Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  Dorat and Akai continued to debate over what to do with the lander while Nahni flew off in the direction he was frantically pointing. By the time she’d flown back to report Sophie’s condition, Akai and Dorat had at last abandoned the lander in favor of fetching a couple healers. The man was still naked and once again stumbling towards the village. He waved at Nahni and she shouted down some encouragement but flew on to the village to make sure Akai and Dorat were getting help. The little dragon found Akai with Edwarg mounted and ready to go and told her that she would wait for Dorat to come with a second healer.

  While she waited for Dorat to rouse Nyah, Nahni borrowed a pair of pants and a blanket from the nursery’s drying line. She was very excited that a lander had come to see them. She knew that Konifer would be upset but didn’t understand why. Sophie didn’t hate the landers and she had most cause. Also this one had helped Sophie so why were the others worried? Nahni hoped that he would explain why the landers hid every time they saw her. It made her sad.

  When Dorat and the healer finally arrived, they were arguing. Dorat was being mysterious with Nyah about the odd messenger who had come to warn them of Sophie’s fall. She wouldn’t tell her who it was and would only say that she should be prepared for some strange injuries. Nyah was furious because she couldn’t know if the equipment and medicine she had would be what she would need. But Dorat would say no more and set out on foot with food and water for the messenger while Nyah grumpily mounted Nahni who told her right away that the man was a lander and as she overflew the man this time she dropped the clothes she had gathered for him. They saw him drop to his knees and gather the blanket about him before flying out of distance.

  For the rest of the short flight, Nyah focused herself and grilled Nahni for every detail she’d seen of Sophie lying in the water next to the circle of blood stained stones. When they arrived, Edwarg, an older telf healer, had cut a thick bandage and put it over the one Nahni had seen already on Sophie’s head. Akai was holding the bandage on while Edwarg listened for the dragon’s heartbeat. His white beard had specks of blue in it from his work on the head wound and the wrinkles in his forehead were deeply creased.

  The two healers worked quickly in the dark. They checked her whole body over and after using Nahni and Akai to help pull Sophie out of the water and onto the little beach, sent Nahni back to the village for some blankets to get Sophie dry and warm. They estimated that she’d broken her left wing in several places and possibly cracked a few ribs as well. They were temporarily baffled by the bruising on her tail and thin red liquid on her back, but remembering Nahni’s explanation of the man’s pantomime, Edwarg figured out that the lander must have been on Sophie’s back when she fell. As they treated the dragon’s several wounds, they talked to her, hoping she would regain consciousness. But Sophie had lost a lot of blood from that head gash and as she remained motionless throughout their ministrations, neither healer held out much hope that she would recover. It was agreed that Edwarg would stay with Sophie while Nyah saw to the lander who she realized from the evidence on Sophie’s body must be more injured than Dorat had reported.

  She and Akai found the lander, wearing Nahni’s stolen pants and wrapped in the blanket, not walking to the village anymore but struggling back towards the river. They’d overflown him in the dark assuming he would be still headed for the village and had to backtrack to find him. Along the way, Akai sighted Dorat and they picked her up. When they reached the man, he wouldn’t accept any food or water. He wanted to keep walking and it took some effort for them to convince him to sit down. Only his exhaustion finally made him give in to the three females. Nyah lowered him to the ground and leaned him against Akai who had offered her body as a support for the stranger. The blanket fell from his shoulder when he leaned back and when Akai picked it up with her lips and dropped it back over him, he turned to her and looking her in the eyes said, clearly, “Thank you.”

  All three were stunned and pounced on him asking him where he’d learned to speak dTelfur, but he apparently didn’t understand their questions and was patently frightened by the attention. When Nyah gestured for Dorat and Akai to back off, he started asking his own frantic questions in the lander gibberish. He was shaking with cold and maybe fear as well, but wouldn’t stop talking and Nyah couldn’t tell what he wanted to know. Fearing he would hurt himself with this panic, she took a chance that the landers weren’t so different physiologically from the dTelfur telfs and gave him some sleepleaves to chew on mixed with a ground flower which would relax his muscles too. He hesitated only a moment before accepting the medicine and it started helping rather faster than normal. His speech slowed and he watched her work from deep dark eyes, showing her spots where he was sore.

  Nyah had no idea how he had traveled all the way from Sophie’s back to here with the injuries he’d sustained. He would quickly recover from the exposure though he might have to go through a fever first and no bones appeared to be broken though his ribs were terribly bruised as was his body with scratches from head to foot. He’d also clearly suffered a serious blow to his skull. A few days in bed though and he’d be okay. By the time she’d done what she could for him, he’d stopped speaking. He was just watching her from sleepy eyes. She gave him her summation as she would any patient in the hopes that he might understand some of it.

  When she was done, he nodded. And then, just before the drug in the sleepleaves overtook him, he said in clear though accented dTelfur, “I am dTserra. I am gone. Why?”

  Akai bugled to the sky and laughed hysterically, “dTserra’s not dead! Go tell Sophie. dTserra’s not gone.”

  “Akai. Akai!” Nyah had to shout to be heard over Akai’s happy growling. “dTserra is gone. I was there. I was one of the healers trying to cut that ugly spearhead out of her chest. She closed her eyes and she stopped breathing and she died.”

  “Then what is this? He must know her.”

  “Or he was there when she was killed.” Dorat reluctantly pointed out. Her own heart had leaped too at the possibility that dTserra was alive. Not that she’d much use for the hunter, but dTserra was probably the one person who could bully Sophie into recovering.

  The painful spark of killed hope hung heavily over the three. Each wondered to herself if this was the lander who had killed dTserra. Dorat, who hadn’t made the connection between the bruising around his waist and the bruising on Sophie’s tail, wondered if he had killed Sophie too.

  Nyah broke the silence first. “We need to get him somewhere warm where he can sleep himself out. And then we need to tell Deg. I’d put him in the infirmary but he’s…”

  “a lander.” Dorat finished her sentence for her as she helped lift the man onto Akai’s shoulders while the dragon lay as low to the ground as she could. “I’ll take him to my rooms. Viscier is off on a trip with Tian. They’ve gone to the ocean so he won’t be back any time soon.”

  “After we tell Deg, can we go back to Sophie? I’d like to be with her.” Akai’s voice was tight. In all the excitement it had only just hit her that her friend was actually going.

  “ Of course.” Nyah climbed up behind Dorat and slapped the dragon hard on her side. “And you know, telling her how much you want her to stick around might make her going easier.”

  Hardt had been falling. He jerked awake just before he hit the rocks. He’d been dreaming about Calien. The slingshot stone had hit her head again but this time the blood that spurted up was blue and he couldn’t find Gaerel or Kalina to help her. He tried to tell her stories about Vyck, but the blood wouldn’t stop flowing. Then a voice in his head that was neither Gaerel’s or Kalina’s but both and Vyck’s told him how to ask nature to fuse the skull back together. He knew how to do it now, but Calien had disappeared. She was very far away, he knew, by the water. And then the voice had pushed him over the waterfall into the rocks and he’d woken up.

  The room was dark. He could see a sliver of light peeking through some crack in the dark wall to his right. His body was sore but he
wasn’t nearly as cold as he had been and his muscles worked when he asked them to. He sat up carefully and swung his legs off the side of the soft platform he had been lying on. The floor was closer than he had expected and his feet banged into the hard surface. Someone had dressed him in a soft shirt and better fitting pants and a tight bandage had been wrapped around his ribs. He thought he could remember the bandage being wrapped but wasn’t certain. His mind was thick. Only the knowledge that he had to get back to the dragon at the waterfall kept him upright.

  It wasn’t hard to follow the light through the heavy curtains out to a corridor with slick, cool walls. Here there were lanterns hanging at distant intervals in either direction. He picked a way at random and kept a hand against the wall for support as he walked. He hadn’t gotten very far when the woman who wasn’t the healer caught up with him. She had darker skin and gray eyes with a fuller body than the healer. She tried to lead him back to the sleeping room. He tried to tell her that he needed to get to the river, but she didn’t understand him. It was clear that she was more concerned with the noise he was making so he stopped talking and kept walking. She pleaded with him in a whisper and tried to block his way. But when they reached a crossroads in the corridor, and he pleaded with her to show him the way to the river, she led him on to the left and not back to the sleeping room. Shortly down this corridor a series of partial walls blocked the light and wind from the entrance and Hardt would have been lost without the woman’s guidance. As they came out into the dim starlight and fresh air, she led him quickly away from the fires he saw blazing in the distance.

  They walked for a short while before coming to a bench where she tried to get him to sit. He longed for the little dragon who had understood him. This woman wouldn’t even pay attention to his gestures. She kept looking around like she was afraid they would be seen. So he started speaking louder. He imitated the sound of the calm river and then the rushing water and finally the waterfall. He moved his arms like he was swimming and shouted at her “Where is the river? Which way do I go?” pointing in different directions. She got very upset when he pointed back towards the fires and finally pointed in a direction about hundred or so degrees southeast of the fires.

  When he started walking this time, she left him. He tried jogging, but his body screamed in pain so he just walked as swiftly as he could manage in the direction she had pointed. Before long, a dragon joined him. It wasn’t the small one who had paid attention to him. But it didn’t try to stop him at all, so he said hello to it and asked if this was the way to the river and other such pleasantries to keep himself awake and walking.

  Soon he and the dragon were joined by the gray-eyed lady and the healer. This time when the healer offered him some leaves to chew, Hardt declined. He was already fighting the sleep drug from before and he knew he had to get to the river to save the dragon. He plodded on through the dark night and the thick calf-high grass which ate at the gash in his leg with every step. The women and the dragon argued around him. A wind ruffled through the grass and started blowing dirt and dust in their direction so the dragon switched to his right side and held a wing out in front of him. He said “Nan ye.” Again the words startled the three into silence.

  Another brief, less violent conversation ended with the dragon stepping in front of Hardt and lying down. He tried to walk around her but she stopped him with her neck and shook her head at him. She tapped her back with her chin and offered a leg for him to climb up. The heavy woman who had led him out of the cavern used the proffered leg to climb up onto the dragon’s back.

  Hardt pointed in the direction he’d been told the river was and asked, “You’ll take me to the dragon who fell?” in his own unintelligible words.

  The dragon nodded her head and replied, clearly, “La. Ge Sophie” in her own.

  With help, he climbed up onto the dragon’s back behind the first woman. The healer climbed up behind him and held him tightly about the waist below the bandages. Following her example, he reached around and held onto the first woman who leaned forward along the creature’s neck holding some sort of strap that was wrapped around its chest. The dragon ran forward and leapt into the air with a jerk which sent spasms of pain up through his bruised tailbone into his throbbing head. He gripped the woman tighter, leaned forward against her as the wind rushed by, threatening to pick them all off, and closed his eyes.

  It was a short flight to the waterfall and Hardt was able to remain nearly unconscious most of the way. He was quite proud of himself that he didn’t retch until the dragon had landed on the far bank and he’d slid off its side. It would have been mortifying to barf on the beautiful creature. The healer was very kind. She rubbed his back, wiped his mouth, and mixed some mint into the water she gave him to rinse out with. And when he’d regained control of his stomach muscles, she and the dragon helped him down the embankment to where the fallen dragon had been pulled up onto the tiny sandbar. The little dragon was there, holding a pack of large bandages on the unconscious dragon’s forehead cut with her own head.

  She smiled at him when he walked around to her line of vision. He smiled back. This one made him comfortable. She was less intimidating than the one who’d flown him or even the one who’d fallen with him. He pointed at his chest and said, “Hardt.”

  He had to say it a few times before she repeated him. Then he walked forward and put a hand on her chest.

  She said, “Hardt.”

  “No no no. I’m Hardt.” He put his hand on his own chest again. “Hardt.”

  This time when he put his hand on her chest, a man he hadn’t seen standing beyond her spoke. The man was shorter than Hardt and much older. He had a thick white beard and a well-weathered face. His clothes were covered with a tan cotton apron which was covered in the blue dragon blood. He looked tired but he smiled at Hardt and put a hand on his chest.

  “Ighay Edwarg.”

  Hardt repeated, “Ighay Edwarg.”

  But the man shook his head, “Edwarg.” He made a cutting motion with his gnarled hands. “Edwarg.”

  Then ‘ighay’ must mean ‘I am,’ Hardt thought. And ‘dTserra’ or ‘iorden’ must be names. Shaking his head he set that mystery aside. Now he had to get the dragon’s name. He pointed at Edwarg and repeated his name a few times. Edwarg repeated the action with Hardt’s name. Then the little dragon caught on and piped up.

  “Ighay Nahni.”

  “Nahni.” Hardt smiled at her. She reminded him of Hundred Mytree.

  He walked over to the fallen dragon then and put a hand gently on its enormous chest. “Ighay?”

  The little dragon blinked in surprise, possibly at his poor grammar, and then answered in concert with Edwarg and the female healer who was watching from the top of the embankment. “Sophie.”

  He repeated it once to make sure he had it right and when they all nodded, he turned back to face Sophie. He laid his hands on her head just between her eyes and where Nahni was holding pressure on the wound. Initially he reached up as high as he could with his left hand and ended up pressing his whole body against her. He talked to her about swimming and asked her about flying. He used her name and let her know how much he appreciated her helping him. And he silently searched for the strength the dream voice had said would come through him if he asked Nature to heal the dragon’s skull. He tried to remember how Gaerel and Kalina had healed Calien and imitated their hand motions as best he could, running them up and down as much of the gash as he could reach. He thought ‘Please Nature, please help me. Heal this dragon.’

  Suddenly he felt a surge of energy rush through him and into the dragon and tried to just hold on to her, saying her name over and over. The strength used him and he felt the bone reforming, reaching out to itself and closing where it had cracked. He felt the blood vessels reweaving themselves and the hide growing its scab. Nature ripped through him and gave Sophie all of his remaining strength and when it was done, it left him little. Just enough to lower himself to the sandy ground instead of falling.
Just enough to see Sophie’s eyes flutter open before he passed out for good.

  Three

  ∞

  For two days the lander remained unconscious before he woke for food and relief. He slept for three more days after that, waking only occasionally to relieve himself and ask about Sophie. Each time he woke, Nyah would make him at least drink some water before she let him go back to sleep. The healer alternated her time by his side and by Sophie’s. The wounded dragon was sleeping even more soundly than the man and had to be woken to be force-fed liquids.

  After Sophie had awoken on the beach, complaining of an ache in her skull and her chest, they had removed the bandage to find that the bleeding had stopped and the hide was already forming thick new protective scabby scales and shedding the broken ones. She’d managed to answer the healers’ questions about her pain, to lap up some water Edwarg laced with medicine, and turn her head so it was more comfortable on the sand. This took all the energy she had. Still, before she would let herself fall into a safe sleep she asked if they’d found the lander and if it was okay. They told her that he was fine. They told her she could see him when she woke up. They told her pretty much whatever would get her to relax and go to sleep and they lied.

  It was with little hope that they then carried the unconscious lander up the bank. The healers looked him over, doing what they could to repair the rib brace and clean his open wounds while the dragons built a small bower for him in the willows. Nyah and Edwarg slept on the sand with Sophie that night while the dtur Akai and Nahni along with Dorat slept on the bank with Hardt. They laid down willows and put him in the middle, hoping their body heat would keep him warm enough through the night as no one had the strength left to take him back to the village and find someplace to hide him there.

  No one discussed the miracle. No one mentioned that they had just witnessed the impossible. They all just curled up as best they could and slept it off.