A dragon has penned Brandonsford. Reeve Eric posted a thousand gold for whoever slays it.
George, the only hunter who came back, said it was more fat alligator than winged barn, poison on its teeth, black scales everywhere except the eyes and mouth. Those unscaled spots, he thought, might be its weakness.
Gill's sons Tad and Zach went out with a pig and a net. The scuffle wrecked the mill. The dragon carried Zach off. The party found him in the shallows by the Gustos bridge, his left leg gone above the knee. Tad made it back to town.
They reached the cave west of the dwarves' mine, believed the dragon lay in there, and turned back.
The party obtained a bottle of wine from the Fauns' Grove. They sought it as a way to bring the dragon down unconscious.
The party gathered George, Gill's sons, Eric and Mel, a guard who had seen the wyrm at the gates, to compare what they knew. They planned a pit outside the western gate, hidden by Albrys's illusion, with Gill's goat as bait. Eric organised the townsfolk to dig it, and Warwick made iron spades at his reopened forge.
Tests with the wine left the goat drunk but awake. Dougal and Shelley killed the goat and placed a clay vessel of wine inside it. On 14 Felmont, the wyrm bit into the bait and fell into the pit. The vessel broke in its mouth, releasing the wine, and Squints threw the explosive Albrys had prepared from the firelight citrine.
The wounded, drunken wyrm remained conscious. Mono and Dougal went out to fight it. The dragon clawed Dougal down, and Mono killed it with Brandon's sword through its mouth. Dougal died after giving Mono his Heartstone and asking her to return it to his family home.
When the smoke and gas cleared, Mono and Albrys found a dwarf skeleton in the pit where the dragon had fallen.