Chapter Four Hundred and Sixty-Nine - Dragon Escort

Chapter Four Hundred and Sixty-Nine - Dragon Escort

Chapter Four Hundred and Sixty-Nine - Dragon Escort

I wasn't sure what to expect of the Seven Peaks. I'd crossed over and through some mountains already. The Harpy Mountains were a treacherous collection of tall spires with many high-altitude plateaus that were beset by strong winds.

The mountains around Slyphfree were a lot more spacious and spread apart, with wide gullies and rocky hills between them. Still dangerous, but not quite as tightly packed.

Compared to those, the Seven Peaks were... a bit boring?

As the name suggested, they were seven mountains forming the peaks of a rising and falling ridge - a mountain chain that began at Fort Cherryhold, then swept down south toward Port Hazel and the Empty Sea. The mountains felt old, worn down, like they were slowly collapsing, one avalanche at a time, leaving ragged cliffs and treacherous fields of shattered stone. Thick forests clung to them wherever the tree's roots could find purchase, and snow capped the peaks themselves.

Their elevation made them kinda dangerous, but the saddle between each peak was vast, so other than a bit of added turbulence, the mountains didn't pose too much of a threat to airship travel.

It helped that we had a very capable scout able to zip out ahead and check on the terrain and any threats for us.

Well, the threats mostly ended up running away from our path... or becoming lunch.

Rhawrexdee flew with great flaps of his massive wings, each pushing out enough wind from beneath the dragon to make the entire Beaver rock on its side a little. Orange... didn't seem to like Rhawr very much. She sat on her perch and glared out at him, but I think that was mostly just her catlike distrust of anything that might be a better predator than she was.

For all that the dragon was... well, a dragon, he also somehow managed to seem kind of lazy. He drifted along, with only the occasional wingbeat to keep him afloat, which his entire body hung out from below his wings, his four legs dangling without a care and his full tummy slightly distended from all the mid-air snacking he was doing.ViiSiit novelbi/n(.)c/(o)m for latest novels

At least, until Booksie climbed on deck and ambled over.

The moment he noticed her, Rhawr straightened out his back and sucked in his gut. "Ah, hello," he rumbled.

"Hi," Booksie called out, her voice pitched so that he could hear. She raised a book. "I found something interesting. It's from Miss Caprica. It's a history text about dragons."

"Oh?" Rhawr asked. "Written from the viewpoint of the sylph, I imagine?"

"I think so, yes," Booksie said. "I've heard that the sylph are quite biased against dragonkind, and even dragon-like creatures."

"Hmm, we prefer dragon-wishing," Rhawr replied. "Because things like drakes and wyverns wish they were dragons."

"It's well-maintained, and well-patrolled. Mattergrove has... issues with bandits and pirates, but not around the capital, and not along the King's road," Awen said. "It was always important since it connects all of western Mattergrove together."

It couldn't connect the other half of the nation though, not with it being on the other side of the mountains. Mattergrove was a strange little country, choked and squished by the geography around it.

It would probably be a lot more impressive, and larger, if it wasn't so squeezed in.

I had to stop with the sightseeing to better direct the Beaver down. We selected a field that looked pretty barren next to the village. If anything was growing there, then it wasn't poking out of the ground yet, so that left a nice big chunk of open space to aim for. With the experienced Clive at the wheel and the whole crew on deck, we lowered ourselves down slowly and carefully, then came to a gentle hover a few metres off the ground.

The anchor was lowered, chain pooling on the dirt below. The Scallywags lowered the ladder, and with everything steady we climbed out of the Beaver to meet some of the locals.

"If you think you can park on my field without paying, you've got another thing coming for you!" a man with a big straw hat said as he stomped over. He was holding onto a pitchfork as if he knew how to use it.

"Hello, sir!" I said as I stepped up before my friends, captain's hat in hand. "My name is Captain Bunch, this is the Beaver. Ah, this is your field?"

"Darn right it is!" he barked. "It ain't some landing strip for stinking ships either."

"Oh, uh, that's a problem. We can move."

"And what about my dirt? Hmm? You've crushed it as if it was nothing!"

I looked down at the dirt under my feet. There really wasn't anything growing. "Sorry about that," I said. "I'm sure we can pay you back," I said.

"Oh, so you're gonna toss a few copper pennies my way and hope that'll make me happy, huh? Who do you take me for, some co--"

The farmer choked on his words a moment after the ground shook a little.

I glanced back and discovered that Rhawrexdee had landed on the field nearby. He extended his snoot to the edge of the deck, and Bookie hopped over so that he could gently lower her to the ground.

"I'm sure we can give you more than a few coppers to rent your field for the day," I continued. "By the way, do you happen to know anyone that would be willing to sell some cattle?"

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