George, a noble English knight, returns from the First Crusade, where he befriended the Moor Tariq and took him to his ancestral Europe, rowing with rather worldly father Bernard aboard. George's father, Sir Robert, reminds him of his prediction that the son will finish his fight with the dragons. This story George never took serious, but still takes the 'dragon horn' along when he travels north on the Pict border to settle in the small Christian kingdom of Crail. Here the beloved King Edgar has only one worry, the disappearance of his heiress princess Luna. Promised a plot to farm on as reward, George joins the quest with loyal royal retainer Elmendorf 'Elf' and the princess's haughty fiancé Garth, whose only priority is winning the throne while his guard is nearly worthless. They find Bulchar's gang of robbers is after her for ransom. She isn't kidnapped but has taken upon herself to guard the egg of Adelaide, the last dragon, which she called Smythe, and is determined to protect the species from extinction. It's a long and perilous journey, while some friends prove foes and once the other way around, and opinions on the dragon's fate oppose even true friends.