He walked back out into the rain, mounted, and rode away to confer with his warriors. Nacris eyed Greengall, squatting in the mud like a monstrous frog.
“Why do you toy with your enemy?” she asked. “Duranix is a dangerous foe. Why didn’t you kill him when you had him cornered?”
Greengall picked up a glob of wet dirt in his hand and slowly closed his fingers into a fist. Shiny black mud oozed between his fingers.
“Any dragon, even a meddlesome bronze, is worth more than all you miserable rodents put together,” he explained. He flung the mud to the ground, splattering Nacris’s foot. “Contesting with Duranix has been the greatest pleasure I’ve ever had. If all I wanted was to kill him, I could have done that when he was a hatchling.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He grinned widely. “I knew his mother, Amylyrix. We fought long and hard for this same territory, one thousand two hundred years ago. Neither of us could gain the upper hand until I found her nest in the Easthorn Mountains, far from here, and brought an avalanche down on her. Her clutch was buried under half a mountain, and she herself was mortally wounded. I sat atop the pile of stones and waited for her to die. It took eleven days.”
Nacris understood. She dreamed of the day she would stand over Karada’s dying body.
“I thought I had disposed of her whole brood,” Greengall continued, “but as I sat there listening to Amylyrix expire, I heard a hatchling mewling under the rocks. Curious, I dug him out. It was Duranix. His mother had shielded him from the weight of the landslide with her own body.”
“A mother’s finest deed,” said Nacris sincerely.
The grotesque creature gave her an inscrutable look. “Yes, very noble. I picked up little Duranix by his tail and told him, ‘I’ve killed your family, but I’m going to let you live. Do you know why?’ All the little scalesucker could do was puke and whimper. I rapped his skull with a stone to make sure he was listening. ‘I’m going to let you live,’ I said, ‘so I can kill you later.’”
Time passed with only the sound of dripping rain to mark it.
“Do you understand?” Greengall asked, coming out of his reverie to give Nacris a probing look.
“The bronze dragon owes his life to you, however reluctantly.” From beneath her tangled, graying hair, Nacris’s eyes glimmered like rain-flecked flint. “How he must hate you.”
“I hope so! What a waste if he doesn’t!”
Nacris settled back in her litter and closed her eyes. What a monster she was consorting with — conniving, endlessly cruel, and with a vicious sense of humor. Having Sthenn for an ally was like sleeping with a deadly viper. The question was not if it would bite you, but when.
No matter. The green dragon was simply the means to an end. To destroy a powerful, clever enemy, one needed powerful, ruthless allies.
Twelve years ago she’d lost everything. Karada had killed her mate, Sessan, then helped Duranix defeat the disaffected nomads led by Nacris, Hatu, and Tarkwa. Tarkwa perished in the fight. Hatu was hunted down and murdered by the bronze dragon. Nacris alone had survived, hurled into the lake by Duranix, her leg shattered by the fall. A clan of ox herders had rescued her from the river below Yala-tene, but her leg had been too far gone to be saved.
The herders went south to Khar land, and Nacris went with them, slowly recovering. She vowed by all her ancestors that she would one day have her revenge on Karada, the village of Yala-tene, its protector dragon, and its headman.
One bitter winter day her adopted clan was massacred by the Almurk raiders. Nacris recognized one of her attackers as Hoten, son of Nito. Bald Hoten had been part of the rebel faction she’d led against Karada. He spared his old chief and took her deep into the forest at the Edge of the World to meet Sthenn. There, her dreams of vengeance began to take a more definite form.
“I have need for one like you,” Sthenn had told her.
Grateful to be alive, Nacris promised her loyalty, saying, “I no longer ride, but I know how to lead warriors in battle.”
“Any hothead can do that. I have a different task in mind, one more nourishing to the black heart I see within you.”
He had departed as the green dragon but returned in the form she came to know as Greengall. He brought with him a dirty, disheveled boy of twelve. He had introduced the child as Zannian, then added, “Boy, meet your mother.”
It was hard to say who had been more astonished, the child or the woman. The boy spoke first.
“Mother? How come I haven’t seen you before?”
“She’s been away fighting,” said Greengall. Venomous irony dripped from his words. “Now she’s come back to raise you properly. Isn’t that right?”
Nacris stared at the ragged hoy with his rat’s nest of light brown hair. Through the caked-on dirt, she could see intelligence shining from his hazel eyes — intelligence and mistrust in equal measure — as he gazed back at her.
She glanced at Greengall. He was smiling, his horrible, too-wide grin revealing sharply pointed teeth. She voiced none of the questions that tumbled through her brain. Instead, she simply nodded. At that moment the bargain was made.
“Yes, I’ve come back,” she said to Zannian, opening her arms. “Come here, son.”
The boy let the strange woman hug him, though he didn’t return her rough embrace. After a few moments, Nacris pushed him away, brushing the matted hair from his face.
“I want to hear all about what you’ve been doing,” she said. Looking past Zannian to Greengall, she added, “You must tell me everything.”
Nacris became a mother. Later, she added to her vicious brood the orphan boys who became the Jade Men. Like Zannian, they were raised to know no right but force, no truth but fear, and no pleasure but obedience. She told herself she cared for none of them. They were tools for a task, nothing more. Why then did she feel a pang of fear when the Jade Men demonstrated their fighting skills against Zannian and yet felt nothing when a Jade Man was gravely wounded?
The rain continued to fall. Nacris imagined the cold drops washing away all her feelings and all her fears, until only pure hatred was left.
Chapter 16
At daybreak, Paharo and his five fellow scouts gathered under a cloud-shrouded sky. Dampened by intermittent drizzle, they waited for the Sensarku. When Tiphan and his acolytes arrived, the sight of them left Paharo and his scouts blinking in amazement.
They were twenty young men and women, none older than eighteen, clad in white doeskins. Their hair was plaited with spring flowers, and on their shoulders each bore a spear, its shaft daubed with white paint. Another five pairs of acolytes, also dressed in buffed doeskins and with flowers in their hair, drew five travois. The travois were heavily laden with supplies — by the look of it, enough to feed them all for twenty days.
Tiphan, walking proudly in the midst of his followers, was draped in doeskins of dazzling whiteness. His pale face was likewise coated with white paint, as were his hands and arms. Bronze dragon scales covered his chest. With his already white hair and eyebrows, he looked like a spirit in human guise. Only his eyes contained any color. They shone brilliant turquoise in the midst of his eerie pallor.
Paharo shook off his astonishment and got his scouts moving. They trotted away, spears on their shoulders, while Paharo wended his way through the immobile acolytes to speak to Tiphan.
“Tosen,” he said, glancing up at the midmorning sun, “are your people going like this? Soft clothing and bark sandals won’t last a day on the plain. Thorns and sharp stones will tear them to bits.”
The ghostly white face regarded him coolly. “All will be well, child. Believe in the power I command, as my children do.”
Paharo refrained from pointing out the Sensarku leader was only four years older than he was. Instead he said, “Very well, Tosen. We’ll scout ahead. When we reach the mouth of the valley, we’ll wait for you.”
