Chapter 14: The Dragonborn's Endeavor

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The fetid mist of Dustwallow Marsh churned in the morning light. Onyxia stood atop the raised platform of her lair, her black robes snapping in the wind. She looked down upon the assembled dragonspawn, whelps, and handful of adult black dragons, her golden slit-pupiled eyes sweeping over every greedy face.

“Do you like gold?”

Her voice was soft, yet it silenced every dragon at once, like lava seeping into ice.

A rustle of scales rose through the lair. The whelps nodded frantically. The dragonspawn guards unconsciously raked their claws across the ground. Even the oldest black dragon could not resist licking his pointed teeth.

Onyxia gave a cold laugh and suddenly seized a bulging leather pouch from thin air. The instant she released her claws, coins poured down like a waterfall, silver and gold splashing across the mire in dazzling ripples.

“Look at yourselves!” Her tail lashed out and shattered a stalactite. “Hiding in the mud and licking your wounds, every raid ending with you looking like stray dogs. Three warriors were lost last week, and the dwarves even turned their bones into armor buckles!”

A black dragon with a broken horn could not restrain a low growl. “But even the rats in Dustwallow Marsh stink. Where are we supposed to—”

“Silence!”

Onyxia flashed before him. The pressure of her draconic presence forced the massive beast to his knees in the mud.

“I have reached an agreement with the goblins.” She nudged the pouch at her feet, and a gold coin rolled to the broken-horned dragon’s claw. “We trade fertilizer for gold. It is far safer than raiding. This is only part of the advance payment.”

“How could those scrawny wretches possibly have enough gold to pay us?” one whelp asked an adult black dragon beside him.

“I have heard of goblins,” the adult dragon replied lazily. “They are supposed to be excellent merchants. They must have plenty of gold.”

“Then why don’t we just rob them?” the whelp asked excitedly.

“You think no one has considered robbing them? Few have ever succeeded. Far more have failed. Goblins hire powerful races as guards to protect their gold. If you go after them, you will only be captured and auctioned off as magical reagents.” The adult black dragon sounded thoroughly annoyed.

“This human expert will teach you how to produce it.” Onyxia rested a claw on Deren’s shoulder, the scrape of scale against cloth carrying a dangerous undertone. “And you will serve him as you serve me.”

A whelp suddenly darted forward. “But he’s food—”

Black flame flashed. The scales at the tip of the whelp’s tail instantly charred.

Onyxia seized it by the scruff and lifted it before her eyes. “Do you know how goblins deal with disobedient business partners? They turn them into demonstration specimens for ‘accident insurance.’”

She casually tossed the shrieking whelp into the crowd of dragons.

“Now, anyone who has had enough of the smell of money may volunteer to build the factory.”

The dragonkin surged forward to seize the coins, and the sight reminded Deren of starving wolves tearing apart a carcass in the Westfall wilderness. The broken-horned black dragon, however, shoved his way to Deren’s side and suddenly produced a rust-covered pocket watch from beneath his scales. Set inside it was a faded family portrait from Stormwind.

“I took it in the Redridge Mountains seven years ago.” The dragon’s breath singed Deren’s sleeve. “Human, can you really earn gold?”

Deren gently closed the watch and returned it to the dragon’s claw.

“Why do you think dragons live in the wilderness, while humans and goblins have warm, sturdy, secure cities to call home? Because they know how to make gold.”

The broken-horned black dragon nodded repeatedly.

In the days that followed, the stagnant waters of Dustwallow Marsh were stirred into motion.

Onyxia’s wings spread beneath the morning sun, her shadow sweeping across the raw-log framework under construction. Twenty dragonspawn shouted rough work chants as they dragged a century-old ironfir through the mire. Their scales were caked with mud, and specially made hemp ropes supplied by Deren were wrapped around their claws.

“Lift the left side!” Deren shouted from a makeshift watchtower, waving a copy of Chromie’s generously sponsored Beginner’s Guide to Gnomish Engineering. “Watch the angle of the crossbeam!”

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“Human—” A black dragon impatiently held steel nails in his tail and spat sparks. “We are more accustomed to tearing buildings down.”

Onyxia’s breath suddenly swept over their heads, welding the nails precisely into the mortise and tenon joints.

“Now you know how to build.”

When she landed, she had taken on elven form, though her black robes could not conceal the wood shavings clinging to the tip of her tail.

A series of muffled thuds echoed from deep within the marsh. Several whelps came racing back in excitement.

“We found clean water! Just as you instructed!”

Tiny tongues of dragonfire flickered from their mouths, and their bodies were covered in foul-smelling mud.

By dusk, three wooden shelters roofed with acid-resistant bark had risen at the entrance to the lair, where scattered bones had once lain. Ditches diverted the wastewater toward a deliberately preserved toxic pool, while purified water flowed through a row of glass pipes that Onyxia had personally forged, refracting strange halos in the setting sun.

“Reaction vessels can be installed here later.” Deren crouched over the construction plan and circled the central area with a red pen. In one corner of the blueprint, a whelp had drawn a crooked collection of childish scribbles—the masterpiece of one particular “foreman.”

Onyxia suddenly snatched the quill from his hand. The tips of her fingers still held the heat of shadowflame, but she deliberately restrained it when touching the human’s palm.

“Come and see your office.”

Inside the easternmost shelter, a desk set with energy crystals glowed softly. Its legs were shaped like dragon claws, while the drawer handles were miniature black-dragon statues—obviously taken from some princess’s private collection.

“More luxurious than Stormwind’s administrative hall.” Deren laughed as he tapped the desktop. His voice echoed together with the stifled giggles of whelps eavesdropping outside.

The night wind swept over the marsh, carrying the scents of sulfur and fresh-cut timber. Onyxia gazed toward the industrial settlement taking shape and suddenly remembered the primitive villages of the night elves from ten thousand years ago.

The vibration beneath her claws was no longer the roar of destruction, but the rhythm of construction.

In the distance, the broken-horned black dragon was using his tail as a measuring ruler for the foundation of a reaction vessel. He was still muttering the human-taught phrase, “three and a quarter inches.”

Dusk flowed across the newly built rooftops like molten gold. In human form, Onyxia stood upon the highest observation platform of the lair—an area Deren had insisted on adding as an “executive-only zone”—and looked down at the lights gradually coming alive below.

Steady illumination shone from the glass windows of the three wooden shelters: arcane lamps she had forged with her own hands. The purification basin to the east reflected the last ray of sunset, and, remarkably, not a single piece of decaying matter floated upon its surface. Farther away, the newly built cafeteria sent out the fragrance of roasted lizard, mingled with spices Deren had smuggled from Theramore.

She suddenly pinched her own arm with a claw.

“Does it feel strange?” Deren’s voice came from behind her. He held two cups of liquor—dwarven mead for humans, and a draconic specialty mixed with powdered lava for dragons.

Onyxia accepted the cup of mead and drained it in one gulp, ignoring Deren’s stunned expression.

“It does,” she murmured to herself. “It is rather strange. Everything became lively all at once. Before this, those wretches had nothing to do every day. They did nothing but hunt and wander aimlessly. I spent quite some time living such a dull, pointless life myself.”

Her eyes remained fixed on the half-dragon patrolling below. The creature was actually wearing a leather apron designed by Deren, with an orderly assortment of tools hanging from its belt instead of the bloodstained weapons it had once carried.

“When I was infiltrating Stormwind,” she said, the firelight reflected in her dragon eyes, “I especially liked the bakeries in the Old Town at dusk.”

The muscles beneath her scales tensed unconsciously.

“The scent of freshly baked honey bread could drown out the stench of the entire sewer system.”

Deren suddenly took something from his pocket. Amid the soft rustle of unfolding wax paper, a delicate music box lay in his palm. When he lifted the lid, a gentle, soothing melody drifted into the air—the famous “Pride of the Lion.”

“I had Chromie order it from Stormwind some time ago,” Deren explained.

The tip of Onyxia’s tail suddenly curled around the box. Each note danced through the air, as if carrying her back to the towns and forests around Stormwind.

“Childish.”

Though the black dragon princess said it with disdain, she tucked the music box into the lining beneath her scales and allowed the melody to continue playing.

Then she pointed toward the undeveloped marshland to the west.

“Tomorrow, dig an artificial lake there.”

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Deren raised an eyebrow. “For the cooling system used to manufacture fertilizer?”

“For raising fish.” Her claw traced the rim of her cup. “Red ones… They will match the gold better.”

The night wind carried laughter and conversation from the worksite. The broken-horned black dragon was boasting about how many bolts he had tightened that day.

Onyxia gripped her empty cup and suddenly realized something: what now lingered at the tip of her nose was no longer the unchanging scent of sulfur and decay, but pine, mead, and a trace of something uniquely human…

She whipped around and found Deren grinning foolishly at the blueprints, completely unaware that a dragon was sniffing him.

Late that night, the new bed in the wooden cabin gave off the clean fragrance of pine resin. Deren lay with his hands behind his head, gazing through the skylight at the unusually clear night sky over Dustwallow Marsh.

The stars glittered like scattered diamonds upon a disk of black jade—something impossible to see in this territory when it had been perpetually shrouded in mist. He could not help smiling. The satisfaction of turning a wasteland into a thriving stronghold was certainly far more rewarding than manipulating pixelated characters in a game.

“Creak…”

The window frame suddenly gave a soft groan. The newly fashioned wooden slats still had gaps between them, and the slightest pressure made them sound.

Deren jolted upright and saw Onyxia half-crouched on the windowsill, moonlight outlining her sharp silhouette. In her human form, she looked somewhat disheveled, with a blade of grass caught in her long hair.

“Your Highness?” His sleep vanished at once. “Is your lair leaking? Or has someone angered you—”

“Be quiet.”

Onyxia vaulted down from the window, her black robes stirring a sulfur-scented gust. She stood before the bed, her pointed ears twitching suspiciously, while her dragon tail unconsciously scraped several scorched marks into the floor.

Deren’s gaze moved from her tightly clenched robe to her faintly glowing golden slit-pupiled eyes. The emotions within them were complicated enough to occupy the most learned blue dragon scholar for three centuries.

After considering the matter for a moment, he silently lifted one corner of the blanket and shifted farther inside.

The mattress gave a faint squeak.

Only when Onyxia stiffly lay down did Deren notice the strange cotton nightdress beneath her black robes. A crooked wheat-sheaf pattern had been embroidered around the collar. It was unmistakably a “tribute” from the whelps.

“I am merely inspecting the quality of the building materials,” she said through clenched teeth, staring at the ceiling.

Her tail, however, quietly pinned the edge of Deren’s clothing in place.

Deren looked at the gap between them—large enough for another Chromie to lie down in—and struggled so hard not to laugh that his ribs began to ache.

“Of course. This bed is made from the finest ironwood.”

Silence spread between them like the night mist over the marsh.

Onyxia’s body heat seeped through the sheets. It was far warmer than a human’s, yet unexpectedly comforting rather than unpleasant. When Deren had counted to the seventeenth star, he suddenly heard the faint rustle of cloth.

Something cool brushed the back of his hand.

The black dragon princess’s fingertips were slowly and cautiously tracing the scar there—the mark left by a sickle during the famine in Westfall. Her claws had withdrawn to their safest length, and her touch was as light as a falling scale.

“Remember to return before dawn,” Deren said suddenly, his voice several shades lower than usual. “We cannot let our relationship appear too intimate. That would make me your weakness. You should not show affection toward a pet.”

Onyxia’s tail smacked against his foot.

“Who said I had any affection for you?”

The shifting angle of the moonlight showed that only half an hour had passed, yet Deren soon heard the even rhythm of breathing beside him.

He turned his head slightly.

The black dragon princess, legendary for frightening adult red dragons into tears, was curled up like an ordinary human girl, one strand of long hair stuck to the corner of her mouth. Her hand unconsciously clutched the edge of Deren’s sleeve, as though it were some precious trophy.

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