by Dragon Lance
I will if you’ll stop pestering me.
Amero backed up a step, taken aback by the dragon’s harsh tone. He thought, It will mean a lot to everyone. We must do this, or face plague and wandering spirits.
Very well.
“He’s coming,” Amero said quietly.
A long interval passed, so long that Amero felt his face redden.
Finally the thundering falls burst apart as the powerful bronze body punched through to open air. Duranix spread his great wings. The elders let out a concerted gasp. Though they had known Duranix a long time, he’d not been seen much recently. Duranix had grown enormously during his time away as a result of being infused with wild spirit power by Tiphan, the ill-fated leader of the Sensarku. The bronze dragon had been poisoned by Sthenn, his limbs rotting away, when the misguided young villager released the power he barely understood to heal Duranix. Heal him it did – and accelerated his growth by almost a hundred years.
The villagers were filled with awe, but the Silvanesti were no less impressed, though they tried harder to conceal their amazement. Duranix flew toward them, swelling rapidly in size. Repair work in the streets of Yala-tene came to a halt as the shadow of the dragon fell across the town. Nomads and ex-raiders placing the last bodies on the timber terraces of the funeral pyre paused and looked up when the great beast hove into view. As the dragon drew closer, they could see that the injuries he’d sustained in his battle with Sthenn were healing well, and his left eye was no longer swollen shut.
The remaining raiders were stricken with fear. Some of them fell to the ground, terrified Duranix might be as capricious and vindictive as their former master. They had often seen their master in his hideous disguise as Greengall or in his natural, decrepit form. But no face the ancient green dragon ever presented could match the power and majesty of Duranix in his prime.
Duranix paid no heed to any of them. He landed on the pile of masonry rubble left by his collision with the town wall. The funeral pyre was complete, and Duranix ordered everyone back.
He opened his wings and vaulted into the air. It was late afternoon, and the weird orange sky glow reflected red and gold from his bronze hide as he climbed almost vertically. Golden fire trailed from the tips of his wings and his homed head, making a shimmering path many paces long in his wake. People below exclaimed in wonder, and even the elves could not hide their astonishment.
“Is he always so flamboyant?” asked Balif, coming up to Amero’s side.
“No,” Amero said, gawking along with everyone else. “He usually draws lightning from the clouds. I don’t know where this new yellow flame comes from.”
The dragon reached the underbelly of the scurrying clouds and hovered. Silent orange fire rippled up and down his wings, flying off the tips in streams of bright fiery balls. Abruptly Duranix tipped to one side and plunged down, his jaw dropped open, and golden fire burst forth.
The mound trembled, then erupted into flame. Duranix held his mouth agape for some time, playing a stream of fire to and fro across the heap of logs and kindling. When he finally snapped his jaws shut, the pyre was blazing from end to end.
No one cheered, wept, or made any sound at all. A thousand pairs of eyes – villager, nomad, raider, and elf – stared at the mountain of fire billowing up from the flat valley floor. Even after Duranix landed on the west side of the pyre, brilliant orange lightning continued to flicker down from the Ember Wind clouds, striking the funeral pyre time and again.
Against the low roar of the flames, a lone voice could be heard singing.
Come walk with me, lonely one
In summer sun or winter rain,
From mountains high to rivers low,
Across the open, endless plain.
Amero strode to the edge of the parapet and tried to spot who was singing the tune his mother had used to soothe him to sleep as a child. Ringed around the pyre were hundreds of people, mostly from Karada’s band. He hurried down the ramp. Lyopi called after him, “Where are you going?”
He clambered down the broken wall, slipping and teetering over slabs of shattered stone. The voice was still singing, but the words were indistinct this close to the crackling, popping bonfire. Amero pushed among the nomads. He spotted Karada some distance away, seated on her tall, wheat-colored horse. They exchanged a look, then his sister quickly glanced away.
More voices joined in the song. All were former raiders. Hearing the slow, soothing melody issuing from the throats of the hardened men moved him deeply, and he wondered how they could know his mother’s song.
Amero broke through a line of nomads still gazing at the fire and reached Karada. On the ground at her horse’s feet was Zannian, his head still swathed in bandages.
His was the clear, strong voice leading the singing of “The Endless Plain.”
A sharp pang touched Amero’s heart. He knelt beside Zannian. His nearness caused the sightless man to flinch and stop. The song went on among his former followers.
“Who is it?” said Zannian hoarsely.
“Amero.”
“Ah, with Karada, then we are all together.” Using her horse’s leg as a guide, Zannian got to his feet. “Strange custom you have, burning the dead.”
“Necessity taught it to us. Graves are hard to dig in the mountains, and when there are so many to bury, fire is an honorable solution.”
“What do nomads do with their dead?” Zannian asked, raising his voice and face to Karada.
“Bury them,” she said tersely. “The plains are wide, and all can sleep within.”
Amero looked from her to their newly found brother. “We must talk. The three of us.”
Karada was silent for a long moment, then said, “Let us go to my tent.” She guided her horse away, back to camp. Amero took his brother’s arm and followed.
Though it seemed every person in the valley was at the pyre, at least one was not. When Karada entered her tent, she found Mara waiting by the campfire.
“I am making food, Karada,” the girl said.
A silent nod. “Go now. I want to be alone.”
Mara slunk out. She’d just entered the shadows when she saw the Arkuden arrive. He was leading an injured man in raider’s clothes. They went into Karada’s tent without calling for permission.
Mara had never trusted the Arkuden. Since the age of eight, when her family had given her over to the Sensarku, she had been steeped in the philosophy of Tiphan, “Tosen,” First Servant, of the Sensarku. The Arkuden always opposed the Tosen’s plans to improve Yala-tene and bring glory to the dragon and the Servers of the Dragon. The Arkuden, the Tosen said, acted as if he alone had the right to determine the destiny of Yala-tene. Her later disillusionment with Tiphan had not altered her feelings against Amero for blocking the Tosen’s wonderful dreams for a better world.
Brother of Karada or not, the Arkuden was no friend. If not for him, Tiphan would never have left Yala-tene, her fellow Sensarku Penzar wouldn’t have been swallowed by the spirit stones on the plain, Elu the centaur wouldn’t have been murdered by elves, and she would never have been captured.
Mara’s green eyes widened as the terrible truth crystallized in her mind: The Arkuden was to blame. He was to blame for all of it.
A muffled voice came to her from the tent. Mara stretched out flat on the ground and put her ear to the hide wall.
As usual, the Arkuden was doing the talking.
*
“I know this is hard, but we must face it. We can’t ignore it any longer.”
“It’s not hard,” Karada said sharply. “Ask him what he wants.”
Zannian tilted his head toward his sister. “I want to see Nacris.”
“No. She’s fated to die, so consider her dead and go on.”
The former raider chief brought his hands to his head and pushed the bandages back until his face was fully exposed. A single horizontal slash crossed both eyes and the bridge of his nose. The skin around the wound was swollen and mottled by red and purple bruises.
He turned his head this way and that, obviously trying to see something, anything, and obviously failing.
He snapped, “If you really wanted her dead, you would’ve slain her the day she was captured.”
Karada found a gourd bottle and pulled the wooden plug out with her teeth. The spicy aroma of cider wafted through the tent.
“She made a good hostage,” the nomad chieftain said, and took a long drink.
“And now? How many days has it been since the battle ended?”
“Eight,” said Amero.
“So many? It’s hard to tell when you see neither sun nor stars.” Zannian sniffed the air and held out his hand. “Give me some cider.”
She gave him the gourd. He drank deeply from it.
“Let’s not talk about Nacris,” Amero said. “She is doomed. But you may yet be saved.”
Zannian wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I tried to destroy you. Why would you want to save me?”
Astonished, Amero said, “Because you’re my brother!”
“The only brothers I knew are burning now on that pyre.”
Karada made a disgusted noise. “This is useless. Are you sure you want to let this yevi-child live?” she asked Amero.
“Yes.”
“Kill me and be done with it,” Zannian said bitterly. “All the promises made to me turned out to be lies – the Master’s, that woman’s —” He couldn’t call Nacris “mother” any more.
Amero insisted, “You’re young. Can you see no other way to live?”
“Think you’ll make a villager out of me? I’ll fall on a knife first!”
Amero crossed behind Zannian and plucked the cider gourd from his hand. He knelt on one knee beside him.
“A good healer might have been able to save your eyes,” he said. “But our best healer’s dead. We sent him to talk terms with you, and you cut off his head. Does that mean anything to you, Menni?”
“My name is Zannian!”
Looking up at Karada, Amero said, “Our sister is Nianki. Do you remember that name at all?”
Zannian was breathing hard, clearly distressed, but his voice was loud as he denied it. “I don’t remember either one of you! You’re nothing to me!”
“You remember ‘The Endless Plain.’”
“It’s just a song.”
“A song our mother sang to us!” Amero put a hand on Zannian’s shoulder, his face pale and strained. “If you don’t remember, it’s my fault. You were just a baby, Menni, two summers old. I put you in a tree to keep you safe from the yevi, but that wasn’t enough. I should’ve kept you with me. I should’ve found a place for us both —”
“Then you would’ve fallen into Sthenn’s hands or been killed,” Karada said bluntly.
Amero sat back, cradling his head in his hands. “I can’t help the past, but I can give you a future.” Eyes flashing, he raised his head and added, “You were taken in arms. Your life belongs to the one who defeated you, Lord Balif. He’s given you to me. I say you shall remain in the Valley of the Falls for the rest of your life. Blind or sighted, you’ll learn how to live as a peaceful man of our village, and if you cause trouble – any trouble at all – I’ll give you back to Balif!”
Karada stifled a grim smile at what she knew to be an empty threat. Zannian said nothing, so she punched him on the shoulder.
“Say something, boy,” said Karada. “What it’ll be? If you want, I’ll lend you a knife to fall on right now.”
Zannian’s expression changed from defiant to sly. He licked his parched lips, then said, “What happened to the black-haired girl, Beramun?”
“She’s in camp,” Karada said.
“Could I speak to her?”
Amero shook his head hard, but his sister answered, “That’s up to her.”
“I want to speak to Beramun and Nacris.”
His siblings argued, but in the end, it was agreed: Zannian would be taken to Nacris. Karada would be present, and when she ordered the meeting at an end, Zannian would go without complaint. Later, Amero would ask Beramun if she cared to visit Zannian. It was entirely up to her whether she did.
Amero touched his younger brother’s arm. “Don’t take me for a fool,” the Arkuden said. “I stood up to you in battle, and I won. If you make trouble or try to escape, I’ll deal with you. Brother or not, Yala-tene comes first.”
Amero stood. “Let’s go back to the village.”
“Leave him here,” Karada said. “He’s a wanderer, he’s better off in a tent than a stone hut.”
Zannian shrugged. “All places look alike to me,” he said without humor.
*
The Arkuden left. Mara clung to the warm ground, bathed in angry sweat. Her thoughts were confused, muddled, but one phrase echoed in her head – I’ll give you back to Balif! How could he betray his brother, a fellow human, to the Silvanesti? Didn’t he know how they treated their captives? What kind of tyrant had the Arkuden become?
Karada must be made to understand the enormity of the Arkuden’s words. Karada trusted her brother too much – and loved him unnaturally, Mara knew. That unnatural love, which blinded her to his true nature, was also the fault of the elves. Her Tosen had told her so.
Chapter 17
The great pyre burned itself out around dawn. The mound of ash and embers slowly lost its dull red aura, but the pall of smoke hovered over the valley like a noxious mushroom, held in by the Ember Wind raging above it. When the funeral fire finally winked out, the last one to leave the scene was Duranix, who had watched over the pyre to the last. He flew back to his cave.
Amero wanted to talk to him, but his hoist had been destroyed during the raider attack. Silent calls for the dragon’s aid were ignored, so the only way for Amero to get inside was by the vent holes cut through the roof of the cave. He gathered vine rope from all over Yala-tene. He needed a great deal of it to descend to the cave floor from the high ceiling.
Conditions were improving in the valley. Hunting parties returned with the last of the village’s missing children. Every one had been found. Not a single child was lost, because the older children took care of the little ones, hiding out in the foothills exactly as their parents had told them. Likewise, the children and old folks of Karada’s band returned, not only hale and whole but staggering under the weight of fresh game and foraged food.
Karada embraced her old friend Targun. “Well done, old man!” she said. “Any problems to report?”
“None, chief,” he replied. “The country seems abandoned. All the time we were out there, we saw no one – not a human, not a centaur, not an elf. Just lots and lots of elk!”
“Sounds good. í wish I’d been there.”
The grizzled old plainsman regarded his chief curiously. “Was the fight not a good one?”
“Ugly,” was all she would say about it.
“When do we return to the plain?”
Karada had been pondering this question herself. She’d imagined her band would fight, defeat the raiders, and depart immediately when they were done. Last time she was in Yala-tene, it was such a strain to be around Amero that she’d left as speedily as possible.
Oddly, she did not feel that way now. The curse was still there, without doubt. She felt it skulking within her, like a hunger pang no meal could cure. But things were different now; the situation was more complicated. Amero had a woman of his own, a woman with whom he shared a history that didn’t include herself. There was Beramun, who had become like the daughter she’d never had. Balif too was a considerable distraction. These people filled her days and blunted the ache she felt from her compelled love for Amero.
Lastly, there were Zannian and Nacris. Karada found it hard to care much about the fallen raider chief. She hardly knew him, and what she did know, she didn’t like. Still, he was her flesh and blood, and how he lived his life mattered, if only because Amero felt so strongly about him.
Nacris was another matter entirely. She deserved death – even Amero agreed – but it was
harder than Karada thought to condemn her. If they had met on the battlefield, sword to sword, Karada could have slain her joyfully. In her present state, crippled and deluded, there would be little honor in taking her life.
Targun was still talking.
“Eh? Forgive me, old man. I was elsewhere,” she told him.
“I was asking: How long will we stay here?”
She looked at the sky, still capped by the oppressive Ember Wind. According to reports from her scouts, the eastern passes and foothills were free of the life-draining wind, so the nomads could return to their beloved range any time they wished.
“Three days,” she said impulsively. “We’ll leave in three days.”
Targun looked disappointed. “So soon? I was hoping to feast the people of Yala-tene before we departed.”
“So feast them. You have my good wishes.”
Word was spread. In two days, a great feast would be held to celebrate the liberation of Yala-tene and the defeat of Sthenn and the raiders. The morning after the feast, Karada’s band would ride out.
*
Accompanied by Pakito, Karada entered the tent where Nacris was being held. A young nomad woman followed, bearing a steaming basin of water.
Nacris was dirty from her confinement, and her hair was a mass of gray snarls. “Is it my day to die?” she said with strange glee, eyeing her visitors.
“Not yet,” Karada retorted. “You’re to have a visitor. I thought you might want to clean up before he gets here.”
“Who is it? Hoten? Tell him to go away.”
“Hoten is dead.”
“Then I certainly don’t want to see him!” Nacris suppressed a giggle.
Karada sighed and turned to her towering comrade. “You see what she’s come to? Crazy as a sun-addled viper.”
Pakito looked on sadly and said nothing. Many years ago he’d had a longing for Nacris. She’d been a spirited woman in those days, a doughty fighter and a magnificent rider, better on a horse than even Karada. Nacris had preferred Sessan. Pakito got over his infatuation and took Samtu as his mate (though everyone else knew it was Samtu who’d done the taking). The twisted, wretched creature before him was far from the impressive woman of his youth.