and working harder this time, he gained height. His long neck stood straight out from the strain, but he climbed upward in a wide spiral, testing his newly healed wing. It was exactly ninety days since he’d broken it.
Nianki appeared, draped in a mantle of white wolf fur. She watched Duranix disappear into the low clouds that roofed the valley. He roared with delight, and the eerie sound reverberated down the lake, causing people on both shores to look up from their work.
“Someone’s happy,” said Nianki dryly.
“Yes, me!” Amero turned in a little circle, showing her he wasn’t supported by anything. “See? I’m walking on my own.”
“It’s about time,” she replied tartly. “I was about to take Targun’s advice and shorten your walking stick a little bit each day. He figured you’d give it up when you discovered you were bent double.”
“Ha, thanks!”
Nianki turned away, and he followed her. They strolled down the water’s edge together.
“How goes the planting?” he asked. It was past time for the winter crops to go in, but so much work had been needed to repair houses and pens in the village, the second planting was late.
“It goes. The ground seems too cold and hard for anything to grow.”
“That’s all right. If anyone can grow vegetables through ice, it’s Jenla.”
Nianki nodded. “Smart woman. She should’ve been a nomad.”
They reached the southern end of the village. Piles of loose stones filled the circular holes where houses had once stood. These houses on the periphery had been demolished and their undamaged materials salvaged to repair the other homes. Most of the people who lived in them had perished in the fight.
“I’ve been thinking — ” Amero began.
“Oh, not again.”
He gave her a mock glare, then continued. “We’ve relied too much on Duranix to protect us. He is, as he will tell you himself, only one dragon. Yala-tene needs to be a safe haven, a stronghold that can survive even if Duranix is away for ten days or more. What we need is not a series of strong, individual houses, but a way to defend all the houses at once.”
The chill wind had strengthened. It whistled around her ears, as Nianki raised the white fur hood of her cloak. “How would you do that?” she asked, not really interested.
“As we do the cattle: put all the little houses into one big house!”
That caught her attention. She stopped and regarded him skeptically. “You want to build a house large enough to hold every family in Arku-peli? That’s mad! Even if you could, all those people living together wouldn’t last. They’d kill each other!”
Amero went to the stump of a wall, carefully lowering himself onto it. Many weeks of illness had left him with little stamina.
“I’m not talking about building a whole house to cover all the others, though that would be quite a feat.” He looked up at the overcast sky, a far-off expression on his face.
She sighed impatiently. “Get to the point, will you?”
“Sorry,” he said, looking at her again. He gestured with his hands, making a circle around himself and continued. “A wall, Nianki. We can build a wall around the village. That would keep any marauders out.”
She folded her arms. “You want to build a wall around the entire village?” He nodded. “Sounds like a waste of sweat and stone to me. All you really need is a hundred stout fighters to defend the place.”
“Every man and woman in Yala-tene could be trained to fight,” he countered. “Spears would be provided to every family, to be kept at home for use when there’s trouble.”
“All very well, but pairing off your mudtoes and having them whack each other a few times doesn’t make them warriors.”
“That’s where you come in.”
Nianki scoffing expression froze. “Me?”
“I want you to train them — teach them to fight like your best warriors. With you to train and lead them, Yala-tene will never have anything to fear.”
She leaned against the wall of the fallen house, feeling the cold stones press against her knees.
“Well?” he said.
A tiny flake of white floated down and came to rest on the back of Nianki’s hand. For an instant, the perfect miniature net of feathery ice crystals stood out clearly against her deeply tanned skin. Then, warmed by her body, the flake vanished.
“Snow,” she said. Nianki lifted her hooded face to the sky. More snowflakes were coming down now, but only a few.
“Nianki, will you stay and teach the people of Yala-tene how to defend themselves?” asked Amero insistently.
“No.”
He was taken aback. “No?”
“I’ve stayed too long as it is. It’s time for Karada’s band to depart.”
So saying, she stepped over the broken length of wall and strode quickly away. Amero opened his mouth to call to her, but she was out of sight before he thought what to say.
There was a rush of wind, and Duranix alighted on a patch of nearby open ground. He shook his head from side to side, sending a tinkling cascade of ice crystals to the ground. He flapped his wings before furling them, shedding more ice and snow in the process.
“I hate winter,” he declared, “but I love it that I can fly again.”
Amero said nothing. He was still looking off toward where Nianki had vanished.
Duranix used his foreclaws to preen slush and water from his horns and face. “Why so morose, Amero?” he said. “You’re walking, aren’t you? Or have your legs failed you? Is that why you’re sitting out here in the cold by yourself?”
Amero stood — a bit wobbly, but upright — and said, “Nianki won’t stay. I asked her to train the villagers to fight, but she won’t do it. In fact, I think she may be leaving today!”
Duranix leaned down to his far smaller friend. The brazen nail of one clawed digit tapped the crown of Amero’s head.
“Is there anything in there but bone?” he asked. Angrily, Amero brushed the claw away. Duranix added, “You astonish me, human. You asked her to do the one thing she can’t do and still respect herself. Don’t you realize that?”
“Well, no. I thought she was over the effect of the amulet.”
Duranix rolled his huge eyes. He forced himself to adopt a patient tone. “I don’t know if she’ll ever be ‘over it.’ Someone else will have to come along and win her heart.” He drew himself upright. “Not an easy prize.”
Together they walked to the enlarged altar. The villagers, with the help of Nianki’s band, had nearly tripled its size. Where once it had been a rectangular pile, it was now square, and over twenty paces to a side. When the rocks had kept tumbling down the sides, someone had thought to use the gray mud from the lake bed to hold the rocks in place. Soon the all the outer layer of rocks were stuck together with mud, which coupled with the yellowish sandstone, lent the altar a distinctly speckled appearance.
Konza and his eldest son, Tiphan, hailed Amero and the dragon as they neared the altar. They were an odd- looking pair. Tiphan had fashioned coats for his father and himself from cast-off bronze dragon scales. He had punched holes in the upper edge of the scales and, using hide strips, attached them in overlapping layers to two long cloaks. Though their demeanors were grave, both men clanked as they walked, and Duranix found the effect comical.
“They look like a pair of beetles,” Duranix observed in a low voice. Amero had to stifle a laugh; the description was apt.
“You’re walking again, Arkuden? That’s excellent,” Konza said. Tiphan, only sixteen, stood to one side looking grave. It was an expression difficult to maintain since Duranix kept exhaling gently on him, just to make his coat of scales clatter in the resulting breeze.
“Thank you, Konza,” Amero said, studiously ignoring the dragon’s actions. “I want to get back to work as soon as possible. I have many plans to discuss with you and the other elders — ”
“There are no other elders,” Tiphan said.
