Brother of the Dragon

Chapter 21

The green dragon flew northwest. Land flowed rapidly beneath him and his implacable bronze pursuer. The northern plain, the steep mountain range of Dar, the delta of the great Plains River, and at last, the great sea passed beneath them. As the first stars appeared in the darkening sky, the dragons left dry land behind and continued their flight over the open ocean.

Once over the water, Sthenn descended until he was skimming above the tossing waves. Duranix dropped to within five leagues, determined to keep his canny foe in sight.

Sthenn bore left during the night, heading due west. Duranix easily followed his enemy’s progress in the dark, as the wash from Sthenn’s wings left ridges of white foam on the surface of the calm sea. At dawn, Sthenn overtook a pod of whales, black-skinned animals each three paces long. Snaking his head down into the waves, the giant dragon snatched out two whales in quick succession, gulping them down whole. The rest of the panicked pod sounded, but Sthenn tracked them through the murky green water and was directly over them when they surfaced again. He grabbed a third whale in his jaws and tossed it over his shoulder.

Duranix saw the whale tumbling through the air, and he caught it in his claws. It infuriated him to accept food from his enemy, but he was practical about it in the end. His belly was achingly empty. He devoured the small whale in two tremendous snaps of his jaws.

The green sea turned blue when the morning sun broke through the haze on the horizon. A low coastline appeared ahead, and Sthenn turned toward it.

Duranix readied himself to pounce. He hoped to catch Sthenn when the green dragon landed to drink or rest, but his old tormentor flashed over the narrow beach without slowing. Duranix saw a blur of green foliage, the cone of a smoldering volcano, and they were over the trackless sea once more.

More islands appeared on each side, but Sthenn paid them no heed. Gradually he gained height again, leveling off a thousand paces above the water. His wings worked unflaggingly. He did not seem tired at all.

Frustrated, Duranix tried to close on his adversary. To his delight, the gap between them shrank from four leagues to barely one. At that range, he loosed a bolt of lightning. With uncanny prescience, Sthenn slipped out of the way, and the bolt sizzled harmlessly past. The green dragon promptly rose into a tall bank of clouds, vanishing in the white mist.

Duranix slowed. Clouds were a perfect place for an ambush. He peered through the billowing mass, trying to catch a glimpse of his quarry. He saw nothing.

After circling a bit, he made up his mind and plunged into the cloudbank. Immediately blue static collected on his wingtips, horns, and tail. He welcomed the growing crackle of power. Bolts arced from cloud to cloud and from cloud to sea, growing larger with each sweep of his wings. He steered a serpentine path through the mist, sowing lightning and rain in his wake.

On his third swing through the white cloud, Duranix detected movement above and let a mighty bolt of fire erupt from his throat. It struck with a thunderous explosion, and Sthenn came hurtling into view, his decrepit hide trailing smoke.

Got him! Duranix exulted. He dropped free of the cloud and followed the falling green dragon.

Two hundred paces above the wind-tossed waves, Sthenn righted himself. There was a black singe mark down the center of his back. Duranix folded his wings and plummeted at his ancient enemy, claws extended. Yawing from side to side, Sthenn seemed stunned, barely able to stay in the air. He sank to within forty paces of the water. Thunder rolled overhead, and heavy rain lashed at both dragons. Duranix flexed his claws wide, eager to do as much damage as possible.

His talons met only air. At the last moment, Sthenn adroitly maneuvered out of the way. Duranix plunged by and, unable to stop, hit the sea, sending up a huge column of water.

Sthenn climbed leisurely into the clouds, laughing. “Enjoy your bath, little friend!” he called.

Furious, Duranix fought his way back to the stormy surface, spewing torrents of saltwater from his mouth and nostrils. A wave struck him in the face, and he submerged again.

Sthenn swung around in a tight curve and came winging back. Just as the bronze dragon’s head broke the surface a second time, the green dragon’s heavy tail struck him smartly on the back of the skull, plunging him once again facedown into the ocean.

The green dragon flapped for altitude and turned for another pass. “Come, come!” he chided. “We can’t be done yet. Get up, little friend!”

Kicking his legs, Duranix propelled half his body length out of the water. He intended to throw himself on his enemy and drag him down, even if it meant they both sank beneath the waves. However, Sthenn saw the danger and drew back, fanning his wings hard to reverse course. For once his elderly reflexes were just a bit slow, and he couldn’t evade Duranix’s outstretched claws.

As the dragons met, a tremendous bolt of lightning flashed from the clouds to their metallic hides. Duranix was thrown backward into the sea, momentarily dazzled by the terrific flare and concussion. Waves broke over him, and he choked on seawater.

When he finally raised his long neck above the waves, Sthenn was nowhere in sight. Duranix ducked underwater. Even with momentary flickers of lightning brightening the depths, he could see no sign of his quarry.

Without the metallic dragons aloft to stir up the atmosphere, the storm quickly blew itself out. Shafts of sunlight fell on the heaving sea. Sthenn was still nowhere to be seen.

Where had the evil beast gone? Duranix refused to believe the green dragon had succumbed to the lightning strike. The only evidence he would accept for Sthenn’s demise was the monster’s lifeless carcass.

As he bobbed in the calming waves, he felt an odd tickling sensation on his tail. Before he could react, he was jerked under the surface. Saltwater went into his eyes, blinding him. He lashed out with talons and twisted his tail free of the unseen grasp, surfacing in time to see Sthenn burst from the ocean not far away.

“The game isn’t over yet!” the green called mockingly. “The whole world lies ahead of us, dear Duranix. Rise and follow!”

His desiccated laughter carried far over the open sea. “Right now, my little Zan is butchering your humans and laying waste to your valley. Will you allow such deeds to go unavenged?”

In answer, the bronze dragon flung himself into the air. Sthenn put his tail to the morning sun and flew away.

Water streaming from his wings and back, Duranix followed.

Ten days had passed since the battle of the bridge. Wary of the raiders’ mobility, each evening Amero sent scouts to the far corners of the valley to keep an eye on what the enemy was doing. Beramun went on one such patrol to the northern end of the valley, returning two days later.

Jenla, Huru, and the rest hailed her. “Welcome back,” Amero said, rising to his feet. “How is the north?”

“Still as a winter glade,” she reported. “I found no sign the raiders are trying to get around that way.”

He handed her a bowl filled from the bubbling stew pot bedded in the embers at the edge of the fire.

As she wolfed down the first hot food she’d had in days, Beramun asked, “What’s happening here? What’s Zannian been up to?”

“He’s been quiet since his men took our gardens, but he’s up to something,” Amero said. He gestured to where the fallen bridge had stood. “They’ve raised a hedge on the river-bank, so we can’t see what they’re doing.”

“They’re using the trees Tiphan cured with his spirit power,” Jenla explained. “They grow so fast that in a few days the hedge will be a forest!”

Beramun drained the last morsels of stew and Amero refilled her bowl. “It’s only a question of where and when they’ll attack,” the Arkuden said. “The hedge may be a trick, to make us watch them at one place while the real attack falls somewhere else.”

“Send someone over to have a look,” Beramun suggested.

The others fell silent and Amero said, “Paharo tried, last night. The raiders caught him… and killed him before our eyes.”

Shocked, Beramun swallowed hard. She had liked the brave young hunter. She couldn’t believe Paharo was gone.

As they stared into the flames, loss evident on every face, she walked around the fire to kneel beside Huru. The foundry master was weeping soundlessly, tears streaming down his dark, lined cheeks.

She rested her hand on his. “Your son was a good man.”

Huru closed his eyes, grateful for her words. She looked across the leaping flames to Amero. “You still need to know what’s going on over there. I’m a strong swimmer. I’ll go.”

Amero shook his head. “You just got back. Rest. Someone else can do it. I may go myself.”

“Don’t be stupid! You’re needed here.”

Amero’s voice grew loud. “I won’t let you throw your life away!”

“You let Paharo.”

Wood crackled in the fire, sounding unusually loud in the stillness following her words.

Beramun tied her hair back with a thong and asked for a hank of rope. Tepa went off into the darkness and returned with a coil of braided vines, recovered from the ruined bridge. Beramun tied it firmly under her arms. Carrying the rest of the rope over her shoulder, she strode away from the camp. Amero, Huru, and several others trailed behind.

The sound of the river’s rushing water covered the noise of their footfalls on the gravelly shore, but with the raiders only thirty or forty paces away on the opposite bank, the little group did no talking.

Beramun knelt and, by gestures, indicated what she intended to do. Amero clasped her hands in his, pleading with his eyes. She pulled free.

The villagers held one end of the rope as Beramun slipped into the water. The current pulled the line taut as the people on shore played it out. She swam a third of the way across, then dove.

Amero, hands clenched tightly into fists, watched Beramun surface in shallow water by the west bank. She waved once, then skulked down the beach, the rope still securely tied around her waist.

Suddenly, two horsemen rode into sight behind Beramun. Amero and the others dropped on their bellies.

Beramun was brought up short when they stopped paying out the rope. Looking back, she saw the riders. She crept back into shallow water and submerged. The mounted men passed without noticing her.

When they were gone, she crawled on her belly through the grass to higher ground. From this vantage point she could see behind the dense wall of fruit tree saplings. She stayed only a moment, then returned to the river.

Before she could slip away, however, a pair of shaggy gray yevi appeared, their eyes reflecting Lutar’s red light. One sprang into the water and seized the floating rope in his jaws. The other flung itself on Beramun. It hit her squarely between the shoulders, and she disappeared with a loud splash.

“Pull!” Amero hissed.

The villagers hauled frantically on the rope, hand over hand. There was a tremendous drag on the line, and even with eight pulling, they could scarcely get the rope in. Halfway across the river, the calm water erupted. In the poor light it was impossible to tell who was in trouble, Beramun or the yevi.

Since the noise was sure to rouse the raiders, Amero abandoned all pretense of stealth and shouted for help. More villagers came running down the hill and took hold of the rope. With the extra help, they dragged it in.

Knife drawn, Amero waded out to assist Beramun. A limp and lifeless body surfaced a few paces away. Those on shore desperately demanded to know whether it was Beramun.

Amero’s questing hand found sodden gray fur. The floating corpse was a drowned yevi.

He turned and thrashed toward shore, shouting, “It’s not her! Pull! Pull!”

The villagers obeyed with a will. The second yevi, thoroughly entangled in the vine rope and likewise drowned, glided to the bank at their feet. Of Beramun, there was no sign.

Several dozen mounted raiders, fully armed, galloped down the opposite shore and hurled short spears. The missiles hissed into the shallows and thumped into the sand. Dropping the line, Amero and villagers had to retreat.

Back at camp, everyone was dumbfounded to find Beramun drying herself by the fire. They rushed forward, clapping her on the back and laughing with relief.

“What happened?” Amero asked. “How did you escape?”

She wrung more water from her long black hair. “Simple,” she said. “I figured yevi were like wolves — they can swim, but only on the surface. So I dove, untied myself, and snared them in the rope. As long as your people kept the rope taut, the beasts couldn’t untangle themselves.” She shrugged. “Once free, I swam upstream to get away and came ashore.”

The villagers laughed and cheered. Giddy with relief, Amero took her in his arms and embraced her like a comrade.

“You’re graying my hairs, you know,” he said.

“Oh? And who grayed them before me?” Her gentle gibe inspired more laughter from the delighted villagers.

Jenla brought Beramun a mug of hot broth. As she sipped it, she reported what she’d seen on the other side of the river.

“They’re building rafts,” Beramun said. “Big ones. I saw slave gangs lashing whole trees together behind the hedge.”

“I knew it!” Amero smote his palm with his fist.

“Can we stop them?” asked Huru.

“I don’t know,” Amero replied. “We must meet them at the water’s edge, wherever they land. If they get their horses ashore, we’re in big trouble.”

He increased the number of sentinels patrolling the eastern shore and ordered bonfires lighted at half-league intervals all the way down to the lake.

Beramun’s news sent a chill through Yala-tene. The quiet interlude had lulled many into thinking the raiders might give up and go away. The rafts made it clear the fight was far from over.

To renew his people’s confidence, Amero designed new defenses for the eastern shore of the lake. A fence of sharpened stakes was erected, and broken mussel shells were poured on the banks to cut horses’ hooves. Villagers stripped the valley and eastern passes of every thorn bush and movable boulder. These were piled up behind the stakes to further impede the enemy.

From the old bridge tower to the open lake, the shoreline was two leagues long. Amero knew they didn’t have enough stones and stakes to fill the whole distance, so he left gaps in places suitable for the villagers to defend — hills, gullies, and other natural strong points — mainly near the old bridge. Using shovels made from Duranix’s cast-off bronze scales, they deepened the gullies and piled the dirt on the hills to make them steeper.

Montu the cooper came down from the village once the last gap in the wall had been closed. Because Montu was a skilled woodworker, Amero asked him to estimate how long it would take Zannian to produce enough rafts to ferry his warband across the river.

“At twenty men or ten horses per raft, it would take fifty rafts to carry a thousand warriors,” Montu said. “Working night and day, they might make ten rafts a day.”

It had been six days since Beramun’s daring swim across the river. Six days — perhaps sixty rafts.

Everyone expected the raiders to come that night or by dawn the next day. All were surprised when the raiders began dragging their rafts to the river in the middle of the afternoon, the same day Montu made his estimate.

Horns bleated and bronze scales chimed in the villagers’ camp. Lookouts high atop the eastern cliffs raised the alarm for those inside the wall. People ran to their assigned places, took up whatever weapons they had, and waited.

The village militia formed into two bands, one to defend the crossing by the old bridge and another to hold the bank halfway up the river to the lake. Amero gave command of the bridge group to Huru. He led the latter himself, two hundred eighty strong, to a point directly west of the village.

The raiders launched their rafts from the former bridge landing. Warriors on foot pelted the opposite shore with a thick rain of darts, driving Huru’s defenders back. The first rafts carried no horses, only armed men and frightened slaves with long poles for pushing the rafts. The defenders could do nothing but watch as ten timber platforms packed with garishly painted raiders left the western shore.

Amero led his group away from the imminent fight. It pained him to do so, but he knew Zannian had enough men, and probably enough rafts, to make other crossings. His band took up a position hidden in a deep ditch a league from Hum’s men, and there they waited. Lookouts on higher ground stood ready to signal Amero when the raiders made their move.

In unison, the raiders raised their spears and chanted, “Zannian! Zannian!”

Huru’s people awaited them in silence. Raiders armed with throwing sticks lofted darts over the heads of their comrades. The darts, each two spans long and tipped with flint, thudded into the sand in front of Huru’s position. The missiles climbed up the hill as the rafts drew closer.

“Stand ready,” Huru said quietly. Each villager laid his spear in the gap between his own shield and his neighbor’s.

The nearest raft was only a few steps from shore. On the first raft stood Hoten. The balding raider wore his elaborate collar of bear and panther teeth. Despite winning his bet with Zannian, he’d volunteered to lead the attack. He was past the prime of a plainsman’s life and knew this would likely be his last fight, one way or another.

His raft scraped sand. Drawing a bronze elven blade from the scabbard at his side, Hoten raised it high.

“Forward!” he bellowed.

“Let’s go!” shouted foundry master Huru, and the wall of shields, bristling with spears and studded with thrown darts, moved down the hill.

Darts hummed over Hoten’s head toward the villagers. Now and then one found its mark, and a defender went down. The man or woman behind the stricken fighter stepped forward to fill the gap. Hoten admired their tenacity. The villagers had shown more courage and ingenuity than any foe the raiders had battled on their long march across the plains.

He swung his metal blade down, splintering a villager’s wooden shield. A black flint spearhead whisked by his ear. Wrenching his sword free, Hoten lopped off the spearhead, then thrust his blade at the man facing him. Silvanesti bronze met flesh. Bleeding copiously, the man couldn’t even fall, so tightly were his neighbors pressed against him.

Huru’s band had the better of the hundred or so raiders struggling ashore. His rear ranks were actually suffering more from darts than the front ranks were from close combat.

The villagers pressed on until their feet were in the river. Raiders swarmed around them, stabbing at the villagers’ faces or legs. More rafts were coming ashore above and below the defenders, and Huru saw they might be surrounded if they remained too deeply engaged. He called for his people to withdraw slowly up the hill and to reform their line from five ranks deep to four, thus lengthening their line.

As he turned to face the enemy again, a bronze blade pierced his shield and drove into his chest. His knees sagged. Huru looked into the face of his killer, then collapsed in a heap, the life leaving his eyes.

Hoten put his foot on the dead man’s shield and yanked his blade out.

Their leader gone, the villagers began to lose heart. The wall of overlapping shields was broken, and raiders pushed in between the confused ranks. Dart throwers had to halt their firing as their own warriors were now mixed too closely with the enemy.

Upriver, Amero saw that Huru’s band was slowly breaking apart. He wanted to race to the rescue, but he knew this was what Zannian expected. He and his people stayed put, their anguished eyes fastened on the nearby battle.

It took several blasts of the lookouts’ horns to penetrate their concentration and warn Amero of a new threat. Through the orchard came several very large rafts, pushed over the tilled earth by a swarm of slaves. Once shoved onto the lake, men and horses filed onto these oversized rafts. They rode easily in the calm water.

Amero felt his heart sink. He’d been outflanked. There was nothing to stop the raiders from landing on the east shore. He’d gambled Zannian wouldn’t strike so far south, and he’d lost the gamble.

“Stand up!” he cried. Those around him looked puzzled, their attention still fixed on the fight at the bridge crossing. “Stand up! Sling your shields and couch your spears! We’ve got to stop them!”

Amero led them up the hill to the stone flats above the lake. He let the fleetest young people sprint ahead, with orders to torch the hoist to Duranix’s cave and the other wooden structures outside the wall. By the time his band had re-formed on the shore, smoke was already rising from the hoist. At least the raiders wouldn’t be able to use the dragon’s cave to get above Yala-tene.

From midlake, Zannian saw the villagers break and run. He rejoiced at first, thinking they were quitting the fight. When he saw them take up a new position to oppose his landing, his delight faded. He was certain his two hundred mounted warriors would trample the foolish villagers into the mud, but he’d hoped for a rout, not a hard, bitter fight.

“No mercy,” he reminded his men. “We must hit them fast and hard and not let them escape to that pile of mud and stone they call a village.”

The wind shifted, blowing smoke from the burning huts over the lake. It obscured the beach as well, but Zannian kept the rafts going straight ahead. When they finally pad-died clear of the smoke, he saw the villagers had adopted a new formation. Unlike the solid wall of shields they’d used earlier, they were now disposed in a hollow circle, two ranks deep. A smaller band of fighters, shieldless, stood in the center of the circle.

Zannian frowned. What were the mud-toes up to now?

As planned, the trailing rafts had pushed off to each side, so that all would land at the same time. Zannian expected a fight at the water’s edge, but the villagers were drawn up on the highest point of the rocky ledge overlooking the lake. This was a grave mistake. His men would be able to disembark, mount, and then attack.

The rafts bumped ashore. Without waiting to lead his horse onto dry land, Zannian swung onto the animal’s back and raised his sword.

“For Almurk, and victory!” he cried, and dug in his heels. The gray stallion sprang into the shallow water and splashed ashore.

Amero watched the raiders. “Are you ready?” he asked his people. They answered with silent nods, eyes on the approaching enemy. “Then let’em have the stones.”

The villagers in the center of the armed circle, all strong young men, picked up stones and hurled them at the gathering raiders. The rocks had been chiseled with sharp edges and the muscular youths delivered them with great force. Several raiders went down with bleeding heads.

As calmly as he could, Amero said, “Shields overhead.”

As he expected, the infuriated Zannian called forth a shower of darts in retaliation. With their shields over their heads, the villagers absorbed the heavy hail of darts with no ill effects.

The last raiders ashore mounted their horses. “Everyone ready?” asked Amero. Again, the silent nods. He gave the signal, waving his arms.

The front and rear of the circle opened, and villagers came running down from the cliffs, rolling flaming logs ahead of them. Thirty paces from the enemy, the log rollers let go. The nine large timbers, taken from the burning buildings outside the wall, smashed into the riders coming up the hill, scattering them.

*

Zannian had to do some fancy riding to keep his horse from being bowled over by a blazing tree trunk. Once the fiery logs had passed, he rode among his confused men, hitting them with the flat of his sword, kicking them, swearing at them. By the time he settled them again, Amero’s band had withdrawn higher up the slope.

“They want to play tricks, do they?” Zannian fumed. “I’ll teach them some tricks!”

He divided his men into two groups. One, he sent down low along the lakeshore toward the village. The other, which he led, walked their horses slowly up the hill to where Amero’s people waited.

“Darts,” Zannian commanded. The raiders loaded their throwing sticks. “Give them three rounds of darts, then we charge!”

Arms whipped forward, lofting a storm of lethal missiles at the villagers. They held their shields up as before, but they had been weakened by the earlier barrage, and this time many of the flint-headed darts got through. Villagers toppled. The injured and the dead were pulled out of line, and the ring tightened. A second and third volley of darts swept over the circle of spears, then the deadly bombardment ceased.

The raiders launched themselves in a final furious attack. Zannian drove straight for the center of the circle. His horse was speared, and fell. He threw himself off and fought on foot.

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.