as if it was mud! It pulled my friend Yuzeth, Yatol embrace him, right from out beside me, crushed him in its great jaws and swallowed him! I saw, God-Voice, I saw!"
He was bobbing up and down and sobbing uncontrollably as he recounted the story, and so Yakim Douan motioned for a pair of guards to come and gather him up and drag him out of there.
"Where is Yatol Tohen Bardoh?" the Chezru Chieftain asked his attendant.
"He marches north along the plateau ridge, and should make Dharyan in a few days, God-Voice."
"Will you send him, too, into To-gai?" came a question from Yatol De Hamman, and only when Yakim Douan fixed him with a threatening stare did he seem to realize that he was way over the line of good judgment. The fact that Shauntil and fifteen thousand Jacintha warriors were running about the seemingly empty steppes of To-gai, while this Dragon and her army were cutting a swath of destruction across Behren did not sit well with Yakim Douan - and Yatols offering sarcasm on the matter might well find themselves hanging by their necks outside the Chezru temple.
Yakim Douan's stare reminded the upstart and angry De Hamman of just that.
"Send word to Governor Pestle to turn Yatol Bardoh and his forces straight east for Jacintha," the Chezru Chieftain commanded. That brought murmurs of discontent among the gathered Yatols, most of whom com- manded cities in the western provinces of the country, and who would depend upon that great combined force now led by the fearsome for protection from the Dragon of To-gai.
"They wish to lead us on a fruitless chase about the desert, but Yato] vili show me the way to them, and this unpleasant business can be finish once and for all," Yakim Douan said to quiet them. He glared at Yatol D Hamman before the man could utter a word.
"You were going to note that Yatol led me errantly in sending Shauntil into To-gai? ? he asked.
The man blanched. ?No, God-Voice. Never would I - "
"Spare me your lies, Yatol," Douan replied. ?I understand your fears ?
"If you were in our tentative position, you would feel the same," Yatol De Hamman said defensively. ?The pirates that Yatol Peridan has coddled have been bought by the Dragon of To-gai's ill-gotten gains, and now attack my coastline mercilessly."
"No," the Chezru Chieftain insisted. ?If I were in your position, I would trust in Yatol, and hold all confidence that this Dragon of To-gai would soon enough run out of tricks and out of luck. I will find her, and I will de-stroy her and all of her followers. And if there is truly a dragon, a great beast of mythology, flying beside her, then I will destroy it as well, and what a fine trophy its horned head will make upon my wall!"
That brought some murmurs of excitement, even a bit of laughter, from the gathered Yatols. But Douan ended it abruptly by fixing Yatol De Ham-man with an imposing stare. ?And when I am done with her and her follow-ers, I will indeed send Yatol Tohen Bardoh into To-gai, to join with Chezhou-Lei Shauntil to punish the upstart To-gai-ru for the trouble they have caused to me."
The next day, a report came in from southern Behren that a band of out-laws had attacked a small settlement before being hunted down by the local YatoPs forces. One of the captured raiders had invoked the name of the Dragon of To-gai, and had carried a pouch bulging with coins bearing the Pruda stamp.
A few days later, an emissary from Avrou Eesa, Yatol Bardoh's own city, arrived with news that demands of ransom had been sent to prominent merchant families, payment for the return of a band of merchants captured at Garou when they had been denied entrance to the fortress.
"Find Doyugga Doy and learn if this is true, that a band of merchants visiting Garou Oasis had been denied entrance to the fortress at the time of attack," Douan instructed Took.
"I will return with the response, God-Voice," Took said obediently, offering yet another series of his ridiculous bows. Watching him, Yakim Douan could only think of a drunken stork, and how he missed Merwan Ma at that time!
"That is not necessary," he said to the attendant. ?Ask the question and hear Doyugga Doy's answer."
"And if it is true?" him hung in the square, publicly, and speak his crime as cow-dice," Yakim Douan declared. ?This is not the time for cowards,