The Renegades of Pern (5 page)

As soon as he got the fire going, he took the rope from his saddle and brought Fairex with him to bring more wood down to the shore. On his way back, he made himself see the extent of the tragedy. Beyond the new piles of soaking bundles and wet crates, there were seven small bundles, three very small and three larger ones. No, the babies would not have made it. They would not have known to hold their breath under water. Nor would his younger sister, or his youngest cousins.

Tears streamed down Jayge’s face as he piled the wood by the stones that surrounded the fire. Two dented kettles were heating water, and, astonishingly, a soup pot had been recovered. Saddles had been placed in a ring around the fire to dry. Someone was splashing in the pool, and he saw there, for the first time, the metal bands that had once spread the canvas wagontops, like the ribs of some great water snake. Aunt Temma burst to the surface and began to tug on a rope. He saw his father struggling with something still under the rope. Borel and Readis, despite their wounds, were desperately pulling at yet another submerged article.

Jayge had just turned to untie the wood piled on Fairex’ back when abruptly she wheeled and dashed back up the slope, racing away from the camp as if a wherry had attacked her. Then dirt and sand flew around him, over the fire and into the soup pot. Startled, Jayge looked up, unable to imagine what new hazard faced them.

A huge brown dragon was settling to the top of the track above the pool.

“You there, boy! Who’s in charge of this ground crew? How many burrows have you found? These woods are disastrous!”

At first Jayge could not understand the words rattled at him. There was an odd inflection in the man’s voice that startled him. The harpers kept the language from altering too much, his mother had once told him when he had first encountered the slower speech of the southerners. But the voice of the dragon-rider, so small up there perched between the neck ridges of the big beast, sounded strange to Jayge’s ears. And the man did not really look like any man Jayge had ever seen. He seemed to have huge eyes, and no hair, and leather all over. Were dragonmen different from the rest of Pern’s people? Realizing that his mouth had dropped open, Jayge clamped his jaws shut.

“You can’t be ground crew. You’re much too small to be any use! Who’s in charge here?” The rider sounded offended, annoyed. “This isn’t what I’m used to, I assure you. You’ll have to do better than this!”

“Will we just?” Crenden strode forward, Borel right behind him along with Temma and Gledia.

“Lads
and
women! Only two men! You can’t have efficient ground crews if this is all you can provide us,” the rider continued. Suddenly he took off a close-fitting cap, revealing a face that was quite human, if creased with a deep scowl and accentuated by the soot marks on his cheeks.

Jayge stared, aware of many details that he would recall later and with cynical accuracy: except that the rider wore his hair cropped close to his scalp, he was really like any other man. Under other circumstances and with later knowledge, Jayge might have forgiven him his irascibility, and even some of his scathing disapproval. But not that day.

However, it was the dragon that fascinated Jayge. He noted the dark streaks of soot on the dragon’s brown hide; the two damaged ridges; the rough scars on its forequarters—long thin scars, darker brown, many of them along its barrel and back—and the thickening of tissue along several wing vanes. But it was the ineffable weariness in the dragon’s eyes, whirling slightly and coloring from a purple to a blue-green, that Jayge noted particularly. Those eyes whirled in Jayge’s dreams for many nights thereafter—but his strongest impression was of the weariness, a fatigue that he himself certainly felt down to his very bones.

Although it was the dragon who dominated that first moment, the rider soon took center stage with his strong words and the contemptuous tone in which he delivered them. He spoke to Crenden as if the trader were a drudge, an unperson of no importance but to serve the dragonrider’s orders. For his father, and for himself, and for the shattered remainder of their kin, Jayge resented that tone, that dragonrider, and all he stood for. And he hated the dragonrider for all he had not done to protect them.

“We aren’t ground crew, dragonrider. We’re what’s left of the Lilcamp train,” Crenden said in a hoarse voice. Those behind stared wearily up with unspoken resentment.

“A train?” The dragonrider was contemptuous. “A train—out during Threadfall? Man, you’re insane.”

“We knew of no Threadfall when we left Kimmage Hold.”

Jayge drew in his breath. He had never heard his father utter a falsehood—yet that was not a true lie. They had not heard of Threadfall at the time they had set out from Kimmage Hold. And it was right for his father to shame the dragonrider.

“You should have known!” The dragonrider would not accept responsibility. “Word was sent out to all holds.”

“It didn’t reach Kimmage Hold before we left.” Crenden was equally determined to set the blame.

“Well, we can’t protect every stupid trader and isolated spot, you know. And I’m beginning to wonder why we bothered to come here at all, if this is all the gratitude we receive! Which lord are you beholden to? Take it up with him. It was up to him to be sure you were warned. And if there’re no ground crews from Kimmage, this entire area could be at risk. C’mon, Rimbeth. Now we’ve got to check the whole bloody area!” He glared at Crenden. “It’ll be your fault if there’re burrows here. You hear me?”

With that, the dragonrider replaced his helmet and took a firm grip on the straps that fastened him into position. In the brief moment, Jayge was certain that the dragon was looking directly at him as he stood there by the fire. Then the big beast turned his head, spread his wings, and launched himself into the sky.

“Rimbeth’s rider, I’ll know you again! I’ll seek you out if it’s the last thing I do!” Crenden’s words were a fierce shout as he raised his fist skyward.

Jayge watched, incredulous, as first the dragon was there, and then it was not. Dragonriders were not what he had expected them to be, what he had been taught they should be. He never wanted to see another dragonrider in his life.

The next morning, they managed to get four wagons out of the pool, along with as much of their baggage as remained usable after the immersion. Their foodstores had been destroyed, or swept away by the current. Many of the lighter bundles and crates had either been burned up, or had floated loose and been lost. Three of the twelve surviving beasts had lost eyes to Threadfall; all were savagely scored across their backs and the muzzles they had lifted out of the water to breathe. But they could be harnessed, and without them the retrieval of the wagons would have been impossible. Only four of the loose runners made their way back, badly scored but alive.

Jayge counted himself and Fairex very lucky indeed when he had time to think about anything but the appalling tragedy. His mother seemed scarcely to realize the loss of her two youngest children. She kept looking about her, a puzzled frown on her face. Even before Crenden had made the decision to seek help from Kimmage Hold, she had begun to cough, a soft, apologetic cough.

The second morning, with patched harness and wagons still damp, the Lilcamps turned back to Kimmage Hold. It was an uphill journey, hard on animals with open sores on their backs, and on people weighed down by grief and despair. Jayge led his little mare as she trudged patiently with Borel’s three small weeping children on her back. Their mother had shielded them from a tangle of Thread that had eaten her to the bone before her lifeless form had slid into the pool, drowning the voracious organism. Challer had died trying to protect his prize team.

“I don’t understand it, Brother,” Jayge heard his Uncle Readis murmur to his father as they trudged up the road. “Why did Childon not send someone to help us?”

“We survived without them,” Crenden said emotionlessly.

“I can’t call the loss of seven people and most of our wagons ‘survival,’ Cren!” His voice was rough with anger. “Simple decency requires Childon—”

“Simple decency flew out of the hold when Thread fell. You heard that dragonrider, clear as I did!”

“But . . . I heard Childon beg you to stay. Surely they’ll need us more now.”

Crenden gave his younger brother a long cynical stare and then shrugged, plodding along in boots that had split open with the wear of the last few days. Jayge squirmed inside himself, and his hand went to his little hoard of credits. There would be no new saddle now. Other things would be needed more. Young as he was, Jayge knew that everything had abruptly altered. And young as he was, he also recognized the essential injustice that Childon, and all Kimmage Holders, imposed on the Lilcamps when they returned. Where before they had been honored guests, valuable partners in a logging venture, the Lilcamps had lost most of their assets—wagons, livestock, and tools.

“I’ve my own folk, beholden to me, to provide for now, for the fifty long Turns this Pass will last. I can’t take in any holdless and improvident family to apply to me,” Childon said, never once looking Crenden straight in the eye. “You’ve wounded and sick, and kids too young to be useful. Your stock’s all injured. Take time and medicine to heal ’em. I’ve got to provide ground crews for every Fall, to support not only Igen Weyr but Benden when they call on us. I’m going to be hard-pressed to look after my own. You must understand my position.”

For one long hopeful moment, Jayge thought his father was going to storm indignantly out of the hold. Then Gledia coughed, trying to smother it in her hand. That was the moment, Jayge later decided, when his father capitulated. His wide shoulder sagged and he bowed his head. “I do understand your position, Holder Childon.”

“Well, just so’s you understand, we’ll see how things go on. You can bed down in the beasthold. I lost a lot of stock that’re going to be very hard to replace. I’ll talk about compensation for yours later, for I can’t waste fodder on the useless, not with Thread falling I can’t.”

No Lilcamp was really surprised when Readis, unwilling to accept such humiliation, left during the night. For many nights afterward, Jayge had nightmares involving dragon eyes shooting fire lances through his uncle’s twisting, bloody body. Later that spring, Jayge’s hoarded credits helped pay the healer for Gledia’s treatment. But Gledia died before full summer, while all the ablebodied men, including Jayge, were out as ground crew.

2

North Telgar Hold to Igen Hold,
Present Pass, 02.04.12

T
HELLA HEARD ABOUT
the spring Gather at Igen Hold on one of her dark-night forays to Far Cry Hold, where she had gone to acquire seedlings from their starting beds to renew the small garden she had just begun. Hiding behind bales of dry fodder, she overheard a conversation between the beastmaster and the barnman; both were plainly envious of those chosen to make the trip to Igen, despite the dangers of such a journey during a Pass.

Knowledge of a Gather was very reassuring to the renegade Telgar Blooddaughter. Before she could hope to attract folk to work in her high mountain hold, she would have to supply basic needs, and legitimately. In one trip to a large Gather, she could quite possibly acquire all she needed. She was already making plans as she waited for the men to leave so she could sneak to the greenhouses and help herself to the seedlings.

It had taken her all that first Turn to recover from the shocking frustration of Threadfall. Thella did not cope well with failure. Not only had she lost two of her fine runners to the disgusting stuff—well, the animals had panicked with dragons flying over them and run off a precipice—but all her careful and ambitious plans had had to be abandoned. The disappointment had plunged her into a deep roiling depression. She had planned so carefully: if Thread had only held off until the following Turn, she would have established herself in her own hold.

She had found the place during one of her ramblings in the high country. Someone had once lived—and died—there, for she had removed twelve skulls, the only part of the dead that mountain snakes had been unable to masticate. What had killed the holders would always be a mystery, although Thella had heard of instances where entire hold populations had been wiped out by virulent disease. But they must once have lived well. The hold still held wooden furnishings; the stout slab table and the bedframes, dry and dusty, were usable. The metal fittings and utensils had a thin coat of rust, but that could be sanded off. There were cisterns for water and basins for bathing. Most of the south-facing apertures, protected by deep embrasures, had retained their glass. Four good hearths for warmth and cooking needed only to be cleaned to be used. In her initial investigations as a young and optimistic girl as yet unthwarted by the Threadfall that had destroyed her plans, Thella had even found cloth, brittle with age, in the stone storage chests of the sleeping quarters and grain in the beasthold. There were stone walls around enough highland pastures to support adequate meat animals, and pens were set into one side of the cavern. Thella knew the Masterherdsman had hardy strains that would thrive on mountain fields. She did not like the notion of sharing her living space with beasts, but she had heard that it was one way of generating additional warmth. One would need all the heat one could get in these hills.

But the hold could have been completely reestablished and hers! Hers! If she had just had the Turn or two. The ancient Contract Law of Pern gave her that right. She could have insisted that the Conclave of Lord Holders permit it, once she could prove her competence. Her father had told her, in answer to discreet questions, that anyone could form a hold, so long as it could be proved to be self-sufficient and remained well managed. And a discreet check of the record hides told her that a Benamin Bloodline had once established that mountain hold, but that it had been untenanted since before the last Pass.

Only Thella’s determination to prove her competence—and her pride as eldest daughter of one of the proudest Holds on Pern, direct descendant of its founder, in whom the best qualities of her Bloodline were manifest in her beauty, intelligence, and skill—had kept her alive that first Turn. But she had been reduced to a hand-to-mouth existence which even traveling folk would have scorned. Cursing every step of the way, she had been forced to leave her mountainhold that first winter, before the snows blocked the one trail down, or leave her own skeleton for snake fodder.

Insult was added to injury as once again all of Pern, Hold and Hall, had to rely on those wretched dragonriders who should have been thoroughly redundant. Her father had held that opinion. No dragonrider had minced through Telgar’s Hold since that last Pass had ended. It was all part of a giant concatenation of circumstances ranked against her, Thella of Telgar. But she would prove her durability and resilience. Not even Thread would thwart her in the end.

So by the coming of the second spring of that improbable—but actual—Pass, Thella had finally wintered comfortably, having located three secure, well-concealed caves that were small but adequate for shelter. She had left each of them provisioned for reuse should she require them again. By that time she had become deft at extracting supplies from minor holds in Telgar and Lemos. Except for boots. She had hard-to-fit feet—rather long, wide across the ball, and narrow in the heel—and no matter where she had looked, she had been unable to find suitable footwear. Before she had always had the hold cobbler to supply her boots and shoes; she had left behind a locker full of them, and as hard wear had lacerated worn leather, she regretted her lack of foresight. But then, she had not anticipated living in the rough for nearly two full Turns.

She had acquired all other items of clothing as needed. There were quite a few tall men in Far Cry and one of the other nearby holds, so clothes were plentiful. She took only new trousers and shirts, of course—not even in extremity would Thella of Telgar wear used clothing. She had no trouble getting her hands on an appropriate jacket, a shaggy winter hide, and she had lifted furred sleeping bags, one for each of her three boltholes. Those supplies, along with the food she took, were after all no more than a modest portion of the tithe due a Lord Holder’s family, so she had no compunction about her acquisitions; she merely did not wish to be seen—yet. But boots . . . boots were another matter, and she might have foregone principle to get decent boots.

A journey to Igen Hold for a Gather would be the best way to end the footwear problem and satisfy one or two other minor needs that would fulfill the rudimentary requirements of her prospective holders. Perhaps she would be able to hire a likely herdsman, preferably one with a family to supply her with drudges. They could camp in the beasthold section and not interfere with her privacy. She had not wanted to take on anyone local, and Gathers were an excellent place to find suitable, and reliable, persons.

Igen’s Gather was slated to begin in ten days. The maps she had taken from Telgar—and had committed to memory—gave the position of camping caverns all the way down the Lemos Valley to Igen, so she did not expect the outward bound journey to pose her any problems. According to what she had overheard, there would be one Threadfall—falling to the north over High Telgar—and she would have to wait out another one hitting Keroon and Igen. She wished, and not for the first time over the past eighteen months, that she knew exactly when Threadfall was due. She had had some very narrow escapes—both from Fall itself and from being seen by ground crews and sweepriders. It did not suit her—yet—for any suspicion of her whereabouts or plans to be known.

She made the trip with both runners, switching from one to the other so that she could set a good pace. She would quickly outdistance the Far Cry travelers whom she did not wish to meet on the trace, although they had a head start. She had been forced to alter her overnight plans when one of her intended campsites proved fully occupied. But her fury over that was diverted when she discovered a hitherto unmarked cave with a small stream making a pool by its inner wall—she had been able to hobble the runners inside and treat herself to the luxury of a bath. She marked the spot unobtrusively so that she could find it again, secure in her infallible memory for places.

From then on, she made a point of finding secondary caverns and thus avoided any unnecessary encounters. An astonishing number of folk were on the move—understandable, since this was evidently the first spring Gather held in the new Pass.

By the night before, she was no more than an hour’s quickstep from Igen. In the dawn darkness, she had watered her runners at the wide river and left them hobbled in a blind ravine, its slopes greening in the swift verdant growth of the desert springtime; her gear she stored behind a boulder. From a careless cotwife she had acquired the voluminous draperies worn by desert holders, contrived a suitable band to secure the headdress and conceal her sun-streaked blond hair, begrimed her face, and used charcoal to thicken her eyebrows, giving her a grimmer cast. Then, with the traditional waterskin of the desert holder slung across her back, she was jogging along the high ground above the river even before she could make out the Gather flag flying from the drum tower of Igen Hold.

She quickly overtook groups of excited chattering folk headed in the same direction and merely grunted acknowledgment of their greetings; desert folk tended to taciturnity, so conversation would not be expected of her. And as she had elected to run, she passed all those who were proceeding at a less demanding pace to their destination.

She arrived in full dawn to find the Igen Gathergrounds well populated and gave an ungrudged quartermark for several pockets of hot bread, fresh cooked on a metal sheet over a crackling hot oilbrush fire. Slices of a soft cheese inside the bread made a filling breakfast. She was a bit irritated when she was grossly overcharged for a misshapen clay mug for klah. But it was pay or go without, and the smell of the beverage after long abstinence was more than she could endure. She had never had to bring utensils to a Gather, having always been accommodated in the Lord Holder’s hall, and she had not thought to bring any from her travel pack. Fortunately, though the mug was imperfect, the klah was freshly made, not something that had aged on the hearth all night. Nearby, cooks were busy trussing a dozen herdbeast carcasses onto spits over glowing firepits, the aromas soon to remind Gatherers of the excellent spices that always seasoned Igen roasts.

Replete, she strolled toward the great, colorful Gather tents, her critical gaze noting storage creases and recent repairs to tunnel-snake holes. Igen Gathers had unusual accommodations. With the sun at near equatorial intensity by midday, traders could not have endured its fierce glare, so stalls were erected under a square of tented corridors, where flaps could be rolled up to provide both ventilation and quick exit. Thella had already noted scrawny brats sneaking in and out. At the first corner entrance the Gathermaster was overseeing the setting of the poles for an awning against the vicious noonday sun. The air inside was still cool from the chilly desert night. Already many stalls were ready, journeymen enticing the trickle of Gatherers walking the tented square.

Thella gave the tannercraft stalls a cursory glance, noting that a workbench had been set up and a variety of trial lasts and tools laid out, ready to ensure perfect fittings. Apprentices were still unpacking travel panniers under the eyes of the Master, who was arranging attractive displays of his wares, and an older journeyman was fussily adjusting the price boards attached to the tentpole. Thella walked on, suddenly taking in the meaning of the sign announcing that the Master’s leathers were Threadscore-proofed. She snorted. Threadscore-proofed indeed!

She ignored weaver and smith craft stalls for the moment and stopped to fill the wretched mug with fruit juice. It was so refreshing that she stayed for another, wondering how soon the porous, badly fired clay would begin to leak. The tent, despite ventilation, was beginning to warm up as more people pressed in to do their buying before the noonday heat forced everyone to rest. She walked the entire square and then, to assuage her wrath against the extortionate potter, picked up a rock that someone had used to pound in tentpegs and lobbed it deftly over her shoulder at his stand. As she slipped back into the tent, she heard a satisfactory shattering and pained outcry, and smiled.

Feeling equable again, she was ready to see about boots. When the Mastertanner politely turned her over to a journeyman so that he could serve some better dressed clients, she seethed once more and wondered how she could repay his discourtesy; but her mood altered as the journeyman, a soft-spoken man with big hands, fingers scarred from leatherknife and needle, was soothingly deferential and efficient. He fitted her immediately to a good stout pair of midcalf hide boots and a pair of ankle-high wherhide semiboots, then took careful measurements for full leg boots, assuring her that they would be sewn and ready before high noon. She paid him for the hide boots, which she immediately put on, and the semiboots, which she tied onto her waterbag, and gave him half of the price of the third pair. That way, if her plans altered and she could not pick up the boots, she would not be out too much credit. She waited as he summoned an apprentice to begin cutting the sole to the pattern he had just made. Then, appeased, she left the stall.

It was during her second stop at the bake fire that Thella noticed the big man. Even at a Gather he was exceptional—exceptionally ragged, too, with a brooding angry look that made people give him a span or two of distance from themselves. There was something almost pathetic about his air of aloofness, as if he knew, and even expected, to be shunned and avoided. He grudgingly gave up a quarter credit to pay for bread, carefully choosing the biggest of the pieces on the metal sheet, then waiting for them to finish baking. But he was very strong, and that commended him to her. She would need strong men, preferably ones who would be very grateful to her for taking them on.

Suddenly it came to her that there seemed to be an unusually large number of holdless at the Gather, if their status could be judged by their scruffy appearances. Few actually ventured into the Gather tent, which was as it should be if they had no marks to pass, but they circulated freely among the crowds outside.

Her belt pouch, full of good Telgar currency, was hidden from view under her loose robes, but nevertheless she unobtrusively shoved it under her shirt as she looked about for the guards Lord Laudey ought to have posted to forestall disturbances and deal with petty theft. And this Gather was particularly crowded, it being the first spring Gather in the Pass.