“I am prepared to show you that you have no such authority,” Iliphar replied as quietly.

“Then this discussion has ended before it has begun,” said Thauglor silkily, spreading his wings and flexing his lower haunches, preparing to leap into the air. “This was not,” he added warningly, “worth rousing me from my slumber.” The other, lesser dragons spread their wings and lowered their necks, ready to leap into the sky.

Iliphar raised a hand. “Hold a moment. This is our last chance to speak.”

The dragon drew in his wings again, brow quizzical. “Speak then, little intruder,” he said, cocking his massive head to fix Iliphar with one cold eye.

“There are more of my people coming. Already elf and dragon have been fighting in this beautiful woods, my kin to defend themselves, yours to destroy what we have built. Neither race is as numerous as humans or goblins, any loss is felt.”

“Your people are the invaders,” Thauglor corrected coldly. “My families, and those of other dragons, seek to defend our hunting grounds. We must live and hunt as we have always lived, free and unfettered.”

“There is still a chance for us to live in this place together,” the Lord of the Scepters told the ancient wyrm. “You have merely to respect those areas that elves have claimed.”

“And what,” snarled the dragon, “avoid them? Restrict ourselves in where we hunt? Little humanoid, know you that this land has belonged to dragons before the hatching of my eldest known ancestor, and I have hunted here for a time that is long even to the proudest elf. For almost all of those passing years, I have defended these great forests against the depredations of other wyrmkin, and through hard battle have come to dominate them-the redscales, the mighty blues, and the greenwings such that now, and for a thousand years before now, my word is and has been law from the eastern peaks to the western and from the northern range to the narrow sea. And if, as you oh so subtly threaten, there are more of your kind coming, will the lot of you not soon force us from our hunting grounds entirely?”