by Dragon Lance
Ah! Vibrations in the stone floor gave Sthenn away. The vile creature always had talked too much.
Hugging the floor, Duranix hurtled down the center passage. It was a narrow tunnel, and he fit only by furling his wings tightly and pulling in his broad shoulders. Sthenn’s words faded as he charged through the darkness. Something shone in the murk ahead, and the reek of the green dragon’s breath drew him on. Putting on an extra burst of speed, Duranix broke through a flimsy screen of stalagmites into a much larger chamber.
There was Sthenn, curled up amid gleaming bone-white columns of stone.
“Now!” Duranix roared. “Meet my justice!”
Rearing up, he threw himself at the quiescent Sthenn. Just as he was about to get his ancient enemy in his talons, Sthenn slithered sideways, out of reach. Duranix crashed into a hedge of sturdy stalagmites that had been hidden by the dragon’s body. The tapering columns rang from the collision but did not break.
Sthenn gushed foul poison into the cave, drenching Duranix. The greenish gas stung the bronze dragon’s eyes. Outraged, he returned a blast of blue fire.
The bolt smashed into the cave wall, and the mountain above them heaved. Long limestone stalactites fell from the ceiling like spears, followed by man-sized shards of rock and limestone chips. The tunnel entrance collapsed, and debris filled the chamber opening.
“I have you!” Duranix declared. “This is one hole you won’t escape!”
“Nor you, it seems. Shall we rend each other to bits while the mountain comes down around us?”
“Why not? You call yourself Deathbringer. How ready are you to face death yourself?” A great bronze claw closed around an intact stalagmite and snapped it off at its base.
Wielding the stalagmite like a club, Duranix advanced on his foe. Sthenn backed away until his spine was pressed against the cave wall.
“It isn’t just we who will die!” the green dragon sneered. “Think of all the rodents in Arku-peli who will perish without you to protect them! The lake will run red with their blood. And your man, your darling pet – do you know what will happen to him? I’ve given him to Nacris. She has many, many tortures planned for him. And when he finally dies, Zannian will take his skull as a drinking cup.”
Duranix hurled the stalagmite at Sthenn. It shattered above his head, throwing sharp, milky fragments over him.
“Cease your filthy raving, old wyrm! This time you’ve miscalculated! Did you think I would panic at being buried here with you? I fear nothing you can do to me! Do you think I won’t give up my life to take yours? Your death would be the greatest gift I could give to humankind!”
Roaring deep within his chest, Duranix tore through the hedge of stone. Sthenn let out a high, keening screech and flung his decrepit bulk against the wall. Desperate to escape, he continued to hurl himself against the unyielding wall until Duranix’s foreclaws raked down his neck and left foreleg. Rancid black blood welled from the gashes.
Maddened by pain, the green dragon threw himself headfirst against the brittle limestone. With a loud crack, the wall finally gave way, and he plunged through.
The honeycomb of tunnels crumbled under the force of their battering. Rock and dirt poured over Duranix, swiftly burying his feet in a flood of heavy debris. Shafts of sunlight appeared through rents in the cavern roof. By this fractured light he saw Sthenn struggling through an avalanche of his own. Leaner and longer than the muscular bronze, Sthenn put his nose in a crack no wider than an ox’s shoulders and snaked through.
Duranix roared with frustration. The last thing he saw before a torrent of earth closed around him was the tip of the green dragon’s tail disappearing skyward.
In moments, Duranix was completely encased in stone and loose soil. The ridge ceased to tremble as the upper regions of the cave filled. When all was quiet, the dragon opened his eyes.
Black dirt pressed against his face, and the pressure on his body was enormous. Coiling his muscles, he thrust his right foreleg upward, opening his claws as he moved. Closing his talons on the broken soil, Duranix used his grip to drag himself forward. He worked his left foreclaw out, seized a boulder locked in the dirt, and used it to haul himself toward the surface. He repeated this agonizing maneuver until at last his questing claw broke through. With a final tremendous heave, he threw aside half the hilltop and rose, gasping, into the open air.
As he filled his lungs and shook lime chips from his eyes and nostrils, a dry, mocking laugh descended from on high.
“Well done, little Duranix! I knew a mountain couldn’t keep you down. Too bad the ground here is so soft! I dropped far less on your mother, and she died slowly, so slowly, but that was good hard stone.”
Duranix threw back his head and bellowed with rage. The green dragon, circling a few hundred paces overhead, hastily changed direction and flew away. The bronze dragon vaulted into the sky. Though his muscles twinged with pain from the bruising avalanche, he climbed aloft in a frenzy.
Filling his mighty lungs, Duranix bellowed, “Sthenn! I’ll never give you up! The sun may grow cold and the seas dry to dust, but I will catch you and kill you!”
Birds rose in huge flocks from the forest, whirling around him in a cloud of feathers. He slashed through them, gaining speed. The pursuit was on again.
*
The plain shimmered under the merciless glare of the sun. Having left the cool uplands, Beramun shed her heavy clothing. Her single gourd of Yala-tene water was already gone. Despite this, she was happy. For the first time in many, many days she was roaming the savanna again, unencumbered by raiders, villagers, yevi, or dragons.
To conserve her provisions, she foraged as she walked, eating berries and green shoots. High summer on the plain was a time of abundance. She could last a long time on the bounty at her fingertips.
The country teemed with game of every description. Amero had said the Silvanesti had driven the centaurs out of this region, and most of the humans, too. With no hunters to chase them, the animals were flourishing. The lack of humans also meant Beramun would have to go far to find help.
At midday she rested in the slender shade of a pine tree, dozing in the stifling heat. Now and then she started awake at any sound of movement, but it was always rabbits or deer, not raiders or elves.
As she drowsed, she dreamed of fighting. The shouting in her nightmares woke her, and she realized the noises hadn’t all been dreams.
Far-off calls and whistles traveled easily in the hot, still air, making Beramun’s heart hammer. To the west, six leather-clad horsemen were approaching at a walk, poking and prodding the tall grass with their spears.
Raiders.
With night a long way off, she’d have to run for it. She moved in a crouch, keeping the slender pine between her and the hunters. The plain ahead was as flat and featureless as a lake, offering no place to hide. Fortunately the raiders hadn’t seen her. They came on at a casual pace, laughing and talking, and she soon left them behind.
The afternoon wore on, and clouds piled up on the southern horizon, offering the tantalizing promise of rain. The storm was a long way off though and probably wouldn’t arrive until sunset.
Running in the heat had given her a raging thirst, but Beramun found no water until late in the day. The first creek she came across was almost dried up, but the muddy rivulet looked as fine to her as the clearest mountain brook. Stretching out on a warm boulder, Beramun lapped the brown water greedily.
Sighing in relief, she looked up from the water, and her eye fell upon a pair of human feet sticking out of the grass a few paces away. Beramun froze. The feet were bare and blistered, hardly those of a mounted raider. She approached carefully on all fours.
The feet belonged to a man lying facedown in the weeds. She rolled him over.
“Udi!”
It was her fellow scout, the beekeeper’s son. He had dart wounds in his right arm and thigh, and though he was weak from thirst and exhaustion, he was alive. She wet his lips with a trickle of muddy water from h
er gourd.
Udi’s eyes opened and immediately widened in silent fear.
“It’s all right,” she told him. “It’s Beramun. What happened?”
“Raiders,” he murmured hoarsely. “Chasing me for days... for sport.”
She looked back in the direction of the men she’d seen earlier. They must be the ones tracking Udi. She knew now why they hadn’t noticed her. The injured man was leaving a clear trail, and they were having a good time following it. They weren’t bothering to look for other tracks.
“I’ll help you,” she said.
“No.” He shook his head weakly. “Leave me.”
“I won’t!”
“I can’t go any farther. You go, Beramun. I’ll draw them away.”
“Don’t be stupid! I’ll not leave you!”
“You must. For Yala-tene. You and I are the last scouts left!”
Beramun sat back on her haunches, stunned. “How do you know?” she asked.
“I saw Anua taken. Later, I heard these raiders talking. They said they’d captured six villagers and knew there were two left.”
Beramun was horrified. The fate of the entire village hung on Udi and herself. There was little time to absorb the shock. The voices of Udi’s tormentors drifted across the sultry landscape. They were drawing closer, laughing as they called to each other.
Udi was right. She had no time to waste. “I’ll go on,” she said, “but you must try to evade them, Udi! Promise me that!”
“I’ll try.”
She helped him stand. “I’ll lead them downstream,” he gasped, pointing southeast. “You go that way.”
Northeast. She nodded and released him. He swayed for a moment but didn’t fall.
“Farewell, Udi.”
“Peace to you, Beramun. Tell my father —” He stopped abruptly, then shook his head. Turning away, he hobbled painfully downstream.
Tears stung Beramun’s eyes. Silently cursing Zannian, his raiders, and his filthy master, she dashed off into the high grass.
Before sunset that day, Beramun heard the distant sound of rams’ horns. The raiders were celebrating the end of a successful hunt.
Chapter 24
The hot breath of summer settled over the valley. From atop the Offertory, Amero could see most of the open ground between Yala-tene and the river. What had once been his favorite view in the valley was now a scene of heartache, pain, and frustration.
The bodies of the scouts had finally been removed, but only after Udi had been added to the horrible display. Seven scouts. Seven, not eight. Amero and all of Yala-tene prayed to all their ancestors the last valiant messenger had made it through.
Zannian had replaced the slain scouts with three huge piles of food, each as high as a man on horseback. Fruit and vegetables, part of the bounty looted from the villagers’ gardens, were left to rot. The sour-sweet smell of decay carried on the summer breeze to the hungry people of Yala-tene. No one could escape it. The odor brought with it more melancholy, which spread like a plague.
The storage caves were nearly empty. The last bales of pressed fruit had been eaten, and the villagers were down to dried vegetables and slabs of salted or smoked meat. Adding to Amero’s grief, there had been thefts from the storage caves. Armed watchmen had to be posted to safeguard the food supply for all.
An unnatural quiet settled over Yala-tene. Normally garrulous folk became sullen and withdrawn. Amero, who usually got along well with the village children, realized they were avoiding him in the streets. He puzzled over the reason at Lyopi’s house.
“How can a man often so wise be so foolish?” Lyopi said, interrupting his musing. She was haggard and hollow-eyed, and only Amero’s insistence had halted her practice of giving most of her food ration to her elderly neighbors. She set aside the clothes she was mending and rubbed her eyes tiredly.
“What do you mean?” he insisted.
“The children think it’s your fault they’re hungry.”
Amero was genuinely surprised. “Why do they think that?”
“Because you’re the Arkuden. Everything that happens, good and bad, is because of you.”
“Is that what you think, too?”
She picked up her mending again. “You didn’t bring Zannian down on us. He came here at the bidding of the green dragon.” She gave him a sidelong look and added, “But I don’t understand all the decisions you’ve made. Why did you let the Protector leave?”
“I don’t control Duranix.” Amero’s voice was sharp. “I never have.”
She nodded and bent herself to her task.
He felt the burden of their troubles resting on his shoulders, heavy and solid as a mountain. All he wanted was peace, to have his old life back and work in the foundry, continuing his experiments with bronze. Instead, he spent his days on the abandoned Offertory, impotently watching the movements of the raiders.
During the day they rode back and forth in plain view, doing nothing but doing it loudly. There was nowhere in Yala-tene to escape the noise of their movements or the stench of the rotting food outside the walls or the memory of those who had died. By night, the raider camp was lit with bonfires, and the valley rang with coarse singing and drunken laughter.
A complete turn of the moons had passed since Zannian had come to Yala-tene, and there’d been no fighting for half that time. The raiders seemed in good spirits however – able to hunt, eat, drink, and do as they liked.
Amero watched the raiders ride and carouse. In another cycle of the white moon, it would be Moonmeet, when Lutar and Soli joined in the heavens. Moonmeet signaled the height of summer. It was normally a time of celebration, when the villagers reveled from sunset to sunrise, thereby losing a whole day’s work the next day.
Amero dropped the staff he was leaning on. The villagers usually lost a whole day’s work after the Moonmeet festivities, because no one could work well after a night of drinking, dancing, and feasting. And no one could possibly fight.
He clutched his hair with both hands. How many opportunities they had missed! He limped down the Offertory steps, calling loudly for the village elders. In the street before Lyopi’s house he gathered everyone and explained his idea.
“The raiders have grown comfortable in their camp,” he said excitedly. “They drink and feast every night —”
“On our food,” Montu grumbled.
“Yes, and we just sit here and let them. I’m tired of that! Tonight will be their last revel! When the bonfires blaze and the wine flows tonight, I propose to lead an attack on the raiders’ camp while they’re too drunk to resist!”
The elders did not cheer or even express a taste for vengeance. Amero couldn’t fathom their lackluster response. Tepa spoke up, offering the explanation.
“We’re tired of fighting, Arkuden,” he said. Since Udi’s death, Tepa had begun to show the burden of the years he had once worn so lightly. “So many have been hurt and died, and for what? Will this night attack drive the raiders from the valley?” Amero admitted he didn’t think they would succeed so grandly. Tepa sighed. “Then why do it?”
“During the attack, our stockmen can round up as many oxen and goats as they can handle. We need food, and there’s food rotting a hundred paces outside the wall!”
The elders brightened at this. Victuals were indeed worth fighting for. They began talking at once, some about fresh meat, others about night-fighting tactics. Amero was pleased. It was the most spirit any of them had displayed in many days.
While the elders talked, Lyopi tugged at his elbow. “Are you going on this raid?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Her disapproval was fierce. “Let younger ones do the fighting!”
“I’m not that old,” he said stiffly.
“No, but you’re important to the people of Yala-tene. Think what a blow it would be if you were killed.” She turned away, then abruptly turned back again, shoving her face close to his. “And what will I do if you get killed?”
He had to grin.
“I’ll try not to be. But I can’t stay here, safe and protected, and send my people out to fight.”
“Then I’m going, too. Someone has to guard your back, you old fool.” In view of his own reasons, he couldn’t refuse her.
Amero reviewed the available men and women for the daring nighttime raid and chose thirty-three. He was saddened at being reminded how many familiar faces, young and old, were already gone.
A few horses quartered inside the walls would be used as camouflage for the attack. Dressed in leather breastplates and hoods, four villagers would pose as raiders and lead those on foot to the enemy camp. Amero stressed that fighting was less important than sowing the maximum amount of confusion and bringing back food.
At sunset, many more villagers than normal lined the walls, watching the raiders’ camp. Amero was worried their presence might warn Zannian some scheme was afoot, but the raiders paid them no heed. Bonfires blazed up in the raiders’ camp. Shouts and wild laughter soon followed. The valley floor around Yala-tene emptied of riders as Zannian’s men returned to camp for their nightly excesses.
Multiple ropes were let down the wall, and a hurriedly built timber ramp was lowered to allow the skittish horses to reach the ground. A poor rider, Amero chose to lead the contingent on foot. Every bit of metal or stone carried by the villagers was swathed in soft hide scraps to prevent rattling. They blackened their faces and hands. One final preparation made little sense to many: Amero had his people tie bundles of sage or mint around their ankles.
Lyopi asked, “Is this a charm for luck?”
“We make our own luck,” he replied. “The herbs will keep the yevi from scenting us.”
He took hold of a rope and lowered himself to the ground.
*
Six days after she left Udi by the creek, Beramun came to the banks of a mighty river. She was far from the land she knew and had no idea of the river’s name, but it was a broad band of slow-moving green water, half a league wide in places. It flowed from north to south, like the Thon-Tanjan, whose upper branches she had already skirted.
The opposite shore of the nameless river was lined with willow trees. Beyond them was a vast sea of grass, stretching to the horizon. All that moved on it were a few animals. Taking in the broad vista, she felt like the only human being in the world.