They traveled another twenty minutes before Bodkin heard something that made him stop short. “What’s that?” he whispered in alarm.

Smudge stopped and listened for a moment, then with a finger to his lips, turned off the path and pushing aside some bushes, moved quietly into the woods. Bodkin followed him as Smudge moved roughly parallel to the dragon’s path until they came to the edge of a large clearing. Moving aside a screen of leaves , they caught their first sight of the dragon on the far side of the open area. She lay amid the remains of her meal, casually crunching and grinding long, bloody bones between her huge, sharp teeth.

Bodkin gulped at the sight of her; she was even more magnificent than he could have imagined. She was at least thirty feet long–forty if you counted the tail–her ridged back as tall as a house and her scales winked iridescent green and gold where the sun shone on them.

Being a female and too large to fly, her rudimentary wings lay folded against her back, the skin between the vanes so thin as to be nearly transparent.

They continued to watch in awe as she sniffed among the remaining bones, looking for any missed morsel. Finding none, she yawned and got slowly to her feet, the tip of her long tail flicking back and forth.

“This is it, Body, me boy,” Smudge whispered excitedly. “Aye, she’ll lead us right to it, now.”

Despite the danger of their situation, Bodkin found himself sharing his friend’s excitement. He was close enough to a real, live dragon to hear her belch, which she suddenly did, startling the two intrepid hunters. Their dragon lumbered slowly across the clearing, then stopped near a large tree and looked carefully around, sniffing the air as if to be sure she was completely alone. Satisfied, she began to dig at the base of the tree.