Brother of the dragon, p.28
Brother of the Dragon, page 28
The horsemen rode over the resolute villagers, breaking their line in three places. A group of young villagers who had been held in reserve now pushed forward to drive the invaders out of the circle.
Zannian laid about with his long Silvanesti blade. Bronze cut through wooden shields, spearshafts, and flesh with equal ease. In moments the young warlord had hacked his way to the center of the villagers’ formation.
Amero, using a small buckler faced with dragon scales, squared off against the raider chief. Zannian was half a head taller, much younger, and more skilled at hand-to-hand combat. Amero quickly found himself in trouble. His sword was knocked from his grasp, and only the bronze buckler kept him from being hacked to bits.
Time seemed to stand still. Raiders and villagers locked in close, bloody combat fought and died in cruel balance, neither side gaining the upper hand. Riderless horses cantered back and forth, crazed by the cacophony of battle and their own wounds. Injured fighters cried out for water, for mercy, for their chief, for their Arkuden.
Into this maelstrom galloped the second batch of raiders, sent down low along the beach. They tackled the stubborn villagers from behind and broke them. Men and women threw down their shields and spears and ran for their lives. Most never made it. Faced at last with a type of fighting they knew well, the raiders rode them down before they reached the wall.
Zannian presented the point of his sword to Amero’s throat. “Yield!” he cried. “Yield, and I will spare you!”
“Do your worst!” Amero spat, and batted the sword away with his scale-covered shield.
Furious, Zannian made a savage overhand slash. Amero stepped into the swing, allowing the blade to pass behind, and rammed his bronze buckler into his foe’s belly. The raider chief doubled over. With all his strength, Amero brought the shield up, connecting solidly with Zannian’s jaw. The young chiefs arms flew wide, his legs flew up, and down he went on his back. Amero, elated by the success of his desperate gambit, didn’t hesitate. He turned and ran.
The walls of Yala-tene were lined with people shouting and waving. They flung stones, pots, and firewood at the approaching raiders. Others dropped knotted ropes to the ground, so their fleeing friends could climb to safety. Wild with apparent victory, the raiders rode right up to the foot of the wall and grappled with those trying to escape. They were soon overwhelmed by a lethal barrage of debris thrown down on them, and the survivors quickly fled out of range.
Amero was the last to reach the wall. Those above, thinking no one else was left alive below, had withdrawn their ropes and ladders. Amero warded off raiders’ darts with his bronze buckler as he screamed for a rope.
At last a line dropped down the wall. Amero flung his shield aside and grabbed the dangling end. He was hauled up briskly, but when he was still a pace from the top, a dart buried itself in the back of his right thigh.
With a strangled groan, Amero let go the rope and slid down the face of the rock wall, landing in a heap at the bottom. Raucous cheers went up from the raiders, and four men rode forward to claim their prize. They were promptly felled by a torrent of stones from the wall.
A brief scuffle broke out atop the wall. Lyopi tied a rope securely around her waist and, with shouts and blows, bullied her faint-hearted comrades into helping her. She was lowered to the unmoving Arkuden.
The raiders responded with a hail of darts. The stone heads shattered against the wall, showering Lyopi with sharp fragments. In spite of the bombardment, she reached the ground unscathed. Hurriedly she loosed the rope, and snaked it around both of them.
“Up!” she screamed. “Bring us up!”
The sound of her voice caused Amero’s eyes to open. He squinted, trying to focus on his rescuer.
“Beramun?” he muttered.
“No, you ox-brained fool! It’s Lyopi! Shut up and hang on!”
She wrapped her arms tightly around him as they were dragged up through a continuous pelting of missiles. Lyopi turned Amero to the wall, using her own body to protect him from further hits.
Once they reached the top, she untied them both, shouting, “Now get back, all of you! Anybody else who falls outside stays there!”
Amazed by her daring deed, the villagers obeyed with alacrity, stampeding down the ramps into the streets below. Lyopi and those who could still fight crouched on the walls, watching the raiders. After much frustrated galloping back and forth, the attackers retreated to the beach, out of range of anything that could be thrown at them.
Lyopi turned her attention to Amero. Rolling him onto his stomach, she ordered three men to hold him down. The dart was deeply embedded in his thigh, a span above the back of his knee. She took a firm grip on the dart’s blood-slick shaft and pulled. Amero groaned and twisted in agony, but the men kept him down.
The dart came free. Amero gave a cry and passed out. Lyopi threw the missile away and rocked back on her heels, pushing at her sweat-soaked hair with a bloody hand.
“See if Raho the healer is inside the wall,” she said, her voice shaking. “Tell him the Arkuden is gravely injured and needs his help.”
“There are many wounded —” began one of the men.
Lyopi’s tenuous calm snapped. “I don’t care!” she yelled, brown eyes blazing. “Find him!”
Raho had escaped to Yala-tene with the remnants of Huru’s band. Overwhelmed at the river crossing, they had retreated to the western baffle, where they’d been hauled inside with ropes just as Amero’s band had been.
Beramun was alive, as were Tepa the beekeeper, his son, Udi, and Montu the cooper. The cautious cattleman, Nubis, lay dead on the riverbank, and Jenla, whose stern presence and valiant heart had steadied the villagers time and again, could not be found inside the walls of Yala-tene. Knowing the sort of mercy she could expect from the raiders, her friends mourned the old planter as dead.
*
The sun was setting as Zannian’s men found their leader just waking from unconsciousness. They boosted him onto his horse. His hair was slick with sweat and the blood of his foes. One hazel eye was ringed with a prodigious black bruise. Despite his ignominious overthrow, he received fierce adulation as he rode back to his men.
He was now master of the valley. Two hundred villagers lay dead or wounded on the field. All that remained of Zannian’s enemies were the unknown number now trapped inside the stone walls of Yala-tene.
Chapter 22
Three times the raiders tried to storm the walls of Yala-tene. Each attempt ended in bloody failure.
First, they tried to scale the walls with their bare hands. Next, they tried throwing deer-antler grappling hooks over the walls in a vain attempt to pull down the thick masonry. Their third attempt was the most dangerous: swarming over the relatively low western baffle, a few daring raiders managed to get on top of the wall before being knocked down by villagers. Nacris offered to send the Jade Men against the walls, but Zannian decided they’d wasted enough lives for the time being and refused to allow it.
The raiders withdrew to the south end of the old bridge. There, they built a large camp and set up a towline across the river to ferry rafts of men, horses, and supplies back and forth more easily. As high summer arrived, a lull fell over the valley, though it was a tense, menacing calm.
Through it all, Amero remained in Lyopi’s house, recovering from his wound. Elders came daily to consult with him. As he had long suspected, the raiders, accustomed to making lightning-fast strikes against inferior foes, had no idea what to do when faced with thick walls and staunch defenders. The fight for Yala-tene had cost them many men and horses, and events seemed to be at an impasse. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t leave to seek easier prey.
Some elders came to believe they could strike a deal with Zannian, arguing that since he couldn’t take Yala-tene by force, perhaps he could be bought off. Lyopi backed the suggestion, so Amero agreed to try. Weak and unable to go himself, the Arkuden asked for volunteers. Healer Raho’s brother Tehu offered to go. Bearing a leafy willow wand (an old trail sign used by the plainsmen to indicate a parlay), Tehu walked out to speak to Zannian.
His head was thrown over the walls the next day.
A week after Tehu’s death, Amero was conducting a council flat on his back in Lyopi’s house. Though his leg was healing, he still couldn’t stand.
“I’ve been pondering our enemies, and I think I see their weakness,” he said. “They do no useful work at all. If they can’t carry something off, they destroy it. Our gardens won’t be enough to feed them for long. They’ll have to forage outside the valley. Zannian’s authority has to be the only thing holding them together. If they get too bored and hungry, the band may fall apart.”
Lyopi took a soft scrap of hide from Amero’s forehead, rinsed it in cool water, and replaced it.
“We can’t afford to wait and hope they go away,” she put in. “Even if the band breaks up, some of them may remain in the mountains, robbing and killing. We’ll never get rid of them.”
“The Protector can clear these savages out,” said Montu stoutly. “We only need to hold out until he returns.”
“And how long will that be?” Lyopi asked. “Ten days? Ten times ten days? Suppose the next dragon to appear in the valley is not our Protector, but the green monster who leads the raiders?”
Her words ignited a spirited discussion. Duranix had been gone for so long some despaired of his ever returning. Half the elders supported Montu’s wait-and-see notion. The rest were swayed by Lyopi’s argument for action.
Amero let them wrangle. Not only did they need to vent their frustrations, but their various arguments helped him see all sides of the issue. Finally, he held up his hand for silence.
“I agree it’s dangerous to wait,” he said. “Though I believe with all my heart Duranix will defeat Sthenn, we can’t know when that will be. And if he destroys the green dragon but perishes in the fight, we’ll be left on our own.”
“Then what can we do, Arkuden?” asked Adjat the potter.
Amero rubbed his tired eyes. “I had a dream a few nights ago after drinking one of Raho’s herb brews. I dreamed of my sister Nianki. Most people believe she died fighting the Silvanesti. I believed it myself until Miteera told us how his people were saved when the elves were diverted by reports of Karada’s warriors to the east. Whether my sister lives or not, her band may still exist somewhere in the east. I propose we send scouts to find Nianki’s people and ask them to help us.”
No one spoke, but several elders exchanged unhappy looks. “Arkuden,” Adjat finally said, “what if your sister is dead, and her nomads are no better than Zannian’s raiders?”
“Then we’ll have to think of something else.”
“Do we have time for all that?” Lyopi wondered.
“I think it’s a good idea!” Tepa said suddenly, and everyone stared. The old beekeeper had fallen into a deep melancholy since the loss of his friend Jenla. Speaking now, his usually gentle face flushed with fury. “I remember the Arkuden’s sister well. With a hundred followers – with fifty! – Karada could settle this Zannian and his pack in no time.” He stood up. “Arkuden, I’ll go. I’ll find your sister and bring her and her people back here!”
Udi put a hand on Tepa’s arm. “No, father. The Arkuden needs you here. I’ll go.”
“So will I.”
They all turned to see Beramun standing outside Lyopi’s door. The girl wore a hooded calfskin cape to keep the drizzle off. A long spear leaned against her shoulder.
“May I come in?” She addressed her question not to Amero or the elders, but to Lyopi. The older woman waved Beramun in.
“You know the danger,” said Amero. “Hunting humans on foot is what the raiders do best, and they have yevi to help them.”
“Is it any safer here?” Beramun replied grimly. “When the food runs out and we’re all too weak to wield a spear, what will become of us then?”
“You’re not one of us,” Lyopi said. “What’s to stop a nomad like you from gaining the open plain and never coming back?”
“Lyopi!” Amero exclaimed.
“If I wanted to run, I could have left any night,” Beramun said. “As for this scouting trip, you’ll need more than just Udi and me, but I know six or seven others who’re ready to go as soon as you give the word.”
One by one, they all turned to Amero. He looked away, lost in thought for a moment, then held out his hands.
“Help me up.” Lyopi and Montu boosted him to his feet. His wounded thigh burned unmercifully, but he gritted his teeth and kept himself upright.
“Udi, pick eight in all. Choose good runners over good trackers this time.”
“Aye, Arkuden.”
“Let Beramun be one of the eight.”
The young woman, who’d matured considerably since the night her family had been killed, smiled at Amero.
“Don’t look so grim,” she said cheerfully. “We’ll find your sister, and we’ll be back.”
Udi and Beramun left to collect the rest of their expedition. Beramun waved jauntily as she disappeared into the evening rain.
“I’m sending her to her death,” Amero murmured.
Lyopi rolled her eyes. “Nothing short of a mountain falling on her can kill that girl,” she replied tartly.
Amero swayed, his face growing even whiter, and she slipped her shoulder under his to prop him up. “You should worry about yourself and the rest of Yala-tene. Beramun can take care of herself.”
He shifted his weight off his bad leg. Lyopi’s arm around his waist steadied him. In the face of her calm good sense, Amero felt very weak and foolish. Like the ache in his leg, his futile love for Beramun seemed to fade only when Lyopi was near.
*
Clouds closed in, filling the valley with heavy, wet fog. Everything became damp. Leather softened and stretched, wood swelled, and a coughing sickness spread among the idle raiders. To boost morale, Nacris had a score of stolen oxen slaughtered and the meat distributed to the men. The hides she ordered sewed into a large tent for her son, who held nightly revels there with his captains amid heaps of fresh fruit, vegetables, and beef from the stolen stocks of Yala-tene. No matter how many war stories were told or how much wine was drunk, conversation always returned to the same subject: how to take Yala-tene.
“Fire’s the way,” one of Zannian’s young roughnecks stated. “Tie tufts of dry grass to our darts, light them, and fling them over the wall!”
“If you can find any dry grass in this valley, I’ll eat it,” said another raider as water dripped from every seam in the tent. “Besides, our darts can’t make it over the walls.”
“Fear’s what will do it!” said an older warrior. “I say we line up all the prisoners we’ve taken and chop their heads off, one by one, until the mud-toes give up.”
“Idiot,” Hoten growled. “Why would they give up when they see how harshly we treat our captives?”
“To save the lives of their kinsmen!”
“Idiot.”
Slumped on a pile of furs, Zannian toyed with the bones left on the trencher in front of him. His black eye was now greenish-yellow, the healing remnants of the bruise caused by Amero’s blow. His head still ached periodically, and large draughts of wine didn’t help. The stalemate in the valley gnawed at him. They had beaten the mud-toes in pitched combat more than once, yet the villagers wouldn’t give up. How could he deal with such stubborn, impudent enemies?
His war captains were bereft of inspiration. He listened to them argue – silent, disappointed, dispirited.
“Sometimes I think you’re the best man here,” he muttered to Nacris, seated on his right.
“I am the best man here,” she said. “Don’t forget that.”
“What do you think we should do?” asked Hoten, resting his rough hand on hers.
“Nothing.”
“Well, my men are surely good at that,” Zannian said sourly.
“A certain kind of nothing,” she said loftily. “I’ve given our plight some thought. Have you ever hunted mink?”
He shook his head. “They taste like rats.”
She leaned over and rapped her knuckles on the side of his skull. Zannian snarled a warning. None of the assembled raiders so much as snickered, but Nacris wasn’t intimidated.
“You hunt mink for the fur,” she said. “You can’t spear them, or you’ll ruin the pelt. The way to take mink is to trap them in their burrow.”
Hoten was intrigued. “Go on,” he said.
“There are always two holes to their burrows, sometimes more if the mink has kits. You stop up all the holes but one, and there you wait.”
“And gig the nasty creatures when they come out,” said Zannian, bored.
She smote the arm of her litter with her fist. “No! I told you that would spoil the pelt. You make a sliding noose of elk hide, and when the first mink pokes its head out, you snag him! They have wicked teeth, so you keep your distance and keep the noose tight, until the mink stops fighting.” Nacris lifted a clay cup of Hulami’s purloined wine to her lips. “Then you wring their necks.”
“What has this to do with Arku-peli?” Zannian asked.
“We must encircle the town completely and cut them off from everything outside their walls. What keeps us out will also keep them in.”
“We don’t have enough men for that,” said a raider scornfully.
“Listen, blockheads,” Nacris said more loudly. “We don’t have to ring the town with a living hedge of riders. We stay out of reach of the villagers inside, and with mounted patrols we cut off any hunting parties or scouts they send out. Before summer’s end, they’ll be like the mink in the noose, tired and choked. And then we wring their necks.”
After more half-drunken debate, Nacris’s stratagem was grudgingly approved. Zannian ordered detachments of raiders sent to block the three passes on the east side of the valley. Nothing would be allowed in or out. Once the eastern passes were closed, the ring around Arku-peli would be as tight as an elkhide noose.
“With men in the eastern passes, why not also seize the heights overlooking the town?” asked Hoten. “From there we could do as we like to the people below, walls or no walls.”
