“Souda.” I awoke with the name of our tribe clear in my mind, as if something had put it there. It was still night, but it was no longer true dark anymore. The gray light of morning was rising on the eastern horizon, making everything strange and dreamlike.
“Souda,” I repeated to myself. What an odd thing to dream about! It was the name of Tamin’s and my tribe of the Daza, and Mother had always told me it was a homage to the warm western winds – the Soussa – that blew best in high summer.
My body felt alert and alive, and I wasn’t in the least bit tired as I got up and padded towards the mouth of the cave, to see that the dragon was sitting on the ledge, looking out over the gorge below expectantly.
Where’s Tamin? I thought, before seeing that the older man was just a dark shape, snoring as was his way, next to the smokery. Thin fingers of whitish steam rose from between the rocks and I knew that the fire hadn’t gone out yet. I considered waking Tamin up and taking over his shift at our food store, but something drew me to the shoulder of the black dragon instead.
“Skree-ip?” he chirruped at me softly as he turned his great snout in my direction. His large golden-amber eyes reflected the light of the sickle moon far above.
“You can’t sleep either?” I murmured, reaching out with a hand towards his glossy black scales.
But then the black suddenly moved, resisting my touch as he leaped, panther-like, over the edge.
“Wait!” I called out in a gasp, as the black disappeared in a heartbeat below us. But what about his wing! It couldn’t be healed yet, could it? That would be impossible! I stepped up towards the edge of the cliff.
Just as there was a great crack like the snap of our tribal banners in the winds, but much louder. With a rush, the black dragon was swooping up in front of me; a mountain of black shiny scales, claws, and cool air.
I sighed at the sheer awe of such a beast. Such power, speed, and grace all combined into one as the dragon flew over our heads, over the boulder field, and turning in an arc high over the Masaka. “Uncle?” I said, flicking my eyes towards him. No matter his misgivings about dragon-friendships, surely even he would want to see this, wouldn’t he?
But my god-uncle was still fast asleep, snoring heavily. Neither the chirrups or the beat of the black dragon’s wings had woken him, amazingly.
I could feel the return of the black dragon in the same way that you could feel the first days of spring: a sleeping knowledge that adds excitement to your breast and a quickness to your heart, even though you might not be able to pinpoint it to any particular budding flower or turn of the wind. I turned my head to see that he was lowering himself once more into the canyon on powerful wing beats, bobbing slightly in the gray morning airs.
The black dragon was looking at me intently, his eyes narrowed but golden. Not crimson red. I had no fear as I stepped up once again to the edge of the ledge, and held out my hand.
Souda. I heard the thought once again in the back of my mind.
As if waiting for some unspoken signal, the great black dragon moved with a flick of its wings, and his shadow fell over me. For less time than it took to breathe, everything went dark, and the dragon’s claws clamped around my shoulders and chest with a heavy thump. I was too shocked to cry out as the great creature lifted me up, expertly passing me back and forth between his claws to turn me around and hold me snug under his breastbones.
The wind tore at my hair and clothes, but aside from the sudden chill on my face I was actually warm from the dragon’s radiating heat. I panted more in surprise than shock, looking down to see massive, slightly curving claws which were also as black as pitch folded gently over my torso and legs. Any one of those talons could have gutted me as easily as I had gutted those fish, and yet I felt no pain or discomfort at all.
We were flying! The boulder field of the Masaka was rolling underneath us, starting to blur as the dragon powered himself faster. The vibrations off his strong wing beats rippled through his body and into mine as he drove us faster and faster, quicker and quicker.
Where is he taking me? I thought, before even the thoughts in my head were blasted away by the next sight.
The boulder field fell away, and the dragon shot up the side of the ridge, higher and higher into the moonlit sky. We were going so fast that I could feel the pressure on my face and shoulders as I looked up at the spray of high and bright stars spread out above us, still visible in the graying light.
But I wasn’t afraid, I realized. Maybe I was simply too stunned to be afraid. But all I could think was how beautiful the sky looked.
The black dragon appeared to reach the zenith of his power as the cold finally did start to bite, and with a rattling noise in his chest he snapped out his great wings and held them steady. My stomach lurched and fell as we hovered for a prolonged, delicious moment.
The black dragon wheeled in the skies, and I had the chance to look down to see the world from his perspective. What they called the World’s Edge mountains lay spread out below us like a wide river of gray and white stone. It stretched as far to the south and to the north as I could see. To the west, the true Three Kingdoms of the Midmost Lands, all I could see was darkness, broken by the occasional rise of high foothills or peaks, catching the graying dawn.
But to the east?
I looked out to see the endless acres of the Plains. What the Middle Kingdomers called the ‘Empty Plains’ although I knew that they were anything but. They had shaken off the gray, eerie light of pre-dawn, and now I could see the first blushes of purple and ochre and even dim green in gigantic swathes; it looked like the washes of some titanic artist, using his dyes to paint the land.
The air was clearer up here, and in that moment I saw the small specks of things rising over the plains. The flocks of early morning Hooping Birds and Red Geese! I had forgotten what they had looked like.
But the pull of the earth was unstoppable, as my stomach lurched again and the dragon tipped himself forward in just a miniscule degree.
We slid down the thin and cold airs of the heights, gaining speed and momentum with every second. The great black dragon had no need to beat his wings at all, just hold them steady as the mountains started to rise up towards us again. I could hear the rippling of the dragon’s wings. I couldn’t believe that they were strong enough for such enormous pressures – just days after he had been so weak and ill!
“Skreeyargh!” The dragon roared, his excitement and savage joy in every note, and before I knew it, I was whooping too.
“Souda,” the dragon said.
Said. Like, I could hear the words, but at the same time I could hear the chirruping whistle from the dragon above me. Somehow, that whistle was the same as the word in my mind, and I knew in that moment that, yes, Tamin had been right; the dragon had been talking to me.
“You – you can talk,” I gasped. I instantly felt stupid. Tamin had told me that dragons could talk. And of course, a being as ancient and as powerful as a dragon could talk. It felt as natural a thing to me as a horse could gallop.
“Child of the Western Wind,” the dragon said, and this time I focused more on hearing the words as they arrived in my head, not any other sound from my ears.
I could feel the dragon, I realized. I could feel it when he spoke. His words came with a sensation of soot and the smell of sweet frankincense. And beyond that, I could sense a greater, burning shape like a bonfire. That was the black dragon, I thought in awe. That heat, that feeling of strength and solidity and… possibility was the dragon itself, on the edge of my imagination.