They paused for some time after she had gotten in, Norris talking with the stablemaster adamantly until the rough man agreed and had two long-legged Dalmatians brought out of the kennels, money changing hands and a drag attached to the back of the carriage. The dogs would be as much a deterrent as the two footmen, though nothing would scare bandits away like the high gliding threat of an adult War Dragon.<br/><br/>Sampson wasn’t tagging along for this trip, however, so extra precautions had to be taken as they moved through the less hospitable terrain. The world was a hard place, and several wet summers meant the crop harvest had rotted in the fields, making a lot of desperate men.<br/><br/>When the dogs were persuaded to follow after the carriage, they went on their way.<br/><br/>The landscape changed slowly, from pleasure-land of landed lords with irregular woods to a great plain of farmland, a mighty patchwork quilt of golds and greens. They passed another carriage, the Dalmations snarling monstrously at the other dogs, and a parishioner’s trap drawn by a mule.<br/><br/>They had passed out of the moorland before they had stopped at the inn, but a couple of hours later, Audrey saw the reason for the added protection. The swiftest route to the Academe was through a dense, dark-looking forest. Gorgan’s Wood, a hundred square miles in total. Owned by the King for his sport, one of the only places left in England that the wild dragons inhabited. Unlike War Dragons, wild dragons were barely a foot long sans neck and tail. Untamable and vicious but shy, reclusive things.<br/><br/>The woods had one road cleft through it, and it was guarded on both ends, but not patrolled. There was a different breed of men who made a living there, sharp-witted and bold unlike their fellows out on the moors.<br/>