The Dragon's Path

morning he thought,
This will probably be the last day of my life. Only probably.
    The
probably
was always enough. And then, late one morning, he pulled himself to the top of a boulder-strewn hill, and there wasn’t another to follow it. The wide western plains spread out before him, a river shining in its cloak of green grass and trees. The view was deceptive. He guessed it would still be two days on foot before he reached it. Still, he sat on a wide, rough stone, looked out over the world, and let himself weep until almost midday.
    As he came nearer to the river, he felt a new anxiety start to gnaw at his belly. On the day, weeks ago, when he had slipped over the temple’s wall and fled, the idea of disappearing into a city had been a distant concern. Now he saw the smoke of a hundred cookfires rising from the trees. The marks of wild animals were scarce. Twice, he saw men riding huge horses in the distance. The dusty rags of his robe, the ruins of his sandals, and the reek of his own unwashed skin reminded him that this was as difficult and as dangerous as anything he’d done to now. How would the men and women of the Keshet greet a wild man from the mountains? Would they cut him down out of hand?
    He circled the city by the river, astounded at the sheer size of the place. He had never seen anything so large. The longwooden buildings with their thatched roofs could have held a thousand people. The roads were paved in stone. He kept to the underbrush like a thief, watching.
    It was the sight of a Yemmu woman that gave him courage. That and his hunger. At the fringe of the city, where the last of the houses sat between road and river, she labored in her garden. She was half again as tall as he was, and broad as a bull across the shoulders. Her tusks rose from her jaw until she seemed in danger of piercing her own cheeks if she laughed. Her breasts hung high above a peasant girdle not so different from the ones his own mother and sister had worn, only with three times the cloth and leather.
    She was the first person he had ever seen who wasn’t a Firstblood. The first real evidence that the thirteen races of humanity truly existed. Hiding behind the bushes, peeking at her as she leaned in the soft earth and plucked weeds between gigantic fingers, he felt something like wonder.
    He stepped forward before he could talk himself back into cowardice. Her wide head rose sharply, her nostrils flaring. He raised a hand, almost in apology.
    “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m… I’m in trouble. And I was hoping you might help me.”
    The woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. She lowered her stance like a hunting cat preparing for battle. It occurred to him that it might have been wiser to discover if she spoke his language before he’d approached her.
    “I’ve come from the mountains,” he said, hearing the desperation in his own voice. And hearing something else besides. The inaudible thrumming of his blood. The gift of the spider goddess commanding the woman to believe him.
    “We don’t trade with Firstbloods,” the Yemmu woman growled. “Not from those twice-shat mountains anyway. Get away from here, and take your men with you.”
    “I don’t have any men,” he said. The things in his blood roused themselves, excited to be used. The woman shifted her head as his stolen magic convinced her. “I’m alone. And unarmed. I’ve been walking for… weeks. I can work if you’d like. For a little food and a warm place to sleep. Just for the night.”
    “Alone and unarmed. Through the mountains?”
    “Yes.”
    She snorted, and he had the sense he was being evaluated. Judged.
    “You’re an idiot,” she said.
    “Yes,” he said. “I am. Friendly, though. Harmless.”
    It was a very long moment before she laughed.
    She set him to hauling river water to her cistern while she finished her gardening. The bucket was fashioned for Yemmu hands, and he could only fill it half full before it became too heavy to lift. But he struggled manfully from the little house to the rough wooden platform and then back again. He was careful not to scrape himself, or at least not so badly as to draw blood. His welcome was uncertain enough without the spiders to explain.
    At sunset, she made a place for him at her table. The fire in the pit seemed extravagant, and he had to remind himself that the things that had been his brothers weren’t here, scanning for signs of him. She scooped a bowl of stew from the pot above the fire. It had