“We’ll be seen for miles…” I pointed out, wincing as I looked at the Masaka, and then north of us where I knew that the only secure pass was through the range. I had once flown down in it, in the dead of night, being held by Ymmen – and I remembered it as a wide canyon, with the lights of distant guard towers dotting the cliffs.
If Inyene has taken those towers, then we’ll be doomed, I thought, trying to work out what the best course of action was. And was there any chance that Inyene wouldn’t have seized those towers, on her way to her goaclass="underline" the mountain citadel of Torvald?
But she had an army of mechanical dragons, didn’t she? I considered. She could just fly over the mountains, which would be a whole lot faster, wouldn’t it?
“Little Sister! We have company—” Ymmen’s voice suddenly broke into my mind, and with it he sent the sense-impression of the Lady Red; the bright and hot, scornful heat of her soul.
“’Ware dragons!” I heard the cry go up a moment later from the Daza who stood as guards scattered on the edges of the camp, but I was already getting to my feet and running towards the nighttime shape of Ymmen, crouching and wary.
There, in the distant eastern night was the flash of dragon fire and scales. There was a cohort of dragons winging its way towards us, flying fast and low to the ground. Every now and again I would spot little puffs of orange-red dragon flame as they growled and snarled their anger.
“Wait – it’s only been…” I thought of Lady Red’s demand. Three Days, and this is our second night… But then again, the Lady Red’s insistence at my departure hadn’t stopped her or the others from destroying the Greenbow bridge, had it?
“Maybe she wants a fight,” I growled to myself, feeling the buzzing sensation rise in my ears as I stepped forward.
Beside me, Ymmen was similarly quivering with anger as his muscles bunched, preparing to leap into the air to defend us. I could see Montfre emerging from his tent and hurriedly grabbing his staff to rush towards us, already murmuring arcane words.
“Dragons! Dragons!” The call went up, and the mostly Red Hounds camp went into uproar as men and women shouted and demanded their weapons and armor.
They’ll destroy us, I thought, knowing with a certainty that if the Lady Red decided to attack with her companions – then we probably wouldn’t be able to win. I have to use the Stone Crown, was the next, rational assumption. Really – what other choice did I have?
“No!” Ymmen turned to cough hot air over me, as internally I felt the sudden blaze of his dragon-presence, forcibly shoving away at the sensations that were rising in me. “No Crown,” he barked at me gruffly, before turning to leap into the air with a challenging roar.
It was hard to see with my eyes what was going on up there in the skies, but I could feel the suggestion of it through my connection with the Stone Crown. There was Ymmen, as large as a bonfire flying upwards, snarling and champing his great jaws as he flew forward… And then, out there was also the larger group of Lady Red’s cohort. In my mind’s eye they looked like a field of fire, with the individual glowing hearts of each dragon the brightest points.
Way too many! I thought in alarm, as my ears started to ring with the angry, buzzing feeling from the Stone Crown. It would be easy to reach out to Lady Red’s dragons right now. The Crown was also giving me this awareness of them, I was already connected – I could force my will onto theirs, and command them to stop, to land, maybe even to fall out of the sky—
What? No! I took a deep, shuddering breath and forced that thought down. I was appalled and ashamed at the glee that I had felt at the idea that I could send these creatures hurtling out of the sky with just a flicker of thought. Why would I ever want to do that? I castigated myself – even as I knew the answer already:
What was going to happen to Ymmen if I didn’t?
The distant knot of wild dragons flared and flew faster, now screeching their furious challenge so that the wind was filled with their reptilian voices. I heard several low moans of dismay from some of the Red Hounds behind me as they fought to control their own need to turn about and flee—
I have to do something! I thought once again. What sort of leader would stand idly by as her colleagues and friends were torn apart?
“Skrarygh!” But then, with a piercing screech from the leading dragon – the now visible Lady Red herself – the entire phalanx of dragons suddenly swept upwards and apart into the night skies, wheeling around each other before shooting back the way they had come.
“Yargh!” I heard shouts of approval from the Daza and Red Hounds, and the cheers for our dragon, Ymmen. I could feel the Bull Dragon’s pride at this praise – but also his cynical awareness that it hadn’t just been his bulk which had seen the wild dragons fly away.
“She’s testing us,” Ymmen growled in annoyance, circling above the camp as a giant, black shape of cut-out night against the stars. I was relieved that we had avoided any confrontation – but I could only agree. The Lady Red was trying to show us that we still weren’t welcome, and that I never would be if I stayed out here on the Plains.
“So that’s it then,” I grumbled, as my anger started to dissipate and taking it with it the terrible need to use the Stone Crown.
“That’s it?” asked my god-Uncle Tamin, standing at my side along with Abioye and Montfre.
“We haven’t got another day to waste, with the wild dragons on our tail,” I explained. “We take the Pass, come what may.”
I wondered if I would ever be forced to rue those words…
It was to a different mood in the camp that I awoke, and that we broke our fast and started to march northwards, following the flat dirt roads towards the pass through the Masaka Mountains. Not quite hope, and not quite fear either.
“Trepidation,” Montfre opined from his place on his pony in our little group, forward of the main body of the fighters.
“You’re probably right,” I nodded, gritting my teeth a little against the ebb and flow of the Stone Crown’s headaches. Ahead of us the road was an easy one to ride or tread, but I was aware of the old stone guard houses that sat at the Pass’s entrance – should we make any attempt to signal them?
“Scouts,” Abioye suggested, nodding to Tiana astride her steed and a couple of the others. Instantly, I could see that he was right as I passed the suggestion on to her, and for the three Daza scouts to canter ahead of us, in a rising spray of dust-smoke kicked up by their steed’s hooves.
It didn’t take long, however, for them to come to a decision about what they had seen. After we hadn’t even marched for a watch of the day, it felt like, there was the sound of the scouts cantering back towards us, with worried looks on the Daza faces.
“What is it? Was Inyene there?” I asked hurriedly, before the returning riders even had a chance to dismount.
“No – not at all!” Tiana said breathlessly, herself breathing as hard as her pony was. “It was the Westerner towers you told us about… They’re all broken. All smashed to pieces!”
Lady Red? My thoughts immediately went to Lady Red and her recent antics and reached out towards Ymmen, to see if he could sense their dragon sign around here.