Brother of the Dragon (8 page)

Tired but fearful, the captives moved down the narrow trail in a column of twos. It wasn’t long before they had proof of the forest’s deadly purpose. One of the raiders fell asleep while riding, and his horse strayed off the path. It ambled to a short bush growing beneath a leafless tree. Slim yellow fruit hung from the bush, and a temptingly sweet aroma wafted to the hungry prisoners as they passed by. Before Zannian or the other riders had noticed their sleeping comrade, the horse nosed into the bush and nibbled a yellow fruit.

A snap louder than any whipcrack split the air. Hairy brown tentacles burst from the ground, enveloping the horse. The raider was thrown to the ground. Two tentacles seized the startled man around the waist and neck, drawing him under the seemingly solid soil and putting an abrupt end to his hoarse screams.

“Hoten! Kukul!” Zannian yelled. “Save the horse!”

Warily, the two riders jabbed their long spears into the ground around the bush. Beramun heard a high, keening shriek of pain. Blackish fluid oozed out of the dirt where Kukul’s spear penetrated. The tentacles loosened their grip on the horse, and Hoten snagged its bridle, leading the animal to safety. Grinning, Kukul gave the ground one last jab. Foul-smelling liquid spurted out, drenching his spear and arm. Kukul jerked his weapon free and rode back to the waiting band.

“It’s gonna be sore for a while,” he boasted. Extending the reeking spear, Kukul deliberately wiped the vile ooze across the backs of two prisoners. “Faw! The
takti
smells a lot better above the ground than below.”

Takti
was a south plains word meaning “fisherman.” Beramun understood the wry reference. The creature buried itself under loose soil and extended a lure that had the appearance of a fruit-bearing bush. When unsuspecting prey tried to eat the fruit, tentacles seized them and dragged them into the takti’s maw. The comparison to a fisherman’s baited hook was grimly appropriate.

The prisoners needed little goading to get them moving again. They stumbled deeper into the forest. Slowly their surroundings changed. The oak, yew, and alder of the upland woods gradually gave way to cypress, juniper, and elm. The dry brown soil became black and soft, and an air of decay permeated the forest. Wispy gray widows’ hair moss hung in long clumps from the branches of trees.

Midday came, and still the column lurched onward. The raiders’ horses began to pant from exhaustion and thirst. Still Zannian would not let anyone stop, lest they incur the wrath of Sthenn. Instead, he ordered his men to dismount and lead their horses.

Red-eyed vipers as thick as Beramun’s thigh occupied low branches above the trail. Spiderwebs two paces wide filled the gaps between some trees. Other dark things scurried away as they passed, a thousand rustlings and stirrings in the thick mat of rotting leaves covering the forest floor.

Beramun noticed they’d been going downhill for quite some time. Worn, white tree roots snaked across the trail like bleached bones. That and the smell of decay reinforced the impression they were passing through a burial ground. The widow’s hair was so thick on the trees that very little sunlight reached the ground.

She lost track of time in the perpetual gloom. The trail seemed endless, sometimes winding left, sometimes right, but always down and down. The ground grew damper until it squished between her toes with every step. The air was warmer, wetter, and heavier.

Something touched her arm. Beramun flinched, thoughts of vipers and carnivorous monsters flashing through her numbed brain. Looking up, she saw Zannian riding alongside her. He’d tapped her with the butt of his spear.

“Water?” he said, holding a hide-wrapped gourd. He shook it to show her it was full. The sound was nearly more than she could bear. Her parched mouth yearned for water, but Beramun saw her fellow prisoners eyeing the gourd as well, licking their cracked lips.

Swallowing hard, she shook her head. “Not unless there’s some for all.”

Zannian’s face hardened. “Be thirsty then!” He trotted back to the head of the line.

“Next time take what he offers,” said the man behind her. “He wants you. You can use that.”

“I want no favors from him,” Beramun replied in a low voice.

The man shrugged and muttered something that ended with “stupid girl.” Roki, at least, gave her a heartening smile.

The last leagues passed in blur. The trail changed from a path worn into the hard soil to a raised hillock of dry ground surrounded by a stinking morass of rotting vegetation. Night fell, and still they blundered on. Prisoners began to collapse from exhaustion and thirst, some dropping in mid-stride. The raiders were in no better straits. More than one toppled from his mount. Those who fell off the trail into the brush never emerged again. A brief grunt, a thrash of limbs, and it was over. No one had the strength to help them.

Some inner power kept Beramun going. Her arms and legs felt carved from wood. To keep herself moving she blotted out all thoughts – her murdered family, Zannian, his terrible dragon master. The world narrowed to the patch of ground in front of her. Nothing else existed but her next footfall.

Finally the awful trek ended. At the head of the struggling column, Zannian reined up. His men followed suit, some of them actually weeping with joy. The prisoners, insensible to commands or curses, kept tramping forward until the foremost fetched up against the halted horses, tripped, and fell. Those behind fell over them, and so on, until the whole wretched column lay gasping on the ground.

“This is Almurk,” Zannian rasped. He cleared his parched throat. “This will be your home until you die.”

In spite of the fatigue that dragged at her limbs, Beramun couldn’t resist lifting her head for a look. They were in a clearing about sixty paces wide. A broad dirt path divided the clearing in two. On each side were clusters of rude huts made from lashed saplings and sheathed in leaves, mud, and bark. Smoke hung in the still, dank air, blending the fetid odor of the swamp with the smell of burnt wood and unwashed humanity.

Though the clearing was free of trees, a heavy canopy of vines growing across the branches that ringed the settlement blotted out the sky. The canopy held in the smoke and smells and probably kept Almurk as dark as twilight all day long.

Hoten, Kukul, and the rest of the raiders dismounted and began shouting at the prisoners. When the wretched folk did not comply fast enough, they were whipped and kicked until they got moving. Many of the prisoners could do no better than crawl on hands and knees, heads hanging, sides heaving.

The continued mistreatment of her fellow captives made anger flare in Beramun’s heart. She staggered to her feet, staring coldly at the men trying to drive her into a penlike enclosure. They knew she had found favor in their chiefs eyes, so they hesitated to strike her. Captives clustered around her, using Beramun as a shield against their tormentors. The pitiful group clung to each other as the girl’s dark eyes remained fixed in silent fury on the raiders.

Kukul rode over, scowling at the clump of unmoving captives. “Why are you standing there?” he snarled. “Get moving!”

“Water,” Beramun croaked. “We need water and food.”

“You get what we give you when we give it to you!”

“No! Now!” Her shout was tinged with a courage brought on by exhaustion, fear, and outrage. “If you mean to kill us, then do it. We won’t be starved and parched to death!”

Infuriated by her defiance, Kukul snatched a long obsidian knife from his belt. Beramun’s flash of courage faltered at the sight of the naked black blade, but when she glanced backward for a way to flee, she saw instead her fellow captives. Their gray, suffering faces had been transformed by her desperate defiance.

Their need transformed her too, giving her new strength. Pulling Zannian’s blanket from her shoulders, Beramun twisted it quickly around her left arm. Kukul slashed at her, and she used the blanket to ward off the blow. She felt the stone blade snag on the coarse cloth. Backing up, she dropped awkwardly to a fighting crouch. The humid air was heavy and thick, and she had no strength left after the long forced march. Her best hope was that Kukul was spent, too.

Kukul uttered an obscenity and cut at her backhanded. Beramun fended this off with her padded wrist, then used her free hand to punch the raider’s face. Blood flowed from his nose. He howled and jabbed at her exposed belly. Beramun twisted away, lost her footing, and fell hard.

Grinning triumphantly, Kukul advanced until he was standing over her. He pinned her blanket-wrapped arm to the ground with one foot, then raised his knife.

Beramun, gasping for breath, squeezed her eyes shut.

Death did not arrive. Instead, she heard a gurgling noise and the astonished cries of her fellow captives. Opening her eyes, she saw a slender, flint-tipped spear protruding from Kukul’s throat. Dark red blood covered his chest. The obsidian knife fell from his fingers, his knees folded, and down he went, falling backward across Beramun’s ankles.

She kicked free of the dead man. Zannian appeared. He picked up Kukul’s knife. In his right hand he held a strange device: a carved stick as long as his forearm, fitted with a leather strap on one end and a small leather cup on the other. A short spear like the one that had killed Kukul fit loosely in the leather cup. She saw immediately how it worked – by whipping it overhand, the stick hurled the small spear with great force.

“Did he hurt you?” the chief asked.

Beramun didn’t answer. Her gaze locked on Kukul’s lifeless eyes.

Zannian said sharply, “Stand up.”

She snapped back to awareness and did as he ordered. He unwound the blanket from her arm. The center of the bedroll was slashed in several places.

“You’re bleeding.”

Beramun stared at her arm as though it belonged to someone else. There was indeed a long cut from her wrist to her elbow. Blood dripped slowly from the tip of her little finger, soaking quickly into the black earth.

“So I am,” she said.

The night, the camp, and Zannian’s face swirled before her eyes as the last of her strength deserted her.

*

Beramun awoke upside down, her head and arms dangling. A greenish yellow light offered just enough illumination for her to see. It took her a moment to realize she was being carried over someone’s shoulder. The legs and feet beneath her might have belonged to any of the raiders. She noticed a carved wooden rod hanging from her carrier’s waist and recognized the odd weapon. Zannian had killed Kukul with it.

The raider chief was carrying her down a dark tunnel. Stones had been set in the soft soil to make a firm, dry path. The light was coming from clumps of villainous-looking toadstools growing in cracks in the paving. The gills radiated the sickly glow, and the stems and caps were a dull, dark red, like raw meat.

The path slanted downward. Turning her head, she saw the tunnel stretched behind them. No entrance was visible – just an unmeasurable darkness. Dampness clung to her skin, but she resisted the urge to shiver. Her injured arm was wrapped in a hide bandage, but she wore the same short, ragged shift she’d gone to sleep in two days before.

Zannian stopped, and Beramun closed her eyes, maintaining her limp, unconscious pose. The raider chief bent his knees until her feet touched the ground, then he caught her under the arms and lowered her to the ground with care. Hearing his footsteps move away, she dared crack an eyelid to see what was happening.

They were in a large, circular room, ten paces across. The floor dropped away in stages, resulting in a series of stone steps leading down to an open hole. Even more toadstools grew here, resulting in a relatively brighter view. Zannian stood on the lowest step, facing the hole and stretching his arms wide.

“Great Master,” he intoned loudly, “I am here as you commanded.”

Beramun heard scratching noises near her face. Opening her eye a bit wider, she spotted three huge cockroaches, each as big as the palm of her hand. Their bellies and spiny feet made soft scraping sounds as they clambered over the loose debris on the floor. Disgusted, Beramun clenched her eyes shut. She had to set her teeth firmly to keep from crying out when the giant insects crawled over her chest to investigate the dried blood on her injured arm.

Bad as the cockroaches were, a new, louder noise chilled the blood in her veins. She opened one eye and looked toward the pit, from which the noise came. It was a hard tapping, like wood or bone against stone, followed by the distinct hiss of skin rubbing on skin. That and a rising acidic stench announced the coming of Sthenn.

“Master! I await your orders!” Zannian cried.

A large claw rose out of the black pit and gripped the edge of the lowest step. It was the dewclaw on the dragon’s wing joint, as big as Beramun’s slim hand, though yellowed and eroded like a tusk of weathered ivory. The reek of the dragon’s poisonous breath grew stronger. Emitting rapid clicks, the roaches fled to crevices in the wall. Beramun wished she could follow them.

Her breath caught as she watched the dragon slowly emerge from its lair. A second dewclaw appeared, followed closely by the forward-curving horns atop Sthenn’s head. His horns were stained and notched from untold years. The dragon’s broad brow rose above the edge of the pit. His head was heavy and square, the color of ancient jade. Along his muzzle and the underside of his throat, his scales were ragged, corroded-looking. The barbels on his chin were thick and the palest green of all, as if their color had leached away with the centuries.

“I am here as you bid, Master,” the young chief said.

“That is good,” rasped the dragon. “I don’t have to tear your head off.”

Zannian stepped back from the rim of the pit as more of the monster emerged. Sthenn’s body was slender and serpentine. Gray-green scum mottled the edges of his scales, and he exuded a powerful reek of age, mold, and uncleanness.

He perched on the stone ledge that lined the opening of his lair. In the confined space, his presence was overwhelming. Beramun felt cold moisture trickling down her face and neck, the sweat of pure fear.

“What’s this?” asked the dragon, swiveling his head toward her. As he did so, Beramun closed her eye.