Dragon Magic by Andre Norton

King’s-Son. For good does not always give birth to good. Sometimes evil comes instead. However, this is your fate and so it must be. And the plan is the best I can give you.”
    He turned then and took a step or two from them and was gone. But Regin-Mimir scuttled forward and laid hand upon the boat, looking over his shoulder to say eagerly, “There is but little time to make the trap. Let us go, Sigurd King’s-Son, soon to be Sigurd Fafnir’s-Bane.”
    So they passed across the river, Sigurd taking one oar, Sig the other.
    Regin-Mimir played no part in that rowing, looking ever to the other bank as if by his eagerness alone he could hasten their progress. They found the track of the dragon and it was as deep as Sigurd was tall; also its walls were encrusted with slime that gave off an evil smell to sicken a man. Nor were there any lack of warnings of what had happened to those who dared enter Fafnir’s land. A skull rolled from Sig’s foot as he took an unwary step. And there lay a sword, its blade half melted away.
    Sigurd leaped down into the center of that noisome way and with Balmung he hacked at the earth packed down by the dragon’s foul weight.
    The slimed soil he so loosened he passed up to Sig, who bore it away in a bag made of his cloak to dump in another place. Again Regin-Mimir took no part in their labors. Rather, he sat hunched together like a great gray spider, staring out to that plain where the treasure fires burned and Fafnir crawled to make sure not a single piece had been taken away.
    At last they were done, for Sigurd could fit himself into the pit he had hacked out. Then Sig dropped down and spread out his befouled cloak over Sigurd, over its surface sprinkling the disturbed earth, until he hoped that it looked as it had before their coming. Then he climbed out once more and went to Regin-Mimir, touching him on the arm. The Master Smith seemed to awaken from a dream, for he arose stiffly to go to the boat. This time he, too, lent his strength to an oar, and they rowed back to where they had left Greykell and their other horses. Those stood with bent heads from their great weariness.
    Now there was only the waiting, and Sig found that the worst of all. At last the dusk, which here was day, became darker so that the treasure fires burned brighter. As Fafnir’s monstrous shadow turned from them to the river path, Sig gripped his staff so hard that his nails bit into its wood and his hands ached. To see that great scaled thing slip along the rut its body had worn in the earth was a fearsome sight. And Sig knew then that he was of no hero blood to lie now as Sigurd lay, enduring until the time came for attack.
    The dragon’s body slipped on, and now the horned head was very close to the river. Had Sigurd been smothered, crushed by its passing? Surely he would have struck before this—!
    But even as Sig’s fear swelled, the forepart of the dragon reared high, and from its throat came such a sound as made the very ground about them tremble. Its tail lashed and beat upon the earth, driving deep into the surface any rock it chanced to strike. From a gaping hole in the belly poured a dark stream of foul liquid. Writhing, Fafnir reached the river, and now his head went down and he bit at his own wound as if to punish it for the hurt it caused him.
    Twisting, turning, the dragon fought death, until his great body reared once too often and he toppled into the water, where wings, great-nailed limbs, dangerous tail, beat the dark liquid into a stinking froth. Around him all the water was troubled, as those who lived within its depths gathered for such a feasting as they had never expected. So a second battle raged. Sig found he could not watch, but hid his face in his hands, and tried not to listen either.
    By some good fortune the struggle in the river did not wreck or bear away their boat. When Sig dared to look, and there was no more disturbance in the water, he ran to the craft and readied