The horse suddenly reared with a sharp whinny, throwing Artair to the ground. He was startled and a little more than surprised, since he hadn't fallen from Star's back in over three years and the last time had been in the midst of a wild battle with northern barbarians. He rolled quickly to the side, clearing his arms from the tangle of his cloak and looking around quickly to see if there was a large snake or some other creature nearby that had frightened his usually steady mount. The shadow and the strong wind passed over him almost at the same time and looking up sharply he caught just a fleeting glimpse of a massive blue-scaled creature.

Artair had seen a few dragons in his time, but rarely so close at hand. He looked around, but Star was understandably long gone. Artair hoped that Star was not the next course in the blue's dinner plans. He gathered himself and examined his situation. He was in a dangerous part of the realm - where the road climbed up over the edge of the plateau of Min. Everyone in the area knew about Min, one of the few True Dragons left in the world. But Min was very old and was rarely seen. Artair had once thought that he had spotted the great red-gold dragon at a distance, but he could never be sure. In any case, it was known that Min was a dragon with no particular grudge against men, and thus not as dangerous as some of his lesser kin. A blue, though, that was a different story; they were well known as hunters of men. Blue dragons were almost never seen here in the verdant fields of Tanader, and rarely even in the Seven Cities to the south. They usually stayed in the scorched deserts of the Sumran, far south of the Straits of Mourning. A blue here on the plateau of Min made Artair's situation even more dicey than usual. Not only was he alone without his horse in dragon country, but he could expect a dragon battle at any time, once Min discovered the intruder.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Artair heard a massive, even earth-shaking roar. He dove to the ground, reflexively, thinking the blue had circled back to hunt him. But there was no wind, and no shadow this time. No claws wrapped him in steel coiled death. He raised his head and realized that the roar, though louder than anything he had experienced before, was actually coming from nearly a mile away. He crawled to the top of the embankment and looked upon a truly amazing sight. There on the bluffs northwest of the road he saw a great golden-scaled wall coiled across broken rocks and cliffs. It was the flank of a creature whose size defied the capability of his mind to encompass. It was Min the great, a dragon descended from the Legendary dragons of the times before history. A creature of such great power that armies would quail before him... ...and flying straight at this gargantuan creature was the blue dragon.

When the blue had passed over Artair it had created a minor hurricane. The wind had been his first clue as to its nature. It's shadow had completely eclipsed the afternoon sun and left him in momentary night. Yet for all the size and wingspan of the blue-scaled dragon, if appeared as a sparrow beside the bulk of the enormous True Dragon. Artair had to swing his head from side to side to view the length of Min's snake-like torso. Min's broad head could have easily supported a small house, and his claws were like the sickle of the new-born moon hanging close above the tree-tops on a warm summer evening.

The great roar of Min had had no effect on the approaching blue. That fearless creature was now circling nearer to the red-gold titan that could have swallowed him in three quick bites. Suddenly Artair heard words. Thundering, rough-toned words that made little sense until he remembered the lessons that he had had drummed into him in the magical language; Draconic. His instructor had told him many times that human voices were incapable of forming draconic in any ways similar to the true tones of a dragon, but that the many races which used draconic for spellcasting had adapted it to their throats. Artair now realized how true that was, yet at the same time he understood that draconic as spoken by dragons was far more melodious and somehow seemed to break through barriers of understanding. His meager lessons were enough to allow him to follow the dragons' conversation far more truly than he could have understood the same words from a human throat.

Min's initial challenge was being countered by the blue with a claim that he was not here to fight for territory, nor to challenge Min in any normal way - it would have been sheer suicide and he was clearly quite aware of that fact. Min seemed wary, nonetheless, and the conversation proceeded with Min's clear mistrust of the blue as a given. Artair was not entirely sure of the blue's reason for coming, though. It seemed that he was describing some ancient events or artifacts that were of mutual interest to the two dragons. Artair could just make out some reference to blood of some powerful and arcane sort. He wasn't sure what this meant, but suddenly his ears pricked up as he heard the names of the Seven Cities, each mentioned as if it were a living creature. Dubior, Galator, Tanader, Maraket, Atalon, Keltor, Chordan - each mentioned in a familiar way and with an added epithet, 'glistening', 'emerald', 'windchaser' and more. He pondered this strange line of discussion and wished that he could make more sense of it.

Suddenly the two dragons were roaring at each other once again. Min had snapped upwards with a speed that seemed irrational in a being so large. His wings suddenly spread, and Artair rolled backwards in reflexive fear once more. His battle-sharpened senses were betraying him in this encounter, for as he thought about why he had jumped back he realized that he had mistaken the spreading wings for a massive rolling tidal wave or avalanche or some other geological event. The sheer size of the wings made it look like the entire cliff had leapt up and moved forward toward him. He gathered his wits and almost laughed at himself until he noticed the trees four hundred yards before him snapping over as if in a gale. He ducked back behind the embankment just in time as the winds raised by the True Dragon's wings scattered stones and underbrush all around him.

By the time Artair cleared his eyes and raised his head once more the two dragons were engaged in a rolling aerial dogfight. The gargantuan Min moving like strokes of lightning, but the smaller and more agile blue dragon managing to stay clear of the crushing grasp of Min's claws or teeth. Suddenly Min connected with the blue dragon's wing, sending it spinning almost out of control. Just as suddenly there was a flash of light and wisps of arcane energy were all that told where the blue had been. Min's resulting scream of outrage told the story - the blue had used some spell to transport safely away.

Artair went to ground then. He rolled quickly to the lowest point of the roadway behind his vantage point. He then scuttled to the far side and slid into the thin underbrush. He found a small ditch that led under sparse gorse and heather and followed it to a narrow rock outcrop where he could be hidden from the sky. None too soon. The enraged Min swept up into the sky and spewed a stream of liquid fire all along the road. He climbed quickly then snap-rolled and paralleled the line of the road, obviously examining it for any travellers who might have been nearby. Artair ducked his head and managed to convince himself it was better not to show his face than to try to follow the progress of the dragon.

Roaring flames heated his hiding place even from the distance he had managed to make. The afternoon sun was hidden in dense rolling clouds of smoke from the dragon's devastation. Many minutes passed, then an hour, and finally two. The flames were gone and the sun had reached the edge of the plateau and began dropping below it. Min suddenly blocked that setting sun as he roared up over the plateau's edge and flapped windily over to and beyond the bluffs where the confrontation had occurred. Artair waited another hour - until the sky was fully dark and the thin moon was rising before he chanced to move. Then he set his heels to the road and nearly ran until he reached the long curving way that led down from the blasted plateau and back to more hospitable lands. It was well into the next morning before he found Star, lathered and still a little skittish, but alive and unscarred. It was with great relief that he went on his way towards Dubior and the settled regions of the Seven Cities. What a tale he would have to tell. But maybe it was one better left unsaid?