with traditional fantasy. I remember years and years ago I did try to write a fantasy-western mashup with a Mindflayer gunslinger, a half-giant prostitute, and a Lich as the baddie, a man they couldn’t hang. Described like that it sounds kind of badass but I didn’t get very far with it, this was a long, long way back.

If you’re not a Dungeons & Dragons nerd and you just like the stories, well thank you for that, but you might not be aware that the Monster Manual basically had a bunch of different dragons separated by colours (chromatic) and metallic ones! They’ve all got different personalities and I think a bit of a different vibe, but I don’t know if I’ve been very faithful about using them. I mean, last year, the Red Dragon was red in more ways than one and my Ancient Golden Dragon was something else entirely. I was writing another story with an iron sort of dragon but I didn’t quite get there, that’s for next year I guess?

I had a lot of fun with the next couple of stories I’m going to put out in November, so make sure you check them out! Next one I’m going to put out right before my birthday, on Friday the 10th (birthday is the 12th) as a little present to myself because I liked it so much. Thanks for reading!