here.”
Amero turned to Konza. “Where is Tiphan?”
The old man, neck craned back, couldn’t take his eyes off Duranix. Something akin to worship lit up his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “He left before dawn this morning. Something about an important journey.”
“He left Yala-tene?”
Konza nodded. Amero was incredulous. Tiphan was openly scornful of the wandering life. The old ways of the plainsman held no appeal for him.
Duranix exhaled on his foreclaws. Out came an arc of brilliant blue-white fire, like lightning. Konza’s adulation turned to fear, and he crouched in terror, his hands coming up to cover his head. There were screams from the people below.
Duranix paid no attention to them. “That’s better,” he said, clapping his smoking claws together. “It’s too cold out here. You should get inside, Amero.”
I will, as soon as you speak to the people.
Duranix finally noticed the villagers milling around the Offertory entrance. As his angular reptilian head turned in their direction, many people pushed their neighbors, intent on escape. The rest seemed rooted in place, staring back at him in shock.
I see I shall get no rest until I do, Duranix replied. From the center of the platform, he sprang to the top of the Offertory’s surrounding wall. Gripping the top of the wall with his rear claws, Duranix flapped his wings and stretched out his long neck for balance. The villagers’ fear turned to near panic.
Once he’d settled himself, Duranix gazed down implacably.
“People of Yala-tene!” he boomed. The villagers froze in place. “Some of you think I told Tiphan, Konza’s son, that no more cold weather could be expected. This is not true. He asked me if I thought it would snow again this season, and I said I didn’t want any more snow. That is all.”
A figure clad in baggy woolens cautiously approached the perching dragon. “Tiphan mistook you?” Jenla asked loudly.
Duranix looked the old woman straight in the eye. “Yes.”
“Then our quarrel is with Tiphan!” she declared.
Amero hurried down from the platform and emerged from the Offertory. “Tiphan is gone,” he announced. “He left Yala-tene this morning.”
The villagers digested this with puzzled, unhappy mutters. A young Sensarku, as much in the dark as anyone, asked, “Will he come back?”
“I don’t know, but we must act quickly to save the orchard,” Amero said. “Everyone must lend a hand. Gather all the hay you can find and take it to the orchard. We’ll spread it over the seedlings to keep them warm.”
Konza, also down from the altar, added, “We can build fires between the rows to warm the soil.”
Amero slapped the old man’s thin shoulder. “Good thinking! Let’s get to it. Duranix, will you start a fire for us across the lake?”
The bronze dragon agreed.
“But if we use our hay,” said a fellow in a herder’s apron, “what will the oxen eat?”
“Moss and lichens,” said another. “It keeps the elk alive all winter. Why not oxen?”
Buoyed with hope, the villagers dispersed. Amero watched them with relief. What looked like sure violence had been diffused by a unifying task.
Children.
“What?” Amero looked up at Duranix.
They’re such children. One minute furious, the next minute happy.
“They’re good people. They’re your people.”
“So they are.” The dragon spread his wings in preparation for flight. He shivered, and the tips of his wings curled as a massive sneeze erupted from his nostrils, followed by wisps of steam. “But in the future, can you arrange to have these little dramas during warmer weather?”
Chapter 4
The Edge of the World, according to the plainsmen, was not a range of sky-piercing mountains or a trackless, endless sea. For them, the Edge of the World was a forest, one so dense, dark, and thickly grown that it forever blocked the way westward.
There were stories of lone hunters or small bands of plainsmen who had tried to penetrate the mysterious woodland. So far as anyone knew, none had ever returned. The east was better understood and less feared, even with the menace of the Silvanesti there. Humans had explored all lands to the north, east, and south, but the forest at the Edge of the World remained an impenetrable barrier.
The raiders drove their prisoners into this fearsome territory without hesitation. Beramun and her fellow captives quickly realized Zannian’s men had secret trails marked out in the underbrush. Many times the plainsmen were guided through a barely visible opening in a thick hedge or made to climb over a heap of fallen logs, and there on the other side would be a hidden path.
Sthenn left them before sunrise. For such a powerful creature, he showed increasing anxiety as the sky lightened, his voice growing more and more shrill, his orders becoming wild and contradictory. Beramun imagined the dragon spent most of his time in the deep forest and thus found the full light of day hard to bear. When the first pink rays of dawn appeared in the east, Sthenn halted the band of humans trailing in his wake.
“Zannian!” he snarled. “Zannian, where are you?”
“Here, Master. I’m here.” The raider chief, on foot, stood close to the dragon’s haunch.
“Ah. Quiet, aren’t you? Rodents are so stealthy.”
“What is your will, Master?”
“I return to my den. Hurry your cattle to Almurk. You shall wait upon me tonight.”
Some of the raiders let out mutters of surprise, and Zannian said, “Tonight, Master? It’s at least twelve leagues to Almurk. I counted us there by tomorrow morning.”
Sthenn flexed his leathery wings and hissed, “Do not dispute me! Do as I command! Use the whip on the captives and your men if you must, but be in Almurk before the sun next rises!”
Zannian could only bow and say, “I do your will, Master.”
“See that you do.”
Before the eyes of the amazed captives, the dragon’s body grew thin and pale. His extremities changed to green mist, which the day’s early breeze dissipated. His wings followed, then his massive torso. The last thing to vanish were the dragon’s malign black eyes, slowly blinking until they faded from sight.
Roki, shoulder to shoulder with Beramun, shuddered. “We are lost,” the older woman said hopelessly. “If we remain in that creature’s power, our lives will be measured in days.”
Beramun forced herself to be cheerful, for her friend’s sake. “Don’t speak of it,” she said, clasping Roki’s chill hand. “Whatever his power, the stormbird must be mortal and have some weakness. So long as we live, there is hope.”
Her gallant sentiments were cut short by Zannian’s shouts. He ordered the prisoners’ hobbles cut so they could move faster.
“You’re in Sthenn’s realm now,” he warned, gesturing to the gloomy trees around them. “Try to run away, and you won’t last ten steps off the path. Our Master has filled the forest with beasts of his own making. Their only purpose is to kill the unwary, so keep to the track and do as you’re told!”
Tired but fearful, the captives moved down the narrow trail in a column of twos. It wasn’t long before they had proof of the forest’s deadly purpose. One of the raiders fell asleep while riding, and his horse strayed off the path. It ambled to a short bush growing beneath a leafless tree. Slim yellow fruit hung from the bush, and a temptingly sweet aroma wafted to the hungry prisoners as they passed by. Before Zannian or the other riders had noticed their sleeping comrade, the horse nosed into the bush and nibbled a yellow fruit.
A snap louder than any whipcrack split the air. Hairy brown tentacles burst from the ground, enveloping the horse. The raider was thrown to the ground. Two tentacles seized the startled man around the waist and neck,
