“What am I supposed to do?” I sighed deeply when the horrible feelings slowly started to subside. They left me feeling nauseous and weak after they had gone, as if I had just run across the entirety of the Plains and hadn’t stopped for neither a bite to eat, nor a drink of water. In the cold light of their aftermath, it felt obvious to me that nothing would get better with this thing attached to my head.
“The metal queen,” Ymmen advised, his voice a dangerous murmur as I knew he was thinking about Inyene.
Yes. The metal queen. I nodded; that had to be the answer didn’t it? Fine, Inyene. Stop Inyene once and for all…
Our warband set up a haphazard sort of a camp that night, under the Plains stars and by the side of a long, looping river where we could water the ponies. Naroba had not given any orders, and no one that I could hear had been able to articulate it – but almost as one entity we decided to keep on traveling a few more watches into the night before we camped, and in that way getting far as we reasonably could to the site of a dragon’s wrath.
The mood was somber and subdued once again, and I was surprised when Naroba herself chose to emerge from the darkness between tents to sit with me, Tamin at out fire. We were the smallest collection of tents at the very edge of our larger camp, partially owing to the fact that I wanted to be alone as much as possible – and also the fact that Ymmen could stretch out and rest on his haunches at our backs.
“The wizard told me,” Naroba said noncommittally as she crouched by the fire, first rubbing her hands for warmth and then turning to offer me some of the dried meats she had brought from one of the other fires.
“I think Montfre prefers the term mage,” I thought, with an echo of a very sad smile. ‘Wizard’ was a term that children used, wasn’t it? About fairytale sorcerers and wonder-workers.
Naroba shrugged as if she couldn’t see much difference between the two terms as she looked back into the fire. “Anyway. He got your dragon to talk to him, and he told me,” Naroba said. She was unapologetic about having found out what the red dragon had said behind my back. “Three days,” Naroba said seriously.
“Three days,” I agreed heavily. “That’s what the red gave me to clear out of the Plains.” I said, almost adding that I was sure that Naroba would make a far better Imanu than me anyway, but held my tongue, as that fact made me think about my missing mother – somewhere out there in the night, all alone, and with angry dragons and Inyene’s metal monsters and a thousand other such dangerous beasts out there too…
“Hmph.” Naroba made an agreeing sort of noise as she looked into the fire.
Please, Naroba, don’t rub my nose in it… I felt. I think that would be too much for me to handle right now, and all I wanted to do was to sleep and forget about today already.
“It’ll give you the opportunity to finally stick it to her, then,” Naroba nodded, turning to look at me. For a moment I wondered just who Naroba was talking about, given my previous train of thought – my mother?
Oh, no, I realized. Inyene.
“I’ll try,” I said wearily, although I didn’t feel very capable of hunting a baby deer right about now, let alone a sadistic, powerful, wealthy, and totally ruthless woman like Inyene D’Lia, with her army of mechanical dragons…
“And, if you’re anything like the difficult little Nari I remember – you won’t stop until you win, will you?” Naroba said, and I looked up to see her looking at me seriously, but not with accusation or disrespect. I sat there for a second, held in this taller woman’s regard. Naroba was older than me by a handful of years, and she carried authority well.
But more than that, right now I felt like she was as close as I had ever come to having a sister. Like me, she was stubborn and fiercely protective of her people. And like me, she wouldn’t let go of something if she thought she could do a better job of it than anyone else.
And it sounded an awful lot like Naroba, who had taken my mother’s staff, was trying to say that she believed in me.
“You’re right,” I said with a ghost of a smile on the edge of my mouth. “I’m still as difficult as I ever was, I think.”
“Good.” Naroba gave one final, solid nod. “Because it sounds like we’re going to need some difficult women around here for a while yet. I have made a decision, Narissea. And that is that I will be returning to our village, and to these villages around us who are suffering, and I am going to stay here, in the Plains. But, I have already asked the word to be spread that anyone who wishes to follow you to fight Inyene, that they will be going with my blessing – and that there is serious work to be done out there. Work that will help us all.”
Once again, tears threatened to fill my eyes at hearing this acceptance of me by this stubborn, difficult woman – but it seemed as though one of the other things that Naroba was, was that she was in no way sentimental. She wasn’t about to let me dissolve into self-pity or softness now.
“And you’ll be pleased to know that some of our scouts from the other villages have just come back,” Naroba said. These were the scouts that we had sent ahead to find and contact the damaged Daza villages, finding out what they needed before moving again to inform the Red Hounds and ex-Mine Guards following on behind them. Apparently, the scouts had then made their journey back to us, finally able to give their little ponies a break.
“Oh?” I asked, grateful that Naroba had more experienced Daza around her at least – but a little unsure what she was getting at.
“One of the scouts came with word from one of the distant villages,” Naroba said, sighing deeply before turning to look back at the fire. “There’s word that there’s a metal queen stirring up trouble in the Middle Kingdom,” Naroba said.
“Inyene’s attacking the Middle Kingdom?” I thought, surprised. I had thought she had been hell-bent on punishing us Daza for my ‘sin’ of stealing her precious Stone Crown?
Ah, but wait… I thought. Inyene now knows that I have the Stone Crown, doesn’t she? Or she must have at least guessed, perhaps? Maybe that it why she has decided to leave me out here, on the other side of the Masaka Mountains, while she completes the rest of her terrible plan: To overthrow the citadel of Torvald in the Middle Kingdom, and then to reunite the Three Kingdoms under one High Queen once again – herself.
“She’ll have her metal dragons with her, maybe many by now,” I said thoughtfully.
“Yes, she will,” Naroba nodded. “But she might be trying to fight against three armies – the Northern, Southern, and Middle Kingdoms, right? I can’t think of a better time to strike, Little Nari,” Naroba said – and although her suggestion was a terrible one, I felt my heart rise with a savage and fierce certainty.
I had been told to leave the Plains anyway, right? I was thinking as I stared at the burning, incandescent coals of the fire. I might as well do so for something that matters…
Chapter 6
Of Rivers, Bridges, and Choices
We began our march before first light, those of us who had decided to cross the Masaka Mountains and confront Inyene quietly packing our things and stepping from around the smoldering campfires and snoring tents. I hadn’t planned it to be this way, but I was glad that it avoided tearful goodbyes.