Paul Cook - Brother of the Dragon

Like everyone else, Amero tore at the frozen soil with his bare hands, pulling sharp shards of ice away from the delicate plants. As he looked at his cut and bleeding hands, he dreamed of metal tools for every villager — bronze that would cut through ice and frozen turf, turning hard land into garden. More than ever he knew the future of humankind lay in the mastery of metal.

“You’ll get chilblains if you stay out here with wet hands.”

He turned, recognizing the voice. Lyopi draped a fur cape over his shoulders and held out a steaming mug of tea. Rising, Amero took the clay cup from her hands. Its warmth against his sore palms was just the solace he needed.

“Thanks,” he said. “I sometimes wonder how I lived so long without you to take care of me.”

She laughed. “So do I.”

They strolled back to the unfinished section of the town wall. Even before they reached it, Amero could hear chimes and sistra ringing inside the Offertory. The Sensarku made their instruments from Duranix’s cast-off scales. Amero considered it a waste of good metal, but the Sensarku were devoted to their ceremonies and repeated them every day.

“I wonder what happened to that fool Tiphan,” said Lyopi with characteristic bluntness. “I didn’t think he was the type to run away because of a single blunder. He was too proud for that.”

Amero sipped his tea. “He hasn’t run away. He’s on some quest.”

“How do you know?”

“Anari, who sleeps near Mara, told me Tiphan came in the night and woke Mara to tell her they were going on a journey. He also took Penzar, who’s a good tracker. They left before any of us knew about the danger to the orchards. He’s gone to the east to find something.”

Lyopi crossed her arms, burying her hands beneath her arms to keep them warm. “Find what, do you think?”

“Common sense, I hope.”

Flames flickered up above the walls of the town and Offertory. Lyopi drew in breath loudly. “They’re ‘purifying’ the cairn because it was touched by your unclean self,” she said. When Amero didn’t reply she added, “Aren’t you offended?”

“Why should I be? I don’t care what beliefs the Sensarku follow as long as they do their work and mind the village elders.”

“Very wise,” she said, with mild irony. She knew when Amero said “village elders” he really meant “the Arkuden.”

A new, more distant sound drowned out the chanting from the Offertory: the sound of rams’ horns blown by sentinels high on the cliff above Yala-tene. It was a danger signal, warning of an impending attack.

Amero and Lyopi raced to her house. Whenever an alarm was raised, all able-bodied adults in the village gathered at the north end of Yala-tene armed with sword, axe, or spear. Amero found Lyopi’s injured brother Unar trying to rise from his sickbed in answer to the call.

“Down, down,” Amero said, pushing the wounded man back on his pallet. “No one expects you to fight.”

“But, Arkuden — ”

“Lie still, Unar, or I’ll have your sister sit on you.”

“Ugh, threaten me with anything but that!”

Lyopi glared at them. “Shut your mouths, or I’ll raise lumps on both your heads!” She brandished a stone-headed axe. “I’m not so stout that you should fear me sitting on you, brother!”

“True, you weigh less than the dragon,” Amero quipped. He found a hunting spear and tested its heft.

“She’s more like a sturdy calf,” Unar said.

“Quiet you, or I’ll have your other eye out!”

Unar subsided at last. Lyopi tied a heavy leather cap around her head and went to the door.

“Are you ready, Arkuden?”

He shouldered the spear. “I am. Lead on.”

Barely two score villagers had gathered by the unfinished wall. The rest were out hunting or working in the orchards on the other side of the lake. The horns continued to blow, but now they were sounding from the mouth of Cedarsplit Gap. The strangers were moving fast, right down the path to Yala-tene.

The armed villagers chattered nervously among themselves. What sort of danger was bearing down on them? Elves? Nomads?

“Form a circle!” Amero shouted.

The villagers with spears presented a hedgehog of flintheads to the unseen foe. One by one the horns died away. Eventually, the sound of massed hoofbeats reached the villagers.

“Horses!” someone cried.

“Nomads! The nomads have come back!”

Villagers on the extreme ends of the formation began to back away.

Amero shouted, “Stand where you are! Stand fast!”

The frightened folk rejoined the circle, crowding closer together.

The noise grew louder. Dust rose from the mouth of Cedarsplit Gap. The villagers’ nervousness spread to the cattle and horses penned on each side of them. The animals milled about, neighing and lowing.

A column of dark-clad riders burst from the pass. They thundered out a hundred paces, halted, and surveyed the scene. Amero squinted through the whirling dust. They looked like small, dark-skinned men on ponies, not rangy nomads or fair-skinned elves.

The riders launched into motion again and came straight at the defenders. At sixty paces the dust parted enough for Amero to see who they were.

“Raise your weapons!” he cried. “Spears up! It’s Miteera!”

Confused but relieved, the villagers shouldered their arms. The centaur herd slowed when they saw the spears rise. Amero stepped out of the formation and held up his hands.

“Greeting, noble Miteera!” he shouted. “Welcome to Yala-tene!”

The gray-haired chief of the horse-men trotted forward.

“Hail, Arkuden! My eyes weep to see you!”

Arms wide, man and centaur embraced. Time had not dulled Miteera’s fierce smell, but Amero was so relieved that he felt like he was holding an armful of flowers.

The remainder of the centaur tribe ambled down the ravine into the open valley once they saw there was no danger.

“What brings you to our valley, noble chief?” Amero asked. “It’s been ten years since I saw you last.”

“Ah, Arkuden, such evil speaking I must do! My people are driven out!”

“Driven out? By who?”

“The Old Ones.”

The centaurs were rough, primitive folk, but they were valiant fighters. To dislodge the entire herd would have required -

“A great host,” Amero muttered. “Balif?”

Miteera nodded, frowning. “Aye, Arkuden. We could not stand before fire and metal.”

Amero studied the warriors at Miteera’s back. Many bore recent wounds, and all looked tired and trailworn.

“Fear not, Miteera,” he said. “You are welcome here. Will you stay and take greens with us?”

“One night only, Arkuden.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Is word of kokusuna.” This was the centaurs’ word for “spirits.” It also meant, in a vague way, “omens.”

Amero led the centaurs to the water troughs used by the village’s horse herd. The visitors weren’t insulted. Centaurs considered horses kin and in general held them in higher regard than humans. As the centaurs refreshed themselves, one of them spoke to his chief. Miteera clapped a gnarled hand to his brown forehead.

“Ah, Arkuden! Your people seen on mountain!”

“Eh?”

Miteera explained how his band had encountered three humans in the high mountains. Through the old chiefs oblique descriptions, Amero understood the three to be Tiphan and his two acolytes.

“Were they well?” he asked.

“Hale, not wise.” The centaur shook his head at the incomprehensible foolishness of humans. “They go sunbirth. B’leef there.”

Amero was puzzled. Tiphan was headed east, toward the elves? “Did he say exactly where he was going or why?”

“Nah. They hunt. Not say what.”