Dragon’s Maw Shield

Rinetta the Scarred received the shield when she was still young for an especially brave — or foolish — battle against a stone dragon. She lost one of her eyes and all of her teeth, but she defeated the beast and received the shield on what many expected would be her deathbed. However, Rinetta recovered and lived a long life, to the consternation of many.

She ceased hunting dragons and took to training pupils, of which she had many — all were eager to learn from the steward of the Dragon’s Maw Shield, and many hoped she might pass it on to them. Yet her contemporaries grumbled that she should pass it on if she had given up the hunt, and they complained that no hunter should profit financially from the shield. Rinetta eventually bestowed it on another hunter, but by that time, she was a very wealthy woman.

The twins Marad and Devna hunted dragons together for many years. They became successful, yet it was handsome Marad that their peers and admirers loved best. Devna was sharp-tongued and plain, and though her skill with a spear was undeniable, she always lived in her brother’s shadow.

They had fought and hunted together for almost twenty years when the Dragon’s Maw Shield passed to Marad. Devna congratulated her brother and accepted his honor as gracefully as she could — after all, the shield had always had a single steward — but some saw resentment simmering in her eyes. Others said her reflexes slowed and her aim faltered. Whispers circulated that she was past her prime.

Within a year of Marad’s receiving the shield, he perished beneath the claws of a sand dragon. Devna survived and retrieved the shield, but many blamed her failing skills for her dashing brother’s death. Others suspected that she killed him in a fit of jealously. Whatever the case, she quickly passed the shield to a successor and lived the remainder of her days as a recluse.

Lirat the swineherd never wanted to be a dragon hunter, but when his village drew the attention of a particularly nasty crag dragon, he was chosen to deal with it. Armed with his uncle’s rusty sword and a single dose of heathbush poison — just in case — he set out to find the beast.

The dragon was not hard to find — Lirat could hear its snores from half a mile away and smell it from farther still. He followed a trail of bones to a cave where the beast lay sleeping, surrounded by the bodies of dead and dying pigs. As Lirat entered the cave, one of the wounded swine squealed. This woke the dragon, which swallowed the pig whole. Only then did the beast notice Lirat, and in its surprise, it choked on the pig.

Lirat nearly died of fright as he watched the dragon writhe and convulse. But the dying pig had lodged itself firmly in the dragon’s unfortunately long throat, and within minutes, the monster was dead.