The next afternoon, Xatu saw the Human castle again from far away. It still looked beautiful, but this time he knew the truth about it. The people living there were afraid and not beautiful at all. Xatu turned away from the castle and went west to where Irigal said the nearest Elven village was.

A little while later, they flew over the Elven town. Even from the air, it was obvious that the Human had told the truth. The whole village was black and dead-looking. All of the houses were burned down. When Xatu landed, he saw Dragon footprints in the dirt.

He wanted to cry. “How could they do this?” he asked. Then he noticed something strange. The footprints on the ground were much bigger than his own foot. “These Dragons were old,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.

Irigal heard him and asked, “How can you tell?”

“Dragons never stop growing,” Xatu explained. “So the biggest Dragons are usually the oldest ones. Some of these footprints are really, really big, even for a Dragon. Much bigger than Anki’s or my parents’ footprints are.” He stopped talking and thought for a minute. Why would the older Dragons burn down Elven towns? They had always taught Xatu that hurting people was wrong. Was this the war that the Elder Dragons had talked about? Xatu frowned and said, “Well, maybe a younger Dragon just grew big.” That made more sense than thinking that one of the oldest Dragons had burned down the town.

“Does it really matter?” Irigal asked. When Xatu looked at her, he saw that she was really mad. “Dragons burned town another Elven town – and lots of Dragons, from all the footprints. Why are they doing this?”