Dwarves
A whole trading party of them.
They'd silently snuck up the outer walls of the castle and set up the
new rapid fire ballista's
that were still a rarity in these
parts.
There were six ballista's,each capable of firing a round every minute.
In two to three minutes they could pierce her thin scales
with a dozen or more five foot bolts,and poison tipped
ones at that,Gabriel could see.
They weren't here to chat about the weather but to kill a dragon.
The former knight recalled now with horror strolling through the marketplace where
dwarves such as these sold
dragon scales,powdered dragon horn,mummified dragons heads,the barbed spikes just like now graced
her tail,pickled dragon tongue
She was only worth 10 coppers on the pound
and even if she had about two thousand pounds of herself to keep alive
she was more useful to the dwarves chopped up and butchered and wrapped up in neat little packages.
Luckily for Gabriel the dwarves had been hoping to skewer her while she slept
and some inner dragon danger sense had awakened her before they'd got the
six ballista's armed.
So she frantically looked around and saw that the sturdy oak door to the cental tower lay open.
Everything else lay shut.
So she slithered along as swiftly as she could,trying not to alert the dwarves
still arming their weaponry
and nearly got her wings jammed in the doorway of the central tower.
Regardless of what Traumorn had said,she was a fairly big and formidable beast.
Once inside the tower she coiled around and closed the heavy oak door with her snout.
For now anyways she was safe.