Sister of the Sword

15

When next the gang of former raiders went out to the crater made by the falling dragons, they found it gone—which is to say, completely filled in. In fact, it was mounded with earth to the height of a horse’s back. The ex-raiders leaned on their shovels and pondered this while their nomad guards muttered among themselves about spirit power.

Karada was sent for and arrived a short time later with Pakito, Samtu, and Bahco.

“You’ve been busy,” Pakito remarked to the prisoners. “Did you work all night?”

“Don’t be daft,” said his mate. “Two hundred men working all night couldn’t pile up this much dirt. What does it mean, Karada?”

Their chief rode slowly around the new mound, looking for clues to its formation. Her comrades and the defeated raiders trailed behind her. The ground around the pile was well tracked with the raiders’ footprints and the marks of the nomads’ horses but no other prints.

Two-thirds of the way around the mound, she stopped. “Do you smell that?” she asked.

Fetid but faint came the smell of decay from the heap of dirt.

“I know that stink.”

The speaker was the same tall, impertinent raider from yesterday. Harak, was it? He was leaning on his shovel behind the mounted nomads. When Karada turned to him, he gave her an impudent grin.

“What is it then?” she snapped.

“The green dragon’s den in Almurk smelled like this.”

Karada told Bahco and Pakito to ride to the west end of the valley to see whether Duranix and the green dragon were still there. The two men galloped off.

“Why bother?” Harak said. “Sthenn’s in that hole, moldering away.”

“Shut up, raider.”

They waited in silence until Pakito and Bahco returned. Both dragons were gone, Pakito reported. Duranix must have buried Sthenn’s body in the pit.

Since the prisoners’ task had been done for them, Karada ordered their shovels be exchanged for axes. They would cut wood—a great deal of wood—to construct a funeral pyre. Not only for villager dead, she intended it for Ungrah-de as well. She ordered it built here, next to Sthenn’s burial mound, and square, ten paces to a side.

“It will take many days to cut that much wood,” Pakito noted.

Karada reined her fractious mount about and said, “You have two days. Corpses can’t lie around forever; we’ll have disease.”

She rode off, leaving the giant in charge of the prisoners. Sullenly, the captive raiders marched back to camp to get stone axes. On the way, two of Zannian’s former lieutenants sidled up to Harak.

“Listen,” one hissed. “To cut that much wood, they’ll have to take us into the mountains.”

“Hmm,” Harak responded, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

“We can escape!”

The raider on Harak’s right, a runty bully named Muwa, said, “A lot of our men have already gone away! Why should we stay here and work like slaves? Let’s go!”

Harak glanced back over his shoulder at Samtu, riding nearby. “You won’t get half a league,” he murmured, lips barely moving. “These people know the mountains, we don’t. They’ll be on your backs like hungry yevi.”

“So we’ll kill them and take their horses! Are you afraid, Harak? What would Zan say?”

“Zannian’s in Karada’s hands. He put us here, so I don’t much care what he has to say about anything.” Harak spat on the trampled grass. “I don’t intend to live out my life as a slave, but I do plan to live longer than tomorrow.”

Scowling, the two raiders moved away. Harak saw them whispering to the other men, pouring their bitter poison into more eager ears. Fools, he thought. They still don’t know who they’re dealing with! Karada’s people could hunt them down and kill them without breaking a sweat.

Nevertheless, he said nothing to the nomads about his fellow prisoners’ plots. He lived by a simple code: Eat when you can, sleep when you need, and let those with power do as they will. When they clashed and fell, it was Harak who would survive, Harak who would thrive.

He was so lost in thought he didn’t hear the command to halt. He continued on, not noticing the quick clatter of hooves behind him. Someone dealt him a stunning whack across the shoulders, and he pitched facedown on the ground.

“Stop that!”

“The fool didn’t do as he was told —”

“That’s no reason to strike him! Will you be like the raiders and abuse your captives?”

Struggling to regain his wind, Harak rolled over. A slender, strong arm braced him as he tried to sit up. Towering over him was the dark-skinned nomad with one arm in a sling: Bahco. He held his spear reversed, and it was obvious he’d hit Harak with the shaft. More intriguing was who had helped him. It was the beautiful black-haired girl, Beramun.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Aye, soon as my vision straightens,” he mumbled. In fact he could see just fine and had to force himself not to stare at her.

She helped him get to his feet, then rounded on Bahco. “I’ll speak to Karada about this!” she said. “It’s one thing to fight warrior to warrior, but you can’t beat your captives just because they’re slow or disobedient!”

“Don’t be a fool, girl,” replied Bahco sharply. “Any one of these men would cut your throat if they thought they’d get away with it.”

“That was Sthenn’s teaching. We must show them a better way,” she insisted.

Bahco shook his head at her foolishness and resumed herding the ex-raiders to their pen.

Beramun stood staring after Bahco, a frown on her face, until Harak spoke.

“Sitting high on a horse starts you thinking those on foot are just another kind of ox, to be goaded and beaten,” he said.

She turned her thoughtful gaze on him, but he pretended not to notice. Taking a step forward, he feigned pain, and Beramun rushed to his side to bolster him. She fit neatly under his arm. Harak settled his weight against her, and she easily bore up under the burden.

A fine girl and well made, he thought. Strong, too—in more ways than one.

“Is that better?” she said.

“Better.” Her eyes were like beads of jet, swept by long, soft lashes as black as her hair.

He must have looked too long or too hard, for Beramun grew nervous and slipped out of his grasp.

“You!” Pakito’s powerful voice carried all the way from the prisoners’ pen. “Tall one with the fast mouth! If you’re through pawing the girl, get over here!”

Beramun blushed and hurried away. Harak smiled slightly and started toward the towering nomad. He affected a stoop, exaggerating the effect of Bahco’s blow.

Risk death in some foolish escape attempt? Harak would have none of it. Things in the Valley of the Falls were much too interesting to leave, and they promised to get more interesting in the future.

Karada had to hunt a bit to find Amero. He wasn’t with the villagers reconstructing demolished houses, nor was he across the lake with those trying to save the gardens and orchard. To her surprise, she found him in the ruined foundry between Yala-tene and the waterfall, and he wasn’t alone. Riding up the rocky slope, she heard voices ringing loudly off the cliff walls behind the broken building. Thinking there was trouble, she drew her sword and kicked her horse into a trot.

“... can’t possibly make that much heat!” Amero declared.

“With bellows you can,” said an unknown, Silvanesti-inflected voice.

“But how can the melting point of bronze be higher than the melting point of tin and copper? Shouldn’t it be somewhere in between?”

Balif interrupted the discussion by raising a hand and calling, “Greetings, Karada.”

Sitting on her stalwart horse, sword bared, she looked every bit the nomad hero. When she realized Amero and the five elves clustered around him were arguing about metal-making, she felt a little foolish. She started to sheathe her blade.

“No, wait,” said Amero. “Your sword—may we see it?”

Face hard as granite with embarrassment, she dismounted and handed her brother the weapon. It was a spare, taken from Balif’s tent when he was captured—which she wore while the sword she’d used in the great battle with Ungrah-de was repaired.

“This is elven bronze,” Amero said, holding up the sword.

“A fine example,” Balif agreed.

His ironic tone was lost on Amero, who was frowning at the weapon. “How do you manage to make your blades so long? I know about wax and sand molds, but I’ve never been able to cast copper blades more than two spans long.”

“Copper is difficult,” said a mature elf with hair so darkly gray it was almost blue. “In molten form it tends to form bubbles, and it doesn’t like to flow into sharp corners—”

“What is all this?” demanded Karada.

“Meet Farolenu, a master bronzesmith of Silvanost,” Amero said enthusiastically. “I happened to mention my metal-making woes to Lord Balif, and he said he had an experienced smith in his company. We’ve been talking bronze all morning.”

“How exciting.” She took the sword back and slid it slowly into its sheath. “Why is a master bronzesmith carrying a spear as a common soldier?” she asked Balif.

“All my soldiers have other skills,” he said. “House Protector, our caste of warriors, is not large enough to provide all the fighters the Speaker requires. When needed, warriors of the house raise retinues from the Speaker’s other subjects. Males of fighting age serve under those captains to whose house they owe allegiance. Master Farolenu belongs to the Smithing Guild of House Metalline. They lend service to House Protector. On this hunting expedition, he repaired weapons and metal tools.”

“Two years after you’re dead, words will still be spilling out of your mouth,” Karada commented, bored by the complexities of Silvanesti society.

Amero returned to the subject at hand. “So bronze flows better into molds than copper?” he said.

Before the elven bronzesmith could reply, Karada interrupted. “Arkuden, I have something to ask you. Come away, will you?”

Curious, Amero followed her on foot down the slope. Halfway to the lake, Karada stopped.

“Sthenn is dead,” she said.

“I know. Duranix told me last night.”

“Did he tell you what he did with the carcass?”

Amero shook his head, so Karada told him about the newly formed mound where the crater had been, then asked, “Do you think the body will taint the valley’s water supply?”

He scratched his bearded chin, and she noticed for the first time there were gray hairs scattered among the brown ones.

“There’s a ledge of solid stone under that spot,” he said. “It should be safe for Sthenn to remain there. Anything else? No? Then I’ll get back to Master Farolenu—” A sudden thought struck him. “Nianki,” he said, using her old name, which no one else dared do. “You never told me. When the dragons fell, how did you escape being crushed like Ungrah-de?”

His hardened sister looked uncharacteristically amused. “It was the craziest thing,” she said, grinning. “I knew nothing, saw nothing, but Ungrah before me. A bolt of lightning struck the ground between us, and I turned away to shield my eyes. Next thing I knew, a wave of mud picked me up and carried me away. I fetched up in the top of a pine tree a quarter-league from where I’d been.”

Amero blinked in surprise, then began to laugh. Thanks to the all-day rain, his sister had been splashed to safety. The ogre chief, a few steps closer to the center of impact, had been killed outright.

She laughed. “Don’t spread the story, Amero. It was just stupid luck.”

Since she was still seated on her horse while he was on foot, he clapped a hand to her leg as he said, “What you call luck, I call the favor of our ancestral spirits! But let the tale-tellers in your band invent some romance or other. It won’t be as wonderful as the truth, though.” Still chuckling, he added, “Dine with Lyopi and me tonight, Nianki?”

She nodded, and Amero started up the hill to the ruined foundry. “Come at sunset!” he urged. “We’ll have venison!”

He ran back to his conversation about metal. Karada noted with fondness the smudge of soot on the seat of his trews. His woman, Lyopi, would give him what for if he got soot on her fur rugs.

His woman.

Her light mood evaporated like dew on a summer morning. Amero had a right to companionship, but the phrase had a bitter taste. Karada had heard of his infatuation with Beramun, but that was no great concern to her, since the girl obviously didn’t return his affection. Lyopi was quite a different fox in the den.

Lyopi had fought bravely at Amero’s side. Half mother, half mate, she’d defended him with her life. Her love for Amero was something Karada understood. She had loved him too for a long, long time. Could she ever escape her curse? Short of death, she couldn’t imagine how.

Lyopi was a fine cook. They ate well on venison and spoke of trivial things—cooking, hunting, which region of the plains had the most flavorful game. Each of them chose a different point on the horizon—Amero the north, Lyopi the south, Karada the east—and defended it to the amusement of all.

Lyopi stirred the embers on the hearth and set a clay kettle on the resulting fire to heat water for mulled wine. Talk veered from game to the weapons used to hunt it.

“These bows are very interesting,” Amero said. “You say the seafarers showed you how to make them?”

“Yes. Bahco’s people. We traded flint and furs with them for the knowledge. Our bows have made the elves’ lives a lot harder.”

Warming to her subject, she picked up a stick and drew lines in the cool ashes at the edge of the hearth. “At Thorny Creek some years ago, Balif’s host pushed us back across the stream, thinking to drive us into a trap made by the soldiers of Tamanithas, coming up at our backs. We shot down so many elves at the creek ford we could have ridden from one bank to the other across the bodies and never gotten our horses’ hooves wet—”

Mention of bloodshed took the good humor out of Amero and Lyopi. Sensing their disapproval, Karada cut short her war story and brushed away the map in the ashes.

“I talk too much,” she apologized.

“Never mind,” Lyopi said. “We’ve seen too much battle of late. What else did you learn from the seafarers?”

Karada leaned back against the warm hearthstones. “They make this thing Bahco calls ‘cloth.’ They wear it and use it to make the sails of their ships. Bahco says it’s not hide or wool, that it’s made from shredded leaves.”

Lyopi lifted the steaming kettle from the coals and set a tall beaker of red wine into the hot water. “Like thatch?” she said. “Sounds scratchy.”

“It’s not,” Karada assured her. “I’ve handled it. It’s softer than doeskin and more flexible.”

Lyopi was openly doubtful. Amero smoothed over the potential argument by raising an important, if painful subject.

“What’s to be done with Nacris and Zannian?” he asked.

“I’ll deal with Nacris before I leave this valley,” Karada said firmly. “How is my business.”

“And Zannian?”

“Brother or not, I know him no more than I know that insolent Harak. Zannian has done great harm to the people of Yala-tene and elsewhere.”

“But he’s your family,” Lyopi protested. “How can you think of killing him?”

“What do you propose?” said Karada. “Shall we let him go if he promises to be a good boy?”

“He’s blind! What harm can he do?”

“Nacris is crippled, and look what evil she wrought. I know you both are sick of blood, but it’s weak and foolish to let Zannian or Nacris live. The woman’s mad. She’d do anything to harm me or Amero. Zannian was raised to think of her as his mother, so he believes as she does. He called that green monster ‘master’ and did its bidding! How many people have died for his ambition? Any man who does things like that is not my brother!”

Karada folded her arms and looked away into the dark periphery of the house. Amero gazed at the fire. Lyopi looked from one to the other, then turned her attention to the warmed wine. She filled three cups and handed them out.

Amero sipped, feeling the gentle heat pervade his limbs. The aching wound in his leg felt better.

“Nacris is lost,” he said after a long silence. “Like a mad dog, it would be a merciful thing for her to die. Since Nianki took her, she’s Nianki’s to deal with.”

Lyopi nodded her agreement. Karada said nothing.

“Zannian’s different,” Amero went on. “I don’t believe he’s completely lost to madness and evil, like Nacris. He’s young, and he is our brother. I believe we can turn him back from the path Sthenn and Nacris put him on.”

Karada drained her cup dry. “You give speeches like an elf. Speak plainly.”

“Let Zannian remain in Yala-tene. He may be blind forever. Perhaps I can find Menni somewhere, deep inside him.”

Karada put her cup down. The clay clinked loudly on the stone hearth.

“The man who obeyed a green dragon, murdered his own kind, and made an alliance with ogres deserves death,” she said. The flat certainty of her words brought a worried frown to Lyopi’s face. Karada, however, had decided to argue no further, for she added, “But if you wish it, brother, I won’t challenge you. I’ll take Nacris, and you can keep Zannian.”

The strange bargain was made. Amero felt lightened by the decision. Watching him smile and take mulled wine from Lyopi, Karada felt cold. He thought the danger was past, but as long as Nacris drew breath, Karada sensed the hag’s venom was still working.