Dragon Mantle - Jumpstart: Historic Horizons

The Dragon Masters is a science fiction novella by American author Jack Vance. It was first published in Galaxy magazine, August 1962, and in 1963 in book form, as half of Ace Double F-185. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction in 1963. The story describes a human society living under pre-industrial conditions that has bred lizard-like intelligent aliens to function as warriors, and an encounter with a ship from the alien planet, containing both the same aliens, and humans bred by them for similar purposes.