“They say a dragon lives there, too.”
“That’s true.”
“His name is…?”
“Duranix,” replied Pa’alu.
Greengall clapped his hands together. “Duranix, that’s it.” His expression abruptly went from extravagantly merry to deadly serious. “Have you seen him?”
“I’ve seen him.”
“It must have been very frightening for you.”
“No, most of the time I spent with him, he was in human form.”
Greengall’s head tilted to one side. He sighed loudly. “He’s so good at that. Me, I look like an overgrown grasshopper.”
The comparison was apt, and it prompted Pa’alu to ask, “Are you a dragon, too?”
Greengall snapped to his feet, causing Pa’alu to back quickly, hand flexing around the shaft of his javelin.
“What did you say?” Greengall snarled. Unfolded, his legs were enormously long and tightly muscled. His green leather breeches fit him like a second skin. At full height he towered over Pa’alu, who was tall for a plainsman.
“What did you say?” Greengall repeated.
Pa’alu did not reply but hurled his javelin at Greengall’s narrow chest. It was a good cast, well aimed and propelled by all of the nomad’s considerable strength. Even so, Greengall’s long-fingered hand lashed out and grabbed the elegant elven spear in mid-flight. The green-clad stranger laughed, deep in the back of his throat.
“A poor decision,” he said lightly. Saliva dripped from the comer of his too-wide mouth. “Here I am, trying to be polite, and you throw a sharp stick at me! Poor, poor choice. After I’m done with you, you won’t be throwing anything, little friend.”
He advanced, covering the ground between them in two vast strides. Pa’alu snatched a bronze dagger from his belt and prepared to sell his life dearly. Before he could strike, however, Greengall caught him by the wrists. He stretched his hands apart, pulling Pa’alu’s arms out straight. With no effort, Greengall hauled the stout warrior’s arms over his head and lifted until he stood on tip-toe. Pa’alu’s knife hand went numb, and the dagger fell to the ground.
“Humans are so loosely made,” Greengall said matter-of-factly, pushing his caricature of a face close to Pa’alu’s. “I wonder how long you can live without your arms?”
His lips parted enough to reveal his teeth. They were awful, serrated, and like nothing in any human mouth. Greengall lifted one long, narrow foot and rested it on Pa’alu’s feet, pinning him in place. Then he pulled on Pa’alu’s arms. With agonizing slowness, the creature increased the tension. The plainsman resisted as long as he could, then groaned in pain. His shoulders began to ache, then burned as though they were on fire. The remorseless Greengall pulled harder. Something in his shoulders gave. Pa’alu’s eyes filmed over with red agony.
The haze of pain was penetrated by an intense blue flash. The tension on his arms slackened, then ceased. The weight of the stranger’s foot on his feet disappeared. Pa’alu dropped heavily to the ground. His eyes were still clenched shut in pain, but he heard a loud, tortured hiss. Then an acrid odor filled the air, searing his throat. His arms flopping uselessly, Pa’alu rolled away, gasping for air.
When he opened his eyes, Pa’alu saw Greengall was backed up against the canyon wall. The chest of his taut leather shirt was scorched, and a sickly yellow fluid dripped from a wound there. Pa’alu followed the monster’s line of sight. He gasped when he realized who his rescuer was.
It was Vedvedsica, the elf priest. His severed hand had somehow grown back, for he was pointing two hands at the bizarre green-clad monster who cringed against the shadowed rock wall.
Greengall’s inhumanly wide mouth howled obscenities at the elf, who stood on a boulder ten paces away. A cloud of greenish gas blasted from Greengall’s mouth and swirled around Vedvedsica like a gale of vile smoke. The tiniest wisps of the gas strayed over to Pa’alu, causing him to cough and gag, yet Vedvedsica stood unmoved by the full blast of it.
“You should not have come out,” Vedvedsica told Greengall loudly. “Your powers are weakened when you leave your swamp. If Duranix or his kin catches you here, your life will be forfeit.”
“So why do you do their dirty work, elf?” Greengall snarled. “Have you come to worship little Duranix as the stupid humans do?”
“Duranix and I have business to settle that doesn’t concern you,” replied the priest. He pressed his hands together and blue light began to emanate from them.
Realizing another attack was imminent, Greengall screamed horribly and launched himself upward. He vanished in a blur of motion, leaving behind a whirlwind that sucked all the greenish vapors out of the bowl-shaped canyon and into the sky.
Pa’alu got up slowly, still unable to use his arms, which hung limply at his sides. To Vedvedsica he croaked, “I thank you, but why did you rescue me?”
“Troublesome as Duranix is,” said the priest, casting a distasteful glance skyward, “things would be infinitely worse if that creature usurped his place.”
“But I — ” He swallowed with shame to say it. “I cut off your hand!”
Vedvedsica shrugged. “An annoyance and a setback, but I have no time to waste on matters of petty revenge. How badly are you hurt?”
Pa’alu tried to move his arms. His hands tingled, his shoulders burned, and he couldn’t make the limbs work. Vedvedsica stepped down from his boulder. His hand dipped into a hidden pocket in his robe and came out with a large green leaf, rolled into a tube. He took Pa’alu’s hand. The plainsman turned white with agony at the forced movement, but he couldn’t pull away. Vedvedsica shook out of the leafy tube a small round berry, the size and color of a black cherry.
“Swallow it,” ordered Vedvedsica. With much effort, the plainsman got the berry to his lips. Within seconds a warm sensation spread through his injured limbs. The terrible pain ebbed, then vanished altogether. He fell to his knees before the priest.
“I am yours to command,” he said humbly. “That monster would have killed me for sure if you hadn’t come. How can I repay this debt to you?”
The elf tucked his hands into his sleeves and assumed a thoughtful expression. “If you truly mean to repay me, there is something you can do for me,” he said.
“You have only to name it, great one.”
Vedvedsica lowered his eyes. “What if I asked you to kill someone?”
The answer hung in Pa’alu’s throat for a moment. “Then they would die,” he said haltingly.
“Don’t be such a fool,” the elf said. “Don’t give away your conscience so readily. The world is full of beings who are stronger, smarter, or more ruthless than you — your will is the only thing these powerful ones cannot take away from you, as long as you don’t let them!” Pa’alu looked confused, so Vedvedsica continued, “What I want is simple, plainsman. No one need die for my wishes, least of all you. I want the yellow stone Duranix took from me. You know the one, don’t you?”
“Y-yes,” Pa’alu said tentatively.
“Get the stone from him and bring it here, to this place.” Vedvedsica pressed his thumb into the ledge on which Greengall had been sitting. His finger made a deep hole, as if the hard stone was merely wet clay.
“Leave the yellow nugget in this hole. I will find it.”
He turned to go. Pa’alu, feeling fully recovered from his one-sided fight with Greengall, followed after the priest, saying forlornly, “How can I get out of here? The passages in and out are gone!”
“That was simply one of the monster’s illusions,” Vedvedsica said, waving a dismissive hand. “Look again.”
Sure enough. The three paths were right where Pa’alu had expected them to be. He blinked a few times, but the clefts in the canyon wall remained.
Vedvedsica was already picking his way over the sloping ground to the east. Pa’alu called after him. “What is this yellow stone? Why is it so important?”
The strange elf paused, stroking the sparse hair on his pointed chin. “It’s part of a larger answer,” he said. The plainsman obviously didn’t understand, so Vedvedsica offered this explanation. “When hunting, if you find large footprints, you know you’re on the trail of big game, don’t you?”