The captured dragons were delivered to a nondescript village, whose only virtue was its position—it was close to a river over which the dragons’ cages were carried.
As the black dragon that carried me and my bodyguards approached the village, I saw five dozen houses, a river in the distance and several boats docked near a pier. One of them belonged to the squad of Agent Convincing, which had (by the last account) 4 Agent Bees and 6 humans.
The humans were Naregan soldiers from the guard of the ambassador sent to Barahi Kingdom. Their best quality was the complete, religious loyalty to their Prophet-King Farini and their bee overlords.
Their second-best quality was competence.
My dragon made a circle around the village, scoping the area for aerial predators and for a good place to land. And for free food, because these beasts were alway hungry.
Its dragon rider huffed and rubbed the beast’s scaly neck. I could hear echoes of their mental conversation—the dragon rider was promising the dragon food when they landed.
"The soldiers under Convincing’s command will have plenty of food. There will be enough for all of us!" I shouted against the headwind to all of the twelve bees on the dragon’s back. "Now let’s land somewhere closer to our people, I don’t want to spend ten minutes flying toward them."
"Yes, Father!" the dragon rider nodded. With a little more prompting, our dragon swooped down.
Only these gigantic beasts could fly so fast! I had to hold on to the strappings on it for dear life, or I’d fall off. Even if I won’t die from it, I would have to do the flight of shame to our destination.
Agent Convincing’s squad was waiting for us near their boat. From what I knew, they’ve only arrived at the location this morning—my arrival was well-timed.
The human soldiers were standing or sitting in a semi-circle around five steel cages placed on the ground. Each cage was as tall as a human’s knee—an entire manufactory could fit inside one. The bars were so thick that a dozen bees would be necessary to encircle one with their hands.
And still, the cages looked like they were barely strong enough for the beasts inside them.
As my dragon landed on the ground only a couple hundred meters away from the cages, I could see each of the other beasts in detail.
These technical names didn’t *at all* reflect what these creatures were!
They were scaly, toothy, massive—each at least forty meters tall!—dragons with the eyes the size of my and Amby’s bed and mouths large enough to swallow bees whole!
They had wide chests and long, whip-like tails dragons used to maneuver in the air. Their wings were visibly battered in some places—the beasts must’ve beaten their cages with them—but I didn’t doubt that these beasts could fly with them.
And fly quickly—each of them had the ’Flight II’ gene among many others. With a brief glance I saw genes like ’Anticoagulant Venom X (MAX)’, ’Venom Resistance V (MAX)’, ’Sharp Teeth V’, ’Precision Targeting’...
Then at my—or, more likely, my dragon’s—approach the beasts in cages began roaring and growing in agitation. They jumped and beat their wings and tails on the walls of their cages.
The steel groaned and bent in places from the force of their strikes and the cages shook, but held.
Despite that and the cursing of its dragon rider, my dragon cried out in alarm and hopped another hundred meters away from the cages, forcing me to stop reading the statuses of creatures inside and focus on holding onto the dragon’s harness.
The human guards jumped to attention and their hands went to their weapons. They were focused on the cages, not on me or my group.
It took a second for one of them to notice me and gasp.
’This must be Him! This shining armor—he must be The Holiest Emperor!’ the man thought.
I let go of the dragon’s harness, flexed my tired hands a little, then flew up. My bodyguards followed immediately, scoping the area for dangers and pointing out to each other distant insects who might be a threat to me.
Now all the humans noticed me, and so did their Agents. Even if the humans could not know how I looked or not see me from afar, my Agents could recognize me from scent alone.
From them, this knowledge went to the humans’ heads... Then, all these soldiers kneeled as one in awe.
’This is Him! Praise be!’
’Praise be, the Holiest Emperor!’
’We are blessed today!’
’Father!’ Agent Convincing’s message broke past these loud thoughts and reached me. The bee herself was already flying toward me. ’I’m so glad to see you. The beasts are delivered as you’ve ordered! They only took the life of a single soldier while they were capturing them—he got bitten and spent the next two days bleeding out.’
’I see... This is just like the other reports said,’ I messaged back.
"Yes, exactly. Do you have other orders for us? Should we bring the cages somewhere?" the Agent Convincing asked aloud, stopping to hover near me.
At this point I could fly back already. Although I only had a glance at the creatures’ stats, I’ve remembered them all.
They not only were much more ferocious than a regular dragon (bird) was supposed to be, they all had same traits: anticoagulant bite that could bleed a human out with a single scratch (according to stories), venom immunity, a lot of tiers of fertility and faster development...
They also had 50 intelligence thanks to the ’Enhanced Intelligence V’—almost as much as crows!—and various instincts for working in groups. This was a well-funded (in gene points) uprising of the poultry.
"Since we’ve made it all this way here, my dragon needs some rest and food it was promised," I gestured at it. "Agent Convincing, please get something for it. In the meantime, I will hear what you and your team can say about these beasts after traveling with them for all this time."