The dragon arrived at midnight. She lounged on Sill’s broken sides, her coils dangling from caldera to canyon. The crowd braced themselves against the wind of dragonwing as the wyvern settled, squinting as her amber eyes lit the rocks like spotlights. A broken, rusty pickup truck dangled from her claws.
The humans were well prepared to greet her. Idris saw them coming through the spyglass and told Anais, who told Hark, who told everyone else. By the time the dragon’s belly scraped the mountain, all of Under Hill was awake and abuzz with activity. The supplies and livestock were already crated and packed, a third of all they had, with the rest left for the humans too ill or old or unwanting to leave Sill’s mossy belly. Igoe walked along the scree and oversaw the loading of supplies. Her husband Pruitt managed the loading of people, skirting through Under Hill for stragglers and fence-sitters as he triple-checked his lists.
The wyvern looked over the Caulkin Mountains, untrusting of the clouds and curious of the little humans gathered around her. She twitched the tip of her tail as they climbed over her scales and tied down their belongings, the smaller ones poking at her claws. The light of her eyes washed over the human standing on the bridge of her nose, his white whiskers fluttering in the wind.
She keened low in her throat. “Oh, Colin. I am still not used to you being so old. You were a hatchling when I saw you last.”
“Nothing that can be helped, I’m afraid.” The wrinkled elder patted her warm scales. “But better late than never, huh?”
“I didn’t think there would be so many. The hoard was less than half of this before.” The dragon’s voice clinked and rolled like handfuls of new money. “You have reproduced so quickly! Like rabbits, you are.”
Colin laughed warmly. “I told you before, there are more here than just your hoard. We’re from everywhere.” He pointed to Anais, Martin, and the group surrounding them. “Those are the children of griffon riders. The ones on your haunches are Pruitt and Igoe, their people are nomads from the northeast and northwest, respectfully. And those paler ones near the cave—see them?—they used to work in Diamond Dog mines.”
“Oh,” said the wyvern. “Were they slaves of the dogs? Or was it the other way around?”
“A little of both, I hear. Oh! And here come the wanderers of the southwest. Our chieftain Hark…” Colin paused and looked back at amber eyes the size of his head. “You know Hark, right? He met us when we landed?”
”Yes.” She squinted at a figure stomping over Sill, barking orders. “He has one eye and walks strangely.”
“Hark comes from the central nomads. I think Rail does too, give or take a generation from his mom’s side. He’s the one I told you about.”
The dragon rolled her eyes. “You told me of many.”
“He’s the newest one. Braved the White Roc.”
The wyvern’s whiskers bristled as she growled low in her throat. “I don’t care for that Roc. I don’t like the grey pony with him, either.” Her tail smashed against the mountain and sent the goats into a bleating frenzy. “They cheat.”
“That they do.” Colin climbed to the edge of the snout and waved an arm. “Rail!”
A young man in a green cloak looked up. He clutched a chunk of goat cheese in one hand and practiced his signing with the other. Sydney the linguist sat with him, gently correcting the mistakes.
“Yes?” His tongue was still thick with his native accent and his sentences were brisk and simple.
“Come and meet Pop!” called Collin.
Rail frowned at the wyvern and exchanged glances with Sydney, who shrugged. He pushed himself up with his hackberry staff and approached the dragon with no sudden movements. He seemed a little afraid of her, which was ridiculous (everyone knew humans hunted dragons, not the other way around).
“Hello.” His cloak flowed in the steaming breath of dragon nostrils. “Are you our ride?”
“Am I your ride? I am. Collin and the one called Pruitt told me you are to ride in front, alongside my Collin. I am called Pop.” Pop’s nose twitched. “You smell like ponies.”
Rail blinked. Riding on the dragon’s head was obviously news to him, but he took it in stride. “I… lived with ponies for a long time,” he explained.
“Interesting. Ponies used to live where I live, but they don’t anymore. Now I live there instead and eat geodes.” A contented growl rumbled through her. “They are very good geodes!”
“Why’s your name Pop?” Ashling asked.
Rail yelped and jumped back from the girl standing behind him. He hadn’t seen her arrive. Nobody ever did, but Rail still wasn’t used to it yet.
The wyvern chuckled. The numerous bare feet on her back tickled. The elders and families with younger children were already seated and tied down. Now the rest of the humans roved up and down her scales looking for their place to sit. Little Fava sat with her mother and waved at Rail from Pop’s back haunch, but he didn’t see her.
“Why is my name my name? I will show you!” The wyvern spat a stream of bright acid that steamed and sparked and popped in the night air.
“Oh, wow.” Ashling bounced on her toes and giggled. She was still too young to do a proper witch’s cackle. “Gosh, you must have made the ponies of North Hill absolutely miserable!”
“Probably. I never bothered to ask them.” Pop looked over her shoulder. The last handfuls of humans settled themselves between her shoulder blades. Hark and Pruitt stood on her neck, performing a final headcount. “Hatchling, are you riding upon my head as well?”
Ashling rocked back on her heels and grinned. “Yep!”
Rail frowned. Apparently, nobody had told him of this part, either.
“You’re riding at the horns,” said Colin. “We need someone to scout out magic stuff. Just like Rail and I are up here on account of knowing the land.”
Rail piped up in protest. “But I only know the lands from here to my city.”
Colin waved him off. “Still know it better than most of us. And if what you told Hark is true, most of the maps are no good anymore. Something’s better than nothing.” He nodded to Pop, who gently took Rail in her claws and placed him on her forehead. Ashling already lounged in a spiraled horn as if it were a papasan chair.
Colin leaned and cupped his hands over his mouth. “We all here?”
A keen whistle ran from the base of Pop’s tail to the top of her head. Hark’s gloved hand gave the affirmative: All here. Old and young, foolish and wise. The healers, the warmongers, the thieves, and the law-keepers. The craven and the courageous, the careless and the cautious and the cruel, and some that were none of these, all of these, or somewhere in-between.
Indeed, they were here. They all were alive and they were here. In the long shadows cast by fire flowers and plague and White Roc and warfare, their numbers were smaller, but still here.
As Mount Sill lifted away from them, the fever of freedom spread soul to soul, hotter and hotter until someone in back could stand it no longer and began to sing. Someone else joined him. Then another. And then another and another and another until the song wound up and up into a wild chorus that sailed over the Caulkin Mountains.
The song drifted down to the trio of ponies watching from the foot of Sill. Their twitching ears caught the notes like fireflies in summer. It echoed between the peaks long after the humans breached the starry horizon, out of this story and into another.