To Marry a Dragon

10. The Welcoming Committee

A confused shooting star flew toward Ferrante instead of streaking across the predawn sky. Also, it didn't originate in the celestial sphere; it came from the deceptively peaceful side of a low hill. The hill was shaggy with grass, no different from its countless brethren that undulated from the edge of the Boundless Forest to the roots of the Cloudrest Mountains.

But the star erupted from some hidden recess in the hill's abdomen and bloomed into a ball of doomsday fire a few paces away from Ferrante's nose. The acrid smell of smoke made him wince despite brimstone gurgling in his gullet.

"Get down, get down!" Lukrezia shouted. "It's a warning shot. We crossed into Rotdaam's airspace."

Not a moment too soon, Ferrante folded his wings, diving to the ground. Another fiery missile tore through the air and exploded above him.

"Didn't I bring you along to avoid the misunderstandings?" he shouted over the roaring of the wind. Blood pumped ever louder too, the dragon-ire rising in his heart.

Unaware of how close she came to being let go at a tremendous height, Lukrezia sighed, "Sorry! My eyesight is poor. Regardless, no harm done. We are a civilized nation, not some barbarians who attack strangers on sight."

"Naturally." He would have scoffed, but the vestiges of wisdom still lodged in his head. He was coming to Rotdaam as a petitioner, not as a black storm of ash.

Closer to the ground, his eyes picked out circles of gnomish structures. A wavy wall with a gate protected the domes of the scattered buildings, shaped and painted to blend into the landscape.

"The outpost looked small from the air," Ferrante said after touching down and contorting his magnificent torso back into human shape. "Black pits of doom, humans are so flimsy!"

Lukrezia ran ahead of him, planted her arms on her hips and blocked his way for an interminable moment. Her head rolled back to hold his gaze.

He sighed. "Point taken, Lukrezia. There are many beings smaller than humans."

"And even the smallest beings can bring down a giant if they put their wits and ingenuity to it," Lukrezia pointed out.

"Keep telling this to yourself, if that's what lets you sleep better at night," he muttered before thinking better of it. "My apologies. A dragon's arrogance is hard to keep in check."

"Perhaps you should take the dragon-form more often so that your dragon form also learns to think deeper and look below the surface." Her tone was insufferable, but Ferrante endured it as a fair punishment. Besides, maybe she was right. Maybe even a dragon could learn humility, despite the Dragon Codex's emphatic assertion to the contrary. Never shy away from your instincts or desires, it said. This is a human thing, a false one. Playing coy is not for Dragons.

Silence that fell between them was uncomfortable at first, but as they made their way to the border, Ferrante's wild clash of two bloods and two morality systems subsided. He breathed easier and his throat stopped burning from the suppressed sulphur burps. With the tension seeping away, his thoughts ventured to Elvira, and he didn't notice the wall with the gate until he was right on top of it.

It wasn't just his daydreaming though. Even up close he had to squint to see the undulating line of stonework clearly. The grass in these northern parts was gray and green, without the polka dots of flowers. In their stead, lichen blazed red and orange from boulders that littered the hillsides. So the gnomes stained the wall with the splotches of gray, green and rust, a bit faded compared to the natural hues. The surrounding landscape tempted his eyes to roam away. Cleverly done!

While he gaped, Lukrezia cleared her throat and pointed at the outpost. "To support my earlier point, you called the outpost small, Ferrante. However, the warrens are ten times more extensive than what even the eagle's eye could see, and you would never guess how many of these hills are hollow and host the doomsday fire cannons from just examining them from the outside."