We are lucky! But we can’t always be so fortunate… or can we? Maybe my prayers have been heard? In any case, thank you, my starry patrons!
9
About seven days passed. Jumanna couldn’t say for sure. She had lost count because she wasn’t thinking about that. Rather, she dwelled on how to survive and how to save the lives of the students. The map of the starry sky changed and she knew they had definitely walked north. But it was difficult to say how far.
One night they once again slept on the sand. In the morning, they noticed new lifesaving stones, or something similar to them, on the horizon. At first, Jumanna decided to go to them in the afternoon, but her mind resisted. Her inner voice, which she had learned to trust without hesitation, said that it was necessary to advance right this second!
The start was cheerful and the goal was clear. But after about an hour the enthusiasm faded. The daytime sun incandesced the air and the sand, but cooled the travelers’ enthusiasm.
Jumanna, with jaws set hard, continued to hurry her students. Sometimes with cheers, sometimes with gentle persuasions, and sometimes resorting to scolding similar to what rude caravanners used towards their most stupid camels. Jumanna herself was surprised that she knew so many curses. She never imagined she would ever use them, especially addressing children.
The most important thing is that they don’t use them in Konolwar’s school and don’t tell anyone who taught them. Or whatever. Is it really all that important? No! The primary goal now is to get to Konolwar! The most important thing now is to stay alive!
The new ridge was already close, but it did look really strange. A confident voice inside grew quiet, and the bad premonition returned. Jumanna took a step forward, but her foot immediately fell knee-deep into the sand. The young woman felt herself start to sink underground. She squealed from the suddenness. It was clear that it was a burrow of a sand dragon!
The ridge, as it turns out, had covered this burrow.
How could I have been so mistaken! What kind of delusion dragged me forward?
Several hands caught her from behind and managed to keep hold of her. Calif arrived almost immediately and pulled the caretaker out of the deadly funnel.
Jumanna looked around. Two hundred steps away was a high barchan, ahead – a treacherous ridge. The sand finally fell into a black abyss and the huge predatory face of a dragon appeared from the sandy depths.
“Take the children away!” she managed to shout to Lamis as she pointed to the barchan.
She pulled Khallan’s blade out from her belt and thrust it forward. She did everything the way Khasim instructed her to before leaving, in case the caravan was attacked by a dragon. But Jumanna couldn’t have ever imagined that she would actually have to encounter it like this, face to face. The dragon was already hovering over her. It was enormous! One and a half times the size of its relatives.
An outcast!
In a way, this could be considered luck. Dragon-outcasts always lived alone, outside the pack. However, they were the most cunning, the strongest, the most insidious representatives of the dragon family.
Suddenly, Calif and Makacash appeared on either side of Jumanna, and took up a similar fighting stance, swords forward.
Jumanna turned around. The others, even the girls, stood behind, with Lamis spreading her hands, if only to say, “What could I do?”
“What?” Jumanna literally yelled at them. “To face a dragon without weapons? To the barchan, immediately!” This had an effect. They obeyed, turning and running away immediately.
“And you,” Jumanna quickly glanced at Calif and Makacash. “Move closer to me! Bring your swords to my saber! As a triangle! And aim for the dragon’s throat!”
But the outcast was even more cunning than Jumanna had imagined. Instead of attacking them with his jaws, his tail swept the feet of the trinity, scattering Jumanna, Calif, and Makacash in different directions.
Jumanna fell on her back, and the dragon rose above her, opened its jaws and plunged down sharply. The only thing that Jumanna thought at that instance was, “Forgive me, Father! Forgive me, beloved brother! Forgive me, my dear Mother!”
As the dragon nose-dived at Jumanna, something powerful and heavy struck, pushing it away, allowing her time to jump to her feet. She couldn’t believe her eyes! Next to the dragon stood an enormous lion, baring its teeth. It appeared out of nowhere and knocked down the winged creature in one leap!
“Sandy Lion,” whispered Jumanna.
The dragon rose from the ground and tried to fly up. But Jumanna, driven by instinct (she wasn’t the sister of Khasim Amatt, a skillful dragon hunter, for nothing) rushed towards the monster and slashed its throat with the saber. She couldn’t have thought the dragon’s head would fly off so easily. The body collapsed to the ground, having never fully risen into the air, conjuring a great pillar of dust around it.
The lion looked Jumanna in the eye. She had never met an animal with such a piercing stare! No, there could be no coincidence. That night she had appealed to the constellation of the Lion, the ancient hero and the star of the same name… and the Marawie Sand Lion himself had come to her aid!
It was he who ordered me to advance immediately this morning!
And how after this could one refuse to believe that the Chekatta could speak to the dead, and that Vedichs turned into animals?
The lion let out a growl, not an angry one but rather a calling one, and rushed off to the north, making several mighty jumps. After a while he stopped and turned back to look at Jumanna.
“He’s calling me to go with him,” she said out loud and turned to the barchan. “Hey you! C’mon! Follow me!” Jumanna lifted her saber again as if she was leading her pupils to battle.
Calif and Makacash had already caught up to her.
Jumanna just ran. She ran after the lion until he disappeared on the horizon. With her last ounce of strength, she screamed, turning to the children behind her, screaming only one word, “Faster!” She shrieked until dryness finally scorched her throat into silence.
The lion disappeared, but she kept running after him. The lion left no marks on the sand, but Jumanna knew exactly where he had run to. Sometimes she wondered if she made it all up. But then who, if not the lion, had saved her from the dragon?
Due to dehydration, perspiration no longer dripped down her face; her feet were petrified, but continued to mechanically measure the footsteps; her swollen tongue had stopped obeying. Jumanna didn’t turn around; she just knew the students must be following. Lagging behind, but following. They had to believe in her! After all, she believed!
She began to climb up the hill. Scattering sand entangled her legs. But Jumanna didn’t give up. She climbed.
What kind of power led her? It was impossible to understand. Perhaps it was The Power, the nature of which could not be explained.
As the sun was rolling towards sunset, another night in the open sand meant death! But Jumanna didn’t think about it. She climbed to the top of the hill, and there the beautiful green valley unraveled before her gaze! It was not an oasis! Not a mirage. The desert just ended abruptly. The blue river, beginning to glisten with reddish shades, separating life from death. Death in the guise of golden sand lost its power where the river bank began.
And only now, understanding that she had won, Jumanna gleefully turned around. Makacash had already crawled up to her. Much further, Moualdar, Astramed and a few more boys began to climb the