by Dragon Lance
Her head swam as she tried to make sense of the cacophony. The old man, Tepa, tried to talk to her, but Jenla shushed him. Beramun gave the woman a grateful look. The teeming streets passed by in a blur, and an ache quickly bloomed behind her eyes.
At last they came to a low, rather tumbledown structure made of round rocks and slabs of bark. Fire glinted from within. In front of this building many people had gathered. Some were speaking with great heat at the top of their lungs.
Her guides led her through the crowd to where two men, one standing, the other seated, were loudly declaiming. The standing one was tall, and rather good-looking, but his hair was white, which seemed odd for one with such a youthful face. His eyebrows and eyelashes were also white, giving his whole face a very strange cast. The seated fellow was some years older. He had very short light brown hair and a closely trimmed beard, not at all like the luxuriant beards she was used to seeing on men his age out on the plains.
“... further evidence of Silvanesti plots against us,” the younger, white-haired man was saying. “My companions were cruelly slain – even the centaur Miteera sent to help us!”
The seated man looked even angrier, his face red above his whiskers. “And I say you had no right to go off on your own like that!” he countered. “Your folly cost the lives of two young people you were entrusted to guard. What did you say to their parents, Tiphan?”
White Hair replied loftily, “I said they died for the good of Yala-tene.”
His opponent scowled, drumming his fingers on his knee until he spotted Beramun in the crowd. The drumming stopped. He stood up.
“Jenla. Tepa. Who is this?” he asked.
The two villagers moved forward with the girl between them. Jenla explained how they’d found her, finishing with, “She says her name is Beramun, and claims to bring dire news for you, Arkuden.”
The name caused Beramun to stiffen. “Arkuden?” she repeated. “You’re a dragon’s son?”
He smiled, his hazel eyes filled with restored good humor. “I’m Amero, son of Oto and Kinar. ‘Arkuden’ is a name the folk hereabout call me. What news have you, Beramun?”
He had a kind face and pleasant voice, and Beramun relaxed a little. “Before Soli last waned, I was taken prisoner by raiders on the south plain. These men have horses and range all over, robbing and killing as they please. Their leader is called Zannian.” She noticed Tiphan glaring at her, obviously irritated by her interruption.
“Go on,” Amero said kindly, giving Tiphan a stern look.
“This Zannian is planning to make war on all the peoples of the plain,” she finished. “I spent some days in the raiders’ camp, making leather shirts for their warriors. I saw many, many spears being piled up.”
“We have nothing to fear from raider trash,” said a stout fellow with a reddish beard, standing nearby. “We have our wall, and we have the mighty protector, Duranix.” His words inspired many approving murmurs.
“What is Duranix?” asked Beramun.
“A dragon,” Tiphan said, looking down his thin nose at her. “Powerful in spirit, wise in counsel, mighty —”
Beramun recoiled. “Dragon! You also serve a monster?” She was horrified. Had she come so far, endured so much, only to find herself prisoner of yet another evil beast?
The crowd jeered and called her names for insulting the one they kept calling “the Protector.” Amero quieted them. Then, his soothing tone gone and his voice edged with urgency, he asked, “What did you mean by ‘you also serve a monster?’”
“Zannian and his band have a dragon master, too!”
All talk ceased. Tiphan stared hard at Beramun, his eyes narrowing. “What dragon is this?” he demanded.
“His name is Sthenn. He’s a green dragon who lives in the forest at the Edge of the World.”
For five or six heartbeats there was no sound, then every man and woman present began exclaiming loudly and at once. They surged around Beramun like a storm-tossed sea, waving their hands wildly, pointing to the mountains, pointing to the sky.
“Sthenn!”
“— evil dragon who created the yevi —”
“— as powerful as Duranix?”
“Duranix? Where is Duranix?”
“He must help —!”
On and on, until Beramun pressed her hands over her ears to muffle the cacophony. She closed her eyes as well, trying to shield her aching head from the tumult. Someone touched her on the shoulder. Opening her eyes, she saw it was the headman, Amero.
“Come with me,” he said close to her ear. “We’ll go some place quiet to talk.”
Trust was difficult. The news that these people were the followers of yet another dragon had shaken her badly. However, the kindness in his face and the appeal of a quiet place swayed her, and she let herself be led away from the agitated crowd.
Amero brought her through the throng to the cliff face close by. A basket made of wooden poles lashed together stood there. He climbed in and held out his hand to her.
She hesitated, and he said, “You’re safe here, Beramun. No one will harm you, least of all me. Come.”
More than the words themselves, his gentle manner reassured her. He explained that the hoist would lift them safely up. After a moment of nervous hesitation, she climbed in with him.
During the ascent, she held tightly to the sides of the basket. When the contraption finally bumped to a stop high off the ground, she tried not to look, but her eyes were drawn to the drop.
By the ancestors! The people below looked small as beetles! The thought made Beramun smile. Not so threatening from a height, the crowd did resemble a swarm of beetles roiling in the sunlight after their rotten log home had been turned over.
Amero tied off the basket and helped her climb out. The interior of the cavern was huge and dimly lit.
“You live here?” she exclaimed. Her voice echoed off the high ceiling, the words coming back to her over and over. She laughed with childish delight at the effect.
“Duranix made it,” Amero explained. “He and I both live here.”
Mention of the dragon’s name killed Beramun’s playful mood. “Dragons are monsters,” she said flatly. “How can a man live with one?”
“Duranix is no monster. He’s the greatest friend a man could have. All that I’ve become, all that Yala-tene is, is due to my friendship with Duranix.”
Even through her mistrust, Beramun could hear the sincerity in his words. He went to the pit hearth and stirred the embers until they flamed. An elk haunch was on the spit there. He sliced off several generous pieces and offered them to her on the point of his knife. She hesitated only an instant before taking the knife and gnawing the meat with evident hunger.
Amero filled a leather cup from a pool of water by the cave wall. The basin was kept full by a rent in the outer cave wall that allowed water from the falls to trickle in.
He handed the cup to Beramun, then moved away, puttering in the recesses of the cave, allowing her to eat in peace.
After blunting her hunger pangs, Beramun rinsed her face and arms. When she returned to sit by the fire, Amero came back to question her about Sthenn, Zannian, and the raiders.
She told him all she knew, from the moment she’d been captured to her final escape down the river.
“Two hundred raiders or more you say, with a dragon behind them?” Amero muttered. He was standing at the entrance to the cave, frowning thoughtfully. The setting sun painted the sky scarlet beyond him.
“You believe me, don’t you?”
He nodded, and she sighed gustily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Arkuden, if you’ll give me a quiet corner in this beehive of a village, I’d like to rest a bit. It’s been a long journey from the Edge of the World.”
“It’s better if you stay up here,” Amero said absently. “Duranix is away, and there are things going on in the village I’d rather you not get involved in.”
Beramun demanded, “Are you keeping me pris
oner?”
He regarded her with a distracted expression. “You can come and go as you please. It really would be best if you stayed here, at least until Duranix returns. He’ll want to hear your story. Sthenn is his ancient enemy. They’ve fought each other before.”
Beramun chewed her lip, thinking. She hated confinement, but after many days on the run, always terrified Zannian or Sthenn would appear over the next hill or beyond the next grove of trees, she was weary beyond belief. The cave was blessedly calm and free of the hurly-burly of the teeming streets below. The constant rumble of the waterfall was actually rather soothing, and the food was better than anything she could scrounge on the plain.
*
Amero’s deep musings were interrupted by loud snoring. Turning, he saw Beramun leaning against the hearth, fast asleep. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. Her brief wash had removed the worst of the mud from her face, revealing her to be a pretty girl, thinned by too much hardship. Young, too. Her self-assured manner had fooled him at first, but looking at her now, he knew she couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen.
Something about her arrival bothered him. He couldn’t decide exactly what, so he cut himself a helping of roast elk and sat nearby, eating quietly. Duranix’s warning about an unknown peril loomed larger than ever. They had their choice of dangers: elves on the move in the east, Sthenn and his human host reported in the southwest, and perhaps worst of all, the strange incident involving Tiphan. The facts were indisputable. Tiphan had been transformed by some unknown power, and his naked ambition to take over Yala-tene was now as shockingly plain as his newly whitened hair.
Amero suddenly felt small in the great cave, small and insignificant. He wondered where Duranix was just then. Swallowing the last bite of elk, he sat down on the hearth across from Beramun and watched her sleep.
Chapter 11
The closer he got to Yala-tene, the more Duranix grew disturbed. Something was terribly wrong, and it wasn’t all due to that fool Tiphan’s dabbling with forces he couldn’t control. The sense of menace he’d detected before leaving the village was still building like invisible thunderheads, foretelling a storm of terrible magnitude. Though still too vague to identify, the signals were stronger than before – stronger and closer.
Duranix landed on the cliffs above the village, where years before he’d fought the rebel nomads of Hatu the One-eyed and Nacris. He inspected the sleeping town. Though the starry night seemed peaceful, the chill he felt throughout his massive body confirmed the worst: The malign presence had come to Yala-tene. It would have to be found and expunged as quickly as possible.
He flew into his cavern, shaking off the waterfall’s momentary deluge as he always did. The dying embers of a fire and the smell of roast elk told him someone had eaten recently. His heat-sensitive vision picked out a single warm body, sleeping by the hearth. Amero was home.
Duranix stalked across the cave and exhaled a small bolt of lightning into the firepit. Flames blazed up. Familiar surroundings and the nearness of his human friend raised Duranix’s spirits.
He pushed his head close to the sleeping mound and boomed, “Wake up, boy! I’ve much to tell you!”
The sleeper jerked upright. With a start Duranix realized it wasn’t Amero, but a female with long black hair. Her mouth opened, and she screamed, scrambling around the hearth away from him. She kept on screaming, face contorted by utter panic.
“Cease that noise!” he roared.
Like a judicious slap in the face, his command worked.
The girl’s jaws worked in silent horror, then she shouted, “You’re the dragon!”
“How brilliant you are! Who are you?”
She pulled herself together and replied in a calmer tone, “Beramun. I’m Beramun. You... you’re Duranix, aren’t you?”
“I am, and this is my home. Why are you here?”
“Amero brought me —”
“Did he?” His eyes narrowed. “Where is the hospitable Amero?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking around rapidly. “He was here when I went to sleep.”
Duranix circled the hearth. Beramun scampered away, maintaining her distance. “Are you the female he’s been tending in the village?” the dragon asked.
Her face colored. “No! I only arrived in the valley yesterday.”
“Then why did Amero bring you here? It’s not his custom to lodge strangers in our home.”
Beramun stood up, tugging at her twisted clothing. “I came to Yala-tene to warn him, to warn everyone,” she said, untying the braided hide belt at her waist and smoothing her kilt.
“Warn them of what?”
“Zannian’s raiders.” Beramun had to loosen the wraparound shirt in order to unbind her arms. When she did, the shirt fell away from her shoulders, exposing the green mark high on her chest.
Duranix’s pupils expanded. Without warning, he sprang through the fire. She had no time to dodge, but did let loose another bloodcurdling scream as his bronze talons enveloped her.
“You are his!” Duranix bellowed.
“Let me go!” she shrieked. “Let me go, monster! Let me go!”
He reared up on his hind legs, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he meant to dash her against the cave wall. Instead, he carried her to the largest opening, the one directly behind the falls.
“You belong to him,” Duranix said coldly, his great voice carrying easily over the rumble of the water. “Did he send you to destroy me?”
“Destroy you?” Beramun’s voice was shrill with terror. “Belong to who? I don’t know what you mean!”
He thrust her out of the cave. Hundreds of paces above the ground, she now clung to Duranix as fiercely as she had fought his grip a moment before.
“Why did you come here?” he bellowed.
She screamed the words as fast as she was able. “To warn the people of Yala-tene about Zannian and his raiders —”
“Lies!” Duranix leaned farther out and pushed Beramun into the edge of the plunging stream of water. At its heart the waterfall had sufficient force to break bones and tear hair out by the roots. Even here, the torrent forced Beramun’s head down and pounded her back. She choked until he hauled her in.
“Why did you come here?” Duranix demanded. “What is your purpose?”
“I told you —”
He extended his foreclaw toward the water again.
Tears streaming down her drenched face, she cried, “No! No! It’s the truth! I swear by my ancestors! It’s the truth!”
A shout came from behind. Turning his broad head, Duranix saw Amero vault out of the basket and rush toward them.
“Stop it, Duranix! Don’t hurt her!”
“Are you mad, boy? She is one of Sthenn’s creatures!”
“No! She came here to warn us about Sthenn!”
Duranix examined the limp, bedraggled girl in his grasp. His brazen lip curled in disgust, and he tossed her to Amero. The latter managed to catch her, staggering backward under the unexpected burden.
“What’s gotten into you, Duranix?” Amero said, lowering Beramun to the floor. “I’ve never seen you mistreat a human so!”
The dragon’s ribs worked hard as he inhaled and exhaled, calming himself. Finally he said, “She wears Sthenn’s mark! She is his creature, no less than the yevi that killed your parents.”
“His mark?”
“See for yourself. High on the left side of her chest.”
Amero gently parted Beramun’s sodden hair and peeled back the wet doeskin. The green triangle stood out plainly. He touched it lightly with a forefinger. The mark was smooth, the edges flush with the girl’s skin.
Beramun came out of her daze and pushed weakly at his hands. “What’re you doing? Don’t touch me!”
“What is this mark?”
She held her shirt tight to her neck. “I don’t know. A bruise!”
“Have you always had it?”
“No. I noticed it after my escape from Almurk.”
/>
Amero quickly recounted to Duranix her story of capture by Sthenn’s raiders and her escape.
The dragon listened, motionless and silent, but when the tale was done he said, “This is the shadow I sensed coming, Amero. This is the danger that threatens us all. She was marked by Sthenn. She is his creature. Better she dies now, before she can do his evil here.”
Beramun gasped and stood on shaky legs to run. She looked about wildly, realizing she was hopelessly trapped in the cave. Duranix made no move toward her, but Amero stepped between the dragon and the girl.
“There’s no proof she’s here on Sthenn’s behalf. Maybe the mark is just a bruise.” Even to his own ears, it sounded weak, and Duranix was not likely to be wrong about such a thing.
“I smell Sthenn all over her,” the dragon told him, crouching low and coiling his powerful legs beneath him. “I sensed his presence a hundred leagues away. Now I know why – he sent this girl here.”
“But why? She has warned us about his plots!”
“You don’t understand the poisonous subtlety of Sthenn’s mind. If he sent her here, there is a black reason behind it.” Amero folded his arms across his chest. “I won’t let you harm her.”
Silence ensued, heavy and tense. Amero knew he was no match for the dragon, but he honestly could not imagine that Duranix would hurt him. Though he was still a strange and oft-times unfathomable creature, Duranix had been Amero’s friend too long for the dragon to disregard him.
Finally, Duranix relaxed his attack stance. “Very well,” he said calmly. “Shield her if you must. There’s no understanding the irrational feelings humans have for each other.” Amero breathed more easily, but the dragon’s next words troubled him anew. “I warn you though, by all that’s passed between us – this female is doing Sthenn’s work, and we will all come to grief if you let her live.”
Amero looked over his shoulder at Beramun. “Go to the hoist,” he said quietly. “Wait there for me.”
She obeyed immediately. The dragon’s eyes followed her every step.