Piemur hadn’t been in Sharra’s company for more than several hours before he learned how poor her opinion was of dragonriders. While he had to agree to her estimate of the Oldtimers, he found it very difficult not to call N’ton to her as comparison. He felt he was being disloyal to the Fort Weyrleader when he forced himself to keep silent. But a favorable mention of N’ton might bring a query as to how he, a lowly herdsman’s boy, came to know so much about a Weyrleader.
Sharra had a light blanket, which she was quite willing to share with Piemur at night. She also acquainted him with the thick bush leaves, which made a more fragrant and comfortable bedding than the springier fronds he’d been using. The leaves also had no tendency to drive annoying splinters into soft flesh.
Sharra knew a great deal, Piemur realized, for she also had him feeding Stupid on a particular plant that would make up for the lack of nourishment from his dead mother. Piemur would never have known that that was why Stupid had browsed so continuously; a dietary instinct rather than an insatiable appetite.
The second day, after a light meal of fruit and tubers, which Sharra had baked in the ashes of the fire, the two continued on a steady course south. The thick forest gave occasionally onto grassy meadows, dotted with herdbeasts and runners who would gallop wildly away when the first scent of the humans reached them. By the middle of the next day, they had reached higher ground, more frequently broken by meadows, until suddenly, they came to a low bluff, as if the land had suddenly fallen away from the level on which they stood. Below, stretching to the far hazy horizon, was a marshland, fingered with black strips of water, which wove and disappeared about the clumps of drier land on which grew giant bushes of stiff, tuft-topped grasses.
“We were well met, Piemur,” said Sharra. “With you to help, we can get twice as much, manage a larger raft with two to steer it, and return down the river to the ships in very good time. But not,” she grinned down at him, “until they’ve had time to barrel the numbweed. Here’s what we do now.”
She showed him, by a map she scratched in the dirt at their feet with her knife belt, and by pointing in the appropriate directions. The third large channel to their right was actually the river that led to the sea. That much the earlier exploration had determined. There was plenty of the valuable tuft grasses between the bluff and that safe, third channel. They would be able to half-swim, half-wade across the intervening channels, using the fire lizards to scare away the water snakes, which could wring the blood out of a person’s arm or leg. Piemur didn’t believe that water snakes could grow that big, but he had to credit her warning when she showed him the fine band of puncture marks on her left arm where a water snake had wound its coils and left the myriad points of its toe-teeth. Not a denizen of these parts, Sharra assured him blithely, and brushed aside his pity by saying that the marks would fade gradually. Then she suggested that, being taller, she’d better carry Stupid across the waters on her shoulders.
As they reached each grassy island, they cut the tufts from the grass for the therapeutic seeds that grew along each stem. The larger branches were laid aside and tied in bundles to be bound together for the raft. Sharra said that the branches absorbed water gradually, but the raft would float long enough to get them safely to the river’s mouth. The heart of the grass plant, just above the root ball, was its most important part. This was dried and pounded into a powder that was the best medicine known for reducing fever, especially firehead fever, about which Piemur had never heard. Sharra told him that it seemed to occur only in the south, and generally only during the first month of the spring season, now well past. Something, they thought, rolled up on the spring tides so that beaches were avoided during that month by everyone.
Piemur might have avoided both numbweed stench and water-snake puncture, but he certainly worked as hard beside Sharra, as he had that one day in Nabol Hold, a day that seemed to belong to another boy entirely, not this one that was alternately soaked and dried to parchment as they harvested the precious fruits of the swamp grass.
The fourth day they made the raft, binding layer after layer of the grass stalks and then forcing them into a vaguely boatlike shape by tying the ends into stubby prows, leaving a central hollow for their precious cargo and Stupid.
Sharra had taught her fire lizards to hunt when they were in the wild, but she had also managed to train them to bring their catch to her. They returned that fourth evening with the strangest-looking creature Piemur had ever seen. Sharra identified it as a whersport. It was far too small to be like the watchwhers that Piemur knew as nocturnal hold guardians in the north, but it was bigger than fire lizards, which it also somewhat resembled. Fortunately it was almost dead when the delighted Meer and Talla deposited it on the ground by Sharra’s feet. She dispatched it with a deft prick of her knife and, grinning at Piemur for his horrified expression, proceeded to disembowel it, throwing the offal far out into the black waters, which ruffled briefly as the snakes took the offering.
“May look a sight, but roasted in its skin, a whersport is very good eating. So, we’ll stuff it with a bit of white tuber and some grass shoots, and we’ll have a meal fit for a Lord Holder.”
When she saw Piemur’s dubious expression as she completed her arrangements, she laughed.
“There’re a lot of strange beasties in this part of the south. As if all the animals you have up north got mixed up somehow. A whersport isn’t a fire lizard, and it isn’t a wher. For one thing it’s a daytime beast, and whers are nocturnal; sun blinds them. Then there’s far more varieties of snake here than in the north. Or so I’m told. Sometimes I’d like to go north, just to see all the differences, but then again,” and Sharra shrugged, her eyes wandering over the lush, deserted and strangely beautiful marshlands, “this is where I hold. I haven’t seen half enough of it yet to begin to appreciate all its complexity.” She pointed due south with her bloody knife blade. “There’re mountains down there that never lose their snow. Not that I’ve seen snow, on them or on the ground, though my brother has told me about it. I wouldn’t like to be as cold as he says it gets in the north when there is snow on the ground.”
“Oh, it’s not bad,” replied Piemur reassuringly and a trifle pleased to be able to talk on a subject he did know, “rather invigorating, in fact, cold is. Snows are fun, too. Then you don’t have to—” He caught himself. He’d been about to say “you don’t have to report to all work sections at the Harper Hall.” “—do as much work.”
Sharra didn’t seem to notice his brief hesitation or that he had substituted another phrase. She gave him a grin.
“We don’t always work this hard in Southern, either, Piemur; but now it’s time to harvest numbweed and get the tuft seeds and bush hearts. If we didn’t have them. . . .” and she shrugged to indicate a very unpleasant alternative. Then she made a trench in the red ashes of their fire, lined it with thick water-plant leaves, which began to hiss and exude a steamy fragrance, deftly inserted the stuffed whersport, folded over the leaves, then carefully knifed the hot ashes in place, and sat back. “There. Dinner won’t be long, and there’s enough for all.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ONCE OUT OF the grip of the Great Current, Sebell wrestled with the gaudy striped mainsail, untying it from the runners on the boom and folding it away neatly in its bag. Then he and Menolly bent the bright red southern sail to the boom and mast. Practice had made it a smooth operation, though the first time Menolly and he had changed the sail halfway to the Southern Continent, it had taken them hours, with him cursing at his ineptness and she patiently explaining the trick.
No sooner had they hauled the red sail up the mast than the wind, which had so favored their journey, dropped to a mere whisper.
With a sigh, Menolly surveyed the bright blue and cloudless sky and then laughed as she sank to the deck by the all but motionless tiller handle.
“Wouldn’t you just know?”
“All right, weather eye, breeze at sunset?”
“Possibly, usua
lly does come up again, then,” she replied, squinting up to see what made Sebell so irritable.
“Sorry, Menolly,” he said, running his hand through wind-disheveled hair. He dropped to the deck beside her.
“You’re not worried about Piemur, are you? Something you’ve kept from me?”
“No, girl, I’ve kept nothing from you.” Her anxious query seemed at this moment more of an accusation to him than a plea for reassurance, and he had answered with more asperity than was customary for him. She was quiet, though he could sense her confusion at his manner; he was unable to explain it to himself. “I didn’t mean to snap, Menolly,” he said, realizing that she wouldn’t speak until he had. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into me. I honestly believe we’ll find Piemur in the south.”
“Maybe we ought to have taken someone else to help with the sailing—”
“No, no, it’s not that!” Again his tone was churlish. He bit his lips together, took a deep breath and carefully added, “You know I like sailing. Better, I like sailing with you alone!” That came out sounding more like himself, and he gave her a smile.
Menolly started to respond to his oblique apology, but then stared at his face, her eyes widening. Suddenly, she glanced skyward, where the fire lizards were aerially following the skiff in swoops and glides. She watched them for a long moment, frowning slightly as she saw one dive into the waves. Sebell, puzzled by her abrupt curiosity, identified the fisher as his own Kimi and smiled indulgently as she brought the neatly captured yellowtail back to the prow of the ship. Oddly, the others stayed aloft while Kimi tore savagely into the flesh of her still-struggling prey.
Sebell wondered why the other three fire lizards didn’t come to share the feast, but the thought didn’t absorb him long. The ferocity with which Kimi ate fascinated him; he felt as if he were somehow involved in tearing the strips, as if he could savor the warm salty flesh in his mouth, as if—
“I’m sending Beauty to Toric at Southern Hold. She can’t stay here now, Sebell.”
Sebell heard Menolly’s voice but made no sense of the words, his entire attention was concentrated on the unusual actions of his fire lizard queen. He wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t move. He found that he was alternately clenching his hands and then rubbing his sweating palms against his legs. He was unbearably hot and tore at his shirt to open the throat.
“Oh!” he heard Menolly exclaim. “Oh, what else can I do? I can’t send Rocky and Diver away. That’s not fair to Kimi. We’re too far from land to raise more fire lizards, and there’s not a breath of wind to attract them here!”
Sebell pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside. The coolness of the day seemed to have no effect on the heat that consumed him. Then he noticed the two bronze fire lizards, crouching on the roof of the small cabin. They made no attempt to join Kimi in her feast. She was growling, too, her eyes glowing orangely at the two impertinent bronzes, and she seemed to be glowing in the sunlight.
Glowing? Unwilling to share food? What had Menolly mumbled about sending Beauty away? And to Toric? Why would she send Toric another message? What was the matter with Kimi?
He wanted to reprimand her but could frame no message in his mind. And why were those bronzes waiting? Why didn’t they go away and leave Kimi? Why . . .?
The “why” suddenly penetrated Sebell’s fire-lizard-linked confusion. Kimi eating alone, savagely; Menolly sending Beauty, another queen, away; Kimi, glowing golden and taunting the bronzes, her good friends, with her staring, whirling orange-red eyes! Kimi was about to fly. And it was Menolly’s bronzes who would fly her. A surge of elation swept Sebell, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. And yet . . .
“Menolly?” He turned to her, hands outstretched, palms up, pleading with her and apologizing for what he knew was about to happen since there were only the two of them on this becalmed boat in the middle of the windstill sea. He hadn’t wanted Menolly coerced, as she now must be; he’d wanted to be in full command of himself, not overriden by the mating instinct of Kimi.
“It’s all right, Sebell. It’s all right.”
Smiling, Menolly put her hands in his and let herself be drawn into his arms where he had so yearned to have her.
As if their contact had been a signal, Kimi uttered a shriek and flung herself skyward from the prow, the two bronze fire lizards a length behind her. Sebell wasn’t standing on the deck with Menolly in his arms; he was with Kimi, exulting in her strength, in her flight, determined to outsmart those who pursued her. Just let them try to catch her!
Never had her wings responded so fully to her demands. Never had she flown so high, soaring, veering, gliding. The sun flowed across her body, its rays burning into her eyes as she flew on and ever upward. The heat was unendurable. She glided obliquely to the right, caught movement below her and, sweeping her wings back, dropped down, screaming with delight as she fell between the two startled bronzes.
One of them tried to entangle her with his lashing tail and fell, his flight rhythm disrupted. She beat upward again, calling defiance and deliberately cutting across the path of the second bronze. But, in her desire to flaunt her flight superiority, she brushed just too close to him, and he veered, jamming his wing tip against hers. Her forward speed was momentarily checked. Before she could get away from him, he had caught her, neck twining hers in that instant. Locked together, they fell toward the shimmering sea so far below.
On the tiny bright oblong that was but a mote on the glistening water, Sebell and Menolly, too, were together, lips, bodies, hearts and minds as they, linked by and in the love of their fire lizards, experienced and repeated the joy that enveloped Kimi and Diver.
The flapping of the untended sail roused Sebell first, the rising sea breeze cooling his cheek. He moved aside, shaking his head, trying to orient himself. Menolly stirred against him, awakened by the same sea sounds. Startled, she opened her eyes and saw him, propped on his elbow above her. Surprise, and then memory, changed the color of her sea green eyes. Holding his breath, Sebell watched, fearful of her reaction. Her smile was tender as she lifted her hand and brushed his hair back from his eyes.
“What chance did you have, dear Sebell, with Rocky and Diver so determined?”
“It wasn’t just Kimi’s need,” he said in a hurried voice, “you know that, don’t you?”
“Of course, I know, dear Sebell.” Her fingers lingered on his cheek, his lips. “But you always stand back and defer to our Master.” She did not hide from Sebell then how much she loved Master Robinton, nor would that ever come between them since they each loved the man in their separate ways. “. . . but I have so wished—”
The ominous creak of the boom swinging across the cockpit warned her just in time to pull him back against her, out of its way.
“I wish,” said Sebell in a growl, “that the bloody wind didn’t choose to rise right now.”
“We need the wind, Sebell,” she replied, laughing with a spontaneous gaiety that drew a laugh from him because they had finally spoken of what had kept them apart too long.
He put up his hand to grab the boom before it could swing back. She half rose and reached the lines to secure the boom, then pulled herself onto the seat to unlash the tiller. As Sebell rose to join her, he caught sight of a curled ball of bronze and gold on the forward deck, but Kimi and Diver were too soundly asleep to be roused by considerations of sea and wind. He envied them.
“Where did Rocky go?” he asked Menolly, who frowned slightly in thought.
“He either joined Beauty . . . or found himself a wild green. I suspect the latter.”
“Wouldn’t you know?” asked Sebell, surprised.
Menolly shook her head from side to side, with a half-smile, and Sebell realized that she’d been unaware of anything except their rapport with their two fire lizards. He relaxed, thoroughly content with their new under-standing.
“If this breeze continues to follow, we’ll make Southern by tomorrow high sun,” she said and deftly played out
the line, making the most of the wind that filled the red sail. Then she indicated that Sebell should bridge the distance between them in the cockpit.
Neither left each other for very long all through that brilliant, lovely night.
Menolly’s sea-sense was acute, for the sun had just reached its zenith when they eased the little skiff into the pleasant cove that served the Southern Hold as harbor. Sebell counted the ships bobbing at anchor and wondered where the largest three vessels were. They’d seen none fishing as the Great Eastern Current had raced them toward their destination. Not that Sebell expected anyone in the Southern Hold to be moving about in the heavy heat of high sun.
Suddenly Beauty appeared, chittering a wild welcome. Rocky arrived more sedately, settling on the tied boom. Menolly scooped him from his perch and caressed him, murmuring loving reassurances until Sebell heard her laugh.
“What’s so amusing?”
“He must have found a green. He looks far too smug, but he’s trying to make me feel guilty!”
“Not your fault Diver lived up to his name!”
“Hello down there!” The loud hail attracted their attention up to the small precipice that bulged out above the harbor. The tall, tanned figure of the Southern Holder, Toric, waved an imperious arm at them. “No use sweltering! Come where it’s cool!”
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