by Paul Cook
“But the rider — ”
“We’ll wait till he passes. Come on!”
The enclosure was roughly oval shaped, with the bonfire at the center of one of the long sides. Nianki got as far from the firelight as she could. She crept out of the bushes and listened. The clop-clop of the approaching horse’s hooves caused her to flatten herself into a chink in the trunks. The horse walked by, its bored rider’s head bobbing with every step his mount made. When he was well past, she waved for Kenase and Neko to join her.
“This is not good!” Neko said with surprising fervor.
“Have you got a better idea?” Nianki replied. He looked at his toes. “All right, lift me up!”
They boys braced themselves against the logs and Nianki climbed their backs. The tree trunks were about twice her height, so with one foot on each boy’s shoulder, she was able to see over them.
The dark end of the camp was dotted with sleeping people lying in family groups of five and six. She guessed there were thirty or forty people. At the other end of the enclosure the elves made their camp. They had hides stretched over frames of tree branches to keep the rain and sun off. She counted eight to ten sleeping elves. A pair of horses was tethered to the wall.
Nianki swung first one leg then the other over the tops of the tree trunks. The ground was a good three paces distant, but she slid off her perch and landed lightly on her fingers and toes. She crept up to the nearest sleeper — a woman — and clamped a hand over her mouth. The woman opened wide dark eyes and gave a cry muffled by Nianki’s hand.
“Quiet!” Nianki said. “I’m here to help you!”
The woman nodded her head, showing her understanding, and Nianki removed her hand. She sat up, and Nianki saw she wore a hard collar, identical to the one that encircled Nianki’s throat. A cord ran through the collar’s ring to the collar of the next sleeper, and the next, eventually ending at a large stake pounded in the ground in the center of the camp.
In her travels since leaving the coast, Nianki had availed herself of a piece of sharp obsidian as a cutting tool. It was brittle stone, but easy to knap to a keen edge. She flicked the obsidian blade over the cord, cutting it cleanly.
“Wake the rest, carefully,” she whispered. “Pull the cord through and you’ll be loose. I’ll help the others.” The woman nodded vigorously, turning to wake her companion.
Nianki crept to the next group of sleepers. Before she could awaken anyone else, a cry went up from the elves at the fire. At first Nianki thought they were just carrying on among themselves, but then she saw the sleeping elves were rising and taking up their weapons.
Without bothering to wake the boy she’d approached, she cut the cord on his collar. Two elves mounted their horses and the rest ran to the opening in the wall. To her consternation, Nianki saw they had Kenase and Neko.
“Listen, human!” shouted one of the elves on horseback. “You can’t get out. We have your friends! Stand up and let yourself be seen!”
Sleeping plainsfolk stirred all around her. Some got to their feet, rubbing their eyes. Nianki joined in, mixing with them while gradually working her way toward the way out.
“Can you see her?” called a man’s voice in the plainsmen’s language.
“Not yet,” replied the mounted elf. “ Cha! They all look alike to me!”
“This one has a scarred face and long brown hair.”
Who was speaking? Most of the captives were on their feet now, making it hard for Nianki to see ahead. She bumped into a burly hunter with fierce black brows and curly beard. She pressed the obsidian knife into his hand.
“Free as many as you can,” she said. “If we all move as one, they can’t stop us.”
“Aye,” he said, black eyes shining. “Stampede. Good plan!”
She worked her way to the front of the crowd and found herself looking up at a familiar face. The mounted elf was Tamanithas, the elf she’d knocked down and left unconscious.
His eyes widened in shocked recognition as his gaze fell upon her. “You!” he spat in passable human-speech.
“I thought you would’ve gone home by now,” she said calmly. “Learned to talk like a real person, have you?”
“I knew your barbarous tongue when last we met,” he sneered. “I just hate to soil my mouth by speaking it!” He ordered the elves on foot to take her.
A concerted shout went up from the humans at Nianki’s back. As fast as they could, they whipped the confining cord from the rings around their necks. The man with the curly black beard rushed to Nianki’s side and returned the obsidian knife to her.
The sight of their prisoners freeing themselves paralyzed the elves for a moment. They were only twelve against forty. The elves closed ranks and presented a hedge of spears to the angry mob. Tamanithas paraded his horse up and down behind the line of guards.
“Get back to your places!” he shouted. “Get back and you will not be harmed!”
“It’s you who should flee,” Nianki shouted back. “This is not your land! Return to your forest, and we won’t kill you!”
Tamanithas drew his long-bladed weapon and started to ride over his own spear carriers, but he was restrained by two comrades on horseback. They argued loudly in their own language while the unruly mob of plainsfolk drew closer and closer, forcing the elves into the narrow end of the oval camp. Hands found stones in the dirt, and lengths of wood cut by the elves to feed their fires made handy clubs.
A shower of stones fell on the mounted elves. The pair restraining Tamanithas went down, and one of the horses bolted from the scene. One stout rock struck Tamanithas in the shoulder. He shrugged it off and urged his animal forward. The spear carriers parted ranks to avoid being trampled. He rode straight at Nianki, who awaited his charge calmly.
She was unarmed, save for her knife. Her spear she’d left with Kenase. Tamanithas rode with his weapon held high. Just before the horse would have collided with Nianki, she leaped to the side, throwing her right arm and right leg around the horse’s neck. The beast reared and bucked. She held on tightly and drove the heel of her foot into Tamanithas’s chest. His hands flew up, and he slid off the horse.
A swarm of furious men and women descended on the fallen elf. He was kicked and pummeled and dragged to his feet. By the time Nianki managed to get off the spinning, bucking horse, the rest of the elves had withdrawn to the opening, leaving Tamanithas in the hands of the humans.
Sudden quiet fell over the scene. Nianki strode through the crowd and saw the elves had reorganized at the bonfire. On one side, the humans held Tamanithas, bruised and bloody. On the other side, the elves had Neko, kneeling, with a spear to his back. Standing with the elves, unguarded, was Kenase.
“So, you’re with them,” Nianki said, the truth dawning on her.
“I serve the Good People,” Kenase replied. “Let Lord Tamanithas go, and we’ll serve them together, you and I.”
She spat in the dirt. “I serve no one.”
“They’ll kill Neko.”
She stepped out further, planting her hands on her hips. “Listen to me! Tell your people what I say, Tamanithas.” He sullenly agreed. “We will release Tamanithas if you give up Neko and leave this country. If you harm Neko, we’ll kill the elf, hunt you all down, and kill you, every one.” She glanced back at Tamanithas. “Tell them.”
He translated her threat. The elves drew closer together. There was some conferring among those on horseback. At last, one gave a command, and Neko was prodded to his feet. He limped across the open ground to stand by Nianki.
“Let him go,” she said to the people holding Tamanithas. There was some growling from the crowd, but they relinquished their hostage. With as much dignity as his battered appearance could support, Tamanithas rejoined his people.
“Depart now,” Nianki said. “You’ll be followed until you leave the plain. If you try to come back, everyone in your band will be slain.”
Tamanithas’s horse was sent to the waiting elves. The former hostage mou
nted and rode out in front of the wary spear carriers.
“This is not over,” he vowed. “This land will belong to my lord Silvanos.”
“Land belongs to the spirits, not to those who live on it,” said Nianki, “but we’ll not be driven from our hunting grounds. The plainsmen will know of your deeds, and how we turned you back. If you return, we’ll be waiting for you.”
The humans raised a cheer. Stung by her declaration, the elves formed ranks and started marching away. Then only the mounted elves were left with Kenase standing between them. He looked at Nianki fearfully and reached up to clasp the mane of Tamanithas’s horse.
“Take me with you, great one!” Kenase said. “I can still serve you!”
“Begone, wretch. You would lick the hand of whoever feeds you.” Tamanithas pulled his animal free. With a single cry, he kicked his horse to a gallop. The other riders were close behind him.
Kenase was quickly ringed by vengeful hunters.
“You led my family to the Good People!” Curly Beard cried, punching Kenase on the jaw with his fist. Others echoed his accusation. Kenase was hauled to his feet only to be beaten down again. Nianki watched silently until Neko appeared at her side. He handed her the short-shafted spear.
“Thank you,” she said. The ring of betrayed hunters parted for her. Her face was as hard as her voice when she spoke to Kenase. “I fed you. I gave you meat. You lied to me.”
“I did it for all of us!” he exclaimed. “The Good People are wise and great! They can bring many wonders to us, wonders of comfort and ease!”
“Like this?” Nianki said, yanking at the cold collar at her throat. “Wonders like starvation and slavery?”
“The collars come off!” Kenase edged away from Nianki, toward the interior of the camp. “There is a tool that makes them come off.”
The plainsfolk allowed him to ransack the bedding left behind by the elves. He found a large bright ring made of the same hard, smooth substance as the collars. “Bronze,” Kenase called it. It was “metal,” he said.
A curious worked rod of metal hung on the ring. Kenase pushed one end of the rod in the hole in Nianki’s collar and twisted. The collar popped open and fell to the ground. With a roar, the crowd surged over Kenase and the rod was torn from his grasp. The camp resounded with cheers as collar after collar was removed.
Curly Beard, who said his name was Targun, asked Nianki what should be done with Kenase, who was cowering as he awaited his fate.
“Why ask me?” she replied, still rubbing her neck. Her skin was peeling from days of chafing.
“He betrayed us,” Targun said, “but you saved us. Decide his fate. It will be done as you say.”
Heavy silence fell over the camp, broken only by the crackle of the dying bonfire. Nianki cast a cold eye over the boy. He was crying now. His weakness disgusted her.
“Turn him out,” she said at last. “Let him fend for himself. Tell the story far and wide so that no plainsman lends him food or comfort. If he lacks for anything, let him seek his masters in the forest.”
Targun and the others man-handled Kenase to the path taken by the elves. Head bowed, the whimpering boy shuffled away, terrified of exile but relieved to be alive.
Someone pushed Nianki aside and jerked the spear from her hand. He ran forward a few steps and cast the short spear at the retreating Kenase. It struck him in the small of the back. He uttered a cry and fell facedown in the dirt.
The spear-thrower faced Nianki. It was Neko.
“Why?” Nianki demanded.
“Kenase led the Good People to my family,” said the boy. “They killed my brother because he wouldn’t submit to capture.”
Nianki removed the spear and rolled the dead boy over. She closed his eyes and wiped the spear head on the grass.
“It is done,” Targun said solemnly. “Let no more blood be shed.”
The plainsmen drifted away, eager to put distance between themselves and the elf camp. Most of the families were gone by the time the red moon appeared over the horizon. A few remained, Targun’s among them.
Nianki poked among the elves’ abandoned gear. She found a bronze dagger in a wooden chest and slipped it in her waistband. While she was rummaging, she noticed the remaining men, women, and children were watching her.
“I’ll not take everything,” she assured them. “Get what you want.”
“No,” said Targun. “We’re waiting for you.” She stared at him blankly. “We want to follow you.”
“I don’t seek a mate,” she said flatly.
“That’s not what I mean.” Targun gestured, and a short, smiling woman of ample proportions led four children to stand at his side. He obviously had no need of a mate. He said, “You bested the Good People and saved us all. There is a power in your presence, like the nearness of a panther. The spirits are in you, and we want to follow you.”
“Let the spirits who protect you protect us as well,” added Targun’s mate.
Bewildered, Nianki was about to tell them they were all crazy, when she spotted Neko sitting on a stump near the fire. He looked numb, vacant. Though she’d never killed a man, she had seen that dazed reaction in others.
“What about you, Neko?” she called.
Slowly he looked up at her. “I’ve no blood kin left. I follow you.”
Many pairs of eyes stared hopefully at her. As she looked around at the expectant faces and considered what was being asked of her, Nianki was reminded how they had defeated the better-armed, supposedly more powerful elves. A band of hunters who were not blood kin — such a band had not existed on the plains before. Perhaps there was something to be said for the safety and strength of numbers. If elves could do it, so could humans.
Nianki scrubbed a hand through her hair and sighed gustily. “I’m unmated, yet I’ve acquired a family,” she muttered, then added more loudly, “All right, you can follow me.”
“Where should we go?” asked Pirith, Targun’s mate.
Nianki frowned at her, though it was a frown of thought rather than of displeasure. Pirith posed a very good question. Where should they go? East lay the domain of the elves, and the land to the south was also infested with the invaders. The western plain was where the killer pack had wiped out her family.
“North,” Nianki said firmly. “Good hunting up north, this time of year.”
They stripped the camp of everything useful, then waited for Nianki to lead them away.
Targun asked, “What is your name?”
Before Nianki could answer, Neko spoke.
“Karada,” he said. She looked at him and smiled.
“That’s right,” she said. “Call me Karada.”
Chapter 8
Years passed. Ten times the trees blossomed, and ten times winter sheathed the cliffs surrounding the lake of the falls in white mantles of snow. Twenty-two plainsmen followed Amero to the lake — six women, four men, and twelve children. In ten years they became six hundred, partly from natural increase, partly from the arrival of new settlers. Word spread across the plains of the marvelous village on the lake where people came to live instead of spending their lives roaming the endless savanna. Some people came to see the settlement and went away puzzled. Others saw and remained to swell the growing population, and like tinder heaped on a glowing coal, the more the population swelled, the brighter the flames of progress.
The people who lived there called it Yala-tene, or “Mountain Nest,” though most outsiders called the settlement Arku-peli, which meant “Place of the Dragon.”
Unburdened by fears of attack, the people of Yala-tene devoted their energy to peaceful pursuits of hearth and field. The hide tents of the first settlers gave way over the years to real houses, stoutly built of local stone. There was little good timber in the vicinity — most of the wood available was soft pine and cedar — but stone was abundant. The villagers built their houses in the style of their old tents: round with high, domed roofs covered by slabs of slate or cedar shakes. The peak of the
dome was left open to allow smoke from the hearth to escape. Each house was like a miniature fortress, with thick stone walls and no opening other than a single door. As families grew larger and more prosperous, some houses acquired second floors, and these were often pierced with long slit windows.
People who stayed in Yala-tene brought with them their own skills and ways of living. From the northern plains came gardeners, who taught the plainsmen how to cultivate crops instead of having to gather them in the wild. On the west shore of the lake, ground was cleared of thorny scrub and turned over to planting onions, cabbages, carrots, and even grapes. To make passage across the lake easier, the untamed river was bridged late one winter by a plan ingeniously conceived by Amero. Because of the lack of strong timber, a flexible plank bridge was held up by thick strands of vine rope that were anchored on each end by a squat stone tower. The bridge was completed in time for the spring planting of the settlement’s fifth year.
In the seventh year of Yala-tene, herders arrived from the far south, driving flocks of goats and oxen before them. They came to barter for fodder as they passed through the desolate mountains, but some of the herders, too, remained behind when the flocks moved on. Enough herders chose to stay to provide fresh meat to the settlement the year round. Rock-walled pens were built on the north side of the sandy hill on which Yala-tene stood.
Twice a week the villagers slaughtered an ox or a pair of elk for the dragon. Knowing Duranix liked his food cooked, they learned to offer the meat on a blazing pyre of logs. The smell and sight of roasted meat attracted the attention of many people, and in time the fashion of eating cooked food became a firm habit.
After many weeks, bones and ashes began to pile up. To contain the growing mound of debris, villagers laid the beginnings of a rectangular wall of rock around the fire pit. Eager to show their appreciation of Duranix, everyone in Yala-tene gathered an armload of stones for the project. Before long, a large flat-topped cairn of smooth lake stones rose in the center of the village.
