Dragon's Fire (13 page)

Pellar shook his head and wrote, “Tenim has bird.”

Zist looked at him thoughtfully. “You think that Tenim wouldn’t have a bird if Moran had a fire-lizard?”

Pellar nodded.

“And a hunting bird at that,” Zist said. “I suppose—they wouldn’t need a bird if they had a fire-lizard. So Moran wasn’t offered a fire-lizard. Although perhaps he was, and Tenim couldn’t Impress a fire-lizard. From your description, the bird seems a better match for his personality.”

Pellar nodded, his expression bitter.

“And now we know at least one reason Tarik has to hate watch-whers,” Zist said. Pellar gave him an inquiring look, so Zist explained, “He blames the watch-whers for the loss of the fire-lizard.”

Pellar frowned and held up two fingers. He wrote, “Watch-whers awake at night.”

Zist grunted in agreement to Pellar’s correction, then his expression changed. “Maybe we should find a watch-wher.”

“Where?” Pellar wrote, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

Zist pursed his lips thoughtfully for several moments and then he looked Pellar square in the eyes.

“I think it’s time for you to disappear,” Zist replied, his eyes twinkling with mischief. It took Pellar only a moment to guess his master’s thinking. Pellar grinned.

Pellar returned to Crom Hold with the trader caravan, his passage arranged by Master Zist and secured by his agreement to use Chitter as a messenger in case of emergency—and his willingness to help spread gravel to shore up the roadway.

Trader Tarri ordered the caravan to set out slowly, with the domicile caravans in the rear, which not only made good sense but made it easier for Pellar to creep on board the last one, which happened to be Trader Tarri’s.

“Put these on,” she said as soon as she saw him scramble aboard. “And join in the work the next time we stop.”

Pellar nodded mutely and waited until the trader had left before donning the loose-fitting tunic and trousers she’d tossed him.

He found his brawn called upon almost immediately, when the caravan stopped at the next bend.

Tarri had arranged that the foremost dray be filled with gravel and discarded rock from the miners’ diggings. She ordered the larger stones to be laid down first and packed with the backs of the shovels, then covered by a thinner layer of the light gravel be shoveled out to cover it.

After half an hour, Tarri was satisfied and sent the first dray carefully over the repaired road.

From that point on, Pellar found himself at the forefront of the workcrews, patching and filling the road as the caravan made its slow, cautious way back downhill to Crom Hold.

When they stopped for the night it was all he could do to find the rearmost wagon and crawl in.

“No, you don’t!” Tarri barked at him when she saw his muddy boots. “There’s food to eat first.”

She led him back to the communal fire and made sure that he, and everyone else, ate before she did. None of the traders spared a glance in his direction, acting as though he didn’t exist.

The next morning, with the sky still gray, Pellar woke to the sound of someone moving beside him and the smell of fresh hot
klah.

“Brought you something to break your fast with,” Tarri said, pushing a roll and a mug of
klah
into his hands. “I’ll be up front as soon as it’s light. You can stay here but listen for my call, or come if the caravan stops.”

Pellar nodded.

Tarri gave him a thoughtful look, then patted his arm. “You did good work yesterday.”

Pellar nodded in acknowledgment of the compliment, for he knew that was the best he could hope for from the gruff trader.

“With luck, we’ll see Crom Hold before this evening,” Tarri added. Pellar looked surprised and the trader laughed. “The journey’s faster going downhill than up.”

She turned to leave, then turned back again. “What are you going for, anyway?”

Pellar searched for a place to put his mug. Noticing, Tarri took it from him. He nodded gratefully, stuffed his roll in his mouth, and pulled out his slate. He wrote, “Secret.”

Tarri laughed. “And don’t you think I can keep secrets? Nor Master Zist? If so, why’d he ask me to take you?”

Pellar reddened and shrugged apologetically. Tarri laughed again and waved off his embarrassment. “We traders know a fair bit about trading. It seems like Zist has sent you to find something,” she said. She wagged a finger at him. “Finding things is also something we traders are good at.”

Pellar pursed his lips in thought for a long time before he wrote, “Watch-wher egg.”

“Oh!” Tarri nodded. “That makes sense, given the way the last apprentice with a watch-wher scarpered when he heard he was coming to Camp Natalon.” She gave Pellar a shrewd look. “But a watch-wher egg would be no good unless there was someone there to Impress it.”

Pellar nodded but wrote nothing in reply. Tarri gave him another appraising look and laughed. “If you won’t talk, you won’t talk.”

Pellar started to write a protest, but she laughingly waved him back to stillness.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “But I’ll do you a favor, little though it is. The only one who could get you a watch-wher egg is Aleesa, the Whermaster. She’s got a gold watch-wher she sometimes breeds.”

“Where?” Pellar wrote.

Tarri shrugged. “I don’t know.” She tapped her temple. “There’s not much call to trade for watch-wher eggs, so it’s not something I keep in here. Maybe you can find out more at Crom Hold.”

The Whermaster, Aleesa, was so hard to locate that for the first month Pellar doubted her existence. It took him another two months to track her down.

His journeying had hardened him in ways he would not have imagined beforehand; when he boldly made his way into the small camp that was reputed to be Aleesa’s demesne, he was rake thin but whip tough.

He had traveled with the traders when he could, and the Shunned when he had no other choice. His fire-lizard made him a welcome guest among traders and Shunned alike, who considered the fire-lizard’s Impression a character reference. The small groups of traders or Shunned were particularly grateful, seeing the fire-lizard as a source of communications in an emergency.

Over time, his nervousness with the Shunned had faded. He discovered that they were very much like the traders, with one vital difference: The traders were aloof of Hold and Crafthall from choice, the Shunned by decree.

Still, with the Shunned Pellar found himself called upon more often to prove himself, either by providing for the communal pot, prescribing for the sick, or, more often than he liked, proving his strength.

His fights were always with those near his own age who looked upon him as an easy challenge and a good way to improve their standing in the community. After painfully losing his first several encounters, Pellar got quite adept at seeking quick solutions and less concerned about any bruises he gave his assailants.

Even though food was not plentiful and he was expected to share, Pellar thrived, filling out and growing tall. So tall, in fact, that as time progressed he found himself challenged by older, taller lads, many Turns older than his own thirteen.

Upon taking his leave of Trader Tarri at Crom Hold, Pellar found passage on one of the barges heading downstream from Crom Hold, continuing his search for Master Aleesa. He worked the passage, helping pole the barge when necessary and tying it up at night. The family who owned the boat didn’t trust him and made him sleep on deck, although by the end of the sevenday journey, they had grown so fond of him and his fire-lizard that they pressed a well-worn half-mark on him.

A bad piece of advice sent Pellar eastward, to Greenfields, and then on to Campbell’s Field, a journey that took over a month.

It was only at the small hold in Campbell’s Field that Pellar heard that Aleesa had set up a hold of sorts somewhere around Nabol Hold. That was all the way back west of where he was. He sent word to Master Zist, returned to Crom Hold, and took passage once more on a barge downriver. This time he left at Keogh, a minor hold at the bend of the Crom River.

At Nabol Hold he learned that Aleesa’s hold was north in the mountains, but no one quite knew where.

The mountains north of Nabol were mostly forested and uninhabited. Pellar found himself slowed by the necessity of having to forage for food. After three sevendays of searching without success, his strength ebbing, and the last days of summer fast approaching, Pellar was just about ready to give in when he remembered that watch-whers flew at night.

So he ate early, put out his fire, found a clearing at the top of a nearby hill, and waited, eyes eagerly scanning the horizon.

It wasn’t until the middle of the night, when Pellar’s body was so bone cold that he could no longer shiver, that he caught the merest glimpse of something darting in the sky high above him.

He quickly woke Chitter, pointed to the watch-wher, and launched the fire-lizard into the sky.

As soon as Chitter and the watch-wher were out of sight, Pellar crouched down to the stack of wood he’d piled up before him and carefully sparked a small—and oh, so joyously warm—fire.

Chitter returned, quite pleased with himself, late that morning. Shortly thereafter, with a stomach freshly full of jerked beef, Chitter led Pellar to the Whermaster’s hold.

Pellar hadn’t known what sort of reception to expect, but he didn’t count on having an arrow whiz toward him to strike the ground just in front of his foot.

“That’s far enough!” a voice in the distance shouted in warning. “State your business.”

Pellar looked crestfallen, not at a loss for words but at a loss for a way to convey them. He held his hands up, palms out, to show that he was unarmed and waited.

Another arrow answered him. “I said, state your business!”

Pellar pointed to his throat and shook his head, making a face.

“You won’t talk?” another voice suggested. This voice belonged to an old woman, while the other had clearly been a man’s.

Pellar shook his head and pointed to his throat again.

“You can’t talk?” the woman asked, this time sounding intrigued.

Pellar nodded vigorously and smiled as broadly and kindly as he could.

“Do you trust him?” the man called to the woman.

“I don’t know,” the woman shouted back.

“Maybe we shouldn’t take any chances,” the man replied. “If he’s one of the Shunned and he reports back—”

Pellar’s eyes widened. They were talking about killing him.