and stretched his great wings in the mountain air, Juraviel had worked tire-lessly to keep the dragon calm.
For to the beast, all of the creatures about them - the humans included, and perhaps even particularly - were nothing more than potential meals, or outlets for his innate aggression. So far, Agradeleous had behaved himself well, with not a single human kill, as far as either of the elves knew. But of late, as the weeks had dragged to months and as the wind across the steppes had become uncomfortably cold, often with stinging hail or snow, the dragon's patience had seemed on the wane.
Of late, Agradeleous seemed to be spending more time off to the side of the encampments, and often flexing his formidable, sinewy muscles, or sharpening those killing claws.
Juraviel understood the dragon's frustration. His own frustration came from the lack of any real information about Brynn. One time of the many when he had eavesdropped on the conversations of unsuspecting humans, he had heard references to this mysterious Jhesta Tu mystic and the sup-posed rescue of the warrior woman from the battlefield outside of Dharyan, but other than that, he had learned nothing of any value. For Agradeleous, the frustration was even easier to sort out. The dragon had slept in peace for so many years, and when he had decided to accompany the elves to the surface, he had done so with the intention of finding great adventure. Thus far, at least, that had hardly been the case.
Cazzira's question echoed ominously to Juraviel in context of that realiza-tion. On a whim, Agradeleous could level any of the many villages they had seen. It would take a trained army, powerfully outfitted, to bring down the dragon; among the four ancient races of Corona, only the demon dactyls were more individually powerful, and their might came from a combination of magic and physical strength. Even the demons could not match the sheer physical muscle of a dragon. Juraviel had never seen one before he had en-countered Agradeleous, and though he had heard the stories of the ancient wurms told over and over again, that one moment when Agradeleous had come out of the tunnel and stretched his great wings had overwhelmed him.
He could hardly imagine the devastation this one might cause if he be-came enraged.
Or bored.
Juraviel glanced across to the dragon, and it seemed to him to hold too much strength and energy within his current form, as if he would just ex-plode back into his greater shape.
The elf was somewhat relieved a short while later, then, when a campfire appeared in the distance. Cazzira noticed it first and quietly motioned to Juraviel, but before the two could come up with any plan that might engage Agradeleous without bringing him dangerously close to the human camp, the dragon, too, spotted the distant light.
"Let us go and see those who would share the land with us," Agradel-eous said, too eagerly, and the dragon took a loping stride away.
"Better if I go alone, or with Cazzira," Juraviel quickly replied and the dragon stopped and spun about, a slight hiss escaping his mouth.
"At first," the elf quickly explained. ?Let us catch them unawares, that they will be more truthful. If they have anything of interest to reveal, we will come back for you."
"If they have anything of interest to reveal, they will tell it to me," Agradeleous answered, and he started away at a fast walk, then a loping trot, and Juraviel and Cazzira had to run flat out to keep up.
Agradeleous stopped outside the light of that fire and was not immedi-ately noticed, for the ten men sitting about the flames were engaged in a boisterous conversation.
"We cannot go back to any town!" one protested. ?Don't you think the Wraps will be looking for us? And what a fine prize our heads would make!"
"We cannot stay out here, with no food and no wagons to rob," a second argued. ?I'd rather die fighting Wraps than freeze and starve out here where only the buzzards will find our rotting corpses!"
"Then you should have died with the rest at Dharyan!" the first man shot back.
"Not that again!" several cried at once, and one continued, ?Are we to spend all our days thinking back to that cursed place?"
Out in the darkness, Agradeleous snapped a fiery gaze over Juraviel. ?You want answers, and so you shall have them!" he said in his rumbling inhuman voice, and it was loud enough to halt the conversation in