Nacris hurried to him. “You mean to go back!” she exclaimed. “You always meant to!”
“Yes, we’re going back!” His face was hard, lines of anger etched in its surface. “I want my horse groaning under the weight of all the beef he can carry! I want my waterskins so full of wine they leak red on the trail behind us! I want that dragon’s head, but if he’s not around for killing, I’ll have the head of the Arkuden!”
“What about Karada?” asked Tarkwa.
“What about her?” Hatu demanded. “She’s no spirit-warrior, despite what some of you think. She bleeds the same as any of us. Are we going to slink away from her like a pack of whipped dogs, or will we be warriors and take what our might can get for us?”
The rebel nomads roared their approval. Even Tarkwa seemed fired with the fervor of revenge. “When do we strike?” he asked.
“Now! Tonight!” insisted Nacris.
Hatu shook his head. “Tomorrow. Let them sleep and think they’re rid of us. When the sun rises over Vulture Gap, we’ll hit Arku-peli like an avalanche!”
Chapter 20
Amero didn’t sleep that night. So many things crowded his mind — the riot, Pa’alu’s death, the final revelation of the cause of Nianki’s distress — he found no peace in the quiet solitude of the great cave. After a fruitless session of open-eyed brooding, he chose to pass the night in lonesome toil, trying to figure out how to melt bronze.
Copper melted at a certain intensity in the fire. He reasoned that since bronze was harder than copper, it would require more fire to soften it. He built a hardwood fire on the hearth and, lacking a gang of children to fan for him, made his own “gang” of fans by boring holes in a long, straight plank and inserting eight reed fans in them. He hung the plank by thongs from a tripod of poles. By pushing it back and forth, he created a significant wind.
He set a clay pot on the fire and filled it with strips of bright copper from his last experiment. In short order the strips collapsed into reddish metallic beads, which in turn coalesced into a fist-sized ball of molten copper. Amero scratched out a long, thin trench in the damp sand at the other end of the hearth, then, lifting the hot pot with a convenient pole, poured the molten copper into the trench. The wet sand hissed, and gouts of steam arose.
The cavern slowly brightened to the pale hue of predawn. Weary, Amero went to the pool and dipped his sooty hands into the chill water drawn off the falls. Now to try his fire on a few of Duranix’s bronze scales.
A clinking sound from overhead caught his ear. The apex of the cave was lost in shadow, but a sprinkle of dirt floated down, easily visible by firelight. Darker, larger bits came down with the dust. Amero went to where the debris fell and pressed a damp finger to it. It was moss — green moss, such as grew on the banks of the river above the cave.
He was still trying to fathom this puzzle when the sound of horns, muffled by cave walls and the rumble of the falls, penetrated to him. An alarm! Amero rushed to the opening.
The sky outside was barely light, but he could see some disturbance at the upper end of the valley near the cattle pens. A panther after a young calf, perhaps? Dust rose, and he saw people moving.
There was another noise behind him. Amero turned. Something was sweeping the floor halfway between the hearth and Duranix’s sleeping platform. He frowned, trying to understand what he was seeing. It was a pair of rawhide ropes, braided and knotted. His eyes lifted, following the ropes upward. Descending the ropes in rapid hand-over-hand fashion were two men, nomads, with spears strapped to their backs.
Amero was so astonished by this sudden intrusion he froze for the two or three heartbeats of time that it took for the men to finish their descent and drop to the floor.
“What do you want?” he asked.
They whipped the flint-headed spears off their shoulders.
“Your life!” said one of the men.
His first impulse was to jump into the hoist and flee, but that would simply make his attackers’ job easier. They would certainly cut the rope, leaving him to plummet conveniently to his death. He was unarmed, and there were no weapons in the cave. He never imagined, he’d need them here.
Amero ran to his hastily-made tripod of poles, thinking he could pull one of them free to use as a quarterstaff. By the time he got there, the two nomads were already upon him, thrusting with their spears. Amero grasped the suspended plank in the center and shoved it first at one man, then the other. The second nomad was a little slow, and the stout plank caught him on the chin, sending him reeling. Amero had no time to celebrate, as the first nomad’s flint spear point tore through the reed fans and buried itself in the plank by Amero’s hand. With a yell, the nomad pushed the tripod over, and Amero had to scramble not to be trapped under the contraption.
Now he was empty handed, facing a wary foe. The nomad — a dark-eyed fellow about his own age — held his spear in both hands and made short, vicious lunges toward Amero’s belly. The floor, as usual, was littered here and there with Duranix’s shed scales, and Amero fervently wished he at least had a sharpened scale to fight with.
He backed up a few steps, keeping just ahead of the nomad’s jabs. Outside, the sounds of conflict grew louder.
“Nacris!” Amero exclaimed, understanding dawning. “She led you back here to raid the village!”
“I am Hatu’s man,” the nomad spat. “We’ve come to take what we can!”
“Then take what you want and be gone! Why kill me?”
“Hatu commands it. He wishes to injure the dragon as the dragon once injured him.”
Amero backed up to the wall. The nomad grinned and set himself to run the village headman through. Amero carefully braced himself to dodge. This would require fine timing on his part. The nomad raised his spear to shoulder height and, with a yell, attacked.
Amero twisted aside and grabbed the shaft in both hands. He wasn’t strong enough to wrestle the weapon away from the nomad, but that wasn’t his plan. He pulled the warrior in the direction he was already moving, straight at the cave wall. Unable to stop in time, the nomad slammed into the hard sandstone. His spearhead snapped off, and the man slid to the floor, stunned.
Amero turned toward the second warrior. If he was still unconscious, Amero could tie him up before -
Lip swollen and bleeding, the second nomad got up on one knee. He spied Amero, and met his shocked look with a glare of pure hatred.
“I’ll have your head, Arkuden!” He spat the name like a curse.
Lying on the hearth a few steps away was the copper bar Amero had made during the night. It was only a trifle longer than his arm and not edged like a sword, but it was better than nothing. Amero sidled around, drawing the angry nomad away from the hearth.
“I’ve no quarrel with you,” he said with as much calm as he could muster. “None at all. We welcomed you, shared our food with you — ”
“Shut up! You’re as bad as the elves! You would make us into cattle! Men aren’t meant to grub the earth or squat under a pile of stones. A plainsman must be free, must roam!”
He held his spear loosely in his right hand, and without any warning, he swung it in a wide, flat arc. Amero felt something catch and rip on his chest. His goatskin vest hung in tatters, and red blood welled up from a long cut across his breastbone.
Though he was shocked by the suddenness of the injury, Amero retained enough presence of mind to use it to his advantage. Feigning greater harm than he’d actually suffered, he groaned and staggered to the hearth. With a dramatic gasp, he draped himself across the cold end of the fireplace and dug his fingers into the sand, closing them around the copper bar, now cool and hard.
The nomad approached and put down his spear in favor of a wide stone axe hanging from his belt. He raised the axe high.
Amero tore the copper bar out of the sand and presented the tip to his oncoming opponent. He meant only to use the bar to ward the fellow off. However, the shallow end of the trench had formed a narrow tip on the end of the bar, flat but sharp. The ax-wielding nomad ran right onto it, and it penetrated his chest, to their mutual
