“You. Me. Children of the winds,” I heard the black dragon say, and in that moment all of my memories of the Soussa flooded through me. How it could scour and be fierce, or how it could keen high above the plains. How it brought with it the faraway sounds and smells of the Plains – and how it was always, forever uplifting to me. Possibility. Freedom.
“You feel it too,” I said, smiling as tears welled in my eyes.
“Yes,” I heard, but in my mind, I felt of course, certainly, what else could I feel? This dragon tongue was like a human, but it was also like the other animals of the Plains, I realized. When a deer raises its ears in alarm and sniffs in the direction of the hunter, it is not only saying what is that? to itself, but it was also saying human! – and, watch out! – to the rest of its herd. It was only we humans who had to split all of our feelings into smaller and smaller words – the other creatures of this world could contain so much more, in such tiny gestures.
“Deer?” The voice of the dragon arrived in my head, bringing with it a flick of ash and heat. I could feel the dragon’s humor plainly. His claws tightened against my chest just a fraction, as if to show what incredible power he had.
“I wasn’t saying you were like a deer,” I said hurriedly, as there was a coughing, raucous noise above me. The dragon was laughing!
“Fish!” We were now swooping through the mountains, with peaks rising on either side of us and still the black hadn’t had to beat his wings once. He simply raised one or flicked the edges of another this way and that, catching the drafts of air that swept up and down the different peaks and avenues.
And there below us was the long lake, looking black and deep in the shadow of the Masaka. The dragon swooped lower, and lower still.
He’s showing off! I realized with a laugh as the rocks were barely two meters below us as we screamed towards the surface of the water.
Only for the dragon to turn both wings at the last moment, slowing us down and keeping us above the water as he kicked out his back legs. There was a roaring sound as two plumes of water exploded from his outstretched claws on either side of us – and then he was beating his wings, rising in slow, awkward stages, with fat and silver lake fish skewered on the ends of each of his rear claws.
“How did you heal so quickly!?” I asked as we began a much slower, steadier flight back to the ledge and his cave, with the sun breaking over the ridge of the Masaka.
“Dragons heal,” his thoughts came to me in a disjointed fashion, but I got the sense that there was far more behind them than just the words. I sensed strength. Fire. Sun.
As we crested the ridge in the first glares of the sun, I could feel his mood abruptly change however. A shiver ran through his entire body, and I felt the sick nausea in my stomach that I had felt before. I realized that we could see the work camp clearly now, and Inyene’s keep on the outermost arm of the mountain. It was an ugly place to the eye and the heart, and I knew that the dragon felt the same way too.
“Bones,” the dragon said, and this time the heat of his words was pressed right up against my mind, burning hot and angry. I couldn’t see them, but I knew that the dragon’s eyes would be flushed a crimson red. “Bones and blood and scales.”
I didn’t follow what he meant, but I could feel his anger directed to the three dark, motionless shapes that sat next to each other on the terrace beside the smelting sheds. Each one towered over the rough stone buildings, looking down into the main yard as if ready to pounce.
It was the metal dragons. I could see no light, heat, or feel any spark of life from them – but they were wrong in every way all the same. And there were now three of them, I realized. Inyene must be working around the clock to churn them out.
She must have been planning this all along. All of our finger-breaking effort must have been working towards this goal. Years of mining iron and copper ore for the skeleton frames. And finally, the strange Earth lights as well. We’d had years of collecting dragon scales to rivet to their sides. Just how many wagons and carts and tons had we slaves produced over our time?
And how many dragons could that make? I thought in horror.
“Skrargh!” The black dragon let out an accusing burst of flame and wheeled sharply, angling us towards his ledge and his cave, both of which were now sunlit. Tamin had finally awoken from his deep sleep and was waving both arms at us. I wondered what he must have thought when he saw us, with his goddaughter being clutched to the belly of a fully grown bull dragon like another catch.
But the black dragon was nothing if not delicate as he beat his wings, hovering for a moment over the ledge to release me into the outstretched arms of Tamin.
“Oof!” I tumbled, and Tamin caught me, holding me tighter than the dragon had! With a small flick of his wings and a swish of his long barbed tail, the dragon hopped lightly onto the ledge, pausing only to flick the fish from his feet, and leaning down to crunch his way through more than half of them.
“Nari! Are you okay? You’re not hurt?” Tamin was patting my shoulders and back, but I brushed him off urgently.
“I’m fine, Uncle, really.” I was more worried about the black dragon, as I could feel his disgust radiating from him in waves. He hadn’t felt this angry even when Fankin had hit him!
“Dragon, thank you for the flight.” I said awkwardly, moving towards him.
But the black swished his tail against the wall of the mountain in annoyance. He didn’t hiss at me, and I knew that his anger wasn’t meant for me, but I realized that he, too, must have a temper. Just like me.
“Ymmen,” I heard his voice say clearly in my head. It was his name, I thought. Dragons have names!
But as I stood in wonder, abruptly all that dragon-sense of heat and fragrance and warmth was gone from me, as he withdrew into his own reptilian mind. It felt like missing a step in the mines – that sudden lurch and anxious fear before you jolted as your foot hit solid ground again. I was left feeling smaller somehow, without the dragon beside my thoughts.
“Ymmen!” I said, not wanting our contact to be lost so quickly, but the black dragon ignored me as he stalked back down into his cave, not stopping until he had reached the very back. He was still very angry at what he had seen. Which I understood, as those metal things were wearing the scales of skins of his kind. Perhaps dragons that he knew. Scales I had surely collected.
“It was the first time he saw them,” I said, misery on my face as I looked up at the worried frown of Tamin. “The mechanical dragons.” My god-uncle nodded slowly, looking at the ground for a long pause, and then back up at me.
“The dragon gave you his name,” he stated. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. “For all the nightmares that we are living through – you should remember that. I don’t think such a thing has happened anywhere in the Midmost Lands for years.”
“Yes, Uncle,” I nodded, although I still felt awful – both for the slaves out there on the other side of the mountain as well as Ymmen right here inside of it. What must it be like to know that people are treating your kind as nothing more than cattle? I thought.