“Ha!” the old man said angrily, staring up. “Dragonriders! A whole passel of ’em. Up to no good, too, I suppose.” The old man’s white eyebrows came together in a V-shape above his nose. “I’ve had about enough of this. Now they have the nerve to come and cut off my sunshine. Wake up!” he shouted, poking at Pyrite with a weather-beaten old wooden staff.
The gold dragon grumbled, opened one golden eye, stared at the old man (seeing only a mouse-colored blur), and calmly shut his eye again.
The shadows continued to pass over-four dragons with riders.
“Wake up, I say, you lazy lout!” the old man yelled. Snoring blissfully, the gold rolled over on his back, his clawed feet in the air, his stomach turned to the warm sun.
The old man glared at the dragon for a moment, then, in sudden inspiration, ran around to the great head, “War!” he shouted gleefully, directly into one of the dragon’s ears. “It’s war! We’re under attack-”
The effect was startling. Pyrite’s eyes flared open. Rolling over onto his stomach, his feet dug into the ground so deeply he nearly mired himself. His head reared up fiercely, his golden wings spread and began to beat, sending clouds of dust and sand a mile high.
“War!” he trumpeted. “War! We’re called. Gather the flights! Mount the attack!”
The old man appeared rather taken aback by this sudden transformation, and he was also rendered momentarily speechless by the accidental inhalation of a mouthful of dust. Seeing the dragon start to leap into the air, however, he ran forward, waving his hat.
“Wait!” he yelled, coughing and choking. “Wait for me!”
“Who are you that I should wait?” Pyrite roared. The dragon stared through the billowing sand. “Are you my wizard?”
“Yes, yes,” the old man called hastily. “I’m-uh-your wizard. Drop your wing a bit so I can climb on. Thanks, there’s a good fellow. Now I… oh! Whoa! I’m not strapped in! … Look out! My hat! Confound it, I didn’t tell you to take off yet!”
“We’ve got to reach the battle in time,” Pyrite cried fiercely. “Huma’s fighting alone!”
“Huma!” The old man snorted. “Well, you’re not going to arrive in time for that battle! Few hundred years late. But that’s not the battle I had in mind. It’s those four dragons there, to the east. Evil creatures! We’ve got to stop them-”
“Dragons! Ah, yes! I see them!” roared Pyrite, swooping up in hot pursuit of two extremely startled and highly insulted eagles.
“No! No!” yelled the old man, kicking the dragon in the flanks. “East, you ninny! Fly two more points to the east!”
“Are you sure you’re my wizard?” Pyrite asked in a deep voice. “My wizard never spoke to me in that tone.”
“I’m-uh, sorry, old fellow,” the old man said quickly, “just a bit nervous. Upcoming conflict and all that.”
“By the gods, there are four dragons!” Pyrite said in astonishment, having just caught a blurred glimpse of them.
“Take me in close so I can get a good shot at them,” the old man shouted. “I have a really wonderful spell-Fireball. Now,” he muttered, “if I can just remember how it goes.”
Two dragonarmy officers rode among the flight of four brass dragons. One rode at the front. A bearded man, his helm seemed slightly large for him and was worn pulled well down over his face, shadowing his eyes. The other officer rode behind the group. He was a huge man, nearly splitting out of his black armor. He wore no helm-there probably wasn’t one large enough-but his face was grim and watchful, particularly over the prisoners who rode the dragons in the center of the flight.
It was an odd assortment of prisoners-a woman dressed in mismatched armor, a dwarf, a kender, and a middle-aged man with long, unkempt gray hair.
The same passerby who had observed the old man and his dragon might have noticed that the officers and their prisoners went out of their way to avoid detection by any ground troops of the Dragon Highlord. Indeed, when one group of draconians spotted them and began to shout, trying to attract their attention, the dragonarmy officers studiously ignored them. A truly sharp observer might also have wondered what brass dragons were doing in the Dragon Highlord’s service.
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