“I know how to keep a secret.”
The old Guardesman took one step forward and to his foster son’s surprise, grasped the stranger in a fierce embrace. “She thinks of you every day.”
Hardt reluctantly pulled out of Getek’s embrace. “We should move.”
They walked.
“How is she?” His voice shook.
“She took in thirteen orphaned children while she was healing me through the fever which took so many of us. When I got better, she told me she loved me. That day we bonded, her hair swinging thick and free down her back and we were surrounded by children.” He reached back and ushered the boy up to his side. “This is Sirte’s son, Stagree.”
“Sirte? Who pulled me from the snakecat and the campfire?”
“It was a devastating sickness.”
“But you survived.”
“Vyck needed me to.”
“You should tell her…”
“Dragons!” Brower’s unmistakeable voice echoed from deep in the forest.
Hardt broke into a run with Getek at his heels. The boy, Stagree, pulled ahead of his foster father and was at Hardt’s side when they heard a voice the boy couldn’t understand.
In her distress Sophie reverted to dTelfur, so no one but Hardt understood her words. “Hardt!! This man will kill the hatchling!”
Many of the Strayers racing toward Brower’s alarmed cry, however, heard and recognized the legendary name. Hardt. And they ran faster. So that when he reached the edge of the burnt forest, Hardt saw landers breaking out of the trees all around; Stray folk he recognized and many, younger, people that he didn’t. To his left he saw Brower centered in crowd of well-armed youth with guarde bands on their arms. They were throwing short knives and spears, rocks at Sophie who was crouched low, trying to knock the projectiles away. She was desperately trying to keep any of them from passing her and injuring the baby Jaythree and her new friend, Hundred.
“Getek, protect the baby!” Hardt yelled over his shoulder at the old man. He barely broke stride racing directly into the mess.
He didn’t reach Sophie without several wounds, but when he got to her, he leapt to her neck and grabbed the unslung ends of the supply harness which had held their blankets and medical supplies. Using the free ends, he helped deflect the now flying arrows from their wards.
“Sophie, take off.”
“No! They’ll kill them.”
“It’s okay Sophie. They only want to hurt you.”
Hundred yelled at the dragon, “Go away! Take off! Leave before we hurt you!”
Sophie looked sadly at Hundred and Hardt. “But their weapons will fall.”
Hardt looked around frantically to find Getek standing frozen at the edge of the clearing, held upright by the terrified Stagree.
“Getek!!!”
He couldn’t make himself heard over the confusion and he could not afford to take his attention from the missiles coming in from more directions as more landers joined in the attack. So he leaned forward to speak to Sophie.
“Sophie, tell him, in lander, that he needs to protect the girls.”
“Getek is the old one there?”
“Yes. Tell him to come here and protect the girls so we can get away.”
“Don’t worry about us, Soph. Just get yourself away.” Hundred frantically hit the dragon’s impervious hide as she would a stubborn cow. Sophie was not deterred.
“He’s old. He’ll be hurt.”
Hardt’s voice took on a note of leadership Sophie had never heard before as he turned and looked her directly in the eyes. “He’s a guardesman and he’ll do his duty. Just tell him, you oversensitive dTur!”
“GETEK!”
Sophie’s yell cut through all the noise and deafened some in the gathering crowd. Apparently most of the adult community had been out searching for their lord.
“GETEK! Come here and protect Hundred and Jaythree. We won’t leave if they’re in danger.”
Hardt sighed at her optimism and winced as another arrow chipped into his arm. “And they’ll only be in danger until we leave, Sophie.”
“It’s okay. He’s coming.” She tried to affect the trajectory of the missiles she was knocking away so they wouldn’t hit Getek. “The boy is coming with him.”
“Then take off, Sophie. Fly away.” Hundred begged her new friend to save herself, since her people couldn’t hear her screaming for them to stop.
Sophie was hit with many rocks and a few arrows as she diverted her focus to crouching and leaping into the sky. She was hit with many more as she leaped directly into the heaviest fire on her way up. But the distraction worked and Hardt could see them scatter long enough for Getek and Stagree to reach the frightened mother and her infant.
“Hardt!!”
The voice shouldn’t have been loud enough to cut through the wind of their ascent, the cries of fear from the hunters, and Jaythree’s wailing, but Hardt heard his name called in the one voice he would have recognized anywhere. As Sophie flew off low to the south, he turned and saw an old woman with a long white braid hanging over one shoulder. Vyck was waving wildly at her fleeing nephew.
“Hardt!”
He turned so far that he almost fell from Sophie’s neck and screamed into the wind. “I love you, Vyck!!!!”
Barely, just barely, but not so weakly that he could believe he had imagined it, he heard his aunt’s voice one last time as they soared out of sight.
“NAN YE!”
Left on the ground Vyck watched Hardt waving from behind the dragon’s wing until he was out of sight. She felt her adopted children streaming around her but until the dragon’s tail had disappeared from view, she didn’t realize that they were all running to protect the figures the dragon’s departure had left vulnerable. Her bond, Getek, and the rest of their household were circling a figure laying still on the ground. Stagree knelt, cradling a bundle in his arms. The rain of weaponry had stopped when the dragon left, but many of Vyck’s children showed evidence of having been hit.
And soon, she knew, the arguing would begin.
“Calien! Does anyone know where the healer Calien is?” She shouted while wading forward into the wall made by her family around Hundred. “And Ker?”
Ker stepped slowly out of the pack of warriors, a bow still clutched in his fist. “Vyck, I am aware of your naïve feelings for the dragons, but I am not going to sacrifice my life to pretty fantasies.”
“She is not calling you out to argue, Ker. Your bond has been hit by an arrow; your child, by stones.” Getek spoke harshly from Hundred’s side.
Vyck saw her bond’s stricken son stumble forward to the small crowd assembled about his Hundred. The bow fell from his grip halfway there. Brower would have recovered it, but Vyck got there first. They glared at each other for just a moment before Brower lashed out in defense.
“We saved their lives. Better she be injured than eaten by a dragon.”
“There is an arrow sticking through your Lord’s ribs, Brower. And I see no proof that the dragon meant her any harm. I heard the dragon call her by name. I heard it call my bond to come and protect our Lord from you. If Calien can save her, I don’t think Hundred is going to awaken trumpeting your glory.”
“You poor deluded old woman.”
Brower would have bent down and scooped up the disputed bow, except he knew that for all he was ten frseason younger than her, Vyck was still quicker. So he didn’t even glance at it as he turned and walked off with his guarde arm into the woods.
Vyck too left the bow where it lay. She jogged over to where Calien had finally reached Hundred in time to hear the healer telling the barely conscious lord that the wound wasn’t as bad as it felt, but then Calien turned fully around, a comforting hand still on her patient, and quietly asked Ker, “It was a poisoned arrow, wasn’t it?”
“Vyck!” Hundred tried to sit up when she saw her old friend.
Vyck knelt. “Lay still, Hunny. It’s okay.”
“Take Jaythree, Vy
ck. You take my baby until I’m better.” A wave of pain constricted the new mother’s features. When she opened her eyes again, they were clouded and distant. She watched Vyck take the baby from Stagree and cradle it to her chest. A smile spread involuntarily across her lips as she gazed at her tiny child and then caught Vyck’s equally smitten gaze.
Vyck leaned down at Hundred’s gesture and she nodded eagerly as the woman whispered the name, Hardt. But then Hundred drifted into unconsciousness saying only, “I have so much to tell you.”
Ten minutes distance to the south, Sophie had to land from the pain of all her wounds. She coasted down and landed on one of the swamp isles Hardt had explored during his first day as a Stray guarde scout. He ran immediately to gather the leaves of some of the healing plants he was familiar with in the area. As he gathered, Sophie reached her head around and pulled a few arrows and some tiny spearlets out of her hide. None of the missiles had hit her torso with enough strength to do any real damage by themselves, but the sheer number of times she’d been hit added up to an overwhelming number of cuts and scratches and bruises and her more delicate wings had been badly injured in the attack. Flying had hurt so much she hadn’t been sure she would have the strength to go far enough to get Hardt out of danger. Now her thoughts felt heavy, fuzzy.
Hardt returned with the leaves and a few roots to find his great big friend shaking. She was shivering with the shock and anger of the battle, crying through jagged breaths, uncontrollably upset by the landers’ hatred. He tried to calm her down, afraid that she would do herself more damage than the lander weapons had. Holding her great big head in his hands, he lay his head on her muzzle and reassured her.
“They just don’t know you. Once she got to know you, Hundred liked you very much. And Getek and Stagree listened to you.” He reached up and stroked her forehead as she calmed enough to lay her head down at his feet and listen to him. “And even Vyck didn’t look like she was at all scared of you.”
Sophie’s head came up so quickly, she almost knocked Hardt backwards. As it was he had to leap out of the way as she turned to look down at him. “Vyck? Vyck was there? You saw her?” The great dragon quickly lay her head down again, lowering her neck in the way that made mounting easiest. “Quick, get on. We’ll go back.”
“We can’t go back.”
Sophie had completely forgotten her wounds. She was frantic at the thought that Hardt had seen the woman she thought of as his atchs and was unable to talk to her, to hug her, to tell her that he was okay. “If we go back you can see Vyck.”
“If we go back, Sophie, they’ll kill you.”
“I’ll get you close and you can walk the rest of the way.”
“I’ve been hit, same as you. Plus you can’t fly. And I won’t leave you. Sophie, please, I want to hold her and tell her everything, but she watched us barely get out of there with our lives. She wouldn’t want us to risk ourselves just to reassure her.”
Sophie sadly swung her tail around and wrapped the tip around Hardt’s feet. “Konifer is right, isn’t he? The dTelfur would have killed you if you hadn’t saved my life. And the landers would have killed both of us if we hadn’t abandoned Hundred.”
“We didn’t abandon Hundred.”
“She was hit. As soon as I took off.”
“But she kept yelling for you to go until we were out of range to hear her.”
“And that’s the only reason I didn’t go back right then to help her.”
“Konifer is right. We aren’t mature enough to meet each other yet.”
“You and I are.”
“True. And Hundred.”
“And Nahni.”
“Deg would love to have seen Jaythree born.”
“But we can’t tell him, Hardt. We can’t tell anyone.”
“No one is expecting to see us for a while. We’ll stay here until your wounds are healed.”
Hardt leaned on her head for a little while longer and then he began systematically cleaning her many wounds with the desensitizing and antitoxic leaves and roots. He thought of Vyck as he worked and burned the sight of her into his memory so he would never forget the joy on her face.
“No one would believe us anyway.” Sophie mumbled out loud.
“What?”
“About the live birth. No one would believe us.”
Hardt smiled at the memory. The tiny baby resting in his hands, wriggling with life and taking her first breath. Hundred’s glowing joy at the sight of her child laying on her chest. “It was so beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Sophie turned her paling head to him, “ and I have never seen anything so disgusting in my life!”
Thirteen
∞
Danny again was sent to call Hardt to the hatching grounds. He found the distressingly aged lander by the falls, stretching a hide out along several stakes. As fast as the man had been aging since his arrival, the last few years seemed to have been even more rough on the man’s health. He looked to have aged at least fifty sheddings in the past three since he’d returned from the long trip he’d taken with Sophie. The two were gone so long, Mobious had been convinced that they had left him. He’d mourned and the village had mourned with the boy until Nahni had flown off in search and brought the two back with the terrifying news that Sophie had been caught in an avalanche and her wings so injured that she’d been unable to get back to the village.
As Hardt would no longer leave Sophie’s side for any extended length of time, his love affair with Tareay cooled. Yet when he decided to take up his weapons again to save Sophie from having to hunt, Tareay was his companion. And when he built a lander-inspired bower on the west side of the river so Sophie would not have to use her wings to fly to the far side each time she left home, he sought out his old lover’s help. Tareay herself often detoured on the way home from her long journeys to spend a night around the fire with Hardt, Sophie, and Mobious. But physically, Hardt was not the lover he had once been. His mind, and heart, were no longer available to her in the same way. And so their relationship changed.
It came as a surprise then to the hatching dragons that she asked for him to be brought to her after she’d lain her egg. She’d recognized the fever and taken herself directly to Deg rather than to the infirmary. His discretion could be counted upon. She’d not called out during the quick three days of her fever or the painful labor. When the egg lay on the sand, still soft, pulsing with the young life inside, she’d let go of Deg’s claws and reached over to stroke it once, gently, then stumbled back to the bed they’d erected on the sands and fallen asleep after asking that Danny bring Hardt to her side.
“Tareay.” Hardt knelt by the low cot, fearful that his friend was more injured than Danny would admit. “Tareay?”
The beautiful young dTelfur slowly opened her eyes but her first words were for Deg. “Is it okay?”
“It is hardening nicely.” Every new dam was concerned that her egg might not harden, that it might be a dud. In Deg’s experience, all the eggs hardened, some of them just never hatched. But never was a long time and unless the egg turned rotten or disintegrated of its own accord, Deg would continue sitting it. Most dams quickly forgot about the eggs once their own wounds healed and life had caught them up again. By the time the egg hatched most women wouldn’t be able to identify theirs.
Tareay’s concern was different. He knew that she would not forget. As attentive as Akai, she would visit and ask Deg about the egg. Her questions would be masked as a general inquisitiveness about his entire clutch. But her eyes would search out the little misshapen egg with a bluish grey splotch near the rounded end. Tareay, like Akai, had worked at getting pregnant and nature had obliged.
“Shall we leave you alone with Hardt?” Deg politely inquired, encouraging Tareay to open her eyes again and acknowledge her visitor.
“No.” Her eyes remained closed as she sighed the response. “Hi Hardt.”
“Hi. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah, I’ve been…” T
areay seemed to consider an innocuous nicety, but rejected that angle and sat up, opening her eyes to look at him “pregnant.”
“Ah, so that’s where you’ve been.” Hardt smiled gently, disturbed by the jealousy churning in his gut. “Which one is yours?”
“Deg?”
The great hatching dragon pushed himself up with his legs and looked under his belly for the newest egg which he’d rolled into the very middle of his clutch. He used his tail to point it out.
“It’s very pretty.”
Danny laughed and then apologized.
Tareay ignored him. “It isn’t of you, Hardt.”
“I know that.” Hardt tried to infuse his tone with understanding and unconcern. He wasn’t certain he succeeded.
“The sire has to be told, but I want you to know first.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s of Konifer.”
Danny tried to choke as quietly as he could.
Tareay hurried on, “He has to know in case it is the vizet. “
“So why tell me?”
“I’d like to spend my recovery time out at falls side. If I go to the nursery, he’ll know it’s of me.
“Are you ashamed of bearing the Vize’s get?”
“No. I have my reasons.” She turned then and looked defiantly at Deg. “Just as dTserra did.”
Deg merely blinked once in surprise to find that yet another villager knew Mobious’ parentage. He could see from his face that Hardt hadn’t told her.
“She never told Konifer. Why should you?”
“So he’ll hate Mobious less, knowing he has another option.”
Again Danny barely restrained his reaction.
Danny carried Hardt and Tareay back to the western falls side bower where she stayed for two moons before taking off for another journey. Two nights after her departure, Deg called Konifer to the hatching grounds and showed him the egg. In very careful language, sidestepping his failure to inform Konifer of his other offspring, Deg told the Vize that the egg was of him. Konifer, despite all expectations, was beside himself with joy.
Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel Page 24