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.

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."

"Oh, I see. I think a lot of the people I know are mammals," Booksie said. "Actually, Amaryllis might not be? Is there a dragon-specific term for classifying creatures and people?"

"Hmm, tasty and not?" Rhawr asked.

Booksie giggled, then climbed onto the ship's railing, straddling one leg over a very long drop to get a bit closer to Rhawrexdee. "Let's see... I think this will do for the daily reading."

I smiled and eventually tuned out the two of them as she read to him, and he listened with a content, dragon-ish smile on.

Deep in the night, we left the Seven Peaks behind. By morning, I awoke to find that the winds were accommodating enough, and with a dragon as escort, nothing decided to come poke at us. We did see some distant airships, but most of them did a quick turn and started heading away from us as soon as they came into telescope range.

I hoped that the Beaver wasn't going to get an unearned reputation. It was going to be hard to make friends in the skies if everyone always ran away at the sight of us.

Our continued approach to Mattergrove was heralded by the change in the air. It happened almost as soon as we crossed the barrier created by the mountains. The wind on this side was a lot stronger, and a lot warmer.

I could taste a bit of dust and sand in the air, and the humidity that hung over the Darkwoods and the lands to the east was wicked away by some very dry heat. There were fewer clouds, too. The sky opened up into a vast sea of bright blue without a puffy white speck in sight.

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Looking back, I could see a few cloud banks clinging to the snow-capped mountains, and more behind. It was a little weird, but I supposed it was kind of normal. Mattergrove occupied a thin sliver of land alongside the Seven Peaks. Further west was the Ostri desert, which was... well, a desert, so probably dry and warm.

We were approaching early evening, with Rhawrexdee heading out and returning to us to let us know that he found the village we were going to visit.

Amaryllis grumbled a little. We'd flown a smidge off-course, so we had to make a turn northwards and adjust course, but we really weren't too far from our destination.

The village, from above, seemed like a pretty cozy little spot. Some three dozen homes around a central square, most of them no more than a story tall, with slate rooftops and puffy columns of smoke coming from brick chimneys. I imagined little families, snug in their homes, warding off the evening chill.

The town was built alongside a long road that swayed and zigzagged across the countryside. It was pretty well-maintained, from what I could tell. Still, I asked Awen about it, since she was on deck and looking over the side just as much as I was.

"Ah, that's not the King's road. That's a little further to the west of here. This has to be one of the secondary roads that cuts from north to south." Awen gestured along the road. "There's an old law that says that you're not allowed to build a home along the king's road. All of the land on either side of it belongs to the crown, so there aren't any villages. But there are small, ah, capillary roads connected to it that have villages, and inns, I suppose."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I guess that makes some sense. Is the King's road important, then?"

"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?"

***