"Can I watch the dragons fight Thread this time, 'Mina? This time can I watch?"
Aramina shushed him, examining the overhang of the cavern. Unless Thread should happen to fall at a tremendous velocity and at a slant, she couldn't see how any of the dreaded menace could score them. Turns of familiarity with Thread had dampened her fear of it.
"Yes, I think it's safe here for us to watch." She placed a warning finger on her lips, and, slipping quickly inside to bring her mother the bucket of cold water, she rejoined him in the entrance.
To Pell's keen disappointment, there wasn't as much to watch as he'd anticipated. They could see the dragons in their ranks, suspended motionless in the clear mountain air, gleaming where wing and body reflected the sun briefly. Then the two watching children saw the sudden blurring of the sky, the silvery mist that was the leading edge of Thread.
Only then did the dragons break the temporary suspension, swooping up to meet the deadly rain, sending blossoms of fiery breath to char the parasitic Thread. Pell didn't breathe with the wonder of the darting forays of the smaller dragons, exclaiming as he saw a long tongue of flame reach out to char a mass of Thread. Silver mist turned to black smoke and then dissipated lazily. Fire blooms traced the dragons' progress after their ancient enemy until the hills and trees covered the distant sight from the watchers' searching eyes.
"It didn't last long enough," Pell said dejectedly. "It'll last long enough for the dragonriders, I'm sure," Aramina said with mild rebuke for his callousness. "Did you remember to bring the roots with you?"
"Ah, who wants to eat roots. There are acres of nuts out there."
"Then you'll have no trouble filling a sack, will you?" As Aramina turned back to the fire, she heard her father's querulous voice.
"I don't understand how you managed, with just Aramina."
"Pell was a great help, too," Barla said soothingly, wringing out another cold compress. She gave Aramina a quick stem glance.
"It was really very simple, Father. You keep telling us that if there was a lever long enough, we could even move Pern away from the Red Star," Aramina said with a smile.
"This is not time for levity," Barla said severely.
"Whyever not? Father's conscious, we've got this huge big cave all to ourselves, and Pell's gone out for more of these delicious nuts." Expertly Aramina positioned two in her palm and cracked them. "See?" She held out the meats to Barla.
After a supper of boiled roots and crisp nutmeats, Aramina and Pell used the last of the daylight to gather fodder for Nudge and Shove, and sufficient boughs and fragrant bracken for bedding.
Tired as she was, Aramina found that sleep eluded her. She had been brought up to honor truth, and today that teaching had been disregarded for expediency. She had permitted K'van to think that they were proper holders, on their lord's business. She had avoided truth with her father, although at Barla's behest, so as not to worry him.
In each case the truth would confound her lies in very short order. But… K'van had chased off the Lady Holdless Thella and the band that had nearly caught up with her and her family. And… they had contrived to get Dowell safely into this cave refuge, hopefully without leaving an easy trail that Thella could follow. But… to achieve that end, she had revealed her ability to hear dragons to Benden Weyr riders. And… the dragonriders now knew exactly where she was even if Lady Holdless Thella did not. She could not imagine what punishment would be meted out to her for that day-long imprudence.
Nexa, curled close against her sister's body, whimpered in a restless sleep. Aramina pulled the sleeping rug closely about her, stroking her arm, and Nexa subsided into sleep. For a while, she was distracted by Dowell's breathing, a light snore because he had to sleep on his back, but its soft rhythm finally lulled Aramina to sleep.
It seemed all too short a time before Pell was urgently tugging at her shoulders and whispering excitedly in her ear.
" 'Mina! 'Mina! K'van is here! And so is the Weyrleader! He wants to speak to you! And there are lots of strange men out there, too."
"Here?" Frantically brushing sleep from her eyes, Aramina sat up, all too aware of yesterday's bruises and scrapes and the dull ache across her shoulders from abused muscles.
"No, on the track. The men are armed with bows and arrows and spears and I think the dragons brought them." Pell's eyes were wide with excitement. K'van was just beyond him.
"It's all right, Aramina, really it is," said K'van, softly so as not to disturb the other sleepers. "It's the raiders, you see."
Careful not to rouse Nexa, Aramina slipped out from under the fur and pressed it gently down about her sister.
"The raiders are coming?" Pell's voice slipped from whisper to harsh alarm, but Aramina quickly covered his mouth. Fear darkened his eyes as he stared at his sister.
The little one is suddenly afraid, said a surprised, richly mellow voice.
She has more to fear from the holdless. The second dragon voice was deep and dark, like a pool of the blackwater that Aramina had seen in Igen.
"I am not afraid of you." Aramina spoke stoutly.
"Of me?" K'van asked in astonishment, his hand on his chest.
"Not you. Those dragons." No, Aramina told herself, she was not afraid of the dragons, but of their riders and the impending justice that would be meted out for all the lies of yesterday. She hoped that K'van would not think too badly of her.
"I don't think badly of you," K'van protested as they stepped out into the sunlight. "Why should I? I think you were an absolute marvel yesterday, fixing that wheel and getting everyone safe inside the cave…"
"Oh, you don't understand," said Aramina, trying to keep her voice from breaking.
"And neither does Heth but…"
It will come right, said Heth as if he meant it.
Then they were at the top of the bank and Aramina held on to a sapling to steady herself at the sight of masses of armed men, just as Pell had reported, and an incredible stream of dragons, taking off and landing in the track. Standing slightly apart with the enormous bronze dragon and a brown almost as big was the Weyrleader, F'lar, and his wingleader, F'nor, talking earnestly with two men dressed in gleaming mail. A fur-trimmed cape was slung negligently over the shoulders of the younger man.
"Are those who I think they are?" asked Pell in an awed whisper. His hands clasped his sister's arm for reassurance. Then he stiffened, for F'nor had seen the three standing on the bank. He smiled and beckoned them down.
Aramina prayed earnestly that she wouldn't lose her footing and arrive in an ignominious heap at the bottom of the slope. Then she felt K'van's steadying hand. It was Pell who slipped, tumbling almost to the feet of the Weyrleader, who, with an easy laugh, gave him a hand to his feet. Then Aramina and K'van reached the group.
"How is your father today?" F'lar asked with a sympathetic smile.
"Badly bruised but sleeping. Lord F'lar," Aramina managed to stammer. That was the correct form of address for the Weyrleader of Pern, wasn't it? Aramina braced herself for the worst.
"We'll hope not to disturb him, but those holdless marauders did not disperse after Threadfall." F'lar's slight frown indicated his annoyance with that intransigence.
"So," F'nor took up the explanation, "Lord Asgenar plans to disperse them." He grinned as he gestured to the tall man.
It was all Aramina could do to stand straight as she stared, appalled to be in the company of the Lord Holder whose land had been invaded by impudent holdless raiders in pursuit of a trespassing holdless family. In a daze she heard Lord Asgenar wondering why the raiders were pressing so far into his forestry. She saw that men were marching down the track, quietly but in good array.
"I've foresters in the top camp, although I cannot see what profit raiders could make of sawn logs," Lord Asgenar was saying.