“He came to our camp in human guise,” Karada explained.
“My brother followed him here. Do you know if one named Pa’alu is here?” asked Pakito.
“He was, but he isn’t now.” The torch bearer scratched his head and explained. “Pa’alu was here, but he left yesterday to meet small parties of your band arriving then. He was hoping to find Karada. He hasn’t returned yet. Actually, we’re quite worried about him.”
“This is Ka — ” Samtu began, but a glare from her chief stilled her tongue.
“We all have friends and comrades we hope to see again,” Karada said.
In contrast to the quiet, orderly village, the camp of the nomads was a riot of haphazard tents, lean-tos, and windbreaks of sand and loose stone. The young guide left Karada for a moment and ducked into a rambling tent made from spotted cowhide. He returned with Sessan and Nacris in tow then slipped away quietly.
Both nomads staggered as they walked, and their clothes were awry. They’d worked in the ox pens all day in exchange for two jugs of wine, most of which they’d already drunk.
Sessan looked up at his chief. “By my blood!” he swore in surprise. “You’re alive!”
Karada had noted the departure of their young guide, now she spat at Sessan, “I am. Why are you?”
He pressed the wineskin on Nacris and drew himself up as straight as he could. “I’m alive because I left!”
“You admit it, do you? You ran away from the battle!”
He swept his hand in a wide arc. “We had no chance,” he said solemnly.
Nacris upended the skin, gulping down more wine. She wiped her mouth and said, “How did you survive, eh?”
“I fought until captured. Balif stripped me of arms and turned me loose.”
“How can you live with the shame?” asked Sessan harshly. “I’m surprised you didn’t throw yourself from the cliff top!”
“Yes, I chose to live with our defeat. Any fool can kill herself, but I will rebuild the band and strike the elves again! I’ll make Balif curse the day he sought to shame me into quiet exile!” Karada stormed. “You want to speak of shame? Look at you, cowards and traitors, standing there! And addled with drink like a pair of loons! Is this the end of our band, our dream of a free land for our people?”
“The elf lord spared you,” Sessan replied heatedly, “but the rest of us would have been trampled into the grass had we stayed.”
Karada mastered her anger. “You disobeyed my command.”
“You’ve no right to judge us, no right to lead us. You would’ve let us all die in a lost cause!” Nacris retorted. She cast about wildly. “Ask him. These are sensible people here. Where’d he go — the Arkuden?”
“Who?”
“The village headman, the fellow who led you here.”
Karada said, “He left. And why should I ask a short-haired villager anything?”
More nomads came out of their shelters to watch the confrontation. Tarkwa, the other leader of the breakaway band, joined Sessan and Nacris.
“If we are to be one band, strong and united, there must be one chief,” Karada said. “The chiefs word must be obeyed. Anything else is chaos.”
Tarkwa, who was sober, said, “I cannot follow you, Karada. You speak of freedom for all plainsmen — that is my desire, too. But we can’t be free and be your children, trembling at your every order. What difference is there between serving elf lords or serving you?”
“I am one of you.”
“Not good enough!” Sessan sputtered.
“You care nothing for our lives,” Nacris cried. “You’d sacrifice us all for your own glory!” Many of the nomads behind her shouted approval of Nacris’s hard words.
Karada flinched, but she swung down from her horse and walked up to Sessan. She stood nose to nose with him, shoving Nacris away when the woman tried to wedge herself between her man and Karada.
“Will you fight me?” she whispered fiercely.
His reddened eyes betrayed fear, but he said, “Yes. Any time. Tomorrow!”
Her laugh was sharp and ugly. “Make it the day after tomorrow. I need rest and you need to sleep off your foolishness.”
Sessan stepped back and slammed his foot on the sand. “Daybreak, then. Here.”
Karada turned on her heel and remounted. “Look to your horse, Sessan. We’ll fight mounted, with spears, as plainsmen should.”
There was a murmuring behind her as she rode on to claim the high ground by the cliff wall for her tired band of loyalists. Samtu and Targun went to find food for the children. Hatu and Pakito were delegated to organize the raising of tents and tarps. Pakito tried to say something to her about Sessan, but he was banished with an angry gesture.
Karada flung her skimpy baggage to the ground and pulled the blanket off her horse. Without a further glance or a word to anyone, she strode down to the lake.
A wall of mist swirled up from the falls, enveloping her in a silver cloud. She stood up to her ankles in the chill water and removed all her gear and clothing. Kneeling, she threw handfuls of water on her face and neck. The dust of many leagues washed away.
She wished her many worries could be as easily lost.
Chapter 14
It had been a restless couple of days. Amero had had to go out after dark each night and lead in party after party of stragglers from Karada’s band. The last was a particularly large and pathetic group, made up of old folks, children, and a few warriors who seemed worn out and ill-fed. Their appearance reminded Amero of the hard life that still existed outside the comfortable confines of Yala-tene.
As if these interruptions to his sleep weren’t bad enough, his days were disrupted as well. Duranix had been ceaselessly pacing and prowling the cave ever since he found himself unable to change back to dragon form. As time passed, he became more and more irritable. For long periods he would sit, motionless, staring at the cave walls. Then, in a sudden burst of action, he would circle the room over and over, muttering and gesticulating. Tiny bolts of lightning arced from his hands, and after a few hours of this, the air in the cave seemed alive with crackling energy. Everything Amero touched gave him a shock.
He tried to concentrate on his copper experiment. Men in the village had constructed an anvil to his specifications, hewn from a single block of rose granite. Amero placed the ingot he’d cast the day the tunnels collapsed on the anvil and pounded it with a sandstone maul. The spaces between the half-melted beads closed up, and the ingot gradually became a flat, thin plate.
As Amero worked in the early hours before dawn, on the second day after the arrival of Karada’s band, the mussel shell chimes at the top of the hoist rattled. Amero didn’t hear it at first and kept hammering. Duranix left the path he was wearing in the sandstone floor and went to the lower door.
“Pa’alu’s returned,” he announced. Amero kept pounding, so Duranix shouted the news. Amero looked up distractedly. Sighing, he set aside the maul and went to the opening. All he could see was the ever-present waterfall disappearing into the dark depths below.
“It’s him,” Duranix insisted, then added testily, “I may be crammed into this tiny body, but I haven’t gone blind yet!”
Amero started the counterweight down. Rope hissed over the wooden pulleys. The basket appeared. He saw Pa’alu, gazing up at him. The broad-shouldered plainsman filled the small basket completely, and his ascent was slow.
The top of the basket frame bumped the pulley and stopped. Amero tied off the hoist and Pa’alu vaulted over the side, landing lightly on his feet.
“Greetings, Amero, and to you, great Duranix.” The dragon grunted something unintelligible and resumed his angry pacing.
