Dragon's Fire

by Anne McCaffrey

“Wh-where’s Tenim?” Moran asked, surprised at the weakness of his voice.

  “Not far,” a deeper voice replied. A face came into Moran’s view. The face was hard-edged and looked bitterly upon him. “You’ve done us no favors, Harper.”

  Oddly, the last words weren’t directed at Moran but at someone else. Moran swiveled his head around and regretted it as pain lanced through his joints. He guessed that he must have fallen hard. His head throbbed.

  An amazingly painful sound clawed at his ears, the sound of chalk on slate. Moran winced more as he found the origin of the sound—was that Pellar?

  “Your leg is broken and you have a nasty knock on your head,” an old woman told him. “Pellar here set your leg and nursed you.”

  A face swam into view. The woman was old, much older than Moran.

  “Why’d you come here?” she asked, eyeing him without favor.

  Moran shook his head and again regretted the motion. “I was cold and saw the fire.”

  “Put out the fire, Jaythen,” the woman ordered. The hard-faced man moved to obey. The woman turned to Pellar. “What are we going to do now?”

  Pellar scrawled an answer on his slate. The woman read it and frowned thoughtfully. She looked back down at Moran.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “No,” Moran replied feebly, having learned not to shake his head.

  “I’m Aleesa and you’ve stumbled on our hold.”

  Aleesa. The one who was selling watch-wher eggs. Moran tried to sit up. He could only imagine what Tenim would do if he found them.

  A hand forced him back down.

  “Pellar says to lie still,” Halla told him. Another scraping noise and Halla turned to peer at Pellar’s slate. “He says he’s got a plan, but you’ll have to agree to it.”

  “A plan?” Moran repeated. He licked his lips and continued, “Tenim wants a watch-wher egg—”

  “They’re all gone!” Aleesa declared with a derisive snort.

  “But he doesn’t know that,” Halla said, rereading Pellar’s plan. She looked up at the older boy and warned him, “If he catches you—”

  Moran realized he was too sick to move. If Tenim arrived, he’d want his marks, if not more. He decided it was a good idea that Pellar not be dissuaded from his plan, so he cleared his throat and asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  It all depended upon Chitter. Chitter and the falcon, Grief. Tenim’s falcon had to spot Chitter, and Chitter had to lead Tenim to Pellar’s trail. But not too soon, not until Halla had managed to disguise Pellar’s original track and blend his trail in with Moran’s.

  Pellar set out as soon as he could finish constructing his bait. The pack was heavy and its straps tore into his shoulders as he trudged along in the cold winter countryside, heading north and west in a large loop around Keogh.

  If Tenim found him anytime in the next three days, it was likely that the older lad would corner him before he could complete his plan. At least, Pellar thought ruefully, Tenim couldn’t make him talk.

  Pellar looked down at Moran’s huge shoes as he trudged along in them and regretted that part of the plan, too. His feet were already raw and chafed and he’d only traveled for a day. But it was vital that Tenim think he was following Moran.

  Pellar hoped that Halla would be all right. In some ways she reminded him of Cristov, both needing a better example in their lives.

  Pellar allowed himself a fond smile as he thought of the little girl waving after him as they parted. She had insisted on leading the youngest of the wherhold’s children back to the safety of Keogh despite both Moran’s and Pellar’s protests.

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured them. “And with the fires out, they’ll perish here.”

  She’d been right about that, Pellar realized, thinking of the small cold children all bundled up in the freezing caves of the wherhold. Moran had admitted reluctantly that Halla had a way with children, even those slightly older than herself, and that it would be best to get them out of the way of the harsh winter or any trouble that might come.

  That part of Pellar’s plan—leaving Moran behind as harper—had worked out better than he’d imagined. While neither Aleesa nor Jaythen were likely to ever look upon the older harper without distrust, it was obvious that they were willing to take advantage of his presence. After all, there were some things that were best explained without chalk and slate.

  Pellar stumbled on an icy patch and caught himself, berating himself for his inattention. The snowy night wind howled around him and he started forward again, hoping to spot the lights of Keogh in the distance but not really expecting to see anything until late the next day at the earliest. He paused for a moment to glance at the mountains around him before setting on again, making a slight correction in his direction. He didn’t need to get turned around in the middle of the night.

  The next evening, just after he spotted Keogh to the south and west of him, Pellar allowed himself a broad grin.

  It was time to start the next phase of his plan. Gratefully he built a small fire and laid some stones around it for heat. Satisfied that the fire was going well, Pellar unlimbered his pack; he rooted around in the special pocket he’d had added, pulled out his bait, and made sure that a little of the protecting sand scattered on to the ground around him before he placed the bait to warm by the stones.

  Tenim swore long and slow to himself as he lost Moran’s tracks for the third time in the past several days. It was obvious to him that the harper knew he was on his trail. Tenim’s pack had grown lighter faster than he’d expected and his stomach was now emptier than his purse. He snorted to himself as he imagined Moran getting gaunter from all the exercise—the harper rarely put on such a hefty pace.

  But if Moran was carrying so many marks, why didn’t he simply buy his passage? The answer came to Tenim as quickly as the question—because neither he nor Moran were willing to risk that there wasn’t someone else eager to take their hard-won marks. Just as Moran had decided he’d no further need of that useless Conni. Tenim snorted as he remembered her ranting and raving when he caught up with her at the tavern.

  When he picked up the harper’s trail again, he found signs that Moran had stopped at last. A fire—a day old. Some rocks gathered around. Something placed near the fire. What? Tenim wondered and peered closer. He sifted among the ashes. Sand? Why would the harper be carrying sand? And keeping it warm?

  With a curse, Tenim sprang up and broke into a steady trot. Moran had found a fire-lizard egg or, better, a watch-wher egg.

  One day. If he could catch up with Moran before Crom Hold, he’d have more than a fortune. He’d have a winter’s worth of coal, or the same amount of marks.

  Pellar was glad to see the great walls of Crom Hold rising up in the morning sun as he approached. So far his plan had worked—Chitter had spotted Tenim a full day behind. Now all he had to do was get to Camp Natalon and Master Zist. Faced with a camp full of miners and a harper with a complete set of drums at his command, Tenim would have to give up the chase.

  He paid for some provisions and sped through the far side of Crom Hold, catching up with a trader caravan that was heading near Camp Natalon. He was surprised that the traders would risk the snowy passes in the dead of winter.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Tarri said cheerfully.

  “And you,” Pellar wrote. “Although, I’m surprised you’re venturing up to the camp at this time of year.”

  “Cromcoal’s worth a lot,” said Tarri, the young trader who’d agreed to his passage. “Master Zist worked out a good deal and we’ve got a well-paved road—unless some of it’s washed out.”

  She eyed his pack warily but said nothing as Pellar climbed aboard.

  “You ride up front,” she said, crawling through the curtains to the back of her wagon. She threw him a thick blanket. “Use this against the cold.”

  Pellar nodded in thanks. Tarri kept an eye on him until she was certain that he had the workbeasts well in hand and then she w
ent back through the curtains. A while later she emerged.

  “It’s only warm,” she said, handing him a mug of klah. “We keep heated rocks in a pail so’s we don’t freeze entirely.”

  Pellar took the mug gratefully and drained it quickly. The residual warmth of the mug itself he used to heat his cold fingers before regretfully passing it back to Tarri.

  The trader kept her eyes on him as they drove. To Pellar’s relief, she took the reins in some of the more difficult passes.

  When not driving the wagon, Pellar dozed off, glad enough of the thick blanket Tarri had loaned him.

  Shortly after dusk the snow picked up and was soon falling so thickly that they couldn’t see the road.

  “We’ll stop,” Tarri told him, pointing to the large drays behind. “You and I are first watch.”

  Pellar nodded and got down from the wagon, walking back to the end of the short column of workdrays. Tarri’s was the only sleeping wagon—everyone slept in shifts, and there were only three work drays in the caravan.

  “Less to lose, better prices,” Tarri had explained when Pellar had first joined up.

  In two hours Pellar was relieved and trudged back to his place at the front of Tarri’s wagon. He was freezing cold.

  Tarri’s head poked out from the curtains.

  “Come on inside—it’s too cold and we’ve another watch before we move out,” she told him.

  Gratefully, Pellar crawled inside. He was immediately warmer. With a few gestures he asked permission to spread his sleeping roll; at Tarri’s nod, he removed his boots and socks and crawled in.

  Tarri gave him an amazed look and snorted, “You’ll freeze if you try to sleep like that. You need to get out of those clothes.”

  Pellar nodded and smiled back, carefully removing his clothes while modestly hidden in his sleeping roll. He pulled them out and laid them beside him.

  Tarri laughed. “I’m not as deft as you, so I’d appreciate it if you looked the other way.”

  Pellar nodded and rolled over.

  Moments later, Tarri crawled under her pile of blankets and called out, “You can turn over now.”

  She was answered by Pellar’s soft snores.

  Tenim spread his marks liberally to get information. Yes, there had been a suspicious lad with a large pack. No, no signs of a harper. The lad couldn’t talk, that was odd, managed to get a ride with the traders heading up to Camp Natalon. Daft to head up the mountains in midwinter, no matter what the price of coal, even with the improvements that had been put in. Tenim had bought another round or two of drinks before disappearing into the night.

  Egg or no, purse or no, this “lad” owed him. He’d taken Tenim in, convinced him for three days that he’d been following Moran and a sack of marks or, better, a watch-wher’s egg. Now Tenim was sure that he wasn’t following Moran, and he had his doubts about the egg, too.

  So this “lad” had decided to play Tenim for a fool. Moran would have to know, would have been in on it, Tenim was certain. What was the harper to the lad that he’d go out of his way to protect him? Why would the lad risk his life for a broken-down man who claimed he was a harper but spent most of his time stealing?

  Or was the lad protecting something else? Had Moran stumbled on something the lad felt he had to protect? Something to do with watch-whers?

  Tenim had smiled coldly to himself as he strode out of Crom and up the mountain path to Camp Natalon.

  He’d find out soon enough; he’d been close behind the traders all day and he knew they’d stopped for the night. The lad might not talk, but when Tenim was done with him, he’d wish he could—and he’d still tell Tenim all he wanted to know. And, after that, well, no one who made a fool of Tenim lived to tell it.

  Dawn was coming. He stopped and removed his pack. It was heavy and cumbersome, but the extra weight was worth it. His sources had said the lad had a fire-lizard.

  Tenim unlaced the special compartment, reached in with a well-gloved hand, and restrained the falcon resting inside. With the other hand he finished opening the compartment, exposing it to the cold morning air.

  “Come on, my pet, I’ve got a job for you,” he crooned as he settled Grief onto his hand.

  Pellar woke the instant the hand touched his shoulder. He twisted his head quickly and looked up to see Tarri above him.

  “Our watch,” she said. “You get dressed and search for kindling. I’ll keep watch here and ready some klah.”

  Pellar nodded and Tarri left the wagon. He dressed quickly, rolled up his bedroll and left the wagon, waving to Tarri.

  The caravan had stopped at a bend in the road, crouching close to the mountainside. On the other side of the road the mountain fell away in a cliff. Pellar looked over and saw a stand of trees and a stream in the distance below. He shrugged to himself and started carefully down the cliffside to the only source of kindling.

  Chitter joined him as he reached the plateau, chiding Pellar against the cold morning air. Pellar nodded and waved in companionable agreement—yes, it was cold and only fools would climb down cliffsides in search of kindling. He unshouldered his pack and put it down by a tree, looking around the clearing. Why, he wondered to himself, would Chitter have stirred from his warm spot in the wagon?

  The thought made him go suddenly cold and still, his eyes moving over the terrain in front of him. Had something disturbed the fire-lizard?

  There! Pellar spotted a movement in the trees high above him, moving very fast. It was a bird, diving. He formed a warning in his mind for Chitter and was just about to send it when the fire-lizard dove in front of him, screeching a warning of his own.

  Chitter was too late. A hard fist landed behind Pellar’s ear and he stumbled in pain. His last sight was of Chitter and claws and a beak—and then the air was filled with shrieking and green ichor. And then he was falling into the stream, cold water engulfing him.

  CHAPTER 8

  Wail at night, cry by day,

  Never right, always fey.

  Make the cairns with rocks piled high,

  To mark the spot where loved ones lie.

  CAMP NATALON, AL 494.1

  When he didn’t show up, we sent out a search party, and we found this,” Tarri said, holding up the mangled body of a fire-lizard for Master Zist’s inspection.

  “And this.” A pack, torn and shredded. There was some sand and shards still inside it.

  “I need you to take me there,” Zist said.

  “It’s half a day away on foot,” Tarri protested.

  “Please,” Zist begged, “I’ve got to see.”

  “We can take my wagon,” Tarri said. “That will save us some time.”

  The day was cold and clear—the clouds that had brought snow the night before had dissipated. Tarri easily followed the trail the drays had left on their way up to Camp Natalon. When she reached the bend, she pulled the wagon to a halt.

  “Right over there,” she said, pointing across Zist to the cliff on their right. “Down the ravine.”

  Tarri showed Zist the way down. The site where they’d found the fire-lizard and Pellar’s pack had been trampled down by the trader’s boots as they searched.

  “We think he fell in the water here,” Tarri said, pointing to a depression on the bank of the fast-moving stream. “There’s a fall just down there,” she added sadly.

  Zist grunted his acknowledgment, shading his eyes against the sun to peer farther into the distance. He sighed and turned back to the trampled site, particularly examining the ground where the snow was stained green by Chitter’s ichor.

  Zist remembered the brown fire-lizard’s battered body. Some sharp object had cut through Chitter’s neck just where it joined the shoulders. There were claw marks on his sides—some large bird, or a very small wherry. Zist guessed it was a bird, probably a falcon, because he’d never heard of a fire-lizard being so surprised by a wherry that it couldn’t get between to safety.

  There was a large patch of sand not far away and some shards. Wh
at had Pellar been carrying in his pack? And why had someone murdered him for it? Had the attack by the bird been an unhappy accident or part of a plan? Why had Pellar been on his way to Camp Natalon?

  “We may never know,” the harper said softly to himself.

  “Pardon?”

  Zist shook himself and rose from beside the ichor-stained snow, saying, “I’m sorry, I was talking to myself.” He pointed up to the wagon. “I’m ready to go now.”

  But it seemed to Tarri as she watched the harper climb feebly up the ravine he had so vigorously descended only moments before that Master Zist was not at all ready to go—that, in fact, he left a large part of himself behind in that ravine.

  They rode back toward Camp Natalon in silence and the setting of the sun.

  After tens of Turns in his cave near the Harper Hall, Mikal had learned to cipher the drum codes. He always perked up when a message came in from Zist, wondering about Pellar and his fire-lizard.

  But the message wasn’t good. “Chitter dead?” Mikal whispered to himself as he deciphered the message. He closed his eyes from the pain of the ancient loss of his own dragon, now relived in the loss of the fire-lizard he had been afraid to meet.

  The message continued and Mikal’s face drained of all color. “Pellar?”

  Wordlessly, sightlessly, he reached around for a flask of wine and remorselessly, hopelessly tried once again to blot his pain by getting drunk.

  Tenim was in a foul mood as he entered the kitchen of Tarik’s cothold. He had gone up to the mine, taking the long route around to the coal dump and then out of sight beyond the crest of the hill to come back around to the mine, only to discover from the miners’ chatter that Tarik’s shift had been relieved by Natalon. If he hadn’t been on his guard he might have been caught.

  The thrill of Grief’s deadly strike on the fire-lizard—Tenim had never dreamed the attack would be so successful—had completely drained from him in the ensuing events: first, the boy’s unexpected fall into the river and, second, the infuriating discovery that the boy’s pack held only a fake egg made of clay. Tenim had been led on a wild wherry chase for no profit.