I’m not dead yet, I realized, as I raised my head. My heart was pounding in my ears and now the side of my face was also wet with blood where Dagan had taken his gory trophy from me.
Ymmen? I thought, as my hands shook on the blade held before me.
“I’m coming, brave one!”
But Dagan was already towering over me, as it seemed that he had paused to take a breath. A wide smile lit his features and made them ghastly. “Here.” He threw down the hank of hair he had torn from me to my feet. “I think this is yours? How fitting for one of your kind.” He sneered, taking a deep breath as he casually tossed his hatchet from hand to hand. “Isn’t this what you savages do out there in the Empty Deserts? Take trophies of your kills?”
No, it wasn’t. If my fury had been stalled before by the pain, suddenly it evaporated in the incandescent, white-hot heat of a dragon friend. We Daza took horns, pelts and furs yes – and sometimes even talons or claws if we had to deal with a ferocious big cat or similar. But none of them – ever – was a ‘trophy’ in the way that I knew Dagan Mar meant.
They weren’t ‘prizes,’ I thought as anger made my limbs shake and my teeth crunch together. Every piece of our kill that we kept was useful to us. If it was a prey animal then we ate it, or turned its marrow into tallow or boiled down its bones to put on the crops. If it was a predator animal that we had been forced to kill – always in self-defense – then sometimes we took a memento to serve as a part of the story of the animal and the fight. It was never for personal glory. It was to further the story of the tribe.
The Song. I realized in that moment what Ymmen must have been talking about, all along. Stories. It was all about stories. It was all about the generations that came before us, and all of those hundreds of thousands of tiny acts of bravery and compassion and honesty.
And my song was as a dragon friend to Ymmen the Great. The words enlivened me, as I heard myself start to growl up at the ridiculous little man. And my song was as the daughter of the Imanu of the Souda. I rose from my crouch, keeping my eyes straight on Dagan Mar as he, too, readied himself to pounce.
And my song was as the woman who got away from the mines of Masaka. And brought them to their end.
“It’s not the Empty Deserts, you fool,” I hissed at the man who had been my tormentor for four years. “It’s called the Plains!” I swung for him.
Dagan grunted as he skipped back, before darting forward once more just as quickly, flicking his hatchet to swipe at me.
I growled, ducking under the blow. I wasn’t little Nari anymore, the girl who had run across the Plains. And neither was I Narissea the slave girl either. I felt like I was a hunting wolf, or a falcon, or – a dragon!
“SKREAAYARGH!” Suddenly, all light from the distant camp and the stars behind us were blacked out in the same instant as there was a deafening roar – and the crash of glass. Instinctively I ducked as glass exploded outwards from all around me, and for the first time, Inyene finally had a real live dragon at her keep.
“Kill! Burn! Destroy!” Ymmen’s roar of outrage surged through me, turning the insides of my mind into an inferno. And yet I wasn’t afraid, and I wasn’t thrown by his current of fury as I had been before. Now, it was as if his emotions perfectly matched mine, and we jelled.
We became one.
Ymmen’s front claws clamped onto the stones of the broken windowsills, scratching their hard surface as he gripped onto the side of Inyene’s keep. The gallery windows were just large enough to allow his head and neck to come through, just over my shoulder. The dragon’s anger empowered me and protected me. It didn’t feel like we were different creatures at all – but rather we were extensions of the same thing. Two parts of a greater, furious, fiery whole.
I raised myself up as the last of the glass and window fragments scattered ahead of me like a wave.
There was a look of pure terror on Dagan’s face as he leapt backwards from the blast of the shattered window. Once again, everything appeared to fall into slow motion, and every detail was picked out exquisitely in that teetering moment. I saw Dagan’s alarm turning into outrage, his body flexing as he moved, and the flickering flames of the wall torches as they guttered back into life. I could even see the sparkling glints of the torch light on the most miniscule fragments of glass at our feet – it was as if the dragon had overlaid his senses onto mine. Even the distant sounds of crashes and grunts from Abioye and Montfre’s fighting appeared to have slowed.
And there was the gleam of bright light on the edge of the Lady Artifex’s dagger in my hand as I moved forward.
With a sudden thudding of my heart, everything flew backwards into furious, fast-paced time. Dagan swung his arm holding the hatchet in an overhead throw and it spiraled through the air – not towards me, but straight at the dragon above me!
“No!” I ducked my head as the handle sailed past, inches from my bleeding temple. “Ymmen!” I shouted in alarm, to see the weapon hit his nose as he turned his head. There was a crunch as the hatchet was thrown with enough force to crack a scale.
Attack! Kill! I didn’t know whether those feelings came from me or Ymmen, but they surged through my heart. No one does that to my friend! I threw myself forward, striking out with the dagger.
But Dagan was too quick; he was already dodging to one side, spinning on one foot (where had that limp gone now?) as he lashed out at me with his off hand.
It was a backhanded cuff around my head. The chief overseer was powerful enough and experienced enough that it made my head bounce backwards, but I was still on my feet as I swung for him again.
Dagan snarled as he grabbed my wrist in midair with one hand, while grabbing another handful of my hair with the other. He seemed too good at this brutal, nasty way of fighting.
Just as he was too strong for me! He was pushing my blade back down, using his wiry force to make the Lady Artifex’s dagger point back towards my own chest!
“Narissea!” There was a roar and a heavy thump and a torturous screeching noise as Ymmen tried desperately to force more of his claw into the gallery, to scrabble and scratch at the man attacking his bond partner – me. But the space was tight, and I was in the way, and Dagan was already yanking on my hair.
I let my feet slide out from under me – partly because there was nowhere else to go, and partly to avoid Dagan pushing my own blade into my heart. At the same time, I reached to grab Dagan’s tunic with my off hand, dragging him down with me.
We hit the floor together in a heavy tangle, and for a horrible, terrifying moment, all I could smell was Dagan’s acrid sweat and see his pale and blotchy skin, sprouting uneven stubble. His body was bony and repulsive as I bucked, kicking out with my legs and pushing him away, away, away!
And then it happened. I caught a glimpse of my own hand around the Lady Artifex’s dagger as if it belonged to someone else – as my wrist twisted and I sank the blade into his black heart.