Pell appeared, eyes wide at her impetuous arrival.
“A girl on a green dragon brought Father and Mother. I didn’t think girls were allowed to ride fighting dragons.”
“Help me get these inside the cave before they stampede again,” Aramina said, though she had been equally surprised by Mirrim and Path.
“Oh, look, they’re going!” Pell’s disappointment was patent, as he saw the dragons hover briefly in the sky. “I’m forever missing the good parts,” he complained.
“Get Shove inside!” Aramina had no time to humor her brother, and she gave him such a hard prod that he sharply reminded her that he wasn’t any old dray beast.
He hauled on the nose rein and, lowing, Shove followed his painful muzzle—then bellowed as his hindquarters scraped along the right wall of the narrow entry. Aramina pushed at his dappled flanks and set him right. She was careful to line Nudge squarely in the opening, and to prevent any further recalcitrance she twisted his nose ring. With an injured bellow, he, too, made the passage into the cave, running into Aramina, who stopped, amazed at what lay before her.
“Isn’t this cave marvelous, ’Mina? Didn’t I find a good one? Couldn’t we get everything in here? Maybe we could even live here.” Pell dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper on the last sentence. “For it’s as big as a hold, isn’t it, ’Mina?” The boy was all but dancing at the end of Shove’s ring rein, momentarily oblivious of everything but his need for her approval.
In a sweeping glance, Aramina saw a solemn-faced Nexa cradling her father’s head where he lay on the pile of sleeping furs, and her mother busy lighting a small fire within a ring of stones before she allowed herself to examine the cave in more detail.
“Why, it is truly big enough to be a hold,” she said in a voice awed enough to delight her brother.
“It’s bigger than many holds we’ve been in, ’Mina,” Pell said with great satisfaction. “Much bigger. It’s nearly as big as any of the Igen caverns I ever was in.”
Aramina appraised the high ceiling, dry as far as she could see in the dim light filtering in from the entrance. She could sense rather than see clearly that the cave extended far beyond the immediate chamber in which they stood.
“There’s even a sort of stall place where we can tether Nudge and Shove,” he went on, babbling happily, and pulled on Shove to lead the way.
The beasts settled, Aramina and Pell came back to the front of the cavern, where Barla was coaxing the flames on the small hearth. Then a soft moan broke the silence as Dowell rolled his head from side to side in Nexa’s lap. She snatched her hands away from him, as if contact might somehow impede his recovery. With startled eyes she looked about for reassurance.
“There now, Nexa, I told you he’d come around,” said Barla, rising from the now healthy fire. “Aramina, we’ll need fresh water. As cold as you can draw it. We’ve nothing but cold compresses to ease the bruising. And hurry. Those dragonriders said that Threadfall was a matter of minutes away.”
“’Mina,” and Pell caught the other side of the bucket, accompanying his sister out of the cavern, “can you hear ’em yet?”
Aramina halted at the entrance, listening with every fiber in her ears, smiled at Pell, and walked quickly out.
“Show me where the water is,” she said, and Pell danced around in front of her and to their left.
“Right here! Right here!” he caroled, pointing and dancing about. “Just like I said. You won’t ever doubt me again, will you, ’Mina?”
“No, I won’t,” she said, smiling as she extended her hand into the little cascade that leaped and fell down the side of the mountain. The water was ice cold, numbing her fingers in seconds. She filled the bucket. She was just at the entrance to the cave when Pell let out an excited whoop. At the same time she heard a multitude of voices, excited and anticipatory.
“They’re here! I can see them! I saw them first!” His triumph found a lack in her talent.
“Well, I can hear them talking!”
“Can I watch the dragons fight Thread this time, ’Mina? This time can I watch?”
Aramina shushed him, examining the overhang of the cavern. Unless Thread should happen to fall at a tremendous velocity and at a slant, she couldn’t see how any of the dreaded menace could score them. Turns of familiarity with Thread had dampened her fear of it.
“Yes, I think it’s safe here for us to watch.” She placed a warning finger on her lips, and, slipping quickly inside to bring her mother the bucket of cold water, she rejoined him in the entrance.
To Pell’s keen disappointment, there wasn’t as much to watch as he’d anticipated. They could see the dragons in their ranks, suspended motionless in the clear mountain air, gleaming where wing and body reflected the sun briefly. Then the two watching children saw the sudden blurring of the sky, the silvery mist that was the leading edge of Thread.
Only then did the dragons break the temporary suspension, swooping up to meet the deadly rain, sending blossoms of fiery breath to char the parasitic Thread. Pell didn’t breathe with the wonder of the darting forays of the smaller dragons, exclaiming as he saw a long tongue of flame reach out to char a mass of Thread. Silver mist turned to black smoke and then dissipated lazily. Fire blooms traced the dragons’ progress after their ancient enemy until the hills and trees covered the distant sight from the watchers’ searching eyes.
“It didn’t last long enough,” Pell said dejectedly.
“It’ll last long enough for the dragonriders, I’m sure,” Aramina said with mild rebuke for his callousness. “Did you remember to bring the roots with you?”
“Ah, who wants to eat roots. There are acres of nuts out there.”
“Then you’ll have no trouble filling a sack, will you?” As Aramina turned back to the fire, she heard her father’s querulous voice.
“I don’t understand how you managed, with just Aramina.”
“Pell was a great help, too,” Barla said soothingly, wringing out another cold compress. She gave Aramina a quick stern glance.
“It was really very simple, Father. You keep telling us that if there was a lever long enough, we could even move Pern away from the Red Star,” Aramina said with a smile.
“This is no time for levity,” Barla said severely.
“Whyever not? Father’s conscious, we’ve got this huge big cave all to ourselves, and Pell’s gone out for more of these delicious nuts.” Expertly Aramina positioned two in her palm and cracked them. “See?” She held out the meats to Barla.
After a supper of boiled roots and crisp nutmeats, Aramina and Pell used the last of the daylight to gather fodder for Nudge and Shove, and sufficient boughs and fragrant bracken for bedding.
Tired as she was, Aramina found that sleep eluded her. She had been brought up to honor truth, and today that teaching had been disregarded for expediency. She had permitted K’van to think that they were proper holders, on their lord’s business. She had avoided truth with her father, although at Barla’s behest, so as not to worry him.
In each case the truth would confound her lies in very short order. But . . . K’van had chased off the Lady Holdless Thella and the band that had nearly caught up with her and her family. And . . . they had contrived to get Dowell safely into this cave refuge, hopefully without leaving an easy trail that Thella could follow. But . . . to achieve that end, she had revealed her ability to hear dragons to Benden Weyr riders. And . . . the dragonriders now knew exactly where she was even if Lady Holdless Thella did not. She could not imagine what punishment would be meted out to her for that daylong imprudence.
Nexa, curled close against her sister’s body, whimpered in a restless sleep. Aramina pulled the sleeping rug closely about her, stroking her arm, and Nexa subsided into sleep. For a while, she was distracted by Dowell’s breathing, a light snore because he had to sleep on his back, but its soft rhythm finally lulled Aramina to sleep.
It seemed all too short a time before Pell was urgently tugging at her shoulders
and whispering excitedly in her ear.
“’Mina! ’Mina! K’van is here! And so is the Weyrleader! He wants to speak to you! And there are lots of strange men out there, too.”
“Here?” Frantically brushing sleep from her eyes, Aramina sat up, all too aware of yesterday’s bruises and scrapes and the dull ache across her shoulders from abused muscles.
“No, on the track. The men are armed with bows and arrows and spears and I think the dragons brought them.” Pell’s eyes were wide with excitement. K’van was just beyond him.
“It’s all right, Aramina, really it is,” said K’van, softly so as not to disturb the other sleepers. “It’s the raiders, you see.”
Careful not to rouse Nexa, Aramina slipped out from under the fur and pressed it gently down about her sister.
“The raiders are coming?” Pell’s voice slipped from whisper to harsh alarm, but Aramina quickly covered his mouth. Fear darkened his eyes as he stared at his sister.
The little one is suddenly afraid, said a surprised, richly mellow voice.
She has more to fear from the holdless. The second dragon voice was deep and dark, like a pool of the blackwater that Aramina had seen in Igen.
“I am not afraid of you.” Aramina spoke stoutly.
“Of me?” K’van asked in astonishment, his hand on his chest.
“Not you. Those dragons.” No, Aramina told herself, she was not afraid of the dragons, but of their riders and the impending justice that would be meted out for all the lies of yesterday. She hoped that K’van would not think too badly of her.
“I don’t think badly of you,” K’van protested as they stepped out into the sunlight. “Why should I? I think you were an absolute marvel yesterday, fixing that wheel and getting everyone safe inside the cave. . . .”
“Oh, you don’t understand,” said Aramina, trying to keep her voice from breaking.
“And neither does Heth but . . .”
It will come right, said Heth as if he meant it.
Then they were at the top of the bank and Aramina held on to a sapling to steady herself at the sight of masses of armed men, just as Pell had reported, and an incredible stream of dragons, taking off and landing in the track. Standing slightly apart with the enormous bronze dragon and a brown almost as big was the Weyrleader, F’lar, and his wingleader, F’nor, talking earnestly with two men dressed in gleaming mail. A fur-trimmed cape was slung negligently over the shoulders of the younger man.
“Are those who I think they are?” asked Pell in an awed whisper. His hands clasped in his sister’s arm for reassurance. Then he stiffened, for F’nor had seen the three standing on the bank. He smiled and beckoned them down.
Aramina prayed earnestly that she wouldn’t lose her footing and arrive in an ignominious heap at the bottom of the slope. Then she felt K’van’s steadying hand. It was Pell who slipped, tumbling almost to the feet of the Weyrleader, who, with an easy laugh, gave him a hand to his feet. Then Aramina and K’van reached the group.
“How is your father today?” F’lar asked with a sympathetic smile.
“Badly bruised but sleeping, Lord F’lar,” Aramina managed to stammer. That was the correct form of address for the Weyrleader of Pern, wasn’t it? Aramina braced herself for the worst.
“We’ll hope not to disturb him, but those holdless marauders did not disperse after Threadfall.” F’lar’s slight frown indicated his annoyance with that intransigence.
“So,” F’nor took up the explanation, “Lord Asgenar plans to disperse them.” He grinned as he gestured to the tall man.
It was all Aramina could do to stand straight as she stared, appalled to be in the company of the Lord Holder whose land had been invaded by impudent holdless raiders in pursuit of a trespassing holdless family. In a daze she heard Lord Asgenar wondering why the raiders were pressing so far into his forestry. She saw that men were marching down the track, quietly but in good array.
“I’ve foresters in the top camp, although I cannot see what profit raiders could make of sawn logs,” Lord Asgenar was saying.
Now the truth must out, to save good men from Lady Holdless Thella’s brutal riders.
“It’s me.”
Aramina’s voice cracked so that her tentative admission was almost unheard. But the bronze dragon rumbled, and suddenly F’lar was regarding her with a sharp and penetrating gaze.
“You said that it was you, Aramina?”
The two men turned to gaze down at her. Pell’s fingers tightened about her arm.
You do not need to fear, child.
“Mnementh’s quite right, Aramina. Would you explain?”
“It’s me. Because I can hear dragons. And the Lady Holdless Thella . . .”
“Thella, is it?” exclaimed Lord Asgenar, slapping his hand onto his sword hilt. “By the first egg, I’ve been longing to meet that one.”
“Thella has been chasing you, child?”
It was such a relief to admit to the first truth that her confession was almost incoherent, except that between her words Aramina kept hearing the reassurances of three dragon voices in her head, calming her, bidding her speak more slowly and above all not to be worried about a thing.
“So, Thella thinks to Search for what is the Weyr’s by right?” F’lar’s amber eyes flashed with a fire no less frightening than dragon breath. “And you and your family left Igen Cave only ten days ago? You have traveled hard to escape that woman. Where did you come from?”
“Last Turn my father bonded himself to Keroonbeastmaster. . . .”
“Then you are Keronese?”
“No, Lord F’lar. My father and mother had a small forest hold in Ruatha . . .”
Aramina stopped in midsentence, startled by the play of surprise and comprehension that flashed across the faces of the dragonriders.
“Lessa should have come, after all, F’lar,” F’nor said, grinning with some private amusement at the Weyrleader.
“So Fax made your family holdless, Aramina.” F’lar’s voice was kind, though his eyes still sparkled.
Unable to speak, Aramina nodded.
“And your father was a forester?” Lord Asgenar’s question was eager.
Again Aramina could only nod.
“He’s the best wood joiner and carver in all Pern,” Pell spoke up, sensing a sympathy in their audience that Aramina, immersed in guilt, could not appreciate.
“Is he now? I thought as much.” F’lar took up the conversation, giving Aramina a chance to regain her poise. “That’s a very well made Gather wagon you hide so neatly. We almost didn’t spot it, did we, Asgenar?”
“Well hidden indeed. But I must go on, F’lar, F’nor. My men are assembled. I’m leaving men to guard your cave, Aramina, so you will have absolutely nothing to fear from our Lady Holdless Thella. Not now or again. We’ll see to that.”
And, at his signal, two men ranged behind Aramina, K’van, and Pell. As Aramina watched the tall young Lord Holder stride down the track to join his men, she began to feel secure for the first time since her first encounter with Thella and Giron.
“We must leave, too,” F’lar said to F’nor. “Can’t let them sight dragons in the sky near this mountain. Aramina. K’van brings some medicines for your father from our healer.”
“We do not like to be beholden to anyone,” Aramina replied, as her parents had drilled her to say to any such well-meant offers. “We have all we need with us.” She caught her lip to be telling yet another untruth.
“But we,”—and F’lar bowed slightly toward her—“are beholden to you for luring that hellion Thella near enough to grab her.”
“Oh!”
“Take the medicines, child. Ease your father’s injuries,” said F’nor, clasping Aramina’s shoulders in his warm, gentle hands. He gave her a kindly little squeeze. “And don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Aramina replied, for she wasn’t. Not of the weyrmen. But what would her proud father say of her actions over the past two days?
Then both dragonriders quickly vaulted to their waiting dragons, swinging nimbly up onto the neck ridges. With mighty leaps that sent dust, pebbles, and bruised leaves flying, the two beasts launched themselves upward. Suddenly the trace was empty of dragons and men, and only the two soldiers and the youngsters remained to hear the morning breeze sighing through the forest.
“I wonder if they’d have taken me along to see Thella get trounced,” Pell said, cocking his head around and beaming at the soldiers.
“Well now, lad, you should have asked, shouldn’t you?” said the older guard. “Now, young lady, if you’ll just lead the way to this cave of yours . . .”
“K’van, where’s Heth got to? You’re here. Where’s he?” Pell wanted to know, looking all about him as if the bronze dragon might be roosting in a nearby tree.
“He’s up at the cave, Pell. Probably asleep in that small clearing . . . if it’s big enough. Dragons like the sun and we had a very busy day yesterday.”
“And a busy one so far today, too,” Pell said amiably, digging his toes into the damp mulch of the bank.
“You could do with some steps cut in this bank,” said the younger soldier, who had just slipped as far as he had come.
“Oh, we couldn’t do that,” Pell replied, horrified. “We don’t really live in that cave. Though I’d sure like to,” he added with such ingenuousness that the older guard chuckled. “Can you make a good snare?” he asked him. “’Cause that cave is just crawling with tunnel snakes. They’d make mighty good eating after months and months of nothing but roots and fish.”
“I tie a pretty good snare,” K’van said, grabbing a sapling to pull himself onto the top of the ridge.
“You? But you’re a dragonrider.”
A Gift of Dragons Page 5