Dragonsblood (9 page)

asked, “What’s to stop them from taking her?”

“She’s one of a kind, where would they take her?” Tanner replied.

“Besides, she’s not your Master’s ship yet. Until we’ve completed the trials,

if anything happens to her it’ll be on my head.”

Baror grunted acknowledgment, still looking doubtful. Tanner turned to

Marset. “We’d be glad to see your new hold.”

“I’d like to see a nice glass of cold wine,” Baror muttered.

Lorana spoke up for the first time. “And Colfet needs to see your hold

healer.”

Tanner looked chagrined. “To the healer first, then we’ll see.”

Healer Bordan was a short, elderly man with thick, bushy eyebrows and

long white hair worn in a queue. He sniffed the cast carefully for any signs

of infection, checked the bindings, spoke curtly to Lorana about the break,

and finally pronounced himself well satisfied with the current cast.

“You were wise not to try a solid cast,” Bordan told her.

“We didn’t have the supplies to make it,” Lorana replied. “But wouldn’t it

have been better?”

Bordan nodded. “Yes, a solid cast keeps the bones in place better, but on

the sea where everything gets wet, you’d soon have nothing more than a

mass of soggy wrappings. No, a well-wrapped set of splints will do fine.”

He gave Lorana a searching look. “Ever thought of turning healer?”

Lorana was stunned at the implied compliment and confused as she tried

to construct an answer. Tanner saved her. “I’d say that Lorana has her work

cut out with her drawings.”

Bordan’s bushy eyebrows rose to greater heights. “You draw, as well?

Have you ever considered drawing for the Healer Hall? Have you a good

eye?”

“Her drawings look so real, I’m afraid of falling into them,” Colfet told him.

“Well, if you ever think so, I’ll be happy to write the Masterhealer,” Bordan

said.

Lorana’s eyes widened in delight. “Thank you! Thank you very much, Healer

Bordan.”

“Hmmph,” Colfet grumbled. “Didn’t I tell you there was no need to see the

healer? But I’m parched, from all that poking about—begging your pardon,

Healer Bordan.”

Bordan snorted, smiling. “We’ve got some good Benden wine down in the

cellars that would probably do wonders for your pains.” He raised a

cautioning finger. “But, mind you, drink enough water with it or your bones

will feel it when the wine dries them out!”

The entire hold smelled of stone dust, a dry acrid smell. The Main Hall was

large enough, but there were few in it, as even here the sound of miners

carving out stone could be heard ringing through the air.

“You’re off that foreign ship, is it?” a sturdily built woman asked as they

entered. “Here for some wine and a bit of food, I’d imagine?”

“If we could, please,” Lorana asked.

Lorana’s politeness startled the woman, who reappraised the group. “Well,

you’d probably be as bothered as the rest of us with all that hammering,”

she said and leaned closer to them. In a whisper she added, “Most of the

lads are out in the valley where the noise is less. You’ll find food and wine

out there, too. It’s a bit like a Gather.”

The walk from the new hold to the valley inland was not long, but Lorana

found the going difficult.

“You’ve still got your sea legs,” Tanner informed her. “You’ll be a bit wobbly

for the rest of the day, probably.”

Colfet looked at the sun and frowned. “Won’t be much of that left, soon.”

He asked Tanner, “When did you plan to head out?”

Tanner considered the question and looked at the sky. “The offshore

breeze won’t start until after sundown,” he replied. He held up a hand to

forestall Colfet’s protest. “I know it will be a rough night, but the winds in

Nerat Bay can be fickle, particularly near the shore, and I’d rather get away

while we can.”

“You want to ride a storm out of here?” Baror asked in shock.

Tanner nodded. “After the storm there’ll be days of windless dead calm

and thick morning fogs,” he told the northern sailors. “I don’t want us caught

in either.”

Colfet considered what Tanner had said for a moment and nodded firmly.

“Don’t get much windlessness up north, but we know all about fog.”

Baror shuddered. “I couldn’t stand being stuck in the same place for days

on end, praying for a wind.”

Tanner nodded in agreement. “Then let’s be off, get our Gather, and get

gone with the night airs!”

“There it is, Talith!” J’trel called as they burst into the afternoon sunshine at

the new sea hold. “Look down there, see it? That must be their Dock

Cavern, and you can see all the tents—practically a Gather—of the people

waiting to move in the new Hold. And—look!—there’s the
Wind Rider
!”

J’trel asked his dragon to bank sharply to the right on their way down,

craning his head over the dragon’s neck to get a better view of the hold. In

his earlier conversation with Captain Tanner, he’d heard a lot about the new

sea hold—it was all any of the seafolk would talk about—and some of what

he’d heard had disturbed him.

Oh, he was sure that the Benden Weyrleader must have been told that

Nerat was settling a new hold, and from what he’d heard about M’tal, he

knew
that
Weyrleader would insist on all the proper procedures being

followed in building and founding the new Hold. But—where were the

shutters for the windows? And didn’t that main hold door look a bit too

wide? What if the wind blew Thread up against the hold doors and

someone opened them too early? J’trel shuddered at the thought.

“Talith, put me down on the sand, please,” J’trel requested. Talith, who had

heard
more of J’trel’s ruminations than the old dragonrider realized,

rumbled in agreement and turned toward the widest part of the shore. “I

want to see this hold and talk with its holder before I find Lorana.”

At the hold entrance, J’trel was nearly bowled over by a group of lads

trudging through with wheelbarrows full of chipped rock.

“Out of my way, you old git!” the first one yelled as he swerved to dodge

J’trel.

The second one, following, went wide-eyed as he recognized J’trel’s

distinctive garb. “Genin, you fool! That was a dragonrider!”

Genin spared a backward glance at the dragonrider and said loudly, “So?

He’s too old to do any useful work—probably doesn’t even know how!”

Talith bugled angrily from the shore and Genin jumped, tripped over his

feet, and toppled his wheelbarrow over. His face turned livid with rage as he

sprang up, shouting at J’trel, “This is all your fault, old man! Why don’t you

go back to your Weyr?”

J’trel stopped and turned back angrily. He sized up Genin as he

approached. The lad was burly and muscled from years working nets and

hauling sail; cropped blond hair topped a beefy face with eyes set with the

look of a bully.

As Genin rushed at the dragonrider, his companion dropped his

wheelbarrow and grated, “Genin, no! He’s a dragonrider!”

“Stay out of it, Vilo!” Genin said, his voice rising as he threw himself at

J’trel—

Who wasn’t there. The bully fell with a jarring thud onto the hard stone as his

lunge for the dragonrider met empty air.

With a tight grin, J’trel noted that the oaf had winded himself. In other

circumstances, J’trel would have left matters at that, but a crowd was

gathering. The dragonrider felt the heat of anger burning within him—and an

echo from Talith at the shore.

Rough hands parted a way through the crowd and a dark-haired man

appeared. “Hold! Enough of this—oh, dragonrider! I didn’t know! I—”

“I will settle with this one,” J’trel said, his words harsher and thicker than he

had intended. The dark-haired man’s eyes widened and he opened his

mouth to protest. J’trel, hands raised in readiness, turned his attention back

to the winded bully.

“Everyone stand back, give them room!” the dark-haired man shouted at

the crowd, which obediently drew back.

What are you doing?
Talith asked.
You are not young anymore.
J’trel

could hear the dragon’s wings as Talith launched himself into the air.

This is a question of honor,
J’trel said.
Thread comes soon. Holders must

respect dragonriders.
Talith accepted the answer reluctantly, taking station

and circling watchfully high above the crowd.

The distractions had given Genin time to recover. Just as J’trel turned back

to deal with him, Genin threw himself at the dragonrider.

Genin had heard enough as he was recovering to realize that he would be

outcast from the Hold. Always quicker to anger than to thought, the bully

roused himself to revenge. He grappled the dragonrider at the waist,

intending to snap the old man’s spine.

The shock of the assault took J’trel off his feet. He fell back under the

weight of his attacker. Agony ran along nerves from his waist. With a shock,

echoed high above by his bugling dragon, J’trel realized that the tough was

planning to kill him. As Genin dragged him up in a bear hug, J’trel grabbed

his head in either hand and dug his thumbs into the holder’s eyes.

Genin dropped J’trel with a shriek, his hands covering his eyes. J’trel took a

sharp ragged breath, stepped back and shot a brutal kick to Genin’s groin

with his right foot. The impact staggered the holder. Landing on the foot he

had kicked with, J’trel followed immediately with another kick to the chest.

Pain lanced up the dragonrider’s foot as the blow jarred through his body.

Genin collapsed facedown into an inert lump.

Even though both his waist and foot hurt him abominably, even though he

was sorely winded and dearly wanted nothing more than to sprawl on the

ground gasping for air, J’trel forced himself to take one deep calming

breath, stand squarely, and look commandingly for the dark-haired man.

“I am J’trel, rider of Talith,” he said, turning slowly to catch the eyes of

everyone in the crowd. “I request the courtesy of this Hold.”

“I am Rinir, my lord,” the dark-haired man said instantly, bowing. He frowned

at Genin, and continued nervously, “I assure you—”

J’trel cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I am looking for someone off that

ship. Where is the crew?”

“I met them earlier, my lord,” a woman said, coming forward to stand next to

Rinir. “They’ve gone over to the tents.”

J’trel glanced skyward and ignored the crowd as Talith responded to his

silent request. The crowd followed his glance and ran out of the dragon’s

way as Talith landed daintily beside his dragonrider. With a final, curt nod to

Rinir, J’trel mounted and signaled Talith to take them to the meadow.

You’re hurt!
Talith complained.
You need numbweed and fellis. Let me

take you back to the Weyr.

No. I promised Lorana that I’d see her,
J’trel replied.
If I go now, I don’t

know when I’ll be able to return.

Talith rumbled anxiously but flew on to the meadow.

“It’s not right for a woman to be aboard a ship,” Baror grumbled into his

cup. He and Minet sat under an awning at the crowded vintner’s tent.

“So tell the captain,” Minet said, tired of hearing the same old moaning from

Baror that he’d heard since
Wind Rider
had first set sail.

“Captain!” Baror snorted. “He’s only the captain until we’re finished our

trials.” He took another gulp and slammed down his empty mug. “Then it’s

me.”

“Well, you’ve not that long to wait, then,” Minet said. “And then you’ll

decide.” He took a pull from his mug, frowned, and looked into it. His frown

deepened when he saw that it was empty. “Still, she’s a pretty one, isn’t

she?”

“She’s a bit plain for my tastes,” Baror grumbled.

“She’d keep you warm at night,” Minet said suggestively. “Especially if you

were the captain. She’d have no choice then.”

“My missus would skin me,” Baror grumbled. Minet knew that all too well.

He was convinced that getting away from his wife was half the reason that

Baror had agreed to this voyage.

“Your missus would skin you only if she found out,” Minet said, his eyes

glinting. “As you said, it’s bad luck to have a woman aboard a ship. And

accidents can happen.”

Baror met his eyes with a thoughtful look. Minet nodded at him

suggestively. Baror pursed his lips, then grinned.

“But,” Minet cautioned, “you’d have to wait until you were captain.”

“I could be captain today,” Baror snapped back.

“And how do you suppose that?” Minet wondered.

“Accidents can happen,” Baror replied, rising blearily from his seat.

“What about that dragonrider? You heard he killed one of the local oafs,

didn’t you?”

“I’ll take care of him, too,” Baror said, stalking off. “He’ll be no trouble if he’s

in his cups.”

The crew of
Wind Rider
had split up long before J’trel arrived. He found

Lorana by herself, pretending not to look at some of the more beautiful

fabrics on sale in the weavers’ tent.

“They’d make great wear for a woman, wouldn’t they?” J’trel asked as he

walked up to her.

“J’trel!” Lorana threw herself into his arms for a hug. “Good to see you!”

“And you.” Trying not to wince in pain, J’trel grinned at her. “The sea air