“They’ll have to be better shots than that lads, eh?” the tawny-haired guard scoffed, but the next bolt that hit the dirt was much closer – just a few meters.
“Nari!” Tamin hissed urgently at my side. “You have to do something!” But I was aghast at what I could do. This was a mutiny!
“Hounds!” the tawny-haired mercenary barked, and the horde of Red Hounds reacted like a pack, seizing up their crossbows—
“Ymmen!” I reached out for the black dragon, not knowing who else to turn to or what else advantage I had at my disposal. In response, the circling black dragon let out a giant belch of fire and smoke before plummeting downwards towards the pass. “Scare them – don’t hurt them” I shouted up in my anxiety and fear.
In response, Ymmen angled his wings and swept along the cliff-top rise, flashing his tail and clashing his teeth, He shot across the boulders and rocks and ruined tower foundations towards the Torvald guards, and I saw a halfhearted attempt to fire up at the black dragon—
“Ymmen – careful!” I called with my heart in my throat, but I saw quickly that I needn’t have worried. With a fierce downward sweep of his wings, Ymmen sent a crash of air flying forward across the land, and the rising crossbow bolts were flung from the air to scatter before his rushing bulk.
The Torvald guards scattered, fleeing before the giant black dragon in fear.
“Thank you, Ymmen,” I said with relief, knowing that the dragon could have used his dragon fire at any time he wanted if he felt threatened. What did annoy me though, was the cheer of victory from tawny-hair and the rest of the Red Hound mercenaries at Ymmen’s charge.
“That’s it, big fella! You show ’em!” The soldier shouted, and his laughter sounded cruel.
“I’ve had enough of this,” I growled under my breath, spurring my pony forward past the Red Hounds and not stopping until I came to tawny-hair directly.
The man was easily twenty years my senior, with cold blue eyes and an old white scar running from cheek to jaw. He looked up at me with his sharp chin raised, as if daring me to do my worst.
I didn’t need much more invitation, the way that the Stone Crown was making me feel right now…
“How dare you!” I shouted down at the man, and I heard the matching shriek of Ymmen’s anger far above me. My ears were buzzing once again, and my head ached with that same tension headache that had been chasing me all day. If this man were a dragon, I could reach down into his mind and break it! I thought savagely.
“How dare I what, Daza?” the tawny-haired man spat back with a mocking laugh. “You might be something important out there on the Plains, girl – but you’re entering the Three Kingdoms now. They don’t care how many stories or flowers you know – only the strength in your arm!” he said, earning another mocking laugh from the Red Hounds around him.
And the worst thing was – that a part of me was thinking; what if he was right? What if I didn’t have any experience of how to deal with armed soldiers and armies? What if all the Three Kingdomers would see when they looked at me would be just some ex-slave girl?
No. My shame twisted in rage and anger in a heartbeat. Maybe it fueled it, as I kneed my pony forward towards tawny-hair, forcing the man to leap back with a look of alarm on his face.
“Hey! Watch it!” he said, his voice rising a notch.
“No – you watch it!” I demanded of him, leaning low over the steed’s neck so that I could loom over him. The Stone Crown on my head started to feel like it was burning – but it was a strange kind of heat, one that didn’t hurt at all – but matched in perfect time with my now thunderous headache.
“Little sister!” Ymmen’s voice was fast and urgent.
“If you don’t start listening to my orders,” I snarled at him in a voice that was low and cold, “then I will have to show you what happens to traitors!” I said, with every intent to summon Ymmen down from the skies with the power of the Stone Crown, right there and then, and command the black to incinerate this tawny-haired ingrate and all of the rest of the Red Hounds alongside him—
“Nari—!” Again, I was aware of Ymmen trying to reach me, but my murderous, Crown-inspired impulses were rising stronger inside of me, almost impossible to control—
“BWAAAR!”
Suddenly, the air was split by a terrible sound, and one that I remembered – but not from out here in the wilds. The shock of that familiar horn-call shocked me out of the Stone Crown’s terrible embrace, and I was left, gasping and blinking further into the pass to see the cause of it.
“BWAAAR!”
How could it be? I thought in panic. That sounded like the work horns of Inyene’s mines, which were giant brass tubes that were played at the change of every watch and spelled misery of one sort or another for all of us slaves.
And there, marching towards us at the bottom of the pass, with their number filling the wide avenue from one cliff wall to the next –
It was an army of dragons. Mechanical dragons.
It was Inyene – the metal queen had come.
Chapter 8
A Battle of Queens
“Abominations!” Ymmen, flying high above us couldn’t spare his agitation and disgust as he swept down towards us, and I knew that he was seeking to put himself between us and Inyene’s dragon army.
“Ymmen – wait!” I shouted, kicking my horse forward as my smaller warband fell into shouts and panic.
“Hold! Hold!” I heard Abioye shouting from somewhere behind me, and even the gruff voice of tawny-hair as he yelled and bellowed at the Red Hounds to form-up.
But I could only think of the safety of my dragon-brother, now landing with a charging thump in the pass ahead of our army. The black dragon stood like a giant on the field and lifted his head to bellow up at the skies with all of his wrath. It sounded like an avalanche, and I swear that I felt the ground underneath my feet shake.
“Ymmen, my heart—” I slowed to leap from the pony, racing across the remaining stony grit to where the dragon towered, weaving between his legs to reach his head. Behind me, the pony reared in frantic panic, turning and cantering back the way that it had come, and hopefully to flee into the Plains outside.
“I will tear them apart! I will destroy them all!” Ymmen was seething in my mind as his mechanical doubles marched forward. Their legs didn’t move with the smooth, predatory grace that Ymmen and all other, natural dragon-kind did. They moved in disjointed, stuttering movements – but there was something terrifyingly cold and unemotional in their march. I could see the dim blue glow of their eyes from their metal-forged faces, and I could see the gleams of stolen scales and brass work gears and cogs glinting in the sun. And then the acrid, cloying smell hit me. It was the oil or fuel that Inyene had developed to power their fires. Small drifts of greasy black smoke escaped their metal maws, and it tasted poisonous in the air.
Ymmen’s broad chest was billowing, and I saw the black dragon’s neck starting to swell as he started to summon his dragon fire. I wanted him to unleash it on the nearing horrors, but I was torn as well. There was no way that we could match such a force, was there? Even with the mighty Ymmen?