Page 67 of The Dungeon Book

The dragon charged.

Far above, in the Trapsmiths’ Arcade, I heard his roar. I felt the Dungeon shake around me. I could do nothing but bear witness, nothing but carry an account of his monstrous wrath out of that devastation. Shambling he came, every inch of him a wound, his hot blood a red river, tongues of flame hissing from gaping holes in his flanks, but still he charged forward.

Neb ran to meet the monster, snatching a spear from the treasure hoard as he ran. At the last moment he dropped to one knee and raised the weapon, bracing one end against the dungeon floor as the other skewered the dragon. Nithscalpa howled as the spear sank into his breast, but even that was not enough to slay the monster. Monsters and masters do not die easily. Neb tugged at the spear, but it was buried so deep in Nithscalpa that he could not budge it.

The awful head rose.

The awful light of that one remaining eye fell upon him.

The bloodied lips rolled back from awful teeth.

“Please,” whispered Bait, “he’s going to kill Neb! He’s going to kill us all!” She grabbed one of his horns and twisted his head around so she could see his face. “You have to fight him.”

Again, something flickered in the depths of the minotaur.

Bait drew herself up. She closed her eyes. She thought of how Nala spoke, about the way the surface folk spoke, cloaking everything in double meanings and indirections. She thought of the old squire, and how he’d stayed loyal to his knight all those years. She thought of how much Sir Peledon had sacrificed to go in search of the stolen princess, only to end up here, mad and broken and lost in the maze of his own mind. She would justify that sacrifice.

For him, she would try to be someone other than Bait.

She opened her eyes. “I am the Princess Aldebara. You are my champion, Sir Peledon. Fight for me.”

Slow the words, sinking through rank matted hair, through callused hide, through iron-hard skull until they reached the spell-wracked brain. Slow, very slow, comprehension unfolded in his mind, like a bright thread through a dark labyrinth. Half-remembered purpose filled him, as if heroism was instinct. He lifted his manacled hands, proffering her the lock that bound him.

Goblin-quick her fingers.

For a moment, Sir Peledon fought his way back. He rose, casting off his chains, casting off the weight of the dark years, and Bait’s spirit soared to see him renewed.

“My princess,” he said in the surface tongue.

Then he snorted, and looked down at her in bewilderment, and I think I know the source of his confusion.

In the human lands, we tell tales of dragon-slayers – the first Valourentius being one of them. In those stories, it’s all very elegant and dainty. The dragon courteously refrains from taking to the air. It never once blasts the knight with fiery death from above. The knight skewers the dragon from below, or chops off its head, neat as popping the cork from a wine bottle. His shining armour doesn’t even get scuffed. The princess – there’s always a princess in these tales, a prisoner of the dragon – is liberated from the monster’s lair, and they return to the sunlit surface, and all’s well in the land forevermore.

This was not like that at all. There was no princess here to be rescued, no knight to be honoured. All would not be well. Just as quickly as he’d found himself, Peledon lost himself again. Orphir’s malicious spell sensed his doubt and dragged the man back into the beast. He shook his head. He glared at Bait. His mouth moved, but no words in any tongue could be heard. Purpose drained from him, and he slouched over, recognition draining from those mad bull eyes.

Without a backward glance, he stomped away into the dark.

Behind her, the dragon yowled in pain as Neb’s spear caught it, but the monster was still alive. Nithscalpa was beyond their strength, and she’d succeeded only in bringing doom to all her friends. All was lost. It would devour Neb and Sir Rudyard and Only-Sister and Clickglee and the rest.

Then she would be alone in the dark.

Then it would kill her.

That was the sort of story they told in the Dungeon.

Bait sank to her knees. She felt as though she was falling, as though the Dungeon had opened up to swallow her, level after level down and down for ever. The darkness was not a comfort, but a gulf as vast and terrible as the blue sky. Hope tumbled away.

Then −

Footsteps.

She looked up, hoping against hope that the minotaur had returned.

The ghast’s green eyes burned in the dark.

“Human?”

She nodded.