“This is for my mother,” Duranix snarled, bearing down even harder. “For my clutchmates... for Blusidar... for all the innocent creatures you’ve tormented and murdered over the centuries.
“And this is for me!”
The great talons closed remorselessly. Filthy ichor gushed around them. The loudest crack of all reverberated off the cliffs, and Sthenn’s tail ceased thrashing.
Duranix slowly opened his claw and backed away a short distance. He came to rest on all fours. His wings were folded tightly against his back. He stayed that way, not moving, not blinking. He might have been cast in cold bronze for all the outward signs of life he displayed.
The last clouds flew away on the south wind, and the late afternoon sun filled the valley with bright warmth.
From different parts of the valley, small parties of people converged on the crouching dragon. Beramun and Karada arrived together, riding double. From the village came Amero, Lyopi, and the surviving elders of Yala-tene. On Amero’s heels came Balif, alone. From the raiders’ riverbank camp streamed prisoners, freed by the five men Hoten had sent away from the battle. At their head was Jenla, the old gardener. When she and Tepa caught sight of each other, they rushed forward, weeping, to engulf each other in a fierce embrace.
Karada and Beramun met Amero and his people well before they reached Duranix. The nomad chief dismounted and dropped to the ground. Without a word, she approached her weary brother and threw her arms around his neck.
Amero pulled back. To his surprise, he saw his sister’s cheeks were streaked with tears.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We’re alive. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” she retorted. “It’s the rain.”
Balif appeared beside Beramun.
“Greetings! You’re well, I see,” he said in his usual courtly manner.
“I feel like I’ve died many times today,” she replied.
He looked past her to the sibling chiefs. “An amazing day!” said the elf. “I’ve seen dragons before, but never two at the same time, much less joined in mortal combat! I thought Karada was dead when the dragons fell out of the sky. From where I stood, it looked as though they landed directly on her.”
“They did,” Beramun said, smiling wryly. “Don’t you know Karada can’t be killed?”
The four of them rejoined the elders and freed captives. Jenla was regaling her friends with tales of her captivity. After greeting Jenla, Amero moved on, anxious to see Duranix. Karada followed him, but when Beramun tried to go too, she sternly ordered her back. Lyopi remained behind as well.
Brother and sister closed on the motionless dragon.
An awful stench, like a corpse too long unburied, filled the air around the green dragon. Thick, black ichor dripped from Sthenn’s wounds, staining the ground. Amero wondered if anything would ever grow in soil polluted by the green dragon’s blood.
He gave the carcass wide berth, coming up on Duranix’s right rear flank. Karada, less intimidated, strolled within arm’s reach of Sthenn.
“Duranix,” Amero said quietly. “Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can.” Though he spoke, Duranix remained motionless, his uninjured right eye fixed on his ancient enemy.
“What are you doing? Are you hurt?”
“I’m keeping a vigil.”
At that moment Sthenn shuddered and expelled stinking yellow bile from his nostrils. Amero recoiled, prepared to flee, and Karada stepped quickly away.
“It’s still alive!” she declared.
“Ssstill,” Sthenn hissed.
“Why don’t you finish him off?” Karada asked sharply.
Duranix said, “He doesn’t deserve it. Centuries before you were born, he sat on top of my mother’s body and enjoyed her death. How many days did it take, Sthenn?”
Breath rattled through the dying beast’s rotten lungs.
“Ten? Eleven? How long was it before she finally died?” To the humans he said, “I’ll stay here until he’s dead.”
There was no reasoning with him, and Amero was too spent to try. Brother and sister turned to go. Before they did, Sthenn roused himself to speak.
“I have a gift for you,” he wheezed. He was so feeble the simple sentence took him a while to voice, but Amero stood by, waiting for him to finish.
“Don’t listen to him,” Duranix said. “He lies.”
“He’s right,” agreed Karada. “Leave him, Amero.”
Amero could not leave. There was a tingling pressure inside his head, like a headache yet unborn. He realized it was Sthenn, trying to touch his mind the way Duranix did.
“Say what you want to say,” Amero told him. Though disgusted, Karada remained with her brother.
“My yevi hunted you,” Sthenn said. “D’ranix saved you. Girl saved herself. I saved the other.”
“What ‘other?’” Amero whispered.
“Boy. Smallest one.”
Karada clamped her hand on Amero’s arm. She pulled him strongly. “Come away!” she said with unusual anxiety. “Don’t listen to that monster. You heard Duranix—it lies!”
Sthenn’s voice rasped on, feeble, weak, yet unstoppable. “I spared him. Never seen a human close up. I kept him. My pet.”
Amero resisted his sister’s urging. “Go on,” he said to Sthenn.
“Raised him... gave him a mother.” Wet, rattling sounds emanated from deep within the green dragon’s chest. Sthenn, dying by moments, was laughing. “Loving mother Nacris.”
Furious, Amero shouted, “What do you mean? What happened to Menni?”
“It’s Zannian. Zannian is our brother,” Karada said, and nodded when Amero’s face reflected his disbelief. “It’s true. Nacris hinted as much, but I didn’t believe her. I have her prisoner, back in camp.”
Sthenn’s leathery eyelids fluttered. “Black-hearted woman. Never thought she’d outlive me.”
“She won’t by much,” Karada vowed.
Amero yanked the sword from his scabbard. It was ruined as a weapon—deeply notched, cracked through to the fuller—but he ran forward and stabbed it deep into Sthenn’s neck.
“Why!?” Amero stormed. “Why do that to Menni, and why tell us about it now?”
Sthenn laughed until more feculent fluids rose in his throat and choked him. Amero drew back, afraid to let the poisonous slime touch him.
“To see the look on your face,” Sthenn said when he could speak again. “To smell your heated blood go cold. To... to bring you pain on the day of your triumph—”
The ravaged head lolled to one side.
“What about Beramun?” Amero said quickly. “Release whatever hold you have on her!”
Sthenn could not or would not say more. His left eye, half-shut, took on a dull and lifeless stare.
Karada took hold of Amero’s arm, and he let her lead him away. As they passed Duranix, Amero said, “I’ll come back in the morning. Shall I bring food?”
“Don’t bother. I’ll find you when this is done.”
Brother and sister walked away. Karada pondered Amero’s last words to Sthenn, wondering what hold the green dragon had on Beramun and what hold Beramun had on her brother. The two reached their waiting friends before she could ask him anything, and she remained silent.
Amero led them all back to Yala-tene. On the way they were joined by Karada’s comrades, Pakito, Samtu, and Bahco. Beneath the crumbling north baffle, Amero halted next to the unconscious young man lying on the ground, his head swathed in bandages. His fearsome skull-mask and weapons stripped away, Zannian now looked no different than scores of others in the valley, wounded or dying.
Should the blame be put on Zannian or on Nacris? Amero wondered. Or was Sthenn the instigator of all this misery?