“I’ll do it,” said Pa’alu quickly, closing his fingers around the stone.
“I must keep it out of Sthenn’s hands,” Duranix said. “Give it to me.”
Pa’alu walked slowly under the dragon’s arching neck. He held out the nugget to Duranix.
“Are you sure you want to handle it again? Who knows what ultimate effect it may have on you? Let me destroy it. I have no sensitivity to its power. To me, it’s just a lump of rock.”
Duranix had extended two claws to take the nugget off the plainsman’s palm. He suddenly thought better of it and withdrew.
“Very well, Pa’alu,” he agreed. “You have good instincts. They saved me some trouble with Vedvedsica not long ago. Take the stone. Put it some place neither elves nor dragons can easily find — a deep lake, a bottomless cave. Take it away, and tell no one where you leave it.”
Pa’alu tucked the nugget into the pouch on his belt. “Fear not,” he said confidently “You won’t see it again.”
The cave had grown steadily lighter. A gray dawn, filtered by clouds and the waterfall, had arrived. Weary from his labors, Amero went to the water basin and tried to awaken his numb face. Duranix, his serpentine grace restored, sprang to the upper cave exit and put his head out.
“I must stretch my wings,” he stated grandly. “I’ll look around for Sthenn while I’m at it.” A rumbling sound, like a distant avalanche, filled the cave. The dragon’s keen eyes fastened on movement farther down in the valley. The eyes narrowed, and he hissed a single word. “Prey!”
With a flip of his barbed tail, the dragon vaulted through the wall of water and disappeared. Pa’alu hauled the hoist into the cavern and threw a leg over the side of the basket.
“I’d best get rid of the stone now,” he said.
The sound of many loud voices penetrated the cave — a massed shouting. Pa’alu couldn’t see through the waterfall. Amero came to the opening. “That’s coming from the nomads’ camp,” he said with a pang of foreboding.
Another shout went up. It had a feral, bloodthirsty sound, like the cry of yevi. Amero climbed in the basket with Pa’alu.
“Something’s happening,” he said, rubbing his brow tiredly. “Something bad.”
“Hold on,” Pa’alu advised. He loosened the descending counterweight, and the basket lurched free. Bowed by fatigue, his eyes shadowed by dark circles, Amero gripped the sides of the basket.
Pa’alu put two fingers into his belt pouch and touched the yellow stone. So near his moment of triumph, it wouldn’t do to let the nugget fall out and be lost.
Karada slept soundly her first two nights in Yala-tene. She spread her elkhide blanket at the foot of the high cliffs and rested better than she had in many days. On the second morning, Pakito had to shake her hard to wake from her deep slumber.
“Chief,” he whispered, “Sessan waits.”
She sat up, yawning. “Let’im. If he gets thirsty, he’ll drink more wine. The more time he has to drink, the better.” In a show of bravado, Sessan and Nacris had spent the time since the challenge drinking and gaming with their cronies. Karada had kept clear of them, eating sparingly and re-knapping her flint knife.
The whole camp was awake when Karada strolled down to the lake to wash her face and neck. The nomads were astonishingly quiet, not at all the boisterous tribe Karada had created and led for ten years. She noted with satisfaction the sight of Sessan kneeling on the shore, pressing a cold, wet piece of buckskin to his aching head. Nacris hovered over him, massaging his shoulders. If her expression was any indication, her head hurt at least as much as his.
Karada spared them only a glance as she headed for the water. When the challenge had been made, she had given the stupid man a day’s grace to recover from the effects of his drinking. If he chose to spend that time getting himself even drunker, then so be it.
She washed her neck and face, savoring the feel of the chill lake water, then donned her chiefs headband. Sessan and Nacris, pointedly ignoring her, left the lakeshore to finish their own preparations for the coming contest.
Samtu brought her horse, and Karada slung a dusty blanket over the animal’s back. Vaulting easily astride, she took the reins from Samtu and kicked the horse into a trot. She rode down the hill to an open piece of ground along the water, which was closed in on three sides by nomad tents and a growing crowd of onlookers.
Sessan appeared at the other end of the strip. His horse, a fine roan stallion, pranced and snorted at being hemmed in. Nacris was dancing around beside him, trying to give her man last-minute fighting advice. Sessan kept nodding, but his eyes were closed.
“Karada.”
She looked down as Pakito handed her a flint-headed spear. “Here,” he said. “Tarkwa and I compared weapons, and this one matches Sessan’s length.”
“Thank you, Pakito.”
“Chief, I don’t like to tell you how to do things, but…” His voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“Beat him, but don’t beat him too hard. You’ll win more by being fair than by being harsh.”
“I didn’t start this,” Karada answered. “Sessan and those who follow him need to learn who the real leader is and always will he.”
She thumped her heels against the horse’s flanks and trotted away. The big man shook his head and returned to the sidelines with Targun and Samtu.
Tarkwa stood between the combatants with his hands upraised. The rolling murmur of the crowd faded. He declaimed, “We are here to see the contest of Karada and Sessan. You all know the reasons for this fight. Do you accept it and pledge to follow the victor?”
“Yes!” the assembled nomads cried.
A flurry of wind scoured the shoreline, driving dust in the eyes of the spectators. All eyes rose skyward in time to see the dark shape of the dragon climb into the low hanging roof of white clouds. Their first glimpse of Duranix in dragon form set the nomads to chattering again, until Tarkwa shouted for their attention.
He picked up a stone from the beach. “When this stone strikes the water, the fight begins!” he said. He went to the edge of the crowd, faced the lake, and lobbed the stone into the air.
Karada wasn’t watching it. She looped a thong around her wrist and used it to tie the spear shaft securely to her hand.
Splash! The sound of the rock entering the lake was immediately followed by a clatter of hooves. Sessan had launched into a headlong gallop. Still unmoving, Karada busied herself with her weapon, her seat, her reins.
The open strip was only twenty paces long by eight wide. Sessan bore down on the motionless Karada, his spear leveled. He uttered a sharp cry. Some of his friends in the crowd cheered, but most of the nomads held their breath.
Karada turned her horse slightly to her right and rested the spear shaft against her shoulder. Only then did she look up at the horse and rider thundering toward her.
“Now, Karada!” Sessan yelled. He aimed his spear at the center of her chest. When the flint head passed the ears of Karada’s horse, she bent herself backward at the waist, twisting slightly away. Sessan’s eyes widened in surprise. His spear passed harmlessly over her shoulder. When he was past, she sprang up and swung her weapon sideways in a wide arc. The hardwood shaft, as thick as Karada’s wrist, struck Sessan at the base of the neck. Part of the crowd howled with delight at her tactic.
Sessan reeled but kept his seat and his grip on his spear. Karada swung her horse around in a tight left turn and cantered after him. He parried her first thrust and tried to maneuver away to get some fighting room. She crowded him, and when he blocked the sharp flint head, she used the butt end of her spear as a club, landing a hard blow to his ribs.
The crowd melted away as the two riders pressed against them. Sessan, bleeding from the nose, saw an opening and drove through, galloping through the water toward the center of the strip. Karada checked the thong on her wrist and rode sedately after her foe.