A Gift of Dragons (6 page)

With something constructive to do, even Nexa stopped her whingeing. Dowell was carefully lifted out of the wagon and covered by a sleeping fur. Then everyone concentrated on getting the wagon out of sight. Nexa was directed to brush away the tracks of the wagon as Aramina and Pell forced the dray beasts through the opening Barla parted into the copse. The artistic addition of extra branches completed the camouflage.

Then Barla sent Pell and Nexa on ahead to the cave with sleeping furs and Barla’s precious stewpot, while Aramina and her mother tried to rouse Dowell. The usual aromatic had no effect, and the two women exchanged anxious glances, when suddenly Nudge and Shove, tethered by the trace, began to moan fearfully and pull at their ring ropes.

“Thread?” gasped Barla, bending protectively over her husband.

“No,” cried Aramina, “Dragons!
Big
dragons!” Indeed it seemed to her as if the sky was filled with them, their great wings causing the saplings to bend to their backwind.

“Aramina,
how
did that dragonrider come to help us in the first place? You didn’t
call
him, did you?” When Aramina mutely nodded, Barla gave a despairing cry. “But the Weyrs will take you from us if they know you can hear and speak to dragons! And then what shall we do?”

“How else were we to save Father?” asked Aramina even as she, too, regretted her action.

I hear Aramina
, said Heth’s unmistakable voice.

Oh, please go away, Heth. Say you can’t find me.

But I have! You must not fear. We won’t harm you.
Before Aramina could speak again, three dragons skimmed neatly down onto the track, making Nudge and Shove buck and strain to be free of their tether. As one, Barla and Aramina dashed forward to prevent the escape of the dray beasts, twisting the nose rings until pain paralyzed the stupid animals.

We will move down the track
, Aramina heard Heth say as she coped with the frantic Nudge. When the dragons were far enough away not to be an immediate threat, Aramina and Barla relaxed their hold.

“I am T’gellan, bronze rider of Monarth, and this is Mirrim, who rides green Path,” said the oldest of the three riders who approached them. “K’van wisely called for help to persuade those holdless raiders to absent themselves from this vicinity. So I thought we’d better make sure you had safely reached shelter before Threadfall.”

Barla hovered between her critical need for assistance and anxiety at the presence of dragonriders who might very easily depart with her daughter who could hear dragons.

Mirrim knelt beside Dowell and opened his shirt, then exhaled her breath on a long whistle.

“I can feel no broken bones, but he’s not regained consciousness,” Barla told Mirrim, sensibly making her husband’s needs her first priority.

“If he was under a wagon as K’van says, that doesn’t surprise me,” Mirrim remarked. “I’ve done considerable nursing at the Weyr. First let’s get him to this cave.”

“We don’t have much time to spare,” T’gellan added, squinting at the steep bank. “And I don’t fancy trying to haul an unconscious man up that!”

“Is there any sort of a clearing by your cave?” Mirrim asked Aramina.

“A small one,” she said, devoutly hoping that Pell’s description bore some resemblance to fact.

“Path? Would you oblige us?” Mirrim asked the green dragon.

I see no reason why not
. In a maneuver that Aramina couldn’t believe she was seeing, the green dragon glided to the group without moving her wings or appearing to walk.
Silly beasts, aren’t they?
Path added as Nudge and Shove began their terrified lowing again.

Aramina was obliged to go calm them; their perturbation abruptly ceased as Mirrim, Path, her father, and her mother disappeared.

“Well, it seemed easier to send your mother along, too, Aramina,” T’gellan said with a laugh for her astonishment. “You’d best go the hard way. Thread will fall very shortly.”

“But I can’t . . . Nudge and Shove . . .”

K’van grinned. “Just get on one, get a good hold on the nose rein of the other. We’ll supply the impulsion.” And he jerked his thumb at the two dragons watching with their jewel eyes whirling mildly.

It was perhaps the wildest ride Aramina had ever had. In the first place, dray beasts were not designed for comfortable riding, having straight backs, wide withers, short necks and low-held heads. However, the flapping of dragon wings behind Nudge and Shove was more than enough to have sent them plunging through fire. They took the bank, cloven hooves slipping on the wet footing in no more than four bucking jumps. Momentum carried them over the top and down the dip, almost right into the cliff wall, where they fetched up to a dead stop that sent Aramina onto Nudge’s horns, and then to the ground with a force that jarred her from heel to headbones.

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.