foreboding.
Another shout went up. It had a feral, bloodthirsty sound, like the cry of yevi. Amero climbed in the basket with Pa’alu.
“Something’s happening,” he said, rubbing his brow tiredly. “Something bad.”
“Hold on,” Pa’alu advised. He loosened the descending counterweight, and the basket lurched free. Bowed by fatigue, his eyes shadowed by dark circles, Amero gripped the sides of the basket.
Pa’alu put two fingers into his belt pouch and touched the yellow stone. So near his moment of triumph, it wouldn’t do to let the nugget fall out and be lost.
Karada slept soundly her first two nights in Yala-tene. She spread her elkhide blanket at the foot of the high cliffs and rested better than she had in many days. On the second morning, Pakito had to shake her hard to wake from her deep slumber.
“Chief,” he whispered, “Sessan waits.”
She sat up, yawning. “Let’im. If he gets thirsty, he’ll drink more wine. The more time he has to drink, the better.” In a show of bravado, Sessan and Nacris had spent the time since the challenge drinking and gaming with their cronies. Karada had kept clear of them, eating sparingly and re-knapping her flint knife.
The whole camp was awake when Karada strolled down to the lake to wash her face and neck. The nomads were astonishingly quiet, not at all the boisterous tribe Karada had created and led for ten years. She noted with satisfaction the sight of Sessan kneeling on the shore, pressing a cold, wet piece of buckskin to his aching head. Nacris hovered over him, massaging his shoulders. If her expression was any indication, her head hurt at least as much as his.
Karada spared them only a glance as she headed for the water. When the challenge had been made, she had given the stupid man a day’s grace to recover from the effects of his drinking. If he chose to spend that time getting himself even drunker, then so be it.
She washed her neck and face, savoring the feel of the chill lake water, then donned her chiefs headband. Sessan and Nacris, pointedly ignoring her, left the lakeshore to finish their own preparations for the coming contest.
Samtu brought her horse, and Karada slung a dusty blanket over the animal’s back. Vaulting easily astride, she took the reins from Samtu and kicked the horse into a trot. She rode down the hill to an open piece of ground along the water, which was closed in on three sides by nomad tents and a growing crowd of onlookers.
Sessan appeared at the other end of the strip. His horse, a fine roan stallion, pranced and snorted at being hemmed in. Nacris was dancing around beside him, trying to give her man last-minute fighting advice. Sessan kept nodding, but his eyes were closed.
“Karada.”
She looked down as Pakito handed her a flint-headed spear. “Here,” he said. “Tarkwa and I compared weapons, and this one matches Sessan’s length.”
“Thank you, Pakito.”
“Chief, I don’t like to tell you how to do things, but…” His voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“Beat him, but don’t beat him too hard. You’ll win more by being fair than by being harsh.”
“I didn’t start this,” Karada answered. “Sessan and those who follow him need to learn who the real leader is and always will he.”
She thumped her heels against the horse’s flanks and trotted away. The big man shook his head and returned to the sidelines with Targun and Samtu.
Tarkwa stood between the combatants with his hands upraised. The rolling murmur of the crowd faded. He declaimed, “We are here to see the contest of Karada and Sessan. You all know the reasons for this fight. Do you accept it and pledge to follow the victor?”
“Yes!” the assembled nomads cried.
A flurry of wind scoured the shoreline, driving dust in the eyes of the spectators. All eyes rose skyward in time to see the dark shape of the dragon climb into the low hanging roof of white clouds. Their first glimpse of Duranix in dragon form set the nomads to chattering again, until Tarkwa shouted for their attention.
He picked up a stone from the beach. “When this stone strikes the water, the fight begins!” he said. He went to the edge of the crowd, faced the lake, and lobbed the stone into the air.
Karada wasn’t watching it. She looped a thong around her wrist and used it to tie the spear shaft securely to her hand.
Splash! The sound of the rock entering the lake was immediately followed by a clatter of hooves. Sessan had launched into a headlong gallop. Still unmoving, Karada busied herself with her weapon, her seat, her reins.
The open strip was only twenty paces long by eight wide. Sessan bore down on the motionless Karada, his spear leveled. He uttered a sharp cry. Some of his friends in the crowd cheered, but most of the nomads held their breath.
Karada turned her horse slightly to her right and rested the spear shaft against her shoulder. Only then did she look up at the horse and rider thundering toward her.
“Now, Karada!” Sessan yelled. He aimed his spear at the center of her chest. When the flint head passed the ears of Karada’s horse, she bent herself backward at the waist, twisting slightly away. Sessan’s eyes widened in surprise. His spear passed harmlessly over her shoulder. When he was past, she sprang up and swung her weapon sideways in a wide arc. The hardwood shaft, as thick as Karada’s wrist, struck Sessan at the base of the neck. Part of the crowd howled with delight at her tactic.
Sessan reeled but kept his seat and his grip on his spear. Karada swung her horse around in a tight left turn and cantered after him. He parried her first thrust and tried to maneuver away to get some fighting room. She crowded him, and when he blocked the sharp flint head, she used the butt end of her spear as a club, landing a hard blow to his ribs.
The crowd melted away as the two riders pressed against them. Sessan, bleeding from the nose, saw an opening and drove through, galloping through the water toward the center of the strip. Karada checked the thong on her wrist and rode sedately after her foe.
This was the scene when Amero and Pa’alu arrived. The first thing Pa’alu saw was his brother, towering over everyone else in the crowd. He shouted a greeting, and the big man plowed through the press to reach his elder brother. With much hugging and back-slapping Pa’alu and Pakito were reunited.
Pa’alu’s joy vanished when he saw what was happening by the lake. He thrust Pakito away and said, “Karada? Alive? Here? What is she doing?”
“It’s a duel,” said Pakito. “She’s fighting Sessan to see who’ll be chief of the band.”
“What?” The idea that anyone would challenge Karada was insanity to Pa’alu. Did Sessan truly understand what he was up against?
Amero slipped in beside him and asked, “Is that woman Karada?” Pa’alu nodded vigorously, and Amero said, “That’s the woman I led in two night’s past.”
Sessan wrenched his horse around and galloped back, again trying to impale Karada by a full charge. This time she lowered her head and urged her mount to a gallop, too. She kept her spear low, on her right side, away from Sessan’s rush.
“What’s she trying to do?” Amero asked, spellbound.
Pa’alu knew. He’d seen her maneuver before. Grimly he said, “Sessan’s a dead man.”
The gap between the riders closed fast. Karada steered left, crossing in front of Sessan. The nomads gasped with surprise.
Still she kept her spear low. Sessan let his point droop until it was aimed directly at the crouching woman.
The two horses flashed by each other. Karada raised her arm, deflecting Sessan’s spear head. At the same time, the flint tip of her weapon caught him just under the ribs. It went in until the head emerged from his back. The thong binding the weapon to her wrist should have betrayed Karada, perhaps breaking her wrist or snatching her off her speeding mount, but the leather was no longer tied to her. She opened her hand and the loose ends of the thong flew free.
Karada sat up and slowed her horse. By the time she turned around, the roan was trotting riderless toward
