Endestern was usually supervised by a low-ranking noble, a human officer of good family who was clocking time to move up a promotion and be sent somewhere warmer. The fort was unpopular with the people of the nation of Kaaltendt because it was too reminiscent of the rocky, mountainous regions of the Isle of Watt, with the same inclement weather. Cold and windswept, the craggy cliffs that fell dramatically into the thundering, dangerous surf below were nearly black and glistened like a dragon’s egg.

To Rodgardae, it felt like home.

He had not actually returned to his holding on Watt for a dozen years. The treaty the Five Clans of Watt engineered with King Larit of Kaaltendt essentially put a son of one of the five dukes of Watt on permanent “duty station” in Kaaltendt, and in his generation that duke was Rodgardae. He was paid handsomely with various estates and lands, and given Kaaltendt titles to add to his own noble rankings. Rodgardae, the youngest of his family and who had little patience for court intrigue, saw it as a way to travel and see new lands. It was an easy choice to make, to go to Kaaltendt and serve under Queen Theaedra and King Larit as a duke of the realm and a court adviser. He had met and contracted Mani, for one, and Rodgardae often thought that was more than he ever could have dreamed for if he had stayed on Watt to sit in his family’s aerie waiting for war. Instead, his third brother took that honor and was, by all reports, serving it well.

Rodgardae missed his homeland, though, however much he had gained in the trade.

The long ride up to the fort itself was bouncy and uncomfortable, which was just one more thing to remind him of home. The current Master of the Fort, Captain Wildt, was a weathered but handsome middle-aged man who had met them at the train station and was riding with them. He was deftly making small talk about the weather and trying to be polite, although it was easy to read his pleasure at being relieved of duty. Rodgardae paid light attention to the discussion and relied on Mani to pick up the pieces for him when he got distracted looking out the windows at the mist swirling up the hill, thrashing like a dragon’s tail.

They passed a small encampment that Wildt pointed out as the training camp for the Dragon Maid Corps. Rodgardae remembered reading something about it, but it still surprised him to see it.

“I understand the Isle of Watt has no dragon maids in service?” Wildt asked, despite obviously knowing the answer.

“Our military is integrated, due to the number of dragons among our ranks. So there is no need for an auxiliary of helpmeets, as all their roles are carried out by our enlisted troops. It was perhaps one of the more startling differences I saw, when I first came upon Kaaltendt’s shores, to see camps of women outside of the dragon forts. I heard they were all trained here, but had forgotten.”

The camp was well-built and sturdy, large logs serving as frames for the buildings which were heavily covered in thicket and plaster. They looked homey and warm, bright among the dark rocks and grass.

“Indeed, they train here for a year before being stationed elsewhere to serve their term. I assure you, my lord, that I find your country’s mores as unfathomable as you find our own.” Wildt gave him a genuine smile.

Mani laughed. “Do not start us down that path, Captain Wildt, for between the two of you, I will always win.”

Wildt tipped his head at Rodgardae’s guardian, still smiling. Rodgardae decided that he liked this dragon, so far, and might tempt him to stay if he could. He would wait to see how the other dragons at the fort felt about Wildt, though, because that was always the true mettle of a man.

“There is a new batch of potential dragon maids starting training this week. As Master of the Fort you will ostensibly be overseeing them, but if the last three years are any indication, you will mostly sign the paperwork put in front of you by Mistress Seraphinite, who runs a tight ship. If I may be forgiven the naval metaphor.”

Mani laughed again. “Mine is a naval family, so you are forgiven, whatever His Grace may grumble.”

Captain Wildt frowned.

“Please, Captain, have no worries. My guardian enjoys mentioning my hereditary title often, for his own sense of importance. You may continue to treat me as merely Duke Raudolf of Kaaltendt.”

“I contracted well, forgive me for basking in my success,” Mani said, pleased in his calm, calculated way.

Wildt looked between them for a moment, to ensure that they were teasing each other, then smiled. “Of course, Your Grace. Forgive my misunderstanding. I know of your esteemed position as a duke of both Watt and Kaaltendt, but I find myself drowning in titles and offices and I barely know an Earl Whatshisface from a Lord Whomever.”

Rodgardae laughed gently at that, because he was not much different. “We will get along well, Captain.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” Wildt smiled gratefully. “As I was saying, the headmistress is stern and competent at her job.”

“Was she raised with dragons?” Mani asked.

Unsurprisingly, Captain Wildt shook his head. “I do not think so, but it’s hard to say. Dragon maids change their names when they enter the service, and their background is a closely guarded secret. The only ones who really know who they are or where they came from are the recruiters and, naturally, the headmistress.” He pursed his lips. “She had mentioned being concerned about a couple of the current recruits, that they might be troublemakers. I doubt they will last long if that is true, though.”

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Rodgardae nodded. “I will trust her judgment in such things. Given how little I know about the Dragon Maids Corps in general, I’m better off leaving the totality of it in her hands.”

Captain Wildt smiled. “Indeed, that has been my own approach and it has worked out very well for all involved.”

The rest of the climb was steep and the carriage they were in groaned theatrically with every bump in the ragged road. Wildt winced in apology, but it was no different than many such trips Rodgardae had taken in his homeland. Mani stayed in good humor, well laid from vigorous effort on Rodgardae’s part throughout the train ride, and did not complain about the trip at all.

The fort was tall, rising black and ominous out of the mountainside it was carved from. Already, Rodgardae picked up the scents of an aerie, the fires stoked with herbs and spices and the charged, metallic aroma of molten rock. Compared to other nations, Kaaltendt had a very small number of dragons. A previous king several generations back had gone mad and ordered all dragons hunted down and slain. As a cleansing went, it was fairly ineffective, but it reduced numbers enough to impact Kaaltendt’s military might to the present day. It was what had forced the previous king of Kaaltendt to agree to the demands of the Five Clans in a treaty: he needed the leadership of the dragon lineages that would come from an influx of Watt dragons and their entourages to the country. In turn, the Isle of Watt benefited from the prestige and protection of a real monarch, as King Larit swore his allegiance to the Queen Dragon of Kaaltendt, Theaedra. She was a powerful dragon, old in comparison to other Kaaltendt dragons, who had dwarfed Rodgardae with her size, speed, and intelligence. She was easily twice his age but he would have gladly thrown himself down for her if she had wanted an egg from him.

Not that it was something he would ever admit to Mani.

It was hard to explain to the non-dragons in his life how strong the urge to follow a queen and serve her was for dragons. Mani would understand, coming from the royal line of Akanata himself, but even so it was impossible to comprehend the blind compulsion to follow that would grip a dragon when a queen was near. Rodgardae’s sense of loyalty was tempered by the fact that Queen Theaedra was in no way connected to Watt, since dragons were territorial creatures by nature and their connection to the land was a powerful magic no one could break. He had affection for his adopted country of Kaaltendt, but in the end it was simply a temporary home, so he remained at a polite distance from Queen Theaedra and her court and her palace aerie. It did not stop the gut-level reaction he had when she was nearby.

Endestern was no place for a queen, though. Rodgardae looked up at the dark towers and roosts, thinking that the place was actually much smaller than its presence suggested. It was tightly knit into the mountain and hung over the cliffs, with only three primary towers that probably could hold no more than five dragons at a time.

Wildt caught him studying the fort as they approached the gate. “As storied a history as she has, this fort is cramped and old. It’s location is its charm, tactically speaking.”

“We have twenty dragons here?” Rodgardae asked, to confirm what he already knew.

Wildt shrugged regretfully. “Technically, yes, including myself. However, two are currently down with the flu. Nothing serious, the human doctors assure us, but it is keeping them in their walking forms and quite miserable to boot. I have continued running drills, when the weather is clear enough, but one of the sick dragons is Captain Tray, who is our formation leader. A full recovery is expected in a week or so; he has improved considerably, but it has been nearly two months since he’s flown.”

Rodgardae nodded politely but cringed inwardly. Being floored was something every dragon loathed, no matter the reason. Rodgardae himself could not go more than two weeks without shifting into his flying form just to get away from the ground. It was not that one form felt more comfortable than the other, it was they pressed against each other in strange ways. Stay too long in one shape and the needs of the other became acute. “He will know when he’s strong enough to shift.” He spoke offhandedly, and Wildt nodded. He seemed to have held the fort together admirably in the absence of an admiral to serve as the official master of the fort, at least according to the reports Rodgardae had read on the trip.

The posting had been made suddenly for Rodgardae, with the rattling swords of monarchs canceling all the plans that nobles had previously made for the winter in order to send them scrambling for their new assignments. Rodgardae had been given a brand-new commission as a Kaaltendt admiral and the minimum of information about Endestern and her current master and dragons. He had studied those papers diligently but it barely gave him more knowledge than their names, ranks, and ages. He had also been given an older naval map of the region because the king’s military advisers and the defense council did not want to part with any maps of more recent vintage. Rodgardae had planned on taking up the fort’s own cartographer to make an aerial accounting, but it occurred to him that Wildt was competent enough to have already done so.

“The map I was given by the defense council is laughably outdated. Have you made any improvements?”

Wildt nodded. “Yes, Your Grace, we made a new series of maps in the spring. It was mostly for exercise but seems rather fortuitous at this point.”

“Nothing is by accident, Captain,” Mani intoned, looking out the window with slight interest as they passed through the heavy irons of the front gate.

“Of course, sir.” Wildt nodded, agreeable to the last, although it was clear he did not understand what Mani was talking about. Rodgardae saved him by giving him a slight shake of his head, and Wildt relaxed into the final leg of their journey.

Rodgardae honestly did not understand Mani’s spiritualism, but he had grown used to it over the years. The nation of Akanata was marked for its old, centralized religion, which held such power that it all but ruled the throne itself. Strict and merciless, their faith was nonetheless a rich, murky mix of superstitions, spirituality, pomp, and circumstance. Rodgardae enjoyed sparring with Mani over their warring concepts of gods and man, but it was definitely an acquired taste. Mani could be bizarrely cryptic without meaning to, falling back on beliefs and notions he was raised with that were foreign to both Kaaltendt and Watt. Rodgardae had learned quickly to account for that in social situations.

When they pulled up in the central courtyard, the entire company of the fort was there to greet him, spit-shined and standing rigid, from officers to ensigns to servants. The seventeen other dragons in service were there, even the ones in their walking form easy to spot, their decorative green uniforms bright like tropical birds amid the shades of gray that marked the regular military uniforms.

Sighing to himself, Rodgardae pulled on the mantle of nobleman, officer, and dragon that was as familiar to him as the coat he wore, and stepped out to meet his new responsibility.

Mani, amused and bored by the ceremony, simply leaned against a carriage wheel and stared at the roosts up high in the rock above them.