Dragon's Keeper (Book 1 in the Dragon Hunters Trilogy)

Chapter 3: Meeting the Dragons

Meeting the Dragons

Agent SS7 dropped me off at my quarters before saying she had to be somewhere I didn’t have clearance for.  So, I walked into my room as she walked off down the hall, though when I looked around there was a sizable addition to my room.  A pure black wood desk had been fit against the far wall with a black rolling chair pushed up against it.  On top there were several file folders and on top of the stack there was what looked to be a note.

I walked over and picked up the note, unfolding it as I read a few short sentences in very neat handwriting, Given you are going to be taking care of the dragons we have in custody, you have been sent the files on each in order to prepare you for what lies ahead.  Each file holds every piece of information we have on each dragon, and you are required to input any new information that you may come across while performing your duties.  Read every file in its entirety or you may risk severe injury or death.  Good luck Agent DK1, you’re going to need it.  Included with the files is a resource guide to explain any terms you may not be familiar with.

I nodded as I set the paper down, looking over the files that had been left for me.  Given I was going to start my duties as Dragon Keeper later in the afternoon, I figured I had about three hours to read the files I had been given.  I picked up the top file and noticed that the tag had a string of one letter and three numbers separated by dashes.  The first was a capital B followed by a zero, two and another zero.  I had no idea what they meant so I worked my way through the files until I found the reference page the note had mentioned.  There were four columns that described any and all notations that could be placed on the tags, so I ran my finger down the first column until I found B.  It was the second from the bottom and the index said that B stood for aggression level 2.  It seemed that the higher up the list the letter got, the more dangerous the dragon was.  There were five levels in all, ranging from minimal danger all the way to instant death.  I checked over the other files quickly and let out a quick sigh when I saw that none of the files had an E for the first designation.  There was one D, but I figured that was to be expected from at least one of the prisoners.  I wouldn’t like being kept in a cage any more than they would, let alone for who knew how long these dragons had been in custody.

The second column was apparently for gender, given there was only a one and zero that could be placed.  Males were given a one while females were noted with a zero.  Another quick glance told me that all the other dragons were male, so the file in my hand had to be Calmstrike’s.  The second number was for the dragon’s age, and by far it was the longest column.  At the top of the list the numbers stopped at eleven, with a little star next to the number that led me to a note at the bottom of the page.  Eleven stood for nine hundred years or older, but the note at the bottom of the page said that the actual maximum age of a dragon was unknown.  My eyebrows rose at the idea that a dragon might be old enough to remember the Dark Ages and yet still be alive today.

Apparently the number two stood for mature dragons that were between the ages of seventy-five and one hundred years of age, so I guess in dragon standards Calmstrike was little more than twenty in human terms.  I checked the other files again and saw that most of the other dragons were either threes or fours, with one exception.  That one dragon had an eleven on his tag, and I realized that we had one very old dragon living in the base, though how a dragon that old could have been foolish enough to be caught was beyond me.  I checked over the last column and saw that it pertained to known family ties.  There were five categories in this column and I saw that each number pertained to a separate dragon family name.