Hydra (27 page)

“Endanger?” I repeat when she falls silent.

Regret fills her lovely face. “I have been searching for other dragons for many long years. I grew desperate and followed the only trail I could find. In exchange for information, I…” Nia shakes her head. “It wasn’t even good information.”

Her words are cryptic, but knowing what we know of the dragon world and its enemies, I can read between the lines. We know from the spies’ video footage that she was working for Eudora, who has been trying for decades to destroy all dragons. “Are you afraid of Eudora?” I ask.

“Eudora?” Nia repeats the name as if it’s new to her. “Is that the white witch? Who lives in the ice castle in the mountains?”

My brother explains, “Eudora created the yagi, the dragon hunters.”

“The mamluki?” Nia clarifies. “It means
mercenary
in Swahili.”

“Mamluki,” I repeat, nodding. Her name for them fits them quite well. “Yes, Eudora created the mamluki to destroy dragons.”

“The mamluki have been hunting me for many years,” Nia explains. “I followed them to this place and found the white witch. I thought—” she shakes her head regretfully again. “I hoped to find other dragons. I have been seeking them my whole life. The white witch claims to know of more dragons. She promised me information, but has given me little.”

Ram nods solemnly. “Did she tell you there might be dragons in China?”

“In China, and on an island near Fiji. But she won’t give me specific information, and she has baited the mamluki with my scent.”

“Baited?” I’m immediately concerned. The yagi, or mamluki, or whatever you want to call them, were bred for the purpose of hunting and killing dragons. They’re soulless creatures, part cockroach, part mercenary soldier. They killed my grandmother. They’re dangerous enough without specifically targeting someone.

“The mamluki use scent to track their prey,” Nia explains. “The white witch controls them by scent, which is why they don’t attack her. I am safe from them as long as I continue to work for her, but if I try to escape, she will send them after me. It has happened before. I only survived because I returned to her. It would be a danger to your family to meet me. Indeed, it is a danger to you, talking to me now. I should return to my cave.”

“But we just met—” I protest.

Ram cuts in. “We can help you. We can protect you from the mamluki. We know how to fight them.”

Nia looks at him with hesitant hope. She wants to believe him, but she knows too well the merciless enemies who hunt her. “If I return to my cave now, she may not realize I have met with you. I can meet with you again, in secret. She doesn’t need to know. I have some freedom as long as I don’t stray far.”

Before Nia has even quite finished her sentence, a massive boom rocks the air all around us. The three of us duck instinctively, and both Ram and I throw out arms over Nia’s shoulders. I peek behind us in time to see the sky lit up with orange and purple, and a billow of smoke not unlike an atomic mushroom cloud.

It came from the direction of the lake. And Nia’s cave.

I don’t think we’re going to be able to keep this secret from Eudora. But that concern is dwarfed by the violence of the explosion behind us. Our family was near the lake and the cave, somewhere. Are they okay?

“What was that?” Nia asks as we cautiously rise to standing again.

“I hope that was Ed, destroying the source of the water yagi.” Ram’s expression is grim. He glances at me. “Do you think we should get back there?”

“I think we need to make sure everyone’s okay. That was a big explosion.” I withdraw my hand from over Nia’s shoulder, taking care not to infringe on her personal space. She seems skittish. I don’t want to do anything that might prompt her to flee.

“We need to be careful.” Ram turns to Nia. “I’d like you to come with us.”

Nia shakes her head. “The mamluki—”

“We know how to fight them. They hunt us, too.”

“But she’ll send them after us—all of them, pursuing us. It’s not the same as being hunted. They know my scent. She will set them after me.” Nia glances at the sky as though weighing a decision. Is she going to leave us in hopes of leading the yagi away from us?

I hope she doesn’t try. “Nia? You said you’ve been looking for other dragons for many long years. We’ve been looking, too. We’ve finally found you. Please stay with us.”

“I won’t endanger you.” She refuses bluntly.

“We endanger ourselves,” Ram insists. “We came here. We caused that explosion. I don’t think you’ll be able to hide any longer. You must stay with us.”

Ram reaches for her hand. I want to warn him that Nia is already nervous enough, that he shouldn’t push her, but Nia doesn’t seem to need my help.

She takes a step back from Ram and looks at him steadily, her hands now beyond his reach. Technically, she’s a bit shorter than he is—he’s well over six feet tall—but something about her regal posture and the tilt her of her head makes it almost seem as though she’s looking down at him. She has an inherent dignity that holds my gaze. She owns whatever space she occupies, and right now, she’s ordering Ram out of that space without saying a word.

Nia obviously doesn’t care for my brother’s bossy approach. Fortunately, I learned how to wheedle from an early age. It’s a technique that requires more humility than most dragons are willing to exhibit, but right now, it may be my best hope for keeping Nia from flying away.

“Please, Nia. We’re more afraid of losing you than of facing the mamluki.”

“You don’t understand,” Nia’s voice is strained. There’s something under her words—a barely-suppressed grief, I think. She chokes past it, covers it with something more like anger. “I am a harbinger of death. The longer you are in my presence, the more certain your demise.”

Ram and I exchange glances. Some girls have a flair for the dramatic, but I don’t think that’s what Nia’s up to right now. Ram’s face says he wonders if there isn’t more to Nia’s claims.

“We are strong and valiant fighters,” Ram asserts. “We’ve tangled with yagi before, many times. They are troublesome, yes. A menace—”

“I will tell you,” Nia cuts Ram’s speech short. “There was another dragon.”

Nia has our full attention now, though her words sound strangled. “I only agreed to work for Eudora in exchange for information about other dragons. That was the agreement. She told me where a dragon might be found, I traveled there. Found her.”

“Her?” I repeat, partly in hope and surprise, and partly because Nia’s voice is so strained I can’t be certain I heard her correctly—and this is one point in which I cannot endure any uncertainty.

“Yes. Her. She—she was an ancient dragon, injured long ago in the battles against the dragons. She lived alone, betrayed by her people, unable to fly after she lost an arm and a wing. I found her and I rejoiced that I was no longer alone, but hardly had she told me of her past than the mamluki caught up to me, trained on my scent. I fought—I fought to defend us both. It was not enough. They swarmed us. Killed her. Drove me back to the white witch.”

Nia looks at us, her eyes imploring. “They are baited by my scent. I will not watch another dragon die because of me.”

I sense she’s about to leave, but even as I’m wondering what I could possibly do to compel her to stay with us, another eruption pierces the night sky, this time shooting fire straight upward into the night. As we stare at the violent burst, a shockwave reverberates outward. Its concussion trembles through the air. As it moves past us, I feel its force.

Nia moans. “That came from the cave. I must turn myself over to the white witch again.”

“No.” Ram uses his tone of voice that no one ever argues with—the tone that seems to carry all the authority of a fire-breathing dragon, even when he’s in human form.

I’ve never figured out how to get my voice to do that. I explain, “Our family was near there. We’ve got to make sure they’re okay.” To my chagrin, my words are tinged with something like a whimper.

But neither Ram nor Nia appear to be paying me much attention. Nia moves to step free of us, but Ram takes hold of her arm, restraining her.

“What would you gain by turning yourself over to her?” Ram asks.

“Life. Not just mine. If she sends the mamluki—”

“We will fight them. We are not old and injured.”

“You cannot win.”

“We have before. We will again.”

“But when she sets them after me en masse, there is no fighting them off. It is a danger to all of us the longer I stay here. They may already be on their way.”

Ram turns to me now. “Felix, go back to the cabin, make sure everyone’s okay, and fetch our weapons. You can catch up to us—”

“I’m not going with you,” Nia protests. She doesn’t appear to be fighting against Ram’s hold on her wrist—probably because she’s guessed, rightly so, that Ram is stronger than she is. She’ll have to talk her way free.

Ram ignores her protest and continues addressing me. “We passed an abandoned outpost on our way here. It’s perhaps forty or fifty miles to the southwest, along the route we traveled.”

“I remember. I can find it again.”

“Meet us there.”

I nod in agreement with Ram’s plan, though everything inside me is protesting the idea. I don’t want Ram flying off with Nia. He’ll woo her and win her before I return with the swords. I’ll lose whatever advantage I had, which wasn’t much.

But what else is there? If I argue with him, he’ll only bully me into getting his way (he’s done that countless times before) and I’ll look weak in front of Nia. I can’t risk that.

Even more than that, though, I’m concerned about our family. That explosion was far too close to the cave, the lake, and the cabin. They may need my help.

I linger, waiting to be sure Nia will go with Ram, that he doesn’t need my help to prevent her from eluding us. Waiting…because there’s a noise, drawing louder, a wailing sort of sound that strikes my bones and threatens to lock them into place.

Yagi.

I’ve faced them before. I know their defenses well. Armor-like exoskeletons, venomous barbs, rapier-like antennae, and—most unnerving of all—their paralysis-inducing wails, by which they freeze their prey before they pounce.

The only way to keep from being frozen in place, bones locked in rigid stiffness, is to keep moving.

Which means I can’t wait around any longer. “I’ll meet you at the outpost,” I promise my brother as I leap into the air, morphing into dragon form as a horde of yagi swarm to the spot where I stood seconds before. I glimpse Ram and Nia taking off in the other direction.

I’ve never seen so many yagi in one place before. There must be dozens of them.

Nia said they were drawn to her, trained on her scent, that Eudora would send them after her if she tried to flee. Not that I didn’t believe her, but seeing them streaming toward her in a swarm like so many man-sized roaches.

She was right to warn us—right in ways I couldn’t appreciate until I saw the swarm myself.

I fly swiftly back to the cabin. We’re going to need weapons.

Lots of weapons.

It’s a short flight to the hideaway. I return to human form as I land, bounding up the front steps and inside, explaining myself as I rush past everyone toward the room where we’ve stashed the weapons. “The yellow dragon is a girl. Nia. Eudora enslaved her and trained the yagi on her scent. They’re hunting her in hordes. We need weapons to fight them off.”

My parents follow me into the room, where I’m looping baldrics over my shoulders and strapping scabbards to my thighs triple thick—I need weapons for myself, as well as Ram and Nia. I need to arm us all. Based on the number of yagi I saw, I need every weapon I can carry.

“Do you want us to come help you fight?” My father offers.

“No. Nia is afraid of what might happen to anyone who comes near her. She doesn’t even want me and Ram to help her, but of course we’ve got to. We caused the explosions—didn’t we?”

“Ed caused it. He destroyed Eudora’s water-yagi operation.” Mom explains.

“Is everyone all right?” I’m relieved to hear it. That much, at least, is good news.

Not that it’s going to help Nia any.

“We’re fine. We got away before the final explosion.” Mom stuffs cloaks and a few other supplies in a backpack, then helps hoist it and some extra swords on over the ones I’m already wearing. “So this girl-dragon, Nia?”

“She’s beautiful, Mom.” A pause, trying to think how to describe her without going into too much detail and wasting time, but words fail me.

My mother knows me well, however. She gives me a knowing smile. “She’s single?”

“Yes. She said something about being alone all her life.” I realize my mother might be able to help me with something after all. “I want to woo her—tell me how.”

My parents hurry with me back through the cabin toward the front door, while Mom makes a face that says she’s thinking.

When we reach the porch, she offers, “Find out what she likes. Learn about her. Make her laugh.”

“Do what I did when I wooed your mother,” Dad suggests. “Put her feelings ahead of yours.”

Aware that every moment I spend at the cabin is another moment Ram can use to woo Nia away from me—and another moment closer to the yagi catching up to them again at the outpost—I thank my parents and wave goodbye as I leap back into dragon form, flying swiftly to the southwest.

I don’t recall the precise location of the abandoned outpost. In fact, we passed more than one of these remote clusters of buildings on our flight through Siberia. My father suggested perhaps they were abandoned POW camps from the world wars.

I retrace the approximate path we followed on our way to the spy cabin, and I slow a bit once I’ve gone more than thirty miles, scanning the landscape below for any sign of the settlement.

Nights are short in Siberia in the summer. The crepuscular pre-dawn phase has already begun, lighting the woods with a foggy gleam. I haven’t seen the yagi, either, but they tend to creep stealthily, like the cockroaches they were bred from. If Nia’s fears are well-founded—and I have no doubt they are—the yagi are down there somewhere, headed toward Ram and Nia even more surely than I am, streaming through the woods, hidden from my sight by tree branches.

It’s the wood smoke that draws my attention first. I catch a faint whiff of it on the crisp pre-morning air (we dragons have acute senses, especially when we’re in dragon form). I hone in on the scent and sure enough, spot a trail of smoke rising to the sky with an abandoned settlement beneath it. The tiny town appears to have been constructed of wood hewn from the nearby forests. Tall fences rise from the June landscape, cordoning off the buildings from the woods beyond.

I fly toward the scent, circle once to check for any sign of yagi or humans, then land in human form next to the building with the smoke rising from its chimney. I take the front steps in two strides and am about to knock on the door when Ram opens it from inside.

Relief crosses his face. “Any sign of the yagi?”

“Not near here. I circled once. Didn’t see or smell them, but no doubt they’re on their way.” I pull two swords, together with their baldrics, from my back as I speak, handing them to him as I cross the room to where Nia stands by the fireplace, hands outstretched toward the flickering flames. The cabin, though smaller than the spy cabin, is made up of essentially just one room on this first floor, with a kitchen area off to one side, a loft above the back half, and a high beamed ceiling above in the front portion of the room.

“Weapons?” I offer, pulling the blades from my back.

Nia looks at the swords with uncertainty. “I’m not familiar…”

“You said you’d fought the mamluki?” I use her term for yagi.

“With pole arms. Halberds?” She makes a face as she tries to communicate what she’s referring to. “Shafts tipped with blades.”

“Spears?” Ram clarifies.

“Ah.” I’d recognized what she meant an instant before Ram said it. Rather than let the round fall to my brother, I try to do as my father said—to put her feelings ahead of mine. So, while I’ve only ever used swords and daggers against yagi, I nonetheless admit, “Pole arms would be useful at keeping the enemy at bay.”