We Are Dragons

Grains of sand lodged themselves under Ember’s scales.

The Ash Citadel’s walls were a strong defence against the desert winds, but one step outside and Ember could feel the dust starting to gather on her face. The shadow of the Citadel was an imposing one, stretching out and shielding dozens of traders and merchants from the blistering desert sun. It amazed her that so many creatures could carry out their business like nothing was wrong so soon after an attack at the mines. Even among non-dragons, the news would have circulated that ore and gemstone shipments were being disrupted.

Maybe everyone already knew, and they were simply hiding it. A hundred little white lies. One merchant acts happy when he’s actually scared. Another sells her sugar while packing up her luggage to flee. A hundred white lies could build into something uncontrollable. The thought of it made her head spin.

Ember tugged uncomfortably at the strap over her shoulder, a cord of sturdy steel wire that looped back and fastened a wool pouch to her back that held a few wrapped packets of oysters alongside the Bloodstone Sceptre. Even while it was tucked away, Ember could feel the pull to hold onto it, to clutch it and covet it and never let go. Its magic was still a mystery to her, but its power to command and compel was seeded in the blood of every dragon.

Despite its glory and power, or rather because of it, she kept the sceptre concealed. Without taking a close look, or sometimes even with one, anyone who wasn’t a dragon didn’t immediately recognise Ember as the Dragonlord. Traders, whether they were ponies or griffons or some other creature, passed by her without a second thought. They were far more focused on checking their purchases of geodes and gemstones hauled from the Citadel’s eastern mines.

It was an advantage to being such a young Dragonlord, she supposed. The reputation of mountain-sized monsters that burned villages and ate ponies whole easily overshadowed dragons on the smaller side. Even dragons coming in from the mines, tired after a day of hauling stone and ore, ignored Ember as she waited. She lost herself in the rhythm of carts rolling down the tracks. Their stretch of the desert was a nearly lifeless sea of dunes, which made it impossible to move supplies across the desert in carts without long swaths of rail tracks.

She only came back to the moment when Spike rejoined her from the Citadel’s markets. He looked almost as off-balance as Burnt, with a massive travel pack on his back that threatened to teeter out of control.

“You look ready,” she said, poking the pack to see if he would topple over. “Buy these from the ponies?”

“The general store,” Spike replied as he adjusted the straps to hold tighter to his body. “I’m a dragon, I thought I should have some credit at the Core. The dragon at the store was nice, she let me trade in my bits.”

Ember raised a brow. “You traded them in at the store? Not with Burnt?” She looked over his equipment again. A cast-iron pan dangled on the side, while a sleeping roll was tied down to the top of the backpack. She could only guess what else he had packed inside. “Hate to break it to you,” she reluctantly continued, “but you probably got fleeced. The store takes a cut out of the exchange to cover the accounting costs. You should’ve asked Burnt to do it for you, it’s his job anyway. Could’ve saved a lot, considering how much you bought.”

“A lot?” Spike winced and clutched his coin purse. “Well, at least I have an account with credit now. I’m starting to feel like I’m actually a part of this colony.”

“That’s good,” Ember said. “I want to make the Ash Citadel a home away from home. Now that dragons don’t go raiding and pillaging, we can’t keep hiding away in the Dragon Lands forever. But, we have to make this place safe, first.”

“Right, so we’re off to find this camp,” Spike said, though it sounded like he was reassuring himself more than anything else.

“Not yet,” Ember told him. “Burnt gave me some advice on where to start while you were shopping. The cohort that got attacked at the mines should be back at their posts. Burnt sent a message letting one of them know to look for us. If we’re looking for his daughter, there’s no one better to bring than a dragon who fought with her.”

“Um, Ember? Mind if I ask a question?”

“Sure thing. Something else on your mind?”

“I was just wondering, what is a cohort, exactly? The word isn’t really used that much in Equestria. Not as much as I’ve heard it here, at least.”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Ember answered him. “A cohort is a group of dragons that follow one leader. I guess it’s kind of like a clan or a tribe, except no one has to be related to be in the same cohort. It’s just about who you respect.”

“Are dragons normally in a cohort?”

“Most times. They make my life a lot easier since I just have to talk to every cohort leader instead of every single dragon. I can move ten to twenty dragons into the mines just by reassigning one cohort.”

“Does that mean I can join one too?” Spike asked.

Ember eyed him weirdly. “What are you talking about? We’re friends, aren’t we? You’re already part of my cohort.”

Spike settled in silence, his stare fixed on Ember. She opened her mouth, about to ask him what he was thinking, but she left the issue alone. He clearly still had questions, and she trusted him to ask when he was ready.

Learning about the society the dragons were building couldn’t be done within a few short minutes. But for now, there was a task in front of them. With the wind blowing against their favour, it’d take a few hours to get to the mines and find their scout, and Ember did not want to waste time.

Flying was hard work for a dragon. Ember cursed birds and their convenient feathers. A dragon was weighed down by scale, which grew from digested minerals and gemstones. They might as well have been flying with a suit of rocks. Even at a rushed pace, their flight was cut down to two hours, half of which was spent flying at a snail’s pace to rest and recover.

But it was worth it. The smell of fresh ore was sweet on the wind as the two dragons flew down to land at the entrance of the mines, and Ember felt her appetite for gems invigorating her tired body.

Once a quarry, the surface still had a mile-long scar in the sandstone where the dragons dredged up their first haul. Ember remembered it. The dusty dry bedrock, untouched for hundreds of years, was so disappointing she almost gave up the colony right then and there. The top layer of stone had scant few shards of quartz deep inside, and no metal to speak of.

But with each harvest of the earth, more came out. Slabs of salt rocks were the first thing the Ash Citadel ever sold. In some places in Equestria, it turned out, ponies could not easily find natural sources of salt. It made food taste better, yes, but the mineral was also a critical ingredient to a healthy life.

It surprised Ember that the desert had so much of it. After over a year of ceaseless digging, the salt bed still covered every inch of the quarry. Dark trails of wooden rails cut paths across the white surface, circling around a single gaping maw at the centre of the salt bed. There were several other open pits, but this one was the largest by far. Ember could smell the gemstones as geodes were cracked open and inspected by dragons.

“This place is amazing.” Ember turned to see Spike gazing at every corner of the mine they glided over, unable to focus on a single thing.

“It’s the colony’s jaws,” she told him. “Here we chew up stone so it can be melted down and digested by the Citadel, although some dragons don’t think it’s worth the effort. Plus, they hate working with jewel jackals.”

“Jewel jackals? What, are those like diamond dogs?”

“Dunno, never seen a diamond dog before. But the jackals are slender, pointy-nosed canines that live underground and spend all day digging. That ring any bells?”

“Yeah, actually it does.” Spike’s sudden curiosity put some speed in his wings, and he flew slightly ahead to scan the mines with more detail. “How come I haven’t seen them in the Citadel?”

“They don’t like coming above ground, not unless we pay them.” Ember couldn’t help but shake her head, a habit she worried she might be forming whenever she had to think about profits and expenses, which was too often. “I don’t know what they do with all those jewels. They don’t eat them like we do. As far as I know, they hunt lizards and desert hares out of their holes like normal creatures.”

“If they’re anything like diamond dogs, all I can say is that they’re pretty weird.”

They glided around for a little while longer before Ember found one of the guard posts at the edge of the mine, looking out across an empty desert of sand.

“There.” Ember pointed. Outside the squat stone tower, a skinny green dragon waved up at them.

She immediately recognised the dragon once they landed. He was the guard who had interrupted her conversation with Burnt with news of the camp. That frustrated her just a little. If the dragon had not been so eager to return to his post, they could have joined together back at the Ash Citadel.

“Lord Ember, it’s an honour to meet you.”

“What’s your name?” she asked immediately, letting her impatience take hold.

“Verdant,” the guard said. “Though my cohort also calls me Sandbiter.”

“Verdant Sandbiter. You reported to Burnt earlier today. You know, you could’ve saved us some time if you just waited at the Citadel.”

He looked down as if ashamed. Though his mouth opened, no answer left his tongue. Eventually, Ember decided to drop the matter and she changed the subject.

“Tell me about the attack. How did any group of creatures overpower an entire cohort of dragons and kidnap their leader?”

“Well, it was dark, even with the light from our flames. As soon as the spears came, Rosebud ordered us to defend the carts on the rails; they were loaded with fresh gemstones from that day. We fought as hard as we could, but they threw their spears further than we could breathe fire, and stayed too far for us to chase them.”

“Then how did they capture Burnt’s daughter?”

“She tried to chase them,” Verdant answered. “They struck one of ours in the eye with a spear, and then Rosebud went nuts. She charged the attackers while the rest of us were still escorting the carts. By the time we noticed, she was too far for our flames to help her. The creatures had her tangled in multiple nets and dragged her away.”

Ember clicked her tongue, not bothering to hide the disgust on her face. A dragon did not deserve to be wrapped up in a net like some fish or wild beast. Before, just knowing about the attack worried her, but now it angered her. The creatures were out to make a mockery of dragons.

“Were you injured during the fight?” Ember asked Verdant, and the thin dragon smiled a wolfish grin of excitement.

“I’m ready to track down those walking dung-heaps if that’s what you’re asking. It’s not often a dragon without her wings can lead a cohort, but my brothers and sisters would kill me for the right to rescue her. Rosebud is more than just Burnt’s daughter.”

“You sound fired up, Sandbiter.” Ember flashed him a toothy grin. “Good. Even if we play this smart, there might still be some fighting. At least, I hope there’ll be.”

Ember spread her wings out and rode the breeze, conserving her energy for the long journey. She could hear Spike panting as he tried to keep up with Sandbiter and her, but he had already said when they took off, he didn’t want to slow them down. As long as he didn’t drop from exhaustion, Ember didn’t see the harm in letting Spike push himself.

“You said the scouts came back with a report of the camp,” Ember had asked Sandbiter not long after the Ash Citadel dipped below the horizon. “Why didn’t you go with them to find your leader?”

“Skullfang ordered us not to,” he answered. The young green dragon looked down at the sand as if the shame was still his. “He thought we might be too eager for revenge and pick a fight instead of bringing his daughter back. But that’s just a father’s worry, Dragonlord. I will focus on rescuing Rosebud, I promise.”

“I know,” Ember nodded. “That’s an interesting name, by the way. Rosebud. It’s not a dragon’s name. I didn’t want to pry with Burnt, he needs privacy, but you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

“It’s nothing special. Rosebud says that when she and Burnt moved here, they saw a dried-up bush outside the Citadel with one lone flower that was barely blooming. She said the flower was like the Citadel, struggling to survive in a harsh and barren land. He liked the sound of it, so he renamed her Rosebud to commemorate the moment.”

Spike, trailing behind the two older dragons, piped up. “Wait, her original name wasn’t Rosebud?”

“Dragons can’t always come up with unique names like ponies do,” Ember said. “I swear, there have to be at least a dozen Sludges and Cinders out there. But a dragon can pick up a second name that they use more often, like how Burnt gets called ‘Skullfang.’ After all, what dragon wants to be just another Sludge?”

“I can think of one,” Spike muttered, though Ember and Sandbiter didn’t seem to notice. “So what’s Rosebud’s first name?”

“Blaze,” Sandbiter answered. “A good dragon name, but I know two other Blazes in our own cohort alone. Rosebud’s better.”

They carried on without stopping until the first distance marker, a sign that they were leaving the comfort and security of the colony. A rusted sign reading “Here Be Dragons” swung from the branch of a resilient acacia tree, its rare green canopy offering precious shade from the sun. Though the heat was nothing compared to a pool of lava, the three dragons still took an opportunity to rest their eyes from the light and their wings from the wind.

They heard a splash of water as Spike dunked his head in the oasis to take a drink. Ember could hear his desperate gulping.

“Take it easy,” she warned him. “Water will just slow you down.”

“Makes you wish for feathers,” Sandbiter chuckled, stretching his back. “They say those birds that fly over the ocean can ride the winds for days, stopping only to drink and eat.”

“Albatrosses,” Ember said. “Ponies call them albatrosses. But birds don’t have to worry about scales and solid bones like we do.”

Sandbiter turned to Spike, who collapsed face-up on the sand once he had his fill. “What about pegasi? You must’ve seen plenty, living in Equestria. Ponies are pretty heavy, so how do pegasi do all that flying?”

“Well, uh,” Spike gasped and sucked in a chestful of air, “pegasi fly and walk on clouds with magic. I think they don’t have to flap as hard because of it, even if they still weigh the same as earth ponies and unicorns.”

“Lucky them,” Sandbiter said.

South of the Ash Citadel, rolling dunes of sand slowly washed up against dry dirt and patches of bushes. In the Shrublands, the air was more humid, though just barely, as winds from the distant ocean blew occasional banks of fog inland. Such blessings of water could never reach the deep desert where the dragons lived, but this far south, it was just enough to breathe life into the earth.

“Another half-day of flying,” Sandbiter answered Ember after the three of them had settled down into their camp.

Ember had thought about flying through the night, but there was no guarantee the winds would hold their speed and direction. Constantly adjusting their course in the dark could leave them miles in the wrong direction when the sun rose to show them their mistake.

“We’d make it quicker with fewer stops,” he added, then looked over at Spike. “Of course, that can’t be helped.”

Spike turned his head to the ground, looking disappointed that he ended up being a burden during their flight anyway. But Ember rubbed him on the head to lift his spirits.

“It’s worth it to keep you around,” she assured him. “If there’s a chance to end this peacefully, you’re the dragon to do it.”

“You give the squirt too much credit,” Sandbiter laughed. “Whatever these creatures are, they’re still our enemies. They’ll just come back another day and kidnap another dragon unless we teach them to fear our fire and fangs.”

Ember shot him a glare and the young green guard quieted down immediately. She wanted to give him an earful and recite Spike’s glories. He was the dragon ambassador for Equestria, the largest and most powerful kingdom in all the known world. Beyond that, he was the hero of the Crystal Empire and the true champion of the Gauntlet of Fire.

But flaunting deeds didn’t seem like something Twilight would do. Humility might not have been one of the Elements of Harmony that ponies liked to talk about, but Ember felt it was implicit among the six other traits.

“You two get some rest, I’ll take the first shift.”

There was no complaint from Spike, who was practically asleep as soon as she gave the word. Sandbiter complained, insisting he stay on watch, but when his legs wobbled from exhaustion, he gave in as well.

Ember circled their camp. Unlike the desert, which was relatively low and flat with dunes being the land’s only feature, the Shrublands grew tall with its splintering cliffs and wide plateaus, like the one they had landed on. She looked down at the rocky valley, and then up to the night sky at the circling vultures. They were the only ones in the region who had a better view of the land than she did.

Once Spike started his small, gentle snoring, Ember opened up her satchel and unravelled a bundle of oysters she had packed from the Citadel. They had gone cold, but she didn’t want to risk even the slightest fire. A flame in the night could be spotted from quite far away. And as high up as they were, she’d only turn their camp into a lighthouse.

Besides, she was too hungry to care whether or not it was hot. She devoured the first two oysters immediately, biting each in half and swallowing the four chunks with barely enough time to savour the flavour. The other two, she chewed them slowly, imagining the shards of oyster shell were pieces of a sapphire or a ruby, destined to go through her body and into her ocean-blue scales.

Calcium was the chief mineral in shells, or so she had read in one of the many books the Citadel bought from ponies. Plenty of gemstones had calcium within them as well, but the flavour just wasn’t the same. Shells would do for now, but Ember knew her next few scales would come in all crooked and brittle if she didn’t get some good jewels in her system.

The smell of seafood apparently wafted up to the vultures above, because the annoying, bald-headed birds began landing around Ember before she had even finished her meal.

“What do you want?” Ember mocked them. “Gonna have to try harder tonight.”

One vulture, the biggest of the few that circled Ember, waddled up to her in its awkward bird-walk and sniffed the air. It tilted its head in a confused manner and stared at Ember.

“Not dead?” it squawked. “Why not dead?”

“I’m not some lost animal,” she answered. “I’m a dragon.”

“Yes, fly-lizard big and strong, see many fly-lizards before. When die?”

“Not for a while, bud.”

Ember took pity on the dull creature. She pulled a piece of her last oyster and tossed it on the ground. The vulture smelled the salty, slimy meat and then scooped it up in its mouth, sliding it down its gizzard.

“More? Much mouths hungry in family.”

“Huh, and I always thought it took a special talent to talk to animals. How’d you learn to speak Draconic? Or is this Ponish? Your speech is so broken I can’t even tell.”

“Draconic? Ponish?” It tilted its head again. “Only speak words.”

“Draconic is a sister language to Ponish,” Ember supplied an answer. “Or so those unicorn scholars say. Apparently, dragons spent so long raiding yaks and ponies that we took their language too. So how’d you learn it?”

The vulture gave a few mini-flaps of its wings, ruffling up its feathers. Ember didn’t know the first thing about animals, but it seemed almost as if the vulture was shrugging. However strange it may be, since she was conversing with them, Ember figured she might as well get something useful out of it.

She asked the vulture its name, or his name, as she later found out. The bird’s name did not translate well, but as much as she could decipher, he responded to Marrow-Chewer. The other vultures were Perch-Watcher, Peck-Peck, and Hard-Snap.

Marrow-Chewer, Ember chose to just call him Marrow for short, was something of a leader to the others. He found the bodies of lost animals in the desert for his wake to feat on. He had been doing exactly that all day, following them until they stopped at camp.

“Thought you fly-lizards dropped, tired,” he explained. “Smelled food and got curious. Very curious.”

“You can at least call me ‘Dragonlord.’ I rule over these lands, you know. From the Ash Citadel.”

“Forgiveness, lord dragon,” the vulture repeated after Ember, trying his best. “Known sire and grandsire, and even hear calls and songs of great-grandsire. Hear no talk of fly-lizards in See-Tree-Bell.”

“Citadel,” Ember corrected. “But that doesn’t matter. Just thought you should know who you’re dealing with in case you were thinking of pecking my eyes out while I slept.”

“No, no, no, never!” Marrow squawked.

“Good. So tell me this, have you seen any other dragons around here? My group and I are tracking one of our kind, but she doesn’t have wings yet. She was taken by creatures with long cloaks that cover their whole body.”

Marrow turned to his other vultures and they garbled among themselves for a few minutes. “Peck-Peck say she saw small-big lizard, alone. Two days.”

“Small-big?”

The vulture pointed his long feathery wings at Spike. “Small-big like that one.” Peck-Peck then piped up about something. “But more small, not as big,” Marrow said, translating the bird’s screeching into passable Draconic.

“That sounds like it could be her, or it could be just one of the dozens of lizards that live out here. We’re travelling to a campsite further south, it should have some clues. Do you think you and your vultures can look for that small-big lizard?”

“Look? Search?” Marrow suddenly collapsed onto a small dried-out bush. “Oh, is famishing work. Too far! Will perish if no search for food.”

Ember smirked. Vultures seemed like fools, but they had some idea of how to bargain, at least when food became involved. Or maybe they were just good at sounding helpless. She unwrapped another set of oysters, what was supposed to be her meal for tomorrow, and took half of them out, cracking the shells against a nearby rock and leaving the meat inside for the vultures.

“Half now,” she said, waggling the packet of oysters in front of her, “and half after we meet up at the camp. Don’t think about just flying around aimlessly. Do an honest search, and bring me back a sea star from the southern coast. That’ll prove you searched as much of the Shrubland as you could.”

Marrow, oyster meat still dripping from his beak, nodded his head excitedly. “Yes, yes. Search for no-wing-fly-lizard. If out there, Perch-Watcher will find, has best eyes of any vulture.”

“Good, start flying as soon as you’re done eating. The camp is supposed to be south of here, by a cliff full of small caves. Know the place?”

“Many do,” Marrow answered. “Cave has shade. Animals hide, some die. Good place to eat.”

“Keep your mind off of food,” Ember warned. “We’ll be there in about half a day. Be there by the time we arrive, okay? I know you birds can make that flight much faster than dragons, so no messing around.”

Marrow and the other vultures affirmed their agreement again, and once they had eaten everything but the oyster shells, they took off south. Ember watched them for as long as she could, but their black feathers quickly made them disappear in the sky.

Talking vultures. Ember wondered if Twilight had to deal with things like that on her adventures.

Cooler winds fluttered against the dragons’ wings. They weren’t near the coast yet, not at all, but they were half a day closer. Ember could feel the distant breeze beneath her, and she let it lift her up. Winds were always controlled by some mixture of cold and hot, high pressures and low pressures, but in the end all she needed to do was test the wind with her wing tips to feel where it would take her.

Spike, too, seemed to improve. He glided more, though his small wings still had to work hard to keep up with the two older dragons.

Below them, the caves from the scouts’ description, and the vultures’ though Ember did not share that she had been speaking to animals, came into full view. After a lengthy stretch of flying, it was a sight for sore wings.

It was a short but wide cliff that the camp had been set up beside, with three caves, and maybe a dozen pit-holes fit for a birds’ nests. Six tents, arranged in two parallel rows, flapped quietly in the breeze.

“Here!” a voice cried out from the thick shrubbery below, from the plateau that overlooked the camp. Ember turned quickly and found two dragons, red and yellow-scaled, waving at them to land.

“The other scouts,” Sandbiter mentioned, “they stayed behind to keep an eye on the camp.”

Ember nodded and guided them to land atop the plateau. The red dragon introduced himself as Brule Slipclaw. The yellow, much younger, was just Flare. Despite his distinctly long tail, which could have gotten him called “Whiptail” or something, he hadn’t gotten a secondary name yet. They would have to see whether that stayed true after the mission, Ember considered.

“Didn’t know you’d come yourself, Dragonlord,” Slipclaw bowed his head. “I’m afraid we couldn’t find any royal pillows and cushions for your landing.”

Dragons, especially young ones, liked to tease and jeer at each other, even at their own Dragonlord. Ember could tell from Spike’s reaction that it must’ve seemed disrespectful to ponies, but such simple taunts were common tests. Dragons had a right to know how thick-scaled their leader was. If she couldn’t handle a few barbed words, she didn’t deserve the Sceptre.

“Cut the pleasantries, we’ve had a long flight,” she barked back at him. “What have you been doing out here?”

Immediately, the red dragon’s confident smirk fell back, replaced by willing submission. “Watched in case the creatures returned. We tried to touch as little as possible, and scare off the foxes that come digging around for scraps. The camp was emptied by the time we arrived, but their fire pits were still hot. We also found their weapons, which is how we were sure they were the same attackers. You should take a look for yourself.”

Ember did just that, gliding down with Spike and Flare to investigate. Slipclaw and Sandbiter stayed up on the plateau. Besides herself, they were the most experienced with fighting, which made them better guards than investigators.

Stored on racks inside each tent, the weapons were exactly as they had been described, and then some. The creatures used spears of varying lengths. The short spears had thick shafts and wide, heavy heads. They looked almost like sharpened shovels, though Ember didn’t dare make light of their danger. A single spear was enough to rip through a dragon’s leathery wing, and the hooked ends on both sides of the speartip could snag on scales and weigh a dragon down in a fight.

The medium and long ones weren’t any better. Their designs were clearly meant to penetrate hard armour, as the best steel had been reserved to make disturbingly high-quality javelin heads. One could stick into a dragon’s scales, and even if it never hurt or killed, the weight of the long wooden shaft could be enough to ground a young dragon in a fight.

There were other things too, like nets, weighted bolas, clamping traps activated by springs, and hoses fixed onto canisters of water. All tools used to successfully hunt dragons.

Ember wanted to roar, let loose a stream of fire, and burn the whole camp down. How dare these creatures bring such weapons! Dragons were peaceful, mostly, under her rule. They did nothing to deserve such aggression.

“Ember,” Spike got her attention as they entered the middle tent and were faced with another array of dragon-hunting weaponry. He pointed to a small rock, rolled over so its flat side could serve as a table. On it, a crumpled sheet of paper had a half-finished sketch of the desert.

“A map?” Flare asked, picking it up and passing it to Ember.

She nodded once she took a closer look at it. “Seems that way. They measured the distance from the edge of the Shrublands to the oasis marker, and from there to the Ash Citadel.” She traced her claws along the paper, following more or less the same route they had flown in order to reach here, until she passed a small symbol for what must have been the camp. But the line went on, further south, until it was cut short by hasty smudges.

It looked like they were planning to cut through the Shrublands but to where, she did not know. If the route kept on going, they’d reach the southern sea, but the creatures could have just as easily stopped anywhere in the middle.

“Where did these weapons come from?” Spike asked, picking up one of the short spears. Of all the dragons in the Citadel, and quite possibly the world Spike was the kindest and most gentle. Yet he handled the spear with an eerie dexterity. Was it his stature, or did ponies have more experience hunting dragons than previously thought?

“I don’t know,” Flare answered. “I don’t even think dragons have figured out how to make steel as good as this. Perhaps it’s from a further kingdom? Abyssinia, maybe.”

“It’s not the steel I’m worried about.” He spun the weapon around and held its shaft up to Ember. “I lived with Twilight in a giant tree for years, and I’ve gotten pretty good at telling trees apart. This spear wasn’t made with anything that grows in Equestria, I can say that for sure. But, the colour and the grain…”

Ember followed his claw tip, squinting her eyes hard to see the details he was describing. The wood was dark, nearly black in colour as if someone had smeared charcoal over it. But she didn’t have his experience with trees. The Dragonlands wasn’t exactly a rich forest, and the only kind of wood she had seen in the desert were the—

Storm ships!

She saw why Spike wore his concerned expression. The wood was exactly the kind that their kind had spent countless hours hammering up into walls, and then breaking down for tools and scrap.

How did these enemies obtain weapons from a defunct kingdom? Ember imagined it wasn’t impossible, the Ash Citadel itself was made from the wreckages of the Storm King’s ships. Perhaps there were caches of weapons strewn across the desert as well.

“That narrows things down, but barely,” Ember said. “We can search for old ruins or wrecks. There has to be a place where they’re storing these weapons.”

“The desert is vast, Dragonlord,” Flare said, “it would still take days to cover every possible corner.”

“But they’d have to live near food and water,” Spike added.

A fair point. South of the camp, there were plenty of valleys and caves to hide in, but few streams and creeks. The only sure place for water and food, enough to feed an army, was the southern coast.

“Lord dragon! Help! Perishing!” Ember recognised the shrill squawking that called out to her. But it was even more strained and annoying than she remembered. There was a roar from Sandbiter, followed by the panicked ruffling of feathers.

Ember rushed out of the tent to find Slipclaw throttling one of the vultures by their long, wrinkled necks. Sandbiter was clutching his eye, breathing fire at the two others that circled around him, though he missed every time.

“Enough! Settle it!” Even without grabbing her Sceptre’s handle, Ember’s will was enough to make the red stone glow faintly. The two dragons continued to struggle against the birds, but they did not go for the kill.

“Lord, bring news, yes. Good news!” Marrow, the vulture in Slipclaw’s grip, cried out.

“Let them land,” she ordered, pointing to the open spot in the middle of the camp.

When both sides planted their feet and calmed, Ember explained how she had met the vultures, all while Sandbiter complained and clutched his face. The cut looked worse than it was, most of the blood covering his eye was from his own fussing at the wound. If he had left it alone, it would have healed nicely and cleanly. But at his rate, Ember suspected he’d have an impressive scar to go with his unimpressive battle with birds.

As promised, the vultures had brought a sea star as proof of their journey, though it wasn’t necessary once Marrow shared what they had seen.

“Saw no-wing-fly-lizard near cliffs. Moving away from here, to east and south. Tried to warn, tried to say you search for her, but spat fire at us. Hard-Snap caught, burned.”

“Oh, um,” Ember wasn’t sure how to respond. Honestly, she hadn’t even noticed one of the vultures was missing. “I’m sorry for your loss,” was all she could say.

“Pity,” Marrow hung his head. But only for a moment. It was like the grief entered and left as quickly as air through the lungs. “Food now, yes? Give food.”

Ember wasn’t sure if he was asking or demanding, probably a bit of both, but she wasn’t one to turn back on her word. Besides, the vultures had given credible information—she doubted one of the vultures was willing to stay behind and miss a meal just to sell the story of being burned by a dragon. She unfurled the rest of her oysters and pried the shells open with the tip of one of the many spears lying around and laid out the meat neatly.

The vultures didn’t seem to care for the niceties, however, and hungrily devoured as they would have with any other corpse.

“So, the Dragonlord keeps pets,” Sandbiter chuckled, “that’ll be a story to bring back to my cohort.”

“You can think about how you’ll tell it while you wait here,” Ember told him.

“What, why? You heard the birds, Rosebud’s just east of here.”

“Yes, and maybe she’s being chased by the attackers and the vultures missed them while they were being burned. Right now, we have their camp and we have their weapons. If we find Rosebud and get in a fight, we’ll need somewhere we can retreat to. I don’t want to come back here and find a horde of enemies with fresh spears and nets.”

“The Dragonlord speaks wisdom.” Slipclaw placed a claw on Sandbiter’s shoulder to calm him, but Sandbiter pulled away, sulking.

“And stop scratching your eye,” Ember added. “See if they have any bandages around here. You’re going to leave a scar if you don’t take care of it.”

She turned back to Marrow and his vultures. “Do you think you can take us to where you saw our friend? I don’t have any food on me now, but help us now, and you can help yourself to all the scrap at the Ash Citadel.”

“How much?” the vulture asked, his eyes becoming keen once food was mentioned. He had a look about him, like a pony merchant trying to strike a good bargain. And once again, Ember wondered if she had made too many assumptions about vultures and their intelligence.

“More than you can ever eat,” she said. “Over a hundred of us live in the Citadel, along with ponies and griffons and other creatures. Food gets thrown out every day, and no one will miss a few dozen clams and fish.”

Marrow’s eyes seemed to glaze over as he reeled back, trying to imagine what Ember was describing to him. Her words lit a fire in him, apparently, and he immediately squawked what sounded like orders to the other vultures.

“We take you there,” he said, after a short deliberation. “Find fly-lizard now!”