Helmut the Dragon Slayer & Splat the Suicidal Dragon

By Randal J. Junior

Helmut is a tiny dragon-slayer with a wooden sword and a cooking pot for a helmet. Splat is a red dragon who can't breathe fire. Helmut wants to slay her first dragon and Splat wants to end it all with a sword through her broken heart. They meet in the forest and become lifelong friends...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randal J. Junior
• Release date: Oct 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215660829

Randal J. Junior

As a student of literature for the past eight years, the author has endeavoured to learn the art of compression; reducing the infinite into the barest minimum of words required to hook the reader's interest, cast doubt within their mind and then dispel it with either an inconclusive twist or an enduring sense of finality. As a failed student of philosophy, Randal J. Junior has been beaten into the school of weary acceptance after finding that all human endeavour is fraught with either idealism or an opportunistic narcissism. But she/he still has faith in humanity and believes that we all learn something new every day.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Red dragons breathe fire, it’s just what they do. A full-grown red dragon can roast an entire flock of sheep in a couple of good breaths, but no matter how hard she tried, Splat couldn’t light even one little candle. And this was her one hundredth birthday. Today she was a proper dragon. No longer a baby. But as she saw the giant cake coming out on an enormous silver platter, with all of her friends and family sitting around drinking the best olive oil out of golden goblets, she knew that she was doomed.

‘Some dragons develop their talents later than others,’ says her grandmother, more than a thousand years old and having roasted her first sheep at the tender age of forty-two.

‘I knew a blue dragon who couldn’t freeze a butterfly until she was ninety-three,’ says her grandfather, ‘but now she freezes entire forests in Siberia with no effort at all.’

‘I knew a silver dragon who couldn’t light a light bulb until she was ninety-eight,’ says her older sister, a veteran of many a fierce battle with the knights of the square table.

‘What happened to her?’ asks Splat.

‘Her school teacher made her swallow an electric eel.’

‘And that fixed her?’ Splat asks.

‘No... but it stopped her talking in class!’ her sister says, and all the dragons laugh at her sister’s joke but it just makes Splat even more afraid of what everyone will say when she tries to light the candles on her birthday cake.

‘Come on Splat! Light them up! You’re a hundred years old now!’ says her father, a black dragon with a voice of thunder that shakes the earth when he erupts in a rage, and even makes the dragon cave tremble as he speaks now in his normal voice.

‘Yeah, come on Splat!’ says Angus, her little brother, a green dragon with enough venom to paralyse a flock of birds, even though he only just turned twenty. He torments her every day with his teasing and his sharp claws that he uses to poke her in the ribs when their parents aren’t looking. Just the thought of him laughing at her makes her mad and she feels a rage building inside of her.

‘Come on Splat! What are you waiting for? Light the candles so we can cut the cake!’ says her cousin Vera, another green dragon who also developed her dragon skills at a very young age.

‘Yeah, come on! Light the candles!’ everyone seems to be saying all at once and Splat decides right then and there that they’re right, this is her one hundredth birthday and she is ready to start breathing fire. She takes an enormous breath, feeling the olive oil heating up in her stomach and fixing her gaze on the candles in front of her. But just as she is ready to burn those candles into molten wax, she hears Angus, her little brother, make a disgusting noise and her sense of determination fades into nothing. The breath comes out of her with barely a wisp of smoke. Silence. Dead silence. Nobody says anything.

‘Give it one more try...’ her mother starts to say, but Splat is already running away, leaping from the cliff top and diving as fast as she can for the forest below.

Once deep in the trees, the dragon tears falling like quicksilver from her eyes, she is soon fast asleep on the forest floor, hidden from those who might try to find her from the skies above.

Half an hour later, Splat wakes from her sleep, unsure of her surroundings or what may have woken her.

‘Hiya!’ says a tiny little knight, erupting from the undergrowth to strike the sleeping dragon in the ribs with a wooden sword. Splat is so surprised that she barely thinks to wonder if there are more of them and if she should be scared.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ she asks, staring in wonder as the tiny knight attacks her again, beating the wooden sword against her shiny red scales.

‘I’m thhhtabbing you in the thhhtomach!’ says the tiny knight, a mop of straw-coloured hair coming down from beneath the saucepan that she’s wearing as a helmet.

‘Are you really?’ says the bemused dragon, the weight of her emotions slowly lifting as she ponders this unexpected situation. A very short time ago, she would have welcomed the sudden end that a real knight would have brought her at the end of a deadly blade, but now she is curious to see what manner of creature is hiding under the cooking pot helmet.

‘Yethhh I am! Take that you thhhtinky dragon!’ says the tiny knight, lunging to stab the wooden point of the sword in the general direction of her heart, the only known way to kill a real, live dragon.

‘Did you just call me stinky?’ Splat asks, managing to sound convincing as only a dragon can in such circumstances.

‘Yethhh I did! You are the thhhtinkiest dragon I have ever killed!’ replies the tiny knight.

‘And, just out of curiosity, how many dragons have you killed? If you don’t mind my asking...’

‘I do mind you athhhking! Thhho mind your own bithhhness!’

‘Oh, I’m sorry... I didn’t realise... uh... just a little to the left if you don’t mind... that’s it...’

‘I’m not here to thhhcratch your itchethhh!’ yells the tiny knight, ‘I’m a dragon thhhlayer!’

‘Oh really?’ Splat asks, with an almost imperceptible smile creeping across her shiny red lips. ‘There’s a saying among dragon slayers, but I’m sure you’ve already heard it...’

The tiny knight stops in frustration, her chest heaving with the effort of beating the wooden sword against the dragon’s armoured skin.

‘Well? What ithhh it?’ the tiny knight asks, glaring angrily from beneath her mop of unruly hair.

‘Oh, it’s just something that I’ve heard dragon slayers say from time to time, you probably wouldn’t be interested...’

‘I am interethhhted! Juthhht tell me what it ithhh!’

‘Well... if you really want to know...’

‘Tell me now! You thhhtupid dragon!’ Helmut demands, waving her sword in a threatening manner. Splat looks at the tiny knight with a sideways glance, drawing out every moment of anticipation until, with a sigh of regret, she finally speaks.

‘Slay it, don’t spray it.’

The tiny knight is too outraged to speak, trembling with anger under her cooking pot helmet, but before she can vent her rage, they hear the noise of someone pushing through the undergrowth.

‘Helmut? Where are you? Who are you talking to?’ a voice from somewhere nearby asks, the sound of their approach getting louder until a young woman steps out of the trees, looking up to see the dragon and stopping dead in her tracks. Splat doesn’t move, but she takes the newcomer’s measure in an instant, seeing the slender