Dragonseye (18 page)

“You’re a good man, K’vin,” and M’shall grinned at his colleague. “So let’s do it!” The Benden Weyrleader launched himself up his dragon’s shoulder and swung neatly between the end ridges.

We go to help?
Charanth asked K’vin.

Indeed we do. Tell Meranath to have Zulaya put our plan into operation. I’ll meet my wing at the Falls road. And I think we’d better ask Iantine to come along.

When K’vin returned to Telgar, the first rescue wave was ready to take off at his signal. He paused long enough to haul Iantine behind him on Charanth.

“Get down as much in black and white as you can, Iantine. I want Chalkin nailed by the evidence.”

Iantine was all too happy to comply with the request. It would be one way of paying back the arrogant Lord Holder for his snaking ways and meanness. But no sooner had Iantine dropped to the hard-packed snow of the border point than his attitude changed to horrified disgust. Using an economy of line, he sketched the “pen”—ropes looped around trees, and the shivering knots of people forced to stand, for there was not enough room to sit down—in the churned mud of an inadequate space. He drew the haggard faces, the chilled bodies bent inward from cold, or those clumped together to share what warmth they had. Some had been stripped of all but what covered private parts and were surrounded by their fellows in an attempt to keep them from freezing. Some were standing barefoot on the rough rags and boots of their neighbors, feet blue and dangerously white from frostbite. Children wandered weeping with hunger and fatigue or slumped in unconscious bundles in the mud at the feet of the adults. Three elderlies were stiff in death. Bloodied faces and bruised eyes were more common than the unmarked.

The guards, however, were warm with many layers of clothing, good fires with cooking spits turning to roast the meat of such animals as the refugees had brought with them. Others were tied or penned up for future use. Such belongings as the refugees had brought with them were now piled at the side of the guardhouse or in the barrows or carts lined up behind. Iantine faithfully recorded rings and bracelets, even earrings, inappropriately adorning the guards.

They had been alarmed at the arrival of the dragonriders, as many as could retreating into the shelter of the stone border facility. That had made it considerably easier to move the refugees. Of course many of them were in such a state of shock and fear that they were as frightened of the dragons and the riders as of the brutal guards.

Zulaya had brought Weyrfolk with her, and their presence reassured many. So did the blankets and the warm jackets. And the soup: the first sustenance many had had since they had left their holds.

What Iantine couldn’t put down on paper were the sounds and the smells of that scene. And yet he did . . . In the open mouths of the terrified folk, their haunted eyes, the contortions of their abused bodies, their ragged coverings, the piles of human ordure because the guards had made no provision for that human requirement, and the abandoned belongings and carts.

Now that he had seen real privation, Iantine realized how lucky he had been in his brief encounter with the Lord Holder of Bitra.

Iantine returned with the last group, letting his hand rest only in
between,
sketching as they flew, his pad propped against P’tero’s back.

“You haven’t stopped a moment,” P’tero shouted over his shoulder. “You’ll freeze your hand up here, you know.”

Iantine waved it to prove its flexibility and continued to sketch. He was adding details to the men who had been hung by their heels and used as target practice. The men had been cut down—one of the first things the rescuers had done. Iantine had only had time enough to do an outline, but the details—despite all the other sketches he made that day—were vivid in his mind’s eye, and he had to get every one down on paper or he would feel he had betrayed them.

When the young blue rider deposited him in front of the lower cavern, Iantine, still filling in substance, managed to get himself to a table near enough to the fire to get the good of the warmth—and increase the fluidity of his drawing. His fingers gradually thawed and his pencil raced faster.

A touch on his shoulder startled him half out of his chair.

“It’s Debera,” and the green rider placed klah and a bowl of stew in front of him. “Everyone else has eaten. You’d better,” she said severely, wrenching the pencil out of one hand and taking the pad from the other. “You look awful,” she added, peering closely at his face.

He reached for his pad but she slapped at his hand, swinging it out of his reach.

“No, you eat first. You’ll draw better for it. Oh, my word!” Her eye was caught by the scene, and her free hand went to her mouth, her eyes widening in shock. “Oh, they couldn’t have.”

“I sketched what I saw,” he said, exhaling in a remorse that came from his guts and then inhaling the tantalizing odor emanating from the stew. He looked down at it, thick with vegetables and chunks of meat. They really could do miracles with wherry here. He picked up the spoon and began to eat, only then realizing how empty his stomach was. It almost hurt receiving food, and that nearly made him stop eating altogether. Chalkin’s prisoners had been without food for three or four days.

“They’re all fed now,” Debera murmured.

Iantine gave her a startled glance and she patted his shoulder reassuringly, as she often patted her Morath.

“I felt the same way when I ate earlier on.” She sat down across from him. “We’d been going flat out to feed them when Tisha made us all stop to get something to eat, too.” She started turning the pages of his book, the look on her face becoming more and more distressed at each new scene of the tragedy. “How could he?”

Iantine reached over and gently pulled the sketch pad from her, setting it down, closed between them.

“He gave the orders—” Iantine began.

“And knew just what would happen when he did, I know. I’ve met some of his . . . ‘guards.’ Even my father wouldn’t have one about the hold.” She tapped the pad. “No one can ignore that sort of evidence.”

Iantine gave a snort. “Not with dragonriders verifying what’s in here!” He finished the last of the stew and stretched his legs out under the table, scrubbing at his face, still tingling with his long hours in the unremitting cold of the border crossing.

“Go to bed, why don’t you, Iantine,” Debera said, rising. She glanced around the cavern, which was occupied by only a few riders and folk finishing their evening meal. “They’ve all been sorted out and you’ll be lucky if you have your room to yourself. But I’d better get some sleep, too. That Morath of mine! She wakes positively starved, no matter how much I give her.”

Iantine smiled at the affection that softened Debera’s voice. He got to his feet, swaying a bit. “You’re right. I need sleep. Good night, Debera.”

He watched her striding purposefully out of the cavern, at the proud tilt to her head and the set of her shoulders. She’d changed a great deal since she Impressed Morath. He grinned, picked up his pad, and slowly made his way to his quarters.

He wasn’t sharing with any refugee, but Leopol sprawled on a bed pad along one wall and didn’t even stir as Iantine prepared himself for bed.

There were more refugees than originally estimated, and while the resources of the two Weyrs were stretched, the Lord Holders immediately sent additional supplies and offered shelter. Some of those rescued were in bad shape from the cold and could not be immediately transferred to the sanctuaries offered by Nerat, Benden, and Telgar Holds.

Zulaya had headed a rescue team of the other queens and the green riders. She came back, seething with rage.

“I knew he was a greedy fool and an idiot, but not a sadist. There were three pregnant women at the Forest Road border and they’d been raped because, of course, they couldn’t sue the guards later on a paternity claim.”

“Are the women all right?” K’vin asked, appalled by yet another instance of the brutality. “We arrived at the North Pass just in time to spare three lads from . . . very unkind attentions by the guards. Where does Chalkin find such men?”

“From holds that have tossed them out for antisocial behavior or criminal activities, of course,” Zulaya replied, almost spitting in anger. “And that blizzard’s closed in. We moved just in time. If we hadn’t, I fear most of these people would be dead by morning. Absolutely nothing allowed them! Not even the comfort of a fire!”

“I know, I know,” he said, as bitter about the sadistic behavior as she was. “We should have treated those guards to a taste of absolute cold. Like a long wait
between.
Only that would have been a clean death.”

“We still can,” Zulaya said in a grating tone. K’vin regarded her in astonishment. She glared at him, clenching her fists at her sides. “Oh, I know we can’t, but that doesn’t keep me from
wanting
to! Did you take Iantine with you? I thought of how useful on-the-spot sketches might be.”

“In fact, he asked to come. He’s got plenty to show Lord Paulin and the Council,” K’vin said. He swallowed, remembering the stark drawings that had filled one pad. Iantine’s quick hand had captured the reality, made even more compelling by the economy of line, depicting horrific scenes of deliberate cruelty.

The Weyrleaders introduced themselves to the first of the refugees and started off by interviewing the old couple.

“M’grandsir’s grandsir came to Bitra with the then holder,” the man said, his eyes nervously going from one Weyrleader to the other. He kept wiggling his bandaged fingers, though N’ran had assured him the pain and itch had been dulled by fellis and numbweed. “I’m Brookie, m’woman’s Ferina. We farmed it since. Never no reason to complain, though the Holder keeps asking for more tithe and there’s only so much comes out of any acre, no matter who tills it. But
he’d
the right.”

“Not to take our sow, though,” his mate said, her expression rebellious. “We needed that ‘un to make more piggies to meet the tithe
he
set.” Like her man, she laid a stress on the pronoun. “Took our daughter, too, to work in the hold when we wanted her land grant. Said we didn’t work what we had good enough so we couldn’t have more.”

“Really?” Zulaya said, deceptively mild as she shot K’vin a meaningful glance. “Now that’s interesting, Holder Ferina.”

K’vin envied Zulaya’s trick of remembering names.

You could’ve asked me,
Charanth said helpfully.

You’ve been listening?

The people needed dragons’ help. I listen. We all do.

When the pity of dragons has also been aroused, surely that’s enough justification for what we’ve just done, thought K’vin, if the Council should turn up stiff. He must remember to tell Zulaya.

“But
he
says we got it wrong and we ain’t had no teacher to ask,” the man was saying. “An’ thassa ‘nother thing—we should have a teacher for our kids.”

“At least so they can read the Charter and know what rights you all do have,” Zulaya said firmly. “I’ve a copy we can show you right now, so you can refresh your memories.”

The two exchanged alarmed glances.

“In fact,” Zulaya went on smoothly, “I think we’ll have someone read you your rights . . . since it would be difficult for you to turn pages with bandaged hands, Brookie. And you’re not in much better shape, Ferina.”

Ferina managed a nervous smile. “I’d like that real well, Weyrwoman. Real well. Our rights are printed out? In the Charter and all?”

“Your rights as holders are part of the Charter,” Zulaya said, shooting K’vin another unhappy look. “In detailed paragraphs.” She rose to her feet abruptly. ‘Why don’t you sit over there, in the sun, Ferina, Brookie?” and she pointed to the eastern wall, where some of the Weyr’s elderlies were seated, enjoying the warmth of the westering sun. “We’ll make sure you hear it all, and you can ask any questions you want.”

She helped the two to their feet and started them on their way across the Bowl as K’vin whistled for Leopol.

“Go get the Weyr’s copy of the Charter, will you, lad?”

“You want me to read it to them, too?” the boy asked, eyes glinting partly in mischief and partly because he enjoyed second-guessing errands.

“Smart pants, are we?” K’vin said. “No, I think we need T’lan for this.” He pointed toward the white-haired old brown rider who was serving klah to the refugees. “Just get the Charter now. I’ll request T’lan’s services.”

Leopol moved off at his usual sprint, and K’vin went over to speak to the elderly brown rider. He had exactly the right manner to deal with nervous and frightened holders.

Bridgely arrived in Benden Weyr, his face suffused with blood, torn between fury and laughter.

“The nerve of the man, the consummate nerve!” he exclaimed and threw down the message he carried.

It landed closer to Irene than M’shall so she picked it up.

“From Chalkin?” she exclaimed, looking up at Bridgely. “Read it . . . and pour me some wine, would you, M’shall?” the Lord Holder said, slipping into a chair. “I mean, I know that man’s got gall, but to presume . . . to have the effrontery—”

“Ssssh,” Irene said, her eyes widening as she read. “Oh, I don’t believe it! Just listen, M’shall. ‘This hold has the right to dragon messengers. The appropriate red striped banner has been totally ignored, though my guards have seen dragons near enough to see that an urgent message must be delivered. Therefore I must add . . .’ ” She peered more closely at the written page. “His handwriting’s abominable . . . Ah, ‘dereliction’ . . . really, where does he get off to cry ‘dereliction’ . . . ‘of their prime duty to the other complaints I am forced to lay at their door. Not only have they been interfering with the management of this hold, but they fill the minds of my loyal holders with outrageous lies. I demand their immediate censure. They are not even reliable enough to perform those duties which fall within their limited abilities.’ Limited abilities?” Irene turned pale with fury. “I’ll unlimit him!”

“Especially when we’ve had an earful of how he treats his loyal holders . . .” M’shall said, his expression grimmer than ever. “Wait a minute. What’s the date on his letter?”