The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall Page 10

  “Don’t push him, Bri,” Red shouted. “Horse’s got sense. I’ll look to the left. If l could see the rocks . . . Ah!” His high-held lantern showed the bulge of water surging over an obstacle just below the surface, and he kneed King forward. A brave horse under any circumstances, the stallion stepped in and moved smartly out, Red legging him to the left as the ford took a diagonal slant across the river. The bank on the far side was too dark to make out, and since the water was high on this side, the incline there might be submerged, as well.

  As King waded confidently forward, the water not up to his knees yet, Red pondered the wisdom of crossing now, tonight, in the dark. Yet, if they found the ford, they could make a safe passage—and be on their own land! But floating sleds might haul the burden beasts off their feet. Rope the sleds, then, and have riders alongside to keep the sleds within the ford. King walked on, and through his horse’s body, Red knew that the stallion had stepped onto the rocky shale base of the ford.

  “Thataboy, King, that’s a good lad!” Red encouraged his mount, trying to peer ahead in the feeble light of the lantern. Oh, for a power torch! The ones allotted to his operation were naturally all up at the cliff premises, their clear beams penetrating the stygian darkness of the tunnel complex.

  “Brian! Follow me!” Red called, swinging his arm in a wide circle so that the light color of his waterproof gear would be visible in the darkness. In moments, Cloudy’s light head and body came out of the night, splashing as he cantered forward.

  “We need the power beams that are up at the Hold to get us across tonight,” Red said. “As soon as we reach the other side, I want you to go hell fer leather and bring ’em back. Bring anyone still awake, too. We’ll need all the help we can get. And ropes, and those great horses Kes has been using to break ground.”

  “Whoa, Dad. I get the drift,” Brian replied, laughing.

  The water was over King’s knees suddenly, and the horse tossed his head in surprise. Red looked over his shoulder, trying to gauge their angle from the bank, but they were about halfway across and neither bank was clearly visible now.

  “I’ll put a lantern where we entered,” Red told himself, “and another where we emerge. The beams will give a broad enough swath to light the ford itself adequately. At least we’ll see where we should be going.” King pulled to the right; Red corrected him and was instantly in water to his own knees. King gave two plunges leftward and, snorting mightily, was back on the shale footing. The horse gave an offended snort as if criticizing his rider’s directions. “All right, boy, you know which way to go, so go! I didn’t do so well, did I?” Affectionately he slapped the stallion’s muscled crest, letting the reins slip through his fingers. God, that river was cold! Ice melt, as well as the rain.

  Behind him, Brian avoided a similar mishap. One more time, just where the shale bank ended, the water surged up to caress Red’s stirruped feet, but then they were obviously ascending the slope out of the river, splashing through fetlock-high water.

  Standing in his stirrups, Red swung the lantern, kiyiing their success. Brian added his own yodels of triumph.

  “D’you know the way to the Hold from here, son?” Red asked, slightly anxious. Brian had not made the trip all that often, and in the dark, most landmarks would be obscured. “Here, better take my lantern.” He leaned over toward Brian.

  “Look, Dad, you’ll need that as a beacon.”

  “I’d rather you had it and got safely to the Hold. Off with you, and trust Cloudy.”

  “Don’t I always!” Brian said, bringing Cloudy up beside King to take the lantern. “Whoops! Got it!” And with that, he trotted off to the left, up the gentle incline.

  Red watched him for a long moment before he set King back into the water, heading directly for the lanterns on the other side. With those lights to guide him, the going was much easier this time. Mairi again had foreseen the need for small fires, more cheerful than effective as light sources but certainly beacons in the dismal night. Red oversaw the dividing up of the available lanterns, then had a steel pole pounded into the water’s edge by his marker cairn. One lantern was securely fastened at its top, a second one hooked at man height, and a heavy rope tied at waist height for those on foot to grab.

  That preparation completed, Red fastened the other end of the rope around the saddle horn and coiled it carefully to play out across the river. Mounting King once more, he took up three more lanterns and two more poles, and led other lantern-carrying riders back into the river. He positioned the riders at intervals; they would hold up the lanterns to guide the others, and would also be available to give assistance as required. When he reached the far bank, he hammered in another pole, hooked on the lantern, and tied the end of the rope in one of those clever hitches mariner Jim Tillek had once shown him.

  Then he walked King to where he thought the right-hand edge of the ford should be and kneed him into the water—right up to his own waist. King lurched mightily out of that hole and back onto the shale, shaking himself as if annoyed at his immersion. Red clamped his teeth against the cold of that dunking. Fortunately he’d managed to keep the lantern from being doused. He walked King back up the shale footing to the bank, where he stabbed the last pole into the ground and settled the final lantern. That would give them beacons enough—if no one panicked. The ford was just wide enough to accommodate the largest sled. Even one of the team putting a foot wrong could result in disaster.

  He cantered King back across the ford, more an act of bravado than common sense, for he knew King was tiring. Mairi was right there as he emerged from the water. “Not another step do you go, Red Peter Hanrahan, until you’ve something warm in your stomach to take away the chill of that water! I heard you splashing about.” She handed him a cup, and he was glad enough of it as the klah spread through him and down into his belly. He managed to suppress a shudder as the cool rain-laden breeze blew across his sodden breeches.

  He handed her the cup with thanks and then, rising in his stirrups, addressed the group waiting to hear his decision.

  “Listen up, folks. We’d best make the crossing tonight. The river’s rising fast with what I bloody well know is ice melt as well as today’s rain. Right now the ford’s no higher than King’s knees, if you keep to it and head on the left diagonal to the far shore and the left-hand lantern. The ford itself is shale, so the minute you feel your mount moving into something softer, get back on the hard stuff. Now, let’s get moving. Those of you leading packhorses move out first. Tie them on the far bank and then bring your mounts to form a very careful line on the right-hand side of the ford. Watch that hole I fell into. It’s a cold one!”

  He trotted King down the line to the various carts and gave them their travel orders, leaving the heavy sleds till last, for they’d need the most help.

  Shouts from the river told him there were minor troubles, but each time he turned King to go investigate, he heard reassurances that the crisis was over.

  Once the lead horses, the other pack animals, and four of the carts had gotten safely across, and there were sufficient riders marking the ford’s boundaries, he sent the loose animals across. The dogs nearly caused a commotion, and several had to be roped to safety when they were in danger of being caught by the current. The goats were the worst. They seemed to want to go for a long swim. So Red asked everyone with fire-lizards to keep the goats in line. Snapper dove at the bell nanny, clipping her on her right ear to turn her to the left. That got her back on line, and the others followed, urged on by attendant fire-lizards.

  Suddenly, without any warning, and before the goats had started climbing out on the far side, Snapper and the other fire-lizards let out a racket of dreadful sounds and disappeared.

  “What the hell?” Red said, totally surprised and vastly irritated by the abrupt abandonment. Snapper had always been reliable . . . He pushed King forward to deflect the lead nanny from yet another wayward plunge and was relieved to get the little herd safely out of the river.

 
By then, help had arrived from the Hold and he was distracted from the fire-lizard desertions by the need to organize the final stages of the crossing. Madeleine Messurier had sent along hot soup and some sort of hot bread filled with one of her spicy concoctions. It didn’t take much persuasion from Brian and the Hold reinforcements to convince Red to pause long enough to eat. Especially as once the powerful beacons were in place they shone the clear path across the now perceptibly higher water, foaming in its hurry to reach the sea, many long klicks to the east. Red knew that he’d miss the sight and sound of the sea near him, but feasible “premises” had not presented themselves nearer the coast. He’d always lived in sight of an ocean, but that was a small price to pay for what he’d have here. But first he’d have to get everyone across that churning river.

  A shiver ran up his spine, despite the warm food in his guts: he was wet through and through, and he had already begun to feel the stallion’s tiredness in his occasional stumble and slide in the mire. He counted on the great heart of the horse and his own determination to last as long as they still had people and stock to get past this ford.

  The first yoke of the three pairs harnessed to the largest sled balked at being asked to enter dark waters, though the beams lit their way as clearly as the sun. The drivers energetically cracked their whips overhead; two men used prods; and a few hauled at the nose rings of the stubborn oxen. Aggravated by the stupidity and aware that the river was deepening by the minute, Red ordered the animals blindfolded, but that old trick wasn’t having any effect with the water swirling about their knees and reinforcing their sense of danger. He was trying to think what else might motivate them, damning Snapper’s disappearance when the fire-lizard might have repeated his successful motivation of the goats, when there was a commotion on the far bank, horses whinnying and bucking while their startled riders tried to calm them. The cattle lowed in such panic that there could be only one cause of such widespread reaction.

  Peering above, into the drizzling night sky while King cavorted wildly, Red just barely made out the shape of a dragon overhead, the bronze hide faintly illuminated by the dying campfires.

  “Sean!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, reining King into as small a circle as he could to keep him from bolting.

  “Sorry, Red,” Sean’s voice replied from somewhere overhead.

  Still circling King, though it took a lot of strength to hold the frightened stallion with one hand, Red made a megaphone of the other. “Don’t be sorry. Be useful! Get behind this stubborn team and get them moving across the ford. We haven’t got all night and the river’s rising.”

  “Get out of my way, then,” Sean’s voice drifted down to him. “At the count of ten . . .” The instruction dwindled away into the night.

  “Okay, fellows,” Red yelled to the men in front of the team. “Sean’s going to dragonize them. Be prepared for a rough ride. And somehow keep ’em left. At all costs, keep ’em left!”

  Keeping a tight hold on the reins, he eased the pressure on King’s bit and kneed him toward the cairn, facing the horse toward the river, away from the sight of an incoming dragon. He was just in time, for out of the darkness of the drizzle came a huge shape, low and headed right for the reluctant team.

  The smell of dragon was almost sufficient in itself—the yoke bawled in fright and plunged forward, away from the skyborne terror.

  Sean must have the eyes of a cat, Red thought, for he’d sent Carenath over at just the angle that made the oxen head straight across the ford. Despite the load the beasts hauled, they didn’t stop when they reached the other side, stampeding through those on the far bank until Red wondered if this had been such a clever maneuver after all.

  “We’ll land upwind of you, Red, so I can talk,” Sean’s voice said faintly out of the murk. King began to buck and rear, though not as earnestly as before.

  Maybe it was the distance, the murkiness of the night, but Sean’s tone sounded odd. Red dismissed the thought as he concentrated on finishing up the work at hand. Maybe he was a grandfather . . . again.

  Now only the smaller of the two big sleds was left to make the crossing. Fortunately the animals were still keyed up by the recent appearance of a dragon overhead and were eager to get as far away from it as possible. But once they got in the water, what Red had feared occurred. The river level was now above the wheels and the sled, for all the weight in it, began to float. The yoked beasts were pulled off balance and only the quickness of the left-hand guideliners kept the sled from drifting downriver. As it was, the ropes had to be kept taut all the long way across the ford until the wheels once more took the weight and the sled was hauled above the river’s current.

  At last Red urged a tired and reluctant King back across the ford to meet with Sean and to help Mairi put out the fires. Sean was already giving her a hand. Mairi’s piebald mare, tied to a rock, stood as placid as always, unconcerned by the proximity to a dragon.

  “Thanks, Sean,” Red said, holding out his hand to his son-in-law. A sandy hand gripped his, and Sean’s face was briefly visible before he scuffed wet sand over the fire. “Had about run out of options to get those stupid damn-fool oxen across.”

  “Well, fear’s a mighty mover.” Sean’s voice definitely sounded odd, choked, but with no more light to illuminate his face, Red had no inkling as to what might be wrong.

  Just then, Mairi joined them. “How come you arrived so fortuitously?” she asked. “There’s nothing wrong with Sorka, is there?”

  Although Sorka, queen Faranth’s rider, was pregnant again, she generally had no more trouble with partunition than her mother did.

  “Oh, no no,” Sean said quickly, raising his hand to dispel her anxiety. “We came to welcome you to the new Hold, but you hadn’t arrived yet. Maddie said you’d sent for help at the ford. I sort of figured Carenath might be some help.”

  Red laughed wearily, blotting his wet face on an already soaking kerchief. “Where’d you stash him? A dragon’s hard to hide even on a rainy night.”

  “Carenath?” Sean called. There was a vague hint of amusement in his voice, which only partially reassured Red. “Show Red and Mairi where you are.” Barely fifty meters away a sudden blue-green light appeared in the darkness, glistening and slightly whirling: the faceted eyes of a dragon. Red tightened his hand on King’s reins, but the tired horse’s head hung down too low for him to see the gleaming eyes. “Thanks, Car!” And the jewel-clear light disappeared.

  “Is he standing there with his eyes closed?” Mairi asked.

  “No, he’s raised a wing to shield,” Sean said, again using that almost lifeless tone. “You should be just able to make ’em out behind the wing membrane.”

  “Oh, yes, so I can,” Mairi said, sounding delighted.

  “Look, Red, one of the reasons I came was to be sure you had gotten there safely. We expect Threadfall over this area tomorrow morning fairly early, and I didn’t want you caught out in it.”

  Red sighed. With all the problems of fording the river, he had just been considering staying here the rest of the night and starting out fresh in the morning.

  “You’re not that far,” Sean said encouragingly.

  “I know, son, I know.” Red paused, to give Sean a chance to speak whatever was clearly on his mind and bothering him. He had a very good relationship with his son-in-law, and he wanted nothing to jeopardize it.

  “Is your Snapper back yet?” Sean asked.

  “What’s happened at the Weyr?” Mairi said, immediately clasping Sean’s arm and peering up into his face. “Don’t lie to me . . .”

  Sean ducked his head, lifting his free arm to rub his face. “No reason to lie.” Now both could hear the roughness in his voice.

  Mairi embraced the bronze rider. “Tell us, Sean,” she said in her gentlest voice, lifting an edge of her kerchief to dry his cheeks.

  Red altered his stance, moving nearer the Weyrleader.

  “Alianne died in childbirth,” Sean said, tears now making runnels down
his cheeks. “We couldn’t stop the bleeding. I went for Basil.”

  “Ooooh,” Mairi said in the soft expression of true empathy.

  “That’s not all of it.” Sean sniffed, rubbing his nose and eyes, giving way to the misery he had bottled up. “Chereth . . . went . . . between. Like Duluth and Marco.”

  “Oh, Sean love . . .” Mairi brought his head down to her shoulder. Red put his arm across the rider’s bowed shoulders.

  There had been many injuries, some serious enough to end the fighting abilities of six dragons, but only four deaths: actually an astounding record, of which Sean as Weyrleader had every right to be proud. But the loss of a queen magnified the tragedy. No wonder Snapper and the others had disappeared. They had gone to the Weyr to mourn.

  Red and Mairi were quietly comforting, allowing Sean to express a grief he had probably suppressed until now.

  “I’ll come if I can be of any help,” Mairi said with a quick query at Red, who nodded approval.

  Sean raised his head, sniffed, and then blew his nose on a handkerchief he hauled out of a jacket pocket. “Thanks, Mairi, but we’ll come through. It was just such a shock. It’s one thing to lose a fighting dragon, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “We understand, dear.”

  “So nothing would do Sorka but that I checked to be sure you were all right, too. I admit to getting a fright when I didn’t see you at the Hold . . .” Sean managed a wry smile.

  Red put a hand on Sean’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze, which he hoped expressed both his sympathy and appreciation. “And you’ve Thread to fly tomorrow,” he said with deep regret. People needed time to mourn.

  “Best thing that could happen, actually,” Sean said, mopping his eyes once more before he put away the handkerchief.

  “Yes, I suspect you’re right about that,” Mairi said slowly.

  “Off with you now, son,” Red said, giving Sean a gentle shove toward Carenath. “You were more than good to check up on us and give those oxen the inducement they needed. Soon’s Mairi and I get across, we’ll push on. We’ll be under cover tomorrow, so don’t worry about us.” Then another thought struck Red. “You’ve enough ground crew for Fall tomorrow?”