Ymmen flew low through the Masaka Pass, and I could tell that he wasn’t even using his full force to fly as he glided past the cliff walls in a gentle and sedate fashion. Every now and again he would power his wings down in a ripple of beats, providing us with uplift and keeping a steady speed.
The Masaka Pass rose higher, and so did we, until we crested its uppermost bridge, and Ymmen flew straight out from the rocky walls as the Pass continued to slide downwards underneath our forward flight.
And there, in front of us, was the rucked blanket of a green land I had never seen before. It was the realm of the Middle Kingdom of Torvald, the place where the long-dead Lady Artifex and her dragon had been born, where the Stone Crown had been created, where the old High Queen Delia had once ruled, and where dragons had once been as common as the swallows in the sky.
“It’s so…” I was lost for words at this sight, all of my senses straining to read this new landscape.
“Verdant,” Tamin offered, having to raise his voice a little over the rising winds that I did not know the name for. “Rich, fertile…” he continued – not out of any admiration or pride that I could hear in his voice, but more of a “searching for the words to describe this place”.
The Middle Kingdom was nothing like the Plains, I could see immediately. Some trick of the Masaka Mountain range behind us had created a landscape that was a deeper green, packed with more woodlands and trees and fewer wide, open spaces. The land was hillier, too – so much so in fact that I wondered how on earth anyone ever managed to get anything done out here! You must always be taking the long routes from village to village! I wondered with a Plainswoman’s frown. Imagine having to hunt your meat or gather water or fish or crops, only for there to be three or five or ten hills and streams in the way between you and home!
But there were straight roadways as well, I now saw. There were wide ribbons of cream gravel or stone of packed, gray-black earth that marched heedless over the saddlebacks of hills and ridges and tore into the dark greens of forests, to continue uninterrupted until they were finally defeated by this quirky geography and were forced to take slow, sweeping turns around particularly knotty woodlands or high hills, boglands, and fens. I couldn’t read this landscape, with so much water and so many small, crooked places nestled against each other. But I could tell that it was rich, just as my god-Uncle Tamin had said, and full of a different sort of life.
“Holdfast!” Montfre cried out from behind me, and I turned to see him pointing at a tall, square tower that seemed to cling to the rise of a hill – it must be the name of a settlement. Around it were the white walls of some Middle Kingdom township, and the smokes from chimneys within, as well as a collection of houses and streets, parks and warehouses. It looked like a strange place to me, standing growling at the whole wide world around it – but the sight seemed to bring joy to the faces of Montfre and Abioye.
“The Western Marches!” Abioye shouted next, as if this were a game. When I turned to look, I saw that Abioye was pointing at the rucks of hills and rivers that made up the foothills of the Masaka range.
To be honest, I was bewildered about the apparent importance of these sites.
BWAAARM!
Suddenly, a ringing, sonorous sound spread up from the air below us as Ymmen sped past the walled town of Holdfast. It immediately made my teeth grate, as I thought about the ringing work horn of Inyene’s Masaka mines and of the voice of her terrible mechanical monster that she rode.
But the sound did not seem to bring the same agitation to Ymmen as it did to me.
“Dragon horns, they call it,” Ymmen reassured me, with the sort of complacency that made me realize that he was no stranger to these strange lands.
“Dragon Horns?” I asked, as the sound faded behind us and Holdfast disappeared over the horizon.
“They are just echoes of the true Dragon Horn that once called across these lands,” Ymmen said, and then – something entered my mind. Was it a memory? A dragon-dream? But for the briefest of moments, I felt as though that I was a dragon, winging my way just under the High Frosts that ran over the Middle Kingdom and the Plains both, with my eyes alighting on the cold and fresh mountain streams that I knew would be filled with fit and healthy silver-fish… And then that deep and sonorous sound again – but it rang like the voice of a thousand autumnal herons, ringing clear and deep through the air. Some strange science had made it clearer to hear up there, just before the roof of the world. And the memory-me that Ymmen was sharing felt called and pulled, knowing that there was no light reason for it to be sounded.
“From the sacred mountain, the place where person and dragon become one,” Ymmen said, with an almost reverential hiss of soot-smoke to his voice as the memory faded, and I was once again riding on the mighty dragon and soaring through the skies over a strange territory, with these reptilian memories dissipating in the air. It was at that moment that I truly realized just how old and strong Ymmen was, and the wave of gratitude that I felt that he had chosen me, a mere Daza girl – and a slave at that – to be his human companion.
“Huh!” I could feel Ymmen’s amusement at my sudden emotion.
The moment didn’t last long, however, because suddenly Ymmen bristled underneath me, at the same time that there was an angry and outraged dragon-shriek, coming from ahead of us.
“Dragon Riders!” Montfre shouted from behind me, with hopeful joy in his voice. The young mage clearly looked upon the fast-moving blue and green creatures, and their miniature riders in shining plate armor, with welcome.
I could not say that I shared Montfre’s enthusiasm.
There were three dragons screeching through the air towards us, and, while none of them were anywhere near as large as Ymmen the Black was, the two greens were barrel-chested and powerful, and the long, winding blue that snaked through the air was almost as long. And the way that they flew—
I had never seen anything like it! All three dragons moved in exact formation, with the winding and rolling blue in the center and the two heavier greens just behind their shoulder and a little way out on either side. The pyramid flew so perfectly close that from this distance they almost appeared to merge into one singular arrowhead of wings, scales, and sword-long teeth. On each of the dragons’ backs were two of the famed Torvald Riders apiece, and I could see their angular helmets with the swept-back horns, as well as the glint of greaves and breastplates made out of many layers of faintly goldish-looking metals.
And lances, I noticed. The first of each Rider appeared weaponless, instead sitting hunkered and low at their dragon’s neck, astride a wide and sculpted saddle of leather affixed with many compact sorts of bags, pouches, ropes – but the second of each Rider sat on the saddle behind, which had been built-up a few hands’ spans, and was holding tight to their chest a long, shining spear of steel, with a blade-tip that looked wickedly sharp as it caught the sun’s rays.