The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall (14 page)

“Is he standing there with his eyes closed?” Mairi asked.

“No, he’s raised a wing to shield,” Sean said, again using that almost lifeless tone. “You should be just able to make ’em out behind the wing membrane.”

“Oh, yes, so I can,” Mairi said, sounding delighted.

“Look, Red, one of the reasons I came was to be sure you had gotten there safely. We expect Threadfall over this area tomorrow morning fairly early, and I didn’t want you caught out in it.”

Red sighed. With all the problems of fording the river, he had just been considering staying here the rest of the night and starting out fresh in the morning.

“You’re not that far,” Sean said encouragingly.

“I know, son, I know.” Red paused, to give Sean a chance to speak whatever was clearly on his mind and bothering him. He had a very good relationship with his son-in-law, and he wanted nothing to jeopardize it.

“Is your Snapper back yet?” Sean asked.

“What’s happened at the Weyr?” Mairi said, immediately clasping Sean’s arm and peering up into his face. “Don’t lie to me . . .”

Sean ducked his head, lifting his free arm to rub his face. “No reason to lie.” Now both could hear the roughness in his voice.

Mairi embraced the bronze rider. “Tell us, Sean,” she said in her gentlest voice, lifting an edge of her kerchief to dry his cheeks.

Red altered his stance, moving nearer the Weyrleader.

“Alianne died in childbirth,” Sean said, tears now making runnels down his cheeks. “We couldn’t stop the bleeding. I went for Basil.”

“Ooooh,” Mairi said in the soft expression of true empathy.

“That’s not all of it.” Sean sniffed, rubbing his nose and eyes, giving way to the misery he had bottled up. “Chereth . . . went . . .
between.
Like Duluth and Marco.”

“Oh, Sean love . . .” Mairi brought his head down to her shoulder. Red put his arm across the rider’s bowed shoulders.

There had been many injuries, some serious enough to end the fighting abilities of six dragons, but only four deaths: actually an astounding record, of which Sean as Weyrleader had every right to be proud. But the loss of a queen magnified the tragedy. No wonder Snapper and the others had disappeared. They had gone to the Weyr to mourn.

Red and Mairi were quietly comforting, allowing Sean to express a grief he had probably suppressed until now.

“I’ll come if I can be of any help,” Mairi said with a quick query at Red, who nodded approval.

Sean raised his head, sniffed, and then blew his nose on a handkerchief he hauled out of a jacket pocket. “Thanks, Mairi, but we’ll come through. It was just such a shock. It’s one thing to lose a fighting dragon, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

“We understand, dear.”

“So nothing would do Sorka but that I checked to be sure you were all right, too. I admit to getting a fright when I didn’t see you at the Hold . . .” Sean managed a wry smile.

Red put a hand on Sean’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze, which he hoped expressed both his sympathy and appreciation. “And you’ve Thread to fly tomorrow,” he said with deep regret. People needed time to mourn.

“Best thing that could happen, actually,” Sean said, mopping his eyes once more before he put away the handkerchief.

“Yes, I suspect you’re right about that,” Mairi said slowly.

“Off with you now, son,” Red said, giving Sean a gentle shove toward Carenath. “You were more than good to check up on us and give those oxen the inducement they needed. Soon’s Mairi and I get across, we’ll push on. We’ll be under cover tomorrow, so don’t worry about us.” Then another thought struck Red. “You’ve enough ground crew for Fall tomorrow?”

Sean gave his father-in-law a wry smile. “As I understand it, Red, this river marks the boundary between Fort Hold and your place. You’re not obliged to ground-crew . . . if any of you were up to it. Just push on and get under cover tonight. That’s the best way to help Sorka and me!”

“We’ll do just that,” Mairi said, handing over a well-wrapped sleeping Ryan to Sean while she mounted Pie.

“So this is my son’s youngest uncle,” he said, pushing back the blanket to peer at the little face.

“Definitely his youngest,” Red said. “Hand him up to me,” he added as he swung up on the stallion. “King’s that bit higher above the water, Mairi. You’ll get a soaking as it is.”

Mairi gave a little laugh. “Not if I hike my knees up,” she said. “Give my dearest love to Sorka, will you, Sean? And our deepest sympathy to all at the Weyr.”

“I will indeed, Mairi. And . . . my thanks!”

The Weyrleader stepped aside then as she kicked her mare forward. The piebald was one of those rare placid beasts and stepped from land to cold water with neither hesitation nor so much as a twitch of her well-shaped ears when water swirled around her fetlocks and then up to her knees.

“We all grieve with the Weyr, Sean,” Red said, raising his hand in farewell. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Carenath uncover his brilliant eyes as Sean returned to him, sorrow displayed by the droop in his broad shoulders. Red sighed.

Then he couldn’t help but notice how closely King was following the mare, needing no urging at all to wade into the river once more. The stallion stretched his neck out to sniff at her tail, which she clamped tightly to her rump as she picked up her legs into a splashing trot. Red grinned as he felt the sprightly lift in the tired stallion’s step, pursuing a mare who was apparently about to come into season. And this year, Red thought, he could breed every mare he had!

As the swifter current of the still-rising river tugged avidly at the stallion’s legs, Red held his son more tightly in the crook of his arm. He could see that Mairi had brought her knees up nearly to her chin as the water rose up the mare’s side, but Pie kept her footing and trotted sturdily forward. Red heaved a sigh of relief in unison with King when they climbed the far bank for the last time.

“Let’s leave Sean’s news until tomorrow, Mairi,” he said before they reached the others.

“Yes, of course. Hearts are weary enough without being sorrowful, too. And I don’t want anything to spoil our arrival.” Then, after a brief pause, she said, “Is that selfish of me, Peter?” She only used his Christian name when she was uncertain.

“No, kind. We’ve had sadness in full measure. We can wait to add this one.”

With those from the Hold to share the tasks of the weary travelers, Red let himself be persuaded to sit on one of the carts and lead King from the back of it. In the darkness, he even permitted himself to lie back. But the cart seemed full of crates and parcels of hard edges, pointed corners, and nonyielding surfaces. He twisted and pushed and finally formed a backrest that wouldn’t dislocate a rib or poke his kidneys too hard. He regretted that he hadn’t paused long enough to find some dry clothes, but he wrapped himself in the blanket Mairi had thrust at him, and that kept the chill off. Snapper reappeared and burrowed into his shoulder, wrapping his tail around Red’s neck, and Red stroked the little beast, sensing its sorrow and need to be comforted. But soon enough, Red hadn’t the energy for more caresses and, instead, propped his head against the lithe warm body, a substitute pillow so soothing that, despite every good intention, Red Hanrahan was fast asleep when the cart pulled into the brightly lit circle in front of his Hold.

“Mairi was all for leaving you asleep in the cart,” Brian told him when the wail of a tired child roused him, “but it’s only got two wheels and we’d nothing to prop it with.”

Futilely Red roared at everyone for depriving him of the sight of a triumphal entry, but he resisted every effort to get him inside and to his bed until he had seen all his livestock safely ensconced in “a proper-style barn.”

“Sean said there’s Thread across the river tomorrow morning early,” he told those who tried to get him to go to bed, “and he’s usually right about where it’ll fall, but I want everything under cover. Just in case for once he’d be wrong!” And he stormed down to the animal hold.

Half of the beasts were already down on the sandy flooring, fast asleep, while others dozed as they stood. Red made straight for King’s stallion box at one end of the equine stabling. The horse, dark eyes glittering in the soft light, whuffled slightly and then closed his eyes.

“Even the
horse
has more sense . . .” Mairi began in as close to a scolding tone as she had ever used on him.

“I had to see ’em, Mairi,” Red muttered wearily. “I had to see ’em safe where I’ve seen them in my mind ever since I knew this place was right for us.”

“And righter for them,” she said, steering him out of the cavern and toward the Hold proper.

She half pulled him up the ramp to the as yet wide-open entrance—but only after he had made sure that the big sled-wagon carrying the door had been parked nearby—and into their Hold.

“And if you think you’re going to prowl about and see if we’ve made any progress during your absence,” Maddie said, fists planted on her belt, “you’ve another think coming. Furthermore, Ozzie has offered his rubber mallet to knock you out if you don’t get straight to your quarters and sleep!”

His quarters, for now, were currently the office to the left of the main entrance, and he reeled slightly in that direction. Candlelight showed him that the room had been altered—and he grabbed at the doorframe to steady himself, his tired mind trying to cope with the difference.

“Well, a bed big enough for both you and Mairi wouldn’t fit in here with all your clutter,” Maddie said, “so we moved that next door. Now, that there is a next door.” She gave him a push and Mairi, still holding his hand, got him into the room.

The door was closed firmly and then Mairi was opening jacket and shirt, deftly pulling the sleeves off him before she pushed him backward to the bed. Out of a marriage-long habit, he lifted one leg so she could remove first one, then the other boot as he managed with fumbling fingers to undo his belt and trousers.

A long time later, he woke.

He roared at first, annoyed that he had been deceived and cosseted when there was so much to be done, but Brian pretended to take umbrage that his own father wouldn’t trust him to see to the care of his precious stock. Mairi set before him a steaming mug of klah and fresh bread with—his eyes gleamed at the sight—a knob of butter he wouldn’t have to share with anyone. So he forgave the conspiracy and demanded to know if people were settling in: if they weren’t, he’d have their complaints that very evening.

A communal kitchen, with everyone taking turns at food preparation for the main meal, had been established, and the main hall, bare though it was, was large enough to seat five times the numbers that sat at the trestle tables that night.

Before the meat was served, Red Hanrahan rose from his seat at the
T
junction of the two long tables.

“Many of you may already know from your fire-lizards that Alianne, gold Chereth’s rider, died in childbirth and her dragon soon after.” He paused to let those who hadn’t known absorb the shock of such a loss. “We will all stand and have a moment’s silence in tribute to them.”

While the announcement put a damper on the beginning of what would have been a more convivial evening, by the time the splendid cakes Madeleine had made for the occasion were brought in, most people had recovered.

“You don’t think of the dragons as being
that
attached to their riders,” Kes Dook remarked, just down the table from Red. “I mean, I know the Impression is lifelong . . . but the queen was so young. Surely someone else could have taken over?”

“Not as we understand it,” Red said, toying with his mug of quikal. He did miss a decent drop of wine and wondered if Rene Mallibeau would ever find his south-facing slopes to grow the precious vines still tended in the hydroponics shed. “Once Impression is made, that’s it, and the dragon is unable to function without that special human partner.”

“But the Weyr keeps looking for likely candidates. Surely one of them could have filled in,” Kes continued.

“Perhaps it all happened too fast,” Betty Sopers suggested, her eyes red. She’d known Alianne very well. “So few women die in childbirth . . .” She looked hopefully down the table to the two medics.

Kolya looked properly sympathetic, while Akis Andriadus nodded his head encouragingly.

“I haven’t heard what went wrong with Alianne,” Kolya said. “She’s—she had two children, but I’ll certainly ask for a report.”

“And I’ve had nine,” Mairi said in a no-nonsense tone, “so don’t you be fretting, Betty Sopers.”

“Especially if you aren’t even preggers,” Jess Patrick said, with a slightly hopeful leer, for he was quite friendly with his fellow student.

“Of course I’m not,” she replied firmly, although a blush colored her face under her tan. Then her expression clouded. “But she was so young and dragons are so . . . strong.”

“I’m delighted to hear that opinion expressed in this Hold,” Red said firmly. “Without the dragons and those who ride them, we wouldn’t be here today.”

“How
did
Sean get those bullocks to move?” Kes asked. “It was too bloody dark to see anything by then.”

Red laughed, glad to be able to turn the evening’s conversation to a lighter vein. “The oxen may be stubborn, but stupid they’re not. They made tracks as fast as they could from the dragon behind them!”

“How did Sean get them to go in the right direction then?” Peter Chernoff asked. “I could barely keep up with them, much less keep them left or right.”

“As I said, Sean was behind them, but slightly to their right, so of course they stampeded left,” Red replied. “And we are here, safe and sound. Pat, son, run get my fiddle and your mother’s bodhran. D’you know where your flute is, Akis? I know your dad taught you.”

“I’ve got a good jug,” Ozzie said, and rose from the table as Pat, getting explicit directions from his mother on where to find the instruments, ran from the hall, Akis following.

It took no time at all to clear and dismantle the tables and set the chairs and benches along the walls and provide a happy ending to the first official day in Red Hanrahan’s Hold.