Chapter 16
Departures
Despite my agitation to get going (and, quite frankly, my desperation to get this damn Crown off my head!) it was taking us an interminably long time to leave the Dragon Academy.
And most of that delay is thanks to you. I glared at the stocky, salt-haired form of Commander Sven Haval ahead of me and he glared right back.
“An escort.” He repeated the words precisely and exactly back at me, as if he thought I might be too uneducated, stupid, or just bleeding obstinate to understand what they meant. Well, I might be that last one, I was forced to consider.
It was well into nighttime, and even though I couldn’t read the precise shapes of some of these stars – most of them made sense to me. The Hunter was still high in the sky, but was way over to one side of the vaults of heaven, and when I lifted my eyes past Haval’s angry frown (a welcome distraction!) I thought I could see the star-line of the Washer’s outstretched arm low over the horizon as she continuously rinsed and moved the many waters of the world.
We stood on the battlements of the Dragon Academy, where I had just recently marched up to confront the commander as to why he wasn’t going to allow us to leave.
“I can always just come and get you…” Ymmen hissed inside my mind, and imagined a scratch of his claws against the stone of whatever cavern where he was currently residing.
I know, my heart, I sighed inwardly. I knew that Ymmen easily could fly over the ridge that connected this high and rocky moor to the Dragon Crater itself… But how long would it take for him to pick up me, Tamin, Abioye, and Montfre? What about the rope harnesses that the others had been so insistent on using?
By that time, Sven would probably have called up the rest of the Dragon Riders of Torvald to attack us anyway, wouldn’t he? I thought glumly.
“I am not scared of any dragon!” Ymmen thought hotly – but also a little sleepily. For the first time in our bonded friendship, I wondered if, like birds, dragons could sleep with half of their mind while they also kept watch with one eye…
“I know, I know,” I murmured under my breath to Ymmen. I must be tired myself, to speak out loud rather than remember to keep our conversations private, and I inwardly cursed as a look of glee crossed the commander’s face at my apparent submission to his will.
“I’m glad you agree!” Sven said, in a honeyed tone. “You should consider yourself lucky that the king has allowed you to leave the mountain at all – given the dark and strange times that we find ourselves in!”
Not this again, I groaned. What was it with these Middle Kingdomers – did they not trust anybody? I thought, before reaching up to rub my admittedly tired eyes. Maybe I would feel the same if my entire people’s history was littered with evil sorcerers and crusading Queens…
“I sent word as soon as you asked, so you’ll just have to wait—” Haval was saying brusquely, as there was a sudden sound like a flock of birds winging through the night—
No, too loud, my Daza ears taught me. No soft ends to the noise, made from the movement of feathers…
“Skreyargh!” There was a sharp croak of indignation as the shapes rose to block the distant lights of the citadel and the palace below us in the dark – and I realized that here were the Dragon Riders. Five of them, with already-mounted Riders on their backs looking stern-faced and gaunt in the reflected torch light of the Dragon Academy.
‘Ymmen! We fly!’ My heart leapt as the five dragons – two Blues and three Greens, alighted on the strong dragon platforms, and I felt the mind-image of Ymmen inside me casually stand up, exchange some sort of rasping croaks with those other dragons nearby, shake himself off – and start to canter through the cavern opening, to leap into the sky towards us.
“See, didn’t take long, did it?” Haval said, waving a hand to the nearest Green (Stocky Green, I remember how the Lady Artifex had identified them) for one of its two Dragon Riders to dismount, and create space for him to clamber up the claw, foot, and shoulder joints to the vacated seat.
Oh great, I thought. Not only did we have to endure an escort of slightly unfriendly Dragon Riders – but we also had to put up with that horrible little man for the journey as well!
“Little Sister.” But then, washing away all of the thoughts and worries in my head, came the hot and sooty breath of Ymmen as his wings spread over both my mind and over the stars above us.
I settled myself onto my dragon-seat, Ymmen’s muscles bunching and readying underneath me as he prepared to launch himself into the night skies over Torvald, and it felt good. It was not only pleasing to be once more connected with my dragon again, but also to be on the move towards something.
‘It feels like I have just been reeling for so long, from one battle or challenge to another,’ I confided to the great beast underneath me. Behind me sat Tamin, clinging on to the next of Ymmen’s bone spurs that ran down the center of his back, just as Abioye and then Montfre clung onto theirs – even despite the fact that they now had leather straps (‘belt harness’ the Riders called them) and molded saddles to sit upon. As much as I had grumbled to this imposition, I was surprised when it was Ymmen himself who had said that the Dragon Rider saddles borrowed from Master Johannes would be acceptable, as in his words – ‘the others keep shifting so much it makes the ropes scratch!’
The only moment of indignant refusal from both Ymmen and me had come at Master Johannes’s suggestion that we use a bridle for Ymmen, referring to the straps (again as wide as I was broad in some places!) that would loop around Ymmen’s neck and head, and attach to the smaller nubs of bone-horn that grew from his jaw!
“No! I will never have my head – or heart – controlled by another!” Ymmen had said hotly, lashing his tail on the stone wall of the Dragon Academy, and, even though I heard in his words the slight rebuke about my use of the Stone Crown before – I was also in total agreement with him.
It had taken a little while for the ancient Master Johannes to explain to me how the harnesses, with their wide and thick leather straps curling under Ymmen’s belly, attached and hooked together – but at last we had been ready to fly – and still before dawn!
“Riders – Ready!” one of the Dragon Riders called out from nearby on the wide dragon platforms that dotted the tops of the Academy’s walls like the petals of some strange and dangerous flower. I was a little surprised to realize that it wasn’t Commander Haval who had made this shout, but another of the senior Riders, a woman with long, tawny-red hair braided into a thick warrior’s weave escaping from the back of her helmet.
He isn’t bonded with a dragon, I thought, and wondered at the fact of having the commander of all of the military forces of Torvald unable to hear and talk to dragons.
“Some humans can’t. Just as some dragons can’t hear humans,” Ymmen’s ash-and-ember voice confirmed in my mind, bringing with it a sense of pity, before the dragon equivalent of a mental shrug as he forgot about it entirely. That was the dragon way, I was coming to realize through my time with Ymmen. Worry about what is in front of you, and what is coming towards you from over the horizon of tomorrow—not the past!