by Paul Cook
They walked side by side through the maze of tents and lean-tos that was the nomad camp. Eventually the shelters became too dense for Duranix, and he detoured to the shoreline of the lake. He waded out until his claws were submerged. The buoyancy of the water made it easier for him to move.
“Where will you go?” Amero asked, following along the shore.
“West, I think. I’ve spent a lot of time in the east and south this year. I should have a wider look around. Sthenn’s been quiet since the Greengall incident, but it wouldn’t hurt to reconnoiter the western plains.”
They reached the foot of the bridge. To the right, the cattle and horses got wind of the dragon and began to mill about in anxiety. Duranix stretched low and slipped under the bridge. Once under, he climbed the west bank and stood erect, sunlight glistening on his wet scales.
“Have a good walk, and come back soon,” Amero said.
“I don’t know how far I’ll go, but I should return in two or three days.”
Duranix trundled away. Amero had never seen the dragon walk more than a few steps at a time. His rear legs had a wobble in them that Amero had never noticed before.
As he fondly watched the dragon depart, Amero suddenly realized he’d forgotten his reed hat. If he was going to work all day outside, he’d need the hat to keep the low autumn sun out of his eyes.
He walked briskly back to the foot of the waterfall. Soon he was descending in the hoist with the brown reed hat on his head. The scene beneath him was as still as a forest glade. The nomad camp was empty. A slight haze from burned-out campfires hung over the patched, irregular tents. Beyond the camp, a few solitary craftsmen stirred in the alleys of Yala-tene, but the village too was unnaturally calm. As he surveyed the scene, only one thing stood out — a lone figure leaning against the dragon’s offering cairn. Whoever it was, he took care to lurk on the shaded side, so it was impossible for Amero to see who it was.
The basket bumped into solid ground and stopped. Amero stepped out and tied off the counterweight. He detoured away from the lake, curious to see who was lingering by the cairn.
The tall, well-made person had his back to Amero. He was dressed in the skimpy clothes of a nomad and had waist-length chestnut-colored hair, drawn back in thick hank and held with a carved bone clip.
Amero’s footsteps echoed dully off the stone sides of the cairn. The man turned suddenly, revealing his face.
“Pa’alu!”
“Greetings, Arkuden.”
There was something in his manner — his voice, his posture — that reeked of menace. Backing up a step, Amero reminded himself of all the good services Pa’alu had rendered to the village and to Karada’s band.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked lightly.
“Here and there. Hunting. Watching.”
Amero had the distinct feeling he’d found a viper sunning on a rock, and his questions were as welcome as poking the serpent with a stick.
“We’ve missed you,” he said, choosing his wording carefully.
“Who? You? Karada?”
“All of us, I’d say.”
Pa’alu picked at the moss growing in the chinks between the stones. “Where is the dragon?” he asked.
Amero’s eyes darted around, searching for a convenient way out of this conversation. “Gone for a day, looking around. He does that.”
“And Karada?”
“She’s at the harvest.”
Amero heard movement behind him, but before he could react, he was thrown facedown to the ground. A knee pressed hard into the small of his back, and his wrists were secured by a long strip of rawhide. His captors rolled him over on his back. Glare blinded him until Pa’alu stepped over him, blocking out the sun.
“What’s this? Let me go, Pa’alu!”
“I thought you were clever,” Pa’alu replied coldly. “This place, this village of yours is full of clever things. But you’re stupid and blind.” He knelt and cupped his hands together. “I put her in your hands, and you never even realized it.”
“What are you talking about?” Amero demanded.
At a nod from Pa’alu, his companions hauled Amero to his feet. They were Hatu and Nacris. He was stunned to see these three working together. There were footholds on the backside of the rock pile, and using them, Hatu swiftly climbed atop the cairn. Pa’alu and Nacris boosted Amero up, and Hatu dragged him onto the stone platform. The depression in the center of the cairn, where Duranix’s oxen or elk usually lay, was filled with dry kindling and windfall wood. The sight filled Amero with horror. They wouldn’t -
Pa’alu climbed onto the cairn and stood over the helpless Amero. “It’s my turn to make an offering,” he said. “Too bad the dragon isn’t here to appreciate it.”
“You waited for Duranix to leave!”
“Yearling bucks can do little when the bull is with the herd.” He strained against the rawhide restraints and tried to get to his feet. Pa’alu calmly kicked him in the ribs. Gasping, Amero lay still.
To the others Pa’alu said, “It’s done. Tell the rest.”
Hatu climbed down and ran toward the bridge, the only way to the gardens across the lake. Nacris ran away too, but doubled back among the houses until she was within a few paces of the cairn. She hid in the shadows and kept her eye on the erect figure of Pa’alu, standing atop the dragon’s altar.
Slowly, his agony faded, and Amero was able to breathe again. He avoided moving too much, lest he provoke more punishment from his captor.
“Pa’alu, may I speak?” he said.
“Say what you will.”
“Let me go, Pa’alu. I don’t know what ill you think I’ve done you, but you’re wrong. I’ve done nothing knowingly to injure you. You must believe me!”
The plainsman’s face was as hard and empty as the high peaks around them. “I don’t do this on a whim, Arkuden. I’ve had many days and nights to think about it. I’ve been kicked about by chiefs and great ones with no more thought than if I were a pine cone — Karada, Duranix, Greengall, the elf priest, you. You’ve all made me do things I never wanted to do, but that’s over now.”
He’s mad, Amero thought in horror. Nianki’s insanity had passed from her to him.
Striving for a calm, reasoned tone, Amero said, “What did I do, Pa’alu? How did I hurt you?”
“You were given a great gift, and you scorned it. It’s true I didn’t mean for you to have it, but have it you did, and you turned your back on it.”
“Please,” said Amero. “I don’t understand. Tell me what this gift is.”
“Karada’s love.”
Amero heard the words, but couldn’t fathom them. Of course he had his sister’s love — why wouldn’t he? He didn’t want to challenge a madman in his delusions, but he didn’t understand at all. He was afraid there wasn’t anything to understand, that Pa’alu was simply crazed, and no amount of reasoning could bring light to the dark pit of his mind.
“I love my sister,” he said. “I know you care for her too, and she won’t have you.”
“Karada’s an idiot,” Pa’alu replied. “She thought love made a person weak. Then the amulet showed her how love felt, and you didn’t even notice!”
“Amulet?”
Before Amero could explore the puzzle of the unfamiliar word, the noise of an approaching crowd came to their ears. Pa’alu pulled a resinous pine branch out of the pile of wood and set to work lighting it with a flint. Horror washed over Amero.
“Pa’alu!” he said desperately. “What do you mean? What’s an amulet?”
Once the pine branch was flaming, Pa’alu sat down on the edge of the platform, letting his legs dangle over the side. He looked down at Amero.
“Not so clever, are you? An amulet’s a piece of metal, round, flat, with spirit markings on it. The elf priest made it for me when I gave him the yellow stone.”
Amero grimaced. Vedvedsica had gained the spirit stone after all.
“What was the amulet for?” he asked.
&n
bsp; “To make Karada love. She was supposed to love me, but you picked up the amulet that night instead of me, and she was stricken with love for you.”
All at once the strange events since the feast came into focus. Nianki’s behavior, her odd, disturbing questions, all of it made sense now — terrible, frightening sense. The amulet caused her to love the one man in the world she shouldn’t desire. No wonder she nearly went mad!
Pa’alu stood up, the flaming torch in his hand. The sound of the crowd had grown much louder, though from his position lying atop the cairn, Amero couldn’t see them. Pa’alu faced the village houses, the direction people would come from the orchard. By listening and watching his captor’s face, Amero could tell when the villagers and nomads were close at hand.
There were shouts, and Pa’alu held the torch high above his head. Amero expected him to plunge the brand into the kindling with his next breath, but the crowd noise subsided, and he lowered the torch safely to one side.
“Pa’alu! Come down from there!” It was Nianki’s voice. “Throw the torch on the ground and free Amero!”
“I’m not taking your commands any more, Karada. This may be the day I die, but if I do, I’ll take Arkuden to the spirit world with me.”
There were shouts of “No!” and “Let him go!” and Amero hoped his people or Nianki’s would storm the cairn and save him, but he quickly realized that the torch was so near the dry kindling that no one dared move.
Duranix! Duranix, if you can hear me, I need your help! he thought frantically. How far away could the dragon hear him? A league? Two leagues? Ten? How far had the dragon walked in half a morning?
“Why are you doing this?” Nianki called out. “Amero’s done you no harm.”
“I’m doing this because you betrayed me — betrayed us! You promised us greatness, Karada. You said that under your leadership we would rule the plains! Yet we live in this tiny valley, relying on the favors of strangers, laboring for them in exchange for a little meat and a place to pitch our tents. Is this the greatness you promised, Karada?”
Her response was to throw herself at the cairn. She ran and leaped, landing halfway up the sloping stone sides. Without ready footholds, she had to climb, and that slowed her down. Pa’alu calmly shoved the torch into the pile of wood. Smoke curled from the broken branches, followed by a puff of red flame.
Nianki hauled herself up as far as the upper edge of the altar before she misplaced her foot and slid back to the ground. Pa’alu came to the edge and looked down at her.
“Amero!” she cried. Villagers surged around her, trying to reach the cairn before the fire claimed their chief.
While everyone was yelling and struggling, Nacris saw her moment and acted. She stepped away from the shadow of the house in which she’d been hiding. The crowd was between her and the cairn, and no one was looking at her. She picked up a loose stone.
“Free Arkuden! Death to the nomads!” she cried, and threw the stone.
The distance was short and her aim was good. The rock hit Pa’alu hard on the jaw. He reeled with the blow and toppled off the cairn. Flames erupted from the pile. More villagers surged forward, some of them echoing Nacris’s cry, “Death to the nomads!”
Nianki got to her feet in time to avoid being trampled. She shouted for order, but the crowd was too loud, too far gone in pent-up anger to hear her.
Makeshift weapons appeared: pruning forks, wooden hoes, rakes, stone hammers, and axes. Blows were exchanged. The press of the crowd drove Nianki straight into the stone side of the cairn. She was unarmed save for her flint knife, which she could not reach because of the weight of the throng at her back.
She struggled and cursed, her blood boiling as she watched her outnumbered people being clubbed senseless by outraged farmers, potters, and herdsmen. Nianki yearned to plunge into the fray and teach the villagers a lesson, but her first duty was to Amero, still bound atop the cairn.
Suddenly, the mob pinning her helplessly in place dissolved as the unarmed scurried to get away from the armed. She started climbing again, and this time desperation put new strength in her hands. By the time she made it to the stone platform, Amero was squirming frantically, trying to put some distance between himself and the flames. With only bark sandals on his feet, he kicked at blazing tree limbs.
“Amero!” She grabbed him by his shirt when he wormed his way close enough. Dragging him away from the fire, Nianki next climbed over him and sat astride his back, sawing at his bonds with her knife.
Rocks and thrown clubs whizzed by Nianki. She dodged them with uncanny flicks of her head and shoulders, never once looking up from her task. When the thong was finally cut, she slid aside. Amero dragged her down so she would be less likely to be hit by random missiles.
“What happened?” she said in his ear.
“Pa’alu’s gone mad! He meant to kill me, and Hatu and Nacris helped him!”
She stared, disbelieving. “Hatu?”
He nodded furiously. A hammer hit the rim of the platform and exploded in a shower of rock fragments.
“We’ve got to stop this!” Amero said.
“Any idea how?”
“I’ll try to calm my people! You’ll have to see to yours!”
Below, those nomads not knocked out in the first minutes of the riot fell back to the animal pens. There, they began bridling their horses and mounting amidst a hail of stones and other makeshift missiles. Once on horseback, the nomads closed ranks and charged, relying on their speed and weight to knock the villagers out of the way. They quickly cleared the pathways between the houses and trampled the best-armed group of villagers, a band made up of the sons and daughters of the village elders. Yelling war cries, the mounted nomads galloped to their camp. While the villagers retreated to their houses, the nomads pulled down their tents and lashed their gear to their horses.
Nianki came upon Pa’alu, painfully crawling away from the cairn. He’d broken a leg and several ribs in his fall. She easily overtook him and pinned him to the ground by planting her foot in his back.
“Now you must kill me,” he gasped, his face in the dirt.
“Kill you? I should roast you alive on the pyre you made for my brother! Were Nacris and Hatu involved in this?” she said.
“No.”
“Liar!” She put more weight on her leg and his broken ribs scraped together. He writhed in agony. “They put you up to this!” she hissed.
“No! I did this myself! So kill me!”
Nianki removed her foot and grasped Pa’alu by the hair, turning him over on his back. She said, “You’re going to live just long enough to tell the entire band this was a plot by Nacris to overthrow me!”
Pa’alu looked past the angry eyes of the woman he loved and into the face of death. A figure had appeared atop the cairn behind Nianki. She didn’t see him, had no chance to block or dodge the spear he threw; however, the weapon wasn’t aimed at her. It took Pa’alu low in the gut.
Nianki rolled to the side and jumped up, knife ready. She caught only a glimpse of the spear thrower as he leaped down from the other side of the platform. By the time she ran around the end of the cairn, Pa’alu’s attacker had escaped into the maze of village houses.
She cursed heartily and returned to Pa’alu. His eyes were still open, but his breath was shallow.
“Karada,” he whispered.
She bent low over him to catch his dying words. “Who else?” she hissed. “Who else is with Nacris and Hatu?”
“All of them.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a rasping, rattling wheeze. “Finish me.”
Knowing he’d betrayed her, yet feeling some pity at last, Nianki found it in her heart to fulfill this last request.
She pulled the spear out of his belly. It was a boar spear, with a broad flint head and an oak peg lashed to the shaft to keep the spear from going in too far to be recovered. She positioned the tip over his heart.
“Peace… to you… Nianki,” he rasped.
“There is no p
eace,” she replied. “Not while I live.” She leaned hard on the shaft. Pa’alu, so near death already, felt nothing, and his last breath escaped soundlessly.
She slumped against the stone side of the cairn, the bloody spear across her lap. Out of the swirl of dust and smoke appeared a towering figure, coming toward her.
Pakito.
Nianki straightened her back and wrapped her hands more tightly around the spear shaft. The last thing she wanted was a fight with Pakito, her most loyal friend and a formidable foe, but Pakito’s brother was dead, and by her hand — how would the mighty warrior take that?
Pakito dropped to his knees beside his brother. He closed Pa’alu’s eyes and, scooping up a handful of loose dirt, gave him a nomad’s benediction — he poured the handful of dirt on Pa’alu’s forehead.
“Pakito.”
“Yes, Karada?”
“I killed him.”
“I saw. Thank you.”
She sat up. “You’re grateful I slew your brother?”
“He was suffering. He’d been suffering in his mind for a long time. This was his cure, Karada.”
She rose and laid the boar spear on her shoulder. “I see the band is breaking camp.”
Pakito looked up at her. Tears streaked his broad, bearded cheeks. “I have your horse. Samtu, Targun, and a few others are guarding our mounts back at the corral.”
“I knew you couldn’t be with that viper Nacris.”
His anguished gaze never wavered. “I follow you, Karada.”
Nianki peered through the dust at the chaos of the collapsing nomad camp. “There’s more blood to be shed before this is done,” she said grimly. “Our blood I fear. I should have cleaned up all the traitors when Sessan was slain. You see the price for my generosity.”
Amero appeared. He had minor burns on his arms and legs, and a few cuts and bruises, but he was all right. He was alone — not a single villager dared leave the safety of their stone houses to stand with him.
He saw Pa’alu’s body and silently wished peace to the departed hunter. Then he turned to his sister and Pakito.