The Ballad of Sir Coinalot and the slaying of Inflarion

In a far off land of knights and knaves,
A lowly peasant tilled the soil.
The strongest soul in all Economa,
Selfless, kind, and brave

In want of storage for their lot
His neighbours asked him to keep safe
Their precious jewels, silver, gold
And so they called him Coinalot.

Through donations, enough was raised
To pay the entrance fee
For the noble swordsmen contest
The winner gained the King’s great praise.

And one by one, they fell to his blade
Coinalot patrolled the ground.
Spectators quaffed and watched in shock
As peasant into knight was made.

Sir Coinalot discovered the lands bestowed
By the profligate King were tarnished
By debts which mounted with wages
horseshoes, feed and wagons for the road.

The King raised tithes to pay for a war,
In far off lands Economans would never glimpse
And beasts and harvest went to store
In great mountain silos protected by lore.

Sir Coinalot shared what little he had
With those who worked his lands
And vowed to raise their plight
With a King that was rumoured to be mad.

For the King claimed a dragon-like beast
Lived far up in Economa’s mount
With insatiable desire for livestock and gold
Inflarion grew stronger through each new feast

The king and his druid were said long ago
To strike a deal with coin for the dragon
But with each harvest it demanded more
Its appetite never ceased to grow.

Citizens’ gold kept in Coinalot’s guard
Ebbed slowly to Inflarion’s cave
His ledgers never could be balanced
As once-gold coins returned less hard.

No metal had ever pierced the scales
Of the growing dragon above the city
Sir Coinalot traveled for twenty-one days
To a meateoric crater along the trail.

It was most taxing to leave his home
And never know if he would return
As without a weapon to slay the beast,
Economa would wither whilst he roamed.

One night, a hooded monk with an accent strange
Did accost him on the way
Presenting him an unusual gift
For monks rarely strayed to such a range.

The sword he thrust into Coinalot’s grip
Was heavier than most could lift
Made from unknown alloy strong
Unbreakable, hard, impossible to chip

“And you,” said the monk, his robe an orange sun
“Have the hands to wield. Noble. Strong.”
And with that, he made into the night,
Accepting in return absolutely none.

The sword had power, Sir Coinalot had never felt
Training endless weeks to wield
And when he could, he marched to the mountains
In search of justice for the evil crimes dealt.

He had no strategy for attack
No plan to shield himself from flames
No contraption to fell the beast from sky
Only faith, trust and sword of metal black.

The stench from the cave did make him retch
A putrid rot of carcass and bone.
A low growl echoed along the walls.
The sleeping Inflarion, sprawled full stretch.

Sir Coinalot held aloft his sword
Aimed it into the dark and charged
He uttered no war cry, no words of justice.
He closed his eyes and ran toward.

At impact, he forced open both eyes
The dragon, towered twenty feet above,
Snapping awake, it reared a scaly head
Preparing to rain fire until any intruders died.

The tip of the sword did strike Inflarion’s claw
And the dragon collapsed to the ground
Then disappeared in a hiss of smoke
And Coinalot finally believed what he saw.

Inflarion was an illusionary spell
And in front of all the chests of gold
Stood the greedy, lying, coward King,
And his bearded druid, Bankorell.

“You fool,” King suddenly proclaimed.
“Without this fear, chaos will reign.”
He admonished his druid for Inflarion’s demise.
“Your magic has failed, what must be blamed?”

But his words were cut short as our one true knight
Plunged his great sword into the heart of his king
Before cutting Bankorell to the ground
Taking no damage in this flawless fight.

But this evil was not made of smoke
Their blood coloured all the riches they stored
Their dying breaths tainting the cave’s damp air
This, the curse that he had broke.

Sir Coinalot considered his years of plight
And shed a tear for those like him
Who suffered at the hands of a lie
Of powerful dragons and kingdoms’ might.

Yet he could not expose his treasonous act
And returned to Economa to report
The death of the King at the hands
Of the beast with whom he had made a pact

The people rose in furious rage
Took up arms and marched uphill
Where they found the old slain king
And a torn dragon’s claw lying next to his sage

“Inflarion is gone,” our hero hailed
Holding aloft his trusty sword
“Injured and never to return
Its wicked plan has finally failed”.

He promised at the cave to guard
To protect the wealth of Economa
And record the citizen’s coin and crop
By carving the entries into stone hard

There was only one ledger made
And entries he could never alter
For the only sword which could change it
Was thrust into a rock where it stayed.

The people of Economa rejoiced
They feasted and began afresh
A fair and just system of account
And no fear of beast would be voiced.

They say there is a noble man
Strong enough to pull the sword from stone
And it is he who keeps account of
All the coin in the land.

If you like this story you should check out the stories from 21 Futures, our anthology book.

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