Such a declaration should have sounded ludicrous — battle and fire raged on all sides — but coming from Pakito, it was simply a statement of fact.
Amero half-slid, half-fell to the ground beside the giant. Pakito hauled him to his feet and propelled him forward.
Two of the six houses that formed Nianki’s defense line were on fire. The villagers inside had to climb out the rear windows to drop down among their neighbors and Nianki’s followers. By the time Pakito and Amero rejoined them, there were almost a hundred people in the shrinking circle.
Stumbling forward, Amero felt strong arms stop him. He looked up into Nianki’s smoke-streaked face.
“Bad day,” he said, taking her gently by the hand.
“Going to get worse,” she replied. “There’s a lot of people to kill.”
Even as she said so, a lull struck. The renegades backed out of spear-thrust range. Nianki’s defenders accepted the respite, some of them falling to their knees out of sheer exhaustion.
Hatu and Nacris rode forward into view.
“Karada! Arkuden! Can you hear me?” Hatu yelled.
“I hear only the screech of a vulture!” Nianki yelled back.
“What do you want?” Amero shouted.
“Lay down your weapons, and we’ll spare you.”
Nianki laughed derisively.
Hatu pointed over his shoulder at the falls. “There are a lot of helpless people over there,” he said. “It would be a shame to slaughter them all just to persuade you not to be stubborn.”
“Would he do that?” asked Amero, horrified.
“What do you think?” Nianki replied.
Amero started toward the mounted pair. “Then we must give up.”
Nianki gripped his arm in her hard hand. “If we stop fighting he’ll kill us all. He’ll not spare your villagers.”
“I can’t let my people die to prolong my own life!” he said, pulling free. He started for Hatu once more. Pakito blocked his way until a shake of Nianki’s head convinced the big nomad to stand aside. She turned away, unable to watch.
Amero walked slowly up to Hatu. “You tried to kill me once before,” he said. “Ten, eleven seasons ago. You and your brothers caught me here in this valley. You thought I was the dragon in disguise.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting so long.”
“It’s no good,” Nacris said anxiously. “It’s no good unless Karada comes out, too!”
“She won’t,” Amero said.
“Stubborn wench. Well, at least you’ll be out of the way.”
Hatu laid the flat side of his spearhead on Amero’s shoulder. The point was just a finger’s breadth from his throat. Amero closed his eyes.
Cries of alarm rose from the renegades on the shore. Nacris turned her horse around and met a pair of riders galloping up the hill.
“What is it?” she said.
“Something coming up the lake, coming this way!” gasped one of the men.
“It’s big!” his companion added. “Very big!”
Big? Amero thought. Hah! At last!
He knocked Hatu’s spear point off his shoulder and dropped to the ground. Hatu cursed and raked down Amero’s back with his weapon. Amero felt the sting, but he kept scrambling. He scuttled under some other horses before rising to his feet and sprinting for Nianki.
The renegades milled about in confusion. Some charged Nianki and her warriors, while others formed a rough line on the shore and waited for whatever was coming down the lake. Hatu and Nacris rode to the water’s edge to see for themselves.
The normally chill water of the lake was boiling. Waves propelled by some submerged object were surging down the lake toward the falls. As the astonished nomads looked on, trout, bream, and pike churned the water ahead of the object, some so frantic they flung themselves out of the water to escape. But to escape what?
The fast-moving mound of water drew abreast of the nomads on shore and slowed. Some of the renegades backed their horses away until drawn back in line by sharp words from Nacris. Twenty paces from shore the water split apart as a long greenish-gold neck rose from the depths.
“Duranix! It’s Duranix!” Amero’s cry was taken up by all the villagers until it became a roaring chant.
Fully half the renegades quit the fight there and then. The ones facing Nianki’s line simply melted away. Laden with looted food and other goods, they mounted their horses and galloped for safety. Nianki and Amero led their singed, tired defenders away from the burning houses, drawing up in circle on open ground beyond the cairn.
Duranix opened his mouth wide and let loose a full-throated roar that loosened stones from the cliff tops. Taking in the scene with one sweep of his head, he swam past Hatu’s position and climbed ashore between the renegades and the unprotected mass of children and old people cowering beneath his cave. Water rolled off the burnished scales of his back in silver sheets. He still wore the leather brace on his injured wing.
“Amero, are you alive?” he roared over the heads of the closely packed renegades. Pakito and another man hoisted the headmen onto their shoulders. Amero waved his arms.
“I am!” he shouted, grinning madly.
“Good. Stay where you are.”
Duranix reared up on his hind legs and lumbered forward. Spears and javelins bounced off his scaly hide. Bronze-headed elven weapons pricked him, but he ignored them and darted his long neck into the mounted mass, knocking men and horses down with every sweep of his horned head.
The renegades disintegrated like snow on a hot rock. Duranix moved among them, hurling them this way and that with swipes of his claws. The ground was soon thick with the fallen, a few dead, most of the rest senseless. In the center of this tumult sat Hatu, calmly waiting. Beside him, a nervous Nacris fidgeted with her mount’s reins and obviously wished she were someplace else.
Duranix dropped down to all fours and extended his head toward Hatu. The nomad’s horse shied, but the one-eyed warrior controlled his animal skillfully.
“Why don’t you ride away?” Duranix asked.
“I don’t care to be struck down from behind,” said Hatu.
“That’s human thinking for you — as if it matters from what direction a blow falls!”
“An honorable man fights facing his enemy.”
The dragon grinned, and Hatu’s horse shied again as the nomad squeezed its sides convulsively with his legs. “Ah, you expect me to fight like a man?” Duranix hissed.
“I expect you’ll fight like the evil beast you are!”
In a motion faster than a snake striking, Duranix seized Nacris in his mouth. She screamed and struggled, but he raised her high in the air and with a single sideways shake of his head, tossed her into the center of the lake. She screamed all the way until she hit the water.
Hatu swallowed hard. “Nacris is a good swimmer,” he said, but his voice was unsteady.
“How unfortunate,” Duranix replied.
Few were the men who could look up into an angry dragon’s face and not give way to panic, yet Hatu stood his ground. For all his treachery, the one-eyed plainsman’s courage inspired in Amero grudging respect.
“Come on,” said Hatu, drawing an elven sword from his belt. “Let us fight.”
“Absurd,” Duranix replied. “If fighting a bull, should I lower my head and bang horns with him?” He advanced a step.
In his free hand Hatu held a ram’s horn. He raised it to his lips.
Amero had a sudden, shocking insight. Two nomads had entered the cave to kill him at the beginning of the fight. There could be others -
“Duranix!” he shouted. “Beware! There are men on the cliffs above you!”
Hatu blew a single bleating note on the horn. Duranix reached out a claw to snatch Hatu off his horse, but the plainsman evaded his grasp. Just then, a boulder the size of a full-grown ox slammed into the sand steps away from the dragon. Villagers and nomads alike shouted in surprise.
High up, Hatu’s men labored to lever another boulder off the cliff. Amero shaded his eyes, but the morning sun was behind the men, and he couldn’t make out how many there were. Another huge slab of sandstone smashed to the ground. It shattered into many pieces, pelting Duranix. He ducked his head under the barrage. While he was distracted, Hatu galloped away with the last of his followers.