One of Naroba’s hunters bounded towards him, the hunter’s long, curved blade held high as the man roared—and for the Red Hound mercenary to not say a word, to not move an inch. His cool professionalism showed in how he held his own long blade.
“Hey!” I shouted at him, just before my hunter ally reached him. It was enough to make him glance towards me—
As I kicked up a gout of sand spray into his face.
“Achk!” He flinched and coughed, his shock and discomfort forcing him to take a stumbling step down the slope as the Daza hunter struck out. It was a perfect blow, and one that hit the mercenary in the neck, above the man’s studded-leather jerkin and under his chin.
And, as ‘fierce’ as everyone was always saying that I was—I looked away at the last moment, instead hearing the heavy thump as the Red Hound mercenary hit the sand and the Daza hunter yelled in victory and bounded past towards the gully floor.
“Daza! To me! To me!” Naroba shouted, and I looked around to see that she had already fought her way to the gully floor, and it was complete chaos down there. There were scattered bodies in all directions, both Daza and Red Hounds. I figured that there had to be more Red Hounds lying dead than the Daza—but it also wouldn’t take a lot of losses to make our force too small, I thought as I bounded down the slope towards her. Everyone was fighting for their lives on the gully floor, and it would only be a matter of time before the Red Hounds realized that Naroba was our battle-leader and tried to take her out...
“Ymmen—sound the call!” I shouted as I ran, to hear Ymmen’s wings beating as he rose himself from the smokes of his own fire to perform a high-pitched, three-part screech.
“Skree! Skree! Skree!” His call echoed across the dunes and was answered by the three short blasts of whistles—the same ones that Naroba had used out in the Sea of Mists.
This was the second stage of our plan. I had convinced Naroba to give the whistles to Abioye and the other sergeants and captains of the surrendered guards of the expedition. Summoned by the dragon’s call, Abioye and the rest of the guards appeared at the far entrance to the gully, jogging along the floor between the sand dunes instead of cresting the rise as we Daza had done.
There was a warning shout from the Red Hounds below—but their forces were already separated into two groups, one on the far side of the quicksand, and the other here with us. Those mercenaries who were already engaged in their personal duels kept on fighting of course—and the others attempted to form a line of defense against Inyene’s guards.
But it was WE who had THEM surrounded, now! I thought with a shadow of the fierce joy that I had once been known for. Now combined, the number of our Daza numbers and Inyene’s guards matched the count of the Red Hounds on this side of the quicksand—and we also had the advantage of the high ground and having them boxed in.
That left the others. I turned around to see that the Red Hound advance scouts were already making their way back across the wooden planks over the quicksand.
“Ymmen!” I shouted, and with a roar the dragon knew what had to happen. He threw himself down the slope, spreading his wings out to slow his descent as his claws hit the sand and dirt, sliding down towards the second group and sending up plumes of dust and sand as he fell amongst them. I saw one of the scouts had the audacity to fling some kind of javelin at the charging dragon, only for Ymmen to lash out with his tail like a whip and send the scout flying over the heads of his fellows. Ymmen skidded to a halt at the bottom of the gully—but the quicksand, although perilous to someone of human size was only a puddle to the dragon, as he pulled his tree-trunk like limbs out of the mire, and bounded in amongst the Red Hounds. One giant claw swept another two Red Hound scouts into the air, and another tail lash crushed one who had been charging towards him with a spear.
Ymmen bellowed into the sky, and even though he was surrounded by enemies—in my head I could just feel his confident contempt for the small creatures that dared to oppose him.
“Retreat—RETREAT!” some captain of the Red Hounds shouted, and suddenly—even in the middle of the pitch and fierce battle—the tide had turned. The snarls and shouts of rage and anger from the mercenaries turned into yells and shrieks as fear took them and swept through them all like a contagion. The mercenaries did what they could to break free from the fighting, sprinting and stumbling into the dunes as fast as their legs could carry them.
But not all of them could run away. There was still quite a sizable number on the near side of the quicksand, facing off against Abioye’s guards and Naroba’s hunters.
“Weapons down!” Abioye shouted, and from above, I saw him striding forward from the guards towards where the mercenaries had clustered defensively around one of their own wagons. “Down!” he roared once again, and how similar he sounded to his sister.
“Don’t be stupid,” he went on. “Your captain has abandoned you. We have a dragon. Give yourselves up now or else!” Abioye was snarling at them, raising his own long sword to point at the nearest mercenary, and then the next.
In response, the nearest mercenary hastily threw his own sword to the ground and raised his gauntleted hands into the air. “We’re not dying here, lads,” I plainly heard the man advise his fellows as, one by one, each and every Red Hound agreed to surrender rather than be eaten by a dragon.
“Very wise,” I heard Abioye say as I made my way across the battlefield towards them.
“Nari! Look out!” Ymmen’s voice clamored in alarm in my mind. I spun around, raising my sword, expecting one of the Red Hounds to have decided to take his revenge—
But there was no one there with weapons raised towards me.
Instead, there was a familiar whirring and clacking noise, growing louder and louder from the western horizon.
Oh no.
Small dark shapes emerged out of the heat haze of the Plains, growing larger and larger by the moment. They wavered and wobbled in the air, as—no matter how powerful the magic that supported them, or the furnaces that powered their clockwork hearts—the mechanical dragons of Inyene could never fly as true as a real dragon.
But there were four of the monstrosities now, and they were spearing their way across the skies, straight towards us.
Chapter 19
Metal vs. Bone
“We’ll be trapped,” I whispered in horror as I realized that the marvelous plan for ambushing and surrounding the Red Hounds only made sure that now we were the ones in the bottom of the gully, with sand dunes on either side and totally at the mercy of the four mechanical dragons coming for us.
“It’s Inyene and the reinforcements!” Abioye sounded mortified, as if he had lost all of his earlier bravery in an instant when faced with confronting his sister.
But she wouldn’t be coming here herself right now, would she? The thought flashed through my mind as the dragons loomed larger and larger by the second. They didn’t roar, but the sounds of their clanking and rotating gears were like the sound of a distant thunderstorm, coming ever closer.
No, Inyene wouldn’t be coming here herself right now, I thought. A woman like Inyene D’Lia— self-styled ‘Queen Inyene’—would arrive surrounded by armies and dragons. She wouldn’t deign to ride halfway across the world on the back of a mechanical dragon, suffering every imaginable discomfort and hardship.