Where should he start? Where should he go? George was very confused about the whole thing as he walked back to his house.

    The walk home involved cutting through the woods on a small trail that was invested with black snakes. George didn't enjoy the reptiles, and they didn't enjoy him.

    Today, however, they were hurriedly slithering toward him in a frantic fashion. For a moment, he thought they were charging him, finally having enough of his invading on their territory. He let out a yelp and jumped out of there way.

    The snakes kept slithering, not even acknowledging him standing off to the side, clinging to a tree. They appeared to be fleeing from something . . .

    George looked in the direction they had come from and saw a dark-haired man around his age running with a sheepdog at his side. George's eyebrows knitted together. He had never seen that guy or the dog in his life.

    "Run!" the man cried, flailing his arms. The dog was barking as if its life depended on it, and it might have.

    "Run from what?" George asked as the man ran by him. George managed to snag his arm and pull him to a stop. "What are you running from?"

    "There's . . . all kinds of . . . things chasing me and I have . . . no idea where they . . . came from," the man said breathlessly, glancing behind him, hazel eyes full of panic.

    George looked back and saw five absolutely hideous creatures charging toward them. They were short and had a greenish complexion, their dark hair pulled back into ponytails. They were hardly clothed, wearing just loincloths, carrying axes and clubs.

    "What the heck are those?"

    "I think they're trolls," the man replied. He looked as if he wanted to run again, but stopped, face contorting into a strange expression. "I-I'm getting the weirdest feeling." He started twitching.

    "Are you all righ — " George began, but was interrupted by a burning feeling in his stomach. It felt like really bad gas. He suddenly buckled over, feeling his back stretching and his muscles expanding. Pain seared through his body and he let out a scream.

    Beside him, the man was changing as well, developing a blue color, his skin looking slick and much like that of the black snakes that had slithered away. George watched in horror as the back of the man's shirt ripped, giving way to wings. Wait. Wings?

    George looked down at his arms and saw that they were clad with purple scales and that his fingers now had claws instead of fingernails. Seeing the rapidly nearing trolls in his new form filled him with rage and it was almost an instinct that made him breathe fire at them.

    The trolls screamed in pain, but didn't back down, smacking George's foot with their clubs. One stabbed his big toe with an axe, sending a flare of pain up his leg.

    The man's sheepdog was right in the middle of the chaos, barking and growling fiercely, jumping on them, ripping at their clothes.

    The dark-haired man grabbed one of the surviving trolls with his huge claws and crushed him before spiking him off a tree. George stomped on one like he was a bug, narrowly missing the sheepdog, who was chomping on the troll's foot.

    A deadly silence enveloped the forest, leaving George, the man, and the sheepdog still tensed for battle. After a few moments, George felt himself becoming smaller and losing his wings and claws. The man did the same.

    "Uh . . . " the man said, looking around at the dead trolls with large eyes. "What just happened?"

    "I think we became giant snakes," George said flatly.

    "I thought we were dragons."

    "Oh. I've got snakes on my mind. Sorry."

    The man just shook his head.

    "So where did those butt ugly things come from anyway?"

    "They just showed up out of nowhere," the man said. "I'm Paul, by the way."

    "George."

    "And this is Martha," Paul said, gesturing to his sheepdog, who was panting and acting as if it was the happiest day of her life.

    "Heya, Martha," George said, leaning down and patting her head.

    Paul squinted at him. "What is that purple thing on your head?"

    George straightened, fingers unconsciously going to his forehead. "It's a birthmark."

    "Well . . . " Paul said, pointing to his own on his head. "I have the exact same one, except mine's blue."

    George studied it. "And we both just turned into giant snakes — "

    "Dragons," Paul said, rolling his eyes.

    "We must have a bond, then!" George said. "We shall never leave each other! We will wear identical clothes and wear our hair the same and talk in the same accent and — "

    "No, no, no!" Paul said, stopping him with a raised index finger. "We will not do any of that, because we don't even know each other."

    "We probably have telepathy too," George said.

    "Just shut up," Paul said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. "I have no idea what just happened, and I don't care. It was nice meeting you, George, but Martha and I need to be going."

    "You don't care about what just happened?" George asked incredulously.

    "Uh, no," Paul said.

    "Why don't we talk to my parents? They might know about what just happened."

    "Are your parents weird old fortune tellers?" Paul eyed him suspiciously.

    "What? No!"

    "Are they necromancers?"

    "No, but speaking of which, I'm after one."

    "Don't care," Paul said, pretending to be bored with the entire conversation.

    "His name is Mark Chapman . . . " George said, hoping that the name would strike a chord within the other man, but Paul remained uninterested. "The king sent me after him because he stole his crown . . . "

    "The king sent you after him?" Paul said, perking up.

    "Um, yeah."

    The gears appeared to be turning in his head, his eyes moving quickly, biting his lip. "All right, I'll go with you and talk to your parents. I'll, uh, also accompany you on your quest."

    "Really?" George's eyes lit up.

    "Yeah, let's get going," Paul said. "Lead on."

* * *

"Mum, Dad, something weird happened while I was gone," George said once he entered their house and found his parents sitting at the round kitchen table.

    "Yeah?" Louise said.

    George started with how he had been dragged into the castle and forced into a quest he didn't want to embark on and then to meeting Paul and taking down the trolls. He was breathless by the time he had finished, leaving his parents looking at each other with wide eyes.

    "Well, the thing is, Georgie," his mum said, looking down nervously, "what happened to you in the forest wasn't just some random occurrence."

    "We can do that as well," Harold said.

    George opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water.

    "We are Dragon Knights, and have protected the kingdom for years," Louise explained. "We're retired now, but once a Dragon Knight, always a Dragon Knight."

    "Why haven't I seen your birthmarks?"

    "We hid them," Harold said, lowering his head with shame. "We didn't want to expose you to that."

    "Why would you want to hide that from me?" George asked. "I love the idea of being a Dragon Knight!"

    Paul stared dreamily at the wall. "So I'm a Dragon Knight." He fluttered his eyelashes and looked as though he would faint.

    "Well, you aren't a Dragon Knight until the king appoints you one," Louise said. "Right now, you're just dragons."

    "We'll be Dragon Knights when this is over, though!" George said, glancing excitedly at Paul, who seemed to be ignoring everything around him, caught in his own world where he was a Dragon Knight.

    "Boys," Louise said, "you need to know something. Mark is very dangerous. Harold and I have . . . faced him before. We had sent him to oblivion, but somehow he managed to claw his way back up here with his hell-spawn."

    "Why would he need King Brian's crown?" George asked.

    "The jewels in the crown have powers to unleash all kinds of horrible creatures on the kingdom," Harold explained. "It will take Mark a while to get them into effect, but you shouldn't dally. It sounds like he's already releasing some onto us, with trolls attacking you and whatnot."

    George thought for a moment. "King Brian told me to look for the clues he leaves like bread crumbs. Do you know what he's talking about?"

    "Yes," Louise said with a sigh. "The grass he walks on turns brown and spearheads from his rock golems are left behind sometimes."

    "Louise," Harold said with a pained expression, "I don't know if he's ready."

    "He's ready," Louise said. "His power has been waiting dormant for all these years. I think it's been hidden long enough. We shouldn't have hidden it from him. We were selfish."

    Paul touched the birthmark on his forehead and said quietly, "I never knew."

    "Your birthmarks decide the elements you possess," Louise said. "I can't tell you what they may be. Only you yourselves can discover that."

    George turned to Paul. "We need to be going."

    Louise stood up from the table and embraced him. "Be careful."

    Harold nodded at him with a grim expression, mouth clamped together, a thin line.

    "I'm going to be a knight," Paul whispered to himself. "I'm going to be a knight." He turned to Martha and cried with joy, "I'm going to be a knight!"

    Louise and Harold chuckled at him, Paul's enthusiastic outburst lightening the mood.

    George straightened and said proudly, "Let's go, Paul! We've got a necromancer to take down!"