rabbit.”
“We’re free,” added Samtu, dark hair falling across her round face. She was leaning on Pakito’s enormous shoulder with evident contentment. “We go where we will, when we will.”
“Except to elf land,” Hatu muttered. Alone among the nomads at this table, he had made a point of refusing to sample the cooked meat.
Nianki glared. Amero cut off any awkwardness by saying, “Tell me of this warlord, Balif. What sort of fellow is he?”
Everyone fell quiet, looking expectantly at Nianki. They were all curious. She was gnawing a pheasant’s leg. Lowering the morsel she said loudly, “What are you all gawking at?”
“You know Balif well,” said Pakito impishly. “Tell your brother about him.”
“I tried to kill him a few times and failed. That doesn’t make us comrades,” Nianki said matter-of-factly.
“But what’s he like?” her brother insisted.
Nianki sighed and tossed the now clean pheasant leg over her shoulder. “He’s a clever, arrogant fellow, like most elves. A bit skinny, but made of sinew and whit-leather, and his eyes are strange.” Some of them regarded her quizzically. “Very pale blue,” she explained.
“Sounds like quite a man,” said Hulami the vintner. She’d outlived three mates herself and had an eye for capable men. “I’d like to meet him.”
“He’s not a man, he’s an elf,” Nianki retorted, annoyed. “And if I meet him again, I hope he’s on his knees, suing for peace!”
Shouts of greeting rose from the crowd. Torches were lit from the dying bonfire, and by their warm glow Amero and the others could see Pa’alu approaching up the hill. Amero rose and gave his hand to the plainsman.
“Peace be with you, Pa’alu! Welcome to the feast at last. Is everything well?”
Pa’alu nodded curtly and replied, “Very well, Arkuden. Very well.”
He half-turned and offered his hand to Nianki. As she was busy downing a cup of wine, his gesture went unnoticed. Pa’alu lowered his hand.
A boy offered the plainsman a trencher of roast. Pa’alu accepted it gratefully and took his place between Pakito and Hatu. His younger brother regaled Pa’alu with stories of the doings of the past couple of days — the bird hunts, fishing expeditions, building the bonfire, and the various reactions to the taste of roasted oxen, which Pakito declared to be far superior to raw. Pa’alu listened idly while eating.
On his left, Hatu said pointedly, “Sessan was buried yesterday.”
Everyone ignored the remark — everyone but Pa’alu. He said simply, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Thank you,” Hatu said, his single eye gleaming.
The nomad drummers struck up a brisk rhythm. Samtu jumped up and tugged at Pakito’s unresisting arms.
“Dance with me, dance with me,” she teased.
“I dance like a bull elk,” Pakito told her, shaking his head.
“I don’t care. Come.”
He rose unsteadily, but Samtu ducked under one of his arms and braced him up. They weaved slightly as they went down the hill toward the torchlit festivities — Pakito because the wine was affecting his head, and Samtu because Pakito’s weight was affecting her balance.
Nianki leaned back in her stool, one hand patting her leg in time to the beat. Pa’alu put aside his trencher and stood, asking her to dance.
“A chief doesn’t dance,” she answered lightly. “It isn’t dignified.”
“No one will judge you, “Pa’alu said. He smiled and held out his hand. “Please.”
Amero watched this little scene unfold with great interest. Despite the many intervening years, he still had much residual affection for his sister. He worried about her. She was too hard, too much apart from the world, and he found himself wishing she’d take Pa’alu’s hand and dance.
Something glinted in the plainsman’s cupped hand, catching Amero’s eye. He looked again. A gleam like that meant metal. On second glance, he saw that Pa’alu’s hands were empty. Had he imagined it?
The tall plainsman’s hands stayed empty as Nianki rudely ignored him. He finally returned to his platter with a chastened expression and devoted himself to his food.
Hulami set her eye on Targun and dragged him away to the growing crowd of dancers. The plainsmen were dancing in large circles, men on the outside, shoulder to shoulder, and women on the inside, facing out. Most of the action consisted of stomping and kicking to the rhythm of the drummers, twists and turns punctuated by high- spirited yelps.
Into the uneven circle of torchlight came a stranger. It was Duranix, once more in human shape, but his build and coloring were different than before. Now, strangely, the dragon resembled a slightly taller, brawnier version of Amero. He paused by the end of the tent, gazing at the merrymaking.
Though the nomads didn’t recognize this newcomer as the dragon, those nearest him found themselves moving back, giving this unknown fellow room. Nianki also didn’t recognize him, but the young man they called “Dragon’s Son” did. Amero beckoned to Duranix to join them, calling his name heartily.
A stool was brought and placed between brother and sister. The serving boys brought trenchers of beef and a lengthy jack of wine. Duranix dismissed the drink but accepted the meat.
“I had an ox this afternoon,” Duranix said, “but now I’m hungry again.” Everyone except Hatu laughed. He was glaring at Duranix, Amero, and Nianki, and did so for a long time, until he realized they were paying no attention to him. The one-eyed plainsman knocked over his cup and stalked away into the darkness.
“He’s Genta’s son,” Amero explained privately to Duranix. “He’s never forgiven you for what happened.”
Duranix shrugged. “I’ve never forgiven the slayer of my mother and clutchmates.”
“He’s a whining child,” Nianki stated a little too loudly. “Ignore him!”
Duranix gestured to the ring of dancers. “What is this? Some kind of ritual?”
“This dance? They’re just feeling their blood,” said Nianki. She drained the last drops from her cup and, to everyone’s amazement, clamped a hand on her brother’s forearm.
“I’ll show you, dragon-man,” she declared merrily. “Come, brother!”
Amero allowed himself to be dragged away by his tipsy sister. He looked over his shoulder at Duranix and Pa’alu, his face showing — was it amusement or puzzlement? Duranix couldn’t tell.
The disguised dragon glanced at Pa’alu to see how he was taking Nianki’s playfulness. When Duranix asked if he was jealous of Amero or annoyed with Nianki, he denied it with remarkable calm.
“Karada makes her own choices,” Pa’alu said in a low voice. “As her loyal comrade, I accept them.” So saying, he put aside the remains of his dinner and departed in the direction of the wine vat.
As the wine level went down, the feast grew louder and the music more fevered, more ragged. A few fistfights broke out on the fringes of the crowd, but none of them lasted more than a few blows before one of the combatants went down. Once a blade flashed, but Amero was on the spot in an instant. He stopped the fight brewing between a nomad and a villager, shaming them into settling their dispute peaceably, but the incident left him uneasy. Where had Duranix gotten to?
Craning his neck, the young man saw that the dragon was standing in the center of the women’s circle. The women — both nomads and villagers — dancing in the circle had turned to face him rather than the men still moving in the outer circle. The women were whirling around the bemused dragon. Karada, very much the tallest woman there, had her arms linked with two of her nomad sisters, and her joyous face was flushed, her long, tawny hair flying.
A muscular, bearded nomad, his ropy arms sheened with sweat, called a loud cadence and resumed the beat on his goatskin drum. The others gradually joined in, slowly building the volume and tempo.
Amero spotted Nianki standing alone near the heaping embers from the ox roast. She too was sweating heavily from her wild dancing, and she was gulping down drink from a full-sized leather bucket. Amero hoped there was only water in the pail. His sister had already had too much wine.
“What a feast, eh?” he said, touching her lightly on the back. Her buckskins were sodden, her hair plastered to her head. She lowered the bucket. Thankfully, it was water.
Pa’alu appeared with three cups and a tall clay amphora brimming with wine. “You look thirsty,” he said, pouring Nianki a cup. She took it, drained it, and held it out for more. Pa’alu smiled at her.
