But Ymmen was my bond partner, my soul’s brother, and I had to go to him. I ran across the burning sands.
Chapter 20
The Drop
I ran across the golden sands, following the line that extended from my heart towards the black dragon even though I couldn’t see him. “Ymmen! Ymmen, answer me!” I called out. I could feel the dragon-shape of him in the back of my mind, and I thought that I could even ‘hear’ an echo of his heartbeat in my thoughts too—but beyond that, there was a foggy blankness.
Was he unconscious? Badly hurt? I thought as the panic lent a new energy to my steps. I got to the top of the destroyed dune to see below me a terrible sight. Down there, in the valley between two of the dunes, was a mess of metal and scale. I could see at least one form of one of the metal dragons that Ymmen had thrown—perhaps two—but they appeared to be but twisted approximations of what they had been.
And there, lying amidst them, was the mighty Ymmen. His own awkward landing had sent him sliding through the dunes and crashing into the bodies of these other two.
“My brother!” I shouted, throwing myself into a slide towards the creature. I was once again struck by just how huge Ymmen was. I knew there were wild dragons out there and had seen some of the wild dragons over the Masaka Mountains—but none of them were anywhere near as big as Ymmen was, and Ymmen’s form easily dwarfed the two smaller mechanical dragons that he was curled and entwined with.
“Little Sister?” I heard a hiss of air from his aquiline nostrils and felt the whisper of his thoughts against mine. He was awake. Thank the Stars, he was awake and alive.
But he wasn’t well, was he? I thought as I skidded to the side of his belly, already feeling the contained warmth like a furnace emanating from him as it always did. I was looking at a space just under his left foreleg, where his ribs where.
There was what looked to be a steel bar piercing his side, and I realized that it must one of the ‘bones’ that the smashed mechanical dragons beneath him had. The mechanical bone was easily as thick as my arm, and I could see a thin trickle of purplish blood running down the bar from where it had punctured scale.
“Okay, okay…” I tried to remember what my mother, the Imanu, had told me about puncture wounds. They weren’t so rare out in the Plains, where half of the creatures that we hunted had antlers or horns and wouldn’t be shy about defending themselves…
But we rarely had a wound where the puncturing object was still in place! I thought in alarm.
“You have to be careful…” I recalled my mother’s words, repeating them nervously as I stepped up towards him. Puncture wounds can cause damage deep inside the body, I remembered. My mother’s advice was to try and pack the wounds with herbs and curative lotions, which allowed the body to re-knit itself…
But I can’t do that with this thing still inside! I paused, my hands shaking, before I set them hesitantly on the bar.
“Sccckrr!” A grunt of pain from the black dragon all around me.
“I’m sorry!” Instantly, I took my hands off the bar, and wished that I had better training. That I had spent more time with my mother. That I had never been captured by Inyene. I wished that I knew what I was doing.
“Do it. I can’t fight with this thorn in me!” Ymmen gasped and panted into my mind. He was being brave about it, I knew—I could feel his frustration and anger directed at the injury, refusing to grant it the ability to undo him.
“It might make the wound worse…” I hesitated. Maybe I should wait for Tamin. He’ll know what to do, won’t he?
Ymmen gave a low-throated growl once more, one that ended in a wheezing cough. Sometimes there was no arguing with a dragon. Even a wounded one. I gripped the metal bar, took a deep breath, and pulled—
“SCKRARGH!” There was a loud bellow of rage from the dragon as the metal bar slid out of his ribs much easier than I had been expecting it to. But it came with a spurt of purple-black blood that hissed when it hit the sands below. Ymmen continued to groan painfully as the blood continued to trickle from the wound. It wasn’t falling fast—but it wasn’t stopping either, I thought.
“No, no, no—!” I dropped the metal bar and at first just pressed my hands to the wound to try and stop the dragon’s essence from leaking out—but the purple stuff seeped between my fingers. C’mon, think, Nari! I demanded of myself. I wasn’t wearing a cloak, so I couldn’t use that. But I did have the pouches of various essential bits and pieces—my flint, a few dried herbs and berries, a whetstone. All small objects that I had picked up during the expedition with a prisoner’s sensibility of scavenging for useful things around you. Every one of us who had spent years down the mines did the same.
I crushed the herbs in one hand, before upending the pouch entirely, dusting it down as well as I could before packing it and the herbs into the puncture wound. It was grisly work, and instantly the wadding turned color to a deep ruddy purple. The dragon’s blood was still welling up around the wound, but it wasn’t as steady as it had been before. I could feel the dragon’s breathing ease a little, but I had no idea if I had done enough or not.
“Ymmen? Ymmen—can you hear me? How badly does it hurt?” I said, as my bonded dragon suddenly opened his fierce scarlet and gold eyes.
“Little Sister—behind you!” His thoughts slammed into my mind, and I turned just in time to see something stalk its way around the side of the nearest dune.
It was the last of the mechanical dragons. It was dragging its wings, and its head appeared to be twisted to one side, as if its neck was broken, and yet it was miraculously still working.
The dunes where the injured mechanical dragon was formed a sort of curving Y junction, with Ymmen and me on one fork, and the mechanical dragon ahead. It had already seen us, and it stalked forward slowly.
It’ll kill Ymmen! I thought in alarm. Despite what the black dragon had said, I didn’t think that he was going to be able to spring up into the air and fight right now.
“Just watch me!” Ymmen groaned and shook as he tried to raise himself on weakened legs.
“What—watch you die? Stay down!” I shouted at him, and instead ran towards the mechanical dragon, crossing the thing’s path as I whooped and shrieked at it, seeking to draw its attention away from the wounded black.
“Come on! Come on—what have you got!? I was born here on the Plains—I could outrun ten of you!” I shouted and jumped as I got to the second fork of the natural Y junction. I didn’t know if it was particularly something I had said—or the fact that I was a living being who dared to defy it, but the mechanical dragon chose me to be the more interesting prey and started to lope after me, its feet speeding up as it chased me…
Now you’re really in trouble, Nari, I thought.
The dune curved in front of me, narrowing the path that I was racing down. And the sound of angry metal was only thundering closer and closer.
“Nari!” someone shouted, and I saw movement as figures appeared on the dune-top. It was Naroba, with her Daza hunters. I hunched my head and shoulders as the grunts of hunters throwing their spears at the dragon came to my ears. Even as I sprinted away from Ymmen, I heard the clatter and smash of their spears’ metal points hitting dragon scales—but what good could hunting spears do against one of Inyene’s monstrous creations?