SandWing stronghold

The SandWing stronghold, also known as the desert dragon palace to humans, the main SandWing stronghold, and Queen Thorn's Stronghold, is a large palace complex located within the Kingdom of Sand. It was used as a military base during the War of SandWing Succession by Burn after the death of Queen Oasis.

Description

The stronghold is a giant palace that loomed out of the sand like a dark mountain. It was bigger than all of Valor and has many winding hallways, long stairways, tapestries, ballrooms, and feasting halls. There is a small slit of a window near the treasure room that is too small for dragons to go through, which Rose used to get inside and steal treasure from Oasis. There was a small barracks room with a stone table that was assigned to Six-Claws' family. The palace also contained gardens that were surrounded by walls. It contained courtyards, balconies, and high palace towers. There were several sunlit great halls where Oasis hosted feasts and dances that contained torch holders. There were also mentioned to be baths and mirrors within the hall. Inside the stronghold, lizards, suns, and cacti were carved into the walls to give an unsettling feel of motion. The thick gates were flanked by two enormous statues of dragons roaring. There are billowing white curtains, mosaics with jeweled tiles, torches, and marble floors.

The palace has a history museum with a section for old gifts given during previous alliances with other tribes, including tapestries. The palace also has a library.

Burn's era

When Burn seized the palace, she added thick walls for extra defense and stationed SandWing soldiers as guards. There were also several dragon heads placed on spikes over the wall. The foul stench from the decapitated dragon heads mounted on the outer walls discouraged enemies from attacking; Burn liked the decaying smell, which could be scented for miles in all directions. The stronghold also contains a courtyard, great hall, and corridors decorated with statues from when it was the palace of the SandWings. A monument to Oasis was built where she died, and Burn had the walls of the stronghold extended to surround it. There are oases in the stronghold. Dragons slept beside overturned tables, with half-eaten antelopes and spilled flagons of agave nectar scattered around. There was a vast throne room in which Burn would sometimes look at a giant map.

Thorn's era

After Thorn became queen, she added a white tent next to the largest oasis to remind her of the Outclaws' old base, which is her favorite room in the palace. The sounds of wind and the trickle of water can be heard, and pale yellow and pink lilies, as well as crimson flower petals from the trees above, drift across the surface of the pool. The tent is lit by the warm glow of oil lamps, and it smells like cinnamon and cardamom tea. It is also occupied by shelves, a tasseled rug, and large red pillows.

The decapitated heads on the outer walls were removed by the dragons observing the organized meeting between the royal SandWing sisters, and the stone was scrubbed and scraped and painted until all traces of their blood was gone. Guards typically line the top of the wall, and lamplight glows in several of the windows. The monument towards Oasis still remains within the enormous white stone courtyard, surrounded by several gardens. The stronghold was built with lots of places to safely hole up during a sandstorm, with reinforced shutters and strong doors.

Thorn's bedroom is somewhere within the stronghold. It includes a chest in a hidden compartment containing the Obsidian Mirror. There are also kitchens and a throne room, which are led to by covered passageways. Atop the tallest palace towers, there are tiled, roofed pavilions.

Notable features

Dungeons

The SandWing stronghold contains a lot of dungeons, which are connected to the palace stadium. A section of them can be accessed through a poorly lit, narrow passage that twists and angles downward. The walls are rough and scraped, and lanterns flicker from niches along the tunnel, casting small, jumpy shadows. The air smells odd, like a trove of decayed lizards buried under a floorboard and forgotten about for years. Farther down the tunnel, there are a series of locked gates and several armed guards, posted in pairs. A set of stone stairs leads into an antechamber with four tunnels branching out from it. There is a low shelf near the stairs that contains a lantern. The darkest tunnel leads to Prickle's prison, although the entire dungeon is nearly empty of prisoners in Thorn's era. Through the tunnels, cells line the walls, making space for a clear tunnel in the middle; a stench came from the holes in the floor, and scorpions scrabbled everywhere. Prisoners eat dried camel for food every day, and there are small, high-up windows.

Great Hall

The Great Hall has many doors and windows, as well as a threshold that contains large curtains. The upper windows include shutters.

Kitchen

The kitchen had copper pots and pans hung from the ceiling, and jars lined the shelves all along one side of the room. There were pears, and something that looked like eyeballs. There are net bags around the room. Rose often messes with the food inside. An unnamed female SandWing is the owner of the kitchen.

Mausoleum

The mausoleum is a dome that rises above most of the other palace buildings. It is where the ashes of former SandWing queens are kept.

Oasis' memorial

Oasis' memorial is a tall, black obelisk surrounded by a circle of sand wider than a large dragon's wingspan, with an epitaph written by Burn on the surface. It is located in the center of the main courtyard of the stronghold. On the surface of the monument, the following words are painted and carved in gold:

HERE LIES
QUEEN OASIS
MOTHER OF QUEEN BURN
HER BONES NOW BELONG TO THE SANDS OF TIME

Observatory

The observatory is a domed tower, open to the sky. It contains a telescope.

Palace stadium

The palace stadium is where duels for the SandWing throne have always been held. It takes up a back corner of the palace grounds. It is used within Thorn's era for games and moon festivals, and it is designed as an oval amphitheater, built of sandstone, with no roof. The benches rise like steps from the ground upwards, and at the top, sturdy poles can be folded out to add more places for audience members to perch. The walls at the bottom are typically covered in paintings from former moon festivals. The stadium has no royal box or special platform for royalty; Thorn usually sits wing-to-wing with her subjects. In the center of the far wall ringing the oval, there is a deliberate indentation, where the Eye of Onyx fits perfectly. Torches are lit all around the stadium.

Treasury

The treasury is a roofed space. It contained four rooms that were formerly filled with gems and gold.

Weirdling tower

The weirdling tower was a tower that was part of the stronghold when Burn ruled over it during the War of SandWing Succession. It contained her collection of "weirdlings," such as stuffed scavengers, three-legged lizards, and dead hybrids. It was mentioned that Burn would be interested in Six-Claws' talons. The tower was also the former prison for Scarlet after she was attacked by Glory and lost her throne. After Thorn ascended the throne, it was destroyed.

Known items, dragons, and creatures of the weirdling tower

Pale stuffed scavengers Webbed SeaWing talons Several tongues with three forks instead of two A coil of tail with strange lichens growing on it Many oddly bent teeth and claws Seven-toed dragon talons Two-headed lizards A MudWing, hatched with no claws or teeth, whose egg was said to be animus-cursed A blood-red MudWing egg with a cracked shell An eerily sleek and snakelike white dragon, with stubs where wings should have grown and a horrifying look on its face. The seller claimed this dragon was an IceWing-SandWing hybrid. A fish tank with "snails that ooze purple ichor, seahorses with fangs, fish with extra flippers, and a weird octopus with twenty arms" (This tank was kept after the tower was destroyed) A stuffed NightWing (destroyed) A tank with strange insects: "bulging caterpillars," "nine-legged spiders," "a bright blue dragonfly with bristles on its back," etc. (destroyed) Half of a purple and gray speckled SilkWing wing Skin of a dragonbite viper Exhibits of misshappened claws, tails, and melted scales Sky (escaped) Sunny (escaped) Scarlet (escaped)

Whispering Tower

The Whispering Tower is a tall, thin structure that had been used by SandWing queens for hundreds of years to make speeches to the tribe. It is designed for perfect acoustics, so even dragons outside of the palace are able to hear its speaker.

Wingery

Most dragonets in the palace played in the shelter of its walls until they were two years old, under the watchful eye of a pair of ancient SandWings who taught Oasis to fly. The wingery was open to anyone who lived in the palace, so the dragonets of servants and nobles all grew up together. The courtyard for the dragonets featured a sunken pool in the middle, where they could splash and cool off in the midday heat. This was overlooked by a shaded pavilion with long white curtains on the three open sides. The rest of the courtyard was set up to help the dragonets learn to fly: ledges at different heights, soft piles of sand to land in, claw holds, and perches everywhere. In one corner, there is a first aid station stocked with lots of brightsting cactus, which is the only antidote to the venom in a SandWing's tail. The venom does not come in until a dragonet was closer to three years old, but at this age, they had a tendency to crash into everything or leap onto their parents without looking first, so there was a lot of bandaging and antidote-administering required. The young dragons also spend a lot of time practicing how to be aware of their tails and everyone else's, so they could eventually be safely released into the rest of the palace. The indoor passageways of the Wingery are described to be cooler in temperature than that of the Kingdom of Sand's.

History

The Dragonet Prophecy

The Hidden Kingdom

Glory scented the decaying smell coming off from the faraway SandWing stronghold when she came to the end of the NightWing tunnels.

The Brightest Night

Sunny was imprisoned in the stronghold as Burn's gift from Addax. She was guarded by Smolder, Burn's brother, until the contending princess returned. Sunny was eventually able to escape from the stronghold with help from her mother and the Outclaws. The climax of the book took place at the stronghold, where the dragonets of destiny crowned Thorn as the new SandWing queen.

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The Jade Mountain Prophecy

Darkness of Dragons

Qibli, Winter, Ostrich and Cobra arrived at the stronghold to warn the queen of the Talons of Power's plan to overthrow her. When they arrived, Qibli noticed the decapitated heads had been removed from the walls and the weirdling tower had been destroyed. Qibli found Thorn in a meeting with Smolder and Typhoon, a hybrid dragon from Possibility. Vulture was later seen in the SandWing stronghold when he blows up one of the treasury walls and holds up the 'Eye of Onyx.' He then flew over to the mausoleum and made an announcement about being king until Onyx snuck up on Thorn and tried to kill her. She challenged Thorn for the throne, to which the event took place at the stronghold's stadium. Qibli used Anemone's weather bracelets to sabotage the challenge and to create a sandstorm. The dragons fled inside, and the stronghold had taken considerable damage from this event. Six-Claws and Thorn then set up a group of volunteers to clear away the sand.

In the epilogue, Qibli and a few other SandWings were seen rebuilding the walls that Vulture had damaged. Later, when Thorn told Qibli that someone was waiting for him in the observatory, he and Moon reunited there, and become a couple.

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Legends

Dragonslayer

With the help of Deathbringer, Wren arrived at the stronghold in order to rescue Sky, who was gifted to Burn by Sandstorm. She met Rose, who lived alongside the dragons there. Using resources from the stronghold, Wren poisoned and killed Sandstorm with mouse poison and managed to rescue her dragon friend.

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Winglets

Deserter

Six-Claws grew up in the SandWing palace, and the stronghold was the primary setting of Deserter.

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Field Guides

A Guide to the Dragon World

In the RainWing chapter of the guide, Python mentioned that she resided in the stronghold as a RainWing spy in order to learn about SandWing weaknesses.

In the SandWing chapter, the stronghold was mentioned by Sunny in her letter to Starflight about Burn's weirdling tower. It also served as the setting of Smolder's Strange Time for a New Pet.

Trivia

• The stronghold was based on Tui's impressions of Amber Fort in Jaipur, India.
• The walls that Burn erected would not stop any dragon from flying over them, and that they were instead meant to keep out scavengers like the ones that killed her mother.
• Burn's weirdling tower was based on a Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium in Hollywood.
• Even in Darkstalker's time, the palace was considered a stronghold without the walls.

Gallery

• 
  The SandWing stronghold on the cover of Dragonslayer, by Joy Ang
• 
  Thorn, Smolder, and Flower in one of the SandWing stronghold tents from A Guide to the Dragon World, by Joy Ang
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  The SandWing stronghold from the map of Pyrrhia, by Mike Schley
• The SandWing stronghold from the second arc's map of Pyrrhia, by Mike Schley
  The SandWing stronghold from the second arc's map of Pyrrhia, by Mike Schley
• 
  The SandWing stronghold from the map of Pyrrhia in Darkstalker, by Mike Schley
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  The SandWing stronghold from the map of Pyrrhia in Dragonslayer, by Mike Schley
• 
  The SandWing stronghold on the Kingdom of Sand map from A Guide to the Dragon World, by Mike Schley

• Art by Mike Holmes, from the Wings of Fire Graphic Novels
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References

fr:Bastion d'Épine pl:Forteca Pożogi ru:Крепость Тёрн