Knight of the Sleeping Dragon
Deep in the Great Smoky Mountains, near the border between Tennessee and North Carolina, there once was a stretch of US Route 129 known to the locals as the Tail of the Dragon. It was the deadliest road in America: not only because it packed over three hundred blind corners into eleven miles, but because it belonged to a dangerous biker gang called the Knights of Appalachia.
---
One day, at the last gas station before the Tail of the Dragon, a young man named Phillip was filling his bike when he heard the distinctive rumbling of a late-80’s Indian Scout. He watched an old lady with cherry-colored hair drive up the road, blow past the barricade, and disappear around the first bend.
US 129 had been closed and condemned for decades, now. Too many deaths on a highway that continued to grow and twist past its original route. But there were always tourists eager for danger and thrill. This wouldn’t be the first sad old nobody on a battered motorcycle trying to resurrect a little of her youth. He had to stop her.
But as Phillip peeled out of the gas station to follow, he knew this rider was different. She wore the leathers of a true biker. She drove like a lunatic. And she had strapped to her back a greatsword: the kind used to slay a dragon.
---
Phillip soon caught up to the cherry-haired woman. He rode alongside her—dangerous on this narrow, winding road.
He yelled, “No one’s allowed up the summit! It’s dangerous!”
Cherry yelled back, “Then slow down!”
“It’s not just the road!” he yelled. “The Knights will kill you if they catch you!”
Cherry yelled back, “I don’t see any Knights here.”
Phillip opened his mouth to argue—then gasped and slammed on the brakes. There was a right turn where it was supposed to lean left. He skidded to a stop and watched rocks tumble down the cliffside into the half-charred valley below.
When he caught his breath, Cherry was gone.
---
Night had fallen when Phillip found her. She had made camp by the ruins of an old rest stop that had been pulled apart as the ground shifted over the years. He considered sneaking up on her in the darkness, but Harleys aren’t known for stealth or discretion. She’d probably heard him from miles away.
He parked beside her bike. Firelight danced across the broken cinder block walls. Eventually she looked at him.
“You really shouldn’t be here,” he tried again.
Cherry laughed. “Kid, there’s nowhere I belong.”
He sat opposite her.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Turn around while you can. This is no normal road. No one’s ever made it back alive.”
“I know,” Cherry said, looking back into the fire. “Before you were even born, my husband died trying to reach the summit. He would’ve made it, too. He was the best rider I’ve ever known.”
Phillip nodded. “But the Knights got to him first, didn’t they?”
She didn’t answer, instead staring at the sword she held on her lap. Firelight glinted off its scars.
Phillip considered sabotaging her motorcycle. He considered stealing her sword. He even imagined killing her in her sleep. But he was too cowardly—and too honorable—to do either.
---
They were woken before dawn by the growl of motorcycles echoing through the mountains. Cherry took off without a word. After a few minutes of hesitation, Phillip followed her.
The air warmed as they climbed. Charcoal trees lined the road. Corner after corner stacked one atop another, most decorated with stone monuments and the helmets of fallen riders. Still she refused to slow.
The pursuers grew louder and louder, until the mountain itself seemed to rev beneath them.
---
The sulphur hit as the last of the charcoal trunks fell away. The summit was all bare stone and blackened wreckage. The Dragonslayer was already at the crater’s edge. Phillip skidded to a stop between her and the pit.
Behind him, buried in the rock, a twisted shard of steel rang like a dozen engines redlining.
“Out of the way, kid,” Cherry yelled over the noise. “This isn’t your fight.”
“I won’t let you wake it,” he yelled back. “You’ll only bring fire and ruin onto the countryside.”
Cherry tried to shove past him.
Phillip drew his sword and pointed it at her.
He could actually see her focus shift onto him—as if she were only just now seeing him.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you? A Knight?”
Phillip nodded. “Leave now and we’ll let you live.”
She laughed at him.
The Dragonslayer was scars and leather and muscle that belied her age. Phillip just was a scrawny punk kid. She wasn’t scared of him. In her hands she wielded a sword meant to slay a dragon.
But Phillip had a sword meant to slay a man.
Cherry howled and swung. Phillip dodged inside her arc, barely, and knocked her grip loose. Her sword carved gravel and clattered down the crater wall. Cherry grabbed his shirt and pulled him close, pinning his sword between them. He lifted his arm just in time to block her fist sailing at his face. They grunted and scrapped, their feet scrambling across the ground, while the dragon’s heart pulsed with excitement.
If Phillip didn’t end this soon, they were going to wake it anyway!
He shoved her away, and lifted his sword—
But his grip was empty—
Cherry sliced his sword across his gut.
Phillip collapsed with a scream, curling around his wound.
Cherry retrieved her greatsword and skidded into the crater, buffeted by the roar pouring from the rock.
“Please, don’t!” Phillip gasped, reaching.
The Dragonslayer looked back at him with pity, then sliced clean through the dragon’s heart.
---
That summer saw the worst forest fires in recent memory. Officials blamed an earthquake for severing high voltage transmission lines. But on that summer day, according to the locals, a hundred miles of twisting asphalt peeled up from the ground and soared into the sky on wings of fire and chrome.