The flock belonging to our family is, of course, not the largest in the world. Indeed, even within our own principality there are at least two flocks greater than ours, and in neighboring lands there are some whose numbers exceed ours by more than half again.
But we take pride not in quantity, but in the lineage and purity of our dragons. In that regard, our farm has no equal.
The reason is simple: our gorge is wide and generous, with many mesas—“table mountains,” as some call them—rock formations crowned with flat plateaus. And most of them are sheltered from the winds. We have caves in abundance as well. Such places—secluded, windless mesas and deep caverns—are precisely where dragons prefer to build their nests. And when dragons are comfortable, their offspring are plentiful and true of blood. That has long been observed.
The same holds for the valley below. It is vast enough to sustain immense herds of livestock. Our sheep and cattle far exceed the needs of the flock, and in the forests that cloak the foothills there is game enough for dragons to hunt their fill.
That is why, in good years, more than a dozen gray dragons hatch under our care—and among them there are always at least two blues of the purest strain. Every two or three years, moreover, a golden beauty appears.
Many tales are told about dragons, most of them nonsense. Among common folk—and even among certain nobles—there persists the belief that when angered, dragons exhale a stream of flame capable of burning to ash anyone in their path.
Such stories arise because rumor has confused two very different things: the dragon’s cry and the dragon’s spit—and then embroidered the rest, as rumor always does. Both are used only in the hunt. Ordinary people have nothing to fear—unless, God forbid, someone should attempt to harm a dragon. In that case, as the saying goes, he has only himself to blame.
Now then—about the cry and the spit.
All dragons, even the grays, can emit a cry that does not spread in all directions but travels straight ahead—like a beam of light, though invisible. It can deafen, yes—but it can also rob even a great stag of consciousness, which is how dragons bring down their prey. As for a man—well.
And in the hunt a dragon may also release its burning spit. Dragons are, after all, serpents—only with legs and wings. Some serpents spit venom; everyone knows this and finds nothing remarkable in it. A dragon’s saliva is not venomous, but caustic—like acid. It burns.
It also glows in the dark. That serves a purpose: by night, a dragon marks its prey and may then pursue it at leisure, without distraction. Someone must once have seen that luminous spray in the darkness and, not understanding what he witnessed, invented the fable of fire.
As for flying a dragon—truly flying, that is, in a saddle fastened at the base of the neck, where one may guide it, rather than merely sitting beneath a canopy between its wings—that privilege belongs only to the one who has saddled it.
And saddling does not mean placing the saddle upon its back. No. First one must leap upon the dragon, seize its neck, and hold fast while it tries with all its might to throw you. If you endure—then it is yours. It will know you for the rest of its life and heed you as well.
Unlike a horse, which any man may break and which will then obey any rider, a dragon obeys only the one who mastered it. And only we—the wranglers—are permitted to attempt such mastery.
Not everyone may become a wrangler. Many who try to saddle a dragon fail the first time—and are thrown. Then a man either dies upon the rocks or is left maimed for life. That is why we are respected. And paid well.
The pay matters less to me than to most of our lads. I was born into a prosperous family: my father owns the dragon farm, as well as the gorge and valley that surround it. Yet little of that wealth is destined for me. I am my father’s fifth son—and the youngest. I have three sisters as well, all older than I.
When our dragons reach maturity, we sell them at the fairs. Not all, of course—some of the finest we may keep. Any wrangler has the right to keep the dragon that he chooses—that is our custom. And there is no companion more faithful than a dragon. I do not believe that even two men may share a bond stronger than that between a dragon and its rider.
And it is easy to befriend a dragon. For dragons understand every human word.
Perhaps not only words.
Perhaps they sense the thoughts left unspoken.
For my part, I believe they do. I have seen proof of it more than once.
Now then—about the fairs where we sell our dragons.
They are held in the nearest city, twice a year—once in spring and once in autumn. The fairs are, without question, the most exciting thing in a wrangler’s life—save for the dragons themselves, of course. They are our chance to show ourselves, to learn something of the wider world, and to celebrate properly. That is why we—lads and lasses alike, for there are women among the wranglers, though not many—await each fair as one awaits a festival.
We also make our purchases there. One can always find the finest goods at the fair. From the dwarves—for that is what the master craftsmen of the high mountains call themselves—we buy all our dragon gear: saddles, canopies, harness. They live high among the peaks, mine the ores, and in matters of craft they have no equals. From them we purchase what our dragons require—and for ourselves as well: tools, mostly, and hunting weapons.
From the elves—the tribes who dwell in the forests at the foot of our mountains—we obtain remedies and elixirs, both for our own use and for the dragons’.
As I have said, when we travel to the city for the fair, we learn much of the distant world. Merchants who gather there from many lands are fond of telling tales in the evenings, in the taverns, over a cup of wine or a mug of ale—stories of the places where their trade has taken them.
And then there are the warlocks. Who else?
Warlocks travel often—mostly to visit one another, to exchange their arts, though they wander for other reasons as well. Yet their knowledge of far-off lands does not come merely from their journeys. It comes from their enchanted amulets—the Emerald Eyes, for instance.
I have seen one of those with my own eyes. It appeared to be nothing more than a clear sphere, about the size of a large apple—or perhaps a small pumpkin. At its very center was set a great emerald.
A dwarf I once knew—who had been caught in an avalanche and whom I happened, by fortune, to pull free with my dragon—told me later, in confidence, that it is the dwarves who craft these Emerald Eyes for the warlocks. They shape them from a special mountain crystal, and within it, he said, is fused not only a true emerald but countless filaments of some rare metal—dearer, he claimed, even than gold.
Such a sphere can show a warlock distant places.
And what they see, they sometimes share with us.
I once heard a warlock speak of far-off valley lands—great open steppes—where nomadic tribes dwell. Orcs, they are called. They herd horses and other livestock, and they raid neighboring peoples as well.
One detail of that tale has stayed with me. The warlock said that just as we fly upon dragons—or ride horses and unicorns—so the orcs ride great wolves.
They call them khan-wolves—“kings of wolves.”
They are the size of a calf and known for their strength, speed, and ferocity. At a master’s command, such a wolf can tear a man apart, and none can stand against them. And as with dragons, a khan-wolf has but one master—the one who tamed it as a cub and raised it in a particular way.
Some say these are only stories.
Yet I find I believe them.
I trust the warlocks. One can see in their eyes that they know things beyond the reach of ordinary men.
When one of the Gyres appeared not far from our gorge, and the Undead began to emerge from it, and Blizzards started breaking out around it, we did not yet know that ours was not the only such place in the world—that there were seven more besides. It was the warlocks who later explained all this to us. It was they who gave them their names—the Gyres, the Undead, the Blizzards.
The warlocks told the people that all of it was born of otherworldly witchcraft, and that only they possessed the power to contend with it. That is why they forbid folk from approaching the Gyres.
But not everyone listens.
There are always those—among the nobility and the merchant houses alike—who wish to see a Gyre with their own eyes, to pass through it and return. They say it strengthens the body. Restores vigor.
That, at least, I do not believe.
I have passed through the Gyre myself more than once. It left me no stronger than before. As for my health—I suppose that, too, remained much the same.
Still, neither I nor any of ours trouble ourselves with correcting such beliefs. For the Gyre has brought us profit.
It lies high in the mountains, and the path to it on foot is long and wearisome. Worse still, a man may be caught in a Blizzard out in the open—and I know of nothing more dreadful than that.
On dragonback, however, one can reach the Gyre from our farm in less than an hour. And should a Blizzard rise, a dragon can gain the cliffs in moments and find shelter among the rocks.
So it came to pass that we began, for a generous fee, to carry nobles and wealthy folk to the Gyre upon our dragons.
One of us rides in the saddle and guides the beast, while the passenger sits beneath the canopy between its wings. We strap them in well with leather belts, so they do not fall mid-flight and dash themselves against the cliffs. The coin from this trade now rivals what we earn from the sale of dragons themselves.
And another source of income came to our farm, also because of the Gyre.
Some three years after its appearance, my father acquired a partner. The man, one might say, bought a share in the farm. In truth, he paid a great sum for the right to use our dragons—for himself and his companions, whoever they may be—to fly the gorge and search for… something.
By agreement with my father, he always has ten gray dragons and two blues at his disposal. From time to time—usually after a Blizzard—he flies to the Gyre for two or three days and meets his people there.
How they get to the Gyre, and what they do there—we do not know.
Nor is it our concern.
Those who live upon farms do not care to thrust their noses into other men’s affairs.
And so this is how we live now: we breed dragons, saddle them, and take them to the fairs. And we carry the curious to the Gyre.
And as for me—if a man may choose his lot in this world, then to be a wrangler of dragons is life enough.