“And he’ll finish it by killing T’kul?”
“Or being killed by him!”
“We’d be in a far worse state,” Jaxom replied with more heat than he intended at her callous dismissal of F’lar’s fate, “if the Benden Weyrleader gets killed! He is Pern!”
“Really?” Sharra was willing to be converted. “I’ve never seen him …”
There are many dragons here and many many people, Ruth told him, his tone still faint but clear. Sebell is coming. Menolly cannot.
“Is Ruth talking to you?” Sharra asked anxiously, leaning forward and grasping his arm. He covered her fingers with his, silencing her in that gesture. She bit her underlip and studied his face. He tried to reassure her with emphatic nods.
Her firelizards are here. The Harper sleeps. Master Oldive is with him, too. They wait outside. We will not let him go. Should I return to you now?
“Who are they?” Jaxom asked though he was fairly sure of the identity.
Lessa and F’lar. The man who attacked F’lar is dead.
“T’kul’s dead, and F’lar is not hurt?”
No.
“Ask him what is wrong with the Harper,” Sharra whispered.
Jaxom wanted to know, too, but there was a long pause before Ruth answered, and the little dragon sounded confused.
Mnementh said Robinton’s chest hurt and he wanted to sleep. Wine helped him. Mnementh and Ramoth knew he should not sleep. He would go. May I come back now?
“Does Brekke need you?”
There are many dragons here.
“Come home, my friend!”
I come!
“His chest hurt?” Sharra repeated when Jaxom told her what Ruth had said. She frowned. “It could be the heart. The Harper is not a young man and he does a great deal!” She looked about her for her firelizards. “I could send Meer…”
“Ruth says there’s an awful lot of people and dragons at Ista right now. I think we’d better wait.”
“I know,” and Sharra gave a long sigh. She picked up a handful of sand and let it run through her fingers. Then she gave Jaxom a sad smile. “I know how to wait, but that doesn’t mean I like to!”
“We know he’s alive, and F’lar …” Jaxom gave her a sly look.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect to your Weyrleader, Jaxom, I want you to know that…”
Jaxom laughed, having managed to tease her. She let out an exclamation of annoyance and threw the handful of sand toward him, but he ducked and the sand went over his shoulder, some of it falling in the gentle waves that lapped up the shore.
Brushed out of existence by the next wave, no ripples lasted in this water. There was a fallacy in the Harper’s analogy then, Jaxom thought, amused by this irrelevant thought.
Meer and Talla suddenly squawked, both heads turned toward the western arm of the cove. They raised their wings and crouched on their haunches, ready to spring into the air.
“What is it?”
As quickly as they had become alert, the two firelizards relaxed, Meer preening one wing as if she hadn’t been startled the moment before.
“Is someone coming?” Sharra asked, turning to Jaxom with amazement.
Jaxom jumped to his feet, scanning the skies. “They wouldn’t object to Ruth’s return.”
“It must be someone they know!” The possibility was as improbable to Sharra as it was to Jaxom. “And he’s not flying in!”
They both heard the noises of something large moving through the forest on the point. A muffled curse indicated the visitor was human but the first head that penetrated the screen of thick foliage was undeniably animal. The body that followed the head belonged to the smallest runner beast Jaxom had ever seen.
The muffled curses resolved into intelligible words. “Stop snapping the branches back in my face, you ruddy, horn-nosed, flat-footed, slab-hided dragonbait! Well, Sharra, so this is where you got to! I was told, but I was beginning to doubt it! Hear you’ve been ill, Jaxom? You don’t look it now!”
“Piemur?” Although the appearance of the young harper was the unlikeliest of events, there was no mistaking the characteristic swagger in the short, compact figure that limped jauntily down the beach. “Piemur! What are you doing here?”