Dragon

Chapter 2

Jaimin allowed himself a small, satisfied grunt as he alighted on the ridge jutting out from the dark cavern that was the entrance to Mountain Hall. A far smoother landing than the undignified hopping he'd been forced into back at the castle. If one could rationally call the ugly, squat building bedecking Byron's Peak a castle. Especially when its outer walls stood barely a dragonlength high. And those towers hadn't been much taller. The place must have been built after the Pact. Likely a small mercy they'd battlements at all.

As for that landing area, all of them were meant to be built to easily hold the biggest dragons. It didn't matter the land was customarily overseen by those from the tropics. He must remember to bring the matter before the council when he'd the chance. Right now, there were more pressing issues to attend.

No one had greeted them upon their arrival at the castle either. At first he'd thought it complacency for they were meant to be housing a dragon. The way they'd looked at us. Servants had paused in their duties to gawk at Karoan and himself with the same awe as small children. A common sight amongst those who rarely saw them, but if things had been right, then those people should've been used to a dragon's presence. But no, they hadn't even been aware of Maayin being anything more than a dark-skinned human.

Now he'd had the time to mull over it, he should've heeded the nagging feeling brought on when he had failed to see any sign of the small black creature. After having spent her life with only humans for companionship, the youngling should've been eager to meet her own kind and make herself known at the first instance. Especially when there hadn't been any contact between the lair and the knight whom everyone had thought was still alive to protect and guide her. Fools. The lot of them. Someone should've seen to her sooner than this.

The cool breeze was refreshing after flying in the muggy air which clung to the lands below the jungle. He relished the sensation of the crisp wind racing over his back, its coiling fingers pushing deep into his fur to caress skin. Shaking his mane free of his horns, he scanned the skies above the line of mountains marking where the red-brown wastelands met the kingdom's border. The Dragon's Spine. For the moment, all appeared calm. Unchanged from when he'd descended from these mountains earlier.

That had been well before sunrise with the stubborn, autumn fog huddling in the valleys. Now even the sky was devoid of clouds, letting the evening sun to freely shine its golden light across the whole forest. No sign of the tiny scaled ones who had plagued them for decades.

Jaimin flapped his wings, resettling them to the familiar rustling of feathers, and tried to banish the memory of the past few weeks. Why had no one foreseen the attack? How had that small handful of scaled beasts managed to reach Faylor?

He sighed, a brief burst of smoke forming around his snout before the wind carried it away. Over and over those questions played in his mind, like young hatchlings endlessly chasing their tails and never coming any closer to an answer.

Perhaps they saw no need to return. The nasty little creatures had recently dispatched what they surely must believe to be the last female outside their border. Death would rise up to greet the ancients in the coming decades, the elders would grow old and die in turn over the centuries. With few midlings like himself left, let alone hatchlings to takes their places, they'd eventually vanish from the land.

Unless we seek alternatives.

He twisted round to watch Karoan land. The blue-grey elder showed little indication in acknowledging his mate was gone. If only I'd been fast enough to help. The sound of Faylor's keening echoing through the halls as those monsters murdered her ... it haunted him still.

He'd arrived in time to discover she'd not only fallen on most of her eggs, crushing them beyond hope of salvation, but that the rest had been stolen. Why would they steal our eggs? They'd never tried before and it made no sense to be doing so now. He knew the question gnawed at the council and doubted the reason mattered to his old friend.