Free Dragon Ultimate by Christopher Rowley

into a great pit, eight feet deep, ten feet wide, and one hundred feet long. Five huge dragons wielded shovels in the pit, and five more worked above, shoveling the loose dirt into neat piles.
    More dragons, along with an army of men and dragonboys, worked nearby on clearing and laying a road through the woods. A logging trail had been broadened over its entire length all the way back to the Marneri road.
    This activity had begun the previous evening with the arrival of a group of Imperial Engineers. Soon they were joined by gangs of workmen, then by dragons and dragonboys. All night the first teams worked to clear and prepare the ground. Teams of dragons, usually five strong, dug, or hauled out trees and stumps.
    The 109th Marneri Dragons had been in the second wave, replacing a team made up of the resident champions, lead by Vastrox the Great. Normally such an occasion would have been the cause of much banter between the two groups of mighty wyverns. This time, however, little was said.
    The ground was strewn with rocks, and some were the size of boulders. This slowed things down, but wyverns are tremendously powerful animals and not even fair-sized boulders could resist when two or three of them were working with pry bar and pick.
    By the tenth hour the pit was finished.
    The engineers passed word to Cuzo that sufficient depth had been achieved. Cuzo gave a sharp blast on the cornet, and the dragons downed shovels. The wyverns in the pit called up to their colleagues for a hand in getting out. The Purple Green reached down to help Alsebra up.
    "Sometimes I wish you not freemartin," rumbled the giant one as he admired the athletic form of the green freemartin, who was certainly more supple than he was. She noticed the gleam in his eye.
    "I think you have fertilized enough eggs for one life."
    "Alas, this may be true. Certainly I get little opportunity in life as a Legion dragon."
    "We'll all get the chance for that, when we retire," said Vlok, who was extending an arm for Bazil Broketail.
    "Not you, surely not. This would be a mistake," said the Purple Green.
    "This dragon as good as any other," growled Vlok defensively.
    The Purple Green snorted. "Complete delusion."
    Bazil hauled himself up, his big feet digging into the sides of the pit. "You leave old Vlok alone now," said Bazil. "We don't need any trouble today."
    "Make life interesting."
    "Only for you, old friend, only for you."
    "Bah."
    Vlok was making angry snorts, but stood fast. The other dragons stacked their shovels and picks on the big wagons that would carry them back to Dashwood, breaking the tension. Dragonboys appeared among them, anxiously scanning their joboquins for damage.
    Cuzo came by, giving everything a cursory examination.
    "All right, everyone, listen close. We're moving out, going back down the logging road to the highway. Then back to the city. I don't want to see any straggling."
    At the pit they were already unloading the first carts, tipping them over to topple the corpses into the pit. The men doing this work were dressed in tightly wrapped clothing that had been treated with pyrethrum to discourage fleas.
    The cornet sounded up ahead. Cuzo gave the order and they began to march. Lost Buck Woods soon came to an end. Up ahead lay the broad road from Marneri that headed north to Rinz and then to Camp Dashwood. At the junction, they had to pull over to the side for a stream of wagons and carts laden with the dead. Mounds of bodies shifted and shuddered as the wagons turned the corner, their horses or oxen straining with the load. It was a sobering sight.
    The dragons waited patiently. They tried not to think too much about a big cauldron filled with noodles, lathered with akh.
    "Good thing dragons not affected by plague," said Vlok.
    "Very good," said Alsebra.
    "No one know if that true or not," said Gryf.
    "How?"
    "It not known, is all."
    "I never heard of dragons getting plague," said the Purple Green.
    "Nor this dragon," said