The same thought had entered his mind as he watched her lie motionless by the pool, teetering between life and death, but he had dismissed the idea as absurd. She wouldn’t be much of a companion—too wild and ignorant.
And there was Amero. How could he explain to her of his friendship with a mere human—creatures Blusidar had never seen—a friendship more important to him right now than mating or offspring? It was irrational to care more for a soft-skinned, inquisitive, two-legged pet than the furtherance of his blood. Yet, he had to admit, he did.
“My life is in the Valley of the Falls,” Duranix said. “I must protect my domain from Sthenn and his like for the rest of my life.” He regarded her closely. “You could come with me.”
“I cannot fly far,” she replied. Duranix realized it was true. Blusidar had neither the size, strength, nor stamina to fly all the way back to the Valley of the Falls. After another century’s maturity perhaps, but not now.
A shadow fell over the ring of mountains. Clouds, larger than the island itself and pushed by the sea wind, blotted out the setting sun.
The clouds gave Duranix an idea. He opened his wings. “Come aloft, and I will show you something wondrous.”
She was weak but able. When they reached a certain height, Duranix turned his face into the wind. The powerful current of air filled his wings, and he shot up into the clouds. Blusidar followed warily. She seldom flew so high and did not enter clouds if she could help it. Some deep, unexpressed fear made her dread the billowing white walls.
Duranix lowered one wing and banked tightly, then flapped steadily to increase his speed. Blusidar came alongside him, wingtip to wingtip. Before long sparks of blue fire began to play over Duranix’s wings. Blusidar shied away, flitting off into the mist. Duranix followed, lightning crackling as he flew.
He mischievously maneuvered on her blind side. The sky was exceptionally charged, and a corona of incandescent blue formed around his bronze body. When their wings brushed, the lightning passed from Duranix to Blusidar with a loud crack! Thunder rolled. She promptly folded her wings and dived.
Duranix dropped after her. She was spiraling slowly, wings limp. Chagrined, he realized the bolt had knocked her senseless.
He dropped beneath her and spread his wings to their fullest extent. She landed heavily on his broad back, and his muscles coiled with the strain. He held them both aloft until she recovered.
“Bad trick!” she snarled immediately. Rolling off him, she flapped hard to support herself.
“Try again,” he urged. “If you can take the fire in, it will be yours!”
Blusidar followed at a reluctant distance as he climbed again into the cloud. Lightning was already snapping from sky to sea. Two bolts hit Duranix in quick succession. The power surged through him, and he made a loop in midair out of sheer delight.
Blusidar appeared close by, gliding on his left wing. She too was limned in blue radiance, and sparks formed on the tips of her horns, claws, and wings, flashing off into the storm-laden atmosphere.
Unconsciously, they matched rhythms, wings rising and falling in perfect unison. Lightning leaped from one dragon to the other and back again. Duranix roared his full-throated cry, and to his surprise, Blusidar answered. Her voice was high and shrill with youth, but he was glad to hear it. She had found fire at last.
Catching her attention, he opened his mouth and loosed a bolt at the sea. She tried to do the same, but no lightning emerged. He showed her how to arch her neck, inhale, and let the lightning form deep in her throat.
On her third try, a spear of white, forked fire burst from Blusidar’s mouth. Ecstatic despite her exhaustion and wounds, she rolled and banked and looped all over the sky. Her maneuvers left Duranix speechless. She truly was a peerless flier.
The sundered cloud surrendered its rain. Pelted by the downpour, both dragons slowly lost their surcharge of fire. Duranix circled the center of the island, taking his bearings from early stars glimpsed through the upper clouds. Finding west at last, he hovered in place a moment, bowing his long neck. Blusidar circled him.
Saying farewell is a human custom that dragons do not share. Duranix merely changed the angle of his wings and flew on. Blusidar dropped away. The last he saw of her were the tips of her slender wings as she vanished in the clouds below.
7
After so many days of sullen siege, the day of Moon-meet arrived with flourish and fanfare: blaring horns, shouts, and pounding hooves. Zannian formed his men into three large units separated by wide lanes. For some time after dawn, slaves ran back and forth in these lanes, carrying hanks of vine rope and tree trunks trimmed of branches. To the defenders of Yala-tene, it looked ominous.
The villagers spoke in low voices, speculating on what the raiders would do next. Only one woman was silent. Lyopi was hard-faced and pale in the morning light. She had not slept at night since the Jade Men entered Yala-tene. Catnaps in daylight were all the rest she could manage.
Young Hekani, now leading the defenders, said to those around him, “Looks like they mean to try to scale the walls again.”
“Stupid!” declared Montu the cooper. “It didn’t work before!”
“Maybe they have some new plan,” Hekani said. Lyopi remained silent, flexing her sore, callused hands around the shaft of her spear.
A boy came running up the ramp from the street below. He whispered into Hekani’s ear, and Hekani nodded to Lyopi. She shouldered her spear, took up her shield, and followed the child down to the village.
The raiders’ noisy preparations came to an end at last. A hush fell over the valley. From the wall, the villagers could easily see Zannian front and center in the middle block of horsemen. He raised his long spear high in one hand for all his hand to see. Dust rose behind him, and the open lanes between the squares of mounted raiders began to fill with men running toward Yala-tene.
Villagers shifted their weapons to throw. Hekani reminded them not to cast too early, to wait until the targets were close enough to hit.
Behind the first wave of raiders on foot came a slower-moving mob of ragged prisoners. Each bore a fascine, a large bundle of brush and twigs, on his or her back. Driving these fascine bearers were several raiders on foot. Whipcracks could be heard.
The villagers held off throwing their weapons at the fascine bearers, realizing that some of their own captured neighbors were likely among the pitiful prisoners.
The running raiders drew closer, as did the stumbling crowd of captives. Hekani was grim as he said, “Make ready!”
Lyopi ran up the ramp, resuming her place on the wall as the raiders reached the line of ditches and pits dug by the villagers. Not many fell in, but the ditches were only meant to slow an attack, not stop it. While the obstacles hampered the attackers, the defenders pelted the raiders with stones and javelins—simple wooden stakes with sharpened tips, rather than the hard-to-replace flint-heads. Raiders fell, skulls cracked by heavy stones or stabbed by javelins.
For a moment the attack hovered at the line of pits, then the captives arrived with their fascines, and the charge flowed on. As they neared the foot of the wall, the bombardment intensified. This was the moment the raiders’ previous attacks had always broken. Unable to climb the wall or batter it down, they would endure torment from above only for as long they could, before fleeing.
They did not flee this time. Goaded by whips and clubs, slaves hurled bundle after bundle of brushwood into the comers on each side of the west baffle. The villagers responded with a furious barrage, trying to avoid hitting the slaves with their missiles but forced to fight anyone they could reach.
Lyopi took aim at a wildly painted raider who was prodding forward a gray-haired woman, stooped by the weight of a large fascine. The old woman heaved off her burden, and it rolled down the slope, coming to rest against the foot of the wall. Lyopi was about to knock the raider behind her down with a well-placed javelin when the old woman lifted her eyes skyward.