Let me go! I wanted to scream, but all that came out were muttered and mumbling noises. Now that I knew where I was, I could recognize the feel of the horse’s back underneath me, and the steady stamp of its hooves on packed, dried ground.
We were still out on the open plains; my mind built an entire picture from that noise. The horse’s hooves hadn’t been splashing through the river, nor did they make the muffled smoosh of a horse making his way through marshland.
“Hold up,” a man—one with a familiar gruff voice—said. It was the man who had tried to gut me the other night. The raider who knew all about the map…
The map! I couldn’t move my hands to pat my belt to see if it was still secured under there. But I felt sick as I was sure that I could no longer feel the crumple of old vellum against my skin.
“Do they have dogs?” the familiar voice said, growing nearer along with the slip of a horse’s hooves.
There were some muffled words in reply, but the rider I had been slung behind spoke the clearest. “Don’t think so, sir. But they did have that blooming great big mechanical dragon.”
There was a disgusted sound, followed by what could only be the sound of my familiar opponent spitting into the dirt. “And the stars alone knows what sort of powers that thing has. Best put some of the salve on her, just to be on the safe side—in fact, put it on them all!”
“Sir—” A woman’s voice, sounding alarmed and farther away. “That will take time that we may not have—the afternoon is already fading…” she said.
“Did I ask for your opinion, Hanna?” the map-raider barked at her. “And does anyone want the possibility of hunting dogs or blooming metal monsters sniffing us out? Go on, do it!”
I heard a few grunted ‘yes sirs’ and lots of mumbling as there were the thuds of people dismounting. My own rider did the same, halting his horse to jump from the saddle with a groan, before hauling me off the saddle to thump onto the ground—not as painfully as before, but still not gently, either.
I mumbled and twisted, but all I succeeded in doing was falling over sideways into the dirt.
“Ha! She’s a fighter, alright,” chuckled my guard, as he seized my arms—still strung behind my back— to hold me still with one hand, before yanking off what appeared to be a hood, and then the scratchy blindfold.
I saw calf-high black riders’ boots in front of me and knew that they weren’t from the rider who was holding me steady. They crunched in the red plains dirt as their owner crouched and spoke in that same voice I had fought in Abioye’s tent.
“Yup, it’s me,” I heard him say (but I couldn’t move my head). “I got you this time, and the map. Now close your eyes unless you want to be blind for the rest of your life…” he said, before a rough hand suddenly smeared something cold and, quite frankly, disgusting on my face. It was some sort of ointment that smelled like camphor and tallow, before the scent quickly faded away.
“There. That’ll keep any trackers off your scent,” the man said.
What are you doing to me!? I tried to demand, but all that came past the gag was “Whydja-d-duum!?”
“Ha!” An answering dry laugh. “You got questions, have you? Not as many as I have, believe me!” he said, before the blindfold was tightened around my eyes and the hood slipped over my head once more. Once again, I was hauled and manhandled, before I was slung back over the horse, behind a rider.
“Now come on!” called the man who was clearly their leader. “I want to be back at camp before nightfall!”
And with a shout, the rider urged our steed and we started to move.
Ymmen? I reached out to the dragon in my mind.
“Little Sister!” The dragon rushed into my mind in a roar of tinder sparks and enfolded me in his warmth. It almost felt as though he were here, surrounding me with his warm scales, and holding me to his chest as if I were his dragon-child.
“Newt. We call our young newts, or hatchlings.” The Bull’s deep baritone voice nudged at me with protective love. But the feeling was washed away in the next second, to be replaced with worry. “I cannot sense you! You are here in my mind, but I cannot see nor smell nor hear you!” I wondered if what he was experiencing right now was similar to what I was—with half of my senses useless to me, all I had were the scant few muffled sounds I could hear through my hood, and the jolting sensations that transmitted themselves to my body from the horse beneath me.
They put something on us; a salve that stops hunting dogs from tracking us, I said by way of explanation. Clearly, the strange ichor had the same effect on dragons as it did on sniffing hounds.
“I will find you. If I have to fly over every inch of these lands, I will find you,” he said fiercely, and I could feel the determination in his flame-voice. “My eyes are sharper than an eagle! Even if I cannot smell you, I will see you, it is certain!”
I felt humbled by the depth of his emotion, and it was only matched by my own knowledge that I would do just the same for him, if I could.
But there were others to think about as well, weren’t there? Abioye and the hyenas. Tamin and Montfre—were they still waiting at the tree? Or had the raiders somehow found and captured them too, just as my fellow Daza had been along with me? But why? It was common knowledge that there were slave-runners that came out to the Plains every now and again. Just like Inyene, I thought with a growl. Only the other slave-runners were perhaps more honest—overpowering and stealing the tribespeople that they could, and killing any who disagreed.
But these men appeared to want the map to the Stone Crown. I remembered the man saying how he had already been through a lot of trouble to get this far.
The map! I thought, shifting in place to see if I could feel the vellum crushing against my side.
I couldn’t. They had taken it. So, it was clear that they weren’t brutish slave-runners. They had taken the last half of the map, and besides that they appeared altogether too organized, and just too damn good at what they were doing.
“Abioye is hurt, but he lives. He was bitten by one of the hyenas,” Ymmen attempted to reassure me. It didn’t work.
How bad was he bitten? The bite needs to be washed and cleaned, with field-rosemary and sweet-grass, I thought quickly, picturing the plants that would stop Abioye’s blood from being poisoned. A hyena bite was notoriously bad, owing to the fact that they ate carrion as much as they made fresh kills, but luckily I had already been taught the Seventeen Friends (as my mother called the most-used herbs and plants) and was well on my way to learning the next Twelve Helpful Sisters—I had seen my mother struggle to heal more than one tribesperson who had been bitten by a hyena, and I knew what plants she had to use.
“Montfre healed him, but I will show the mage the plants you advise,” Ymmen said seriously. “Abioye is at the camp. He wants to fly, but the abomination won’t work for him.”
Well, at least that was one good thing, I suppose. Abioye needs to be with his people, I tried to impress on the dragon, although I could feel the Bull’s confusion.