“How do you do that?” she remarked. “I cannot make fire.”
“It’s not born into us. You must find the fire in the clouds, breathe it in, and keep it here.” Duranix tapped a single talon against his chest. “I could teach you.”
She hesitated then replied, “I need it not. Find the green one and go.”
Blusidar launched herself into the air and vanished beyond the treetops. Duranix found himself staring after her. His experience with females was nonexistent.
Silver-sided fish flashed between his motionless legs, and he looked down. Sunlight glinted on their iridescent scales. Along with the speeding trout came swirls of gray mud. Something was churning the river upstream.
Duranix did not return to the air. Too long he’d delayed doing the obvious thing: combing the forest for Sthenn at ground level.
Sleeking his wings back tight, he bounded up the shallow river, raising enormous splashes with every leap. The streambed wandered this way and that, descending from the high ground at the center of the island to the low-lying shore. He slammed around the bends, scraping against trees and skittering over boulders buried in the river. The water grew thicker with mud the farther he went. Something big was floundering upstream, and he was certain he knew what.
Duranix rounded a tight bend and crashed into a heavy tree trunk lying across the river. It yielded, sliding off the bank into the water. The tree had fallen very recently. Wood in the break was still white, and the tree’s leaves were still green.
A loud splashing sounded nearby, followed by roars of reptilian anger. Duranix stepped over the big tree and assumed a more stealthy pace as he made for the sounds of conflict.
He’d come to the foot of the ring of mountains. Here, the river was born, cascading down a series of short steps made of fractured slabs of blue stone.
When he reached the edge of the forest, Duranix beheld a shocking sight: Sthenn and Blusidar violently entwined in the lower falls. The green dragon’s elongated claws gripped the female’s neck just behind her head. Her wings were splayed out, pummeled by the waterfall. She kicked at Sthenn’s belly with her hind feet, but the old monster had her pinned against the rock table, the greater length of his back and tail wrapped around her like a rope snare.
Sthenn’s head snapped around. He opened his mouth and hissed, drawing the warning out into a dry, withered laugh.
“Little Duranix!” he wheezed. “Good of you to join us!”
“Hang on to him, Blusidar,” Duranix called. “Don’t let him go!”
“You know each other, do you? How interesting.” The joints in his long foreclaws worked. Scales squealed on scales, and Sthenn’s claws sank into Blusidar’s throat. Her tongue fell out between her parted lips.
“Stand where you are, dear friend, or I’ll tear her head right off!”
Duranix strove to conceal his concern, knowing Sthenn would only use it against him. “She’s just a child, no more than a nymph with wings.”
“Hehhh, hehhh.” Again, the dry-as-dust laughter. “Is that supposed to dissuade me? You forget, my darling enemy, I killed your clutchmates, and they were mewling newts.”
Duranix advanced two steps. Sthenn twisted away from him, trying to keep his distance and not lose his grip on Blusidar. It wasn’t a simple task. She was still resisting and hampered Sthenn’s mobility.
“Stay back!” Sthenn cried shrilly. “Stay back! I’ll kill her!”
Duranix sat back on his haunches and prepared himself to leap. “I can’t stop you. But know this: I can reach you in a single jump. You’ll die far more slowly than she, old wyrm.”
“You frighten me,” Sthenn sneered.
“I notice you’re not using your teeth. Why not? Surely an elder like you could bite through a young dragon’s throat far faster than you can strangle her. Ah, I remember. Back on the plain, when we grappled, you didn’t use your teeth then either.” Duranix’s eyes narrowed. “You’re so old, you’re more than half dead. Everything about you is decayed. Those yellow fangs of yours are as brittle as icicles, aren’t they, Sthenn? That’s why you don’t use. them. They’d shatter on hard bronze scales.”
Sthenn heaved himself and his captive a step farther away, gurgling hatred deep in his throat.
“Shall I bite through this fine young throat to prove you wrong?” he wheezed. He opened his narrow jaws and rested his long, eroding teeth on Blusidar’s neck.
“Go ahead, if you can. Blusidar, if you can hear me, keep fighting! You’re a tenth his age. He’s vicious and cruel, but he’s too feeble to hold you down forever.”
Her tail thrashed once from side to side. Sthenn shifted one of his back feet to restrain it, wavering a bit as he sought his balance again.
“Are you afraid yet, Sthenn?”
Blusidar twisted violently against the grip of her larger foe. Duranix tensed himself to strike, but Blusidar and Sthenn were too much in motion for him to aim his attack precisely. They rolled under the steplike waterfall and out again. Blusidar’s tail, freed from Sthenn’s grip, lashed out, whipping across his side and back. The spiked center ridge caught him in the face, and black blood flowed.
Furious, the green dragon let go Blusidar’s neck with one claw and raked his thick talons across her eyes.
Her high-pitched trill of pain was Duranix’s cue. He sprang, aiming his whole body at Sthenn’s head. When he landed, the stone ledge beneath them shattered, dumping all three of them into the deep pool at the base of the falls.
For a while all was swirling water, rushing bubbles, and reptilian limbs striking and clutching. When Duranix emerged at last from the tangle, Sthenn was scrambling ashore, wings outstretched. The raw wound on his chest was bleeding again, and the lacerations on his face and back oozed steadily. His decrepit lungs gasped for air as his sides heaved in and out. He looked back at Duranix.
“Come for me, old friend, and the female will bleed to death!” he panted.
It seemed too true. Blusidar lay motionless on a broken slab. Blood stained her bright scales and hid her face completely. Duranix couldn’t tell if her throat had been slashed, but dark blood was rapidly covering the stone on which she lay.
Sthenn labored into the air. He did not circle but simply called, “I’ve won, little friend! You’ve been gone too long from your pet humans. Return home and see my victory!” Then he flew away, his course erratic, his belly skimming the treetops.
Duranix went to Blusidar. Her right eye was badly cut, and there was a deep wound from her right earhole to the bottom of her left jawbone. Blood pulsed slowly from this terrible gash.
He rinsed her face and neck gently with cool water. Through these ablutions, Blusidar never moved. She barely seemed to breathe.
There was nothing Duranix could do for her eye, but the throat wound had to be closed, or she would surely die. Arching his neck and inhaling deeply, he called on the lightning deep within. It would require extraordinary precision to seal the gaping wound without incinerating Blusidar or burning off his own foreclaw.
Duranix gazed skyward for a moment, feeling a fearsome calm settle over him. He lowered his head and breathed blue-white fire on the dying dragon’s wound.
*
Deer were plentiful on the island, and it didn’t take long for Duranix to catch four. He carried them back to the headwaters of the river and seared a brace for his dinner. The other two he left raw. Having little experience of fire, Blusidar would be accustomed to eating her meat uncooked.
She had not stirred from where he’d laid her after closing her wound. Day passed into night and then into day again, and still she did not move. After catching the deer, Duranix never left her side. He coiled himself on a rock ledge, watching over her and listening to the wild things in the woods.
At twilight two days after the battle with Sthenn, Blusidar twitched. The tremors became aimless movements of her limbs. When her head moved side to side, Duranix’s own head lifted.
Her eye opened, and she rolled onto her side.
After a pause, she crawled to the water’s edge and dipped her parched, swollen tongue in the stream.
“How do you feel?”
She spasmed hard with fear at the sound of his voice. “Why are you still here?” she said, her voice a hollow whisper.
“I waited to see you through.”
“The green... is dead?”
“No, but he’s gone.”
“Then why stay? I thought you want to kill him.”
“There’s time. He’ll be returning to our homeland to see his humans triumph over mine. He’s old and injured. I can catch him.”
Blusidar examined her reflection in the water. “My eye,” she whispered, claw waving helplessly before the ruined socket. “I cannot see with it.”
“Sthenn put it out. I can’t heal it, but in time a new one will grow in its place.” He had to reassure her of this several times before she turned her attention from her damaged face to her empty belly.
“You spoke true,” she said as she devoured the raw venison. “The green wanted to kill me. Why are such creatures living?”
“Sthenn defies explanation. In some hearts, evil arrives at birth. He’s as craven as he is wicked, and I thought if you fought him he’d flee, but I made a mistake. He felt trapped, and even a trapped rat will bite.”
She said nothing more but curled up at his feet and fell into a profound slumber. Duranix stood over her for two more days, bringing fresh game from the forest. When Blusidar awakened again, he told her he was leaving.
She considered this in silence, eating part of a deer and then moving to the stream. Once she’d drunk her fill, she said, “The green is far away. Why not stay?”
Duranix was amazed by this reversal. “I must make sure Sthenn doesn’t hurt anyone ever again,” he told her quietly. “I have to finish him.”
Blusidar rose her feet. She was steadier now, and her injuries had acquired a healing crust.
She flexed her wings several times and tilted her head, fixing him with her good eye. “When the green is dead, come back. Live here.”
The same thought had entered his mind as he watched her lie motionless by the pool, teetering between life and death, but he had dismissed the idea as absurd. She wouldn’t be much of a companion – too wild and ignorant.
And there was Amero. How could he explain to her of his friendship with a mere human – creatures Blusidar had never seen – a friendship more important to him right now than mating or offspring? It was irrational to care more for a soft-skinned, inquisitive, two-legged pet than the furtherance of his blood. Yet, he had to admit, he did.
“My life is in the Valley of the Falls,” Duranix said. “I must protect my domain from Sthenn and his like for the rest of my life.” He regarded her closely. “You could come with me.”
“I cannot fly far,” she replied. Duranix realized it was true. Blusidar had neither the size, strength, nor stamina to fly all the way back to the Valley of the Falls. After another century’s maturity perhaps, but not now.
A shadow fell over the ring of mountains. Clouds, larger than the island itself and pushed by the sea wind, blotted out the setting sun.
The clouds gave Duranix an idea. He opened his wings. “Come aloft, and I will show you something wondrous.”
She was weak but able. When they reached a certain height, Duranix turned his face into the wind. The powerful current of air filled his wings, and he shot up into the clouds. Blusidar followed warily. She seldom flew so high and did not enter clouds if she could help it. Some deep, unexpressed fear made her dread the billowing white walls.
Duranix lowered one wing and banked tightly, then flapped steadily to increase his speed. Blusidar came alongside him, wingtip to wingtip. Before long sparks of blue fire began to play over Duranix’s wings. Blusidar shied away, flitting off into the mist. Duranix followed, lightning crackling as he flew.
He mischievously maneuvered on her blind side. The sky was exceptionally charged, and a corona of incandescent blue formed around his bronze body. When their wings brushed, the lightning passed from Duranix to Blusidar with a loud crack! Thunder rolled. She promptly folded her wings and dived.
Duranix dropped after her. She was spiraling slowly, wings limp. Chagrined, he realized the bolt had knocked her senseless.
He dropped beneath her and spread his wings to their fullest extent. She landed heavily on his broad back, and his muscles coiled with the strain. He held them both aloft until she recovered.
“Bad trick!” she snarled immediately. Rolling off him, she flapped hard to support herself.
“Try again,” he urged. “If you can take the fire in, it will be yours!”
Blusidar followed at a reluctant distance as he climbed again into the cloud. Lightning was already snapping from sky to sea. Two bolts hit Duranix in quick succession. The power surged through him, and he made a loop in midair out of sheer delight.
Blusidar appeared close by, gliding on his left wing. She too was limned in blue radiance, and sparks formed on the tips of her horns, claws, and wings, flashing off into the storm-laden atmosphere.
Unconsciously, they matched rhythms, wings rising and falling in perfect unison. Lightning leaped from one dragon to the other and back again. Duranix roared his full-throated cry, and to his surprise, Blusidar answered. Her voice was high and shrill with youth, but he was glad to hear it. She had found fire at last.
Catching her attention, he opened his mouth and loosed a bolt at the sea. She tried to do the same, but no lightning emerged. He showed her how to arch her neck, inhale, and let the lightning form deep in her throat.
On her third try, a spear of white, forked fire burst from Blusidar’s mouth. Ecstatic despite her exhaustion and wounds, she rolled and banked and looped all over the sky. Her maneuvers left Duranix speechless. She truly was a peerless flier.
The sundered cloud surrendered its rain. Pelted by the downpour, both dragons slowly lost their surcharge of fire. Duranix circled the center of the island, taking his bearings from early stars glimpsed through the upper clouds. Finding west at last, he hovered in place a moment, bowing his long neck. Blusidar circled him.
Saying farewell is a human custom that dragons do not share. Duranix merely changed the angle of his wings and flew on. Blusidar dropped away. The last he saw of her were the tips of her slender wings as she vanished in the clouds below.
Chapter 7
After so many days of sullen siege, the day of Moon-meet arrived with flourish and fanfare: blaring horns, shouts, and pounding hooves. Zannian formed his men into three large units separated by wide lanes. For some time after dawn, slaves ran back and forth in these lanes, carrying hanks of vine rope and tree trunks trimmed of branches. To the defenders of Yala-tene, it looked ominous.
The villagers spoke in low voices, speculating on what the raiders would do next. Only one woman was silent. Lyopi was hard-faced and pale in the morning light. She had not slept at night since the Jade Men entered Yala-tene. Catnaps in daylight were all the rest she could manage.
Young Hekani, now leading the defenders, said to those around him, “Looks like they mean to try to scale the walls again.”
“Stupid!” declared Montu the cooper. “It didn’t work before!”
“Maybe they have some new plan,” Hekani said. Lyopi remained silent, flexing her sore, callused hands around the shaft of her spear.
A boy came running up the ramp from the street below. He whispered into Hekani’s ear, and Hekani nodded to Lyopi. She shouldered her spear, took up her shield, and followed the child down to the village.
The raiders’ noisy preparations came to an end at last. A hush fell over the valley. From the wall, the villagers could easily see Zannian front and center in the middle block of horsemen. He raised his long spear high in one hand for all his hand to see. Dust rose behind him, and the open lanes between the squares of mounted raiders began to fill with men running toward Yala-tene.
Villagers shifted their weapons to throw. Hekani remi
nded them not to cast too early, to wait until the targets were close enough to hit.
Behind the first wave of raiders on foot came a slower-moving mob of ragged prisoners. Each bore a fascine, a large bundle of brush and twigs, on his or her back. Driving these fascine bearers were several raiders on foot. Whipcracks could be heard.
The villagers held off throwing their weapons at the fascine bearers, realizing that some of their own captured neighbors were likely among the pitiful prisoners.
The running raiders drew closer, as did the stumbling crowd of captives. Hekani was grim as he said, “Make ready!”
Lyopi ran up the ramp, resuming her place on the wall as the raiders reached the line of ditches and pits dug by the villagers. Not many fell in, but the ditches were only meant to slow an attack, not stop it. While the obstacles hampered the attackers, the defenders pelted the raiders with stones and javelins – simple wooden stakes with sharpened tips, rather than the hard-to-replace flint-heads. Raiders fell, skulls cracked by heavy stones or stabbed by javelins.
For a moment the attack hovered at the line of pits, then the captives arrived with their fascines, and the charge flowed on. As they neared the foot of the wall, the bombardment intensified. This was the moment the raiders’ previous attacks had always broken. Unable to climb the wall or batter it down, they would endure torment from above only for as long they could, before fleeing.
They did not flee this time. Goaded by whips and clubs, slaves hurled bundle after bundle of brushwood into the comers on each side of the west baffle. The villagers responded with a furious barrage, trying to avoid hitting the slaves with their missiles but forced to fight anyone they could reach.
Lyopi took aim at a wildly painted raider who was prodding forward a gray-haired woman, stooped by the weight of a large fascine. The old woman heaved off her burden, and it rolled down the slope, coming to rest against the foot of the wall. Lyopi was about to knock the raider behind her down with a well-placed javelin when the old woman lifted her eyes skyward.
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