Silence reigned around the campfire.
Davion finally broke it. "They have how many dragons?"
"Seven," said Gabriel.
"An entire wing," said Zebulun. "All of them military, which means all are mages."
Davion looked pale. "That does not sound good for our side."
"We can take them!" said Quinn with a smile. "As my grandma used to say: we’ll show them how the cow eat the cabbage."
Zebulun looked at Sarah. "We should rain them out, for a few days, while we marshal our forces."
"I agree," said Sarah. "It will take time to gather the forest folk warriors. There’s still hope the cyclopes will send more help."
"I wouldn’t count on it coming soon enough," said Polymachos. "The aristocracy moves with the speed of a lame snail."
Amalek’s avatar appeared. "I can take two, maybe three, on my own," said Amalek, "but not all seven. The rest will be up to you."
"We can help against those in the air," said Gabriel.
"It will be dangerous. All seven wield spheres of iron."
"No surprise there," said Zebulun.
"Iron?" asked Amalek. No one answered. Gabriel vanished.
Polymachos went back to the cyclopean camp at the foot of the hill. Elu and Apollo went to gather firewood for the night.
"You know, Zebulun," said Sarah. "If you succeed, we’ll be happy to have more open relations with the kingdom. The legend of the haunted forest has protected us, but the charade is over. We could use more metalwork tools. We would be happy to trade furs, leather, and timber for them."
Davion looked at Sarah with astonishment. "Timber? I thought the whole point of all this was to prevent them from cutting down your trees?"
"The point was never to keep them from felling a single tree," said Sarah. "The forest is vast. Some degree of pruning can even be beneficial, so long as you don’t clear-cut entire swaths, or fell trees that take one thousand years to grow."
"No," she said, "The point was to keep them from felling a single tree without our permission. To stake our claim to these lands."
Davion lowered his eyes and said, "Oh." He looked thoughtful.
Amalek’s avatar turned to face Sarah. "If you want the dragons of the kingdom to respect your claim to these lands, you must defeat them utterly. It must be a complete humiliation."
Sarah looked past his avatar and into his real eyes. "What do you propose?"