Sister of the Sword

by Paul B. Thompson

  The young woman was not impressed. “I know your kind,” she said bitterly. “I know what you want. You’re no different than Zannian!”

  “I don’t blame you for saying so, but I’m not like him at all.”

  She made a dismissive gesture and started to turn away.

  “Be my mate, Beramun, and we’ll wander the world together!”

  The words obviously startled him as much as they did her, but Harak smiled broadly and repeated them. “Be my mate, Beramun. I know you’ve been asked before, but I’m not a fool like Zannian nor a dreamer like the Arkuden. I’ve had women before, but I’ve never asked one to be my mate. Say no and I’ll not bother you again, but you must know my offer is honest.”

  Beramun still held Mara’s dagger. Her other hand went to her chest. She said, “What about Sthenn’s mark? Don’t you fear it? How do you know I won’t cut your throat some night while you sleep?”

  She didn’t say no! Harak thought jubilantly. He stepped toward her. Putting an arm around her waist, he slowly pulled her closer still.

  “It would be just like the old lizard to plant an evil seed in a brave, good womanlike you. But he’s dead, and I don’t fear his poison. All his other acts have failed, and he’s failed with you, too.”

  She would not look at him. She whispered, “I won’t be the cause of your death.”

  He took hold of her wrist and brought the dagger up. “Then I’ll undo his work.”

  Her dark eyes lifted, the question in them plain.

  “I’ll remove the mark,” Harak explained.

  “No more tricks, Harak, please.”

  He plucked the bronze dagger from her fingers. “No trick. No lies. Whether you take me as your mate or no, let me remove Sthenn’s mark. Once you’re free of it, you can decide what you want to do.”

  A small fire crackled on the hearth. Harak bade Beramun sit by the circle of stones. He knelt beside her and put the blade of Mara’s dagger in the flames.

  Her eyes widened.

  “I saw an old man do this once. His horse had a growth on its withers, and he fixed it this way.” Squeezing her hand, he said, “I know you’re brave enough to do this.”

  Wordlessly, she loosened the lacings on the front of her shirt and slipped her left arm out of the sleeve. By firelight, the green triangle looked black and shiny against her tanned skin.

  Harak picked up the dagger gingerly. The leather-wrapped handle was hot, but not too hot to hold. The tip of the span-long blade glowed dull orange. “Take a deep breath, and don’t be too proud to scream.”

  Swallowing hard, he pressed the flat of the hot blade against the jade-colored triangle. Beramun twisted her face away and groaned. Her entire body trembled. A sizzling sound filled the tent, but the dragon’s mark did not smell like normal flesh burning. Instead, a fetid whiff of Almurk filled their nostrils.

  Harak yanked the blade away. Beramun sagged in a faint, so he held her up. It was just as well. Having seared the green dragon’s mark, he now needed to excise it forever. He worked quickly, using the knife’s sharp tip to cut beneath the foreign color embedded in Beramun’s skin. Because he’d cauterized it first, little blood flowed.

  At last the evil sign was out. Harak threw it on the fire. He shuddered when the yellow flames changed to vivid green as the last remnant of the green dragon was consumed. A choking stench rose but quickly dispersed.

  Beramun’s eyes opened part way, and she let her head loll on Harak’s shoulder. With great care he lowered her to the furs heaped beside the hearth. He found his hands were shaking.

  “Well done.”

  Startled, Harak turned. Karada stood in the entrance to her tent, arms folded, watching. Behind her were arrayed Pakito and Bahco. Mara’s pale face peered between the men.

  Harak passed a hand over his sweating brow and sat down by Beramun. “She was afraid the green dragon would compel her to do evil,” he said. “I did what I could to help her.”

  Karada nodded. “She is worth the scar you’ve given her. But are you worthy of Beramun?”

  Harak understood her question. Beramun had no parents, no living kin. Karada was taking on their role, demanding he prove himself to her for Beramun’s sake. He returned the dagger to the fire.

  Harak hated pain. He’d always thought Zannian and the other raiders who gloried in their resistance to it were stupid brutes. A wise man – a clever man, at least – avoided pain. That’s why it existed, so you would know the things that caused it were to be avoided.

  When the knife was glowing again, he opened the collar of his worn tunic. Looking straight at Karada, he pressed the hot bronze to his chest, just above his heart – the same place Beramun had borne the mark of Sthenn. He clenched his teeth so hard he was sure they’d crack, and tears filled his eyes. The smell of his own burning skin made him want to wretch, but as he had mastered the noxious ogre drink tsoong, so he mastered his sickness.

  He threw the burning blade aside. Karada’s face swam before him. The tent seemed to waver around him. He fell.

  Strong arms hoisted him to his feet.

  “Take him out, Bahco,” Karada was saying. “Beramun will stay here until she’s better.”

  “Let me stay with her,” Harak protested feebly.

  Karada clapped a hand to his shoulder. The comradely gesture rocked him like the kick of a horse.

  “You won’t lose her,” she said vehemently. “Not now. That was the strongest mating ceremony I’ve ever seen. You two are bound for life.” She glanced at Beramun, still unconscious on the fur rug. “I knew it would take a lot to win her, but I couldn’t have guessed how much.”

  Bahco draped Harak’s arm over his shoulder and bore the ex-raider away. Karada picked up the dagger, still faintly warm.

  “Mara,” she said. “Come here.”

  The girl tried to flee but ran into a wall of muscle and buckskin as Pakito barred the way out. Though he looked distinctly unhappy doing so, he held the far smaller Mara fast with one huge hand.

  Karada approached, tapping the handle of the dagger into her palm. “One of the worst crimes is when a man forces himself on a woman,” she said in a low voice. “I know of what I speak. There’ve been men who tried to take me. Every one died by my hand.”

  She stopped at arm’s length from the cringing girl. “You come running to me, screaming that this raider is forcing himself on Beramun. I return and find him saving her spirit, if not her life. Perhaps you were sincerely mistaken. I doubt it. The only crime worse than a man forcing a woman, Mara, is a woman lying about it. When you do that, you make us all out to be liars.”

  Karada put the tip of the dagger under Mara’s chin. “If you were one of my band, I’d have you beaten for this.”

  Mara squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Karada removed the dagger abruptly. “But you’re not one of my band, and you never will be. You came from Yala-tene, and here you will stay. Go, and never let me see you again.”

  She dropped the dagger. Pakito released Mara. Nearly convulsing with grief, the girl collapsed at their feet.

  “Don’t send me away,” she sobbed, clutching Karada’s legs. The nomad chief stepped out of reach. Mara’s sobs gained volume. “Please! Oh, please! I’ll serve you even better than before! I’ll do anything you say, Karada! Anything at all!”

  “Get out!” Karada’s voice rose to be heard above the girl’s cries. “If I see you again, I’ll gut you like a fish!” She turned her back.

  Large of frame and equally large of heart, Pakito felt sorry for the misguided girl. “Go,” he urged gently. He held open the tent flap.

  Hiccuping, Mara brushed her tears away. She snatched up the dagger and for a moment stared hard at Karada’s exposed back. Pakito would have swatted her like a fly if she’d moved toward his chief, but it didn’t come to that. Mara slipped the dagger in her robe and darted out of the tent.

  “By all my ancestors!” Pakito exclaimed. “I thought she was going to go for you!”

>   Karada shrugged. “I gave her the chance, but the girl has no nerve. I thought she might recover her pride living with me, the Silvanesti broke her too well. She’s just a rabbit. A silly, frightened rabbit.”

  “Poor girl. Will she harm herself, do you think?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. She’s Amero’s problem now.”

  Pakito left. Karada sat by the fire and waited for Beramun to wake.

  *

  Amero kicked loops of braided vine through the hole in the cave roof. As it spilled down, he finished tying off the other end to a cedar tree. A long time ago, rebels from Karada’s band had used these holes to enter the cave and attack him. Now they were his means to see his melancholy friend.

  He lowered himself through the hole and started down. It was hard work for a man his age, but the privations of the recent war had hardened him, and he reached the cave floor without mishap.

  The cave’s interior was dark and chilly. Cold blue light filtered through the waterfall, and slender beams of daylight slanted in through the roof holes. The cave smelled strongly of reptile and old smoke. It had been many days since Amero had last been here, but the drinking pool and hearth pit were just as they had been when he used to live here every day with Duranix.

  The dragon lay in the back of the cave on his sleeping ledge, a vast mound of coiled bronze muscles. Where once Duranix had had room to spare on the ledge, now his tail hung over the edge, and the arch of his back almost scraped the sloping wall above him.

  “I know you’re there,” Duranix said with a deep sigh, neither rising nor turning to face Amero.

  “Is it all right? Or should I go?”

  “How would you leave? Are you fit enough to climb that cobweb you came in on?”

  The bronze dragon uncoiled, limbs and body seeming to move in different directions at the same time. Amero backed away, giving ground to the massive creature.

  “Yes, the cave is getting to be too small,” said Duranix, answering Amero’s thought as he stepped down from the ledge. “How are you?”

  Amero sat on the cold hearthstones. “Surprisingly well. I’ve learned the secret of making bronze, did you hear? Balif’s smith, Farolenu, showed me how it’s done.”

  Duranix blinked, huge eyelids clashing together. “My condolences.”

  Amero’s confusion was plain on his face and in his thoughts, so Duranix said, “You’ve spent a long part of your short life trying to discover how to make bronze. Now you’ve done it. It’s finished. So, what will you try next? Iron?”

  “What’s iron?”

  “Never mind. I’ve just been having a difficult time imagining the future.”

  Amero poked the ashes of the long-dead fire with a stick. “There are plenty of problems left to overcome,” he said. “The village needs to be rebuilt. We must decide what to do with the prisoners. Hekani has an idea for improving the baffles – he wants to attach permanent ramps to the walls, wooden ramps that can be raised or lowered from within —”

  A single claw waved dismissively. “These are your problems, not mine.” The dragon sighed, blowing loose ash and dust around. “So much has happened here. It’s not the valley I came to a century ago. I thought this was my place. Now I doubt it. There’s a wide world beyond this valley....”

  Amero quickly changed the subject, announcing that he and Lyopi were to be mated at last.

  “Who knows?” he said, grinning. “I might become a father in my old age!”

  “It’s wise you chose the sturdy female over the blackhaired one. That girl is tainted.”

  Amero wasn’t sure about any taint Beramun might have, but he was certain Lyopi would resent being called “sturdy.” He asked, “Why so restless? What did you see on your journey?”

  Instantly, Amero’s mind filled with a crowd of rapidly changing images. He saw flying dragons, dragons on mountaintops and in caves, nesting dragons – in many sizes, shapes, and colors. Like listening to numerous voices all talking at once, he couldn’t sort the onslaught of images into any sensible order. Gradually, the cacophony subsided, leaving a single, crystal-clear vision – a slender bronze dragon perched gracefully on a bluestone mountaintop.

  “Who is that?” Amero murmured, dazzled by the rush of visions.

  As soon as he spoke, the image vanished. Duranix was at the mouth of the cave, his head thrust through the pouring falls. Amero came up behind his left side and rapped on his foreleg.

  Duranix withdrew his head from the water and turned to look at his friend.

  “Are there truly as many dragons as that in the world?” asked Amero.

  “That many and more.”

  “Who is the small bronze one?”

  “No one important.” He cocked his mighty head, water dripping from his barbels. “They’re looking for you in the village. I hear them calling.”

  Amero’s shoulders sagged. “What can they want now? I told them I’d be gone until morning.”

  “Your people need you. It’s a good thing to be needed.”

  Grinning, Amero clapped his hand to his friend’s massive scaled flank. “Rejoice, then! All of Yala-tene needs you, Duranix.”

  “You did well enough against the raiders. Perhaps you don’t need me as much as you think.”

  Amero was about to protest when the dragon lifted him gently in one foreclaw. “I’ll return you to the village,” Duranix said. “What kind of friend would I be if I made you climb that long rope out of here?”

  It was like the old days when Duranix plunged through the thundering falls with Amero held close to his chest. He didn’t make straight for the ground but remained aloft for a time, circling the lake. Amero grinned as the wind tore at his short hair. From this vantage, he saw blue sky to the north, signaling an end to the Ember Wind. Rather than looking down on Yala-tene below him, Amero kept his eyes lifted, taking in the vistas spread out around him. It had been too long since his last flight with Duranix. Much too long.

  At last Duranix landed atop the stump of the onetime Offertory. During the siege, the villagers had torn apart the stone platform, seeking material for missiles or to shore up their weakening defenses. The dressed stone blocks had all been stripped away, leaving only the original cairn of round lake stones.

  The dragon closed his wings and set Amero on the ground on his feet. The walled enclosure had a desolate air. Where once devoted acolytes washed the walls and swept the sand around the Offertory to make it pleasing to the dragon (who in truth cared little for what the Sensarku did), now the area was a repository for timbers, stone, and other supplies used in the rebuilding of Yala-tene.

  “The nomads are giving a feast tomorrow night,” said Amero. “Will you come? Nianki’s leaving the next day.”

  “Human festivities are always amusing. Perhaps I will come.”

  “Good! See you then!” Amero said, and wended his way to the exit amid piles of logs and baskets of mud for brickmaking.

  Duranix lingered atop the cairn, watching until his human friend disappeared from sight. The stone cairn, erected a long time ago when he was notably smaller, began to buckle under his great weight. Like a past that could not return, his perch had to be abandoned. Duranix launched himself skyward, returning to his dark retreat behind the falls.

  Chapter 19

  The day of the feast dawned fair and bright. During the night the Ember Wind dissipated, and the heavy, muggy air in the valley lifted. Karada immediately sent out hunting parties to bring back any fresh game they might find.

  Samtu and a band of six rode up Cedarsplit Gap and returned shortly, bringing bad news. Days of wind-driven dust had carved away the soft limestone in the cliffs and sent waves of broken rock crashing into the pass. According to Samtu, the slide was largely made up of small, loose stones – especially treacherous to cross as they were easily disturbed by feet and hooves.

  Hoping the other scouts would bring better news, Karada returned to her tent to check on Beramun.

  Beramun had spent a rest
less night. Even after downing the sleeping draught Karada had sent for, she twitched and moaned in her sleep. At one point Karada touched the girl’s forehead and found it blazing hot. Since her wound wasn’t visibly festering, the cause of the fever wasn’t clear. Now she was asleep. Soon enough, Harak appeared and asked to see Beramun.

  The nomad chief was struck by the change wrought in the former raider. From a smooth, arrogant, rather lazy wanderer Harak had become almost likable. Maybe his love for Beramun had transformed him – or maybe, Karada reflected, he recognized that Beramun deserved an honorable mate.

  They talked in hushed tones about the girl’s condition.

  “It’s strange,” Karada murmured. “Her wound is painful, I’m sure, but it shouldn’t cause such distress.”

  “It was Sthenn’s mark,” Harak said grimly. “Cutting it out may have done more harm than we know. It’s my fault.”

  “Be strong. I think it was the saving of her.” Karada offered to share her meager meal of nuts and fruit with him. He took a handful of nuts and sat beside Beramun’s pallet, watching her brow furrow and the sweat bead on her lip.

  After a moment, he said, “I have a boon to ask of you, Karada.”

  She stopped eating to listen. In the same low tone, he added, “The rest of the men from Zannian’s band chose me to speak for them.”

  “Go on.”

  “It is said you’re leaving soon. The men and I want to go with you.”

  She’d been half-expecting this. “I’ll not have raiders and killers in my band.”

  “Wait, great chief. We’re all plainsfolk, aren’t we? I doubt anyone in our little pen has killed more men than you or the great Pakito.”

  “I’ve never killed an innocent.”

  His old, cunning look returned. “Never?”

  “You won’t get far with me, questioning my word!”

  Beramun sighed, shifting slightly on her pallet. Karada gestured at Harak. He put aside his uneaten breakfast, and they moved away from the sleeping girl to the entrance of the tent.