They spent that night at the hearth of the Dragon.
Maniye decided to stay awake from dusk till dawn. She was unsure how many warriors Venat led, but it was at least two score and they were never still. Bands of them were constantly strolling off indolently, joking and laughing. Others would be returning, laden with supplies, often stolen barrels and sacks. The Dragon plainly did not care where it found its meals.
When she first came to their fire she could sense many eyes on her. The sons of the Dragon were all big men, ugly and well armed – or else they were low-slung, pebble-skinned lizards with reeking jaws. When she stood before them at first, she was prey – she saw it in their eyes no matter what Venat might have told them. Only when she loomed over them as the Champion of the north did they give her any respect. Even then, she sensed that more than one of them wanted to challenge her, just because she was something new and fighting was how the Dragon tested the world.
Moon Eye was similarly wary of them, but he was of a size with most of them and they gave him space from the start. By the end of the night, he had thrown a couple of them, and one of them – by no means the biggest – had thrown him. Maniye waited for the angry spirit to light on him but either it was still licking its wounds or it was invisible against the wildness of the Dragon.
Most of all, she watched Tecuman. He sat very still, very straight-backed, and she could almost see the robe and mask there, so fiercely was he conjuring them in his mind. In the midst of these savage and unruly men, his one defence was to be Kasra, to sit there as if he were truly their lord and master.
After eating and drinking, Maniye allowed herself to relax just a little, though whether these raiders cared anything for guest-right was another matter. She sat by the fire and talked with Asmander and Venat: there were some days in the Crown of the World that belonged to the three of them and no others. Somehow it was all fond remembrance with Venat, no matter who else’s shame or pain he might be raking up. He kept talking about it long after she would have expected him to have run out of things to say – and hadn’t he been a thrall chafing at his collar all that time? She remembered him as a sour, surly monster of a man, constantly ready to plunge a knife into Asmander. Watching him now, she wondered if she somehow remembered it all wrong. The old pirate talked about those days as if he pined for them.
Later that night she settled down by Tecuman’s side as the Dragon went to their rest one by one, or else sloped off into the estuary to hunt. She lay awake, listening to them grumble and scuffle and snarl at each other, and at the edge of her hearing were Venat and Asmander, still distantly jibing at each other, trying to work out where they stood now the world had moved on.
They left the Dragon camp with the dawn, before most of the warriors there were even awake. Only Venat had watched them go, wordless, but with eyes fixed on Asmander.
‘So, did your . . . Venat, did he say how we can get to . . .’ Maniye ground her teeth, because she couldn’t remember how the name of the southern fortress went.
‘My Venat told me much about the path ahead, yes,’ the River Champion confirmed.
‘He wants to kill you,’ Maniye stated, with utter conviction.
‘He wants to fight me,’ Asmander corrected her without looking back. ‘But that is how the Dragon greets his friends and his family. Fighting is like breathing to him.’
‘He hates you because he was your thrall.’
‘Probably.’ Asmander sounded cheerful about it. ‘Or he could hate me for no reason. That also is the Dragon’s path. It is a wonder there are any left.’
‘No people could be as bad as you say.’
‘Oh, worse, much worse.’ Now he did look back, his smile brilliant. ‘You northerners think you’re so fierce! They say Dragon tore his way out of the egg before his mother laid it.’
‘Who was his mother?’ asked Maniye, baffled.
Asmander shrugged. ‘The sky, I think. There are no stars for the Dragon. Instead, they say all the darkness where the stars aren’t is the Dragon’s right.’
‘They say a lot of things. And I don’t trust you when you’re this happy about something.’
At that, he stopped and turned, weighing her up with his gaze. ‘Do you trust me?’
Maniye glanced sidelong at Moon Eye, her only ally within arm’s reach. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I wouldn’t blame you not to.’
‘I don’t care if you blame me or not.’ Maniye scowled at him. ‘But I trust you to do right by the Kasra. So as long as I’m helping him too, I don’t need to worry about you.’
Asmander’s face softened a little and he nodded. ‘Good.’
‘I want to trust you too, Asa.’ Tecuman stepped between Maniye and Moon Eye.
The River Champion looked at him blankly. ‘Of course.’
‘I remember you and my sister, and your friendship,’ Tecuman observed. ‘We three were always together, were we not?’
‘Teca . . .’
The boy-Kasra blinked rapidly. ‘Sometimes we ganged up on you, and sometimes you and I would tease her, or you and she would mock me. Which is it now, Teca?’
Asmander stared at him. ‘I’m here for you, Teca. I brought the northerners for you. How could you . . . ?’
‘Where are you leading us? We’re leaving Tsokawan behind.’
Asmander rubbed at his face. ‘Venat . . . he has seen your sister’s soldiers. They’re everywhere between us and Tsokawan, he said. They know your only chance is to get into the fortress where people are loyal to you. Although I’m sure Esumit and her people are working on their minds even now.’
‘Yes,’ Tecuman said flatly. ‘Yes, they will be swallowing my support, right now as we speak. My one chance to seize my destiny is to rule from Tsokawan, to rally the people of the estuary against Atahlan. To drive my sister so far back up the river that she must concede the throne to me.’ Abruptly his voice was on fire with his need for it. Here was a youth who had been taught nothing but that he would be Kasra. And of course Tecumet would have been taught the same.
Madness. She wanted to shout at them, to ask what sort of a way this was to run anything? And yet she had seen only a small piece of the Sun River Nation. It was large, and full of people. She had seen the farmland stretching off down both banks of the river, and clustered in great swathes about the estuary itself. She had seen the magnificent flotilla of boats Tecumet had brought to threaten her brother, more soldiers than the Winter Runners had people. A nation of strength that had lasted many generations. And yet now, when Hesprec said the world needed such strength most, it was crumbling.
‘So tell me why we are not travelling to Tsokawan,’ Tecuman said, after a moment’s fighting for calm. ‘If you say that you have given up on my throne and seek only to save my life, Asa, then know that to live is not enough. Old Crocodile has tested me. I am to be Kasra. Only I.’
‘Tsokawan is not your only chance, Teca,’ Asmander told him softly. ‘That is just what your sister thinks.’
‘Where else, then?’ Tecuman demanded. ‘You’ll go to that girl of yours from the Laughing Men, and have her rally the Plains tribes in my name? Or will we all spend a year in the north and come back with even more Iron Wolves? I don’t have that long, Asa!’
‘The north is far,’ Asmander admitted. ‘But the Bluegreen Reach is near.’
‘Your father . . .’
‘Is probably still in Tsokawan speaking on your behalf. But our home is close. We have soldiers, servants, strong walls. Nothing Venat said made me think your sister had her eyes on my home.’
‘She might. She knows it.’ Tecuman’s face twisted. ‘We played there many times . . .’
‘I have no better path.’ Asmander spread his hands wide. ‘Teca, we are running out of thread.’
‘If she’s there, we’ll see boats on the river,’ Maniye put in. ‘And Asmander can go first to speak with his people.’
‘Once we’re safe there, we can send messengers to Tsokawan – peasants, fishermen, people who won’t be marked. We can send word to Many Tracks’ warband, to the other Serpents, to anyone we trust,’ Asmander pressed. ‘Teca, please, if we head for Tsokawan we’ll have to shed blood for every step, and half of it ours.’
Tecuman grimaced, looking past his shoulder at something – Maniye guessed it was the path to Tsokawan, although how he could know where the place lay she had no idea. The idea of putting so much as a hand’s span of further distance between himself and the throne plainly ate at him, but at last he nodded.