Homage and Honour

by Candy Rae

  “What do we do?” asked an anxious voice.

  “We wait.”

  They waited, but not for long. The next rumble when it came was deafening. Tana pressed her hands to her head. Tavei’s long ears were pressed down and his face full of pain. The Lind’s hearing was far more acute than that of humankind. The air was heavy with ominous threat.

  The ground began to undulate.

  “Mount,” came the order reinforced telepathically as the entire Ryzck and its three cadet duos on attachment, scrambled to their feet and paws and the vadelns into their saddles. They waited, staggering as the ground heaved and bucked beneath them. No-one panicked although Tana noticed that an ashen Beth was biting her lips to stop herself crying out.

  They could hear thunderous cracks as the ground underpaw protested and reacted to the earthquake, for that is what it was.

  Then all at once it stopped and was replaced by silence.

  “Is anyone hurt?” asked Jilmis but apart from a few bumps and bruises, nobody was.

  Ryzcka Jilmis insisted that everyone and everylind have something to eat then they would run south along the coast towards Port Lutterell. Jilmis had a gut feeling that it would be in Port Lutterell itself where they would find the most damage.

  As they drew ever nearer to the port they could see the pillars of smoke.

  For a split second, Tana had the idea that the pirates had returned and were attacking the Port setting fire to it in retaliation for their trouncing at the Ryzck’s hands at the village yesterday but, an instant later, she realised that the fires were caused by the quake. Most of the buildings at Port Lutterell were built of wood and all that it would have taken was one overturned stove-fire.

  Tana and Tavei stepped up their pace to run beside Valary and Jsnei. As they topped the hill above Port Lutterell they saw that the entire port area was ablaze, the flames licking with inanimate greed at the wooden warehouses and offices. The residential areas close to the docks were beginning to burn. Many buildings were damaged; some had disintegrated into mounds of rubble.

  Tana and Valary saw that the new brick houses of the rich inhabitants had not escaped; the older, timber-framed homes had fared better because, being more flexible in construction, they moved with the ground undulations. A small fire, which had erupted in one of them, was being attacked with vigour by a crowd of people who were getting it under control.

  But it was in the dock and poorer areas where the Ryzck’s help would be most needed and it was there Jilmis ordered them. Beth gulped as she and Xei accompanied their mentoring vadeln-pair into what she described later as the horror of all horrors.

  During the Ryzck’s fight with the pirates the previous morning they had been kept to the rear; their duties confined to looking after the inhabitants fleeing their homes. Of the three, only Tana had seen one of the dead, a pirate who had tried to escape inland but who had been run down.

  The stench was overpowering. Beth gagged and tried not to bring up what was in her stomach. Mixed in with the smell of burning wood and oil was the sickly stench of burning bodies.

  Xei stopped in his tracks and stared goggle-eyed at the row of bodies heaped in front of him, men, women, old and young and the children. Beth felt sick. Xei didn’t feel any better although he managed not to retch. Like his rider, Xei was a young Lind. This was the first time he had encountered victims of violent death.

  Under the command of Valary and her Lind Jsnei, the three cadet pairs were put to searching for anyone who had been overlooked when the port officials had cleared out the areas most at risk from the spreading fires.

  With Tana, Tavei, Beth and Xei was a shock-haired lad some months older than the two girls and his Lind Whalya. She was built on a dainty scale, barely fourteen hands tall. Xei and Tavei towered over her. Luckily her vadeln Tamir was a light-boned, skinny individual who, unless he took to eating in excess, would be most unlikely to grow too heavy for her.

  Valary sent Tana, Tamir and their Lind to hunt for any stranded people down a narrow road some three clicks inland from the docks whilst she and Beth and their Lind took the next one up. The fires had not yet reached this area although the smoke was already thick enough to make breathing uncomfortable and eyes smart.

  Tana and Tamir found no-one during their search and turned away, as they had been instructed to do when the smoke got too thick to see. She did rescue a small dog that had been left behind by her owners in their haste.

  As Tana informed Tamir as she leant down to pick up the shivering little object, Valary hadn’t precisely told them that only humans were to be rescued.

  “She didn’t think she needed to,” Tamir observed. “Animals can take care of themselves.”

  “This one can’t,” she said in defence cuddling the pup as it gave her face a quick lick and settled down in her arms.

  Valary’s face, when they reported in, was a picture of resignation, “just keep it out of the way, better still find somewhere safe and leave it.”

  “Nowhere is safe,” Tana protested and placed the pup inside the half-empty saddlebag that contained her clean clothes. The pup cuddled into what was Tana’s last clean uniform tunic and fell asleep.

  “Where’s Beth?” asked Tamir, noticing that she and Xei weren’t there.

  “Next street,” Valary replied, “the one we last checked was warehouses and offices, all empty. We’ve been told that there are two old cottages in the next along and Beth volunteered to check. Should be clear. These streets were emptied as soon as the fires began to take hold. You found no-one but the pup?”

  “Empty thank the Lai,” answered Tamir. “Do we move on to Beth’s street now?”

  “Yes …” began Valary.

  Xei’s mental cry of alarm was a mind-wrenching ‘shout’.

  “Lai’s Blood,” cried Valary, “they’ve found some people!”

  Tana was already urging Tavei towards the street. Valary, Jsnei, Tamir and Whalya followed hard on Tavei’s paws. When the six turned into the street the Lind skidded to a halt. There was no sign of Beth and Xei, nor was there any sign of fire.

  “Where are they?”

  : Xei says the house is burning : telepathed a helpful Tavei.

  : Where? Can you bespeak Xei? :

  : He does not answer my call! : Tavei’s ‘voice’ was full of distress.

  Tavei reached out with his senses.

  : I can ‘feel’ him! He is in much danger :

  :Can you sense where? :

  : We go :

  He and Tana did not wait for permission. They bounded away, into the swirling smoke. The other two pairs followed, Valary calling out, “wait for us,” at the top of her voice as she saw Tavei’s tail disappear.

  Following orders, Beth and Xei had gone to check on the two cottages. As she told Valary later, they were empty, the shabby doors swinging. It was as the two of them were turning away that they heard the cry for help. It was Xei who heard the cries first.

  * * * * *

  : There is someone here :

  Although frightened, Beth did not hesitate. She urged Xei forward, relying on his sense of ‘feel’ and direction to get them there. Deeper they went into the swirling smoke. It was thick and cloying. The thought of imminent suffocation was in their minds but they kept going.

  At last, they came to the building, the door was open, a child stood slumped against the doorframe gasping for air. Beth heard a woman scream, a deeper voice pleading.

  As Xei stopped, Beth swung herself out of the saddle and towards the child. She lifted him up and stumbling over the uneven cobbles she all but threw him on to Xei’s back.

  “Hold on to the harness,” she shouted at the child, “I’ll be back.”

  He nodded and grabbed the nearest leather strap.

  Beth turned back and headed for the door.

  Inside the building it was worse.

  “Anyone there? Quick, we don’t have much time.”

  A man’s form loomed out of the smoky gloom and thrus
t an object at Beth. It was a smaller child than the one in the doorway, little more than a baby. The man disappeared. Beth dithered for an instant. Should she take the child to Xei now or wait for the man? The flames were beginning to lick at the roof timbers and she could hear the roar of the main fire. She turned and raced back to Xei. He had positioned himself at the door.

  : We must go :

  : No : Beth placed the baby in the other child’s arms and taking another choking breath went back inside.

  She took three steps. Looking back she realised that if she had gone any further in, none of them would have got out alive. The flames were eating at the roof. The heat was overpowering.

  The man had an unconscious woman in his arms.

  “Quick,” she commanded and all but dragged them out.

  “Climb up on Xei,” she shouted over the crackling noises of the fire.

  “My wife,” he choked.

  “Climb up,” she ordered as the roof timbers crashed down behind her. The walls shivered.

  How she managed it, Beth couldn’t explain afterwards but she held the unconscious woman while her husband mounted. With a strength born of desperation she lifted the woman until the man could pull her up in front of him.

  : Beth! : screamed Xei.

  : Go, take them, come back for me :

  : No. I will not, mount :

  : Too many, too heavy. Go! :

  : I can manage another :

  Beth realised that Xei would not go without her. She threw herself on to Xei’s back, on top of the woman. Xei staggered with the extra weight but with a grunt of effort stayed upright.

  Xei began a slow walk up the street away from the fire. To run was impossible, the weight of his passengers was too great and breathing was becoming more and more difficult. Step by painful step Xei walked though the gradually thinning smoke to safety.

  At the top of the road, Valary and Jsnei and the others were waiting. With a cry of relief Valary jumped down and went to help as Xei’s legs buckled under him.

  Tana and Tamir, ignoring orders, dismounted and went to help too.

  Tana grabbed the little boy who, for a wonder, still held his younger sibling in his arms. One child under each arm, she staggered towards Tavei with her double burden while Tamir pulled Beth off Xei’s back and dragged her into cleaner air.

  With the weight on his back reduced, Xei managed to stumble to his paws again and, gasping for oxygen, followed Valary towards Jsnei.

  Valary ordered Tana and Tamir to take their burdens to the aid station some streets inland. She and Jsnei accompanied Xei as he made slower progress uphill after them.

  Some days later, word came that Xei and Beth were to be awarded the Honour Star, the woven silver mark of honour and renown of the Vada, the Vada’s way of rewarding those whose courage and moral fibre had saved lives.

  She was the first of the Quartet to gain the honour and she and Xei were the first cadet duo to be recorded in the Honour Roll for over a quarter of a century.

  When their attachments were completed and the Quartet back at Vada, Beth was more than a little embarrassed.

  “Any one of us would have done the same,” she said, sewing the star on to her uniform tunic, “I was there, that’s all.”

  “You and Xei could have died saving that family,” said Tana, “we’re so proud of you both.”

  “Not bad for a duke’s daughter,” said Jess with a smile and, turning to Hannah, gave her a firm poke in the ribs, “and you too my girl, well done!”

  * * * * *

  Quartet (6)

  Hannah and Kolyei’s attachment had been with the Fifth Ryzck, whose duty station was in Argyll, at the north of the island chain, which was the traditional route of the Larg when they wished to attack the North.

  She had not swerved from her determination to undertake Holad training when she became a Senior Cadet and when Susa Lynsey had allocated the destination to those going, she had not hesitated to add Hannah’s and Kolyei’s names to the small group of would be medics that were bound for a medical facility a mile west of Settlement.

  She had been accompanying one of the doctors on his rounds when the first human half of a vadeln-pair reported in sick.

  The weather was still hot for this the fifth summer month, much like the previous year only wetter. The sick Holad medic and his Lind had been in the middle of a four tenday duty in the dock area. It was discovered later that a local fisherman had come across a southern merchantman riding at sea anchor some nautical miles west of the great current. Ignoring the fever flag, he and his two sons had boarded the vessel and found the crew dead. They ransacked what they could, picking up a number of valuable objects.

  The black gemstones they purloined found a ready market and after a long and drunken celebration of their good fortune in one of the taverns, the three set sail for their home village. They never arrived.

  As one after another of the people the three fishermen had come into contact with fell sick, the medics at Settlement and the Vada Holad realised that they had an epidemic on their paws and hands. The Holad set up an exclusion zone to stop the spread of the disease, much as King Elliot of Murdoch had done when the plague had struck in the South the previous summer.

  Those medically-inclined cadets on attachment with Hannah fell ill, as did most of the other medical staff. Hannah appeared to be impervious to the infection.

  The disease killed fast, the very old and the young. More females were affected than males.

  It began with a cough, a rash then a fever. Death came after about four days although the infirm and very young died in two.

  Lying on her pallet late one night, Hannah lay awake, her agile mind working furiously on the problem. Why, out of everyone, did she remain in splendid good health? There must be a reason.

  : Why me? :

  : Perhaps you have been somewhere they have not : was Kolyei’s sensible suggestion. He knew disease could spread from pack to pack.

  : Where, I ask you? : asked an irritable Hannah. She was tired, lind-tired.

  : I do not know :

  He did however explain why he had arrived at this suggestion.

  Hannah’s eyes snapped open.

  : The farm! : her mental ‘shout’ so loud that Kolyei covered his ears with his paws in a vain attempt to shut her out. He did manage to raise his shields but not so much as made any difference.

  : The farm? :

  : Has to be. When I was small the whole area was hit by some kind of virus. It hit every family but ours. There were a lot of deaths :

  : Perhaps you and yours were not in contact with anyone who was infectious : was Kolyei’s logical answer.

  : But we were. It struck under a tenday after Festival day when I was ten :

  She was old enough to remember that time. It was still remembered in the district as the month of funerals.

  : Then you were immune : replied Kolyei. He, like his vadeln-pair wished to make the Holad his future. Older than Hannah by some years he was already attending some classes in the Lind section of the Holad training block at Vada.

  : You could be on to something. I wonder if I am immune? :

  : What happened that year? :

  She couldn’t remember exactly what the disease had been like but she did remember her parents talking about it. From what she recalled, the symptoms had been similar to those she was dealing with now.

  : It can’t be the water up there : she surmised to Kolyei : Hansi Guntarson, he who’s paired with Olya, he’s got the cough and he came from a farm downriver. If there was anything in the water he’d have the immunity too :

  : Something else then :

  What was so special about the Knutson farm that she hadn’t been affected? Hannah had no idea. She also had not had more than the most basic Holad training as yet.

  She knew that during training proper the senior cadets attended as many classes on diseases and their cures as learning about battlefield injuries, infection and shock. What had Nadil
said? It had been one night in the common room and Nadil had been telling Hannah what to expect. He had been talking about a class he had attended. What had it been about? It was no use asking Kolyei for help, he had been out hunting at the time. The conversation had occurred at the end of her first year, it had been raining outside and many cadets had been sipping hot kala and gossiping to while away the bell before bedtime.

  He had been talking about a pestilence; that was it, the pestilence that had ravaged Largdom about the time of the Battle of Trumpet Keep. Some of the Lind had caught the disease and the Holad medics of the time had found a cure.

  Kolyei was following her thoughts : how? :

  She had to find out. Rising from her pallet she crept out of the dormitory and went downstairs to the room where the Holad medical records were kept. There she found Malin, the senior medic, sitting on a stool struggling to read a book in the hope that he could find something to aid his search for a cure. He was coughing. He raised pain-bleared and sleep-deprived eyes in Hannah’s direction.

  “Hannah! What’s wrong? Are you sick? Coughing?”

  “None of these,” she replied, “and shouldn’t you be resting?”

  Malin agreed with her although he didn’t nod his head. It would have hurt too much. A splitting headache was one of the disease’s symptoms. “I can hardly make out the words,” he agreed, pushing the book towards her. “Perhaps you could read it aloud to me?”

  Hannah recognised the book, the handbook of every qualified Holad practitioner.

  “Every disease known to man and Lind is here,” he said, “but I can find nothing that fits what’s hit us.”

  “A disease that we brought with us?” ventured Hannah.

  “I thought of that,” Malin pointed to a much older book, “and I’ve been right through it and nothing. There are similarities but that is all. I think it must be a new disease and there is no cure.”

  “Don’t say that,” scolded Hannah, “there must be a cure. We’ve just not found it yet. I’ve not got sick and I’ve been nursing for days now. I feel as fit as a fiddle.” She told Malin about her and Kolyei’s idea.