The dragon was old. Not in the way way people, or trees or the ancient cities of men were old, but old in the way of the very stones that made up the walls of the immense cavern in which he made his lair. They had still been warm from their birth in the volcano that had spewed them when he had first tunneled deep amongst their steaming bones to carve out his resting places. Now for untold thousands of years he had clawed and scrabbled around inside the tunnels, scraping smooth the walls and blackening them with the soot of his breath. In olden days he had often traveled about in the upper world, searching and sorting both sustenance and golden plunder, of which it takes ample supply to satisfy the tastes of a dragon.
Thus the generations of people and livestock of the villages and towns that had attempted to spring up in the region during the early years following the volcano's eruption had suffered greatly until they had developed sufficient genetic memory to leave the area within several hundred miles of the slope of his volcano an unpopulated waste. And that it was. But the years of men and his recollection of troubles is flawed and once again, farmers and herdsmen had turned their hungry eyes upon the plant-able acreage of the now quiet volcano's lower slopes and a party of explorers and surveyors moved up the narrow canyon that cut the area that lay in the shadow of the mountain, off from the world of men.
He felt them, like an itch deep between his ears, creasing his sleeping brow with a frown that ravaged his already ferocious visage into something even more menacing, if that were possible. His breath became more shallow and a slight curl of steam and smoke began curling from his nostrils. He coughed and came awake, one of his luminous liquid eyes, opening only the smallest of slits as the immense internal biological clock that was his heart began fathoming the heartbeats that had passed since he last closed his eyes. Even at the incredibly slow pace that a sleeping dragon's heart beats, it was many. A long time then, he thought. Too long.
He paused to sniff the air before moving. He hadn't gotten this old by being hasty. Only once he was sure there was no smell of any warm blooded thing, did he raise his head, exposing the relatively soft underside of his neck and belly. Soft, if you consider a single layer of overlapping six inch by three inch bony scales defective. They had turned many a spear, but dragons, by nature are a paranoid lot.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
In the olden days, there had been a few fools brazen enough to make a claim to the immense pile of gold and jewels on which he slept. Their crisped bones and rusted armor, lying about on the lower slopes of the mountain was probably no longer recognizable for what it had once been. He would have to make some sort of more permanent display., he thought. It was a pity human bone and iron swords didn't hold up in the weather. Angry now, that he had been woken, he employed the psychic senses that had first triggered his response, turning it to finding the source of his aggravation. He could feel them. A party of four men dared to climb the slope of his mountain! His metallic blood could feel the magnetic wavering of their wood and steel weapons. Only four! Hardly a snack. He was hungry after his long sleep. But perhaps the town they had come from would not be far. Then there would be a feast!
He uncoiled and creaked. His first movements after the eternity of his sleep surprisingly uncomfortable. They will pay! He was even more furious when he realized that a rock slide had completely closed off his main entrance and he had to dig out the back door. It had always been tight and this made him even angrier. It was good that his claws had grown so long, he thought as he cut through the hard rock like butter. It was dusty work though, and it made him sneeze. The heat of his flame scorched even him in this enclosed space and his anger reached new heights. His eyes were filled with blood.
So it was that when the dragon burst from the backside of the mountain, gouting and spraying the morning sky with fire, he was a fair distance from the main entrance near where the men had stopped to make a pot of gourmet coffee on their little gas camping stove. He was far enough away for the guide to grab his high power hunting rifle and draw an accurate bead. He put six high velocity Winchester slugs through the bony chest plate armor dropping the flaming dragon like a screaming stone.
“Holy Crap Earl! you wasn't kidding about the rumors. “ one of them said “Nice shooting!”
“Thanks, Jim, now bring them sacks. We've got a lot of Gold to carry out of that cave over there. Hope your cell phone battery isn't dead so we can call the chopper” It's our lucky day!”