The Rocky Mountains cut the sky like a row of dark teeth, and somewhere below them, in a valley that no map bothered to name, smoke rose in thin, deliberate columns.
The colony spread across the warm rock shelves in terraces — stone huts with hide awnings, wind chimes of bone and polished obsidian, cook fires banked for the evening. Dragon shifters moved between them in human form, barefoot on the sun-soaked stone.
A few, further up the ridge, did not bother with human shape at all. A crimson dragon the length of a bus dozed on a flat ledge, wings folded like a collapsed tent. Another, slate-gray and scarred, watched the valley mouth with one open eye.
At the valley mouth stood five men in mismatched gear. They had walked in an hour ago and had not been stopped. That, more than anything, was making them nervous.
Price
plants his hands on his hips, scanning the terraces No guns drawn. Nobody's growled at us. That's the good news.
Soap
And the bad news?
Ghost
quietly We've been counted. Look at the ridge.
On the high shelf, the gray dragon had not moved. But three more shapes had joined it — one bronze, one pale as bone, and one so dark it was only an outline against the rock.
Gaz
They're just... watching.
Price
That's their way, apparently. He starts walking, slow and even, up the first terrace path. Spread out. You each get one try. And remember what the briefings said —
Soap
The dragon picks us. Aye, we know.
Ghost
They also said if you climb on one without being chosen, you get cooked.
Soap
Cheerful, you.
The path forked around a boulder the size of a cottage. Beyond it, the colony opened up properly — a wide stone commons ringed by cook fires, children chasing a leather ball, elders mending nets.
Along the far edge of the commons, three long low buildings sat against the cliff, their doorways hung with beaded leather in every color a dragon could be. The middle doorway's beads were dark blue, and they were drawn aside.
A girl stood in the shadow of that doorway, watching the five strangers come up the path. Dark blue top, dark blue skirt, black hair braided down her back. Beside her, a smaller girl in the same colors was craning her neck to see past the boulder.
Val
whispering That's them. The ones from outside. Val said they came through the pass before the sun was even up.
Val had not said any such thing, but she said it now anyway, tossing her braid.
From inside the hut behind them came the sound of a chair being set down, and a man's voice.
Shan
Val. Come inside.
Val
But Da —
Shan
Inside. The beads rattle as he parts them and steps out — broad-shouldered, gray-braided, with the calm of someone who had stopped being surprised by humans a long time ago. Both of you.
He looked down the path at the five men, unhurried, and did not raise his voice. On the ridge above, the bronze dragon lifted its head.