Knight Pancho Sanza leaned against an ancient oak tree and looked thoughtfully out over the pleasant valley as the rays of the sun at first light bathed the castle walls in a warm amber glow. He was tired from his long journey home, but was still vigilant and alert. “It is deceivingly beautiful, isn’t it?” came a soft voice behind him. Knight Sanza’s faithful traveling companion, Donkey Hotei, stepped to his side and the two looked out over the tranquil valley. “Why do you say that?” asked Knight Sanza. “What the eye beholds is so beautiful, yet beneath the surface there is such great evil,” came the reply. The two stood in the growing morning light, and watched in silence for a long time. “They say a mighty dragon sits atop the castle, invisible to the naked eye,” said Donkey Hotei. “I have heard such stories,” said Knight Sanza. “I have heard it is a two-headed dragon, and very terrible to behold,” said Donkey Hotei. “I, too, have heard that said,” came the soft reply. “Are you afraid?” asked Donkey Hotei. “Only a fool would not be,” said the weary knight. Their eyes met; “Me, too,” said Donkey Hotei.

Knight Sanza and Donkey Hotei were returning to their homeland from The Great War of The Windmills, far to the north. It had been a terrible war, a nightmare, an impossible dream of misguided rulers that had extracted a horrific price in lives and devastation. Knight Sanza had fought in numerous battles and had witnessed terrible death and destruction, and himself had been seriously wounded, a spearpoint thrust into the joint of his armor at the shoulder. Donkey Hotei had received two minor injuries, one, a superficial cut while charging a windmill, the other a badly sprained ankle when he stumbled over Knight Sanza’s lance. At the war’s end, Knight Sanza and Donkey Hotei were far from home when they received word that their homeland had been laid siege and invaded by an evil king from the south. The evil king brought such a reign of terror upon this once peaceful valley, ruling with an iron fist and a cold steel heart. He was ruthless, and his tyranny saw no bounds, and he enforced his dastardly rule through the form and presence of an accomplice – a flying two-headed dragon. One dragonhead, it was told, breathed fire that burned as the fires of hell; the other bellowed rolling thunder that shattered marble, and together they marked doom for any who resisted the will of the evil king. The inhabitants of this fair land lived in terror, and evil made its unwelcome home and dwelled among them. In the face of all this, making a bad situation worse, Knight Sanza was the sole knight of the realm to survive the northern wars, and in returning home felt the full weight of such responsibility.

As the sun reached the hour of the second watch, Donkey Hotei turned to Knight Sanza and with sadness in his voice, said his armor and lance were ready and it was time. “I know,” said Knight Sanza, his voice distant and thoughtful. Slowly he donned his armor, stopping periodically because of the pain in his shoulder. Lastly, he pulled his helmet over his head, leaving the visor up. He smiled at his faithful companion, nodded, and said he was ready. Donkey Hotei brought Knight Sanza his trusty lance, a once magnificent instrument of war, now scored and battered from many battles, though its deadly tip remained razor sharp. Knight Sanza fingered it, his mind far away. Then grasping it firmly, he turned to Donkey Hotei and said, “Duty calls us, dear friend; let us be on our way.”

Knight Sanza struggled to mount Donkey Hotei, and only with a supreme effort succeeded. He then fought to hold on with his one good arm and remain astride Donkey Hotei as they moved down the trail from the ridge toward the looming castle. They stopped three times because Knight Sanza lost his grip on his lance and each time had to get down and retrieve it. They stopped five times because the deadening pain in his shoulder wracked his body, and because of the pain he kept sliding off. Donkey Hotei was patient and helped Knight Sanza with each drop, with each fall.

As they approached the bridge over the River Why, a dark shadow leapt out from the castle walls, and blackened the earth in a direct line toward the stumbling duo. The crickets stopped chirping, the birds in the trees stopped their song, and the winds dropped to barely a whisper. The sky was clear, but Knight Sanza and Donkey Hotei knew what the shadow portended. Then, the sound of mighty wings beating the air rent the silence over the valley, intense flames scorched the earth sending dense clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky, and a sound like rolling thunder a thousand-fold fell heavily upon the ears of the two warriors. And, still the sky was clear. Knight Sanza started to slide to one side, and grabbed at Donkey Hotei’s mane to keep from falling yet again. His hand slipped, and searing pain shot through his shoulder, and he lost his grip on his trusty lance, which dropped harmlessly to the ground. Knight Sanza continued to slide and grabbed wildly to maintain his balance. Donkey Hotei tried to shift his stance to catch his trusty friend, only to stumble himself on the uneven trail. In staggering to regain his balance, Donkey Hotei stepped hard on the tip of the fallen lance, caught fast between two rocks, and as the two companions fell in a pile of flailing ears and hooves and arms and legs, the lance catapulted up and over the heads of the fallen comrades. In a wild flurry of beating wings and the peal of ear shattering thunder, a wrenching screech of unspeakable pain rolled out across the valley, echoing off the far mountain walls. Then there was silence.

Donkey Hotei quickly scrambled to his feet and shook the dust from himself, and hurried to tend to his master. Knight Sanza lifted his head and struggled to rise, but found he had broken a number of his ribs, and even the slightest movement racked his body with such pain, that he chose wisely to lay still. His breathing was shallow, but even that caused him great discomfort. Donkey Hotei, with difficulty, helped his friend into a sitting position. When Knight Sanza was upright, he and Donkey Hotei looked around and beheld such incredible destruction: trees had been blown down by the fierce winds created by the dragon’s wings, torn from the earth by their roots. Fires from the nostrils of one dragon head had scorched the earth for 20 meters across in a direct line from the castle to just an eyelash short of the two warriors. And the peal of ear-splitting thunder from the throat of the other dragon head had opened up wide cracks in the earth. Then, the eyes of both Knight Sanza and Donkey Hotei came to rest upon a filthy green heap lying just beyond them – it was the dragon, now visible, with Knight Sanza’s lance through its heart.

Knight Sanza’s injuries were so severe he was unable to mount Donkey Hotei again, so the two comrades walked slowly down the remaining path to the castle moat. There they found the drawbridge down, and the front gate open wide. An eerie silence hung over the castle. Knight Sanza, wincing with the pain, called out to the evil king to come forth and answer to the people of the realm, but there was no answer, only silence. Donkey Hotei quickly searched the castle, only to find it completely deserted. The evil king, powerless without his two-headed dragon, had fled. Word spread quickly throughout the kingdom that the evil king was gone, his dragon was dead, and the days of yore were restored.

In time, travelers from the far country would bring accounts of a bitter old shell of a man claiming to have once been king in a realm to the north, recounting unbelievable tales of a two-headed dragon to disbelieving travelers.