But there was something else struggling to be born out of that vortex. I saw a spray of sand erupt from the center of the vortex, and there, reaching up for the light was the gigantic claw of the yellow dragon with its blackened talons. It was followed by another claw, slapping and clawing at the ground as the great beast fought the pull of the earth.
And then the long, flat-headed maw of the yellow dragon was bursting from the collapsed dune, and with a final lurch the dragon was free. It was almost twice the size of Ymmen, and it raised its neck to open wide its mouth and roar its challenge to the skies.
“Older Brother!” Ymmen announced, and his voice was at once filled with awe and respect at the sight of this strange, titanic dragon.
He’s your brother!? I thought in amazement. I didn’t even know that Ymmen had any siblings.
“He is Older Brother to all dragon-kind. He was from the First Brood,” Ymmen announced. “His mother was the Mother of us all—” Ymmen said excitedly, as he swooped down towards his elder—ancestor?—and let out a long, whistling call.
Older Brother responded by belching a great gout of smoke into the air, and then shaking its head and shoulders from side to side, violently.
What is he doing? I thought in alarm, before suddenly there was the sound of resounding cracks and pops from the creatures back. I then realized that I had never seen the creature’s wings—and for some reason I had assumed that this subterranean creature didn’t have any. He was certainly odd-looking compared to the only other dragon that I had known, anyway…
But Older Brother did indeed have wings, and what I had taken to be rolls of scaly fat and loose skin suddenly snapped outwards to reveal large wings with scales on their upper side. The gigantic dragon-ancestor roared and lumbered into the skies. Through Ymmen’s eyes I could make out precisely what was happening—but it was still hard to believe what it was that I was seeing. This creature had appeared so large, so landlocked, that it was as if the Masaka Mountain had suddenly decided to grow wings and fly. Impossible. Something that shouldn’t be happening, and yet was.
But Older Brother was indeed flying low over the Shifting Sands—not fast, it had to be said—but every mighty wingbeat was measured and powerful and scattered the sands below it like a storm. The mechanical dragons had spotted their new, terrible adversary and most rushed towards it as one.
But there’s still so many of them! I thought. Even given the damage that singular Ymmen had managed to inflict on them with his lightning-fast ‘hawk’ raids—and even given the bulk of Older Brother—the two dragons were still outnumbered many times.
“No, we are not, Little Sister!” Ymmen cawed as he flew after Older Brother, his injuries temporarily forgotten as pride emanated from him at this chance to fight alongside such a prestigious dragon. As he flew, Ymmen obliged me by sparing a glance around, letting me see what he had already sensed.
There were other shapes pouring across the skies towards the battle. For a moment my heart froze as I was certain that they were more of Inyene’s mechanical dragons—but then the sun caught them, and I realized that they couldn’t be.
You see, Inyene’s dragons—despite their suit of ill-fitting, stolen scales that people like me had been forced to collect—they flew like machines. They flew like they didn’t belong in the sky at all. Their movements were awkward and clumsy, their speed increasing and their height dipping and rising as their metal tried to do something it was never designed for…
But these fast-approaching shapes flew like birds. No, better than birds, I had to admit. They swooped and dove and made tiny gestures to catch the best of the currents of air that only they could sense. And they came faster and faster towards the battle, and the air was filled with the sound of their shrieks.
Real dragons, I saw. There were real dragons coming from all directions, and they were of a mixture of colors. I saw long and blue dragons, undulating across the sky like winged serpents—and I saw V-shaped green dragons, with stocky bodies and short, powerful limbs, their wings blurring as they powered forward. These were the most numerous color of the dragons, but there were others too—I could see at least two crimson-red dragons too—which were the same sort of build as the green ones, but larger. There were also smaller, long-necked orange dragons with small heads and wide wings, and at least one albino-white dragon—which was almost as big as Older Brother was!
But no other black dragons, I noticed.
The assembled flights of dragons had been summoned by the Stone Crown, by my command through it, I was sure of it. I didn’t know if they were commanded to help or compelled— or whether, as soon as they were here, they knew instinctively who to attack. But each and every one of the newly arrived serpents—from the smallest orange dragons to the largest white—each one threw themselves into battle against the mechanical dragons.
Now THEY are the ones which are outnumbered! I laughed with joy as I saw one after another of the mechanical dragons start to be torn apart by the flesh-and-bone creatures that they mimicked.
“Narissea?” My dragon-sight reverie was interrupted by a low groan from Abioye, looking pale from his loss of blood. He had wedged himself against the wall of the cavern and was panting as he looked at me. “Why are you laughing?”
I was? I thought, blinking. But it was true, my heart was bubbling with a savage and victorious joy. “The dragons are here,” I said with a grin that felt wider than my face.
“My sister’s dragons…” Abioye said, his brow furrowing with worry and, it looked like shame.
“No.” I put a hand out to lightly touch his shoulder. He had come to save me, I thought as I looked into his haunted eyes, his face bearing the marks of his dedication. For a moment I remembered that smooth-skinned young man I had first met, and how much he had changed into this warrior. “The real dragons,” I said. “Everything is going to be all right,” I promised. Neither Abioye nor Naroba looked as though they believed me—and I wondered how I was going to make them see that yes, everything could be alright now. How could I explain the sense of satisfaction that I felt?
“Dragons and humans are brothers and sisters,” Ymmen said, as he rose from his own fight as his reptilian kin completely dominated the metal enemy.
He was right, I realized like a bolt of lightning. It was something that Ymmen had been trying to show me, when he said that we were one thing—and the realization had only been underlined by my experience inside the Stone Crown itself. Humans and dragons were a part of something larger than either one of us (which sure was something, given how large a dragon could get!). I didn’t understand it right now, but what I had seen happening up there, through Ymmen’s eyes, felt right in a way that was hard to describe.
“The dragons?” Abioye said in wonder, and that same spark of excitement and wonder kindled in his eyes that I felt whenever I saw Ymmen. “But who sent them? How did they get here? Is it the Dragon Riders of Torvald?” I saw a shadow of doubt cross his features then, as he considered the implications of what that could mean…
That they would treat him as an enemy, given his sister’s actions? I asked myself. No, I thought. Abioye had realized that as soon as we accepted help from the Dragon Riders, then his break with his sister would be complete. Inyene would know that Abioye had left her…