Nadira twisted and rolled aside, letting the red claws slide off her blade, sending the dragon stumbling a half step to the side. She straightened up and held her sword out to one side, and then her hand began to turn. She rolled her hand at the wrist, faster and faster, whirling her saber into a singing disc that flashed in the morning light.
The dragon stared down, its ruby eyes fixed on the pulsing light on the spinning blade. The beast leaned down to hiss at her and Nadira leapt up to slash across its snout. A thin spatter of red flew across the ground and Asha felt her heart race into her throat as the dragon snapped its head away, squealing like a frightened pig. But the squeal deepened into a bloody roar and the dragon turned on its side and swept the field with its tail. Nadira ran toward the coming wave of golden scales and leapt high, but the dragon sent a rippling wave through its spine and its tail curled up to catch the woman in midair. The crash of armor on scales shrieked through air.
Nadira flipped and slammed to the ground on her back, gasping for breath. Slowly, she rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself up on her hands and knees, and then the dragon struck. Its massive head darted as quickly as a viper’s and snatched the woman up in its silver fangs as its own blood ran down its snout.
“No!” Asha scrambled out of the cave and waved her arms in the air. “Let her go! Let her go! I’m right here! Come and get me, you snake!”
The beast screamed, its jaws opening wide to let Nadira drop to the ground as the dragon lurched forward, its steaming maw driving straight at Asha.
The herbalist ran along the rock face and felt the earth shudder as the dragon crashed into the stone wall. She ran among the boulders, her entire body electrified with adrenaline and terror, her eyes casting around wildly for shelter, for anything that might shield her from the beast, but the rocks were all too small and too far apart. There was nothing but trampled grass and slick dirt where the dragon had thrashed its way down the hill the night before. Asha bolted across the slope, looking for something, anything, that could save her.
The dragon leapt after her and slammed into the ground just behind her, sending a shockwave through the earth that hurled her off her feet. Asha slipped and tumbled head over heels, rolling and rolling down the steep hillside out of control, her arms wrapped around her head as the world whirled round and round.
Her feet struck a rock and she curling into a ball, one hand clutching her ankle just as her back struck a mound of earth and her body abruptly stopped moving. Asha lay on the ground, shivering. Her lungs would barely let her inhale and her heart was pounding so hard and fast that she couldn’t tell one beat from the next.
She opened her eyes and the world spun viciously to the left, and she nearly vomited. But she pushed herself up, blinking to clear her mind and gasping for air. She turned her head toward the hillside and saw a blur of movement, a cascade of green and brown and gray and gold coming toward her.
With painful slowness and deliberation, she crawled forward over the mound of earth that had caught her and tumbled down a small incline onto some tall dew-soaked grass just as another deep reverberation shook the earth under her and the clatter of falling stones filled the air. Asha rolled over and looked at the small landslide just beyond her feet.
The dragon’s bloody snout lay just beside her own muddy shoe. The rest of the creature lay somewhere behind the head, over the earthen mound and out of sight. It was staring at her with one huge ruby eye, but its eye did not follow her as she stood up. It did not focus on her as she drew the small golden needle from her bag, which had tangled around her neck and nearly choked her as she fell.
And the eye did not react when she plunged the needle straight into the bloody wound on the dragon’s nose.
7
Instantly Asha felt the needle growing hotter in her hand, but still she held on, making certain that the tool stayed in place. A soft hiss filled the air like sound of a distant waterfall and Asha glimpsed a few stray wisps of aether as they poured out of the dragon’s blood and into the golden needle. Within a few moments, the beast’s shining scales grew duller and grayer, its bright red eyes becoming flatter and dimmer. The last hot gasp drifted out of the animal’s mouth and it lay absolutely still.
Asha shoved the hot needle deep into the dragon’s flesh and took her hand away painted in dark red blood. Her lungs burned, her ankle throbbed, and her head spun as Asha sat down on the muddy earth and leaned back against the beast’s jaw. She pressed her right ear against its armored flesh to listen, and found its heart quite silent and the deep thrum of its soul faint and growing fainter. She closed her eyes and exhaled.
A moment later she opened her eyes. The deep thrum of the dragon-soul was growing louder again. Asha stood and stumbled away from the body, searching it for signs of life but there were none. Not a breath, not a quiver. Still the dragon-soul rumbled louder and Asha turned and turned, trying to find the source of the sound. Finally she stopped and closed her eyes, trying to focus. And then she realized.
Opening her eyes, she saw that her right hand was no longer painted in blood. It was covered in golden scales. The transformation crept up her arm slowly, hardening her soft brown skin into bronze plates, filling her veins with fire, filling her chest with needling pain. She could see the crimson claws poking out from her fingers, and she could feel the two slender antlers trying to sprout from her head. The world around her faded into a red mist punctuated by a few white shapes. The white body of the dragon beside her. The white bodies of the two women running down the hillside toward her.
Asha fell to all fours, gasping and choking on the sultry vapors seething out of her lungs. Her teeth clicked and scraped in her mouth and the base of her spine throbbed as her body screamed out for a tail, a long and glorious tail to whip and slither behind her.
The two white shapes stumbled to halt in front of her and Asha could hear their voices, muffled and distorted as though she were under water. And her belly was rumbling with a sharp and burning hunger.
“Go!” she tried to say. “Run!”
The two white shapes kept shouting and Asha felt hands on her arms and head. Gripped with rage and terror, she lunged left and right, back and forth, throwing the women aside. In her right eye she saw a silvery blade raised against her and in her left eye she saw a figure sitting on the ground clutching a tiny creature to her chest. Then the tiny creature flew up at Asha’s neck and a fountain of sharp pain erupted in her flesh, and the woman on the ground leapt up to place both of her hands on Asha’s face.
The white figure whispered something, over and over and over.
And then the world went dark.
8
When Asha awoke the first thing she saw was her hand, a familiar brown hand with rough pink nails and little white scars around the knuckles. The air tasted cool and clean, and the world, no longer obscured by a red veil, was bright blue and green. She rose up on her elbow with a groan. She was sitting in the grass on a level patch of earth with Priya and Nadira sitting beside her and a small fire crackling in a circle of stones.
Jagdish sat on her hip, peering at her with his tiny black eyes.
“There’s the little traitor,” she said hoarsely to the mongoose. “You bit me.” She touched her neck and found a small bandage there.
“I’m sorry about that,” Priya said, turning toward her. “But I needed his help to distract you for a moment so I could reach you.”
Asha smiled wearily. “I’ve always said a mongoose is a useful thing to have around.”
“How do you feel?” Nadira asked.
Asha sat all the way up, sending Jagdish scampering back to Priya’s lap. She rubbed her face and took her own pulse and tried to listen to her own breathing, but the sound was masked by a deep bass hum in her chest. She looked at Priya and frowned. “It’s still here. It’s still inside me. The dragon’s soul.”