Tristan and Iseult Read Online Free PDF Page B

horse and thundered down the slope towards it.
    His spear point took it in the throat as it reared up to meet him, and tore its way in, wounding the creature sore. But Tristan and his horse plunged on into the heat and the poison-fumes, and crashing against the spiked and iron-hard breast scales, the horse dropped dead beneath him. Tristan himself sprang clear, and gained a moment’s breathing-space, for the dragon turned on the dead horse, ripping and goring it instead of the living man. Then, with Tristan’s spear still in its throat, it swung away, roaring in agony, and made for the rocks, uprooting bushes and scorched trees, and coughing out gouts of steaming blood as it went, with Tristan leaping after it with sword upraised.
    Wedged under the overhanging rocks beside the stream, they came together again, sword against teeth and claws and flame. Tristan’s shield was charred to cinders, and his ringmail seared his flesh as though he were clad in a garment of fire. But the dragon was weakening as the spear dragged at its throat and breast; the lashing of its coils lost power, and its firewas sinking. And at last, seizing his chance, Tristan sprang in with his sword, stabbing deep, deep between the breast scales until the blade was engulfed to the hilt and the point found the monster’s heart.
    The dragon reared up with a bellow that was as though the heavens were falling upon the earth; its death-cry echoed to and fro among the rocks and the high tops of the hills and far out over the marshes, and as it crashed to the ground, its fire dying away, Tristan saw that it was dead. Gasping for breath and far spent himself with battle, he wrenched open its jaws, and with his sword hacked off the venomous black tongue.
    Then he turned himself to the wilds, meaning to lie up like a wounded beast through the day, and somehow drag himself back to rejoin his companions and the ship after nightfall. But his hurts were very sore, and it seemed to him that his body was still lapped in flame, and the world swam before his eyes and beneath his feet; and he all but stumbled into the stream where it came down towards the dragon’s lair. It ran cool now, among the blackened tree snags and long trailing branches; it called to him, singing of coolness and rest; and he slipped into the water and lay down still fully armed under the bank, with only his head above the surface. And the water flowed through the links of his mail, hushing the parched pain of his wounds with coolness; and he slipped into a deep, black nothingness, half-sleep and half-swoon.

5
The Princess of the Swallow’s Hair
    NOW ONE OF the men who Tristan had seen flying from the dragon’s lair was the King’s Steward, who had long desired to marry the Princess Iseult, though she had no liking for him at all. And when he saw that Tristan went onward despite their warnings, he slipped away from the rest, and turned back on his tracks. For though he had not the courage to face the dragon himself, he most times contrived to be near when anyone braver than he went against the monster, so that if by any chance they succeeded in the quest, he might perhaps be able to claim a share in the killing. And so he was near at hand when he heard the dragon’s last terrible roar; and he said to himself, Nothing could have made that sound that was not in its death-agony. The creature must be dead or dying! Courage now, my heart, and we will see what there is in this for us! And he spurred his horse in the direction from which the sound had come.
    And so, searching among the rocks, he came upon the dead dragon and the torn remains of Tristan’s horse, and the charred shield – and of the dragon-slayer, no sign at all. Surely the monster has eaten him, thought the Steward. Ah well, he is not the first to be losing his life so; and if that is the way of it, his loss may be my gain. And drawing his sword, he fell to hacking away most valiantly at the dead dragon until the blade was