How to Slay a Dragon by Bill Allen Read Free Book Online Page A

spun to face his doom. “Do something, Lucky!”
    Precious seconds passed while Lucky returned to searching his pack. He pulled out the remaining watermelon half from lunch and threw it at the ogre, but the beast batted it down. Apparently its tastes lay elsewhere.
    Greg hefted the sword again, his vision blurred by tears, his hands still stinging from the previous blow. With a determined yell he thrust up and out. Again the ogre swatted the blade from his grasp.
    Greg knew in that moment all hope was lost. If this were an entry in his journal it could be none but the last. The Mighty Greghart was going to lose this battle, and when battling ogres, one loss was surely all you got.
    The beast raised a huge ham-fist into the air. Greg cringed and closed his eyes.
    “This way, Greg!”
    One eye popped open. Miraculously the trees had pulled back to reveal a single point of light. Lucky bent and scooped up the fallen sword but didn’t return with it. He just kept running toward the edge of the forest.
    The ogre’s fist dropped like a falling mountain. Greg ducked and bounced off the creature’s leg, running dazed, fighting to keep his balance. Fortunately, running was Greg’s specialty. The ogre had a long stride, but it was too heavy to run very fast. It was no more of a threat in a chase than Manny Malice had been in the woods behind Greg’s house.
    Don’t trip!
    In his mind, Greg saw the ogre’s foot slam down on his back, squashing him like a jelly doughnut. His brain shut down after that. He focused on the light ahead.
    He ran and ran until the booming footsteps faded and all he could hear was his own labored breathing. Finally he risked a glance over his shoulder . . . and actually smiled. The ogre had given up the chase. Greg’s heart raced, his limbs trembled, and his whole body ached, but he had never felt more exhilarated in his life. With a scream of glee he broke from the forest and was hit by a welcome wash of sunlight.
    Unfortunately, he was then hit by something more substantial. Greg crumpled to the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs, as the welcome light gave way to an unpleasant blackness that crept in from the corners of his vision.
    He was out of the woods, but not out of trouble.

Hart to Heart
    “You all right?” Lucky asked.
    Greg answered once the sky stopped spinning. “W-what happened?”
    He sat up slowly and looked around. Every muscle in his body ached. He was in a large clearing surrounded, as clearings often are, by forest. Behind him the trees stood dense and foreboding, but those ahead seemed less nightmarish, more like the woods back home.
    A nearby moan caused him to notice a sandy-haired boy sprawled out a few feet away. He looked two or three years younger than Greg, but heavily muscled for his size.
    “Who’s this?” Greg asked.
    Lucky gently patted the boy’s cheeks. “Looks like Greatheart’s little brother, but I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years.”
    “Greatheart, the dragonslayer?”
    “Not just any dragonslayer, Greg. The greatest dragonslayer Myrth has ever known.”
    “What a break. Now we can get his brother to slay Ruuan.”
    “No,” said Lucky. “He’s Greatheart from Myrth, not Greghart from Earth.”
    Greg waged a battle with his own body as he fought to stand.
    The younger boy was starting to wake. “Oooh . . . what happened?”
    “Sorry,” Greg said. “I guess I ran into you. You were standing at the end of the trail.”
    With a groan the boy pushed himself to a seated position. “No, I was standing at the beginning of the trail. I thought I heard an ogre and decided to take a look.” He shook his head to clear it. “I remember now. The forest pulled back when it saw me coming . . . and then he ran past me,” he said, pointing at Lucky, “and then I saw you, and . . . I don’t remember much after that.”
    “You okay?” said Lucky. “Can you stand?”
    The boy inspected his limbs with the bluest eyes