by Paul Cook
“Where have you been, woman?” hissed the dragon. “Get your warriors in order. There’s going to be a fight.”
“But my men — ” Zannian began.
“Keep them here!” Sthenn thundered. “I want the Jade Men to strike the first blow!”
Flushed with lust for battle, Nacris barked orders. She deployed the Jade Men in a single line ahead of her son’s block of horsemen, spears and shields ready.
“All is ready, Master,” Nacris reported. “Where is the foe?”
“They are near. Start your men forward at a walk, and beware of trickery.”
Amero’s eyesight and hearing slowly returned. He got to his feet. All around, scouts and Sensarku alike were rising groggily from the turf. Duranix, however, was not in sight. All that remained was a large flattened spot in the grass where he’d lain.
Amero ran forward, horrified. Had Tiphan destroyed Duranix?
“Look!” shouted Beramun.
Following her pointing finger, Amero saw a dark spot against the bright blue sky. It grew rapidly in size as it plunged toward them.
“Duranix!”
The bronze dragon was falling toward them at a tremendous speed. When he was close enough for those on the ground to see the individual scales of his hide, he threw open his wings. Extending his long neck skyward, Duranix let loose a roar that shook the ground.
Amero jumped up and down, waving his arms. Duranix was alive and flying!
The dragon banked steeply, and Amero saw his mighty shoulder muscles coiling and uncoiling with every sweep of his wings.
The dragon landed in the grass as lightly as a swallow. Amero ran to him. Not only was Duranix healed, but he seemed larger than before. The underside of his belly was higher off the ground, and his length had increased a good five paces.
“My friend, you’re enormous!” Amero exclaimed.
Duranix turned his head this way and that, taking in the expanse of his new physique. “I do seem to have grown. It must be a side effect of the healing power. Won’t Sthenn be surprised!”
The acolytes had gotten Tiphan to his feet and were dusting the gray dirt of the savanna from his white doeskin robe. His staff was found and brought to him. It was shorter now by half — the end where the stone had been wedged was gone, vaporized.
“The Protector?” he asked, still dazed.
“I am here.”
Tiphan’s eyes widened to take in the dragon’s new dimensions. “Glorious!” he cried. “Great Protector, you are restored!”
“So I am.” Duranix paused, seemingly at a loss for words, then added, “I thank you.”
Tiphan did not bow but smiled widely and held out his hands. “I do but serve you, Great Protector!”
The acolytes, though disheveled and still trying to locate their weapons and gear, raised a ragged cheer.
A rhythmic rumbling, rising steadily in volume, cut into the celebration. Two of Paharo’s scouts ran off while the Sensarku regrouped. Just as they’d gotten themselves into some semblance of order, back came the hunters at a hard run.
“The raiders are coming!” they cried. “Hundreds and hundreds of them!”
“I think you were healed just in time,” Amero said, shifting closer to Duranix.
“Listen, all of you!” the dragon announced. “I am healed of my wound, but I haven’t eaten in many days, so I’m not at my full strength. It would be best if we withdrew.”
Amero, Beramun, and Paharo’s scouts grabbed their gear and started to retreat. The Sensarku stood their ground, awaiting their Tosen’s orders. The sound of the oncoming horde grew louder by the moment.
“My heart is full of gladness to have rendered good aid to our Protector,” Tiphan said, smiling beatifically, “but we came here to defeat the enemy, and that is what I shall do.”
“You can’t stand against them!” Amero declared.
“I have the power.” Tiphan’s brilliant blue eyes regarded him coolly
Exasperated, Amero looked to the dragon. “What do you say?”
“We’re too exposed here,” he said. “If we stay and fight, I can kill most of them, but you will all likely die, too. If Sthenn’s with them, none of us may get out alive. We need a defensible place.” He looked to the low hills east of their position. “That tallest hill — we’ll make a stand there. That should keep them from overrunning us.”
Beramun and the scouts set off running, leaving Amero and Duranix behind — Amero arguing with Tiphan and Duranix awaiting his friend.
“Tell your people to join us,” Amero ordered Tiphan.
“The Sensarku will stay. We shall save everyone.”
“Tiphan! The green dragon may be with them! You’re gambling not only your life but the lives of your followers!”
Proud disdain showed on Tiphan’s face. “I fear no green dragon. If my power can heal our benign Protector, it can smite a malign attacker.”
The sound of the approaching horsemen was like thunder and not very distant thunder at that.
Amero turned helplessly to Duranix. “He’s mad!”
“Tiphan, as your Protector, I order you and your followers to come with us,” said the dragon.
The acolytes appeared ready to obey. Before they had taken two steps, however, Tiphan halted them with a word.
Shouting could be heard over the noise of the pounding hoofbeats, and he said, “Fear not, mighty Duranix! I will protect my people!”
Amero tried to appeal to the acolytes directly, but none of the Sensarku would budge.
Duranix had had enough. Even as Amero continued to plead with the young folk, the dragon lowered his head and snagged the back of Amero’s tunic in his teeth. He lifted his protesting friend off the ground and stalked away. He easily overtook Beramun and the scouts and set Amero on his feet among them.
“Tiphan?” asked Paharo, glancing back the way they’d come.
Amero shook his head, face red with anger.
“Is it possible he can defeat them?” Beramun asked. “He does have great power at his command.”
“He’s an ignorant savage, playing in flames,” Duranix said bluntly. “The only question is, will he burn up your enemies or himself?”
Zannian and his chiefs, riding in the forefront of the raiders, halted abruptly. He flung up a hand, signaling the rest of the band to stop as well.
“Did you hear that?” he exclaimed.
Hoten, at his right, nodded gravely. “The voice of the bronze dragon.”
“His death scream! The Master’s poison has done its work!” Zannian exulted, wrapping the reins tightly around his left fist. “Now there’s nothing between us and Arku-peli but a few scouts! Send word to my mother. Loose the Jade Men! Spare no one!”
He kicked his mount into a gallop. The raiders raised a spontaneous shout of triumph and followed. When they topped the next rise, an unexpected sight met their eyes. “What’s this?” Zannian wondered aloud.
On the opposite slope, a small party was drawn up in a circle. There couldn’t have been more than thirty or forty of them, all on foot, dressed in white, and lightly armed.
“They look like children,” snorted Hoten.
Sthenn’s warning about trickery rose in Zannian’s mind. This couldn’t be as easy as it appeared.
“Hoten,” he said. “Take a hundred riders and follow the Jade Men.”
“Aye, Zan. We’ll have no trouble.”
The chief shook his head. “This smells bad to me. The Jade Men are fierce, but too young to know battle. Be ready to support them in case of treachery.”
“Aye, Zan.” Hoten picked up a hundred raiders from the band behind him. They loaded their throwing sticks, and at Hoten’s command, started down the slope.
The Jade Men, formed in a single line, gradually brought their flanks in, forming a silent circle fifty paces from the white-clad villagers. With their painted skin and dyed leather armor, they hardly seemed human. Nacris followed in their wake, her litter carried on the shoulders of four m
uscular bearers.
To their credit, the villagers did not waver at the sight of death marching toward them. They held their small circle. In the center, a white-haired figure stood, holding aloft a short wooden staff.
The Jade Men closed to within thirty paces. Nacris saw a flickering halo around the villagers’ leader. In the next heartbeat, a stream of fire, like horizontal lightning, lashed out from the circle of villagers. The ground exploded under the Jade Men’s feet. Stones, dirt, and burning clumps of grass flew everywhere. Five green-painted warriors were thrown down.
The Jade Men closed the gap in their line and continued their silent advance undeterred. A second blast burst upon them. This time, Nacris was hurled to the hillside and two of her bearers were struck dead where they stood. She rolled over in the grass and tried to drag herself to safety.
From his place atop the facing hill, Zannian watched with disbelieving anger. His fury grew as a ragged cheer rose from the circle of villagers.
“What is this force they command?” he shouted at no one in particular. “Why wasn’t I told they could do this? Where is the Master?”
Sthenn was reported to be some distance in the rear. Zannian sent riders to fetch the dragon.
“Tell him they throw fire at my men!” the raider chief yelled as the messengers sped away. “We need him to overcome them!”
Zannian turned to his mounted warriors. “The rest of you, form on me!” he ordered, and the balance of the center block of raiders, two hundred strong, closed ranks. “No throwing sticks. Spears! Use your spears!”
Two hundred flint-tipped lances swung down. Bellowing hoarsely, Zannian led them down the hill. Reaching Hoten’s band, Zannian united both groups and started toward the ring of cheering villagers.
When they were sixty paces from the white-clad enemy, a third bolt of lightning lashed out, flying over the heads of the Jade Men and hitting the ground scant steps from Zannian’s gray stallion. The raider chief felt the heat of it on his face, and dirt and stones flew wildly, but he kept going.
At twenty paces, a fourth bolt was unleashed, but it was far smaller than the others and flew harmlessly wide of the raiders, tearing a smoking hole in the hillside. That was the last. The Jade Men reached the slender line of villagers and fell on them like wolves.
As the enemy’s blood flowed, the Jade Men gave voice for the first time, chanting, “Greengall! Greengall!” Most of the villagers were speared where they stood. A few tried to run, but none got more than a few steps before being cut down.
Zannian found Nacris sitting propped on the wreckage of her litter, trying to see the battle. He extended a hand to her. She swung awkwardly onto the horse behind him.
“How goes the fight?” she said.
“Your Jade Men are wading through the enemy’s blood.”
“They closed for the kill despite the lightning?”
“Not one turned away.”
Her hard face split in a savage smile.
Zannian approached the surviving villagers. He was astonished to see them fall back to protect their leader. The lightly armed youths surrounded their leader in a wall of living flesh, batting aside spear tips with their bare hands. Two even threw themselves on spearpoints to keep them from piercing the man in the center of their circle.
Zannian put a ram’s horn to his lips and blew the call that ordered his men to stop fighting. The mounted raiders halted, but the Jade Men continued to press in, spearing the helpless villagers.
“Order them to stop,” Zannian told Nacris. “I want to know about this power they possess.”
She had to give the command twice, but the Jade Men finally drew back in a tight square in front of Zannian’s horse.
Seven young men and women, their white doeskins torn and drenched with blood, clung together around their leader.
“Yield or die,” Zannian said, halting his horse only a step away from the panting, bleeding group.
The villagers’ leader maintained his straight-backed, arrogant posture. He was a strange-looking man — tall, pale, with hair the color of midwinter snow.
“I am Tiphan, first servant of the great dragon of Yala-tene.”
“Are you? And where is the great dragon of Yala-tene? Why does he leave his followers to perish like dogs?”
“I sent him away,” Tiphan said proudly. “I am the defender of my people.”
“You’ve done a job of it, too.” Zannian’s eyes raked over the dead youths. “Was it you throwing that blue fire?”
“It was.”
“Tell me how you do it, and I may spare your life.”
“I possess the ancient power.” Tiphan’s proud stance was wavering, exhaustion evident on his face. He trembled, but said, “Send your warband away, and I will instruct you in the ways of the Sensarku.”
Zannian laughed. The man’s gall was amazing.
A large shadow swept over raider and villager alike. Zannian’s amusement became grimmer. He said, “You’re the one who’s about to learn something.”
With a strong backwash of air, Sthenn landed. Tiphan’s young followers wailed when the saw the green dragon. The white-haired man spoke sharply to them, and they dragged themselves off their bellies and wrapped their bleeding arms around him, seeming both to support and draw strength from him.
“What have we here?” Sthenn said. “Is this the source of the power I felt? I can’t believe it!”
Tiphan drew himself as straight as he could. “I am Tiphan, first servant of the great dragon of Yala-tene.”
“Friends of my old friend Duranix, eh?” Sthenn, blistered hide oozing pus, hopped several steps and landed heavily in front of the Sensarku. “How charming. Did he teach you those tricks?” The hideous green head snaked closer. “Did he?”
Tiphan tried to maintain his defiant stance, but he shrank from his hideous questioner. His reply was nearly inaudible. “No. I learned them myself.”
Sthenn’s jaws parted slightly. He blew a stream of cyan-colored gas on the villagers clinging to Tiphan’s legs. Coughing and retching horribly, the acolytes slid limply to the ground, poisoned by his breath. Sthenn’s bony claw darted in and took hold of Tiphan’s waist. He hoisted the man into the air.
“Nothing is funnier than a rodent who thinks he’s important,” the green dragon said. He raked a single claw down Tiphan’s chest, slashing open his doeskin robe and drawing blood. “Tell me, wise rodent, what’s become of my dear, dear friend Duranix?”
“He… lives,” Tiphan gasped, eyes streaming tears from the gas.
“Of course he does!” Sthenn squeezed his hapless victim until blood spurted from Tiphan’s nose. “But where is he now?”
“Yala… tene.”
“Impossible!” Sthenn shook him hard, snapping his head forward and back. “Don’t lie to me, rodent! His hindquarters must be rotting by now!”
The light of pride flared one last time in Tiphan’s blue eyes. “I cured him,” said the Sensarku leader.
Sthenn could see he spoke the truth, and the dragon howled with pure vexation. He spread his jaws wide, intending to bite Tiphan’s head from his body, then changed his mind. Instead, he began to squeeze, gradually tightening his grip around the man’s waist, savoring each snapping bone.
Tiphan’s head lolled back, his tongue protruding, and the green dragon relaxed his grip slightly, planning to draw out his death for as long as possible. Tiphan’s head slowly came up, and he opened his mouth. With his last breath, he called upon the remaining stones in his belt.
A ball of white fire engulfed him, sending horses and men reeling back in terror. When it vanished seconds later, Tiphan was gone, and so was Sthenn’s foreclaw.
The green dragon screamed. The stump of his right foreleg was blackened and smoking. Torrents of anger, pain, and outrage poured from his throat. He fell to the ground and thrashed wildly, hammering his head into the turf. His tail whipped about, smashing anyone and anything it struck. Panic-stricken, the raiders fled their master’s agony,
riding away pell-mell to escape.
Zannian and Nacris fled too, pausing on a nearby hilltop to watch Sthenn’s torment.
Hoten joined them. Like his chief, the elder raider looked down on the green dragon’s display with an unsympathetic eye.
“So the Master lost a hand?” he asked.
“Yes,” Zannian answered. “It’ll grow back, in time.”
Hoten watched the scattering raider host and sighed. “It’ll take time to get the men back together.”
“Don’t even bother until the Master finishes his fit,” Nacris put in.
“How long will that take?”
Nacris leaned forward tiredly, resting her head on Zannian’s back. “Until he’s done.”
Several leagues away, Duranix halted in his tracks. He was walking rather than flying to avoid giving away their position to the raiders. When Amero noticed the dragon wasn’t at their heels, he doubled back.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Tiphan is dead.”
Amero pulled up short. “How do you know? Can you hear his thoughts, too?”
“He was too weak-minded for that.” Duranix waved a claw in the air as if shooing a pesky insect. “I heard something though, like many voices whispering of his death.”
Amero tried to feel sorry for Tiphan, but he could generate little sympathy for his foolish, headstrong rival. However, his heart was heavy, thinking of the beguiled young people who had died with their Tosen. He hurried on. With the Sensarku gone, there was nothing standing between them and the raiders.
Duranix followed more slowly, looking back in the direction of the Sensarku’s last stand. Whatever his motives, Tiphan had healed Duranix and given his life to save the dragon and the others. No human had ever done such a thing for a dragon before.
Chapter 18
The sweetest sight Amero could imagine appeared: the walls of Yala-tene. He stood at the foot of the bridge that bore his name, a lump growing in his throat. They had come through.
His people had passed an uncertain night in a hasty defensive camp. Strangely, no raiders had attacked them. The peaceful night made Paharo and the others wonder if the Sensarku had succeeded and defeated the raiders after all. Duranix quickly quashed their hopes. It was possible Tiphan had delayed the raiders, he said, but he would know if Sthenn had been killed.
