Chapter 9
Afterward, Piemur wasn’t certain why he had run from the dragonriders. He seemed to have been running from or to something ever since his voice had changed. In his panic, he supposed he aligned the Oldtime dragonriders with Lord Meron, and he did not want to encounter anyone connected with Lord Meron just then. Whatever, that night he plunged through the jungle until lack of breath, the painful stitch in his side and the darkness forced him to halt. Sulking to the ground, he rearranged his fire lizard comfortably and then fell asleep.
Just as the sun was rising the next morning, she awoke him, snappy with hunger. He eased the worst of her pangs and his own with fresh redfruit, cool from the night air and succulently sweet. Then he turned north, to make his way back to the beaches and fish for Farii, for that was the name he gave his little queen. Pushing his way through the underbrush, he tripped over a half-eaten runner beast carcass. Farii chattered with delight and ate flesh from bone, humming at him in pleasure.
“You’ll choke like that,” he said, and proceeded to hack smaller pieces, keeping about one knife slice ahead of her voracious appetite.
When Farii had curled herself about Piemur’s neck, thoroughly sated, her belly bulging, he sliced more meat from the dead runner. He figured the creature must have been killed during Threadfall so the meat wouldn’t as yet be tainted. Not only would it be a welcome change for him from fish, but red meat was better for Farii as well.
Comforted by her sleeping weight about his neck, Pie-mur found thick grasses and wove a rough envelope in which to carry the meat. He estimated he had enough for several meals for himself and Farii, but if he could cook it, the meat wouldn’t spoil as quickly in the heat.
Continuing on a northwestern course back to the beach, he collected dry grass and sticks with which to build a fire. He was still heading generally north when he saw the unmistakable glint of water through the thinning trees to his left. He stopped, stared, unable to think bow he could have mistaken his direction. A lake? However, if water was this close now… .
He pushed his way through the thinning screen of trees and bush and came out on a small rise. Below him were wide tidelands, which swept from the forest in an undu-lating grassy plain, broken by thick clumps of a gray-green bush. The plain continued on the other side of a broad river, which gradually widened until, in a distant point now hazy with heat, it must open its mouth into the sea. A breeze, scented with an oddly familiar, pungent odor, dried the sweat on his face. Squinting against the sunlight, Piemur could see herdbeasts grazing on the lush grass on both sides of the river. And yet there’d been Thread here the day before, and no dragonriders flaming to prevent the deadly stuff burrowing into the ground and eating the land barren.
As if to reassure himself, he poked at the soil with one of the sticks he’d collected, lifting up a clod of grass. Grubs fell from the roots, and Piemur was suitably awed by the abilities of those little gray wrigglies, which could, all by themselves, keep such an enormous plain free from the rav-ages of Thread. And those bloody Oldtimers hadn’t so much as stirred from the Veyr during yesterday’s Fall. They weren’t proper dragonriders at all. F’lar and Lessa had been right to exile them here to the South, where the insignificant grubs did their work for them. Why, he could have been killed during that Threadfall, and not a dragonrider around to protect him. Not, Piemur honestly admitted, that he hadn’t been well able to protect himself.
He gazed across the river, now noticing the swifter moving current that rippled toward the sea. He’d have fresh water for drinking here as well as a retreat from Thread. The jungle behind him would provide fruit and tubers; the meadow’s inhabitants red meat for Farii. There was no need to trek to the sea again. He could stay here until Farii had lost the worst of her hatchling appetite. Then he’d better start back to the Southern Hold. If he