“Abioye—we have to get out of here!” I was saying, stepping up to stand beside him. In front of us, the Red Hounds were warily looking from their Daza captors and the dragons in the sky—clearly, they had no idea whose side they would be on.
“My sister sent them,” Abioye echoed once again. He sounded almost as bad as he had in the Sea of Mists. “She knows that I’ve betrayed her…” His voice was small, and even his sword had dropped to his side.
“Your sister doesn’t know much of anything!” I spat out, agitated and frustrated. “Even if she has guessed that you’re not working for her—now is the time, Abioye!” I reached out to grab his arm, shaking him a little and forcing him to look at me with those dark and harrowed eyes. “You have to stand up to her. You have to become who you were meant to be,” I pleaded with him as, far ahead of us, the dragons were now large enough to be seen clearly. They didn’t have any riders on them, and they appeared to be a different design from the mechanical monsters that I had seen at the Masaka Mines. They were thinner, more streamlined, and not all of their metal and bronze frames were covered with scales.
Built for speed, I thought.
“Abominations!” Ymmen had reared up on his back legs on the far side of the battlefield, his long snout pointed at the oncoming dragons with all of the intensity of a hunting cat about to pounce on unsuspecting prey. “I will tear them from the sky! I will destroy them all!” I could feel Ymmen readying himself to launch into the air.
Ymmen—no! I threw the thought at him, all the while still gripping onto Abioye’s shoulder. There wasn’t time for any of this. But I couldn’t let Ymmen go against four of those monsters alone.
“There’s too many of them!” I said out loud to Ymmen, but the words counted for Abioye too. Ymmen, hold on, please—we have to draw them apart! I threw the thought at the dragon, before turning to the lordling at my side. “Abioye! I know Inyene said she was sending reinforcements to help you—but those metal dragons are controlled by her! She’s using them to get the Stone Crown! What if she can sense Ymmen through them!?” I was desperate. Our entire plan was about to melt away into blood and fire, right before my eyes. “Please Abioye—We have to act—now! And we need you!” I nodded to Inyene’s guards who had joined our forces. They were looking spooked and starting to back away from the gully—and I was worried that they would turn tail and run into the Shifting Sands, abandoning us with the Red Hounds.
“Yes,” Abioye said quietly, as I saw his glance drop to the sand at his feet as he came to his decision. “Yes,” he said a little more forcefully, raising his head to glare hard at the dragons and then spin around on his heel.
“Red Hounds! You have one chance!” he shouted at them, and the change that I saw in him was like a lightning bolt. “Those things out there have come to kill us. All of us. Fight alongside me and the Daza for your lives—or be torn apart like everyone else. What do you say?”
“What do we get?” announced the nearest Red Hound—and the one who had been first to drop his weapon. He was a man approaching his middling years, and looked stocky and battle-hardened.
“Your lives!” I said seriously, as the mechanical dragons were now bigger than a hand held up to the sky, and hoped the man cared not for the Stone Crown and its power, nor even the payment he had surely been promised for his part in finding it—if it meant that he lost his life! But it seemed that mercenaries were a pragmatic sort, by and large, who appeared to place more importance on staying alive and what was in front of them rather than the promise of riches that might never come. I saw the mercenary cast a glance to Abioye at my side, and then back to the sky before he nodded.
“Well when you put it like that—aye,” he said gruffly, gesturing to the rest of his men. “Come on. No sense in dying for no reason, is there?”
The rest of the Red Hounds looked annoyed by the decision, but though they muttered over it in small groups, in the end each and every one of them took it all the same. Abioye let them pick up their weapons, as I was already turning to look around at the rest of the gully behind us.
“We can’t fight them here. If we can get out amongst the dunes, we might be able to separate them…” I said, and Abioye nodded that he understood.
“Daza! Up the slopes—into the dunes!” Naroba didn’t waste any time in peeling off from the rest of us, as Abioye ordered the guards to lead the Red Hounds as fast as they could out into the dunes, splitting them into three main groups as they did so…
But the mechanical dragons were now so close that I could swear that I heard the clacking of their riveted scales on the wind.
“I will buy you time,” Ymmen growled, leaping into the air.
“Ymmen—no!” I called out, but it was already too late, as I heard the whump of his powerful wingbeat as he leapt into the skies and screeched towards the four dragons. I stood there watching his flight for a breath, my heart in my throat and worry filling me.
“Group two—on me!” Abioye called as we led the Red Hounds and the guards out of the gully and further into the dunes of the Shifting Sands beyond. Already, the first group of fifteen or so Red Hounds had moved to our right, and Naroba and the Daza hunters were climbing the banks of the dunes in order to be able to warn us of where the dragons were going to land.
We still had one remaining group of Red Hounds and guards making their way over the wooden planks over the quicksand—and we had abandoned the mercenaries’ wagons behind us.
And Ymmen was fighting. I turned around, walking backwards as I looked up in worry.
“Skreyargh!” There was a roar as the gigantic black dragon flashed across the sky, releasing his flame in a flare that engulfed the first two of the mechanical dragons as he crossed their flight. The mechanical dragons burst from the other side, wreathed in flames, and automatically changed course after Ymmen.
But you’re faster. And braver… I thought at Ymmen, feeling his one-pointed concentration and the white-hot ball of his anger as he spun in the air to change course, before flying again in a new direction. The living and breathing dragon was faster I knew, and more maneuverable than the metal beasts—but he was like a stallion. His bulk and power made him faster over straight distances, but it would take him time to build up to that speed. And there were more of them— the last two mechanical dragons peeling from their path to head Ymmen off in a pincer move—and Ymmen was about to fly straight into them!
Ymmen—look out! I gasped, as the black dragon made no attempt to correct his course as he flew towards the outstretched metal claws—
Only to flick his wings at the very last minute, rising in a spin that skipped him over the two mechanical dragons as he raked his claws down at the same time. It was breathtaking to watch, and also agonizing.
There was a squeal of tortured metal from the mechanical dragons above, and I saw one of Inyene’s creations flailing awkwardly in the air as it tipped its stolen scales, narrowly avoiding a crash into the others. But one was wounded, and it was flying lower and lower towards the ground.
It was going to land between us and the last group! I saw in alarm, and instantly broke into a run.