Paul Cook: Children of the Plains

Tears of fury welled up in Nacris’s eyes, and she dashed them away with one hand. She turned her face away from Hatu.

A line of red fire across the night sky made her blink, and she rubbed her eyes.

Another streak of light traced a path across the stars. And a third. And a fourth.

Several of her nearby neighbors noticed the display. A wave of exclamations worked its way across the band, until all eyes were turned upward.

The plainsmen were a superstitious lot and they fell silent as they watched. Even Hatu’s talk was stilled. The lights continued their frantic display for several long minutes, then began to decrease in number.

The plainsmen began to mutter fearfully. Many voiced the thought that the dragon had somehow caused this, that he was angered by their rebellion against his son and would wreak his vengeance on them.

Nacris wasn’t fearful. In fact, the sight of the racing lights brought an upwelling of joy to her leaden heart. She leaped to her feet, her eyes shining as brightly as the stars above.

“Don’t be stupid!” she said. “The dragon doesn’t control the stars! Such signs in the sky are omens. Don’t you see? The stars fell directly over our camp! It was a sign meant for us!”

The plainsmen looked unconvinced. Hatu stepped close to the fire, so its light illuminated him for all to see.

“Nacris is right,” he told them. “The mudtoes are feeling good right now. They think they’re rid of us, but they’re not. We needed this first fight to separate our people from Karada’s and to get rid of that fool Pa’alu.” Raising his voice, he added, “Now we know who’s with us, and who’s not!”

There were nods and grins around the campfire now, and Hatu’s words were passed along to those camped farther from the center.

Nacris hurried to him. “You mean to go back!” she exclaimed. “You always meant to!”

“Yes, we’re going back!” His face was hard, lines of anger etched in its surface. “I want my horse groaning under the weight of all the beef he can carry! I want my waterskins so full of wine they leak red on the trail behind us! I want that dragon’s head, but if he’s not around for killing, I’ll have the head of the Arkuden!”

“What about Karada?” asked Tarkwa.

“What about her?” Hatu demanded. “She’s no spirit-warrior, despite what some of you think. She bleeds the same as any of us. Are we going to slink away from her like a pack of whipped dogs, or will we be warriors and take what our might can get for us?”

The rebel nomads roared their approval. Even Tarkwa seemed fired with the fervor of revenge. “When do we strike?” he asked.

“Now! Tonight!” insisted Nacris.

Hatu shook his head. “Tomorrow. Let them sleep and think they’re rid of us. When the sun rises over Vulture Gap, we’ll hit Arku-peli like an avalanche!”

Amero didn’t sleep that night. So many things crowded his mind — the riot, Pa’alu’s death, the final revelation of the cause of Nianki’s distress — he found no peace in the quiet solitude of the great cave. After a fruitless session of open-eyed brooding, he chose to pass the night in lonesome toil, trying to figure out how to melt bronze.

Copper melted at a certain intensity in the fire. He reasoned that since bronze was harder than copper, it would require more fire to soften it. He built a hardwood fire on the hearth and, lacking a gang of children to fan for him, made his own “gang” of fans by boring holes in a long, straight plank and inserting eight reed fans in them. He hung the plank by thongs from a tripod of poles. By pushing it back and forth, he created a significant wind.

He set a clay pot on the fire and filled it with strips of bright copper from his last experiment. In short order the strips collapsed into reddish metallic beads, which in turn coalesced into a fist-sized ball of molten copper. Amero scratched out a long, thin trench in the damp sand at the other end of the hearth, then, lifting the hot pot with a convenient pole, poured the molten copper into the trench. The wet sand hissed, and gouts of steam arose.

The cavern slowly brightened to the pale hue of predawn. Weary, Amero went to the pool and dipped his sooty hands into the chill water drawn off the falls. Now to try his fire on a few of Duranix’s bronze scales.

A clinking sound from overhead caught his ear. The apex of the cave was lost in shadow, but a sprinkle of dirt floated down, easily visible by firelight. Darker, larger bits came down with the dust. Amero went to where the debris fell and pressed a damp finger to it. It was moss — green moss, such as grew on the banks of the river above the cave.

He was still trying to fathom this puzzle when the sound of horns, muffled by cave walls and the rumble of the falls, penetrated to him. An alarm! Amero rushed to the opening.

The sky outside was barely light, but he could see some disturbance at the upper end of the valley near the cattle pens. A panther after a young calf, perhaps? Dust rose, and he saw people moving.

There was another noise behind him. Amero turned. Something was sweeping the floor halfway between the hearth and Duranix’s sleeping platform. He frowned, trying to understand what he was seeing. It was a pair of rawhide ropes, braided and knotted. His eyes lifted, following the ropes upward. Descending the ropes in rapid hand-over-hand fashion were two men, nomads, with spears strapped to their backs.

Amero was so astonished by this sudden intrusion he froze for the two or three heartbeats of time that it took for the men to finish their descent and drop to the floor.

“What do you want?” he asked.

They whipped the flint-headed spears off their shoulders.

“Your life!” said one of the men.

His first impulse was to jump into the hoist and flee, but that would simply make his attackers’ job easier. They would certainly cut the rope, leaving him to plummet conveniently to his death. He was unarmed, and there were no weapons in the cave. He never imagined, he’d need them here.

Amero ran to his hastily-made tripod of poles, thinking he could pull one of them free to use as a quarterstaff. By the time he got there, the two nomads were already upon him, thrusting with their spears. Amero grasped the suspended plank in the center and shoved it first at one man, then the other. The second nomad was a little slow, and the stout plank caught him on the chin, sending him reeling. Amero had no time to celebrate, as the first nomad’s flint spear point tore through the reed fans and buried itself in the plank by Amero’s hand. With a yell, the nomad pushed the tripod over, and Amero had to scramble not to be trapped under the contraption.

Now he was empty handed, facing a wary foe. The nomad — a dark-eyed fellow about his own age — held his spear in both hands and made short, vicious lunges toward Amero’s belly. The floor, as usual, was littered here and there with Duranix’s shed scales, and Amero fervently wished he at least had a sharpened scale to fight with.

He backed up a few steps, keeping just ahead of the nomad’s jabs. Outside, the sounds of conflict grew louder.

“Nacris!” Amero exclaimed, understanding dawning. “She led you back here to raid the village!”

“I am Hatu’s man,” the nomad spat. “We’ve come to take what we can!”

“Then take what you want and be gone! Why kill me?”

“Hatu commands it. He wishes to injure the dragon as the dragon once injured him.”

Amero backed up to the wall. The nomad grinned and set himself to run the village headman through. Amero carefully braced himself to dodge. This would require fine timing on his part. The nomad raised his spear to shoulder height and, with a yell, attacked.