The stranger bleated in surprise. Duranix knew immediately it was not Sthenn. He tried to disentangle himself but was firmly held by the other. Together they dropped from the sky and crashed into the forest. The spicy, resinous smell of fractured cedar filled the air.
Powerful clawed feet kicked at Duranix’s chest. Nothing like the vicious attacks he’d weathered from Sthenn, they still hurt. Tired, frustrated, and ravenously hungry, Duranix lost his temper. He seized the other dragon’s hind legs, reared, and flung him into the trees.
There was a glint of bright metal. The dragon hit the cedars and flattened them. Rolling over several times, the stranger came quickly to his feet.
Duranix blinked, his eyelids clicking down and up several times. The stranger was not a he but a she – a bronze dragon, smaller than himself.
She shook off the effects of the crash and faced him, back arched like an enormous wildcat, horns, spines, and barbels rigid with fright and fury. Extending her neck, she opened her jaws and hissed.
He was surprised, having expected her to loose a bolt of lightning. Assuming a passive stance, he relaxed his coiled muscles. “Greetings.” he said. “Who are you? What’s your name?”
“Greetings!” She growled angrily, deep in her throat. She was half Duranix’s weight and two-thirds his length. Thin, too, but well muscled. Her scales were bright and well buffed.
When he failed to get any further response, Duranix asked, slowly and deliberately, “What is your name?”
The female bronze finally lowered her back and raised her head. “Blusidar. Blusidar is my name.”
“I’m sorry I attacked you, Blusidar. I mistook you for an enemy. There is a green dragon in your territory, a creature of great evil. I’ve pursued him around the world to this spot. When you flew past me, I thought you were him.”
She stepped over broken tree stumps, carefully keeping her distance from the imposing stranger. “I see no dragon but you, and I did not see you till you struck.”
She was young, Duranix realized. Very young. Still, she was the first bronze dragon he’d encountered since the death of his mother and clutchmates many centuries ago. In his travels around familiar lands, he’d met other dragons: the loquacious brass Gilar, who dwelt in the far eastern desert, and the copper twins Suphenthrex and Salamantix, who lived on twin mountains northeast of the Valley of the Falls. Other dragons he had known had dwelt on the borders of the great savanna, but one by one, they’d been killed or driven off by Sthenn.
“This green dragon – his name is Sthenn – is here somewhere close by, hiding,” Duranix told Blusidar. “I wounded him in the sea and I tracked him ashore. You’re not safe with him here.”
She pondered that for a moment, then asked, “What? I am safe with you?”
“Certainly!” he said indignantly. She flinched when his voice rose. Schooling himself to calm, Duranix added, “What land is this? Who dwells here besides you?”
“This land is the land. I know no other,” Blusidar said. “Came you through the Zenzi?” At his obvious lack of understanding, she explained, “Zenzi – walk on two legs, like birds, but have no feathers. So big.” She held her claw off the ground at about the same height as a human child.
“These Zenzi, do they use large boats to cross the sea?” he asked, and she nodded. “Then I saw them, fighting others or among themselves. Who are they?”
Haltingly, pushing the limits of her vocabulary, Blusidar told him about the Zenzi and this, her homeland.
It was an island, quite large, with a ring of blue stone mountains in the center. She was the only dragon on the island, though once there had been others. The Zenzi had confined the dragons to the island long, long ago.
“How is that possible?” Duranix demanded. “Creatures no bigger than humans imposing their will on dragons? I don’t believe it!”
“Not big dragons like me, you.” She cupped her foreclaws around an imaginary sphere. “Vree-al.”
Duranix was startled. The sound Blusidar made was the one clutching females used to comfort their unhatched offspring.
She continued, relating an amazing tale that explained the weathered column he’d seen on the beach. Ages ago, the Zenzi had dumped fertile dragon eggs on this remote island. After hatching, the dragons grew up in isolation and ignorance, having no idea of the wider world beyond the shores of their island. Over time, a few had taken a chance and flown away, certain there must be more to their world than this island. None had ever returned, and the rest had lived and died here. Blusidar was the last.
“You go,” she said, finishing her story “This place is mine. You go back where you came.”
She seemed unmoved by the fact that Duranix’s very existence confirmed a wider world beyond her tiny island.
“I shall leave,” Duranix said, “but not until I find Sthenn. If I leave him here, he’ll kill you.”
Blusidar backed away, keeping her dagger-shaped pupils fixed on Duranix. “Then go soon. Too many dragons are trouble. Find your Green and go!”
She slipped between the closely growing trees and disappeared. Duranix advanced a few steps. Pigeons rose in a cloud from the trees, marking the fleeing bronze’s path.
Something hard jabbed his foreclaw. Duranix lifted his leg and saw a bright bronze scale embedded in the trunk of a shattered cedar. He worked it loose with his talons. One of Blusidar’s. Unlike his own scales, which were large, curved, and shaped like an acorn in silhouette, Blusidar’s were flatter and almost circular. The edges were smooth, another sign she was less than a century old. From the scale wafted the clean, bright smell he’d sensed while flying over the island.
The image of Blusidar staring fearfully up at him, knowing he was larger and stronger, yet facing him with foolish bravery, caused Duranix to close a powerful claw around the scale.
Here was one dragon Sthenn would not harm, he vowed. He would not allow it.
Chapter 4
Dawn arrived in awesome silence. A light morning mist filled the low places below the walls of Yala-tene and hung over the clear waters of the Lake of the Falls. Despite the early hour, the parapets were lined with people – somber, gray-faced, as stony as the wall on which they stood.
On the valley floor, lines of horsemen were deployed in a great arc around the besieged town, from the rocky flats below the waterfall to the now empty ox pens on the north end of Yala-tene. In places the line was only a single rider deep, but they were there, armed and ready.
A small party of raiders rode out from their camp by the river, making straight for the western entrance to the town. In their wake came a dozen raiders on foot, four of them bearing a litter on their shoulders. Showing off their best horsemanship, the approaching raiders wheeled about just out of throwing range. The morning sun flashed off their purloined weapons and armor.
Four raiders put ram’s horns to their lips and blew a flat, wavering note that carried from one end of the valley to the other. A single man on a pale gray horse rode forth a few steps from the group, then stopped. Like most of the raiders, he was masked – his was an elaborate creation fashioned from the skull of some horned beast and adorned with leather flaps and paint. He removed his skull-mask, revealing a surprisingly youthful face and light brown hair.
“People of Arku-peli!” he called. “I am Zannian, chief of this band! Do you hear me?” A shower of stones spattered the ground a pace in front of his horse.
His lips thinned in a grim smile. “I see you do. I have words for your headman! Bring him out, so I may speak with him!”
The crowd atop the wall stirred, and two people shouldered to the front. One was an elderly man with thinning gray hair and a long nose. The other was a woman half his age with chestnut hair drawn back in a thick braid. She leaned on a spear.
“Say what you need to say to me!” the woman called.
“Begone, woman! I will speak only to your Arkuden!”
“Begone yourself then, butcher. The Arkuden is too busy to waste words on you!�
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Puffing under their load, the litter bearers arrived alongside Zannian. Seated in the contraption of hide and poles was a woman of forty summers, though she looked much older. Her fair hair was liberally streaked with gray, a shade reflected in her dark, flinty gaze, and her face was deeply lined. Once a warrior herself, she traveled now by litter because her right leg ended at the knee, the limb lost years before to a shattering injury.
“Go back, mother,” Zannian said to her under his breath. “You’re not needed here.”
“I want to see their faces,” Nacris replied. “I want to be here when they admit Amero is dead!”
“Bring out the Arkuden!” Zannian shouted once more. “Bring him out, if any of you want to survive this fight!”
The woman and the elderly man conferred, then the old man called down in a quavering voice, “The Arkuden has been wounded. He can’t yet stand on his injured leg. Speak to us, raider. We will carry your words to him.”
Nacris pushed herself up on her hands, screaming, “Show us his corpse, you liars! We know he’s dead! I want to see the work done by my Jade Men!”
Furious, Zannian leaned down and shoved the crippled woman back into her seat.
“Meddling old vulture! Shut your mouth!” To the men holding up her conveyance he harked, “Take Nacris back to camp!”
“No! I deserve to see his blood! Stop, men! I killed him, Zan! You couldn’t do it, but I could! Stop right now! Take me back —”
Wary as they were of the formidable Nacris, the litter bearers were more afraid of their leader. They continued down the hill with the woman ranting at them all the way.
“Listen to me, foolish people!” Zannian declared loudly. “This is your last chance! By Moonmeet, we’ll have the means to overcome your wall! When that happens, no one in Arku-peli will be spared! Do you hear? You’ll all die! Tell that to your wounded Arkuden – you have until the morning of Moonmeet to yield. After that, no mercy!”
In answer to his ultimatum, many villagers on the wall turned their backs and lifted their kilts in contempt.
Zannian laughed despite himself and donned his skull-mask again. He rode back to his waiting captains. The eldest of them, Hoten son of Nito, greeted him.
“Any sign of the Arkuden?” the elder man asked.
“No. Mother’s assassins may well have succeeded.”
Another raider said, “She promised they would submit if their Arkuden died.”
“My mother says many things. You’d be wiser to listen to me, not her.”
The raider chief and his captains rode back to their band. Hoten pulled the skullcap of bear and panther teeth from his head and rubbed a hand over his sweaty pate.
“I don’t like it, Zan,” he said. “What if the mud-toes don’t give up in time? Will you really set a pack of ogres on them?”
“Assuming that rogue Harak returns with any, yes.” Zannian glared at Hoten’s shocked expression. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“But ogres, Zan! How can we ally ourselves with such monsters?”
Zannian’s laugh was as sharp as a bronze sword. “Are they any worse than a green dragon?”
He kicked his horse’s flanks and cantered away. Raiders eager for his favor followed him, leaving Hoten behind. The camp by the river soon rang with Nacris’s shrill denunciations, punctuated by her son’s deeper-voiced replies.
*
By the time the first mountain peaks appeared on the western horizon, Beramun was beside herself with worry. So many days had passed since she’d left the Valley of the Falls – days without word of Zannian’s raiders or the fate of Yala-tene. She chafed at the deliberate pace Karada set for her band. When she complained at their slowness, Karada told her the horsed contingent couldn’t leave behind the unmounted members. If the band became strung out, both the head and tail of the line would be vulnerable to raider or Silvanesti attack.
Beramun saw the wisdom of this, yet understanding did nothing to ease her anxiety. Her riding skills had improved on the long march, and she was able to concentrate less on maintaining her seat and more on the distant ghostly peaks ahead. Her anxious eyes remained fixed forward, watching the mountains grow slowly more distinct in the hot, hazy air.
To distract herself from the slow pace and her own dark worries, Beramun left Karada’s side and circled back through the dusty column. Eventually, she passed the ranks of the elf prisoners, marching in the center of the nomads’ column under the command of their own officers.
The elves had proved surprisingly docile. Aside from plenty of sullen faces in their ranks, they kept pace and caused no trouble. One or two glared at Beramun as she rode by, but she ignored them.
Balif had been given over to the custody of Pakito. The elf lord was mounted on a good horse, the better to keep pace with Pakito’s large steed. Balif’s hands were bound in front of him so he could hold his reins, and a stout rawhide thong was slung under his horse’s belly, hobbling the elf’s ankles. The horse he rode had been trained by Samtu, Pakito’s mate. It responded to whistled commands like a dog. If Balif tried to gallop away, Samtu’s shrill whistle would bring the animal trotting obediently back.
“It would be simpler if you’d give your oath not to escape,” Pakito said.
“All captives have the duty to escape,” replied Balif. “Karada would agree with me.”
A grunt. “Try it then. Karada would slit your throat.”
Balif smiled thinly. He knew the big man spoke the truth.
Beramun rode up to them, falling in beside the elf lord’s mount. Though she said nothing, her curiosity was so obvious Balif addressed her.
“Are you Karada’s daughter?” he asked. The nomads had taken his helmet and suede hat, so his fair face was rapidly turning red-brown under the broiling sun.
Beramun shook her head. “No. I come from a different place, a different clan.”
“Yet, she favors you like a daughter. Don’t you think so?” This last was addressed to Pakito.
“This one interests her,” the giant agreed. “And Karada does not give her attention lightly.”
Balif looked back at Beramun, his pale eyes frankly assessing her. “Why, I wonder? What does she see in you?”
“All that black hair and those big dark eyes – she is pretty,” Pakito said thoughtfully, and Beramun’s blush was more fiery than the elf’s sunburn.
“For a human, I suppose so. I’ll concede it as a matter of taste.”
“Don’t talk about me as if I were a prized mare!” Beramun snapped. “I came from Yala-tene with a message from Karada’s brother, Amero. His town is besieged by vicious raiders. I was one of several scouts sent to find Karada and fetch her back to Yala-tene.”
“Yes? Why doesn’t the dragon of the mountain help his friend the Arkuden?”
Beramun explained Duranix’s absence, then said, “Elf, you seem more talker than fighter. How did you and Karada become such dire enemies?”
“In my country, one may be a poet, a dancer, or a painter, as well as a warrior. Thinking and fighting are not like fire and water, mixing to the destruction of both. As commander of the host of the Speaker of the Stars, I am obliged to carry out his will and make war on his enemies. Karada understands this. We’ve fought many times. Once I won and spared her life. I thought showing leniency to their chief would dispirit the nomads, but...” He shrugged and shot a sidelong glance at Pakito, who was listening carefully. “Many times I regretted not killing Karada. The Speaker’s soldiers have hunted her for twenty seasons. In that time, many brave warriors have perished.”
“On both sides,” put in Pakito.
“How do you know Karada won’t kill you, if the ransom isn’t paid?” Beramun asked.
Balif leaned toward her. His sky-blue eyes bored into her dark ones. In a voice deep and vibrant, he said, “You won’t let her kill me, will you?”
Startled, Beramun pulled back on her reins, halting her horse. The moving column flowed around her. Balif’s light chuckl
e, joined by Pakito’s booming laugh, came clearly back to her. Wrenching her mount’s head around, she rode back toward the rear of the band, her crimson face hidden in the swirling clouds of dust.
When Beramun finally returned to the head of the column, she found Karada surrounded by scouts. Trotting in the flattened grass behind the nomad chieftain’s horse was the girl Mara, her face and auburn hair yellow with dust.
“Have a good talk with Balif?” asked Karada as Beramun arrived. Beramun’s surprise was evident, and Karada added, “I know everything that happens in this band. A horse doesn’t stumble or a child cough that I don’t hear about it eventually.”
“I’ve never met an elf before,” Beramun said defensively. “I wanted to see what they’re like.”
“Stay away from Balif. He’s too wise for you, too cunning. Listen to him long enough and you’ll end up wanting to free him.”
“I would never do that!”
“Yes, you would,” Mara put in airily. “The Good People can change a mind or turn a heart around as easily as the wind finds a new course.”
Beramun had no chance to dispute this, as Mara added quickly, “Please, Karada, may I have a horse?”
“None to spare,” was the terse reply.
Mara, panting between the mounted nomads, looked so downcast Beramun felt sorry for her.
“Climb on,” she said, extending a hand. “We can ride double.”
Mara looked from Beramun’s outstretched hand to Karada’s stern face and back again. Without another word, she turned and merged back into the dusty stream of horses and dragging travois.
*
The dry wind switched directions, becoming damp and heavy as it blew down from the north. By late afternoon, the hazy white clouds had clotted into piles of mighty thunderheads, filling the northern sky. The nomads plodded on for a while, but night and the threat of rain finally convinced Karada to halt her people. While the first campfires were being laid, the clouds broke open and dumped a torrent of water, dousing all hope of warmth. Cold jerky and journey bread were everyone’s fare that night.
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