Amero indicated they should try again. This time something definitely shifted within the brush, away from Udi and toward Amero. With both hands the Arkuden jammed his spear into the tangle. He was rewarded by a low cry of distress.
“Stop!” said a voice muffled by the dense brush. “Don’t strike again!”
“Come out at once. This thicket is surrounded!”
The pile of greenery heaved, and a person came crawling out, belly to the ground. When the stranger stood up, moonlight caught her face. Amero yelped with surprise.
“Beramun!”
“Arkuden?”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I go where I choose,” she replied tartly. The rest of Amero’s party arrived in time to hear this exchange. The boys snickered, and she added, “I left the village this afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Your woman, Lyopi, expected me to work for her. I refused, and she put me out.” Beramun’s dark eyes narrowed. “You made it hard for me to stay with her when you asked me to be your mate.”
The boys were openly amused to hear their old Arkuden had tried to woo this beautiful young wanderer. Amero ignored their grinning faces, though he felt his own burning with embarrassment.
“Why did you come this way?” he asked, annoyed. “Isn’t this the land threatened by Sthenn and the raiders?”
“It’s the land I know. Where else could I go?”
Amero was too tired to continue this pointless exchange. “Back to camp, hoys,” he said. To Beramun he added, “You’re welcome to join us, if you wish.”
She shrugged. “If you’ve got some of those dried apple slices with you, I’ll stay for breakfast.”
“I have a bag full,” said Udi, shaking it.
They climbed the hill to their little camp. Paharo regarded Beramun curiously. “How did you get in and out of those thorns without being scratched?” he asked.
Beramun glanced at her bare arms. “It’s a trick my mother taught me,” she said. “Thorn bushes have a nap, like fur. You have to find the nap of the thorns, and go in and out with it. Briar thickets make good places to hide and sleep. Nothing bigger than a rabbit can get in.”
“You’re bigger than a rabbit,” said Amero.
“I guess I am.” She laughed, and Amero’s anger melted away. He found himself noticing how the moonlight glinted off her ebony hair, how it limned her face with silver.
Paharo and another boy took over watch duties so Amero and Udi could sleep. Beramun chose a spot away from the men and stretched out on the ground. Though she had neither blanket nor cloak, she quickly fell asleep.
Amero was collecting his gear when Beramun woke, the morning sun raking her face.
“Arkuden? What — ?” she began, squinting up at him. “Good morning. Get ready, we’re moving out.”
She shook the sleep from her brain and stood, brushing twigs and grass from her clothes. Udi and Paharo passed around dried fruit and elk jerky. Beramun recovered her meager kit and fell into line with the rest.
“Are you coming with us then?” asked Paharo, chewing a brown wedge of apple.
“Until you find the dragon,” she said. “If the Arkuden doesn’t mind.”
“You’re welcome,” he told her. “But you must be one of the parly. Don’t go stalking off on your own without telling us.”
Beramun agreed.
It was a warm, sunny morning, but there were signs change was coming. Fat white clouds crowded the sun, and by midmorning, low, gray clouds had come pushing down from the north. The men donned their grass capes and hoods. Beramun had no such storm gear among Lyopi’s hand-me-downs. Paharo offered her his cape, hut she declined it, saying she’d been rained on before.
The land flattened gradually, the hills shrinking. Trees became fewer. An ocean of waving grass displaced the patches of knotweed and flintgrass that dotted the foothills like sparse locks of unruly hair.
As they beheld the open savanna, Amero suffered pangs of memory. He’d not been to the great plain in many years, and his childhood came back to him in a painful rush. His first dozen years had been spent out here, wandering behind Oto, Kinar, and his fierce elder sister, Nianki. Too young to hunt, he’d often cared for baby brother Menni while Kinar prowled for roots and grubs. The fingers of his left hand curled with the memory of that tiny hand in his.
“Arkuden.”
The ghosts of years past vanished. “Eh?”
“Paharo has found a trail, Arkuden.”
“Found it? Where?”
Udi pointed at the sea of grass, waving in the cool southern wind. “It looks like the Protector alighted here. He continued on foot that way,” he said, gesturing to the south. “The trail disappears a short way on. High grass can conceal even a dragon’s footprints.”
Amero nodded. “We’ll have to spread out. Divide into pairs. No one is to lose sight of the others at any time, understand?”
The four young men promptly paired off, leaving Amero with Beramun. Grinning at their Arkuden and the young woman, the boys waded off into the waist-high grass, sweeping the ground ahead of them with their spears.
“I’m sorry,” Amero said to Beramun.
“For what?”.
“The boys think they’re being funny.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. She set out, parting the grass with her hands like a swimmer.
“Wait,” Amero called. “Don’t get too far ahead.”
“Why not? It’s my country, after all.”
“It was mine, too,” he muttered, plunging into the grass.
They made slow progress through the thick spring growth, and the only things they found in the grass were snakes and hopping rats. When the sun neared its zenith, Paharo sang out from his place on Amero’s left.
“Arkuden! A track!”
Everyone converged on the spot where Paharo crouched in the grass. A large, bare human footprint was plainly visible once he’d pushed back the tall weeds.
“He’s taken human shape,” said Udi.
“Walking like a man, we can track him,” Paharo added.
Amero looked in the direction the print pointed. “Still going due south. I wonder why?”
“The river lies that way,” Beramun offered. “The raiders must cross it somewhere.”
They re-formed and moved out, Paharo leading, along the dragon’s trail. They moved deliberately, careful to find the next footprint before proceeding.
Cool wind rushed over the savanna, heralding a storm. The clouds darkened, lowering until it seemed they would touch the grass itself. Amero halted the party for rest and food. Not long after they stopped, a spear of lightning flashed to the ground some leagues away.
“We’re going to get wet,” sighed Udi.
They finished eating quickly and got moving again. Beramun took the lead this time, slipping through the tall weeds like a deer, scarcely disturbing the stalks as she passed. Compared to her, the village boys moved like clumsy oxen, tramping loudly and leaving a plain trail behind.
Just as the first fat drops of rain splattered on Amero’s head, Beramun came scrambling back on all fours. “Down! Down!” she hissed. “Get down!”
They dropped on their bellies. Udi was nearest Amero, so he grabbed Udi’s wrist and whispered, “Ask her what’s amiss.”
Udi relayed the message. Back came a one-word answer: “Riders.”
The clouds cracked open. Lying on the ground, Amero could see raindrops running down the grass stems, making little craters in the dirt when they landed. Over the pelting rain he heard a whistle, followed by a shout. He
