Merchant Crab

Ancient and terrible. Those were the two words that best described red dragons in the books Balthazar had looked through after that fateful day when Madeleine was taken.

Out of all the many types of dragons that once terrorized those lands in ages past, red ones were among the largest and most fierce, with fiery tempers and an affinity for fire above normal even among their kind.

A creature so menacing even a giant crab would be intimidated by it.

And there Balthazar was, faced with his nightmare. The one who came to his pond to take its gold back, to raze his home, and to take away his favorite person in the whole world.

[Red Dragon - Level 75]

The crab stared in awe at the creature through his golden monocle. With scales of deep dark crimson, the colossal beast rested at the very center of the chamber, a cave so enormous it could easily fit two of the forges the crab had used to repair his golem.

A halo of golden glow surrounded the creature’s vermilion body, radiating from the piles of valuables that filled its lair. Columns of golden coins, nuggets and bars of precious metals, sculptures of the finest materials, and everything else a dragon could deem worthy of belonging in its hoard.

It was a treasure unlike anything Balthazar had ever seen.

The monstrosity’s copper eyes narrowed as they found the intruder. It was every bit as terrifying as the merchant remembered and still as red and large as a barn.

But Madeleine once told him that was where farmers kept their wheat, which is what flour is made from.

And flour is used to make most pastries, so that made the fact stick in his brain.

Yet, something else besides the gigantic dragon or the troves of riches surrounding it managed to catch the merchant’s attention even more.

Below the lair’s guardian was a smaller, human-sized setup. A couple of counters, some tables, and a big stone oven. It was a kitchen.

And behind it was a girl.

A baker.

“Balthazar?!” said a surprised Madeleine. “Rye?!”

Frozen halfway through rolling a pin over some dough laid on the counter, the young girl in an apron stared in disbelief at the new arrivals, her face partially covered in white flour.

“Madeleine?!” the crab and the archer said in unison, their charge coming to a full stop.

“You’re… you’re here!” she said, raising both eyebrows in astonishment.

The red dragon raised its head toward the ceiling, its nostrils flaring with anger. “What is the meaning of this?!”

“Yeah, what the dragon said!” exclaimed Balthazar. “What is the meaning of this? Why are you baking? You’re working for that ugly iguana now?!”

The crimson giant stood up on its four legs, black smoke billowing from its maw as it snarled. “You dare come into my lair and—”

“Please,” Madeleine interrupted with a pleading tone. “Let me try to explain it to them?”

Glancing down at the baker, the creature lowered itself back down to its resting position. “Very well. You have five minutes. Make sure to turn down the heat of the oven first.”

“Friend?” Bouldy said, joining the crab.

Blue landed next to the golem, with Druma still on her back.

“Boss? What we do?!”

“I’m not really sure yet,” the merchant replied. “Stand down for now.”

“Balthazar,” Rye muttered from the side, his greatbow still in hand. “We’re wasting our surprise factor. We need to strike the dragon before—”

“Put your toothpick down, boy,” the dragon’s rumbling voice warned, making them all look up. “I will let you know when I require it after my next meal.”

The archer’s brow furrowed as he tightened his grip on the Dragonslayer’s Greatarrow.

“Will you all stop it already?!” exclaimed Madeleine, scurrying around the cooking area to approach the group.

“Madeleine,” Rye said, his semblance changing to a blend of both relief and worry as he rushed to her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” the girl replied, joining hands with him as they met. “What in Crea’s name are you all doing here?”

“We came to rescue you, obviously!” Balthazar exclaimed, throwing his arms out.

“But we’re half a continent away from Ardville! How did you even find me?” said the baker, before her eyes widened in realization. “Balthazar! You left your pond?!”

“I had to. What was I supposed to do? Carry on like it wasn’t my fault you were kidnapped by a dragon?” the crab said. “But now I’m not sure if you even needed rescuing. You look like you’ve made yourself at home here.”

“Oh, don’t be silly! It’s not like that!”

“Balthazar has a point, Madeleine,” said Rye. “I thought you’d be a prisoner, or… worse. Why are you just casually baking over there?”

“Yeah!” exclaimed the annoyed crustacean. “What kind of betrayal is this?!”

The girl let out a sigh as she used the edge of her apron to wipe her forehead.

“It’s a long story,” she started. “But basically, I’ve been paying a debt to her for the past couple of months.”

“To her?” Balthazar repeated, cocking an eyestalk.

“Yes,” Madeleine said. “She’s a lady dragon. You couldn’t tell?”

“Uh… how was I supposed to tell?” the baffled crab asked.

“Well, the stunning eyelashes, for example.”

She raised both hands back with a shrug to point at the dragon, who glared down at them and batted its eyes lazily, showing off a set of eyelashes, each one thicker and longer than Balthazar’s antennae.

The crab exchanged a thoroughly baffled glance with the archer.

“Do as we rehearsed, Madeleine,” the dragon said, sticking its snout up.

The baker slumped her shoulders and looked back. “Do I really have to?”

“Yes, we agreed, remember?” said the red creature. “Your word was given.”

Madeleine sighed again as she stood back straight. After clearing her throat, she started speaking in a loud but very unenthusiastic tone.

“Allow me to introduce you to her terribleness, the Queen of Flames. Crimson Nightmare of Mantell and Destroyer of Legions. She is fire, she is grace. Her wings herald doom and her roar strikes fear in the hearts of men and beast.” The baker paused and rolled her eyes. “Tremble in the presence of Beatrix LaFlamme!”

The red dragon stood tall and proud, chest puffed out and chin held high, as if holding for applause.

Druma gave a couple of timid claps before putting his hands back down, realizing no one was going to join him.

“She must be a pretty big deal,” Balthazar whispered to Rye, holding his pincer in front of his mouth. “She has a first and a last name.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Fine, whatever,” Rye exclaimed. “But why are you… serving her? Are you her slave now?”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” the girl said. “You see, shortly after I got here, I tried to escape on my own. Waited until it was night, snuck past Beatrix while she was sleeping, and made a run for the exit. But… I couldn’t really open those big gates on my own. And then, while stumbling around in the dark, I… bumped into one of her sculptures.”

“A statuette made in my image by a cult of worshipers in the second age,” the dragon added with a nod. “Made of pure garnet crystal. Very valuable.”

“It fell and shattered on the floor,” Madeleine continued. “Beatrix woke up. She was devastated. It was her favorite piece of treasure in her whole hoard! I felt so bad. I tried to apologize, but the poor thing was inconsolable.”

Balthazar listened to the baker’s story, his scowl deepening as he pictured the huge beast sobbing and crying while the girl patted her thick scales.

“So?” he exclaimed. “She kidnapped you! Why were you even apologizing for breaking her stupid trinket?!”

“Watch your tongue, crab!” Beatrix warned with a snarl.

“Come on now, Balthazar,” Madeleine quickly intervened. “She was really not so bad once I got to know her softer side. How would you feel if someone broke one of your favorite pebbles from your collection?”

The crab opened his mouth to speak, but decided not to after some quick reconsideration.

“And so what happened then?” the archer asked.

“Well,” the baker continued, “I sort of just… been paying for the broken sculpture since.”

“What?!” exclaimed the adventurer. “Why?”

“Because it was my fault, Rye! My mom always taught me that if you break something, you pay for it,” the girl said with an apologetic tone. “And then as I got to know Bea a bit more I learned how lonely she was, being a dragon and all. So one thing leads to another, I tell her the only way I can think of repaying is through my labor since I have no riches or anything, and that’s when I found out about the dragonfruits.”

“The what now?” Balthazar asked with a cocked eyestalk.

“The dragonfruits!” Madeleine said, running back to the counter. “There’s a patch of land behind Bea’s lair where they grow by the hundreds. It’s beautiful!”

She reached under the countertop and then ran back to the group, carrying a spiky bulb in her hands. The fruit was a vivid red and Balthazar could feel a sweet aroma coming from it.

“I found out they make for excellent pie fillings!” the proud baker said, extending the fruit for them to see. “Once I convinced Bea to try one, she was delighted by their taste and asked me to keep baking more for her every day!”

The crab frowned. “So she enslaved you to bake for her!”

Madeleine glared back at him. “I was baking for you every day too, Balthazar.”

“Yes, but… that was different!”

After rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Madeleine glanced at an hourglass sitting on the counter and ran back to the cooking area to check the oven.

“How could you stand being imprisoned here all this time?” the merchant lamented. “Day in, day out, having to bake for a greedy creature with an endless hunger.”

“Uh, you know you’re sort of describing yourself now, right?” Rye muttered.

“And especially with these horrid, ugly fruits,” Balthazar continued, ignoring the adventurer. “I don’t even want to imagine the disgusting slop that dragon calls a pie. I would never even want to taste a—Oh goodness gracious, that smells delicious!”

The baker used a thick piece of cloth to grab and pull a tray from the oven. On it sat a pie—large, round, and every bit perfect. Its crust had decorative slashes cut onto it, exposing the glistening red of its dragonfruit filling and letting out the scented steam that reached the crab like a warm hug and made his joints weak.

“You like it? I’ve been working on my recipe for weeks,” the girl said with a wide grin. “I’ve almost got it down to exactly how I want them to be!”

“Where do you even get baking supplies from all the way up here?” asked the archer, with a frown of suspicion. “I doubt she just lets you pop down to the nearest town for some ingredient shopping.”

“Oh, Beatrix is very resourceful!” Madeleine said. “Apparently, the locals offer her lots of tribute. Just the other day she brought home a whole shipment of wheat for me to make flour with. Courtesy of a nice family of farmers from the neighborhood. So kind of them!”

“Yes,” the dragon said with a slightly forced grin. “They were very keen on making… an offering.”

Balthazar had taken a couple of slow steps forward, his mind barely registering the conversation once the dragonfruit pie came into view.

Madeleine’s baking. How he had missed it.

Something about the girl’s special touch always made her pastries superior to any others, and the crab had gone far too long without a taste.

He needed it like a plant needed the rain after months of dry weather.

“Can I… have a nibble?” the hypnotized crustacean asked, eyes fixed on the exotic delicacy.

Madeleine looked down at him with a keen smile. “Well, I guess if—”

“He may not,” Beatrix interjected with an abrupt tone.

“But Bea, I—” the baker started, turning to face the dragon, but the creature cut her off again.

“They are intruders in my lair,” the red dragon said sharply. “I gave you five minutes out of courtesy to you, Madeleine. Now I shall handle them as I would anyone else who dared invade my domain.”

“Wait, you don’t mean…”

Beatrix smiled with a toothy grin that illustrated the title of “her terribleness” perfectly.

“I will even let you choose which one I shall eat first, Madeleine.”

The girl started waving her arms in a panic. “Woah, woah! No, wait, no eating my friends, please! I can just tell them to leave, no need for that. Eat pies, not guys, remember?!”

Rye stepped forward, gripping his greatbow tightly.

“We are not leaving without you, Madeleine!”

The baker turned back to them with wide eyes as she scurried closer.

“Rye, I’m trying to solve this amicably. Please don’t make things more difficult for me!”

The archer stared at her with a blend of confusion and disbelief in his eyes.

“Wait, you’re not telling me you don’t want to leave, are you?”

“No! No, no, no. Of course I want to. I missed you guys, and everyone else from back home. But I still got a debt to pay, remember?”

Balthazar took off his backpack as he skittered forward.

“I can settle the debt!” he exclaimed to the crimson beast. “The golden statuette that was taken from your hoard. The one you came searching for at my pond months ago. I have it with me.”

Pulling his claw from the magical pack, the merchant revealed the golden idol of a goddess.

Beatrix lowered her long neck until her eye was close enough to examine the statuette.

After a moment, she let out a puff of smoke with a disdainful snarl.

“I refuse,” she said, raising her head again. “I have found a far more valuable treasure in the form of the girl now.”

“What?! No!” the crab said. “You have to let her go!”

Madeleine stepped up to the side of the merchant, addressing the giant creature.

“Balthazar is right, Bea. I… I miss my home. My friends. My life. Maybe it’s time to let me go?”

The dragon looked down, her glare like two burning flames.

“You have made a deal. Your word is your bond. You would break your oath to me and suffer the consequences of it?”

The baker gulped and her eyes went to the floor. “No…”

“Then you shall remain here and work until your debt has been paid in full.”

Balthazar threw his arms out in exasperation. “This is ridiculous! I will pay off her debt! It was just a stupid sculpture, how much longer could she possibly have to work to pay it off?!”

Beatrix used her sharp talons to pick up a book from behind a pile of golden jewels and quickly looked at its pages.

“According to my calculations, she still has… 73 years, 4 months, and 7 days to work before her debt is settled.”

“What?!” Rye exclaimed, raising his tone and nocking a Dragonslayer Arrow back onto his bow. “That’s it, we’re getting you out of here, Madeleine. I’m not letting you work as a slave for the rest of your life!”

“Rye, no!” the girl pleaded, running to the archer and trying to make him lower his weapon. “Don’t be a fool! You can’t go up against her!”

The red dragon straightened herself up, her scowled fixed on the adventurer. “Let him come, Madeleine. If he hungers for a foolish death, I shall deliver it to him.”

“Not helping, Bea!” the baker yelled back, before speaking to her crush again. “Be reasonable, Rye. You have no chance against her in combat. Do you really want to force me to watch you being turned into barbecue in a pointless attempt at freeing me?”

The archer lowered his greatbow slowly, his gaze turning dejected. “No…”

“I want to go back with you guys, but maybe it’s not so bad if I just stay here. At least this way I can make sure she is happy and fed, meaning she will be less likely to go out there to terrify anyone and cause trouble.”

Balthazar turned in place, looking at the two undeclared sweethearts with sadness.

“Hey, this job isn’t so bad,” Madeleine said to her adventurer, gently lifting his chin with her fingers as she smiled at him. “I’ve got central heating, practically unlimited cooking supplies, and even a beautiful fruit garden out back. Really, and that’s without even mentioning the health insurance she provides!”

Rye looked up into her eyes. “I… I don’t want to lose you again, Madeleine.”

The baker tried to smile again, her eyes brimming with tears. “I know. I don’t want to lose again either.”

Watching them from a few paces away, the crab felt a wrenching feeling in his shell. It was bothersome. He did not like it and he wanted it to stop.

Emotions like that were for soft-shelled humans, not sturdy crabs like him.

The merchant knew she was right. Rye could not fight that dragon.

But the boy was right too. They could not just leave without her.

There was only one thing to be done.

Balthazar threw on his backpack again and, with a deep breath, started walking toward the dragon.

“What is he doing?!” Rye said, looking over Madeleine’s shoulder.

She turned to look at the marching crab. “Balthazar?”

The merchant’s companions stiffened with unease too.

“Friend?” called the golem.

“Boss?!” exclaimed the goblin.

Even the drake had stretched her neck up and followed her surrogate parent with eyes wide.

Balthazar walked until he reached the empty space at the very center of the dragon’s lair, perfectly placed under the creature’s fierce gaze.

Beatrix stared down at the small crustacean from atop her piles of gold and riches.

“Well, what do we have here?” she said in her deep and terrible voice. “Came to beg?”

“No,” said the brave crab, his eyes defiant and unwavering. “I’ve come to challenge you to a one-on-one duel.”