At first, when they reached Jiharu, they did not see it. The bridge rose sharply above a wide, slow river lined with trees and lilies. Birds twittered happily in the sun all along the banks. The only sign of mouse-men was the little wooden guard-posts on either end of the span itself, but they had descended to the side of it within the foliage to look up unseen. The bridge was of the forgotten ones, Venn observed with pleasure. The levin would never reach such might.

Then Guff roared with dismay. Venn turned and beheld Jiharu.

It was a long way off, but it filled his vision. Just ahead, the river opened into a titanic lake, so vast waves were forming in the mild breeze of the afternoon and crashing to shore. There must have been an island within it, but it could not be seen, because Jiharu had engulfed it all. There were no remnants, no verik. Tiers and towers and shelves and shelters and castles of new wood burst from its roots, jumbling the horizon with a myriad of turrets and spires. Upon platforms in its corners, dragons brooded. Into the flat facade of an enormous keep facing them there had been etched the diamond they had first seen on a crumpled leaf far from here.

It was a city the likes of which the ancient ones had only dreamt of. And it belonged to the levin.

I want you both to see what could be, before you die.

Venn had no words of praise. “An abomination, to forsake the giving earth and live in the sky! They have gone too far. They have challenged nature itself, the winds and rains and soil, and now they reach for the sun. When they get there, it will all burn.” He hissed, a long, steaming drone of disgust, as he tore his eyes from the lake.

Guff wasn’t listening, and he stayed rooted to the bank. “Then we will have to wait for the sun to punish them. Look around it!”

Venn turned back. There were tiny dots of wood in the shallows about the city. As he watched, even smaller shapes scurried and bobbed upon its surface. Could it be that levin drifted free on the waters on those planks?

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Finally, he understood. The bridge was a relic from the past, bank to bank. None spanned to the city.

Jiharu was alone in the middle of a lake.

The skern could not swim.

It was the ultimate defence. The ultimate insult. Venn lay down in the grass and raged.

Guff looked longer. There had to be a way. They had not come this far for a strip of depthless water to defeat them. In the end, though, he too lay down in the grass.

They stayed upon the bank, in silence, until the sun glared red and the stone bridge cast its shadow upon them. They hadn’t moved in hours, not even when a dragon passed directly above on its way out of Jiharu. All day long, the rafts bobbed to and fro across the glistening waters. Guff observed carefully, his heart racing. But they were much too small to support even one hunter. And even if they did, how would they reach the city upon one? They would be completely defenceless against the dragon sentries that forever waited upon its walls.

It could not be reached.

“Perhaps-” began Guff.

“We go north.” Venn was up on his feet at once. Guff had thought him drifting into sleep, but he seemed alert. And determined.

“North?”

Venn had raised his head as high as he could manage. His tail swished restlessly in the silky grass. At last, he made out the white tip of the mountain on the horizon. “Remember Siff’s tales?”

All they had learned of their legacy and traditions they had learned from Siff the hunter. And as hatchlings, in the dreary safety of their burrow, they had heard of what lay beyond in the wide world and longed for the day of the first hunt. But the thing they were in awe of most had lived upon that solitary peak, visible even from home. It was said that even the elders feared a day it would decide to descend and enjoy the bounties of the meadow for itself.

“No...” said Guff.

“Yes,” said Venn.

They had fought deception with deception, speech with speech. Now, it was time to fight dragon with dragon.