“Shall I tell you my plan?” he asked. “I am quite ingenious, you know. The first step was to create the yevi. I thought I could rid the plains of wandering humans with them, but you interfered more directly than I expected.” Sthenn’s amused expression darkened. “When you recruited the two-legged rodents to serve you, I had to do the same. How do you stand the smell of them?”
“You get used to it,” grunted Duranix as he dragged himself forward.
“You never were as sensitive as I. Still, my humans have been useful to me. They’re more vicious than the yevi and a good deal more clever. The boy Zannian has a great talent for bloodshed. While waiting for your favorite pet to age, I groomed my own to be a conqueror.”
Duranix’s head snapped around in surprise, and Sthenn nodded, pleased by the effect of his pronouncement.
“Destroying your favorite human is part of my plan.”
The green dragon stepped with exaggerated daintiness around his struggling foe. He extended a single gnarled talon and tapped lightly on Duranix’s open wound. The bronze dragon flinched but made no sound.
“Painful? Bad as it is, it won’t kill you. I didn’t compound a lethal dose. You will become more and more helpless, but you won’t die.”
Helpless. Duranix refused to let his enemy see how that word terrified him. Instead he spat, “Coward! Kill me if you dare! If you don’t, I swear on the deaths of my mother and clutchmates, I will kill you! ”
Sthenn grinned widely. “Ah, your mother. Amylyrix was a worthy opponent.” He slowly shook his head in a mockery of sadness. “How tragic she was unable to protect her offspring in the end. Come to think of it, she didn’t protect herself very well either. And that makes me the better dragon, yes?”
So saying, the green dragon sank his claws into Duranix’s injured leg. The bronze roared loud enough to rattle the stars. Rearing up, he tried to grapple with his tormentor.
Sthenn easily caught Duranix’s foreclaws in his own. “You’re weak,” he taunted, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “There’s no pleasure in besting a weakling.”
Duranix saw an opening, drew back and smashed his horned skull into Sthenn’s face. The ancient bones in the green dragon’s face were thick and hard, but his aged flesh was not. Duranix’s horns punched through Sthenn’s brittle scales into the gray flesh beneath.
Sthenn shrieked in hurt and outrage. Duranix lunged again and clamped his jaws around the old dragon’s throat.
Sthenn let go of Duranix’s foreclaws and backpedaled furiously, all the while working to pry the bronze dragon’s jaws apart. Too sick to maintain his grip, Duranix felt his bite weaken. Sthenn slipped free.
The green dragon hurled himself backward a full twenty paces. “You dare to hurt me?” he said shrilly. “You’ll suffer tenfold for this!”
Duranix felt a surge of exhilaration. Despite his terrible weakness, he could still hurt his enemy. He rasped, “Come! Let’s fight the way our ancestors did, by tooth and claw! Leave the humans to settle their own disputes. I’m a third your age, and I have only three limbs to fight with! What do you say? Let’s have it over and done with now.”
Sthenn kept his distance. “Fool,” the green dragon sneered. “My poison will rot your innards before the flowers fall from the trees. Not till then will we meet again. It will be a pretty reunion, for I shall pick you apart like a cockroach!”
Sthenn launched himself into the sky, opened his wings, and flapped to gain height.
“Soon, little Duranix!” he called from above, his high-pitched voice echoing through the dawn. “Think of me as you suffer in the days to come!”
It was early afternoon, and Duranix had been gone four days — far too long for an ordinary look around. At first, Amero hadn’t worried. The dragon came and went as he pleased, but with enemies reputed in the area, his prolonged absence seemed more ominous.
From the hillside below the cliffs, Amero could see across the rooftops of Yala-tene to the still incomplete town wall. The final gap had been closed, but the stonework was still only head high. He’d have to scrape up what idle hands he could to resume work there.
Someone came up behind him, and he felt a cool hand on his shoulder. Expecting Lyopi, he was startled to find it was Beramun. He stared at her. He’d suspected she would be pretty once the filth of her arduous journey was cleaned away. What he hadn’t realized was that she would be beautiful.
Well-scrubbed and dressed in Lyopi’s clothes, Beramun had put on a little weight since her arrival, and her skin had acquired a healthier hue. Unbraided, her hair fell in a dense black wave just past her waist, with shorter tendrils curling around her oval face. Her eyes were large, dark as ebony, and fringed with thick black lashes. She was the loveliest woman Amero had ever seen.
“Arkuden, do I disturb you?”
The true answer brought a rueful smile to his face, but he said, “No, not at all. How are you? Do you have all you need?”
“Yes, thanks to you.” She did not look satisfied, however, but worried. “Where are the raiders?” She stepped beside him. A tall girl, she stood nearly eye to eye with him. “They could have been here by now if they wanted. What are they doing? I hate standing idle, waiting for lightning to strike!”
He smiled. “I know how you feel. Duranix has been gone a long time, and no wanderers have entered the valley from the western approaches for seven days. It’s like the savanna swallowed dragon and nomads alike.”
“Can’t we do something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! Something! The raiders are coming, and I feel as though I’m doing nothing!” She bit her lip and added in a low voice, “Your woman doesn’t like me.”
“My woman?”
“Lyopi. She’s your mate, isn’t she?”
“No!” More calmly, he explained, “We’re not mates. We’re… friends. She lost her man on a winter hunt a few seasons past. She and I keep company. If we became mates, she would have to leave her home — ”
“And you live with a dragon.” Beramun laughed. It was a light, cheerful sound that warmed Amero.
“What about you?” he asked. “Have you a family? A mate?”
“What family I had perished at the hands of Zannian’s raiders.” Her beautiful face darkened. “One day I’ll see him dead for it.”
“Revenge is a bitter fruit, Beramun. When your enemies die, it doesn’t make the pain go away.”
Beramun didn’t answer. The sun slid behind a band of clouds. She shivered with the sudden chill and gazed up at the sky. Amero thought he saw a tear trembling in the comer of one eye.
“Since you have no family,” he said, “you should live with us in Yala-tene.”
“I’m a girl of the plains, Arkuden. Your village seems strange to me — so enclosed, so crowded and busy.” She gestured at the mountains. “Even out there, the cliffs feel like they’re closing in on me.”
“You get used to it. We all came from the plains, Beramun. Please stay. I offer you my protection, and — ” He stopped, temporarily unable to speak. As her lovely face turned toward him, dark brows lifted questioningly, the rest of the words came out of their own volition. “And you could become my mate.”
Obviously unprepared for such a declaration, she managed a smile. “You’re kind, but I don’t know you, and I wouldn’t take a man for safety’s sake alone.”
Ashamed of his boyish blundering, he assumed his most serious chieftain’s demeanor. “Forgive me. I must go. Tonight I’m leading a search for Duranix, and I must prepare.” He walked quickly down the hillside as soon as he finished speaking.
Beramun watched his rapid departure in bemusement, then turned her eyes from the village to the valley beyond. A moment later, Lyopi hailed her.
“The Arkuden just left,” Beramun said as the older woman came up behind her. “He said he was going out tonight to look for the dragon.” Lyopi nodded, and Beramun added, “I want to tell you, because you’ve been good to me. The Arkuden just asked me to be his mate.”
Lyopi blinked in surprise at the girl’s blunt words. Guardedly, she asked, “What did you say?”
Beramun shrugged. “I’m not ready to be anyone’s mate. The Arkuden’s a nice man, but he’s too old and too strange for me.”
