“He has to be somewhere!” Piemur exclaimed. “We must’ve missed a room. Let’s go back and search again.”
“Huh?” J’hon was looking at the barrel pushed against the wall on the other side of the room. “Do that again, Piemur.”
“Do what?”
Menolly slowly looked up.
“This,” J’hon said, and stomped one booted foot on the dirt floor. As the dust flew up from his foot and then began to settle, all three could see that, rather than falling downward, the motes of dust seemed to be swirling toward them, as if being blown by a current of air. Coming to the same conclusion at the same time, dragonrider and harper all but threw themselves at the rotten half barrel and hauled it out of the way.
In the wall behind where the barrel had been, Piemur could see a small door set into a stone frame. If they hadn’t moved the barrel they never would’ve known it was there! Menolly rose to her feet, eyes wide—and then she froze. She’d seen that there was no handle on the door at the same time both Piemur and J’hon had.
Dropping to his knees, Piemur tried to get his fingers into the gap between the door and its frame but his hands were too big, the join was too small, and he couldn’t gain enough grip. J’hon held up his dagger and Piemur stood back. The bronze dragonrider quickly slid the tip of the knife into the narrow seam and dragged it up and down and all around the edges of the door. When he pushed the knife into the horizontal part of the frame at the top, they all heard the distinct sound of a click. They’d stumbled upon a hidden release catch.
Piemur swallowed a lump of fear.
J’hon twisted his knife between the frame and the joint and the door swung open a fraction. Leveraging his knife farther into the aperture, J’hon twisted it again and pushed the door fully open on its hinge.
The secret cellar was barely a meter square in size, with a slanting ceiling not high enough for even a small child to stand in. It was empty save for a dirty lump of fabric lying in a heap on the damp earth floor, and Piemur felt his heart skip a beat when he realized that this little hidey-hole, their last hope, held nothing but a pile of rags.
Then, suddenly and without a word, Menolly lunged forward and pushed Piemur’s arm up, holding it so his glow shone directly on the rags. With dawning understanding, Piemur saw a brown curl poking out from the filthy material. He quickly put the glowbasket down, and then he, Menolly, and J’hon very gingerly tugged at the lump of material and managed to hoist it through the doorway and into the cellar room. The pile of rags moaned.
“Thank the first shard that fell from the First Egg,” Piemur whispered as he gently lifted a piece of the rotting fabric away from the body lying underneath.
Menolly’s sharp intake of breath was followed by a distraught cry, sounds that were almost a counterpoint to the guilt and empathy Piemur felt when he looked at the still form of the journeyman masterharper.
Sebell groaned, and his head rolled to one side, facing Piemur. With wooden movements, Menolly unraveled the mess of rags that were tied around Sebell’s head and mouth, and as the last rag came away, Piemur winced.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Sebell croaked through cracked lips, peering at them through one swollen eye. Carefully, Piemur and J’hon unbound Sebell’s hands, while Menolly tackled the ropes on his legs. The journeyman masterharper was a fearful sight; his left shoulder sloped down at an alarming angle, and the arm to which it was attached lay limp and unmoving. His legs, visible through his torn trousers, were covered by dirt and caked blood, but not so much that his rescuers couldn’t see that his flesh was lacerated and heavily bruised from knee to ankle.
When the rush of anger and shock abated, and Sebell’s injuries had been silently assessed, they sat for several moments, uncertain how to proceed.
An odd noise, strangely familiar, came from farther along the passageway, and both Piemur and J’hon abruptly stood to attention in front of Sebell, ready to guard him in case Jerrol, Jentis, and Serra had returned. Menolly remained hunkered down next to Sebell.
“It’s just Beauty with Kimi,” she said. “I let them know where we are and that we’ve found Sebell.”
Flapping wings sped toward them, seeming to drag all the air along, too, as they filled the confines of the passageway with their rapid beats. Kimi took a straight path to Sebell and then hovered for half a heartbeat before she landed on the ground next to him, cooing and chirruping, humming with joy and relief. She quickly furled her golden wings and, in two short hops, closed the distance between them to land on his uninjured shoulder, rubbing her head against his cheek repeatedly.
“Shh, shh,” Sebell said gently, trying to calm her. “I’m here! So are you! We’re both all right now. There’s my golden girl.”
She cooed at him again and he leaned his face toward her head. Kimi must have shared an image with Sebell, because he chuckled.
“I know, I know; it was frightening. Yes, Kimi,” he said, “you stay right here and keep me in your sights. That’s exactly what I need.”
Then he looked up at his friends, reaching one hand out to grab Menolly’s. “What next?” he asked, looking at them through his one good eye as Kimi clung to his neck. Piemur could see that Sebell was in a lot of pain, which nearly left him lost for words, but then something occurred to him: With those two simple words Sebell, who usually took control of any situation, had relinquished his welfare to Piemur and Menolly.
The realization had a cathartic effect on Piemur. “We need to get you to a healer, Sebell,” he said.
“But we can’t bring him back to Fort—or the Harper Hall,” Menolly said, her voice breaking slightly. Tears ran down her face.
“You’re right, Menolly,” Piemur said, and he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Too many questions will be asked, and I’m not sure how we can answer them.”
J’hon muttered an expletive through tight lips, and Piemur could see that the dragonrider was doing his utmost to control his anger.
“Wherever we bring Sebell, his condition will provoke too much interest. And if we rightly accuse Jerrol, Jentis, and Serra—or anyone—of beating a harper, we’d have to explain why Sebell and I were here. Then the threat to Jaxom—which we’ve been trying so hard to keep secret—would become common knowledge.”
Sebell nodded as Piemur spoke.
“No, we can’t tell anyone what happened here, though I sorely wish we could.” Piemur spoke through clenched teeth. J’hon was staring at Piemur, a fierce expression on his usually benign features. Piemur returned his stare resolutely and then shook his head.
Menolly quickly wiped the tears from her face with both hands. “We need somewhere safe and where you aren’t well known.” They fell silent for a few moments, weighing the scant options they had.
“We could take him to one of the remote Weyrs. He’d be safe there,” J’hon offered, but Sebell shook his head.
Again, Piemur spoke up. “There’s no doubt he’d be taken care of in any Weyr on Pern, J’hon, but we can’t travel far with him like this, and if his shoulder, or his arm, is as badly broken as it looks, he can’t fly between, because the cold might destroy any chance of it healing properly. It’s just too dangerous. And I think any dragonrider who sees Sebell would understandably want justice done on his behalf. No, we need somewhere remote, but not a Weyr, somewhere fairly isolated but not too far away…” And in that instant Piemur knew exactly what to do.
“I know where we can go. We’ll fly Sebell directly to Crom, to my home!”
They wasted little time, and with Piemur and J’hon making a chair of their crisscrossed arms and Menolly acting as glow carrier and guide, they carried Sebell between them through the maze of passageways.
Once outside the Hold, Menolly went ahead of them with Beauty, and J’hon called Mirth, asking him to come as close as he could to the ramparts. As they made their way steadily through t
he throng of bustling holders and traders, several stopped and stared at the sight of J’hon and Piemur carrying a man in their linked arms, as if he were a person of great importance and not a battered, dirty jumble of grotty rags.
An elderly woman who bore a remarkable resemblance to Fronna frowned when she recognized Piemur’s bruised face, and then gasped when she noticed Sebell’s condition. As they passed by, her mouth fell open and she stood, silent, pointing one finger at them as she followed their progress away from the Hold.
They reached the clearing where Mirth and Menolly were waiting, the dragon already crouched low to the ground, Menolly astride him. When she saw them, she reached out as if to take Sebell in her arms, and Piemur saw that Menolly’s face was wet again from fresh tears.
Moving Sebell as gently and carefully as possible, the three of them got him into place at the base of the bronze dragon’s neck, Menolly just in front of him and Piemur behind, close enough to prop Sebell up and ensure the harper remained securely in place during the short flight. Finally, J’hon climbed onto his usual place between his dragon’s neck ridges. At J’hon’s signal Mirth took several steps forward, unfurling the sails of his wings and bunching the muscles in his massive haunches, and then pushed upward, making a deep gouge in the ground as he launched himself into the air. His wings beat downward with huge force, propelling himself and his passengers steadily upward. The movement was turbulent and Piemur braced his arms more securely around Sebell’s waist.
As Mirth beat his wings and rose higher and higher into the sky, several groups of people from the Hold looked up at the bronze dragon overhead, expressions ranging from curiosity to concern evident on their faces.
Piemur reached across Sebell and Menolly to tap J’hon on the shoulder, and the dragonrider turned his head to hear him.
“When you see Crom Hold, I can guide you from there to my family’s smallholding,” Piemur said, and J’hon nodded once before silently relaying their destination to Mirth.
They flew to the west of Crom Hold, gliding toward a broad, flat valley bounded on one side by a vast lake and on the other side by the butt end of the spiny range of mountains that extended from the Snowy Wastes in the far north, down through Fort, and all the way to the very tip of Southern Boll Hold. Piemur’s family’s smallholding was positioned on relatively sheltered high ground, overlooking the verdant meadows of the valley.
Once Piemur, J’hon, and Menolly had helped Sebell from Mirth’s back and carried him to a long bench below a broadleaf tree, Piemur ran for help, though the arrival of a bronze dragon had brought many of the cotholders out of their dwellings to meet him halfway. When they saw who had arrived on the back of a bronze dragon there were cries of excitement. A group of Piemur’s kin crowded around him, thumping him on the back or hugging him unreservedly, everyone asking him half a dozen different questions at the same time.
When Piemur returned a short while later, surrounded by a smiling crowd of family and friends, Sebell was lying motionless, his eyes closed. Kimi, shooed from his shoulder by Menolly, perched on a low branch right above him. J’hon was reassessing the extent of the harper’s injuries, a grim expression on his face as he hissed under his breath. The dappled light that came through the leaves of the big tree did little to soften the signs of the horrific beating Sebell had suffered.
The cotholders, quietly nodding respectful greetings to J’hon and Menolly, eyed Sebell silently, their smiles and jovial expressions quickly suppressed as they took stock of his condition. One of the women held a cup of fellis juice to Sebell’s lips and succeeded in getting him to take a long draft of the analgesic. It took effect quickly and Sebell was soon mercifully unconscious. Only then did the cotholders gently carry him to the smallest of the closely grouped cothold buildings.
As the sleeping Sebell was carefully laid out on a comfortable-looking bed, Piemur’s family crowded into the little cottage.
“Dear gracious! How did this happen?” an older woman asked.
“Did he fall, Pie?” a tall man asked.
“Look at the state of him,” another woman said in a hushed tone, beginning to pass her hands gently along Sebell’s limbs to assess his injuries. “Who did this, Pie?”
“Can’t say, Drina, and it’d be of no use to you if you knew,” Piemur said uncomfortably.
“Don’t look right to me,” a ginger-haired man offered, and those standing next to him nodded in agreement.
“I sure as shards don’t need all of you in here with me. Go away,” Drina said gently, flapping one hand. “I’ll look after Pie’s friend now and let you all go about your day.” And she nodded once, peering kindly but sternly at the curious spectators.
Menolly, J’hon, and Piemur made to leave the room with the rest of the crowd, but Drina reassured them that they were welcome to remain or leave, as they wished. Menolly released a held breath, moving to sit in a chair near the bed. But J’hon walked out of the cottage without a word, and Piemur figured either the dragonrider thought the little house was already sufficiently crowded or didn’t want to witness in more detail the results of Sebell’s torture. Piemur wondered if he should follow him.
But Drina stopped him. “You stay, too, Pie, and tell me what has befallen this poor man. You know it’ll not go any further than me,” she said as she lifted the torn material from Sebell’s legs. She tsked under her breath when she saw the deep gashes and bruises.
“We were bashed about by some…some less-than-noble men, Drina. They knocked me on the head, and while I was unconscious they took out their anger on Sebell. I think his left arm might be broken.”
Drina pushed the sleeve of Sebell’s tunic up and examined the arm from wrist to armpit.
“There’s no break here, Pie. Help me roll him onto his other side.”
Just then a burly man stomped into the cothold, filling the doorway and blocking out the light.
“Pergamol,” Piemur said, and walked toward the older man, who engulfed him in a bearlike embrace.
“Ah, lad. It’s good to see you, Pie! You’ve grown tall. This one, though”—he pointed a finger at Sebell—“looks a right mess. What happened?”
“I was telling Drina that we’d be grateful if what’s happened to Sebell isn’t mentioned outside the cothold, Pergamol. We were used as punching bags by some disgruntled, holdless men—I took a thump to the head and, I guess because I was knocked senseless, poor Sebell got the brunt of their abuse.”
“ ’Nuff said, Pie, I’ll tell the others.” Pergamol looked at Drina. “What do ya need, Dri?”
“I need you to roll him over carefully so I can see the back a’ his shoulder.”
Pergamol easily rolled Sebell onto his right side, and Drina lifted his tunic. She sucked in her breath sharply and then tsked several times.
“I can’t fix this one, Pie. You need a healer. It looks like someone yanked on his arm so hard the shoulder’s been pulled straight out of its cup. I don’t have the knack of getting it back in. Ama was good at that type a’ thing, but she’s not as strong as she used to be.” Drina looked grave. “I can fix up most of his cuts and such, but a healer will have to tend to his shoulder. I think I can manage his eye. That’ll need stitching.” She pointed at the deep, messy gash over Sebell’s swollen eye.
“Thanks, Drina,” Piemur said, feeling a little queasy and glad for an errand. “I’ll get a healer.”
“Good lad,” Drina replied. “Now leave me to get this man settled—and send Berry in to help, would you, Pergamol?”
Piemur left the tiny cottage, joining J’hon where he sat under the broadleaf tree. The dragonrider looked up at Piemur, who noticed the muscles in the handsome, usually calm face working and knew that the dragonrider was clenching and unclenching his teeth.
“Well?” J’hon asked in a dull voice.
“Drina says his arm isn’t broken, but his shoulder has be
en pulled out of its socket. He’ll need stitches over his eye.”
“They should pay for this, harper. Blow for blow,” J’hon said tensely, pounding a closed fist into an open palm to punctuate his point.
“I know how you feel, but right now we need to get a healer for Sebell. Someone discreet.” Walking back to the cottage threshold, Piemur called for Menolly to join them.
“What healer should we use, Loll?”
“How about Brekke? She’d be discreet,” Menolly suggested.
“She would be, but she’s too prominent a figure in Benden Weyr. How could she explain her absence?” Piemur shook his head. “With everything that’s gone on in that Weyr recently, I think we’d better look elsewhere for help.”
“Does anyone know who Masterhealer Oldive has apprenticed under him?” J’hon asked. “He must have someone we can use.”
“What about Toric’s sister, Sharra? What’s she up to these days?” Piemur asked.
“I don’t think she has enough experience, Piemur.” Menolly glanced toward the cothold, a worried expression on her face. “I should go back in there to him.”
“Isn’t Toric’s new headwoman, Meria, healer-trained?” J’hon asked.
“Why didn’t I think of Meria?” Piemur slapped his hand against his thigh. “She’d be perfect!”
They agreed that Piemur should go with J’hon to ask Meria for help. When Menolly fretted that someone should be watching out for Lord Jaxom until they could find out where Jerrol and his thugs were, J’hon reassured her that he’d already sent word to N’ton’s dragon via Mirth. Menolly was relieved when the two men had no objections about her remaining with Sebell.
J’hon and Piemur returned with Meria within the hour, and then J’hon promptly departed again for Fort Weyr and his duties there, promising Piemur that he would return as soon as possible.
When Piemur ushered Meria into the cothold, he was relieved to find that Drina had not only done a good job stitching up Sebell’s eye, but cleaned him up as well, dressing the gashes on his legs before she and Menolly changed him into a clean tunic. He made to leave, assured that the journeyman masterharper was in good hands, but Meria stopped him.
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