Wiz didn’t try to make any more small talk.
Northward they flew, and eastward, for what seemed like hours. The sun rose to noon and sank toward the western horizon as they traveled. Below them the neatly tended fields and villages of the World of humans gave way to the rolling green of the Wild Wood and that in turn to a land of jumbled mountain ranges and steep, narrow valleys. Then gradually the mountains flattened and the valleys widened into gently sloping grasslands. The forest did not come back, save in scattered patches, but the land was green and pleasant. Squinting ahead Wiz could see more mountains rising off in the distance.
“Yonder lie the Dragon Lands,” Wurm informed him. “Do you wish to turn back now, Wizard?”
Wiz hesitated. Part of him wanted more than anything to turn around and go home. But there was another part of him that drove him grimly onward. There was a problem here and he had to solve it. Had to.
Besides, if they turned around now it meant more agonizing hours riding dragonback.
“No,” Wiz told Wurm. “Let’s go on.”
Wurm’s expression didn’t change but Wiz felt the dragon “nod” mentally. There was a small, distant part of him that told him he ought to be worried about that.
Wiz glanced at the sinking sun and estimated the distance to the mountains. “Is that where we’re heading?”
“Our destination is somewhat closer,” the dragon said and, without word or warning, winged over and dropped steeply. Wiz whooped in terrified surprise and wrapped both arms around the spine in front of him. He had a confused, whirling view of a broad grassy valley cut by a meandering river with a substantial village or small city nestled along its banks. Then everything was hidden by Wurm’s enormous wings as they locked to brake for a landing.
“Dismount. We are here.”
“Fine,” said Wiz, trying to throw his leg over the dragon’s neck. He found it was numb from hours of sitting and he had to use both hands to hoist the leg over so he could slide off.
He tried to step away from Wurm’s side and his knees nearly buckled.
“Where is here?” he asked to cover his embarrassment.
“The Dragon Marches,” Wurm told him. “Here the lands of mortals run to the borders of the Dragon Lands.”
They were on a grassy knoll beside a dirt road that wound through the valley toward the village in the distance. Dotted here and there he could see clusters of buildings that looked like farmsteads. The fields were laid out in strips, most emerald green with growing grain. The air was cool but not unpleasant and the breeze whispered gently through the grass.
Wiz took a couple of tottering steps. His legs were more or less working again, but his lower back ached terribly and his butt was on fire as the circulation returned.
“I didn’t think people could live beyond the Wild Wood because of the magic.”
“Humans have spread further than your Council of the North ever knew,” Wurm told him. “Here there is magic, but less than in the Wild Wood.”
“So I see.” Wiz shaded his eyes against the setting sun. Off toward the village he saw movement on the road, as if people were coming this way.
“Okay,” Wiz grunted, stretching backwards to try to get the kinks out of his back, “now what’s this job of yours?”
The dragon regarded Wiz with an unwinking golden eye.
“It is not my job, precisely,” Wurm told him. “Rather it is for them. The ones who live in this valley.”
“I thought you . . .”
The dragon breathed a thunderous snort of amusement. “What need would I have of mortal magic? It is the inhabitants of the valley who need you.”
Wiz looked down the road. There was definitely a crowd of people headed toward them.
“Okay, why do they need me?”
“Why to defend them against dragons,” Wurm told him. Then with a sudden motion and a thunderclap of air beneath his enormous wings the dragon launched himself into the sky, leaving Wiz to face the people of the valley.