Dragon's Fire

by Anne McCaffrey

  Pellar was glad of his visits, not only for the warmth and the food, but also for the chance to hear Zist’s observations of the miners. He was glad to hear that the harper had taken his suggestion regarding Kaylek and pleasantly surprised to learn that it had worked—Kaylek and Cristov had formed a pleasant attachment, the elder Kaylek learning more restraint and the younger Cristov becoming more outgoing and assured by Kaylek’s teachings.

  Aside from those visits, Pellar ventured no farther from his cave than he needed, ensuring that he left few tracks. Those tracks he did leave always headed first south before circling back around to the north, and he was careful to break his tracks whenever he could, whether by walking in the middle of stream or by climbing across several trees.

  He never used the same observation point two days in a row, and chose each one so that he could observe his previous observation point from his current one, in case someone had spotted him the day before.

  He stayed at his observation point only long enough to see what the Shunned had taken from the coal dump the night before. Because he moved when they were sleeping, Pellar was less worried about being discovered by the Shunned than he was about being discovered by Ima, Camp Natalon’s hunter. But his caution worked just as well in keeping him from her sight as it did from the Shunned.

  Still, he made it a point to arrive at his day’s observation point an hour or two before dawn, and left as quickly as he could.

  He had learned in his two months of observations that the night shift, which included the light-sensitive watch-wher, usually finished before the sun crested the horizon, and he kept a careful eye for when they left the mine, not certain how good the watch-wher’s sight was and whether it might spot him.

  He was surprised one morning when the sky seemed to have gotten lighter than usual and still the night shift hadn’t departed the mine shaft. In fact, the sun was now over the horizon and others in the camp were beginning to stir. Pellar smiled as he spotted a distant figure walking sedately from the Harper’s cot to Natalon’s stone house: Master Zist on his way to teach the children of the camp.

  Not long after, his surprise turned to alarm when he noticed a trickle of dark smoke—coal dust—rising out of the mine shaft’s mouth. The trickle grew to a torrent and Pellar, with a sinking feeling, realized that something terrible had happened.

  He could think of no way to send a warning to Master Zist, nor any of the miners. The torrent of coal was its own alarm, darkening the sky above the camp, marking it in shadow. Miners in the camp noticed the smoke and moved quickly.

  Soon the camp was a swarm of activity around the mine entrance. Pellar watched in horror as the tragedy played itself out in the distance. He saw how the women in the camp set up an aid station, saw one boy, about ten or so, rush out of the mine, grab some bandages, and rush back while one of the nurses waved her arms after him scoldingly. Pellar guessed that the boy was one of the victim’s sons.

  A knot formed in Pellar’s throat as he imagined how the youngster must feel and he wished fervently, as if his hopes could change the past, that the boy’s father was not too badly injured.

  Or perhaps the victim was another boy, Pellar thought as he suddenly remembered that Kaylek was supposed to have been on that shift for the first time. Was Kaylek among the injured?

  Feeling an indistinct bond with the lad, who was near his own age, Pellar strained through the distance for any sign of him.

  For hours Pellar watched the tragedy, saw the few injured brought up out of the mine, caught sight of a red-haired boy being brought up. Hours later, Pellar gasped in relief as he spotted a youngster emerge from the mine shaft. His relief was short-lived: He saw the figure find the red-haired boy and realized that the other boy was not Kaylek but his little brother.

  He kept looking and hoping until he saw one of the women throw a blanket over the two boys and realized that they were the only children in the aid station.

  There was no sign of the watch-wher, Dask, of his handler, Danil, or of any of the sons of Danil that had were assigned to that shift. Nor was there any sign of the red-haired boy’s father.

  Chitter arrived with a cryptic note from Master Zist later the next day: “He can’t stay here for a while.”

  Pellar considered the notion of sending the brown fire-lizard back to the Harper Hall, but he was not at all sure that Chitter would go, nor that he could recall the fire-lizard from such a distance.

  Pellar waited several days before making his way circuitously to the camp. He’d seen the shrouded bodies of the dead miners brought up—there were nine.

  He’d started his journey at the first of the dark, so there was a chance that the Shunned might also be moving. He sent Chitter ahead to the miners’ graveyard to reconnoiter and followed more slowly, going down the southern side of his mountain, around west below the lake, crossing the stream that fed it at the far side before going east again toward the camp. The night was noisy with the light winds that carried the cold mountain air down into the cooling valley.

  The graveyard was in a clearing beside a waterfall that gushed down the cliffside a kilometer west of the miners’ camp.

  It was a peaceful place with thankfully few graves—most of them, sadly, the nine new ones from this latest accident.

  Pellar had picked some yellow flowers on his way and wasn’t surprised to see, among other large floral bouquets, small bunches of yellow flowers already at the graves, each bunch tied together with a blade of grass. Even though it was possible that the yellow flowers had been left by one of the miners’ children, Pellar was certain that the little girl had left them.

  He wondered if the little girl who had left the flowers did so because she felt somehow responsible. Or was it just because she was remembering her own dead, and honoring them by honoring these—as Pellar was honoring Cayla and Carissa.

  Pellar’s musings were interrupted as Chitter suddenly ruffled his wings loudly and disappeared between. It was a warning. Pellar pushed himself tight against a tree, motionless.

  A figure appeared near the grave site, not three meters from Pellar. The figure made its way to the graves. Pellar caught sight of a strand of blond hair around the person’s face. It was a youngster—a girl, Pellar thought—perhaps two years younger than himself. Definitely not the flower girl, who was much smaller and probably younger, too.

  Something alarmed her, and she turned toward Pellar’s hiding place, reached down, and searched the ground with her hand, coming up with a large rock.

  “Who’s there?” she called—definitely a girl. “I’ve got a rock.”

  Pellar pressed closer against the tree, though he was positive that she couldn’t see him in the darkness.

  Strangely, the girl sniffed the air. “I can tell you’re not from the camp,” she called over the breeze. “If you don’t identify yourself, I’ll—I’ll tell Master Zist about you.”

  Pellar allowed himself a smile; Master Zist would be the least of his worries. But he wondered how the girl could tell he wasn’t from the camp, and why she had sniffed the air? The breeze was blowing to her from his direction and he knew that a good bath would not be amiss, but he was certain that no one could smell him at such a distance, particularly in a clearing full of fresh-cut flowers. Perhaps she could see him. But if so, why hadn’t she thrown her rock?

  The girl stayed motionless for a minute more, then dropped her rock and turned back to the camp. She paused once, turned back quickly, perhaps hoping to catch Pellar leaving his hiding place, and called, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Master Zist has quite a temper and won’t give up until he finds you.”

  Pellar stifled a snort of laughter; he was certain that he was more familiar with both Master Zist’s temper and tenaciousness than the girl was.

  He waited until his feet and fingers were numb before he sent the thought to Chitter to check the way to the camp. Chitter responded instantly, letting him know that the way was clear.

  Thirty minutes later, well
past midnight, Pellar was ushered into Master Zist’s kitchen and handed a mug of warm klah. Affectionately, the Master also tossed some small rolls in Chitter’s direction; they were caught midair by the hungry fire-lizard.

  “Was that you that Nuella ran into at the grave site?” Zist asked as soon as he saw Pellar rest his mug on the kitchen table and pull out his slate.

  Pellar didn’t pick up his slate but instead drew two curves in the air with his hands and then brought one hand, palm flat, against his chest at the height of the girl he’d encountered.

  “Yes,” Zist agreed drolly, “that would be Nuella. She thought she’d frightened you away.”

  Pellar smiled and shook his head.

  “I’d prefer it if she didn’t find you again.”

  Pellar nodded emphatically in agreement.

  “And I think we should be very careful about your future visits,” Zist said. He jerked his head toward the front of the cottage. “I’ve got a new houseguest.”

  Pellar raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Kindan,” Zist explained. “One of Danil’s sons. He wanted to stay on at the Camp and as none of his kin could take him, I”—the harper waved a hand—“agreed to take him in.”

  Pellar tried his best to hide his dismay, but Zist knew him too well.

  “My predecessor, Harper Jofri, thought highly of him,” Zist continued. “His notes show that Kindan has potential as a harper.”

  Pellar was afraid he knew what was coming next.

  “I’m thinking of taking him as my apprentice.”

  Pellar burst up from his chair, his anger and sense of betrayal overwhelming him and he pointed emphatically at his chest. “Me! Me!” he wanted to shout.

  “Shh!” Zist hissed, waving Pellar back down into his chair. “He’s got good ears—he’ll hear you and we don’t want that.”

  Pellar’s eyes flashed in an obvious response. Let him! he thought.

  “Jofri has gone back for his Mastery,” Zist said, looking sternly at Pellar. “And while it’s possible for a Master to have two apprentices—though rare—it’s more common to promote one to journeyman.”

  The color drained as abruptly from Pellar’s face as his anger did from his heart and he sat down loudly in his seat.

  “Better,” Zist said. He cocked his head at Pellar and waggled a finger in his direction. “Although after an outburst like that—” He broke off abruptly and shook his head.

  “The truth is that you’re still a bit too young to be rated a journeyman,” Zist admitted with a sigh. “You need two, maybe even four, more Turns of experience.” He caught Pellar’s eyes squarely with his own. “But you know everything you need to know—”

  Pellar interrupted with a wave of his hands, pointing to his throat.

  “Singing, or even speaking, isn’t everything,” Zist answered waspishly. He glanced back to the rooms at the front of the cottage and added, “In fact, I rather suspect in a short while I’ll come to regard your quiet ways with more than a little nostalgia.”

  Zist frowned in thought for a moment and then nodded. “I’ll rate you journeyman, pending more classes back at the Harper Hall. By the time we’re done here, I’m sure you’ll have earned it.

  “Now,” he continued, briskly changing the topic, “tell me all your latest news.”

  It didn’t take Pellar long to bring Master Zist up to date with his observations of the past few days. He hesitated before telling Master Zist about the flowers he’d seen at the grave site—he hadn’t thought to mention his previous encounter, and he was afraid that Zist would be not angry but perhaps displeased at the omission.

  He was right. Zist pressed him for every detail and made him repeat the details about how his leather laces had been exchanged for twine.

  “You know you should have told me earlier,” Zist told him when Pellar had finished writing out his latest answer. Pellar grimaced and nodded sheepishly. Zist regarded him steadily and then added in a voice tinged with sympathy, “I can see, perhaps, why you kept this to yourself.”

  “I shouldn’t have,” Pellar wrote back on his slate.

  “I can understand the way you feel,” Zist said. “It must have seemed a bit of a betrayal when she took your laces.”

  Pellar thought for a moment and then rocked one hand in a side-to-side maybe-yes, maybe-no gesture.

  “She needed them,” he wrote in explanation.

  “I’m sure she did,” Zist agreed. “But more than you?”

  Pellar thought about that for a while before he answered with a shrug.

  Zist nodded absently and sat back in his chair, cupping one knee with his hands while engrossed in thought.

  “Winter will be coming soon,” he murmured after a long silence. He looked up at Pellar and sat forward. “I expect the Shunned will leave the area when the snows come. When that happens, I’ll want you to go back to the Harper Hall.”

  Pellar was disturbed at the notion of leaving Master Zist by himself, and his facial expression made it clear.

  “I’ll be safe enough,” Zist said, waving aside the objection. “Besides, I couldn’t live with myself if you froze to death on a fool’s errand.”

  “I could follow them,” Pellar suggested on his slate.

  “I think you’d be better employed back at the Harper Hall.”

  Pellar nodded, hiding his own thought that it would be months before winter and things could change.

  As the weather grew colder, Pellar grew bolder. He still avoided the area of the Shunned’s camp but he spent more of the daylight out of hiding. Partly it was from necessity—he felt a need for more fresh food than he could reasonably ask Chitter to carry from Master Zist’s. Partly it was to increase his woodcraft. Partly, also, it was to keep warm by constantly moving in the cold weather. Partly, Pellar admitted when he forced himself to be honest, it was to prove his abilities to himself.

  He carefully copied the traps and styles of Camp Natalon’s hunter, but avoided setting out any traps where the hunter might operate. If anyone other than Ima, the hunter, came across the traps, they’d attribute them to him rather than someone else.

  Pellar chose to seed his traps down the south side of his mountain, toward distant Crom Hold and away from both Camp Natalon and the Shunned.

  As the weather grew colder still and the first snows began to fall, Pellar decided that there might be some sense in Master Zist’s desire to send him back to the Harper Hall. The snow was not yet sticking but, even so, Pellar had to spend extra care to ensure that he left tracks neither in snow nor in the muddy ground that it produced when it melted.

  Pellar’s best traps were simple loop snares that, when sprung, hurled the quarry high up into the trees, out of sight of anyone that might later come along.

  Being cautious, Pellar always varied his routes, sometimes starting at one end of his line of traps, sometimes the other, sometimes in the middle—he never took the same route on any given day and he never repeated his pattern.

  This day, nearly three months since he’d visited the graveyard, he had decided to work from the highest traps to lowest. The first four traps were all empty. He made a note to consider moving them but decided not to do it just then.

  As he approached his fifth trap something disturbed him—something seemed out of place. He stopped, crouching against the ground, listening carefully.

  Someone was out there.

  He slowly started scanning the ground below him, working his way carefully left to right, bottom to top. He spotted a disturbance of the ground near his trap. He looked up—and suddenly started. Someone was caught in his trap!

  It was a little girl, no more than nine Turns old. She was staring back at him, her brown eyes locked intently on him as she hung upside down, one foot caught in the loop of his rope snare. One hand feebly held her tunic up to protect her torso from the cold wind but it flopped down enough on the other side that he could see her bulging belly and bare ribs; her legs were little more than sticks. It was al
so obvious, from her heaving chest and her bitter look of despair, that she’d exhausted herself in efforts to get free of the trap. On the ground below her, Pellar noted a small knife and guessed that she’d lost it when the trap had sprung. Her clothing—small, patched, and threadbare—merely confirmed his guess that she was one of the Shunned.

  Pellar remained motionless for several moments, trying to decide what to do. But when he finally made up his mind to help her and stood up, she waved him down.

  No sooner had he crouched back down than he heard the sound of others approaching. They came without talking but not silently, moving in a way that any tracker would be quick to notice. Pellar counted five, including a tall, wiry youth who was probably in his late teens, maybe older.

  “Halla!” one of the younger ones called as they caught sight of her. “What are you doing up there?”

  “Don’t ask silly questions,” the little girl snapped back, “just get me down.”

  “I don’t know why,” the teenager replied. “You got yourself caught, you should get yourself down.”

  In that instant, Pellar decided that he hated the young man. It wasn’t just his words, or his tone, it was the youth’s body language: Pellar knew that this teen would have no compunction, nor feel any guilt, about leaving the little girl stuck in the trap to die.

  “Tenim, get me down,” Halla commanded, her irritation tinged with just the slightest hint of fear.

  “I warned you to be careful about where you set your traps. It’s a pity you didn’t get your neck caught in the thing,” Tenim said. “Then you’d be dead by now.” He turned back the way he came.

  “But Tenim, she’s our best tracker,” one of the younger children protested. “And Moran—”

  “Leave Moran out of this,” Tenim snapped to the speaker. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him any.”

  “Anyway,” and here Tenim raised one arm straight out in front of him, “she’s not our best tracker.”

  Pellar was no more than five meters from Tenim and the group. Silently, he felt for the hunting knife he kept sheathed at the top of his boot, still keeping his eyes on the scene in front of him. Would they just leave her to die? Would he?