As they crept along, they played a game of questions to pass the time. The plainsman began.
“Why do you protect humans?”
Duranix slid his right foot forward, feeling loose gravel give way when he put his weight on it.
“Oh, to be on all fours,” he grumbled.
“Well, what’s your answer?” prodded the hunter.
“I protect what is mine,” Duranix said, moving forward a few inches. “I have rivals, other dragons, who would steal my territory away from me. The worst of these is a green dragon named Sthenn. He thought to extend his influence at my expense by sending a horde of predators to attack the humans living on my range.”
“The yevi.”
“I see the name has penetrated beyond the mountains. Yes, using the yevi to exterminate free-roaming humans, Sthenn hoped to bring my lands under his control.”
Duranix’s progress stirred up a flock of raucous crows. They burst from a rock ledge above the disguised dragon’s head, cawing loudly. Both Pa’alu and Duranix flattened themselves against the cliff as the birds flew off into the mist.
“Damn noisy birds. Another question, dragon-man — ”
“No, it’s my turn,” Duranix said. “How long have you been in love with your chief.”
Pa’alu flinched as if speared. “Who told you that?”
“No one. The signs are obvious. I’ve studied humans, you know. When you’re near her, your face glows with hot blood, and your heart beats faster.”
Pa’alu said nothing. He let the interval between Duranix and himself widen. Duranix looked back and raised an eyebrow.
“I take it from your silence that your feelings are not returned?” the dragon said, waiting for Pa’alu to catch up.
“I won’t discuss this. Ask a different question.”
Genuinely curious, Duranix would not be dissuaded. “Have you confessed your feelings to her?” Pa’alu said nothing and the dragon misread his silence. “You haven’t. Well, then, perhaps she does love you. How can you know if you don’t — ”
“I have told her, for all the good it did me!” the plainsman said.
“She rejected you.”
“Karada is a hunter and a fighter, the leader of our people. She has little time for aught else.”
Pa’alu looked away into the featureless fog. Duranix let him think for a while, then resumed his inquiry.
“Does she love someone else?”
“No. Other men have pursued her. When I joined the hand nine seasons past, she had a close friend, a fellow called Neko. He was like her shadow, never far from her side. She treated him like — a brother, I guess. Karada is a keen tracker and a bold leader, but she doesn’t look deeply into people’s hearts. She never knew Neko loved her and wanted her as a mate. One day, the two of them went out to hunt together. This was before we learned to ride horses. They should’ve returned after two days, yet four went by before Karada came back, alone. She refused to say what had happened, or where Neko was. Pakito, me, and a few others searched the bush and found Neko’s body. His throat had been cut.”
“Now that’s rejection,” said Duranix.
Pa’alu glared. “Don’t speak ill of her! We brought his body back to camp. He was one of us, and deserved a hunter’s burial. The entire band sat in judgment of Karada. She told us what had happened. On the first night out, Neko tried to force himself on her after his spoken overtures were refused. She rejected him and went her separate way, but he wouldn’t be denied. He tracked her down and attacked her.” A look of savage satisfaction darkened Pa’alu’s face. “So she killed him.”
“And you believed her?”
“All of us believed her.”
The ledge widened into a broad path slanting down toward the west. Duranix and the plainsman paused there, sharing swallows from Pa’alu’s water gourd.
“My turn to answer,” said the dragon, leaning back against a boulder. “Ask a question.”
Pa’alu shook his head. “No, I weary of talking.” He excused himself and walked off into the fog.
The golden nugget Duranix had taken from the field of standing stones suddenly awakened and throbbed against his jawbone. Curious about sudden activity in the stone after so many quiet days, he took it out and examined it. It looked just the same as when he put it there. There were no visible changes, yet even as he looked at it, the nugget seemed to pulsate between his fingers.
“Pa’alu!” he called. When there was no answer after a few seconds, he called again.
“What is it?” said the plainsman, emerging from the fog. “I was only gone a moment — ”
The dragon displayed the nugget. “It’s come alive. I can feel it vibrating.”
Pa’alu turned a half-circle, surveying the trail in both directions. “Would it do that on its own?”
Duranix stood up. “Unlikely. It must be reacting to some other source of power.”
“Are there rings of spirit-stones in these mountains?” Duranix shook his head. He had been through this pass many times before.
They picked up their gear and hurried on. The path widened until the towering peaks were shrouded in fog. Heavy mist closed in behind them, cutting them loose from all visible landmarks. Duranix walked ahead, the nugget lying on his open palm.
“Wait,” he said in a low voice. Something about his tone made Pa’alu draw his elven sword.
Noiselessly, Duranix began to swell. His flesh darkened to reddish bronze and his limbs elongated dramatically. Pa’alu stepped back in wonder to make room for a formidable length of tail snaking back to where he was standing. He’d spent four days with Duranix and had accepted his claim that he was a dragon in disguise. However, merely hearing the words had not prepared Pa’alu for the actual sight.
Fifteen paces long, Duranix was four paces tall at the shoulder and seven from the ground to the top of his long, bronze-scaled neck. Fog swirled about his enormous, horned head.
“By all the spirits!” Pa’alu gasped.
Duranix bent his neck around and glared at the astonished plainsman. His vast nostrils flared. “Shh!” he said, and Pa’alu thought it sounded like all the snakes in creation hissing at once.
Arcs of blue light flickered through the mist. Duranix opened his wings and flapped them a few times. The resulting wind parted the fog just enough to reveal a lone figure standing on a patch of level ground not far ahead. Wrapped head to toe in a long garment the color of the fog, the stranger was almost invisible. Duranix advanced slowly, his great four-toed claws driving deep into the rocky soil.
“Priest!” the dragon demanded in a thunderous tone. “Why are you here?”
The stranger came toward them slowly. He raised his hands to shoulder height, parting the pale gray cape he wore. Pa’alu finally recognized him. It was Vedvedsica, the elf priest they’d bested at the field of standing stones.
“You have something of mine,” said the elf. He seemed unaffected by Duranix’s overpowering presence. “I want it back.”
“I don’t think I’ll give it to you,” the dragon replied. “Children and savages shouldn’t play with fire.”
Vedvedsica brought his hands together. A beam of blue light lanced out from them, striking Duranix in the chest. The dragon grunted and slid backward a step. Shaking his horned head, he opened his mouth and exhaled at the elf. Vedvedsica crossed his arms and stood unflinching in the stream of fear-inducing gas.
“I’m not so weak as to succumb to this child’s-play,” he said, smiling benignly.
Pa’alu worked his way around the dragon’s left and crouched behind a low boulder. Closer now, he saw the priest wore a breastplate of shiny white metal, studded with rough gems and chips of striated black granite — just like the boulders where he and the dragon first encountered him.
Duranix snapped his jaws shut, staring with increased respect at Vedvedsica. His huge, panther-like pupils raked the elf priest up and down.
“We seem to be at an impasse,” he said finally. “Your spells cannot hurt me, and my powers will not affect you so long as you wear that breastplate.” Duranix displayed his fearsome teeth. “I could just bite your head off. It’s crude, I know, but it would solve the problem of your being here.”
At that moment Pa’alu stood out from his hiding place and hurled a pair of rocks at Vedvedsica, one from
