Chapter Forty-six

WHEN THEY HAD honored their dead, Tayy ordered the camp moved, and further declared that the Qubal would bend their course in future so that they might never camp by the little dell on the river again. So it was with some sorrow that he made his last visit before he took horse. Eluneke, who would become his wife at their next camp, accompanied him, her face as wistful as his own.

“Prince Daritai is waiting to say good-bye,” she reminded him.

“He can wait a little longer.” The Tinglut prince, accompanied by his own survivors of the recent shaman’s war and a handful of Qubal thousands, carried with him a betrothal contract between his own son Tumbinai and the Princess Orda. Tayy would have preferred to wait until after the election for gur-khan, but Daritai needed the leverage of the proposed marriage to free the groom, held hostage by his grandfather. The princess was determined that no harm come to her beloved Tumbi.

But first, Tayy had his own good-bye to make. “This is where we first spoke to each other,” he said, and took Eluneke’s hand in his. He’d lost his best friend to this river in his first battle and found a new one in the god-king Llesho. Here he’d lost his father and started on the adventures that led him through slavery and near-murder to the Cloud Country. He’d come to know his wife here.

In this little dell, the tent city and all its tribulations seemed far away and he could forget, for a moment, the many dead they’d lost here. He could remember, for a moment, the happy times. But too much sorrow brought bad luck to a place. He was glad to be leaving it behind.

“Ribbit!” King Toad showed himself with his crown of leaves. “So you’re going at last.”

“Yes, we’re going.” Eluneke took up the conversation with her totem.

King Toad bobbed his head, not to show submission, since he would never admit the superiority of a human khan, but to acknowledge the wisdom of this decision. “I can’t say we’ll miss you—humans make it hard for the toads,” he said in the language of the toads. “But you’ve given us plenty of stories to tell. For that we’ll be grateful.”

“I’m glad.” Eluneke bowed to show her respect, but he was gone before she straightened again.

“I guess it’s really time,” she said.

He nodded and took her hand, and together they climbed out of the dell for the last time, back to the ulus where they served as khan and, soon, khaness. Before they left the shelter of the trees, however, Tayy leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back, and the pine needles were soft and smelled like summer.

The egg had grown thin and stretched as the offspring grew within it. Arms, pink and green, moved. Legs kicked. An egg tooth sharp as a knife cut into the leathery case. Pink fingers with pale green scales along their backs clutched at the shell and pulled as the egg tooth did its work and then dropped off in the splinters of the casing. The ground was soft and warm. The grass tickled his nose. The child looked up into a blue-and-golden sky and gurgled happily. Then he rolled over, dug his toes into the dirt, and crawled away.