“Go ahead, Targun,” she said. “Watch after Samtu, will you? She looked like she might lose her breakfast at any moment.”
“Aye, Karada.” The elder plainsman gave Amero a silent, smiling nod and rode away.
Finally, it was just the two of them: Nianki on horseback, her white wolfs fur robe rippling in the breeze, and Amero, his leggings and sleeves stained with the soot of his hearth.
“Will you ever return?” he asked quietly.
“The world is a big place,” she told him. “When I’ve ridden all the way round it, I may get back here.”
“Might take a long time.”
“I think it will.” Nianki leaned down with her hand out, as she had done to Duranix. “You’re a good brother, Amero. Oto and Kinar would be pleased.”
He took her cold, callused hand. The mention of their parents brought a lump to his throat. He swallowed hard, and said hoarsely, “There is always a place at my fire for you, Nianki.”
She abruptly pulled free and slapped her horse’s neck with the reins. She cantered across the bridge, which swayed from side to side as they went. Nianki soon caught up to Targun and took her place beside him. Amero leaned against the last tall piling of the bridge and watched the nomads until they disappeared around the bend of the river.
Though he watched until she was lost from sight, Nianki never looked back.
Duranix, still in human form, found Amero hunched over the hearth that evening. He seemed to be shaking gently, rocking back and forth.
The disguised dragon put an awkward hand on Amero’s shoulder. “It will be all right.”
His friend raised his head. He hadn’t been shaking with grief as Duranix had thought, he’d been busy blowing on a bed of glowing coals.
Accustomed as he was to Amero’s strange ways, Duranix still had to ask, “Why are you doing that?”
“It makes them hotter,” he announced triumphantly. “I think I’ve found a way to melt bronze at last!”
Amero, Duranix decided, would be fine.
The nomads camped ten leagues from Yala-tene that night, not quite on the open plain but sheltered from the icy night wind by a pair of low hills. Tents were pitched, and the old rhythm of the wandering life slowly resumed. They could feel it inside, like the pulse of a second heart.
The stars were out, so numerous and so bright Nianki could see all the way back to the snow-clad mountains, or ahead to the flat, endless savanna. The Winged Serpent, the sign of Pala, was in his place in the heavens, as was Matat, the stormbird.
Dragon, Nianki corrected herself. Matat was a dragon. Like Duranix.
Alone by a campfire, she opened the leather-wrapped gift Duranix had given her. When she saw what was in it, she smiled briefly and tossed the whole bundle onto the burning wood.
Flames slowly ate into the square of oiled leather, curling around the traitor Hatu’s black eyepatch. Duranix’s parting gift to her was a little peace of mind about the safety of her brother and his people.
In a flicker of silent orange flame, the gift turned to ash.