They’re going to fire on us. And Ymmen won’t stop them, I thought in my complete and utter self-loathing.
“Nari!?” This was from Abioye, who had already unfastened his simple rope-harness belt and slid down the shiny black scales of Ymmen’s side to land into a crouch on the shale and shingle. Abioye hadn’t drawn his sword yet, but neither had he unhooked the scabbard from his belt, either.
“Drop your weapons – Now!” the forward rider of the blue snarled at us, as the blue dragon continued to glare at the closed-eye face of Ymmen, who was holding himself as still as a statue. Or the dead.
“I don’t like this—” Abioye was growling, his hands a little raised from his sides, as if wondering how fast he could seize up his sword – and even what good it would do against two armored knights atop a battle-trained blue dragon.
“Do as they say, Abioye,” I said, my head hanging in shame as I raised my arms over my head.
There was a grunt of disapproval from Abioye, but he grumpily complied, slowly unclipping his scabbarded sword and laying it on the shingle riverbank in front of him, very slowly, and very deliberately. I heard the skitter and crunch as Tamin released me to fling his own short sword to the shingle, and for Montfre to do the same with his weapons.
“Good. Easy now. No one move!” the forward blue rider shouted, as his companion – a woman with steely gray eyes under her horned helmet, leapt down from the saddle with ease, still holding her short bow with arrow cocked and ready. There was the sound of more crunching dragon claws as the two greens landed, one atop the low cliff directly above us, and the other behind. More crunching sounds as two more of the Dragon Riders hit the shingle and started moving towards Abioye.
“I’m so sorry, Ymmen,” I whispered, still holding my hands over my head.
“Do not apologize. You did not do it. That is enough….” I heard Ymmen’s hot and pained thought in my mind. He seemed hesitant to say anything else, but eventually, as our weapons were taken from us and Abioye’s hands bound with rope, Ymmen did speak. “But I do not know if you will be able to stop yourself next time. It has to be like this,” he said, and I sensed the great shame that he felt at having to submit to these much younger and smaller dragons. I could even almost hear a dull sort of chittering through our connection and knew that Ymmen was also listening to the dragon thought-words of the other dragons around him, though he did not deign to share their words with me.
“Hey!” Montfre growled as his staff was seized, too. These Dragon Riders clearly knew the value of a mage’s staff, and they carried it gingerly and carefully back to the green.
“Which one of you is bonded?” the steel-eyed woman demanded tersely, and I could see the tension clear on her face as she tried to find a way to secure four people and one vast dragon.
“Me.” I said. “I am.”
“Hm.” The woman nodded, instead directing that Tamin be taken to her own blue dragon, and for Abioye and Montfre to be split up between the two greens. “You stay,” she said gruffly, as if annoyed at keeping me with Ymmen.
“She is angry, but she is not cruel,” Ymmen muttered to me, as if advising a naughty child who you’d rather not have to bother with, but knew you had to anyway.
Oh, I thought. The dragon was right. With a wave of weariness, I was able to see the last few moments with a clearer head. The Dragon Riders of Torvald could have fired upon us if they had wanted to. They could have called on their own dragon companions to bring us down or rip and tear at Ymmen’s wings with their giant talons – but they hadn’t. Even the fact that they had fired warning shots, and then only fired arrows at all – objects that would have little to no chance of actually injuring Ymmen at all – showed that it hadn’t ever been their intention to kill us, if they weren’t forced to.
“You’re right,” I said, as the two greens jumped into the air with the bound forms of Abioye and Montfre on their back.
“You fly first, and I follow,” the steel-eyed woman coughed the words. “I take it you know the way to the citadel?”
I shook my head that I didn’t, but, of course, Ymmen did. “My dragon—” I started to say, before the woman rudely interrupted me.
“Good. Then do it. And don’t try to outpace me, or take any deviations, or stop or slow or pretty much do anything that looks like you’re about to change your mind!” She said hotly. “And, I am sure that someone like you is very aware of the defenses that the citadel has against dragon attack!”
Once again, I had no idea what she was talking about, but Ymmen gave a small agreeing grunt of sound as he consented on my behalf, and instead pushed into my mind another memory – and it was a terrible one.
It was a vision of the citadel of the Dragon Riders, but it looked to be under attack by Dragon Riders. The citadel itself was vast, a terraced network of streets and cramped stone houses and walls, all gleaming a white-yellow. The city climbed up the slightly gentler side of the mountain until it reached an open place of green parklands and a large fortress, studded with towers. I could see how this mountain was in actuality two peaks – with the fortress of the king just under the humped top of the first, and a small saddle of black rock before the sight of another structure; a giant stone house surrounded by another wall, sitting on the edge of the giant crater that topped the second peak.
“The Dragon Monastery and the Dragon Den,” Ymmen informed me, as the memory played out. Each of the citadel’s walls were studded with tall towers, and other contraptions like the arms of a well-pump. I watched as these arms flicked up and down, releasing burning boulders that were even larger than I was at the attacking dragons.
Wait a minute, I realized. This is a memory – your memory? I asked Ymmen as the steel-eyed Dragon Rider resumed her seat on the blue and gave us the sign to lift off. You attacked Torvald, once?
“I attacked the occupied city of the Dark King, a long, long time ago,” Ymmen breathed, and I saw in his memory the ragtag wing of wild, young, large, and old dragons of a hundred different varieties and scale-colors spiraling over the city as the towers started to shake and their topmost parts turn, releasing jets of oily black fire at their invaders.
Just like Inyene, I thought, thinking of those oil-flames as Ymmen retook the memory from me, and it faded from my mind’s eye.
“Yes,” Ymmen agreed with a sour note of distaste in his soul. He leapt easily into the air in front of the blue dragon, turning in a very slow and gentle circle as he waited for our escort to accompany us. “The Metal Queen and the Dark King. High Queen Delia and the Abbot and all the others. All sought to control the dragons, or to forever unmake the holy bond between dragon and human.”
Ouch. I felt stung by those words, as I realized that I had come very close to doing just that too. Did that mean that I was as bad as these terrible figures from history?
And with these dark thoughts in my mind, we flew onwards towards an uncertain reception.
Chapter 12
Dragon-Home
As we were escorted westwards and northwards, I came to see just why the steel-eyed Dragon Rider guard had been so insistent on capturing us.