Brother of the Dragon (2 page)

Once he was sure his men were all right, Amero went inside again. The foundry roof was completely wrecked. Sunlight pierced the drifting dust and smoke in a hundred narrow beams. Shards of gray roofing slate littered the floor. Charred wood, still smoking, lay everywhere.

Amero went to the crucible – a great stone pot cut from a single block of granite. Rough ingots of copper and tin were visible inside. Though the heat had fused them in numerous spots, they were not melted together. After all the fire and fury, his dream of making bronze was still unfulfilled.

“It’s a wonder we weren’t all killed.” Amero turned to see

Huru standing in the doorway. The shopmaster added, “What do we do now?”

Amero kicked a still-glowing ember with his bark sandals. “Start again,” he said. “Bronze won’t make itself. We’ll have to fix the workshop first, then build another fire-feeder.” He grimaced. “A smaller one, this time.”

Back outside, they found the workmen being tended by a dozen young men and women dressed in white doeskin robes. The well-scrubbed youths moved among the sooty men, administering cool water and dabbing their cuts and burns with pads of soft, boiled moss.

Amero frowned. He knew he ought to be grateful for the help, but he wasn’t. This help came with an unpleasant price.

“Greetings, Arkuden! Praise the dragon you are well,” said Mara, one of the white-robed youths.

“Why are you here?” he said. “I didn’t ask for help.”

“I sent them.”

Standing on the gravel path was Tiphan, son of Konza, leader of the
Sensarku,
the Servers of the Dragon. Not yet thirty, Tiphan was tall and sharp-faced, with shoulder-length blond hair and a beardless chin. The young people were his followers. Amero clenched his hands into fists then forced himself to relax.

“Greetings, young Tiphan,” he said, brushing stone chips from his short brown beard. “What brings you to my humble workshop?”

“I was on my way to the Offertory when I saw a column of fire in the sky,” Tiphan said. Though young, he had a deep, resonant voice. “My first thought was that the Great Protector was paying us a visit.”

“Duranix isn’t here,” Amero said bluntly.

Tiphan looked over the chaotic scene and dusted his hands lightly together. “I see that now. The fire was your doing, Arkuden?”

“An accident,” Amero said. “We have a lot of repairs to do, so if you would take your people away...”

“As you wish, Arkuden.” Tiphan clapped his hands, and the Sensarku ceased their ministrations and fell into line behind their leader. Huru cajoled his men to their feet, and the foundry workers filed back to the ruined workshop.

“Your efforts to make bronze have not yielded much success,” Tiphan said. “How long have you been trying, Arkuden? Ten years?”

“Twelve.”

“Perhaps men weren’t meant to make bronze. It is, after all, the hide of our Protector.”

“The elves have been making bronze for generations,” Amero observed.

“Elves are not men,” Tiphan countered.

Amero bit back a sarcastic reply, saying mildly, “You’ll excuse me, Tiphan. I have much to do, and I don’t want to keep you from your own work.”

“The fields, Tosen...?” said Mara, standing close behind Tiphan.
Tosen
was a term of respect meaning “First Servant.”

The young Sensarku leader nodded. “My father and I are going to view the planting of new seedlings in the orchard. The dragon has given us word that winter is over.”

Amero folded his scratched and bruised arms. “Planting, now? It’s too early. The seedlings will perish in the cold.”

“It is the Protector’s word.”

“Duranix is not a weather seer.”

“What the Protector says must be so,” said Mara. Tiphan nodded approvingly.

Amero looked at the proud, serene faces behind Tiphan. How firmly they believed their leader’s words! He envied the haughty Sensarku chief. It must be pleasant to have such unshakable confidence, to inspire such unquestioning loyalty.

Four burly men in hide shirts and fur leggings arrived, bearing Tiphan’s father, Konza, in a litter. Behind them came four more bearers with an empty chair for his son.

“Greetings, Amero!” said Konza with a wave. In his early life, he’d been a tanner, and his arms were stained red-brown up to the elbows from years of working hides. Now he was nearly sixty, and his gray hair hung in limp strands around his deeply lined face.

“Long life and health to you, Konza,” Amero replied. He meant every word. Konza, though a bit foolish, was a good-hearted friend. He was also a valuable check on his son’s ambitions.

For twelve years, Tiphan and his father had taken sole responsibility for feeding the dragon. In the old days, any hunter in the valley could offer up part of his catch to Duranix in gratitude for his protection. Konza had started the practice of choosing only the finest beasts for the dragon’s meal. It was only fitting the dragon should get the best, Konza said. It demonstrated how much he was revered by the people he guarded.

Tiphan refined the procedure further. Believing the dragon shouldn’t have to snatch his meals off a pile of dirty stones, the young man began scrubbing the dragon’s cairn himself. Other young men of the village sought to share the honor of serving the dragon, so he gradually gave over the onerous cleaning duties to them. Younger boys and girls learned to wash the sacrificial animals, and later, the enclosure around the cairn itself.

Father and son received no direct encouragement from Duranix for their efforts. The dragon seldom spoke to anyone but Amero, but where once he’d merely swooped down and carried off a raw carcass, he now perched atop the high wall surrounding the cairn and ate the cooked offering in full view of the reverent youths below. Everyone took this to mean the dragon was pleased by their labors, and over time the Sensarku grew in size and prestige.

The four bearers lowered their poles, bringing the empty chair to ground level. As Tiphan climbed in, Konza said to Amero, “We’re off to the orchards.”

“So your son said. Have a look at the bridge as you cross it, will you? The winter’s been hard. I hope the supports aren’t stretched or rotted.” The vine-and-plank bridge across the river that fed into the lake was one of Amero’s early projects. Anyone crossing the river had to use the bridge or pole over on a raft. The current was too swift to swim safely.

“Yes, the bridge,” Tiphan said, signaling his bearers to go. “One of your
useful
creations.”

Before Amero could retort, the bearers took the two men away, followed by smiling acolytes. More than a little angry, Amero left Huru to supervise the cleanup and stalked away.

He crossed the spray-drenched beach below the waterfall that dominated the valley and gave its name to the Lake of the Falls. The sheer cliff face had just one visible opening on the north side of the falls. A complicated tower of timber and vines rose from the ground to the hole. Amero went to the base of the log tower and pulled hard on a vine rope. The apparatus squeaked, and a large rattan basket sank slowly toward him. This hoist was another of his early inventions.

He climbed in and started the counterweight down. As he rose, the whole village of Yala-tene was visible, spread out beneath him.

The settlement had grown against the base of the cliffs like a cluster of toadstools on an oak stump. In the twenty-two years since its founding, it had changed from a random collection of tents and lean-tos to a permanent town of eleven hundred souls. Narrow dirt streets snaked between the field-stone houses (some of which had as many as four floors), and smoke curled up from over six hundred chimneys.

Twenty-two years, Amero mused. A lifetime by nomad standards – time enough to grow up, mate, and raise children.

Instead of children, Amero had raised a village under the watchful eye of his friend, the bronze dragon Duranix. The dragon dwelt in a cave hollowed out of the cliff face behind the waterfall, and though he had little to do with the daily lives of the villagers, Duranix remained Amero’s mentor.

Though Duranix stood ready to defend the people of Yala-tene from dangers natural and unnatural, he often left the valley for days or weeks at a time, keeping a watchful eye on the land he claimed as his domain. His absence at the time of a nomad attack twelve years earlier had convinced Amero that a more reliable defense for the village was needed. From this was born his notion of a protective wall.

Curving out from the mountain north and south of the village was the great stone wall. The wall didn’t look imposing from this height, but at ground level it was a different story. Four-fifths of the wall around Yala-tene had been completed, and the last gap, a fifty-pace stretch facing the lake, would be finished after the next harvest.

Work on the stout barrier was done mainly in the winter, when fields were fallow and the herds were kept shut in their pens. Women, men, and children labored on it, and the work was hard. The loose stones littering the valley floor, tumbled round by the river, were not stable enough for the wall, so heavy blocks had to be cut from the cliff behind Yala-tene. These were dragged on log sledges by gangs of villagers and piled up. Early sections had collapsed before attaining their full height. The budding masons learned to make the wall wider at the bottom than the top, then the structure stood solid and firm.

Two other structures stood out. One was the Offertory, where Konza and Tiphan served meat to the dragon. This was a square, roofless building, surrounded by a wall six paces high. Konza handpicked the whitest stone in the valley for it, and the Sensarku acolytes kept the place spotless inside and out. The courtyard inside was covered with washed white sand from the lake, regularly raked and cleaned by Tiphan’s young adherents. In the center of the Offertory was the altar itself. Once a rude pile of stones, it was now made of dressed blocks laid in sloping courses.

The other major building in Yala-tene was Amero’s workshop, lately the scene of the furnace explosion.

The basket bumped to a stop. Amero tied off the counterweight and climbed out.

He was immediately struck by the smell in the cave. For years he’d lived here with Duranix and had become accustomed to the pervasive odor of the dragon. These days he spent most of his time in the village, and the sharp aroma – lizardlike and oddly metallic – was very noticeable.

“As though humans don’t stink,” boomed a voice from the rear of the cave.

“You’re hearing my thoughts again,” Amero called back.

Duranix’s broad brazen head rose from the stone platform on which he slept. “You think so loudly that I can’t help it.”

“Don’t listen, then.”

His sharp tone caught the dragon’s attention. Duranix’s huge green eyes, slit by vertical pupils as long as daggers, followed Amero as he went to the cold firepit and sat down with his back to the dragon.

Duranix crawled off his bed with peculiar serpentine grace. With no more sound than the scrape of a few bronze scales on the rock floor, the huge creature drew up beside Amero.

“What vexes you? Speak,” Duranix ordered, “or take your gloomy spirit to some other cave.”

“I demolished the foundry this morning,” Amero said, smiting his knee with one fist. “The fire-feeder I made forced too much air into the furnace, and it burst.”

“I thought you smelled sootier than usual.”

“I failed again. The foundry is a wreck.”

Duranix shrugged, a gesture picked up from Amero. “Build another. Your devices have failed before.”

“Yes, so Tiphan has reminded me!”

“Ah.” Duranix coiled his tail around Amero, surrounding him with a wall of living bronze. “This is the true cause of your mood.”

“Tiphan wants to be chief of Yala-tene.” Now that the words were out at last, Amero was surprised by how angry they made him feel.

“Time was, you didn’t want to be chief. Now you fear Tiphan will take your place?”

“I only want to do what’s best for the village. Tiphan wants what’s best for Tiphan. And you help him!”

“I?”

“Yes! You eat your meat for all to see, encouraging them to think you honor the Sensarku with your presence. Why don’t you eat in the cave like you used to?”

“They amuse me. All that washing and cleaning! Tiphan’s the funniest of all. His mind’s so narrow I can hardly hear his thoughts, but he’s so obvious in other ways that he makes me laugh.”

Amero stood up and stepped over the dragon’s tail. “Did you tell him that winter was over?”

Duranix blinked. The movement of his eyelids sounded like swords being drawn from scabbards. “The boy asked me if I thought it would snow again this season. I said I didn’t look forward to any more snow.”

Amero shook his head, seeing how Tiphan had misread the dragon’s casual comment. “If he tells the planters to start now, we may lose the year’s fruit crop!”

“I could pluck his dull-witted head from his shoulders,” Duranix suggested. “That would put an end to your troubles.”

“Oh, be serious! It’s not worth Tiphan’s life.”

“Isn’t it? You said the harvest might be ruined.”

If the harvest is ruined, Tiphan will he too.

Amero’s thought carried plainly to the dragon, and Duranix narrowed his eyes. “You’d let folk in the village go hungry to best Tiphan?” he asked, the barbels on his chin twitching in curiosity.

Amero flushed at having his selfishness discerned. “I’ll not let anyone go hungry. Once the foundry is repaired, we’ll have bronze to trade with the wanderers who come through the valley. We can barter metal for food.”

“And if your metal-making fails? You’re gambling with the empty bellies of a lot of people.”

Amero lowered his head. “Maybe the weather will stay mild and the seedlings thrive.”

“And maybe I’ll start eating roots and berries,” said Duranix dryly.

*

A score of men and women, still clad in winter furs, hunched over their work. With hoes they grubbed small holes in the sandy soil, and into each hole went a tiny fruit tree. By the shore of the lake they planted apple trees, because these needed the most water. At the foot of the mountain the villagers placed walnut trees. Sturdy walnuts could stand the rockier soil and occasional slides of dirt and stones from the higher slopes. In between the apples and walnuts were planted the most valuable trees of all, burl-tops. A single burltop tree could provide a family with bushels of brown fruit, to be dried, eaten fresh, or pressed to extract the sweet oil inside. Windfall limbs made excellent handles for tools, and sloughed-off bark could be made into shingles, sandals, baskets, or buckets.