“This was, oh, so many years ago my hair was still a glossy black, my limbs as straight and strong as tall pines,” the old man began, straightening as he spoke, recalling that younger version of himself. “It was harvest time, and the world was golden. But all was not well, for when we went to fetch the woodsman and his family for the harvest feast, we found their house burned away to cinders and all of them gone.”

Isobelle let herself join in on the ripple passing through the crowd with a delightful shiver, and silently resolved that if she ever came into possession of a dreadful scar, she’d make up an equally thrilling story to go with it.

She let Bertin carry her along as he told of gathering a dozen of the village’s menfolk, the great-grandfathers of those there tonight. “And me the youngest,” he said, “a lad of seventeen. Together, we set out into the forest to track the beast.”

His gaze drifted beyond the circle of listeners to the trees that came up to the edge of the village, and Isobelle couldn’t help twisting in her seat to look, too. To picture the band setting out together, dwarfed by the trees looming above them.

“Now, dragons are the only creatures in the world that never stop growing,” he continued. “The older they are, the bigger they get. The knights of old took out the biggest, the cruelest, the ones who knocked down castles for fun. But the wee ones, well. They could hide among the trees or deep in their caves and wait ’til they grew before venturing out to pick us off, one by one.”

Isobelle’s mind gave a funny little shiver as an army of but what ifs and how do you explains tried to make themselves heard, and then sank beneath the tide of Bertin’s mesmerizing voice.

“It was just such a beast we were hunting,” he said. “About the size of a wagon, to have enough flame to burn down the woodsman’s place and feast on all his family. The first track we followed ended at a cave, all right—full of bears, settling down for their winter sleep. The second, we were sure we had it, but a fox hunt came through, two dozen nobles on horses, with dogs, trampling every sign of it. The third trail led to what we used to call the witch’s cave, though if there was ever a witch there, the dragon must’ve eaten her long ago. There were jagged rocks all around the opening, so it looked like a dragon’s toothy maw, waiting to close on us with a snap.”

The audience jumped at his snap, and a couple of cries went up around the circle, whispers adding to the soft crackling of the fire.