“Thanks, brother. We may stay a while to gather supplies and our strength before we move on.”
Amero looked away to where the stream flowing down the wall pattered into the pool. They’d found each other after almost eleven years, and already they were speaking of separating again.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
She considered a moment. “North. The hunting’s better there, come winter. We’ll cover the northern plain, maybe even follow the coastline to the far northeast. I hear tales of other humans there, living in treetops. They also say the black-skinned folk cross the sea in great dugout canoes and trade along the shore. Maybe some of them will join us.”
“I think you should stay here, Nianki,” Amero said urgently, “We’ll combine our people into a single band. We’ve a lot to teach each other. Why, I’m close to learning how to make my own copper tools! Once I’ve mastered that, I’ll make bronze. The mountains are full of minerals, and the valleys are good for crops and flocks. Your people can teach us your way with horses.”
She dipped a hand in the cold pool. The hard face of Karada had replaced the smiling visage of Nianki.
“And who will lead this united band?” she scoffed. “You? Me? Both of us? Think again, brother. Your villagers won’t stand for orders from a wanderer like me, and my plainsmen won’t listen to a soft-handed foot-walker like you.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she said more softly, “Even
I wouldn’t follow your orders, Amero, and I don’t think you would follow mine.”
He nodded sadly. “Will you come to visit now and then?”
She grinned. “Every Moonmeet, if I’m able, I’ll come — so long as you hold a feast each time!”
He rose and embraced the sister he once thought he would never see again. As she felt his fingers tighten against on her back, scarred Karada was briefly big sister Nianki once more. “Cheer up,” she said. “Knowing you’re alive makes a difference.”
“And to me,” he said.
A shower of water announced the return of Duranix. Amero and Nianki stepped quickly apart, embarrassed by their mutual affection, and to escape the torrent of water flung off by the huge dragon. Duranix shook his head. His barbels jangled metallically against his chin and muzzle. Nianki was taken aback. She had never seen Duranix in his true form, and her hunter’s instincts were aroused by the looming creature. She tensed to fight or flee.
“Ha,” said Duranix, grinning. “I leave for a while and Amero brings a mate to my cave. What next? Pups?”
Nianki threw back her head and laughed. She laughed all the harder at seeing her brother’s face turn brilliant crimson.
Furious and more than a little embarrassed, Amero exclaimed, “This is my sister! The one I thought long dead!”
“Ah,” Duranix said. “Karada is your sister. How can that be?” Duranix studied them. His pupils narrowed to slits. “I don’t see the resemblance.” Amero’s face showed anger again and the dragon added, “Humans look so much alike to me, you might all be siblings. I’m sure you know your own sister.”
Nianki gave a snort of smothered laughter.
Duranix clomped heavily to his platform, each ponderous step intended to shake the water off his back. He climbed smoothly onto the dished-out ledge and idly picked up an ox leg bone lying nearby. All the flesh had been eaten off already, but the dragon gnawed the ends of the bone. His wickedly curved teeth scraped against the bone.
“Does he always eat like that?” Nianki muttered.
Amero rolled his eyes and climbed the steps at the front of the platform. He cleared his throat. Duranix bit through the bone with a single snap of his jaws. Nianki flinched. Amero, used to his companion’s habits, said eagerly, “Did you find anything?”
The dragon’s casual manner vanished. He tossed the bone aside. “Sthenn was here. I could smell his trail from five thousand paces high.”
“Who’s Sthenn?” asked Nianki.
“Is he still around?” Amero asked gravely.
“No — or if he is, I can’t find him.”
Amero’s anxiety was evident and Nianki demanded again, “Who’s Sthenn?”
Her brother explained about the green dragon, the yevi, and his ongoing rivalry with Duranix. She listened with a grim expression.
“This green dragon created the yevi?” she said. Amero nodded. She made a fist, pressing it to her lips. “Elves in the east, dragons in the west… Is there anyone who doesn’t want to drive us off the land?”
Duranix exhaled sharply, and the resulting whirlwind blew Nianki’s hair across her face. She regarded the bronze dragon warily and said, “I have to wonder — maybe I’m fighting the wrong foe. The elves, arrogant as they are, are beings not unlike us. Some of them have notions of honor. This green dragon sends packs of unnatural beasts to do his dirty work for him. Maybe he’s the one Karada’s band should be fighting.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Duranix. “Sthenn is more than two thousand years old, by human reckoning. He’s clever, cruel, vindictive, and unpredictable. He never forgives a transgression, no matter how slight. As long as you are nomadic savages, wandering the plains, he will take little notice if you kill his pets. But if you show up at his lair with an army, he’ll use every trick and tool at his disposal to destroy every last one of you in the most unpleasant fashion he can think of, and in his long life, he’s thought of many.”
Amero felt suddenly cold. Unconsciously, he stepped closer to Duranix.
“You talk like you’re afraid of him,” Nianki said to the dragon.
Duranix raised his head. “I am afraid of him. He killed my mother and my clutchmates — my siblings, as you would say — for no other reason than it pleased him to do so.”
“How did you escape?”
Duranix’s claws flexed, scratching loudly on the stone platform. “I didn’t,” he said. “Sthenn spared me on purpose. He deliberately killed my family then let me live.”
“Why?” asked Amero. Duranix seldom spoke of his own past, so this was rare information to him.
“I spent a few centuries wondering that myself. I believe Sthenn let me live so that he could terrorize me. Over the course of his long life, Sthenn has grown jaded. One thing he still savors is fear. He loves being the object of dread and goes to elaborate lengths to instill it in others. It’s easy enough to frighten lesser creatures, but there’s little for dragons to fear except another dragon. Making me afraid of him is a powerful pleasure.”
“Why don’t you seek him out and kill him?” said Nianki.
“Eighty-six years ago I tried to bring him to battle. He set fire to an entire forest and escaped under cover of the smoke. For all the years since, he has taunted me. His avalanches made my first home uninhabitable. He drives off herds of game in hope that I’ll go hungry. He attacks humans and elves to make them fear all dragons and hunt me.”
Nianki pounded a fist into the palm of her hand. “If I were you, I’d find this green monster and settle him once and for all!”
Duranix glanced at Amero. “Are you sure you two are related?”
Amero ignored the gibe and told Nianki it was time they departed. He had work in the village below. Nianki bid the dragon good-bye, but as her brother tugged at her elbow she continued to urge Duranix to deeds of bloody vengeance against his mortal enemy, Sthenn.
“Yes, yes,” the dragon answered her dismissively. “Amero, have the elders set up an ox or two for me, won’t you? I’m famished.”
While they descended in the hoist, Nianki shook her head saying, “With an ally like Duranix, I could defeat the elves in a single season!”
“He won’t fight elves for you,” Amero replied. “The struggles of we lesser creatures are not his concern.”
“He helps you.”
“I’m his friend. Also, our village is a thorn in Sthenn’s claw. The more humans settle here, the harder it will be for Sthenn to harm Duranix.”
Nianki considered this as the basket emerged from behind the waterfall. Below, Samtu and her retainers were waiting.
“Nianki, I understand why the villagers listen to me,” Amero said. “The dragon protects them, and I speak to
