by Dragon Lance
Karada looked pained, and Bahco said, “Not one in ten of you has a horse! And none of you is accustomed to walking long distances. How will you keep up with us?”
“There must be more horses on the plains,” Hekani replied.
“But you’re all just a bunch of mud-toes!” Pakito blurted, then looked sheepish. “What I mean is, life on the plain is hard, not at all like living in comfortable stone piles.”
“We’re not all so long off the plains that we’ve forgotten what it’s like,” retorted an older woman behind Hekani. “And life hasn’t been that easy in Yala-tene lately.”
“We fought Zannian longer than you did,” Hekani said proudly. “I’m a hunter myself. As for riding – well, we can learn, can’t we? You won’t have to take care of us. We have a lot of skills among us – flint knapping, metalworking, tanning, pot-making, gardening. We’ll make our own way, and share our skills with your people.”
Karada was shaking her head. “You’d slow the band too much.” She looked over the composition of the crowd and added, “Besides, if so many young folk leave, what will become of those who stay behind?”
From the crowd at Hekani’s back stepped Jenla, the planter. “I came with Hekani to answer that question, Karada.”
The nomad chieftain nodded at the formidable old woman, and Jenla said, “As near as I can tell, I’ve seen fifty-six summers. I know I wouldn’t have lived so long, had it not been for the Arkuden and his village. Now I’m too old to wander, and Yala-tene will be my home until I die.
“Many old people in the village feel as I do. We’ll stay in the valley, dragon or no dragon, Arkuden or no Arkuden. We have our gardens, our orchard, and our thick stone walls.”
Hekani spoke again. “For us” – he gestured to the crowd behind him – “that’s not enough. We want a leader of power and spirit. The Arkuden was strong in wisdom and kindness, but we’ve learned the hard way that’s not enough. Even having a dragon as our protector didn’t prevent the raiders from attacking us. The way to be free is to be strong. We want to follow you, Karada.”
She took a long time before replying, her eyes sweeping over them. Finally she spoke loud enough for all to hear, “If you think life will be better with me on the plain, you’re fools. Stay here. Grow your gardens and live inside your stone walls. That’s the best choice for you.”
Amid mutters from the crowd, she called to Pakito and Bahco, and the three of them rode off. A short distance away, they stopped and looked back. “They’re not leaving,” Bahco reported.
The villagers milled about where Karada had left them, watching them from a small hill west of the nomads’ camp.
Karada didn’t turn around, but said, “Let’s see what they’re made of. If they can keep up with us, I’ll take them in.”
“They’re not nomads,” Bahco objected.
“Neither were you when we met. You crossed the sea in a basket of logs, seeking a new land. Was I wrong to take you in when you asked to join Karada’s band?”
He grinned. “No. And we call those baskets of logs ‘ships,’ chief.”
She waved a hand, dismissing Bahco’s ships, then twisted right and left on her horse, saying, “Anyone seen our highborn hostage this morning?”
“Balif and his soldiers were waiting for us at sunrise,” Pakito said. “I told them to march with the raider-men. Might as well keep all our troubles in one pouch, eh?”
Karada sighed. “As if those were our only troubles! Very well, Pakito, lead the band into Bearclaw Gap. Bahco, hold back a hundred riders, and let the raiders and elves enter the pass ahead of you. You follow them through till we reach open ground again.” The two men nodded, and she sent for Targun.
The old nomad rode up to Karada on his dappled mare, the same horse he’d ridden out of the Valley of the Falls thirteen years earlier. Karada gave him charge of the travois and those folk on foot. He asked about the young people from Yala-tene still milling about on the hill.
“Ignore them,” she said. “If they can keep up with us, we might take them in.”
She gave more orders, and the nomad band sorted itself accordingly. Pakito led the foremost riders into Bearclaw Gap. As they rode away, Beramun, mounted now, cantered up to her informally adopted mother and was told to stay close to “learn how to lead a band.”
Beramun put her horse alongside Karada’s. Pakito’s nomads rode past, waving and calling their chiefs name. She did not return their salutes but watched impassively as they passed.
“Don’t you answer their hails?” Beramun asked in a low voice.
“Only in battle. All other times I assume a lofty air. It gives them confidence.” At Beramun’s confused expression, Karada smiled ever so faintly. “A stern face helps them believe I’m thinking deep, wise thoughts on their behalf.”
Beramun had a lot yet to learn about being chief. She laughed long and loud at Karada’s admission, and all the riders passing gawked at her in surprise.
*
The elves shouldered their packs and marched out. At their head, Balif set the pace.
“I’m glad to see the end of this valley,” Farolenu said, walking at his lord’s side. “Too much suffering and sorrow happened here.”
Balif made no comment, and they trudged in silence a while. Then the elf lord said, “What will you do first when we get home, Faro?”
“Bathe,” said the bronzesmith. “In heated water. And love my wife.”
“In that order?”
“Arikina, my wife, will insist on that order. What will you do, my lord?”
“I shall dine on nothing but fruit for thirty days – washed down with the rarest nectar in Silvanost. The coarse food these humans eat has aged me a century.”
Farolenu looked forward and back at the lines of humans on foot and horseback. “So many of them,” he remarked. “For short-lived creatures, they breed quickly!”
“Too quickly. Our sovereign and his counselors must understand that.” Balif spotted the mounted figures of Karada and the black-haired girl she’d taken as her daughter. “Many things need to be explained to the Speaker. Many things..
The elves tramped by the nomad chief. At Balif’s command, they fell into matched step, arms and feet swinging in unison.
“Face the honor!” Balif cried. All the elves’ heads turned toward Karada, rendering her a salute usually reserved for the highest Silvanesti. If the nomad chief was surprised, she didn’t show it, staring ahead impassively with a lofty air.
*
At the tail of the long column, winding its way across the valley floor to Bearclaw Gap, Targun waited with the unmounted nomads. Most of them were children who rode the travois with the baggage. As he wiled away the time until it came his moment to move, Targun glanced at the crowd of villagers still clustered and waiting on the hill a hundred paces away.
Targun was reminded of how he and his mate had come to Karada’s band after the death of their adult son. They’d been as forlorn and anxious as those villagers. His mate was now long dead, but Targun felt moved to do something he rarely did – act without Karada’s approval. He picked a boy from the idle nomad children and sent him to the leader of the villagers with a message: Karada says if you keep pace with us, you’re in.
He could tell when the message was delivered. A few villagers jumped to their feet. The motion spread throughout the crowd until everyone was standing. A cheer went up. Targun pulled the brim of his woven straw hat down and hid a satisfied smile in his gray beard.
Thus did Karada’s band depart the Valley of the Falls. Once out of the mountains, she kept her word and released Balif. The elf lord gave her back the bronze sword she’d returned to him before the battle with the ogres and raiders. It was the same weapon he’d used against Zannian. Farolenu had restored the battered blade to shining perfection. Karada accepted the sword without emotion.
“Farewell,” Balif said. “Until we meet again, peace to you, as your people say.”
“What makes you thin
k we’ll meet again?” she asked.
“Our lives are entwined. Haven’t you noticed?”
Karada colored, her tan face growing pink.
“So we will meet in battle?” she asked with affected brusqueness.
“I hope not. I’d hate to cross swords with a comrade.”
He did not salute, but waved breezily as he led his small band away. Karada was silent until Beramun teased, “You’ve made a friend, it seems.”
“He’s not a friend,” Karada replied stiffly. “Just a very good enemy.”
*
Not long after Balif and the elves departed, Karada relented and let the two hundred men, women, and children from Yala-tene join her band. As Hekani said, the villagers brought with them much learning and many new skills. In one generation, bronze became common, not only for blades and arrowheads but even for homely tools and personal decoration. Raising crops in temporary gardens brought more food to the nomads, and their numbers waxed larger.
In time the nomad band became so large it could scarcely move or feed itself. Small groups split off from the main body to start their own bands in other regions. The descendants of Pakito and Samtu rode far west, beyond the once forbidding Edge of the World, and populated the lands of the sunset. Another group, led by Bahco and his children, returned to the northern seashore. When Bahco died, full of years and rich in descendants, his body was borne back across the waves to his birthplace, the seafaring lands.
Of the fifty men who had been raiders, half became full-fledged members of Karada’s band. The others drifted away, becoming lone wanderers or falling back on thievery. Karada gave the task of suppressing the backsliding raiders to Harak, It was her way of testing him, and Beramun’s mate did not fail. Every last outlaw was captured or killed, four by Harak alone.
The former raider stayed with Beramun always, and together they had six children. Their firstborn son was named Amero, and he grew to be a warrior as wise as he was fierce. He was a great favorite of his grandmother Karada, and the only one allowed to call her Nianki.
Karada lived to great age, surviving her last brother by more than two decades. In later years she left command of the band to Beramun and spent her days hunting and riding, often alone on the savanna for many days. Her feats and adventures became entwined with legend. By the time her hair was white, she took a grandchild with her on these journeys – either young Amero or her granddaughter Kinarmun – and from her they learned the ancient secrets and skills.
She ranged far and wide, and many nomads thought they saw her, silhouetted against the sunset or in a bright wreath of stars. The wanderers learned to wave respectfully to any lone figure they encountered on the plain, since any solitary rider could be Karada, watching over all the children of the plains.
*
Far away in time and place, the dull red orb of the sun sank toward the sea. From his perch atop the cliffs, Duranix surveyed his circular island home. In the years since leaving the Valley of the Falls, he’d grown to immense size, due in part to the spirit power infused into him long ago, but also from the diet of whale and kraken he enjoyed in the waters surrounding the island.
Aloft, Blusidar circled, leading their two offspring in their first flying lesson. She was a much better flyer than her older, heavier mate, though not as patient with her hatchlings’ mistakes. The young dragons’ stubby wings fanned hard, trying to keep up with their mother’s swift progress.
A peculiar sensation filled Duranix’s chest. It began as a small cold spot, deep within the massive layers of flying muscle. The feeling spread outward, a creeping numbness more puzzling than alarming. When it reached the tips of his claws and the crown of his horned head, it vanished as swiftly as it had come. He could remember feeling this way only one other time, and the meaning of the sensation was instantly clear.
Blusidar alighted on a ledge above him. She called rough encouragement to the dragonlets still struggling through the air, then turned with concern to her mate.
“What troubles you?” she asked.
“I fear a friend is gone,” he said quietly, meeting her wide golden eyes. “An old friend.”
“One of your humans,” said Blusidar with a sniff.
“No. Karada was no one’s human but her own. That was her curse and her strength.”
Their male hatchling, Seridanax, fluttered by, screeching for help. Though Blusidar did not approve, Duranix caught his small son in his great claws and soothed him, saying, “Don’t be afraid, little one. I will protect you.”
The Kagonesti
Note: The stories of The Kagonesti takes place over several millennia, and have been inserted into the timeline at their appropriate times in the History.
Prologue
DARLANTAN, OF DREAMS AND LIGHT
3811 PC
Southern Khalkist Foothills
The naked figure sprinted up the silent streambed, bounding from rock to rock, leaping stagnant and muddy pools. A flying spring, one leg kicked out for a graceful landing, spanned twenty feet of jagged boulders. Black hair trailed in a long plume, soaring with each jump, now streaming behind as the slender form reached a smooth stretch and sprinted like a deer.
Kagonos ran for many reasons. He relished the joy of motion for its own sake, his body fleet and powerful, his reflexes reacting to each challenge of the makeshift trail. He savored the discovery of a new path, racing upward into these hills along a route that had never known an elven footstep. He loved the all-encompassing tranquility in the wilds, a peace that descended around his spirit and transcended the petty concerns and fears of others.
These motivations had all been on his mind, two dawns past, when he had awakened in the sprawling encampment of the Highsummer council. He had emerged from his lodge, located in the honored center of the tribal congregation, and spoken to no one while he trotted through the camp. His departure had drawn the attention of the tribal chiefs and shamans, but none had tried to delay or distract him – they all knew Kagonos often ran to a pulse that no other Elderwild could hear. Indeed, some of the priests looked relieved as the naked elf vanished up the forested trail. The shamans remembered more than one outburst from Kagonos that had disrupted a bonding ritual or communing attempt. The upcoming ceremony of Midsummer Starheight promised a greater level of solemnity if Kagonos was out somewhere wandering in the wilderness.
For his part, Kagonos had no patience for silly rituals of stars, sun, or seasons. The diamond speckles that brightened the night sky were best viewed alone. Truly, the stars did seem like magical things – they were masters of the heavens between sunset and sunrise – but how could they be honored by an elven ceremony or the recognition of any other mortal?
The wild elf had run for a day and a night and, now, through the morning of the next day. Still each breath came easily. Only the thinnest sheen of sweat slicked his bronze skin with a cool embrace. Gradually, hour by hour, he loped toward a state of spiritual intensity, an undeniable, consuming, and vibrant sense of life.
A thought flickered through his mind, and he knew the truth: one day soon he would leave the tribe forever, coming into these hills to dwell in solitude. He would be master of himself alone, beholden to none, a being fervently, totally attuned to this majestic land of forest and mountain.
In truth, he didn’t know why he had stayed with the tribes so long. With his fanatical single-mindedness, his intolerance of any kind of weakness, Kagonos knew that he frightened the chiefs and veteran warriors. A stranger to his own parents, the Elderwild had even angered the shamans by declaring that love, among many other things, was a weakness to be scorned and avoided.
The wild elves, for the most part, were a happy people – playful, innocent, and careless. Kagonos did not hesitate to display his anger with that childlike naivete, for he knew that the tribes faced enemies on many sides. Why could not his people see those threats?
None of the braves could match Kagonos, physically – perhaps because his body seemed to thrum constantly, a
t the very brink of explosion. They treated him with respect, allowed him to come and go, and for the most part listened politely when he spoke. In different decades he had lived with each of the tribes – the Black Feathers, the Silvertrout, the Whitetail, and most recently the Bluelake clan. When danger from ogres or humans had threatened, no warrior had fought more savagely than Kagonos, and his efforts had helped to win many battles.
Kagonos often warned his tribemates about the threat of the House Elves, but here the Elderwild were less receptive to his strident admonitions. Under Silvanos, the golden-haired elves had formed their clans into mighty houses, then created literally that: tall buildings, crowded together into cities, in which they enclosed their lives. To Kagonos, these self-made prisons symbolized with shocking clarity the danger represented by the wild elves’ numerous cousins. At the same time, he knew that other Elderwild were curious about, even attracted to, these garish constructions.
The lone warrior’s mountain run was the perfect opposite to those House Elf desires, and even to the more limited society of the wild tribes. Now Kagonos knew pure, unadulterated freedom, as he escaped the constraints of other elves, of garments, of any edifice or tool showing the bend of a mastering hand – whether human, ogre, or elf. He desperately needed these hours, these days of solitude, in order to keep his internal tension from tearing him apart. Finding this path, racing upward with the wind blowing through his thick, black hair, the fullness of life soothed his tension and gave Kagonos profound joy.
And there was another, even greater reason that had drawn him from his lodge, from the summer gathering of the tribes – a knowledge that, by itself, would have compelled him to race into these hills.
Kagonos believed that today, once again, he would glimpse the Grandfather Ram.
Twice before Kagonos had encountered the mighty creature. Always the ram had been perched on the side of one of the highest mountains in the Khalkists. Kagonos had been below, trekking along a path none other had trod. And each of those times, as now, the tribes of the wild elves had been gathered for Highsummer council, and Kagonos had grown tired of the ceaseless discussion and frequent complaints of his clansmen.
