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.”