Paul Cook - Brother of the Dragon

He furrowed his brow. How he wished Duranix were here. Even sarcastic advice was better than no advice at all.

The whisper of footsteps in the grass caused Amero to sit up. Udi appeared, ducking under the newly leafed trees.

“Arkuden,” he said tensely, “I heard something.”

“What? Where?”

“I don’t know what it was, but it came from a patch of thorn bush on the back of the hill.”

“Wake the others then join me there — quietly!”

Amero crept to the far side of the knoll. A dense thicket of briars filled the dark ravine between this hill and the next. He crouched low and listened.

Sure enough, he heard light, regular breathing. He was so focused on trying to pinpoint the source of the sound that Udi’s sudden appearance at his side caused him to flinch.

“Do you hear it?” Udi’s voice was almost soundless.

Amero nodded.

“Animal?”

Amero shrugged. It could be a bear. They were fond of the berries found inside such thickets.

At Amero’s gesture, they moved apart and headed silently down the hill. When they reached the edge of the thorny growth, a new sound froze them in their tracks. A cough, followed by the light clearing of a throat. The two men exchanged looks. Not a bear. A human. Perhaps a raider scout?

Amero raised his spear high and signaled for Udi to do the same. They would flush out whoever was inside. The Arkuden nodded, and both weapons thudded into the dense tangle of thorns and leaves. Nothing happened.

Amero indicated they should try again. This time something definitely shifted within the brush, away from Udi and toward Amero. With both hands the Arkuden jammed his spear into the tangle. He was rewarded by a low cry of distress.

“Stop!” said a voice muffled by the dense brush. “Don’t strike again!”

“Come out at once. This thicket is surrounded!”

The pile of greenery heaved, and a person came crawling out, belly to the ground. When the stranger stood up, moonlight caught her face. Amero yelped with surprise.

“Beramun!”

“Arkuden?”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I go where I choose,” she replied tartly. The rest of Amero’s party arrived in time to hear this exchange. The boys snickered, and she added, “I left the village this afternoon.”

“Why?”

“Your woman, Lyopi, expected me to work for her. I refused, and she put me out.” Beramun’s dark eyes narrowed. “You made it hard for me to stay with her when you asked me to be your mate.”

The boys were openly amused to hear their old Arkuden had tried to woo this beautiful young wanderer. Amero ignored their grinning faces, though he felt his own burning with embarrassment.

“Why did you come this way?” he asked, annoyed. “Isn’t this the land threatened by Sthenn and the raiders?”

“It’s the land I know. Where else could I go?”

Amero was too tired to continue this pointless exchange. “Back to camp, hoys,” he said. To Beramun he added, “You’re welcome to join us, if you wish.”

She shrugged. “If you’ve got some of those dried apple slices with you, I’ll stay for breakfast.”

“I have a bag full,” said Udi, shaking it.

They climbed the hill to their little camp. Paharo regarded Beramun curiously. “How did you get in and out of those thorns without being scratched?” he asked.

Beramun glanced at her bare arms. “It’s a trick my mother taught me,” she said. “Thorn bushes have a nap, like fur. You have to find the nap of the thorns, and go in and out with it. Briar thickets make good places to hide and sleep. Nothing bigger than a rabbit can get in.”

“You’re bigger than a rabbit,” said Amero.

“I guess I am.” She laughed, and Amero’s anger melted away. He found himself noticing how the moonlight glinted off her ebony hair, how it limned her face with silver.

Paharo and another boy took over watch duties so Amero and Udi could sleep. Beramun chose a spot away from the men and stretched out on the ground. Though she had neither blanket nor cloak, she quickly fell asleep.

Amero was collecting his gear when Beramun woke, the morning sun raking her face.

“Arkuden? What — ?” she began, squinting up at him. “Good morning. Get ready, we’re moving out.”

She shook the sleep from her brain and stood, brushing twigs and grass from her clothes. Udi and Paharo passed around dried fruit and elk jerky. Beramun recovered her meager kit and fell into line with the rest.

“Are you coming with us then?” asked Paharo, chewing a brown wedge of apple.

“Until you find the dragon,” she said. “If the Arkuden doesn’t mind.”

“You’re welcome,” he told her. “But you must be one of the parly. Don’t go stalking off on your own without telling us.”

Beramun agreed.

It was a warm, sunny morning, but there were signs change was coming. Fat white clouds crowded the sun, and by midmorning, low, gray clouds had come pushing down from the north. The men donned their grass capes and hoods. Beramun had no such storm gear among Lyopi’s hand-me-downs. Paharo offered her his cape, hut she declined it, saying she’d been rained on before.

The land flattened gradually, the hills shrinking. Trees became fewer. An ocean of waving grass displaced the patches of knotweed and flintgrass that dotted the foothills like sparse locks of unruly hair.

As they beheld the open savanna, Amero suffered pangs of memory. He’d not been to the great plain in many years, and his childhood came back to him in a painful rush. His first dozen years had been spent out here, wandering behind Oto, Kinar, and his fierce elder sister, Nianki. Too young to hunt, he’d often cared for baby brother Menni while Kinar prowled for roots and grubs. The fingers of his left hand curled with the memory of that tiny hand in his.

“Arkuden.”

The ghosts of years past vanished. “Eh?”

“Paharo has found a trail, Arkuden.”

“Found it? Where?”

Udi pointed at the sea of grass, waving in the cool southern wind. “It looks like the Protector alighted here. He continued on foot that way,” he said, gesturing to the south. “The trail disappears a short way on. High grass can conceal even a dragon’s footprints.”

Amero nodded. “We’ll have to spread out. Divide into pairs. No one is to lose sight of the others at any time, understand?”

The four young men promptly paired off, leaving Amero with Beramun. Grinning at their Arkuden and the young woman, the boys waded off into the waist-high grass, sweeping the ground ahead of them with their spears.

“I’m sorry,” Amero said to Beramun.

“For what?”.

“The boys think they’re being funny.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. She set out, parting the grass with her hands like a swimmer.

“Wait,” Amero called. “Don’t get too far ahead.”

“Why not? It’s my country, after all.”

“It was mine, too,” he muttered, plunging into the grass.

They made slow progress through the thick spring growth, and the only things they found in the grass were snakes and hopping rats. When the sun neared its zenith, Paharo sang out from his place on Amero’s left.

“Arkuden! A track!”

Everyone converged on the spot where Paharo crouched in the grass. A large, bare human footprint was plainly visible once he’d pushed back the tall weeds.

“He’s taken human shape,” said Udi.

“Walking like a man, we can track him,” Paharo added.

Amero looked in the direction the print pointed. “Still going due south. I wonder why?”

“The river lies that way,” Beramun offered. “The raiders must cross it somewhere.”

They re-formed and moved out, Paharo leading, along the dragon’s trail. They moved deliberately, careful to find the next footprint before proceeding.