Chap. 428 Cheating Time
K’ndar met P’jar mid air. The empty water bucket swung and twisted in the wind from Falconth’s wings.
“That was a good drop, P’jar, I don’t think much of it slopped out,” he called, as their dragons flew almost wingtip to wingtip.
“I laughed at the first drop, Kim got pretty wet!”
“He did but he’s okay with it.”
P’jar looked skyward.
“I don’t think we have time to train you tonight on scooping water,” he said, “and I don’t want to land here with this bucket. No matter how carefully you drop it, still, the ropes get all tangled up. How did you get the caravan out of that hole?”
“Um,” K’ndar began, “It might take some time to describe. It was Kim’s idea and it worked like a charm. I think I’ll stay here a few more minutes, I’ll tell you tomorrow, how’s that?”
“Don’t be too late, K’ndar, the sun goes down fast this time of year.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Don’t sir me, laddy. I’ll see you tomorrow,” P’jar said. Falconth powered his wingbeats to lift him away from Raventh.
Land, please? K’ndar said to Raventh at the same moment, who responded by allowing himself to drop down. K’ndar looked up just in time to see Falconth vanish between.
___________________________________________________________
“You’re planning to stay here?” Lizard asked, “It’s getting late. We’ll be sleeping outside tonight, like yesterday. Tomorrow we’ll jack up the caravan to replace the wheel. Loading it up just to sleep in it makes no sense.”
He glanced past the caravan to where Kim was grooming his gelding.
“I won’t be staying, Lizard, I’ve got to leave shortly, it’s getting dark,” K’ndar said.
Lizard regarded the caravan. It was well off the slope, conveniently angled so that the broken spokes just barely cleared the ground. “I’m amazed at how well Kim’s idea worked. My boot, but that lad has a lot of brains ‘tween his ears.” He looked at K’ndar. “I would be lying if I said he’s not become so valuable to me, in so many ways. I never had kids. Fostering him is the best idea I’ve ever had. Maybe this is what fatherhood would have been like.” Lizard felt sheepish. I’m not used to voicing my feelings, he thought.
“You would have made a good father, Lizard. I’m glad he worked out. You both needed the other.”
You would have been a good father to me, K’ndar thought. My real one was not.
Lizard cleared his throat. “That wheel, I’ll get a better look at the spokes in the morning. Luckily, the hub itself is undamaged, and the axle too. Just the spokes broke.”
“Is it me, am I imagining it, the spokes look new.”
“They are, shaff it. This is the wheel I had made a few months ago, when the original hub seized up. I’m pretty pissed about that. I normally don’t kick, but I’m going to take it back to Coastal Sea Weyr and show it to Weyrleader A’garn. If nothing else, he owes me a new wheel. Those spokes were new skybroom. They shouldn’t have broken.”
He shook his head in irritation. “But I’ll have to wait for a while and hope the other hub doesn’t break or seize up. I don’t have the time to turn around.”
“I can take it back to the Weyr if you want,” K’ndar said.”
“Would you? That would mean a lot to me, and I’d make it up to you. Payment for cargo transport.”
“Ah, don’t go there, Lizard. It’s okay. I wouldn’t dream of charging you.”
“Maybe not, but I’m taking your time. Time is money, sometimes.”
“I’m on my own time,” K’ndar said, looking up at the sun. It’s setting fast, he thought. “I don’t think I’ll have time to take the broken wheel tonight, Lizard, I’ve got to get going. I will come get it tomorrow.”
“Right. It will take us a while to get it off and the new one on, anyway.”
“I don’t have transport duty tomorrow, but if something pops up, I might not get to it right away.”
“It’s not going anywhere, K’ndar. I’ll leave it here for you.”
K’ndar chuckled.
“Once you get the new wheel mounted, are you just going to continue on this same course?”
“No,” Lizard said. “Oh, shaff no. My gut is still saying this was a setup, I’m betting that there’s a handful of raiders further south, waiting on me. We’re not that far from Lord Toric’s Hold. It’s become infested with raiders, thieves and murderers. I don’t want to turn around and go back, I have contracts with Honshu Weyr. What I’ll do is turn west at this point. Yes, it takes me right through the Stony Wastes, and it adds, oh, a week? of travel? But I’ve been that way before. I know where the water is on that route and Southern Weyr has started sweep flights.”
“Lizard, if you need help, send Batu. If need be, I’ll get Southern AND Kahrain Weyr’s involved. Maybe even Honshu.”
“Send in the cavalry, eh?”
“Cavalry? What is cavalry?”
“Oh, it’s just a phrase from long ago Earth. It means to send in reinforcements, people ready to fight for you. On horses!”
“Horses! Now we’re talking! I’ll have to check that out.”
“In the meanwhile, though, thank you, K’ndar, and tell P’jar thank you, too. For the water, especially. We were just a bit dry here.”
“Aye, I think the horses drank half of the water.”
Lizard nodded. “And I tried to drink the rest.”
“Lizard?” Kim called, “Look at the horses. All three are heads up and ears pricked, they’re seeing something I can’t.”
K’ndar, Lizard and his dog, Crunch, joined Kim alongside the horses.
The three horses were indeed alert, staring into the distance. The shrubs and rock formations prevented the humans from seeing what had alerted them.
Lizard looked at his dog, Crunch. The dog was also alert, but his body language was one of calm.
“I don’t think it’s raiders,” he said. “Crunch can smell bad men a kilometer away.”
K’ndar pinged Raventh.
Do you see someone approaching?
No, I can’t, I’m too far from you, I didn’t want to upset the horses. I don’t smell humans, but we’re upwind of whatever is approaching. And it’s almost too dark for me to see.
Yeah. We need to leave. Soon.
Yes.
K’ndar, a horseman to his bones, automatically put his hand on the mare’s neck. He could feel it twitching, slightly. Something is coming, she was saying. She absentmindedly reached out to greet him, then returned her gaze across the stony, brushy expanse.
“Would it be a predator?” Kim asked. “Or raiders?”
“I doubt it, Kim,” K’ndar said, “The horses would know. Raventh said it’s not humans, either.”
Kim exhaled gratefully. “I have so much to learn about horses,” he said, stroking Fadjur, his gelding’s neck.
“You have a good teacher, Kim, in both Lizard and Fadjur himself.”
The sun is almost gone Raventh warned, sounding concerned.
Siskin chittered, softly.
As did Lizard’s two fire lizards, from their post atop the caravan.
Siskin sent images of several animals approaching them, warily, carefully.
“K’ndar. Kim, look,” Lizard said. Crunch got to his feet with a soft woof. “No, Crunch. Down and stay.”
In the deepening gloom, K’ndar saw movement rather than bodies.
“What are they?” Kim asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lizard said, “I think I’ve seen them from a distance.”
K’ndar’s memory tingled. “I think they’re the herbivores I’ve seen, but only from a long, long way, and always at a full out gallop.”
“What are..”
“Shhhhh,” Lizard said, “I think they’re here for the water. They’re probably so thirsty they’re daring to come near us.”
“As long as we stay quiet and next to the horses, they’ll not bolt,” K’ndar said.
Even with Siskin’s images, K’ndar could only make out the outlines. Slim horns rose from the top of one of animals’ head. All of them had slight, aquiline heads and long slim legs obviously made for speed. They walked delicately, making every step noiseless and sure. The one with horns was larger than the rest. It stayed behind the others, head on a swivel. All five stopped for long moments, staring at the horses. Several snorted.
“Don’t move,” Lizard whispered, “I don’t want to scare them.”
Even so, the animals heard him. They froze. The large one shook his head. K’ndar could barely see their long pointed ears aimed at them.
It would be NOW, wouldn’t it, that I’m finally seeing these beasts. It’s too dark to see them clearly, K’ndar thought.
One of the animals slowly made its way to the water hole. She paused, looking at them, then decided they were harmless. She dropped her head, snuffed at the water, and then began to drink. The three smaller ones joined her. The larger one did not. It stood, still focused on the humans surrounded by horses. They heard it take deep breaths, analyzing their scent.
They are downwind of us, K’ndar realized, they scented us long before the horses told us they were coming. That’s smart. And they’re on the opposite side of the water hole. They have the entire wilderness to run back into if need be. And they waited until it’s dark.
The big one acts like a herd stallion or a herd bull. He’s got to be a herd male. He’s the only one with horns. The others have to be his harem.
One of the females lifted her head. They heard water dropping from her muzzle. She took up watch duty on the humans. Only then did the male step forward to drink. Deeply.
K’ndar felt torn. I need to go back. Now. I don’t want to scare them away. If it sees me move away, maybe the watcher won’t bolt. They must be so thirsty to dare coming this close. Maybe we’re the first humans they’ve ever seen.
He decided. Without a word, he began to move backwards, then slowly turned his back to the animals.
Did they bolt?
No. They all raised their heads when you moved but they are very thirsty. They want the water more than they are afraid. Kim and Lizard are not moving.
I wish we’d come sooner. I want so much to see what they look like in the daylight.
Which is gone. Hurry.
Do you think they’ll bolt when you launch? He found himself walking into a shrub. It’s shaffing dark, he thought, but the shrubs should keep them from seeing me.
I think they have better night sight than we do.
Maybe. But if they came up with you this close, maybe they won’t.
He reached Raventh’s side after what seemed to be an hour. Siskin flew over his head to take up his normal station behind Raventh’s head. I’m so glad I didn’t unharness, he thought, as mounted and buckled in.
Raventh took several steps and then launched away from the animals.
It’s going to take some flying to get high enough, the thermals have dropped. The sun has set. He pumped hard to gain altitude.
K’ndar turned to see under Raventh’s wings, to see if the animals had bolted.
Whoa, he thought, it’s later than I thought. I can’t see the animals, I can’t even see Lizard and Kim. I can just barely see the caravan!
He’d never flown this late. His heart started to pound.
“Dragons are strictly diurnal,” he remembered B’rant, his Weyrlingmaster said in class, “Don’t let yourself get caught after dark. If your dragon can’t see the dragonstone, if he can’t see what is below him, if he can’t see WHERE to land, you will be very sorry.”
Raventh said, I’ve never flown in the dark
Me neither, but…the remedy hit them both at the same time.
Yes, K’ndar thought. There is a way out of this.
He imagined Landing’s dragon meadow with the evening sun light dappling the limbs of the trees. He envisioned the sun still above the horizon.
He pushed the images to Raventh.
Yes Raventh said.
Sometimes, you just have to go back in time, just a little, he thought.
And they went between.