Paul Cook - Brother of the Dragon

Duranix whirled, his burnished scales flecked with soot and blood. The swiftness of his movement and the ferocity of his expression caused them all to shrink back in alarm.

“I don’t want your thanks!” he snapped. “Do you think I enjoy slaughtering Sthenn’s worthless slaves? Do you?”

“We’re grateful you saved us,” Paharo said humbly.

“Amero asked me to. Thank him. Now get back to the bridge. He’s waiting for you there.”

The villagers started back to Yala-tene. Duranix remained, staring at the empty vista before him. Seeing him linger, Beramun turned back and said, “What are you waiting for?”

Duranix looked down at her. “Sthenn is near. I feel him. Don’t you?”

She touched the front of her tunic, fingers resting atop the green mark on her chest. “I’m not his creature,” she insisted. “I’m a free woman.”

“Go, before I forget Amero’s wishes and kill you right here!”

Infuriated, she yelled, “Stupid beast! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Duranix lowered his huge head until it was only a handspan from her face. “Perhaps you don’t know the evil Sthenn has planned for you,” he said. “But anything is possible — sedition, betrayal, murder. I won’t let you harm Amero.”

Beramun’s back was against the cliff wall. She could only stare into those huge green eyes, her throat too dry to speak.

Suddenly the dragon whipped his neck around, head thrusting skyward. Mouth gaping, Duranix roared.

Beramun dropped to the ground, clapping her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to block the powerful sound. The rocks beneath her resonated with the endless roar.

Through a red haze of agony, Beramun saw a winged shape fly overhead. She knew that shape and why the bronze dragon roared. Sthenn had returned.

Duranix continued to bellow a challenge to his ancient nemesis. Stones cascaded down both sides of the canyon, plunging into the river and piling up along the canyon walls. The terrible sound grew so unbearable that Beramun screamed. She couldn’t hear her puny cry over the omnipotent voice of the dragon, but she screamed and screamed until her throat was raw.

The thunderous roar finally ceased as Duranix spread his wings. With two running steps, he vaulted into the air. The tips of his wings scraped the walls on each side of the canyon, but he cleared them and soared aloft.

Breathless, Beramun forced herself to her feet, her back braced against the canyon wall. She was surprised to see another figure rising from the debris some paces away. One of the raiders had survived: the bald one, Hoten.

Looking fully as battered as she, Hoten regarded Beramun blankly for a moment. In unison they turned their faces skyward, where Duranix was climbing to meet his enemy in a final duel. Soon the paths of both dragons took them out of sight.

Without a word or sign of acknowledgment, Hoten and Beramun stumbled away: he, back to his chief, and she, to the Lake of the Falls.

By the time Beramun returned to the valley, Yala-tene’s defenses were in place. Boulders and logs had been piled across the mouth of the canyon, making it difficult for the mounted enemy to ride directly to the bridge. Villagers armed with spears and stones were in position atop the stone towers that anchored each end of the bridge. Barricades of timber and thorn bushes blocked the north end of the bridge. When Beramun arrived, tired and battered, Amero and the village elders were in the midst of an argument.

“We must prepare the bridge to fall,” Amero was insisting. “If the raiders get the better of us, we’ll have to destroy it. The river’s too deep to be forded, so they’ll have to take the time to build rafts.”

“Destroying the bridge means abandoning the orchard and gardens to the enemy!” Jenla protested. “The greatest part of our food supply lies in those fields. How can we give them up?”

“We have food stored in the town caves,” said Huru.

“How long will that last?” demanded Tepa. The usually mild beekeeper was red-faced and sweating. “Without food, we can’t stay inside our wall for long!”

Then Amero spotted Beramun. A look of vast relief crossed his face. He called out to her, cutting off the elders’ angry debate. Jenla and the rest fell silent as the Arkuden ran to meet the nomad girl.

Beramun slumped tiredly against a felled log.

“Here, take this,” Amero said, handing her a dipper of cool water. “I was beginning to think you were lost. What happened?”

“Duranix,” she said between gulps of water, “saved us.”

“So Paharo said. What was the roaring we heard?”

She winced at the memory. Her skull still ached from the awful noise. “Duranix saw the green dragon in the sky, bellowed a challenge, then flew after him.”

“Flew after…?” Amero cast a quick glance at the village elders and lowered his voice. “He’s gone?”

Beramun drained the gourd dry and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “I saw the look in his eyes. He won’t return until Sthenn is dead.”

“Say nothing about that!” he whispered to her. “Our people may lose heart if they hear their protector is gone.”

Jenla called for Amero to rejoin the elders, and he did. The argument began anew over whether the bridge should be destroyed. Standing in the midst of his contentious people, Amero looked more tired and strained than Beramun had ever seen him.

The screech of a falcon caused her to look up. The feathered hunter wheeled in lazy circles across the flawless blue vault of the midday sky. Somewhere up there in the boundless ocean of air, the two dragons were winging toward their final destiny.

*

After Duranix cleared the canyon rim, he climbed as rapidly as he could, never losing sight of his foe. Sthenn continued to glide in a vast, lazy circle, five thousand paces above the mountain peaks. Filled with barely contained fury, Duranix retained enough presence of mind to know this wasn’t right. For all his age and cunning, Sthenn was fundamentally craven. It was completely unlike him to wait patiently for Duranix to catch up. The evil beast must be up to something.

As he reached the halfway point in his climb, Duranix saw Sthenn drop his right wing and glide off to the west, away from the Valley of the Falls. So that was his game! He wanted Duranix to follow him away from the valley, leaving Yala-tene alone against Zannian’s host. It was a brutal, unsubtle stratagem, and it showed how well Sthenn understood him.

As he continued the pursuit, Duranix told himself the loss of a few hundred humans was worth the destruction of the vile green dragon. It came down to a cold calculation: It was better for Sthenn to be dead than for Amero to be alive. There would always be more humans. They bred like rats, died often and easily, and kept the world constantly stirred up. Amero was a good fellow for a human — amusing, engaging, and thoughtful, and he conceived a constant stream of schemes and ideas. It was possible he’d find a way to cope with the raiders on his own.

Sound, logical reasoning. So why did it feel so wrong? Why did Duranix have a thoroughly irrational desire to wheel about and descend upon the advancing raider horde?

He couldn’t break off the chase. He couldn’t allow Sthenn to escape. If fortune favored him, he might finish his enemy and return in time to save Yala-tene as well, but if the chase took too long, if Amero died before he could return, then Duranix vowed that Zannian’s band would not long survive the death of their master.

As Duranix’s mind wandered, so did his navigation. Unconsciously, he fell into a slow northward bank, which would eventually bring him full circle, back to the Valley of the Falls. While he wrestled with his conscience, he failed to see the green dragon also changing course, doubling back toward him.