He didn't know how long they had been dragging him around. He barely noticed his surroundings anymore.

  All he knew was that it was downhill and that the ground beneath him was rough and rocky. Like one of those four-legged furry animals that some people kept, Martin was dragging him around with a rope that was wrapped around his hands.

  At first, he had protested against this undignified treatment, but a sharp tug on the rope had been enough to silence him after he had fallen painfully to the floor.

  Before he had even fully realized what had just happened, Martin had already roughly pulled him back to his feet after realizing that he would not get up on his own.

  It wasn't that he wasn't able to stand up alone, although it would probably have taken a little longer as he was still having some trouble with his pair of legs. No, at that moment he was just too overwhelmed by the pain, the humiliation and the situation itself.

  Just a few hours ago he had been a Dragon, the most powerful being far and wide, the top of the food chain, and now he was lying in the dirt in front of a simple human because he had pulled hard on a rope.

  He was of course aware of how this had happened; he remembered his encounter with the wanderer and his conversation with Bartold after all.

  Firstly, because it wasn’t long ago and secondly because he would probably never be able to forget the voice or the face of either of them. To take revenge one day of course, but as he stumbled down the mountain, that thought became more and more distant, becoming unrecognizable like the top of a mountain disappearing into the clouds.

  All that was going through his mind now was the pain in his wrists from Martin's pulling and the pain in his knees from his fall and the fact that he had to be careful to put one foot in front of the other because otherwise Martin would make the pain even worse.

  He had seen the children of other species. He remembered a fawn that had stumbled around on its thin legs, trembling.

  It had fallen over and over again, and a larger deer had licked it and nudged it with its nose. He had decided against eating it at the time, since it was no bigger than one of its back spikes and was therefore hardly a suitable meal for him.

  I guess I look something like this when I walk now, or at least that's what it feels like, he thought bitterly as he stumbled further down the Mountain path, along with the column of his former servants who had now become his tormentors.

  Since he was still barefoot, he felt how each stone dug into his skin, and he could only imagine what the bottom of his feet looked like now.

  On the one hand, he wanted to walk as slowly and carefully as possible so that the individual splinters didn't dig into his skin too deeply and he didn't fall over.

  On the other hand, he knew that if he walked too slowly, Martin would pull on his bonds again, which would not be good for his now chafed wrists and would definitely cause him to fall again. But as he quickly realized, this was unavoidable.

  As he slowed down on a particularly rough patch, one of the bandits overtook him from behind and bumped into him with his shoulder, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground.

  As before, the pain came so quickly and so intensely that he was left breathless.

  Dazed, he stayed there on the ground at first, at least until he heard Martin's voice.

  "What now? Tell me, have you never learned to walk properly or what?" his tormentor said annoyed and began to stomp towards him.

  When he saw that, he got up as quickly as he could with a strength, he didn't know he possessed and began to walk forward despite the burning pain in his knees and legs.

  “Good decision,” Martin growled and turned around again. As they continued walking, he felt something warm and wet on his knee in addition to the burning pain and looked down at himself.

  The robe he had been wearing since his transformation was very light and had already ripped open at the knees after his second fall, so he could clearly see that the normally pink skin of his human body had now given way to a dark reddish patch at his knees.

  He knew that this was the flesh beneath his skin, and he also knew that the warm liquid that now glistened in this stain was blood.

  After all, he had seen it all before, eating people and tearing them apart with his teeth and claws. However, he had never thought that a fall onto rocky ground could be enough for a human to expose his flesh and blood.

  And I never would have thought that such a small tear in a person's outer skin could hurt so much, why does it burn so much, he thought desperately as he looked down.

  He noticed something dripping onto his feet. It wasn't blood, as it was coming from above his knee, and it was the wrong color, as it reminded him more of water.

  For a moment he wondered where the drop had come from. A quick glance at the sky showed no rain clouds, but when he looked back at the small puddle that the first drop had left on his foot, a few more quickly joined it, and he understood where the liquid had come from.

  He was so overwhelmed by the whole situation that he hadn't even noticed how his eyes had been steadily filling with fluid since his last fall, and which was now dripping from his eyes as he looked at the ground.

  At first, he was afraid that he had injured his eye in some way when he fell, but he couldn't figure out how that could have happened. Finally, he realized what the liquid was.

  He had seen this liquid running out of people's eyes a few times. Especially right before he devoured them. Yes, he remembered once eating two of his servants because they had drunk some of his dwarven mead.

  The liquid had run in streams from their eyes as they assured him that he was mistaken. Of course he hadn't been wrong. Nothing escapes a dragon's senses, after all, and he had clearly smelled the mead on them.

  Yes, that makes sense, people probably shed tears in situations like this, he thought, watching a few more puddles form on his foot.

  He tried to remember if he had ever cried as a dragon, but he was fairly certain he hadn't. In fact, he wasn't sure if dragons could cry at all, but he couldn't remember ever being in a situation as a dragon that would have warranted any tears.

  Well, the moment we hatch, there isn't much left that could cause us such pain or fear. Not that it matters now, he thought resignedly, as the City of Schlucht gradually came into view.

  By the time they reached the north gate, all the moisture had drained from his eyes, leaving them unpleasantly dry. Together with Martin he walked closer to the gate with Miriam and Bartold next to them.

  All he could think was that the gate and palisade looked much larger than the last time he had visited.

  “And what's it like, are there any people outside the city?" Ivar asked one of his guards.

  "As far as I know, everyone is here, the hunters and loggers who set out this morning, changed their minds when they saw the smoke and came back, apart from the farmers who live on their farms, we are complete," replied Ben Strolcher.

  For once, his sleepy junior guard seemed wide awake.

  "At least something good and where is our mayor, where is Albert?" he asked the boy, but before he could answer, he heard the mayor's somewhat bewildered voice behind him.

  "Ivar, what's all this commotion about? What was that noise earlier, I almost fell out of my chair." He turned around and saw the tall and gaunt figure of the mayor of Schlucht moving through the crowd towards him.

  "Well Albert, to be honest I have no idea, but I'm afraid our scaly neighbor had a fit of rage while you were taking your afternoon nap," he explained the situation briefly.

  "Uh, um, why is that?" the older man asked, slightly confused, as he adjusted the glasses on his nose.

  "I have no idea, but I suspect that our last Visitor had something to do with it," Ivar replied.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  When Albert looked confused, he quickly told him about his recent encounter with the strange wanderer, who had introduced himself as Stephan Sturm.

  “I understand, the next time suspicious travelers come through here, can you please inform me?” Albert asked in an offended and slightly annoyed tone.

  “Why? You know, in most cities it is not the case that the mayor is informed about every single traveler who passes through,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

  "Yes, yes, most cities don't have a dragon as a neighbor either. Besides, you just said yourself that this guy was weird and wanted to go to the dragon, I mean, you even said yourself that he probably used a fake name," Albert said with a frown.

  “Come on, I thought he was joking when he talked about just strolling up to a fucking dragon,” Ivar replied, a little annoyed because he knew that Albert got a point there.

  "Well, he obviously meant it," Albert replied dryly.

  The two men looked at each other for a while, perplexed, but before either of them could speak again, they were spoken to by Ben, who had approached them with a pale face.

  "Er, Mayor, Ivar, we, you, all of us," the boy begann to stammer.

  "Take a deep breath, Ben, and speak in complete sentences," Albert sighed.

  Doing as he was told Ben took a few deep breaths before starting again.

  "The... the dragon's men are standing in front of the gate," he finally blurted out.

  "Great, just what we needed in all this panic. Who is it? Bartold, Miriam?" asked Albert and started to massage his temples.

  "Uh-um, yes, and the rest," answered Ben with a terrified look.

  "Wait a moment, what do you mean by the rest?" Ivar turned to the boy with a bad feeling.

  Ben looked at him and said in a trembling voice: "The... the rest, I mean, they have all come to the north gate."

  A moment of silence followed, until finally Albert repeated the word "all" again, as if he wanted to make sure he had heard the boy correctly.

  Ivar couldn't blame him for that.

  Another moment passed and Albert and Ivar abruptly dashed towards the north gate. As he ran, Ivar wondered if he had ever seen all of the Dragon's men in one place and decided that he had not.

  Stephan Sturm, or whoever you are. Why on earth could you not have stayed somewhere else ? he cursed in his mind.

  "Is the pedestrian passage locked?" he heard Albert ask a little further behind him.

  "I don't think so, the gatekeeper...," Ben began, but was abruptly interrupted by Ivar, who called back: "Then go and tell that lazy bum to move his ass here if he doesn't want a spear stuck in it!"

  A few moments later, Ivar reached the north gate and immediately started cursing when he saw that the pedestrian passage was not locked, as expected. Shortly after a panting Albert appeared, his horn-rimmed glasses almost falling off his nose.

  Shortly after that, Ben arrived, dragging a slightly swaying porter behind him by the arm, with the gate key dangling from his side.

  Ivar ran to him, ignored the mumbled, “What’s all this fuss about?”, took the key and sprinted to the pedestrian passage of the gate, where he put the heavy bolt in front of the door and locked it.

  Then he followed Albert, who in the meantime had climbed the stairs along the wooden wall and was staring down from the battlement.

  "And how bad does it look...shit," he answered the question himself and looked down with Albert in horrified silence at the picture below him.

  Apparently, they were not a second too early, because they could see a seemingly never-ending mass of people coming out of the forest one after another.

  Every time he thought that all the bandits had gathered, it seemed as if two more emerged from somewhere between the trees.

  Gradually the bandits began to form their ranks, if the noisy crowd outside their gate could be called that, and Ivar realized that he had never really thought about how many of these bandits they actually had as neighbors.

  He now came to the conclusion that whatever he had estimated, it would probably have been too few.

  As the stragglers gradually arrived, he found himself facing the dragon's men. About a hundred of them , he thought after quickly estimating the mass in front of him.

  About a hundred-armed men and women stood in front of their gate, shouting, laughing and screaming, waving swords, axes, spears and other weapons in their direction, their individual shouts and threats merging into an incomprehensible tangle of voices.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly and scanned the front row of the mob.

  There stood the fat giant Martin, who was roaring and swinging his iron-clad club over his head. Carrot-haired Miriam, grinning broadly as she hit her shield with a one-handed axe, and Bartold, the scar-faced wannabe tax collector.

  Although he had not drawn his sword, he was playing with the handle with his hand. What surprised Ivar, however, was the person who was standing tied up between Bartold and Miriam.

  From what he could see from the wall, it was a young man wearing what looked like a white robe, which made Ivar think of a prayer robe or a monk's cowl , and he also seemed to be gagged with a black cloth.

  I have no idea what's going on here, but I'll be a selfless Djinn if the appearance of their prisoner here and our latest guest is a coincidence. Especially if one shows up just before and the other just after what appears to be Aodhan's biggest fit of rage yet. Rüdiger help us, couldn't that wanderer have gone to the mountain from a different direction, then we wouldn't have this whole mess now, he thought with a sigh.

  “Is that Mr. Sturm?” Albert asked curiously next to him.

  “No, I've never seen that guy before,” answered Boris. The innkeeper seemingly had decided to follow them.

  While he was still wishing for binoculars or sharper eyes, Bartold, Miriam and Martin set off, pulling the stranger behind them with a rope tied around his hands.

  They stopped in front the gate. The three bandits talked among themselves for a while, but Ivar and the others on the wall couldn't understand anything of it.

  What they saw, however, was Miriam gesturing up at them with her axe, whereupon Martin nodded and laughed, and Bartold shrugged his shoulders with a slightly pinched face, as far as he could tell.

  Finally, all three turned towards the gate and Miriam called up to them cheerfully in an unnaturally loud voice, probably enhanced with magic.

  "Hello neighbors, since we have lived peacefully side by side here for so long, we are a little disappointed that you are sending thieves over to us, or even worse, possibly even assassins. Did you seriously think that this guy," she pushed the robed man forward, who was visibly struggling with his balance, "and the other guy could take out Aodhan, a dragon? I have to say pretty stupid, pretty desperate and above all, really not in the spirit of good neighborliness," she explained with a grin.

  "Well, I want to be very direct here. Albert, have you declared war on us?" Miriam asked casually, but with a threatening undertone that neither of them missed.

  The Mayor of Schlucht finally answered in a raised voice and in a soothing tone: "Miriam, my dear, I think there is a misunderstanding here. I can assure you; I have never seen your... er, friend here or his supposed partner," while casting a slightly annoyed look in Ivar's direction.

  "Ah, a huge misunderstanding then? So, you're claiming that the two of them acted on their own and just appeared out of nowhere to fight a dragon. A bit unbelievable if you ask me, but in the spirit of good neighborliness I'll believe you. Well, then we'll just take care of our wannabe dragon slayer," Miriam announced with an innocent smile on her face.

  "Let's put an end to this drama!" Bartold now spoke up, his voice booming unnaturally loudly to them.

  With an abrupt movement, he kicked his prisoner in the back of the knee, causing him to fall to the ground with a gasp of surprise. Bartold then drew his sword and placed it at the side of the prisoner's neck.

  Ivar took a sharp breath and already saw a head flying through the air, but before Bartold had fully swung, Albert called down hastily next to him.

  "Now wait a moment, just because I don't know him doesn't mean I want to see him beheaded in front of my gate here. Look, if he really did attack you, then uh... um, then just cut off one of his fingers or something and let him go as a warning to others, I mean, we didn't hire him, so there might be other wannabe dragon slayers where he comes from, they'll think twice about messing with you when he tells them his story." Albert finished his improvised speech and took a few deep breaths, something he apparently had forgotten to do while speaking.

  Clever, you didn't even try to appeal to their conscience, thought Ivar, suppressing a sigh of relief when he saw that the three bandits below actually looked a little thoughtful.

  The three of them put their heads together and seemed to be discussing things briefly, but nothing specific could be heard from the wall.

  Finally, the bandits turned back to the gate and Miriam raised her voice again. "You're right, Albert, actually a pretty good idea." She paused briefly before continuing with a theatrical sigh.

  "The problem is that because of our guest here, our Lord lost his temper a little and, well, demolished our place a bit. Someone has to pay for that. The problem is that his friend turned into a soot stain and he, unfortunately, doesn't have enough change on him, so we thought that our dear neighbors would be happy to help him out," she said, looking expectantly at Albert.

  The Major looked looked at her for a moment with a confused expression on his face, but finally realized what she meant and sighed.

  “How much?” Albert asked angrily.

  “One thousand five hundred sterling,” Miriam replied casually.

  “What, a thousand five hundred, are you crazy? I don't even know the guy!” Albert blurted out, angry and shocked by her demand.

  "How much is a man's life worth?" asked Miriam in a seemingly serious and thoughtful voice.

  At this Martin spoke up, who unlike Miriam and Bartold despite his roar was difficult to hear from their palisade.

  "From Albert's point of view, probably less than a thousand five hundred sterling," the huge man answered, whereupon the two burst out laughing.

  "So, are we doing business or is our friend about to find the answer to another profound question of life, namely whether there is an afterlife?" asked Miriam after she had recovered from her fit of laughter.

  After this question there was silence.

  Albert nervously ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed hard but said nothing.

  Boris, meanwhile, looked down with a pale face, but was as silent as a grave.

  Ivar cleared his throat and looked at the men next to him.

  We can't just stand around and watch them kill him in front of our gate, if only because I want to know what's going on here, Ivar thought tensely and waited a little longer to see if either of them would say anything.

  "If they cut off his head here now, I'll puke," he heard Bori’s mutter.

  He himself remained silent and simply waited, looking in Albert's direction, who was doing his best not to look over at him.