A Gift of Dragons (10 page)

She showed him her shoes, the most important part of a runner’s gear. She’d used her family’s special oils to soften the wherhide and then formed it on the lasts that had been carved for her feet by her uncle who did them for her Bloodline. Her stitches were neat but not as fine as Mallum’s. She intended to improve. Meanwhile, this pair wasn’t a bad effort and fit her feet like gloves. The spikes were medium length as fit for the present dry trace conditions. Most long-distance runners carried an extra pair with shorter spikes for harder ground, especially during spring and summer. She was working on her winter footwear, hoping she’d need it, for those boots came up to midcalf and required a lot more conditioning. Even they were of lighter weight than the footgear holders would use. But then most holders plodded and the thicker leather was suitable for their tasks as fine soft hide was right for a runner’s foot.

Mallum nodded in approval as he handed back her shoes. Now he checked the fit of her belt to be sure it was snug enough not to rub against the small of her back as she ran, and made certain that her short trunks would not pull against her leg and that her sleeveless top covered her backside well below her waist to help prevent her getting a kidney chill. Stopping often from a need to relieve oneself ruined the rhythm of a run.

“We’ll go now,” Mallum said, having assured himself that she was properly accoutred.

Cesila stood in the door, gave her daughter a reassuring nod, and saw them off, up the eastern trace. Before they were out of sight, she gave the particular runner yodel that stopped them in their tracks. They saw her pointing skyward: at the arrow formation of dragons in the sky, a most unusual sight these days when the dragons of Benden Weyr were so rarely seen.

To see dragons in the sky was the best sort of omen. They were there . . . and then they weren’t! She smiled. Too bad runners couldn’t just
think
themselves to their destinations the way dragons could. As if he had shared her thought, Mallum grinned back at her and then turned to face the direction in which they were headed, and any nervousness Tenna had had disappeared. When he sprang off again, she was in step with him by the third stride. He nodded again approvingly.

“Running’s not just picking up your heels and showing them to those behind you,” Mallum said, his eyes watching the trace ahead, though he must have known it as well as Tenna did. “A good bit of proper running is learning to pace yourself and your stride. It’s knowing the surfaces of the traces you have to traverse. It’s knowing how to save your strength so you’ll last the longer hauls. When to ease back to a walk, when and how to drink and eat so’s you’re not too gutty to run right. It’s learning the routes of the various Crosses and what sort of weather you might have to run through . . . and learning to maneuver on snowrunners on the northern Crosses. And, most important, when to take cover and just let the weather have its way with the world and you safe out of it. So’s the messages and the packets you carry will get through as soon as possible.”

She had responded with a nod of appreciation. Not that she hadn’t heard the same lecture time and again in the station from every relative and runner. But this time it was for her benefit and she owed Mallum the courtesy of listening closely. She did watch Mallum’s stride, though, to be sure his heel wasn’t bothering him. He caught her glance once and gave her a grin.

“Be sure you carry a wedge of that poultice on any long laps, girl. You never know, you know, when you might need it. As I just did.” And he grimaced, reminding Tenna that even the best runner can put a foot wrong.

While no runner carries much, the long-tailed orange sweatband that runners invariably wore could be used to strap a strain or sprain. An oiled packet, no larger than the palm of a hand, had a cloth soaked in numbweed which both cleansed and eased the scratches one could acquire from time to time. Simple remedies for the most common problems. A wedge of poultice could be added to such travel gear and be well worth its weight.

Tenna had no trouble making that lap with Mallum even when he picked up the pace on the flat section.

“Running with a pretty girl’s not hard to do,” he told her when they took one brief pause.

She wished he didn’t make so much of her looks. They wouldn’t help her run any better or help her become what she wanted to be: a top runner.

By the time they reached Irma’s station at midday, she was not even breathing very hard. But the moment Mallum slowed, he limped slightly with his full weight on the heel.

“Hmm. Well, I can wait out the day here with more poultice,” he said, pulling the little wedge from one of the pockets of his belt. “See,” and he displayed it to Tenna, “handy enough.”

She tapped her aid pocket and smiled.

Old Irma came out with a grin on her sun-dried face for them.

“Will she do, Mallum?” the old woman asked, handing each a cup.

“Oh, aye, she’ll do. A credit to her Bloodline and not a bother to run with!” Mallum said with a twinkle in his eyes.

“I pass, do I, Mallum?” Tenna asked, needing to have a direct answer.

“Oh, aye,” and he laughed, walking about and shaking his legs to get the kinks out even as she was doing. “No fear on that. Any hot water for m’poultice, Irm?”

“Coming up.” She ducked back into her station and came out with a bowl of steaming water which she set down on the long bench that was an inevitable fixture of every station. The overhang of the roof provided a shelter from sun and rain. Most runners were obsessed with watching the traces to see who was coming and going. The long bench, its surface smoothed by generations of bums sliding across it, was placed so that it commanded a good view of the four traces linking at Irma’s.

Automatically, Tenna pulled a footstool from under the bench and held out her hand to receive Mallum’s right foot. She untied the shoe, and placed the now moistened poultice on the bruise while Irma handed her a bandage to fix it in place, taking a good look at the injury in the process.

“’Nother day’ll do it. Shoulda stayed off it this mornin’, too.”

“Not when I’d a chance to run with such a pretty girl,” Mallum said.

“Just like a man,” Irma said dismissively.

Tenna felt herself blushing, although she was beginning to believe he wasn’t just teasing. No one else had ever commented on her looks.

“It wasn’t a taxing leg, Irma. It’s level most of the way and a good surface,” she said, grinning shyly at Mallum as she tried to divert Irma’s criticism.

“Humph! Well, a hill run would’ve been downright foolish and it is flat this way.”

“Anything for Tenna to take back,” Mallum asked, getting back to business, “to make her first round-trip as a runner?”

“Should be,” Irma said, winking at Tenna for this informal inclusion into the ranks of Pern runners. “You could eat now . . . soup’s ready and so’s the bread.”

“Wouldn’t mind a bit myself,” Mallum said, carefully shifting his position as if easing the heat from the poultice, since the heat probably penetrated even the toughened sole of his foot.

By the time Tenna had eaten the light meal, two runners came in: a man she didn’t know by sight, on a long leg from Bitra with a pouch to go farther west; and one of Irma’s sons.

“I can run it to Ninety-Seven,” she said, the official designation of her family’s station.

“That’ll do,” the man said, panting and heaving from his long haul. “That’ll do fine.” He gasped for more breath. “It’s an urgent,” he got out. “Your name?”

“Tenna.”

“One . . . of . . . Fedri’s?” he asked and she nodded. “That’s good . . . enough for me. Ready to . . . hit the trace?”

“Sure.” She held out her hand for the pouch that he slipped off his belt, pausing only to mark the pass-over time on the flap as he gave it into her keeping. “You are?” she asked, sliding the pouch onto her own belt and settling it in the small of her back.

“Masso,” he said, reaching now for the cup of water Irma had hastened to bring him. He whooshed her off to the westward trace. With a final grateful farewell wave to Mallum, she picked up her heels as Mallum cheered her on with the traditional runner’s “yo-ho.”

She made it home in less time than it had taken her to reach Irma’s, and one of her brothers was there to take the pouch on the next westward lap. Silan nodded approval at the pass-over time, marked his own receipt, and was off.

“So, girl, you’re official,” her mother said, and embraced her. “And no need to sweat it at all, was there?”

“Running’s not always as easy,” her father said from the bench, “but you made good time and that’s a grand way to start. I hadn’t expected you back before midafternoon.”

Tenna did the short legs all around Station 97 for the first summer and into that winter, building her stamina for longer runs and becoming known at all the connecting stations. She made her longest run to Greystones, on the coast, just ahead of a very bad snowstorm. Then, because she was the only runner available in Station 18 when the exhausted carrier of an urgent message came in, she had to carry it two stations north. A fishing sloop would be delayed back to port until a new mast could be stepped. Since the vessel was overdue, there were those who’d be very glad to get the message she carried.

Such emergency news should have been drummed ahead, but the high winds would tear such a message to nonsense. It was a tough run, with cold as well as wind and snow across a good bit of the low-lying trace. Pacing herself, she did take an hour’s rest in one of the Thread shelters that dotted a trace. She made the distance in such good time in those conditions that she got extra stitches on her belt, marking her rise toward journeyman rank.

This run to Fort Hold would be two more stitches on her belt if she finished in good time. And she was sure she would . . . with the comforting sort of certainty that older runners said you began to sense when you’d been traveling the traces awhile. She was also now accustomed to judging how long she had run by the feeling in her legs. There was none of the leaden feeling that accompanied real fatigue, and she was still running easily. So long as she had no leg cramp, she knew she could continue effortlessly at this good pace until she reached Station 300 at Fort. Leg cramp was always a hazard and could strike you without warning. She was careful to renew the tablets a runner chewed to ease off a cramp. And was not too slow about grabbing a handful of any useful herbs she spotted which would help prevent the trouble.

She oughtn’t to be letting her mind wander like this, but with an easy stride and a pleasant night in which to travel, it was hard to keep her mind on the job. She would, smartly enough, if there were complications like bad weather or poor light. This was also far too well traveled country for there to be dangers like tunnel snakes, which were about the worst risk that runners encountered—usually at dawn or dusk, when the creatures were out hunting. Of course, renegades, while not as common as tunnel snakes, were more dangerous, since they were human, not animal, but that distinction was often moot. As runners rarely carried marks, they were not as likely to be waylaid as were messengers on runnerbeasts, or other solitary travelers. Tenna hadn’t heard of any renegade attacks this far west, but sometimes those people were so vicious that they might pull up a runner just for spite and malice. In the past three Turns, there had been two cases—and those up in northern Lemos and Bitra—where runners had been hamstrung out of sheer malevolence.

Once in a while, in a bad winter, a flock of very hungry wherries might attack a runner in the open, but the instances were rare enough. Snakes were the most likely danger encountered, particularly midsummer, when there were newly hatched clutches.

Her father had had injuries two summers back with such a hazard. He’d been amazed at how fast the adult tunnel snake could move when alarmed. Mostly they were torpid creatures, only hunger quickening them. But he’d stepped in the midst of an ill-placed nest and had had the hatchlings swarming up his legs, pricking the skin in innumerable places and even managing to get as high as his crotch. (Her mother had stifled a giggle and remarked that it had been more than her father’s pride that had been wounded.) But he’d scars from claw and tooth that he could show.

Moonlit nights like this one were a joy to run in, with the air cool enough to dry the sweat on her face and chest, the trace springy underfoot and clear ahead of her. And her thoughts could wander.

There would be a Gather shortly after she reached her destination; she knew she was carrying some orders for Crafts displaying at Fort Hold. Pouches were invariably fuller going to or coming from a Gather—orders from those unable to attend, wishing to contact a Mastercraftsman. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could stay over for the Gather. She hadn’t been to one in a long while and she did want to find well-tanned leathers for a new pair of running shoes. She’d enough money to her credit to give a fair price for the right hides: she’d checked the books her mother kept of her laps. Most Halls were quite willing to take a runner-station chit. She’d one in a belt pocket. If she found just the right skins, she’d a bit of leeway to bargain, above and beyond the surface value of the chit.