“Oh, you dragonriders! This is Southern, not the North. It’s all been grubbed. Thread sears a leaf every sevenday or so, but the plant heals itself. Meanwhile, you’re coming into the hot season and, believe me, you’ll want as much green about you as possible to keep cool. You want to build off the ground, on pilings. There’s plenty of reef rock for foundations. You want wide windows, not these tiny slits, to catch every breeze. All right, you can shutter them if you want to but I’ve lived south all my life, so I know how you should build here. You want windows, and corridors straight through the interior for breezeways …” As she spoke, she was delineating the revised hold with strokes that were strong enough to stay in the hot dry sand. “And you want an outdoor hearth for so many. Brekke and I did most of our baking here in stone pits,” she pointed to the spot on the cove, “and you don’t really need a bathing room with the cove a few steps from the door.”
“You don’t object to piped water, do you?”
“No, that would be handier than lugging it from the stream. Only put another tap in the cooking area as well as one in the house. Perhaps even a tank by the hearth so we can have heated water, too .. .”
“Anything else, Masterbuilder?” F’nor was more amused and admiring than sarcastic.
“I’ll let you know when the thought occurs to me,” she replied with dignity.
F’nor grinned at her and then frowned down at her drawing. “I’m not really certain how the Harper will like having so much greenery near him. You are, I know, used to being out during Threadfall…”
“So’s Master Robinton,” Piemur said. “Sharra’s right about the heat and the building down here. We can always cut forest down, F’nor, but you can’t build it back up so easily.”
“A point. Now you three, B’refli, K’van and M’tok, loose your dragons. They can swim and sun with Ruth and Canth. They won’t be needed until we’ve cut some wood. K’van, let me have your sack. You’ve got the axes, haven’t you?” F’nor passed out the tools, ignoring Piemur’s mutterings about slogging through days of forests only to end up cutting one down. “Sharra, take us to your preferred site. We’ll clear some of those trees and use ‘em for supports.”
“They’re stout enough,” Sharra agreed and led the way.
Sharra was correct about the trees: F’nor marked off the proposed site of the hall and the trees to be cut. This was a lot easier said than done. The axes didn’t seem to bite the wood, rather bounced off. F’nor was surprised, muttering about dull axes and brought out his sharpening stone. Having achieved a suitably sharp edge at the expense of a slit finger, he tried again with slightly more success.
“I don’t understand it,” he said, peering at the cuts in the trunk. “This wood shouldn’t be that tough. It’s a fruitwood, not a northern hardwood. Well, we’ve got to clear the site, boys!”
The only one who didn’t have a fine set of blisters by midday was Piemur, who was used to hacking. More discouraging was the lack of progress-only six trees were down.
“Not for lack of trying, is it?” F’nor said, mopping the sweat from his forehead. “Well, let’s see what Sharra’s got for us to eat. Something smells good.”
They had time for a swim before Sharra’s meal was ready, the salt water stinging in their blisters which Sharra slathered with numbweed. When they’d eaten the broiled fish and baked roots, F’nor set them to sharpening their axes. They spent the rest of the afternoon lopping off branches before they asked the dragons to haul the timbers to one side. Sharra cleared underbrush and, with Ruth’s help, brought black reef rock to mark out the piles of the foundation.
As soon as F’nor took his recruits back to the Weyr for the night, Jaxom and Piemur collapsed on the sand, rousing only long enough to eat the dinner Sharra served them.
“I’d sooner tramp around the Big Bay,” Piemur muttered, wincing as he stretched his shoulders this way and that.