This caught the dragons’ attention-and the attention of the Dragon Wardens, for that matter. “I know this, noble kings, for I shall conduct the auction myself.” With a great flourish, he swept his arm out and bowed genteelly to the assembled wyrms. “And how do you know this thing will happen, Second Speaker?” another cloud dragon asked in a voice that thundered across the mountaintop, causing drifts of snow to become tiny avalanches. Most of the Pirate Council of the Shackles plans to attend, and we’ve heard that the Hurricane Queen herself, Tessa Fairwind, shall be present.” On the last day of the dry season, in the pirate city of Bloodcove where they celebrate the Tempest Day, there will be a great auction of treasures taken from the drowned land of Lirgen. He held out a single hand in the traditional orator’s pose. “Today, he proposes not war, but justice, not battle, but execution,” Kwibha said smoothly. “We have heard his plans of war before and have little interest in them.” “And what is this offer, Second Speaker?” one of the dragons whispered with a voice like the mist, soft yet inescapable. “Noble kings of sky and cloud, revered ancestors of the storm, you whose wrath is lightning and whose mercy is the rain after a long drought,” Kwibha’s voice echoed off the mountaintops, finely pitched to carry to the great beings clustered before him, “I come bearing an offer from King Thabsing of K’Lereng, called the Blood-Eye.” The dragons, Kwibha fervently hoped, would be equally impressed. To any other dwarf, Kwibha was a person of note, with his gold-embroidered kaftan of cashmere, amber-hilted sword, and the scarlet ribbon tied about his brow. The dwarf strode forward, marshalling every scrap of dignity he possessed. “Noble kings,” the First Speaker said, for all dragons are accorded the title of kings, “I present to you Second Speaker Kwibha of the Bloodmarked.” Kwibha cast a sidelong glance at the First Speaker-Jhirabi had said they were chosen for endurance as well as diplomacy. Snow crunched underfoot as he shifted his weight, and still the dragons and the First Speaker of the Dragon Wardens continued their talks. Illustration by Maichol Quinto from Pathfinder Lost Omens The Mwangi ExpanseĪnother hour passed, then a second and third, and Kwibha felt the frost harden on the white scarf around his neck. Still, one had to start somewhere, and it was upon these formalized exchanges of gifts, territories, and protection that the partnership of dwarf and cloud dragon had been built. The farmers would likely be more dangerous. Do they still have that lightning-struck tree outside of Mua’bri…?”įor a moment, Kwibha envisioned a group of stout dwarven farmers, dour-faced and heavily armed, accompanied by a whimsical fledgling dragon the size of a sheep. It is time for her to have a territory of her own, a hoard and home atop a good tree. “…my rain-child’s third daughter is ready to leave the nest. His late sister Jhirabi, who’d been training to be a Dragon Warden, said the location actually had been chosen because there were few other places where one could treat with a half-dozen dragons, but Kwibha would never be so crass as to say so out loud. By tradition, these yearly negotiations were hold on this flat mountaintop just across the valley from the city of Cloudspire, the air so cold that Kwibha’s breath misted forth with every heartbeat. Kwibha listened to the First Speaker of the Dragon Wardens with one ear, his attention more focused on keeping warm. “…and from the village of Mua’bri, I bear an earthenware cauldron, banded in lightning and dusted with gold, that the potters of the village bequeath to your majesty so that their work might be remembered forever.”
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