Nineteen days before the Black Mausoleum
Finding others took time. Not long, but time nonetheless. A sun passed and then another. The open ground around the great river had little to offer. Everything that once roamed here had been eaten. Burned. Chased away, even after the dragons who had come were bloated. No food for the little ones. Let their animals roam far away. Let them starve in their holes if they cannot be burned.
There were always dragons to be found near the old towers, though. The place the little ones called the Pinnacles but the dragons knew by a far older name, a place where the silver-skinned makers had once lived and worked and wrought their sorceries. Sorceries like the one that had come to visit the plains of the great river.
It found three dragons, all young and small, all hatched since the Awakening. It shared what it had seen. Four would not be enough, not when three were small.
What brings it back?
Little ones, teeming with them.
Not afraid?
What is this Black Moon?
We have seen the hole in the realm of the dead. You have not, Black Scar of Sorrow Upon the Earth.
They flew towards the setting sun, to the dark forests where even a dragon could not pass, and then to the hills and the mountains of the great Worldspine beyond. High among the glaciers and the snow, it found more of its kind, young and old.
A scent powerful and old.
Something of the silver ones and something even greater.
What can be greater?
The Earthspear.
The Earthspear is buried under mountains.
No. A thing that speaks of the stars. And something other.
The little ones will burn.
Their sorceries will be devoured.
Chains?
Pulled through the sky?
Made into a toy?
Joy. Fear, as much as a dragon could feel such a thing. Amazement. Wonder. Alarm. All those things it felt in the thoughts of its kin. Then, one by one, they found their true natures and all turned to fury.
Come! it cried, and the other dragons were eager.
Dragons do not serve men.