Janus came back from the hunt with the other males, laughing and bragging. Their sojourn had been more successful than usual. The traps scattered through the forest had netted them nearly two dozen rabbits today. In addition, they’d also shot four deer. Three of them, including one of Janus’ kills, were good sized but not the sort of game one brags about. The fourth, however, was a monstrous stag that required four of the hunting party to carry, its stiffening limbs bound to a pole they held up on their shoulders.

  “That was mine!” Janus yelled over and over, his eyes bright with pride. “That was mine!”

  The story was one everyone soon heard, and it grew with every telling. As the hunting party mingled with the others, it seemed to take on a life of its own, and they found themselves disputing the details of the tale. it stood twenty hands high, said some. No, said others, it stood twenty-five, or perhaps thirty. It weighed at least five hundred pounds. It weighed at least one thousand pounds. Janus only needed one arrow to fell it, piercing its heart mid-leap. His arrow had struck it between the eyes, killing it instantly. The exact details were not important. The butchers soon made meat of it. Its head would be mounted in the as yet unfinished town hall. Its hide would go towards winter attire..

  Kurt arrived with the dusk, exhausted, his clothes damp with sweat and river water. His hands carried with them blisters of the first hard day’s work he’d done since he and Sabine had begun their new lives together as farmers. Those days had been hard, but he had never felt as weary as he did that day. He and his stolen axe had chopped down stout, mighty trees. He had hacked off the limbs, and rendered the logs themselves down into small enough pieces that crews of scaled could manhandle them into the river. Working in teams of a dozen, they dragged, rolled, bounced, and otherwise cajoled the timber to the bottom of the wide hill they worked on, where the river waited for them. Once afloat, the timbers were lashed together into rafts by still more scaled. They nearly had a full squadron of such rafts. A few more days and it would be time to set sail, along with Sydera’s pole barge, for Hafenstrand. The rafts and barge were bound for the docks, where the timber would be turned over to the shipyard and the barge laden down with food, medicines, and other supplies for the return trip up-river..

  Lunch couldn’t come soon enough for the human. He had set upon the offered salted meats, yet more eggs, and coffee like he’d not eaten in days. Coffee was the lifeblood of the scaled loggers: they brewed it in dozens of small pots on little fire pits they’d prepared along the bank when they first started working, months ago. They drank their coffee straight and brewed it strong, to help them get a second wind and see out the rest of the day. Kurt had never tasted anything so wonderful in his life. Chopping down trees proved tougher than Bauer remembered. It only hit him then that he was not a young man any more. He had let himself go so badly when Sabine died, and he had to wonder if a younger version of himself would even recognise the fat, soft man that he had become. By the time that the work had finished, Kurt was nearly dead on his feet. One of the scaled he’d worked with offered to carry his axe as they marched back down the hill. He could barely lift his head to admire the view that lay before them: an endless sea of trees that rose and fell like a still green picture of the sea, rent through by a river, crowned by the beginnings of a fortified town right in its centre. Nature had ruled uncontested here for centuries after The Last Day. Now it was the turn of mortals to rule here, if they could hold such a torrent of chaos back.

  *

  Martin emerged from the office of Director Sydera long after dark came. He was weary, fingers aching from the long hours of writing and eyes tearing from so many hours spent working by candlelight. Sydera remained, intending to work on for a few more hours.

  “I don’t need much sleep these days,” explained the dragon man with a slight smile. “And there always seems to be something else that needs doing.”

  “That sounds like a pain,” Martin yawned, stretching before he opened the door.

  Sydera had laughed at the boy’s remark. “If you’d been as bored as I had been, for as long as I had been, Martin Bauer, before I came down from the mountains, then you’d understand how wonderful I find all of this.”

  “What will do when you run out of trees?”

  “Plant more. Space needs to be used,” Sydera answered. He shrugged before he continued, a strange expression on his scaly muzzle.” Of course, by then I might not be here. If things go well, my pile of gold will be big enough again for me to try building something else. I was thinking of opening a quarry next, or perhaps building new, stone roads. They could go hand in hand, couldn’t they? There would be a lot to do, and would see me through for decades of work, not to mention the profits.” His golden eyes glinted as he grinned, apparently imagining the wealth such ventures could bring already. “I could use someone as well educated as you.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Thank you, Sydera, but I’m not safe here. None of you are safe here while I’m around,” sighed Martin, shaking his head.

  The dragon offered a sympathetic nod. “It’s a terrible burden for one so young to carry. I appreciate your concern for our safety.”

  Martin lingered at the door. There was food and laughter and his father waiting for him... Yet now that he was free to go, he found himself reluctant to leave.

  “Ask your questions, Martin. I might have answers.”

  “What was it like, when the Elves were still around?”

  “The Last Day came before I hatched, son. I don’t know,” answered Sydera with a shrug.

  “The scaled have parents though,” the boy responded, remembering Eckhart. “Apart from hatching, your kind are raised nearly the same as us humans. You had elders, surely? Did they never talk about it?”

  “We lived in the mountains because we were afraid of the Elves,” the dragon began. “The stories of those days were never pleasant. They would come looking for us sometimes.” Sydera scowled, his molten eyes flashing. “The elders said it was for sport,” he spat. “I remember once asking my grandfather what the Elves did to those they caught on their hunts. He’d puff some smoke out of his nostrils when he wanted to add drama to something he was about to say and he told me, in his big gruff voice, ‘Foolish little lizard! They and their filthy allies didn’t kill us! They carried us away, down into the forests and far away.’”

  “To the Dead Lands?”

  Sydera nodded. “That’s not what they were called then, though.” He sipped his cold coffee to get a little moisture back into his muzzle. “They had a name then that I will never speak. They had great cities with towers so tall they could allegedly touch the sky. They made worshippers of some of my people, as they did with all the lesser races of this earth when they ruled it. They went anywhere they pleased, and took whatever they wanted. We all were helpless against them.”

  “Because of their magic?”

  “Yes, Martin,” Sydera nodded. “Before The Last Day, the world was full of it. The Elves were masters of it, and sought out those from the subjugated races they knew could wield it. I have no idea how they could find these people, but they somehow always knew where to look. Magic was very different back then.”

  “It didn’t kill people?”

  The dragon shook his sharp, majestic head. “Something else fuelled magic back then. It vanished during The Last Night, along with the Elves. Whatever happened back then broke it.” He sighed. “Now it kills everything around it. It drives good people into hiding, or sends them to a prison in the mountains,” he said, looking pointedly at the small human boy before him. “I don’t know what the world would be like if magic had not been broken the way it was when the Elves left us. Awful as it may seem, if the only way to get magic back to the way it was is to bring the Elves back with it, then it’s probably better things stay the way they are.”

  “Do you think Rahm might come back tonight?”

  “If he does,” the dragon said with a wicked, smouldering smile. “Then he will find me waiting for him. You and yours are safe here, Martin. In one more day, the last raft will be ready to go. I will accompany the flotilla to the port on my pole barge, but that’s as far as my protection can extend. The success of this whole venture depends on me, as does the future of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who are linked to it. I cannot stay away for long.”

  “Thank you, Sydera. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Martin. Give my regards to your father and his dog.”

  Martin did so. He decided it best not to tell his father and Janus about his confession, or Rahm.

  *

  The night ended the moment their weary heads touched their pillows. The next day was a blur of much the same as preceding day. Sydera decided they had enough meat being salted and dried to keep the hunting parties back near the hill where the loggers worked. They were ordered to keep their bows and spears handy. Sydera had apparently heard wolves calling to each other during the night, as he took an hour’s stroll around the perimeter. Janus worked with Kurt this time, helping the big man to fell trees and remove their branches. Martin remained with Sydera, who went on inspections of the work, accompanied by ten males with longbows. The trio had lunch together at the base of the hill, and were surprised by two loaves of bread Sydera had the cooks ready for them.

  “You’re good workers,” the dragon said, his eyes casually scanning the hills. He looked excited to all, and it was agreed by all that he must have been eager to take the shipment of timber to the shipyard in the human port, where orders for two merchantmen had been made recently. These were the first orders made by someone other than the King from the yard. It would explain why the Director had decided to take the journey down to the coast personally.

  The barge itself was larger than any seen in the river since the time of the Elves. It was rumoured among those with no calluses on their hands that the design had possibly even been stolen from them, somehow. It had to be ordered from a foreign shipyard, and transported over at expenses only partially covered by the Crown, as a gesture of confidence. The Director made no secret that he intended to have its sisters built with timber he would harvest himself, at the shipyard he was now supplying. Sydera’s ambitions envisioned a fleet of such vessels hauling raw materials from upriver down to Hafenstrand, and returning from Hafenstrand laden with finished goods. Even Janus could envision the size of the fortune to be amassed from such a monopoly.

  By dusk, much to Sydera’s satisfaction, his river rats had finished lashing together the last raft of raw timber. They would set off at first light.

  “Get some sleep you three,” smiled the Director. “If you’re not ready when we cast off, you’re walking to Hafenstrand.”