Dragon's Fire (21 page)

“Egg hatched—green,” were the words written on Pellar’s slate as he met with Aleesa and the rest of the wherhandlers when he arrived at the wherhold that evening.

“So did ours,” Arella replied. “She was a green, too.”

A small form butted its head up from under her skirt. Chitter flittered down to the young watch-wher and gave it a polite chirp. The watch-wher sniffed back at the fire-lizard, then ducked behind Arella’s skirt once more.

“You’ll be first watch come morning,” Jaythen told him. “There’s a bit left in the pot, so get some food and get some rest. Aleesk will wake you.”

Pellar nodded once more, stifled a yawn, and wandered over to the cooking fire. Polla smiled at him as he found a clean dish and served himself.

“I’ll bet you’re glad to be home, aren’t you?” she asked, her grin more gap than teeth.

Again Pellar nodded but his heart wasn’t in it, any more than his stomach was enticed by the smell of his dinner. He ate quickly, spread out his bedroll in his old place, and quickly fell asleep. Tomorrow he would see about looking for reeds or wood for a new pipe.

When Arella came to bed later, she set her roll apart from his.

The next day was no different; neither the next sevenday, nor the next month. Pellar found himself overcoming the difficulty of teaching others to read when he could not speak, Aleesa grew proudly proficient in her abilities and took to writing a journal, the watch-whers grew older, and the camp slowly found its supplies dwindling once again to their old meager levels.

Pellar grew and thickened up. The last of his childish looks sloughed away; his chest grew wiry from his work with trap, drum, and knife. He improved his tracking, always remembering his encounter with Tenim, now several months past.

Polla had flirted with him, but he’d ignored the older woman, just as he and Arella found themselves ignoring each other—although with increasing difficulty. Some of the older girls Pellar had been teaching had started flirting with him, too. Pellar politely redirected their attention, while he worried about what might occur the next time Aleesk rose to mate. His best hope was to be far away before then.

Halla didn’t like Conni or her daughter, Milera, but Moran had decided to accept them into their band when they passed through the meeting of the three rivers between Telgar and Crom Holds.

Halla didn’t need for Conni to part her hair to guess at the big blue “S” that had been painted there with bluebush ink. Young as she was, Halla had a good idea of what had caused Conni to be Shunned by her Lord Holder, and she liked neither the way that Conni looked at Moran—like a tunnel snake ready to pounce on its prey—nor, worse, the way Milera slavishly emulated her mother. And while Conni might be a few Turns past her prime, Milera had just gone from child to woman.

Halla had been around Moran too long not to guess that there was more to the harper’s acceptance of the two than just the kindness of his heart. Even with the death of Perri behind them by a sevenday there were still too many mouths to fill and nothing with which to feed them, despite Halla’s best efforts with her traps.

And Conni’s offer to share her food did not warm Halla to the pinch-faced, sharp-eyed woman with her long straggly hair, nor to her simpering doe-eyed daughter.

Conni’s food lasted no more than a meal. A meal, Halla had noted, which fed Conni and Milera more than the rest of the troop put together. That meal had been three days since, and still Conni and Milera always seemed to get the best or the most of what meager pickings Moran’s band acquired.

Conni, Halla decided, would be better matched with Tenim than with Moran. Although, Halla conceded, perhaps Conni would find herself losing out to the younger Milera in winning Tenim’s affections.

Whichever way it was to be, Halla was certain that neither Conni nor Milera would have tolerated Halla or anyone of the littler ones were it not for their ability to gather food, either by trapping it or stealing it from local cotholders.

Although she preferred hunting and trapping, it never bothered Halla much to steal from a wealthy holder or crafter, but none of the holdings they’d seen in the last sevenday were wealthy; Halla was certain that their thefts had meant empty bellies for the rightful owners. It bothered her to steal from those who worked as hard for their food as she did.

Her line twitched and she tugged at it. Another bite. She gently played the line with her free hand, gauging the size of the fish by its heft on her line.

It had been Conni or Milera who had secured their passage on the small riverboat. Halla was not sure which and didn’t want to think long on it—both because she hated being beholden to either in any fashion, and because of the satisfied smirk both had displayed the morning after they’d spent the night in the little cabin below deck with Moran and Geffer, the grizzled old man who owned the boat.

Halla finished her battle with the hapless fish at about the same time as she finished her thoughts about the night before. She deposited the fish in the bucket where two more vainly circled. There, that was enough for a good meal. She looked forward to gutting the fish, a smellier task than dressing land animals, but all the better to wash the stench that the presence of Conni and Milera lent their party.

“That one’s too thin,” Milera’s whiny voice piped up just behind Halla. “You ought to throw it back—it’s as skinny as you are.”

Halla did not betray her surprise that she had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard Milera’s approach. She merely threw her line back over the side of the boat and trawled it out carefully.

“The sun’s just barely past nooning; I didn’t think you’d be up,” she said carelessly, keeping her attention on the line.

“I get up when I’m hungry or bored,” Milera answered. “I’m both now. Moran says that you’re to feed me.”

“I’ll share my catch,” Halla replied, “when the time comes.”

“The time’s for Moran to say,” Milera snapped.

“Yes,” Halla agreed, with a slight incline of her head. “Until he does, I’ll go on fishing.”

“And
I
told you that Moran said to feed me,” Milera returned venomously. “The two big ones ought to do. You can fish for more when you’ve finished cooking mine.”

Halla’s eyes flashed and she set her jaw, prepared to give Milera a piece of her mind when she heard footsteps climbing up from the cabin.

“Are you getting fed, Milera?” Geffer called as he approached. He cackled. “Wouldn’t want you to lose your strength, would we?”

Halla felt her whole face turn red with anger, embarrassment, betrayal, and a sense of shame.

“Halla’s just about to gut the fish,” Milera purred back. “She’s only caught three, but I suppose that’s as good as she can, being still a child.”

Halla turned back to her fishing to hide her anger.

“She’s a good fisher to get three in such a short time,” Geffer allowed.

“It’s good that she’s got so many talents,” Milera agreed. “A plain girl’s got to have some craft to trade on.”

Geffer laughed agreeably. “Will you come back down when you’re finished eating?”

“Whatever you want,” Milera replied.

Geffer laughed again and Halla heard him pat the girl, mutter something that caused Milera to giggle, and then turn back to go below.

Milera was silent only until Geffer was out of earshot, when, in icy tones, she declared, “I’ll take my fish now.”

Halla bit her tongue and nodded sullenly. Times had changed; they would change again.

It took another fortnight for Halla’s predictions to come true, though not in the way she’d imagined. When the boatman, Geffer, pulled in to the wharf at the highest part of the River Crom, Milera remained behind, much to Conni’s evident disgust. “You can do better than that.”

At least that’s how it seemed—until Milera met up with them on the far outskirts of the small river hold, her cheeks red with exertion and face bright with mischief.

“I got his money,” she crowed to her mother when she found the group. “Just waited until he fell asleep, is all.”

“That’s my girl,” Conni said, patting Milera on the back and holding out her hand. “How much did you get?”

“All of it, of course,” Milera said, pulling out her purse and gleefully emptying it into Conni’s hands. “You know I can’t count.”

“Thief!” a voice—Geffer’s—shouted.

Other voices took up the cry. “Thief!” “Thief!”

Milera’s gloating look dissolved into one of worry, then outright fear as Conni clenched her hands and scarpered off, calling over her shoulder, “Fool! He wasn’t supposed to wake up!”

“Scatter!” Halla told the other youngsters. She took her own advice, dissolving into the crowd and then circling far around to come up behind their pursuers.

But someone grabbed Halla before she could slip away, a tall man with bad breath and a strong grasp. “There’s one!”

“She was with them,” Geffer said, as the crowd gathered around. “She didn’t steal nothing—’twas the prettier one.”

Halla flushed.

“Put an ‘S’ on her just so others know, then,” someone in the crowd shouted.

“Yes, Shun her!”

“Shun the thief!”

Halla struggled against her captor, kicking and squirming futilely until she collapsed into a pathetic heap, sobbing silently with uncontrollable terror and despair.

“She didn’t steal nothin’,” Geffer shouted over the crowd. “It was the other one, the tart, that did it.”

“Let her go, then,” a deep voice chimed in.

“Should mark her just to know,” someone muttered in the crowd.

“I see them!” the deep voice called. “They’re over there!”

The crowd surged forward, around Halla, and charged off.

“Here, let me take her,” the deep voice spoke to Halla’s captor. “She’s scared and needs a rest.”

“Needs a good thrashing,” Halla’s captor objected and then looked carefully at the owner of the deep voice. “Oh, Harper, I didn’t know.”

Halla’s arm was thrust into the harper’s grasp.

“That’s all right,” the harper replied. “I’ll take her now.”

“I’ll leave her to you, then.”

Halla waited until the stranger disappeared and then looked up into Tenim’s eyes. She didn’t even wonder where he’d found harper garb.

Tenim stayed silent, looking around the clearing until he was certain that they wouldn’t be overheard. When he spoke again, it wasn’t in the deep voice he’d used before but in his natural baritone. His tone was deadly. “Where’s Moran?”

At the far east edge of the river hold, Moran gathered the remains of his band and set off hastily across the path that led east toward Keogh. He could only find six of his original dozen orphans, but he dared not wait longer because Conni had never left his side. Her resemblance to Milera was too close, and only Moran’s quick thinking in throwing a spare cloak over her had kept them both from being caught.

Moran might have been able to talk his way out of the ensuing unpleasantness, but he was certain that Conni, with the blue “S” of the Shunned so prominent on her forehead, would find herself in mortal peril. Judging by her biting grip on his forearm, Conni felt the same.

She had played him for a fool, Moran realized. A sideways glance at her features, haggard, hawklike, bitter, confirmed to Moran that it was full proper that Conni had been Shunned—she was a voracious taker, stalker, and menace to all. Worse, she had raised her daughter to copy her ways. Whether Milera would escape the holders today was of no importance; one day she wouldn’t, and then she, too, would wear the blue “S” of the Shunned until her nature finally betrayed her to her death. Just as it would be for Conni.

“If I’m caught, I’ll see that you get yours, too,” Conni hissed beside him, her hard features showing that she’d guessed at Moran’s thoughts. “I’ll let them know that you’re no harper.”

Moran nodded and gave her a worried look. Her not knowing that he truly
was
a harper might be his salvation; he didn’t want to lose that advantage just yet.

“Whatever you say,” he told her.

“I say we lose these brats,” Conni replied, scowling at the small children following them.

Moran’s heart sank as he realized his mistake. Quickly he temporized, “Not here. They won’t survive, and then we’d be wanted for murder, as well.”