“Not at Lord Abioye, you idiot!” one of the women of the guard – clearly some sort of captain – shouted from behind the terrified crossbow-wielding guards.
Montfre barked a totally unimpressive and clearly fake victory laugh as he turned towards Ymmen.
Take him, I begged, but the ancient black dragon – who was far older and wiser than any of us in the room – had already understood Montfre’s plan, already thought of what I had suggested. The dragon reached forward with a snap of his jaw, seizing the young mage by the back of the tunic, before throwing himself backwards from the wall.
It all happened in an instant, like watching a big cat on the Plains strike. And then there was another thunderous snap of his wings, and the dragon was gone – his dark shadow turning into a blur of claws and scales, with the dangling Montfre somewhere in its middle.
“My heart!” I threw the thought back at the disappearing dragon, knowing that he would be able to hear me.
“Mine,” Ymmen said in my mind, and coming with it was a surging tide of savage affection, joy, victory – all mixed up with frustration at having to leave me behind.
“My lord!” The guard captain was hurrying towards us, her eyes flaring as soon as she saw me. “Unhand him! Get back, slave!”
“If I let go of him, he’ll fall over,” I said evenly. I was really far too exhausted and in too much pain to care anymore. And I had killed a man today, I thought, and my eyes inevitably found the stilled form of Dagan Mar on the floor, still with that cruel little sneer on his face.
I guess it’s stuck there, now, I thought with a shiver of revulsion.
“It’s okay, Captain Ennis,” Abioye gasped beside me. “I’m fine – my… aide here was helping to defend me against Montfre.” He struggled for words, and I wondered if that was due to his ordeal or having to denounce the only boy who had been his friend. “The mage went berserk,” he said. “He was shouting something about Inyene, and the years that he had been mistreated, and how he was going to get the Stone Crown all for himself. He killed his own guards, and then when Dagan came to stop him…” Abioye shook his head sadly.
“Don’t worry, my lord – we’ll catch him. That one was always a monster!” Captain Ennis said with obvious distaste. But she shared a wide-eyed look with the other guards as they were all hanging around, looking faintly out of place as they surveyed the destruction. It was the sort of look which said, ‘I don’t know how anyone is going to stop a dragon and a mage!’
Ha! I thought – moments before I had my answer to just exactly how a mage and dragon might be dispatched.
That feeling of cold-without-cold and nausea flooded over me like a wave again, just before I heard the deep whirring and clacking sounds of the mechanical dragons spring into the air from what must have been the keep’s roof.
“Ymmen! They are following you!” I counted the sounds of metal thunder as each dragon soared after my bond partner. Fifteen, I told him. Anxiety clutched at my heart. Fifteen against one? Even if they were smaller and slower – each one presumably had that crescendo of fire that the very first one had.
“Have no fear, fierce Nari.” Ymmen’s voice in my mind sounded, if anything, enthused by the prospect – and not worried in the slightest. He sounded joyous as he hissed his soot-laden words into my heart, “Nothing under the stars can fly faster than a dragon.”
Just be safe! I thought desperately, aware that the guard Captain Ennis was talking, but I was unable to concentrate on her. With any luck, she’d just assume that I was being a slave and not really care if I didn’t talk.
“Safe! HA! Dragons are never safe in this world, little Nari,” Ymmen said with a flick of thunder and flame in my mind and was gone.
“I’m telling you, I don’t need a healer!” I blinked my eyes to refocus on what was going on around me. It appeared that Captain Ennis was trying to convince Abioye to be treated. I can’t leave Abioye alone with these people! My heart thumped with panic. The thought of leaving Abioye’s side, while there were clearly guards around here who wanted him dead, well, it wasn’t going to happen. My hands clutched a little tighter at the young man.
“I can treat him,” I found myself saying.
“You?” Captain Ennis was looking at me with a scowl of distrust, before offhandedly barking at the others, “Get these men moved! Clean this place up!” before turning back to regard me with some very high amounts of suspicion.
“We people of the Plains have many old and remarkable remedies that the people of the Midmost Lands do not.” I put on a slightly thicker version of my accent just for the captain’s approval. From each of my earlier dealings with the Midmost Land guards and overseers, I’d learned they all seemed to have little disregard for the Daza – but I had also discovered that their complete lack of knowledge was accompanied by a sort of fear that we could do ‘strange and unnatural’ things.
“Oh.” Captain Ennis looked at me warily a moment, and then at all the blood and mess that was around them. “Well, see to it, then!” she snapped, before turning to one of her men, “Astrid, find the Lord Abioye a room in the Western Halls. See to it that the Lady Inyene is informed of her brother’s condition, and the”—I saw Captain Ennis look to the shattered windows from which Ymmen and Montfre had fled—“situation with the mage and the dragon,” she ended a little uselessly.
“Yes, sir!” Astrid the guard nodded, flicked a desultory look at me, before nodding that we were to follow her.
As we marched away, my eyes found Dagan’s body on the floor once again. No one had dared touch him. It was only then that I felt a weary sort of victory. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone ever again.
Chapter 24
To The East
“Ymmen?” I whispered into the misty grays of the pre-dawn air.
I stood at the window of a new room, this time in another part of the keep called the Western Halls, and with Abioye’s new suite of apartments next to my quarters just as before. This room seemed narrower and draftier than the other had been – not that I truly cared.
But what I did notice were the few small attempts that had been made to make this place a little more comfortable. There were fresh linens piled up – even vases of flowers. In just one day since the dreadful battle with Dagan Mar, the news that I, a lowly Daza girl, had saved the Lord Abioye’s life had spread about the keep. I wondered if the small gestures of friendship that I received – as a woman carried yet another platter of food to my room and gave me a small smile – came from Inyene, or from the servants themselves.
This woman was like all of the keep servants, a Three Kingdom Westerner. Not the dark-haired Daza like myself. It felt wrong to be waited on by her, and I hurried to take the platter of food from her so she wouldn’t think me lazy!
“Thank you,” I murmured, catching the woman’s eye. “I don’t mean… I didn’t ask…” I tried to express the depth of shame I felt by this.
“No, thank you.” The woman had cherry-red hair, and although she had the same bags under her eyes and slightly harried look of all of those under Inyene’s command her smile was genuine. “For saving Lord Abioye’s life. He’s the only one who tries to make our life bearable around here,” she confided in me.