Paul Cook: Children of the Plains

“I can reach him,” Pakito said, planting his fists on his hips.

A fierce smile briefly lit her dirty face. “Do that, and you can name your own reward!”

The towering warrior jabbed a thick finger at his chief. “Remember those words, Karada!”

Gripping his axe, he strode past the line of smaller warriors — though all warriors were smaller than Pakito — into the lane between the rings of houses. At once he was set upon by a mounted renegade wearing a wood-and-leather breastplate: Tarkwa.

Tarkwa tried to ride Pakito down, but the big man was not about to be trampled under. He threw his left arm around the horse’s neck and brought his axe up in a wide swing. Tarkwa tried to parry with his spear, but the heavy axehead shattered the shaft and Tarkwa’s forearm as well. Howling in agony, Tarkwa tried to wrench his horse’s head loose from Pakito’s grip. The three of them — man, horse, and rider — skidded in a tight circle, slamming into the wall of a burning house.

Pakito found himself between the horse and the wall, for anyone else a bad spot. The giant warrior, however, drew his legs under himself, used the house for leverage, and threw the horse to the ground. Tarkwa rolled over and over in the sand, coming to a stop in the open doorway of a blazing house. Groggily, he sat up, just as the whole wooden interior of the house come crashing down on top of him.

Pakito moved on, swatting aside his former comrades as they tried to intercept him. After a few deadly swipes, they gave him wide berth, and he arrived at the cairn.

Coughing from the heavy smoke, Pakito called to Amero.

The young headman’s sooty, blood-streaked face appeared.

“Pakito!”

“I’ve come to take you to Karada.”

Such a declaration should have sounded ludicrous — battle and fire raged on all sides — but coming from Pakito, it was simply a statement of fact.

Amero half-slid, half-fell to the ground beside the giant. Pakito hauled him to his feet and propelled him forward.

Two of the six houses that formed Nianki’s defense line were on fire. The villagers inside had to climb out the rear windows to drop down among their neighbors and Nianki’s followers. By the time Pakito and Amero rejoined them, there were almost a hundred people in the shrinking circle.

Stumbling forward, Amero felt strong arms stop him. He looked up into Nianki’s smoke-streaked face.

“Bad day,” he said, taking her gently by the hand.

“Going to get worse,” she replied. “There’s a lot of people to kill.”

Even as she said so, a lull struck. The renegades backed out of spear-thrust range. Nianki’s defenders accepted the respite, some of them falling to their knees out of sheer exhaustion.

Hatu and Nacris rode forward into view.

“Karada! Arkuden! Can you hear me?” Hatu yelled.

“I hear only the screech of a vulture!” Nianki yelled back.

“What do you want?” Amero shouted.

“Lay down your weapons, and we’ll spare you.”

Nianki laughed derisively.

Hatu pointed over his shoulder at the falls. “There are a lot of helpless people over there,” he said. “It would be a shame to slaughter them all just to persuade you not to be stubborn.”

“Would he do that?” asked Amero, horrified.

“What do you think?” Nianki replied.

Amero started toward the mounted pair. “Then we must give up.”

Nianki gripped his arm in her hard hand. “If we stop fighting he’ll kill us all. He’ll not spare your villagers.”

“I can’t let my people die to prolong my own life!” he said, pulling free. He started for Hatu once more. Pakito blocked his way until a shake of Nianki’s head convinced the big nomad to stand aside. She turned away, unable to watch.

Amero walked slowly up to Hatu. “You tried to kill me once before,” he said. “Ten, eleven seasons ago. You and your brothers caught me here in this valley. You thought I was the dragon in disguise.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting so long.”

“It’s no good,” Nacris said anxiously. “It’s no good unless Karada comes out, too!”

“She won’t,” Amero said.

“Stubborn wench. Well, at least you’ll be out of the way.”

Hatu laid the flat side of his spearhead on Amero’s shoulder. The point was just a finger’s breadth from his throat. Amero closed his eyes.

Cries of alarm rose from the renegades on the shore. Nacris turned her horse around and met a pair of riders galloping up the hill.

“What is it?” she said.

“Something coming up the lake, coming this way!” gasped one of the men.

“It’s big!” his companion added. “Very big!”

Big? Amero thought. Hah! At last!

He knocked Hatu’s spear point off his shoulder and dropped to the ground. Hatu cursed and raked down Amero’s back with his weapon. Amero felt the sting, but he kept scrambling. He scuttled under some other horses before rising to his feet and sprinting for Nianki.

The renegades milled about in confusion. Some charged Nianki and her warriors, while others formed a rough line on the shore and waited for whatever was coming down the lake. Hatu and Nacris rode to the water’s edge to see for themselves.

The normally chill water of the lake was boiling. Waves propelled by some submerged object were surging down the lake toward the falls. As the astonished nomads looked on, trout, bream, and pike churned the water ahead of the object, some so frantic they flung themselves out of the water to escape. But to escape what?

The fast-moving mound of water drew abreast of the nomads on shore and slowed. Some of the renegades backed their horses away until drawn back in line by sharp words from Nacris. Twenty paces from shore the water split apart as a long greenish-gold neck rose from the depths.

“Duranix! It’s Duranix!” Amero’s cry was taken up by all the villagers until it became a roaring chant.

Fully half the renegades quit the fight there and then. The ones facing Nianki’s line simply melted away. Laden with looted food and other goods, they mounted their horses and galloped for safety. Nianki and Amero led their singed, tired defenders away from the burning houses, drawing up in circle on open ground beyond the cairn.

Duranix opened his mouth wide and let loose a full-throated roar that loosened stones from the cliff tops. Taking in the scene with one sweep of his head, he swam past Hatu’s position and climbed ashore between the renegades and the unprotected mass of children and old people cowering beneath his cave. Water rolled off the burnished scales of his back in silver sheets. He still wore the leather brace on his injured wing.

“Amero, are you alive?” he roared over the heads of the closely packed renegades. Pakito and another man hoisted the headmen onto their shoulders. Amero waved his arms.

“I am!” he shouted, grinning madly.

“Good. Stay where you are.”

Duranix reared up on his hind legs and lumbered forward. Spears and javelins bounced off his scaly hide. Bronze-headed elven weapons pricked him, but he ignored them and darted his long neck into the mounted mass, knocking men and horses down with every sweep of his horned head.

The renegades disintegrated like snow on a hot rock. Duranix moved among them, hurling them this way and that with swipes of his claws. The ground was soon thick with the fallen, a few dead, most of the rest senseless. In the center of this tumult sat Hatu, calmly waiting. Beside him, a nervous Nacris fidgeted with her mount’s reins and obviously wished she were someplace else.

Duranix dropped down to all fours and extended his head toward Hatu. The nomad’s horse shied, but the one-eyed warrior controlled his animal skillfully.

“Why don’t you ride away?” Duranix asked.