“No! Danger! Fight! Attack! Survive!” Ymmen roared in my mind, so powerful that I staggered a little, putting one hand on the edge of the bed to steady myself. He was incensed, and his thoughts were full of fire and flame.
Whomever this was, it wasn’t Abioye.
“What do you want?” I shouted, already snatching up the green cloak in one hand as the door opened.
It was, of course, Dagan Mar – and he held in his hand that hateful little hatchet that I had seen at his belt for four years.
“Oh, it’s only me, Narissea,” he hissed.
“Abioye! Montfre!” I shouted. I didn’t think Dagan was coming to put a pair of manacles on me, and I was right.
There was a muffled thump and a gasp from outside in the hallway, and Dagan snickered as he raised his hatchet and stepped forward in a defensive crouch. “Oh, they’re not going to save you, girl. They’re occupied.” He barged into the middle of the room and I jumped backwards onto the bed.
“It turns out that there are some guards who don’t want to wander off into the sunset under that fool of a boy.” Dagan lashed out with the hatchet, forcing me to jump backwards again, putting the bed between us.
“And no one trusted the mage-boy anyway.” Dagan swayed from side to side as he edged around the bed towards me. At my back was nothing but the window – and then a few hundred feet drop.
Ymmen!? I thought, my eyes fixed on the glitter of cold malice in the man’s eyes.
“I’m coming! I’ll tear them limb from limb!” he roared in my mind.
“And Inyene won’t miss you, you know. She won’t even remember you after I tell her that you killed Abioye and we had to deal with you.” He lunged at me suddenly in a fast snake-like snap. He was fast. Deceptively fast.
I yelped and bounded over to the other side of the bed again, as Dagan bolted after me.
Dagan’s limp was clearly not as bad as he had pretended. He was going to reach me before I could ever have a chance to get to the corridor – and then what!? I threw myself backwards, kicking out at the low table as I did so, for it to scatter across the floor and into Dagan’s legs.
“Grargh!” He gave a short snarl of frustration as he stumbled. There were now more thumps and shouts coming from outside in the corridor. Did that mean more guards?
“Slave!” Dagan roared, filling the word with every ounce of hatred that he had.
I had to kill him, I realized, with the knife in my hand. I couldn’t run away.
“For my people.” I ducked forward and lashed out with the Lady Artifex’s dagger.
Clang! Somehow, Dagan had swung the hatchet up to bat the dagger away and then lunged forward, hooking the dulled edge of the hatchet over my wrist as he pushed my arm out – and then twisted.
What kind of move was that? “Agh!” My wrist bent back on itself and the pain was excruciating as I reflexively dropped the Lady Artifex’s dagger. It was either that or have my wrist snapped, I thought.
I had never even seen someone use a weapon like that before, and panic rose in me as he forced me back towards the wall. Despite our relatively similar sizes, he was still the stronger of us two, and I was off-balance with my arm pushed back.
I had never been properly trained in weapons. Although the Daza did know how to fight – we’d had our wars and our raids as any other peoples did – all of the weapons that we Souda used were primarily hunting weapons. Spears, bows, javelins, or thrown bolas. We trained with them in order to bring down big game and scare off the Plains predators, and only rarely practiced fighting hand to hand against other armed warriors.
And I guessed my four years underground – with no combat practice whatsoever – showed as well, as he easily slammed my shoulder with his other hand, driving me against the stone wall.
“Narissea!” someone shouted. It sounded like Abioye, but it could have been in my mind, as my head bounced off the wall. For a moment, everything went black.
I leapt back into consciousness with the vision of Dagan pushing me by the shoulder against the wall, his hatchet raised back over his head in an overhead blow. Time itself had slowed down and every detail of the man about to kill me was in sharp relief. I could see his small eyes, sunken into his face but nevertheless still glittering sharply. As he roared I could see that he had two missing teeth in his jaw. I could even smell the tang of his horrid sweat as it came off of him.
“Fight! Attack!” Ymmen snarled in my mind, but I didn’t have weapons with which to fight anymore.
“You have your claws!” he ordered me in a heartbeat, with all of the ferocity of a grown Bull dragon.
I did have my claws. I lashed out with my hand as if I were a wild cat, not caring as my cracked and dirty nails struck and dug into the side of his face.
“Gah! You little—!” Dagan shouted as he recoiled. But it wasn’t enough. He was still in striking range, and I was still forced up against the wall. He still had his hatchet held high, and all of the muscles of his arms under his tunic bunched as he swung the nasty little weapon down.
“Yagh!” I did the only other thing I could do, throwing Abioye’s green cloak at him, and managed to turn my wrist at the last moment, just like I was throwing a deer net. The cloak flapped and spun, wrapping itself over Dagan’s face and arm as he gurgled.
I lashed out with my foot and felt an immediate thump of pain as I had used the edge of my bare foot against his shins, and realized that I should have stamped with my heel instead. But Dagan fell back, still entangled in Abioye’s green cloak. Now was my chance!
I dove for the gap between us as Dagan tore at the cloak, ripping it from himself, his hatchet making a tearing noise as it cut through the heavy wool.
There was the Lady Artifex’s knife, lying on the floor just a little way ahead of me. Dagan was right there behind – but having no weapon would be even worse for me, so I stooped to snatch up the blade.
Pheeet! Just as Dagan’s hatchet whistled past my head.
I swore, pushing out with my feet to let my momentum carry me into a roll as Dagan hit the paving stones behind me. I was at the doorway, I could see the windows on the far side of the hallway, I was almost out.
“Come ’ere!” Dagan grabbed my hair that must have come loose and was billowing behind me. I screamed in agony as I was jerked backward – but, with a pain that was almost unbelievable, he tore a hank of hair straight from my head as I threw myself forward.
“NARISSEA!” Ymmen roared in my mind as I tried my best to scramble forward – aware of the pulse of something hot and wet at the side of my scalp.
“I got you now!” Dagan crowed as he lunged through the door.
Terror lent speed to my scrambling as I managed to half crawl, half run to the far side of the corridor, with Dagan slowing to a panting, loping stride behind me. Where were Montfre and Abioye? I wondered for a moment in panic.
Dagan was right behind me – but an Imanu’s daughter wasn’t going to be gutted on the floor like a boar! I turned over, holding the blade in both hands, my arms shaking with the energy of the fight. I could see the two other doors on this floor, Abioye’s and Montfre’s, were also open, and there were still the sounds of thumps and grunts from inside. From my low vantage point I could see a little way into Abioye’s reception room, and there were pieces of furniture and smashed terracotta vases all over the floor. For some reason, my eyes caught upon the upended and cracked model of Torvald and the sacred mountain of the dragons – and it was totally ruined.