A shout went up among the men and they charged into the lemon grove, spears lowered, spears flying, swords raised, helmets gleaming dimly in the last red light of the setting sun. The cloud roared again and this time the men screamed back. A tidal wave of earth and grass and men exploded from the grove, bodies and dirt and rocks flying back across the valley floor. The corpses thumped on the ground like hail stones.
“What on earth?” Asha yanked the reins and started the horse trotting back up the road.
The second wave of men charged into the cloud, mingling the shouts of men and the screams of horses with the roaring of the cloud itself. Again the earth erupted with a wave of dirt and flesh and steel flying toward the ridge. The vultures dove out of the maelstrom above to rip and tear at the bits of men and horses scattered across the ground.
A warm breeze rushed over the top of the ridge sending the women’s hair flying in a tangle around their faces. The wind rushed down the slope, rippling through the grass in waves and crashing into the dark cloud in the lemon grove. The whistling wind tore the dust and smoke away from the trees in brown and black streams of filth to reveal the broken trunks, shredded leaves, and smashed lemons of the grove.
And in the center of the devastation coiled an enormous golden dragon.
Asha stared.
The creature slithered like a viper, its body as thick as a horse’s, its flesh armored in golden scales, its back bristling with red spines, and it dashed over the earth on four powerful legs, each planted upon four crimson claws. Its head was twice the length of a horse’s with eyes flashing like rubies, its silvery fangs shining behind thick white whiskers, and its skull crowned with two long golden antlers tipped with bloody horns.
Asha’s eye traveled the length of the monster from its steaming nostrils to its flailing tail, following the curves of its body around shattered trees and over motionless bodies from one side of the grove to the other, the length of two dozen horses, at least.
The dragon nosed through the field of death, snorting and hissing as the black vultures swarmed around it. Two men were crawling away toward the grass and a lone horse was gasping and screaming as it lay on its side, kicking and thrashing. The golden beast slithered forward to crush the men beneath its claws and with its shining fangs it tore the head from the panicking horse. Then the dragon lifted its head and roared at the first pale stars in the night sky.
3
Asha lashed her horse into a frenzied gallop up the road to the top of the ridge, and all the while she watched the golden demon writhing through the splintered trees and crushed corpses as the faint scent of lemons filled the night air. At the top of the slope she paused to be certain the beast wasn’t following them, and then looked out across the darkened plain to the pale gray walls of Damascus. But before she set out, her gaze fell on the little village nearby among the olive trees.
“It wasn’t a machine, was it?” Priya clung to Asha’s waist.
“It’s a dragon. A real live dragon. A huge golden dragon.”Asha blinked. “We have to warn those people down there.”
The dragon roared again and Asha turned to see the serpentine demon gazing up at her, its bright ruby eyes glinting in the starlight. It coiled its tail beneath its lithe haunches, and then it sprang up the hillside.
“Hya!” Asha whipped the horse into a gallop and they dashed off of the road, racing along the peak of the ridge running south into the wilderness, away from Damascus and away from the village among the olives.
They had barely traveled a hundred paces before the dragon slithered up to the crest of the ridge and screamed as an eagle screams before it strikes. Over her shoulder Asha saw the beast gathering the length of its body, scrambling with its small clawed legs to climb up the road.
The deep thrumming sound in her right ear roared louder, a sound so penetrating and inescapable that she clutched her hand to the side of her head, pressing hard against her ear, hoping beyond reason to shield herself from the elemental vibration of the dragon’s soul. But it was everywhere. It shook the earth and hummed through the air and thundered in her skull.
For a moment the dragon gazed down on the flickering yellow lights of the village, and Asha felt a sharp pain seize her breath as she watched. “I’m sorry, Priya,” she whispered. She reined the horse in a circle and shouted, “I’m right here, you filthy snake!”
The dragon’s huge head spun to face her, its brilliant red eyes wide and staring.
“Here he comes!” Asha turned the terrified horse back around and raced off into the darkness along the hilltop ridge as the golden beast hissed and leapt after them. Its long scaled bulk slipped and slid as it surged along the sharp ridge crest, slowing its progress, but the horse had only a short lead and Asha could feel the dragon’s soul drawing closer with every beat of her heart.
The peak of the hilltop began to level out and slope down again, so Asha turned left through the tall grass and plunged into the darkness of the valley. Ahead she could see a field of boulders and a moment later she heard the crunch and clatter of gravel beneath her horse’s hooves.
And then the horse slipped.
Its rear hoof shot out from under them on the loose stones and the animal dropped to the ground. But even as it began to roll onto its side, whinnying and screaming with its other three legs thrashing the earth, Asha pulled her legs up, clasped her hand over Priya’s arms around her waist, and jumped. She lifted both of them free of the horse as it crashed and slid down the slick grass and loose pebbles, vanishing into the darkness. The women landed on the hard earth on a thin bed of grass, and instantly Asha was scrambling to stand up. Priya groaned and Jagdish squeaked in the darkness. And high on the ridge above them, silhouetted by the stars, rose the golden dragon’s head.
Asha yanked Priya to her feet and they ran together into the boulders, ducking and sliding and feeling through the shadows with outstretched hands to find their way in the dark. Shadows and starlight conspired to paint the world in grays and silvers, twisting the shapes and outlines of everything nearby. But Asha spotted a sliver of darkness deeper and blacker than the others and she pushed the nun into it.
“Is this a cave?” Priya scrambled forward on her hands and knees. “Maybe you should go first.”
“It’s a very dark cave, so you can see as well as I can in there.” Asha knelt at the entrance to the hole listening to her horse snorting and crying and kicking somewhere below them. But beneath those noises boomed the deeper sound of the dragon’s soul and the endless shushing noise of the dragon’s belly sliding down the hill after them.
When Priya had disappeared into the cave, Asha ducked in after her and crawled back along the cold earthen floor. She could hear the nun’s labored breathing echoing just ahead of her, and she occasionally encountered a well-worn sandal with her fingers.
“Asha, there’s an open space here,” Priya said. “I can stand up.”
The herbalist crawled down the last little bit of the tunnel and found Priya’s hands waiting for her. She stood up beside her friend in utter darkness and quickly explored their new shelter with her hands. It was a small chamber, but it appeared to be solid stone on all sides. “Good. Hopefully, we’ll be safe in here for a while.”
“Do you think the dragon will go back toward the city?”
“It might if it… Oh. Oh no. It’s not going anywhere.” Asha flattened out on the floor of the cave and squinted back up the tunnel, trying to spot a glimpse of the starry sky. “I’m sorry, Priya. I shouldn’t have come in here with you. I only just realized it.”
“Realized what?”
A violent shudder ran through the earth and the stone cavern crackled and groaned all around them.
“The dragon out there.” Asha pressed her hand to her right ear, but the booming and ringing carried on, filling her head with a terrible wet scratching sound that felt like a talon clawing at her brain. “That dragon is the same one that bit me when I was a girl. It’s no accident that it’s here now. It’s
been following us, following me, hunting me all the way from Ming.”
“It still wants you? After all this time?”
Asha shook her head in the darkness. “It doesn’t want me. It wants the drop of its soul that it left in my ear.”
4
The cave walls and floor continued to rumble and quake from time to time, and gradually the air in the chamber warmed and stank of dead horse.
“It’s up there at the mouth of the cave,” Asha said. “It knows I’m here now. It must be lying out there, watching the exit, breathing its stench into the tunnel.”
“But it will have to leave eventually, won’t it? To eat? To drink?” Priya sat somewhere to Asha’s left. “Or perhaps when it falls asleep, we can escape past it. You must know something about dragons, don’t you?”
Asha shrugged. “I know they’re poisonous little lizards that need to be collared to keep them from growing too large. Obviously, this one’s collar wasn’t strong enough. Did I ever tell you that my father made its collar?”
“I think so. Maybe when we first met.” Priya sighed. “I suppose it was caged for a long time, and kept small. And then one day, somehow, it escaped. Or it was lost. Or stolen. Or sold to the wrong person.”
The cave shuddered and small chips of stone rained down from the ceiling.
Asha sighed. “Look, I-”
“No,” Priya said. “You’re not going out there. Then you’d be dead and the dragon would still be out there. It might go down to the city and kill thousands of people. And then who would lead me around and find fatty bits of meat for Jagdish?” The mongoose squeaked as though on cue.
“Well, what do you propose?”
The dragon roared and a fresh miasma of blood and lemons wafted into the cave.
“It’s a living creature and you have a bag full of medicines,” Priya said. “Perhaps a sleeping tonic? A very large dose, I think.”
Asha sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I could throw my whole bag down its throat and it probably wouldn’t feel a thing. You didn’t see it, how big it is, how long. It must weigh several tons.”
“Then you can trap it, or trick it. We’re smarter than it, right?”
“We’re smarter than the seas and the mountains combined,” Asha said. “That doesn’t mean we can move them.”
The ground shuddered and the dragon hissed. Asha winced, touching her ear. “It’s moving.” She looked up. “It’s moving away.” She hesitated a moment, then began scrambling back up the tunnel.
“Asha, no!” Priya’s cry echoed in the darkness.
“Stay here!” The herbalist moved carefully, crawling on all fours, feeling the rough sides of the cave scraping at her shoulders and hips. A patch of stars appeared and she moved faster. The dragon went on slithering and sliding around on the grass and gravel outside, still moving away to the west, down the slope into the valley below.
Asha crept out of her tunnel and stood up. The entire sward had been churned over and over into motionless waves of earth and grass and stone, and she found the ground slick beneath her thin sandals. Far below, she could see the dark wriggling shape of the dragon by the light of the stars. And beside the beast, there was a flash of steel.
Holding her bag close and silent, Asha slipped down the hillside, peering into the distance. The golden dragon hissed and roared and thrashed, but it did not advance, and Asha began to perceive the tiny black figure holding a sword near the monster’s head. The blade sang as it slashed back and forth at the dragon’s whiskers, and the dragon hissed as it reared back.
Asha perched on a stone to watch. She thought of Gideon for a moment, but this sword did not shine and seemed to be curved instead of straight.
The swordsman dashed forward and the beast drew back. The silver fangs struck, the golden tail whipped, and the red claws swiped, but each time the warrior ducked or dove or lunged and returned to his stance, sword at the ready. The warrior shouted, a long string of harsh words that were garbled by the wind, but Asha could hear the anger in them. Then the blade flashed, whirling in a vicious circle, spinning so fast that it almost appeared to be a solid disc of steel, and then the warrior struck. The dragon roared, coiled back, and leapt away, slithering and thrashing wildly as it raced off into the night.
The warrior dashed after the beast, but only a few steps. He stopped, sheathed his sword, and turned to trudge up the slope toward Asha. She stood up and waited, and when he came closer she raised one hand in greeting. He waved back, his armor clinking softly, and a moment later he stood just below Asha’s stone.
“Some night. Are you all right?”
Asha blinked at the voice. It was a woman. “Yes, we are. Are you?”
“Seem to be.” The stranger nodded and took a moment to catch her breath. “I barely scratched it though, just across the nose. It’ll be back, sooner or later.”
“I’m Asha,” the herbalist said. “I found a cave just up the hill that’s too narrow for the dragon to get near us. My friend is there now.”
“Then we need to get her out and get back to the city. We’ll need to raise an army to fight this monster, and that’s going to take time. Time we don’t have.” The stranger started up the hillside.
Asha followed. “No, I can’t. As long as I’m out here, the city should be safe. The dragon is here for me. Just me.”
The stranger grunted a short mirthless laugh. “Think a bit much of yourself, don’t you?”
“It’s true.” Asha caught the woman’s arm to stop her, and then she drew back her hair to reveal her right ear.
The stranger frowned and leaned in close to look at the scaled and discolored flesh. “Huh. I see. Bit you, did it? Maybe it does want you. All right, I can work with that. We’ll go back to your cave for now.” She turned and resumed walking.
Asha followed. “Are you alone out here?”
“I was until you showed up.”
“Are you a soldier?”
“Not really.”
Asha frowned. “What’s your name?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Sorry. I just wanted to know what to call you.”
She glanced back. “Nadira.”
They trudged up the broken slope, slipping here and there on the slick patches rubbed smooth by the dragon’s belly, and hiking over the little walls of churned up earth. Asha pointed out the entrance to the cave, a small triangular gap in the wrinkled rock face.
“We’ll stay out here,” Nadira said. “I want to keep an eye out for your admirer. We can always go inside later if we want to die like mice. Call out your friend, if you want.”
Asha nodded and asked Priya to join them. Then she straightened up beside the armored woman and exhaled. “I can’t believe you fought that dragon with just a sword.”
Nadira shrugged. “I fight most things with a sword. It didn’t seem like a good time to start trying something new.”
“Uhm, right. Well, we’re from India. I’m an herbalist,” Asha said. “I can look at your injuries, if you have any.”
Nadira shook her head. “No leeches for me, thanks.”
Priya emerged from the tunnel and stood up. “We have a new friend?”
“Her name is Nadira,” Asha said, turning to the stranger. “Although, I suspect you’re also known as the Damascena, aren’t you?”
5
The woman smiled in the moonlight. “So you’ve heard of me?”
“Only in passing. But a friend said we might meet you if we ever came to Damascus,” Asha said. “Which is how I know you’re two thousand years old, thanks to a man named Bashir.”
Nadira’s sword sang as it flew from its scabbard and pressed against Asha’s throat. “So now she’s sending assassins after me?” The woman’s voice was utterly calm, a perfectly flat monotone without a hint of anger or passion. “At least she’s getting more creative, I’ll give her that much. A dragon. Where did she get the damned thing? Not in Ifrica, surely. Hm. So, can you control this dragon
? Or are you just the bait, sent to lead the beast here to kill me?”
“What?” Asha spoke softly, not daring to move her mouth too much and risk touching the blade at her neck. “I don’t know what you mean. We weren’t sent by anyone. We met a man like you. With this ear of mine, I could hear that he had two souls, and he told me that a man named Bashir made him immortal by sealing a drop of his soul in a golden egg that he wore around his neck. Him and two others in Damascus. And just now, I could hear that you also have two souls, so I’m guessing you also have a little golden egg with you somewhere.”
After a moment, the sword fell away and Nadira stepped back. She reached into her armored breastplate and lifted up a small pendant that shone in the starlight, and then she put it away again. “You met Gideon?”
Asha nodded. “He saved us from a man with a burning sword. An Osirian.”
Nadira slipped her saber back into its scabbard. “Well, that’s Gideon for you.” She sat down on a stone looking out over the valley floor below.
They sat down beside her and Priya said, “And you must be the courtesan he spoke of.”
Nadira laughed a long loud laugh, her shoulders shaking until the laughter faded into a few weary gasps. “Oh really? I must be the courtesan,” she repeated mockingly. “Am I so beautiful? Am I so courteous? Or maybe I smell like roses and jasmine?” She sniffed her armpit and grinned.
“But if you’re not the courtesan, then that means…” Priya hesitated. “You’re the nun?”
“I am. Or I was. I took the vows for life, but that was when I assumed I was going to die,” Nadira said. “It doesn’t really seem fair to hold me to that promise after all this time, does it?”
“I suppose not. I’ve never met a nun who wore armor and carried a sword,” Priya said. “Is this common in the west?”
The Damascena winked at her. “Not really, no.”
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