All of a sudden Nianki shuddered so violently she tottered into Amero. He put an arm around her to brace her up. “Too much to drink?” he asked gently.
“Uh… that must be it.”
“Let me help you back to your tent.”
Amero helped her stand. When he let go, Nianki shivered so hard she almost fell down. Amero grabbed her arm to steady her.
“What’s wrong?” Duranix asked.
The dragon folded the bronze disk in half with his powerful fingers and tossed it toward Pa’alu. The plainsman dropped to his knees, fingers scrabbling through the sand to find the disk. With a shout he stood bolt upright, staring at his empty hands.
“Where is it?” he cried hopelessly. His eyes darted between Nianki and Amero with a terror that none of them understood.
Then, with an agonized cry, Pa’alu picked up his knife, reversed the blade and raised it high to plunge into his own chest. He never made it. His hand was caught in Duranix’s unbreakable grip.
“Let me go!” Pa’alu screamed. “My life is over!”
Without a word, Duranix wrung the elf blade from the plainsman a second time and tossed it in the lake. He released Pa’alu, who stumbled backward and fell to the sand.
At that moment a fork of rose-colored lightning, bright as the moon, lanced down from the clouds and struck the mountaintop above the waterfall. A shattering thunderclap sounded, silencing the drums and pipes of the feast.
“By all my ancestors!” Pa’alu said hoarsely. “Forgive me, Karada. I never meant — ” He scrambled to his feet and started to run toward the village. Once he spun around and cried, “Forgive me! I never meant it!” Then he ran on, crashing against the revelers in his path.
Amero exchanged a puzzled look with Duranix. “Strange,” said the dragon, watching Pa’alu as he disappeared into the crowd. None of what happened had registered with Nianki, who seemed dazed.
A sheet of warm rain fell suddenly, lashing the crowd of celebrants. With much yelling and coarse laughter, the feast broke up as people sprinted for house and tent. Amero hurried through the hubbub with Nianki on his arm. Torches died in the downpour, and the stony flat above the beach became dark and confusing, with much running, falling, cursing, laughing. Steam and smoke curled up from the ashes of the bonfire, and village women struggled to get the uneaten portions of the feast into the storage tunnel.
Amero reached Nianki’s tent with some difficulty. The cowhide shelter flapped and lashed in the wind, threatening to blow away. Amero left Nianki on her bed roll and grappled with the whipping flaps. He tied them off, one by one, until the open shelter became a dark, dry, enclosed room.
Rained drummed on the roof. Amero snugged down the center flap. In the dark he could hear Nianki moving.
“I’m almost done. Feeling any better?” he asked. There was no response but her even breathing. Was she asleep? “Hulami’s wine is good, but it creeps up on you like a viper.”
With the tent secured, he wiped the rain and sweat from his face. “Sleep well, Nianki.”
“Amero.”
He paused at the door flap. “Hmm?”
“I love you.”
Though he’d always known she cared about him in her own rough way, he’d never heard his sister speak such tender words before. She sounded tired, a little lost.
“I love you, too,” Amero said before he ducked out into the storm. “Sleep well.”
Soon after the storm broke, the shore was empty, the feast over. A single towering figure remained outdoors, close to the water’s edge. Rain pelted Duranix in his true reptilian shape, running in thick streams down his massive face and off the scales on his back. He didn’t bother to unfurl his wings and use them to protect his eyes. A dragon’s vision was more acute by night than by day. He could see just fine, rain or no rain.
High above Yala-tene, at the very edge of the cliff overlooking the nomad camp, stood a solitary onlooker. To Duranix, his warm blood painted him against the night in a rose silhouette. He and the dragon stared through the night and the storm at each other.
“Vedvedsica.” Duranix’s rumbling whisper was swallowed by the wind.
Looking down, the elf cleric smiled to himself. The nugget, wrapped in fine gold wire, hung from a slender chain around his neck. He turned away, laughing.
Chapter 17
After their night of indulgence, the villagers had to rise with the new day and go about their work. Cattle had to be fed and watered, the gardens weeded, and ripe vegetables harvested. Summer was over, and cool-weather crops like cabbage and onions had to be planted. In addition to all these chores, there were pots to throw, timber to harvest, and hides to tan. Red-eyed and yawning, the villagers rose from their beds and silently went to work.
Not so the nomads. It was their custom to sleep in the remains of their revelries until thirst and hunger forced them to face the day. When they feasted a good hunt or a victory in battle, they got up only when their heads stopped throbbing, then mounted their horses and moved on. In the days after the Moonmeet feast, Karada’s band continued to carouse after dark. The only one who might have stopped them, Karada herself, was strangely absent from the scene.
Amero, like the rest of the villagers, had been busy. Three days went by before he found time to visit his sister. By then, the nomad camp resembled the scene of some terrible disaster. The thunderstorm on the night of the feast had collapsed most of their carelessly pitched tents, and the plainsmen had been too inebriated to do much about it. The most hard-drinking nomads slept where they fell, spending their nights exposed to the elements.
The only good-humored nomad Amero met was the amiable giant Pakito. He spotted the big man sitting outside his lopsided shelter, pouring rainwater out of his boots and smiling. A less violent, but no less dampening, rainstorm had rolled over the valley the night before.
“You’re in good spirits, considering,” Amero said, hailing him.
“Considering what?” asked Pakito.
“Considering your boots won’t be dry for days.”
Pakito sighed happily. “What do wet feet matter on a glorious morning like this?”
Amero was about to inquire what made it so glorious, but he was interrupted by Samtu. The dark-haired plainswoman poked her head out of the tent, squinted her eyes against the feeble morning light, and croaked, “Oh, help! Is there water? By all my ancestors, I think I’m dying.”
Still grinning, Pakito handed her a waterskin, and she ducked back into his tent. Amero had to laugh. “Now I understand. You’ve taken a mate!”
“Been taken, more like. I’ve always been a stumbling ox when it came to women, but Samtu wouldn’t let me go.” He flung a boot high in the air and yelled for the simple joy of it. The boot came down on a nearby sleeping nomad, who bounced up, cursing. From inside the tent, Samtu groaned and told Pakito to shut up.
“Sounds like love to me,” Amero said, and with a wave, moved toward Nianki’s tent.
With much groaning, coughing, and cursing, the nomads roused themselves from their latest stupor. A general cry for water went up, and this time there wasn’t enough to go round. Several blinking, stumbling plainsfolk made their way down to the lake, where they fell on their bellies and lapped up the cold water.
Reaching his sister’s tent, Amero called out to her. Nomads lying nearby cursed at him. He ignored them, saying, “Nianki, are you here?”
“Yes,” was her low reply.
He lifted the flap and squatted down to look inside. Nianki was sitting up, her back to the opening. She wore only a thigh-length doeskin shirt. Her long hair was tangled and matted.
“Nianki?”
“Amero.” She did not turn to greet him.
“Are you well?”
She hung her head. “I had a strange dream,” she murmured. “I thought it was a dream, but I’m awake and it’s still going on.” She looked over her shoulder at him. Her tanned face seemed quite pale, and he could see dark circles under her eyes, even in the dimness of the shelter.