angrily at the root-infested soil.
“What are you doing?”
“The girl must be buried, else her spirit cannot rest,” Amero replied, without slackening.
“Is that true?”
“I believe it.”
Duranix went down on one knee. With two sweeps of his hand, he doubled the depth of the hole Amero had started. When the hole was elbow deep, Amero gently placed the dry bones in it. Some of them were missing, but when all the bones present were placed in the hole, Amero said, “Rest now. May your ancestors greet you with joy.”
Duranix cocked his head curiously at the boy’s words but said nothing as Amero pushed the dirt back and pressed clumps of sod in place.
“There are no large beasts within range of my senses,” Duranix said. “The girl’s tracks show she was running from south to north when the yevi caught her. A child that young wouldn’t be on her own, so we should go south to look for others in her party.”
Amero sadly agreed, and they resumed their march.
The land grew flatter, and Duranix began to outpace Amero once more. The boy trudged along, beset by late autumn heat, buzzing flies, and the thoughts churning in his mind.
The child had been perhaps six or seven — older than his brother Menni, but far too young to meet the fate that had found her. He mourned her, though he’d never known her.
See how the one lags behind. His mind wanders.
Amero heard the voice in his head, a thin whisper, like the crackling of a dry reed. He looked left and right, ahead and behind. The only thing he saw was Duranix, striding along far in front of him.
Quiet! It hears you!
Never! Two-legged beasts have no ears to hear us.
Amero thumped his forehead with the heel of this hand. Who was whispering?
Let him draw a few more paces back, and he will be ours!
What of the other?
He is too coarse to hear us, and we will be swift. Spread out, brothers.
Sweat popped out on Amero’s face, sweat brought on not by the trek but by sudden enlightenment. He was hearing the voices of yevi! They were near, close enough to see him and Duranix. Where were they? Why didn’t the dragon hear them, too?
He feared to slow down too much or to call to Duranix, in case it precipitated their attack. What could he do?
He had a weapon.
The sharpened dragon scale was still shoved into the waist of his loincloth. It rode on his right hip, hard and inflexible. Head down, still shuffling his tired feet, Amero drew the scale. He hadn’t yet made a handle for it, but the curved edge was keen enough to cut through the toughest hides in Duranix’s cave. He let the tool dangle loosely from his hand.
Duranix! Duranix, if you can hear me, help! Yevi are stalking me! he thought as forcefully as he could. The tall figure of his human-disguised friend drew ahead, widening the gap between them.
Grass stems wavered against the prevailing breeze. Something was creeping up on him from both sides. Beads of sweat chilling on his skin, Amero kept his eyes locked on the path ahead, not daring to look right or left. In his mind’s eye he imagined three of the gray killers crawling on their hollow bellies through the grass — one behind, one on each side. He gripped the dragon scale tighter. Now, over the hiss of wind in the grass and his own footsteps, he could hear the movements of the yevi clearly. Amero whirled, the sharp scale held horizontally at arm’s length.
The yevi launched itself just as he turned, two hundred pounds of murderous stealth against eighty-five pounds of boy. It spied the bright dragon scale but failed to recognize it as a threat. The whetted edge sheered right into the animal’s brow, slicing through fur, flesh, and into bone.
The full weight of the animal drove Amero to the ground. He yelled and kicked the creature, trying to shove it off. The smell of dusty fur and filth suffocated him. At any moment, he expected the savage jaws to close on his neck or face. When the yevi drew off him, he threw his hands up to ward off the expected attack.
It never came. Slowly Amero lowered his hands. Astonished, he saw the yevi’s sightless, staring eyes and flaccid tongue less than an arm’s length from his face. The beast was dead.
He yelled, rolled aside, and leaped to his feet. Duranix was there, holding the dead yevi by the scruff of its neck. Two other yevi, also dead, lay in the grass.
“You killed it,” the dragon said, wrenching the weapon from the animal’s skull. “What’s this? One of my old scales? That’s good!” He threw back his head and laughed.
Amero was in no mood to join him. “What took you so long?” he quavered. “I called you and you didn’t come.”
Duranix tossed the dead yevi to the ground. He dusted his hands with distaste. “I didn’t believe you,” he said, shrugging. “I detected nothing in the area. Until this one attacked, I thought we were alone.” He frowned, his smooth brow furrowing with concern. “You heard them, and I didn’t. This human shell of mine is limiting, but not that limiting. Sthenn must have taught them how to veil their thoughts from me. Lucky for us, human senses are different from a dragon’s.”
Amero picked up the scale and wiped off blood and brains on the grass. His palms were cut again from handling it. “I wish I had a handle for this. It’s a good tool, but too sharp to carry in my hand. What I need is a shaft, like an axe handle — ”
“Why not a spear shaft?”
Amero shook his head. “I never passed my coming-of-age,” he said, regretfully. “I’m not allowed to have a spear. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Nonsense,” Duranix said. “If you can carry and use it, what’s not right?” He fingered the honed scale in Amero’s hand. It didn’t cut his human-looking skin. “What’s this coming-of-age anyway? What is required?”
“I must spend four days completely alone on the plain. I have to make my own weapon and kill four-footed game with it, then I bear the trophy-head back to my father and mother.”
“You can hear predators talk and killed one with a sloughed bronze scale. There is your trophy.” Duranix gestured at the slain yevi.
Amero averted his face so the dragon wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes. He cried at the sudden realization he would never be able to present a manhood trophy to his parents, ever. His family was gone, and he was nothing but a wanderer, doomed to pass his life alone.
Feeling Duranix’s gaze upon him, Amero brushed aside his childish tears. “Yevi travel in packs,” he said. “There must be more nearby. Do we hunt the rest, or search for plainsmen to warn?”
Even as a man, Duranix’s pallid eyes were penetrating. “What do you say, Amero?”
He considered. “We’ll do more good warning hunters. The pack could scatter if we — if you — attacked them directly.”
Duranix agreed, and before leaving, he left a macabre message for the yevi pack. He piled the three dead animals in a heap and, with his lightning, set them on fire. Sthenn’s creatures would no doubt flee before him, creating a haven of safety in which Amero could warn what plainsmen they met. They set off again, south by west, with a column of dirty black smoke rising from the savanna behind them.
In time the landscape became familiar. Amero recognized several landmarks, like White Elk watering hole and the pine-topped hills called Crows’ Haven. The great fork of the Plains River lay to the northeast. Amero and his family had crossed that river three times a year in their circuit of the plain — south in summer, west in autumn, north in winter.
Though it was only days before the onset of deep autumn, they had not encountered a single human since leaving the lake of the falls. Large game was scarce, too. Aside from the occasional solitary antelope or rogue ox, they saw nothing bigger than a rabbit all day.
Towering white clouds sailed slowly across the sky, periodically hiding the blazing sun. Duranix shortened his stride and gradually came to a stop. He turned his head slowly, as though listening to some distant call.
