But worst yet, was the ruin of the thing’s head – it was similarly shattered and broken outwards, dripping scales and fire as it struggled to lift its mouth. It now had no lower jaw whatsoever, and one side of the monster’s face was entirely missing – but from the other side there still gleamed the ice-cold blue of the Earth Light crystals that powered it.
And it was looking upwards with it’s one good eye – straight towards me.
“Ach!” I hissed as my headache throbbed, and now my ears were starting to ring with that low buzzing sound that had been there when I had first woken up. It was like the constant roar of a rising tide, or of many voices – or of crackling, hissing and popping fires—
There was a shout from below, and, as Ymmen was racing towards his ruined foe, I saw a figure running across the ground towards the downed monstrosity. It was a young man, tall, and with the tatters of a purple cloak that had long since lost all of its gilding and finery – just as the man who wore it had. It was Abioye, and in his hands he had one of the Daza long hunting spears, lowered before him as he charged at the thing.
“Abioye – no!” I called out, just in time to see Abioye raise the long spear high, and fling it ahead of him up at the ruined creature – just as the creature swung one mangled paw at its tiny attacker.
The pain in my head spiked suddenly as I watched Abioye suddenly spin through the air, flung by the wounded mechanical dragon.
“Skreyargh!” Ymmen roared, and I could feel his anger matching mine, as the dragon I rode flared his wings and stretched out all four claws as I felt the jolt of impact. Beyond my headache and buzzing head, I could hear the booming grunt of the black dragon, and the protesting screech of metal, as Ymmen kicked us up into the air once again, his claws puncturing through the metal body and tearing the thing’s head and neck from its metal shoulders.
“Abomination!” Ymmen roared in my mind as he dropped the mechanical parts and landed with a thump on the dirt. There was a crashing sound as the metal clone collapsed behind us, and I was already grabbing onto Ymmen’s back spines to swing myself out of my seat. “Abioye!” I shouted, my heart and head pounding as I skidded down the smooth and sleek scales of my friend, hitting the dirt awkwardly and falling as my temples throbbed in pain.
“Little Sister!” It was Ymmen, turning to regard me with his golden red eyes, even as he panted with his recent attack.
“I have to get to Abioye—” I was saying, forcing my now-aching limbs to carry me as I stumbled and ran across the flame-lit night towards the humped shape on the dirt that was Inyene’s younger brother.
“Urgh—?” The shape of my friend moved as I slid to the ground beside him, my shaking hands reaching for his chest. “Abioye? Are you alright? Can you hear me!?” I felt beside myself with worry and sick – and so I was surprised when the young man opened his eyes and blinked, shaking his head before catching my eyes with his own.
“You look worse than me,” Abioye groaned, sitting up to rub his back.
“Abioye! Nari!” Following the shouting voice came the sprinting form of my god-Uncle Tamin, with his eyes wide and worried as he skidded to the ground before us. I have to admit to feeling a little stunned by everything, and sick.
“You must have bones made of stone, westerner,” Tamin said in surprise as he reached down to haul Abioye to his feet, for both men to start laughing with relief. I stayed, crouching on the floor for a moment longer, with ears starting to ring louder and louder.
“Little Sister?” I heard Ymmen’s voice in my head and felt his tread on the ground as he approached me.
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing myself up awkwardly to my feet. “Just a little under the weather—” I managed to say, just as the ringing in my ears suddenly swelled in volume, and the resulting headache was so sharp that it felt like Abioye had thrown that long spear straight at my temples, not at the mechanical dragon instead.
“I—” I managed to say, just as Tamin and Abioye turned to look at me, their faces looking confused, and then scared as everything went dark, and I felt no more that flame-filled night.
Chapter 4
The River of Voices
“I tell you, it isn’t natural!” I heard someone saying as my mind tried to claw its way back towards wakefulness. But it was hard to do, as if there was a heavy blanket wrapped around my thoughts and was so thick and cloying that everything was becoming confused.
Who was talking? Where am I? I thought with as much panic as my slow, lethargic mind appeared able to handle. I knew that I recognized the voice, but when I tried to match up the memories to the sound, I came away with nothing.
“None of us know what this is, not really,” said another voice, a woman’s. I got the sudden impression that she was frowning, because she was the sort of young woman who had always been an excellent frowner.
How do I know that? I thought, struggling to find the speaker’s name.
“But I know this – we can’t just wait around for her to recover. We have to press on—” the frowny woman was saying tersely. She said her words with confidence, like she was used to giving orders.
“We’re not going anywhere. Not until she’s healed.” And now a third voice joined the mix. Younger, a man, and I knew that I could trust him – even if, for a long time I hadn’t dared to when we had first met.
“Abioye,” someone breathed into my mind, but it wasn’t the calming and resolute voice of the young man. It was the warm, soot-tinged voice of a dragon. My dragon. My friend.
Ymmen. I acknowledged the black dragon, feeling the close warmth of his dragon soul like an always burning bonfire, never going out. Ymmen is strong, I thought a little woozily, as the darkness in my mind and in my eyes appeared to lift a little.
Abioye was there, as was frowning Naroba, and that made… The first, suspicious voice was my god-Uncle Tamin, wasn’t it? They were worried about me. They were talking about me.
“—” I tried to perform the actions you did when you spoke, but I couldn’t hear any words come out of my mouth.
“Dear Stars!” Tamin burst out, and there was the sudden feeling of pressure at my shoulders, my forehead.
“What in the name of the Four Winds was that?” Naroba was bursting out, which just made me even more confused. What had just happened? Why were they all so seemingly worried about me?
Really, I’m fine, I tried to say, but once again there was no noise that I could hear. Not that it didn’t stop Tamin and Naroba from completely freaking out.
“It’s the Stone Crown, it has to be—” Tamin was saying hurriedly. “Someone get Montfre here, please!”
I was starting to get scared. What was going on? Why couldn’t I see? Was I deeply injured? Badly hurt somehow.
“I don’t know what that was,” I could hear Naroba saying caustically. “But I don’t like it.”
Oh, stop it, Naroba! I could have hissed at her, before being surprised at my own vehemence. It was true that me and the young woman who had taken my mother’s staff and position had irked me for a long time – but hadn’t we started to resolve that somehow? I remember thinking of her as a sister, didn’t I?
Well, sisters fight, don’t they? I argued silently with myself, still feeling the anger threatening to bubble up and take over. I mean – how dare she hold on to my mother’s staff of the Imanu in the way that she did? Everyone of our tribe knew that I was the one who was to be trained to take over from my mother. I was the one destined to be the Imanu of the Souda. And I had been through so much already, from Inyene’s Mines to scouring dangerous mountaintops for scales, and to trudging, fighting, and crawling my way across the entire stretch of the Plains to here – to be being talking about as if I were a bag of fish, to be hauled and carried around from one place to another!