7

Lemos Hold, Southern Continent, Telgar Hold, PP 12

As much to escape wintering at Far Cry Hold as to pursue his own search, Jayge hired himself and Kesso out to one of Lord Asgenar’s roving troops. Temma and Nazer were envious, vowing to join him as soon as their wounds healed. Jayge tried to sound encouraging about that, but he had overheard the hold healer talking to Lady Disana outside the temporary infirmary and knew that it would be a long while before either recovered.

Crenden proved more resilient than Borgald over their losses—and Maindy, unlike Childon of Kimmage, was willing to strike a fair deal with the two trader captains. Replacing the dead animals would have to wait until spring and would take almost all their available marks. But in return for reasonable work in the hold, Crenden and Borgald would be allowed time and resources—including the assistance of the hold’s carpenter and Smithcraft journeyman—to repair their damaged wagons. Borgald, Crenden, and their wives sat at the high table for the evening meal, and Maindy consulted them often. So when snow blanketed the valley, the traders willingly helped Maindy’s workmen finish the interiors of extensions built that summer. Finally Borgald began to take an interest in the children orphaned by the raiders, and although his smile faltered when he inadvertently looked about for his son, Armald, he began to recover. Crenden, on the other hand, continued to brood over an attack which seemed to him to be totally unprovoked. Jayge decided that telling his father of his own suspicions would do nothing to improve the older man’s depression.

Jayge went off with the troop without having had the opportunity to tell Temma about Readis and still pondering the significance of the sketches he had found so fortuitously. He assumed that one of Thella’s wounded had dropped the roll, and it amused him to think that dead men could tell tales. Though he had not had much time to study the sketches, the faces were vividly burned into his memory. Some looked to have been more hurriedly executed than others, but all had been drawn with a clever economy of line capturing pose and character, and Jayge was certain that he would recognize every one of them, although he could name only Thella, Giron, and Readis. Thella was the one most frequently drawn, in different poses and angles and, in a few cases, in what Jayge realized were disguises. At night Jayge rehearsed those faces, all but the six dead, in his mind. If he saw any one of them, he would know them. He wondered what Asgenar had made of the sketches.

That first evening on the track from Far Cry Hold, once the stewpot was heating over the fire and the men were unrolling their sleepbags, the troop leader, a forester whom everyone, with varying degrees of respect and admiration, called Swacky, came over to Jayge. Swacky was a bull-necked man with massive arm and chest muscles from twenty Turns of logging; he had a bit of a belly on him from drinking ale whenever he could get it and eating huge amounts of food, but he was nimble-footed and long-eyed, with a sparse fringe of brown hair and a rough-featured, long-jawed face. When the men had been gathering wood for their cave fire, Jayge had seen Swacky throw an axe at a piece of wood, splitting it neatly down the center. He was told, and he had no trouble believing it, that Swacky could axe wherries out of the sky. The burly man wore a variety of blades, ranging from light throwing hatchets to the two-handed axe strapped to his saddle.

To Jayge’s complete surprise, Swacky thrust a wad of well-thumbed sheets at him. “Memorize these faces. Them’s who we’re lookin’ for. Any or all. Recognize any from your brush at the ravine?”

“Only the dead ones,” Jayge said, but he studied each face carefully, matching it up with his memory. What he held were copies, executed so hastily that they had none of the vitality of the original sketches.

“How’d you know which was dead?”

“I was with the trackers when they found the six with their throats slit. That Telgar woman …”

Swacky caught Jayge’s shoulder in a painful grip. “How’d you know that?” He had lowered his voice, and his expression warned Jayge to keep his answers soft.

“Armald, Borgald’s son, one of those that got chopped down, recognized her when she met us.”

“Tell me,” Swacky said and sat, folding his legs up to his chest, his back to the others.

So Jayge told him, leaving nothing out but the fact of Readis’s astonishing appearance. “I still don’t know who saw a dragonrider,” he added. “I heard later that a sweeprider saw the train stopped and thought it had been caught in a landslide.”

“It had, hadn’t it?” Swacky’s eyes crinkled up in a mirthless grin. “I took a good look, trying to figger that ambush out so we’d avoid such like.”

“And? I was pretty busy helping my folk.”

“Well …” Swacky shifted his bulk, took a knife from his boot, and began to draw a diagram in the dirt. “That ambush was well planned. They was waitin’ for you. How come you never put out no point?”

“We did. We found her dead, pushed over the bank. Couldn’t ride flank. We were close enough to Far Cry by then.”

Swacky waggled the dagger point in admonishment. “Until you’re in the hold, you’re not close enough. Any rate, there were ten deadfalls ready, spaced out to crunch each of your wagons.”

“If they’d been spaced out in the usual intervals,” Jayge broke in, holding up his hand, “as they had been on the flats at the sky-broom plain the day we met … she planned it then, I know it!” And Jayge tasted hatred in his mouth, sour and acrid. “If I catch her, I’ll cut her throat.” His hand went to his dagger.

“Then it’s over too quick, lad,” Swacky said, tilting his long head, his eyes glittering with a malice as savage as Jayge’s. Then he tapped Jayge’s knuckles lightly with his dagger. “If you catch her while in my patrol, you turn her over to me. She hasn’t killed often or lately in those raids of hers, but you’re not the only one wants to see her dead. You was lucky your wagons was strung out up that steep slope. Another thing shows she’s slipping. Your wagons didn’t tip as easy as she thought they would. But—” He held up the blade again. “She’s getting careless. Or desperate.” Swacky did not sound so sure of that. “Lord Asgenar’s been over the waybills on the trade goods you carried, and he can’t find anything she’d have such bad need of she’d take such risks to get.”

“How would Asgenar know what she’d steal?”

“Lord Asgenar,” Swacky corrected, tapping him smartly on the knuckles, his expression severe. “Even in your own head, boy. And Lord Asgenar knows ’cause he’s been making it his business to find out what she’s been lifting, what she’s got in that base camp of hers, what she might need. Besides a little girl who hears dragons.”

Jayge was indignant. “Thella only mentioned a thief she was after. And I doubted her then, but she was angry.”

“Is that what she told you?” Swacky asked, surprised.

“A girl hearing dragons was the reason for attacking us?”

Swacky nodded his head wisely. “That’s what I was told by that young bronze rider. Such a girl would be very useful to someone like Thella, you can bet your last bootnail on that.”

“That’d be useful,” Jayge admitted. He wondered why the Weyrs had not already Searched her out for one of their queen eggs. “You know, Armald recognized her. But he only called her ‘lady.’ He didn’t say her name to her face, though he told us later.”

“Well, Armald is now dead, you took your share, and you said yourself that your aunt and the fourth man who met her that day damned near got killed, too.” He held his hand out to take back the sketches. “You’ve seen her, boy—you’ll be helpful. That runner of yours good on hills?”

“The best, and he’ll murder roosting wherries, give him the chance.”

Swacky got up to return to his own bedroll. “Well, that’d cause undue noise, boy, and we want to move as fast and as quiet as we can, never knowing what we’ll find.”

“One thing, Swacky. The man who drew those sketches. How do we know who he is? We might kill him by mistake.”

“We’re not to kill anybody is m’orders. Capture ’em. And keep looking.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Best possible find’d be their main base, but any caves, hiding places, are a help.”

“She won’t be moving anywhere in the snow.”

“Aye, true, but cave holds stand out in snow, don’t they? Then we map ’em, check ’em out, and if there’re supplies hidden or buried, we fix ’em so they can’t be used come spring.”

And with that Swacky moved off.

Toric in a rage at any time was a problem for his household. Toric fuming in the midday summer heat, without the calming influence of either Sharra, who had gone to the Healer Hall at Fort Hold, or Ramala, who had gone to midwife a difficult birth down the west coast, was a burning firestone looking for something to char.

Piemur and Saneter locked eyes and, with a few deft harper signals passing between them, elected to take a positive—and humorous—tack.

“Well, for sure, they’re all inlanders. Never been in so much as a rowing boat before,” Piemur exclaimed, casting a jaundiced eye over at the limp figures on Master Garm’s deck. “Wilted, that’s what they are. Wilted northern lilies. Ah, we’ll take them in hand.” He beckoned to a youngster hovering nearby. “Sara, go get some numbweed to slather on their sunburns and some of those pills Sharra uses for stomach disorders. Your mother’ll know which ones.”

“Master Garm,” Toric said, seething with wrath and indignation. “You will pause only long enough to deliver the cargo from your hold and then you will take those—those excrescences back where they came.”

“Now, Holder Toric,” Garm began placatingly. The sea crossing had been rough, and his passengers had deafened him with their complaints, threats, and unwelcome eruptions. He was certain he would never get the smell out of his big aft cabin. He did not care how much he got paid to take the puny bastards south—he would not go through it again. Those he had smuggled in for Toric had kept their distress to themselves. The pampered lot he had just legitimately brought over had bitched the entire crossing! “Toric, they’re still alive! When they gets over being so sick, you can get a lot of work out of them! Well growed! Fed well, too, to judge by what came up the first day out!”

Toric was scowling as blackly as ever. “The last thing I need here is a gaggle of spoiled useless turds who’ve never done an honest day’s work and think they’re going to walk into ready-made holds! I never should have agreed. That Harper talks so smooth …”

“Sure he does, or he’d be no good at being Harper.” Piemur would not stand for anyone to denigrate Master Robinton. “But there’s no reason you have to treat that stomach- and sunburn-sick bunch any differently than you’ve treated anyone else that fetched up in this harbor.” He could not help grinning at the dawning comprehension on Toric’s face. “You didn’t promise F’lar or Robinton—nor would either of them expect it—to give these younger holdless sons preferential consideration. They can sweat right alongside everyone else here. If they thought they’d wander aimlessly, picking ripe fruit from the trees and basking in the breezes and southern sun, you’ll soon put ’em right.”

“But—” Toric stopped, flicking his angry eyes from the wretched young men on Garm’s deck to the sandy coastline spreading east.

“No buts, Toric,” Piemur went on while Saneter’s fingers flew in a cautionary sign. “They get a day or two to recover, and then they get assigned tasks—” Piemur grinned slyly. “—suitable to their abilities. You’re still Toric, Southern holder, and you’ve the right to hold any way you choose. At least they’re used to jumping when a Holder says ‘jump’—they’re better disciplined than some of those holdless louts Garm’s brought you. In fact, I’d say once those lads recover from sunburn and seasickness, they might surprise you.” Piemur sounded very positive and sure of himself. Toric just kept looking at the figures sprawled on the deck and over the rails of Garm’s ship.

“You whipped more into line than I thought you would, Toric,” Garm said, beginning to warm to Piemur’s line. “You can do it again. Just leave ’em loose. The good ones’ll survive.”

Toric was wavering. Then he scowled. “You’ll take no messages back with you, Garm, that I haven’t seen first. How many of ’em have fire-lizards?”

“Oh, five or six,” Garm said after a moment’s thought.

“They’re all younger sons,” Piemur added reassuringly.

“No queens or bronzes, then?”

“No, two blues, a green, and one brown,” Garm answered. “The critters didn’t hang around that long after the lads started getting seasick. And they’re not back yet.”

Toric snorted, his manner relaxing a trifle.

“Send ’em out to Hamian, or over to Big Lagoon. Most of ’em should know drum code.” With Toric calmed down, Piemur was full of useful suggestions. He did not want to get stuck with another drum tower assignment, not when Toric had not yet kept his part of their bargain and let Piemur loose to explore. “Let ’em go. The smart ones’ll want to learn. The dumb ones’ll kill themselves off.”

“Listening to them natter before we set sail, they all sort of thought they were going to be given holds,” Garm put in hesitantly.

“First they’ve got to prove their ability. To me!” Toric jerked his thumb at his chest. “Oh, bring them in. Piemur, Ramala’s not here. You know how to dose ’em. Saneter, see if Murda can find beds for them tonight. I’ll see where to send ’em. Shards! Why did they have to get here so soon?”

“We had good winds,” Garm replied, misunderstanding Toric’s complaint as he wiped sweat from his weathered brow. “Made a nice fast trip.” He caught his dinghy’s painter and hauled the boat in for the row back to his ship.

“Too fast,” Piemur said softly, catching Saneter’s eye. They could have used a few more days to prepare Toric for the “invasion.” “I devoutly hope that there are a few sensible ones.”

“D’you recognize any of them?” Saneter asked as the two climbed the harbor steps. At the top small groups of children, having seen Toric’s departure, began to line the railing, pointing to the ship. Piemur could hear their giggles and unkind comments.

“Not from here, or in their condition.” Piemur shrugged. “I expect Groghe sent a couple. The one really smart son stayed at Smithcrafthall. A couple weren’t bad. He kept ’em all, fosterlings and the Bloods, in line. Lord Sangel’s would be accustomed to heat—might even know something about crops. Corman’s lot are probably still charging around the eastern holds, looking for Thella, the clever Lady Holdless.”

“Piemur! One day that quick tongue of yours is going to get you in trouble.”

“It has,” Piemur said, grinning wryly. Then his smile changed to one of unforced approval as young Sara came up with a basket full of lotions and vials. “Good girl. Pills for their ills. Go help Murda, sweetness.”

Asgenar alighted from the dragon, landing heavily—which was exactly how he felt: heavy, disturbed, and knowing no other alternative to the problem. Certainly it was kinder for him, Larad’s fosterbrother, to break the news.

K’van, looking no less enthusiastic but more determined, dropped lightly to the ground beside the Lemos Lord Holder. Heth turned his head toward the two, eyes glinting green-blue in reassurance. K’van gave him a solid slap on the shoulder and crunched over the newly fallen snow to the impressive steps leading up to Telgar Hold’s main entrance. It was cold enough not to linger, and Asgenar followed the young bronze rider.

They reached the top step just as the door was opened and just as Heth took wing up to keep the watchdragonrider company on the sun-struck fire heights.

“A’ton sent word down that you were coming,” Larad said, looking pleased to see them. “You’ll be surprised at what a fine lad he is.”

Asgenar was thrown off balance. “A’ton?”

“Your nephew. Or had you forgotten I’ve a third fine son?” Larad gestured diffidence. “You’ve other concerns. Good day to you, K’van. Are you part of this?”

K’van nodded, shedding his helmet and loosening his flying jacket, then making work of matching his gauntlets and tucking them into his belt.

“My office then, but surely you’ll both have some klah or a mulled wine?”

“Later perhaps.”

“Dulsay’s close by, and I think I’d like to finish my cup while you explain this visit. Dulsay?” Larad called. His wife appeared with a tray and three steaming cups.

“I took the liberty, Asgenar, K’van. It’ll help loosen the chill from your tongues,” Larad said while Dulsay served them. Then she discreetly withdrew to the Great Hall, and Larad led the way to his private room.

“There’s no way to buffer this one, Lar,” Asgenar said, taking one of the chairs. He put down his cup, opened his double-fronted fleece jacket, and hauled out the sketches, which he dropped on the table. “Have a look at them.”

Asgenar had put the sheet with the drawings of Thella on the bottom. Larad, his frown growing deeper as he examined each face, exhaled when Thella’s likeness appeared and sank slowly to his chair. “I thought her dead since the Pass began.”

“I’m sorry, Lar, but she’s very much alive, and far too active.”

Larad flicked the sheets back and forth, always returning to the ones of Thella. The fingers of his left hand drummed an irregular rhythm on the polished wood of his worktable. Then he tapped Giron’s face. “This is R’mart’s missing brown rider?”

“A dragonless man. Temma of the Lilcamp train—the one that was ambushed six days ago—identified him and Thella as those who were looking for Dowell and his family.”

Larad looked baffled.

“Dowell’s daughter, Aramina, hears dragons,” Asgenar said.

K’van shifted restlessly in his chair.

“I fail to see a connection,” Larad said hesitantly.

“A girl who heard dragons would be of inestimable help to a raider,” Larad said after Asgenar had explained. “And you were her rescuer, K’van?”

“Not me, sir.” K’van smiled, relieved that Lord Larad seemed disposed to be helpful. “My dragon, Heth!” Heth’s bugle was audible even through the thick walls of the Hold.

Lord Larad merely nodded. “But I don’t see why … why Thella”—he looked even more distressed, as if the use of her name amounted to an actual accusation—“would savagely attack a harmless wagon train.”

Asgenar shrugged. “When goods were missing it was bad enough, but to kill innocent people …”

“I agree. A heinous crime. Inexcusable. Contemptible.”

“You know we’ve thought that only one group was responsible for the systematic looting all along our eastern range.”

“All Thella’s work?” Larad was incredulous and obviously hoped to hear a negative reply.

“Certainly the largest part of it. She’s the obvious leader of her own band.”

“And—” Larad paused, then leaned forward and shuffled the damning sheets into a neat pile. “Who drew these? Someone buying leniency?”

“We’re assuming it was a harper infiltrator. Robinton did say that he’d help all he could.”

“Oh, yes, I recall that. So, how can I assist you?”

“She’s found somewhere to use as a base camp,” Asgenar said, gesturing to detailed Hold maps on Larad’s wall. “She also uses others as waycamps, burying travel supplies and grain for her runners.”

“The grain that was stolen from Kadross Hold?”

Asgenar nodded. He felt considerable sympathy for Larad, who was still fighting against the evidence that his own Blood was responsible for the scavenging. “I’m hoping that you might know of a cave, somewhere in the mountains of Telgar, which Thella might be using.”

Larad passed a hand across his face, but when he dropped the shield, his expression was obdurate, and Asgenar knew that he had made his difficult decision.

“When Thella left here, spring of the Turn before the Present Pass, she took with her copies of the Hold maps.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” Asgenar said admiringly. “She’d know every nook and cranny in your Hold to hide in. And don’t be too upset. I’m certain she managed to get copies from me, Bitra, Keroon, and Igen. Nothing if not thorough, your sister.”

“As of this moment, Asgenar—and K’van, you bear witness—she is no longer of my Bloodkin. I shall have the harper disown her.”

Asgenar nodded acknowledgment of that rejection; K’van raised his right hand, accepting the witness.

Larad strode purposefully to the map and studied it finger-length by fingerlength. Suddenly he stabbed his forefinger on one spot. “Here is where she is likely to be. Our father, Tarathel, gave her her own way in most things, mounted her well, and took her with him on his trips around the holds. She mentioned once in my hearing that she had a place she could hold against all comers. She often disappeared on her own for days at a time. She was seen several times by the herdsmen in that vicinity. I hadn’t remembered it till now. She’d be entirely too familiar with the resources. She was bloody clever, you know!” There was a hint of respect in the level voice. “She didn’t rob Telgar holds often enough to make me suspicious. Or, to be quite candid,” he amended with a grim smile, “to be suspicious enough to take it further. I did think she was dead. We found a set of runnerbeast shoes in a ravine. Our farrier said he’d hot-shod those to one of Thella’s mares. I assumed she’d been caught by Threadfall at the same time.”

“Lord Larad, might it be a good idea to send one of your fire-lizards to see if anyone’s in that hold?” K’van asked. “I’m always taught not to assume anything.” He chuckled. “Ass—you—me!”

Asgenar suddenly found that his ear was extremely itchy and ducked his head, while Larad gave K’van a long thoughtful look.

“Now, that is an extremely constructive suggestion, K’van,” the Telgar Holder said. “You’ll make wingleader when you’re grown. My thanks.”

“Our thanks,” Asgenar said. “She’d have a watch out for sweepriders but not for our clever little friends. If you can tell them just where to look?”

Larad called for his fire-lizard queen and Dulsay’s bronze, cracking the door to let them in. “I think I know a landmark to give them to find the place. I’ve not been in that vicinity often, but the map indicates a wide plateau. They’d have to be using the hearths, and in this chill weather, smoke, wood, or black-stone would be obvious.”

K’van approved of the fire-lizards’ prompt appearance and the intelligence obvious in their attention to Larad’s instructions. They chirruped happily, and Larad let them out his office window, a narrow slit, which the two fire-lizards navigated by flying up it sideways.

“This is marked as a holding. Are the inhabitants in her band, too?” Asgenar asked.

“No one’s held there for a hundred or more Turns. It was one of the places which a plague of those times wiped out. No one else was willing to take it over.”

“Is the entire complex marked? Would there be Hold Records showing the extent of it? I’d prefer to know exactly how to catch the whole gang.”

“I would, too.” Larad walked his finger along the dates on the tomes of Records on his shelves before he took one down and placed it on the table. “These diagrams are exceedingly old, but we have them for almost every mine and cave system,” he told them with a touch of pride in his voice.

Asgenar, examining the pages spread open for him, thought that Larad had every right to be proud. “By the First Egg, that’s remarkable!” At first he had eyes only for the remarkable clarity of the drawing. “What sort of ink did they use? How old is this?”

“That I can’t guess. Nor the substance used.” Asgenar ran respectful fingers along the edge of the opaque sheet.

Larad grinned wryly. “Thicker than your sheets, Asgenar, but no give to it. You can’t erase or reuse it, either.” He sounded as if he found that a disadvantage.

K’van had turned from the drawing to its legend. “Look, even the height of each section of tunnel is recorded.” He gave a soft whistle. “Now that’s mapping!”

“They knew how in those days,” Larad said, beginning to shake off the shock of his sister’s intransigence. “Telgar was the third Hold established.”

“Yes, yes, some of those subsidiary shafts, even the narrow, low ones, would make ideal bolt holes,” Asgenar said, eagerly addressing the real issue. He strode back to the map, examining the area around the suspect cave. “Yes, and access to it along a number of tracks. Larad, you don’t need to feel obliged …”

Larad drew himself up straight. “I do and I am. We’ll need copies of that quadrant of the area and of that old cave map. Who else have you asked to join us in this sortie?”

Asgenar grimaced, scratching his right ear. “I would rather we kept it between us, Larad. K’van volunteered, since he’s already involved. The fewer who know, the better I’d feel. And I mean, just in this room for the time being. Now that I have your understanding and cooperation—” Asgenar conveyed his sympathy and respect by giving his brother-in-law’s shoulder a brief, firm squeeze. “—it’s a matter of organization and strategy, making sure none of them escape us. We both have trained men; I’ve roving troops of foresters in that general area right now. F’lar and Lessa—because of the girl—have offered Benden’s assistance. So a quick in-and-out would see us in position at all these exits,” he explained, tapping the relevant points, “and for a frontal assault. If we keep the whole affair between us, it could be managed quickly and with the least fuss.”

“Lord Larad, that mountainhold you sent the fire-lizards to is definitely occupied,” K’van surprised them by saying.

Larad looked at the window, then turned to K’van for an explanation.

“Heth listened,” the dragonrider said.

Asgenar grinned uninhibitedly. “Lad, you’re a marvel!”

“Dragons make useful go-betweens,” K’van said in a droll voice. Asgenar stared at him for one second before he broke out in a peal of laughter. Even Larad, who was not quite as quick to see a pun, chuckled at last.

Wild happy chirps announced the return of the fire-lizards. They swooped to Larad’s shoulders and made much of rubbing their cold bodies against his face. He stroked their delicate heads before finding tidbits for them in his pocket.

“Now sir,” K’van said. “While you and Lord Asgenar discuss strategy, I’ll make copies of these to take back to Benden for duplication.”

Asgenar and Larad exchanged glances and then began to formulate their plans.

The dragonriders burst into the cold mountain air just at dawn, while the frozen sentry was nodding off to sleep. Alerted to his presence by a bronze fire-lizard, they were able to sneak up on him, and one deft blow turned sleep to unconsciousness. Men slid off dragon backs, slipping and sliding into position, while F’lar, T’gellan, F’nor, Asgenar, and Larad checked to be sure all were ready. The three wings of dragons then lifted with amazing quiet to nearby ridges, holding themselves ready to spot any escapees.

“And I thought between was cold,” Asgenar muttered under his breath, flexing his gloved icy fingers and working his toes in his fleece-lined boots. He turned his face slightly so that the puffs of warm air from his fire-lizard kept his nose from freezing. A little trickle was running from one nostril, and he sniffed, then glanced to either side of him, wondering if the troopers had heard him. The lad on his right did not look old enough to be a veteran, but the burly man on his left was exactly the kind to guard one’s vulnerable side. His name was Swacky, Asgenar remembered.

Larad had insisted on being in on the frontal assault, though any of the others would have been glad to spare him. The Telgar Lord had been like that as a fosterling, too, Asgenar remembered. He had hated to be gulled, and he had been dead keen to set matters right once he had learned that he had been made a fool of.

Day had never taken so long to come, Asgenar thought, feeling the cold eat through his heavy coverings. He was beginning to shiver and tried to control it.

“Sir,” someone whispered from his left, and he saw a hide-covered bottle extended. “A sip’ll stop that.”

Asgenar gratefully accepted and gasped at the raw spirits. He had expected nothing more potent than hot klah.

“It did!” he mouthed, still feeling the heat of that sip.

“Pass it on. The lad’ll need it, too,” Swacky said, nodding to Asgenar’s right.

All in the same state, Asgenar thought and passed it. He experienced a mild shock at his first glimpse of his neighbor’s face; the boy was older than he had looked in profile, and his expression was far more grim than cold. He mouthed a thanks and sipped easily, seemingly accustomed to such rough liquor.

Not just grim, Asgenar thought, returning the bottle to Swacky. His neighbor was more intense than that: vindictive and bloodhot, despite the freezing cold. Asgenar hoped that there was experience there as well as incentive. A false move would flush their quarry, and they would have to go through the whole thing all over again. He wanted the matter settled that morning. There were other important things to attend to.

The sun was finally above the eastern peaks, its clear light painting the snow in gold dappled with shadowed blues and blacks. The plateau above and to their right glistened, sparkling as sun struck ice like beams of light bouncing off diamonds.

Suddenly the signal was given, and the men who had lain or crouched just in front of the trampled-down forecourt of the hold sprang to their feet and charged forward, wielding a ram to force the door, but the door proved to be unbarred, and the impetus of their forward motion put the men of the first troop into the main cavern before they could unsheath their swords. Larad pushed past them toward the chamber that he felt his sister would be using. But there were sleeping bodies along the corridor, and someone had wit enough to trip him, yelling at the top of his lungs while Larad sprawled untidily on the stone floor. Asgenar helped him to his feet while Swacky and his other companion plunged on down the gallery, swinging left and right at the sleepers who, awakened by the racket, rose to fight.

Even as Larad yelled at them to take the right fork, Swacky and the younger trooper turned to the left. Others surged in behind them, and Larad and Asgenar went on alone. When they reached their destination, they found the door barred and had some difficulty angling the ram for maximum effect.

When the door was finally hanging on its hinges, the room they entered was empty except for scattered pieces of clothing. Asgenar spotted the other doors, and the battering ram was brought into use again. Each successive room showed signs of frantic packing. Asgenar consulted his map of the complex and tried to relax. True, there was a series of smaller chambers off the main one, but all exits were well guarded. No one could escape.

Shouts resounded, often making the words unintelligible. A messenger found Larad and Asgenar to tell them that the main chamber was secure, all the left-hand tunnels cleared of their quarry, and prisoners taken.

“Any chance that Thella’s among them?” Asgenar asked.

“No, sir, I’ve her face right here,” the man said, holding out the sketch in his hand. “Several women but not one like her!”

“This is the best set of apartments,” Larad said in a quiet, taut voice. “These have to have been hers.”

Asgenar did not remark upon the obvious, that there had been unmistakably male accoutrements in two of the rooms. They moved forward to crouch in a narrow, low tunnel. Asgenar dropped to crawl on hands and knees and ended up, with Larad, in what appeared to be a dead end.

“Can’t be,” Larad said. “Glows! Forward some glows!”

“There was an exit to this group, I know it,” Asgenar said, frustrated.

Before illumination could be brought, they heard an ominous rumble, and felt the stone beneath their fingers and knees shake. The sound seemed to continue for a long time.

“Lord Asgenar, Lord Larad? Are you there, sirs?”

“Yes, Swacky. What was that noise?”

“Here, Jayge, take the basket—you’re more agile than I am. Sirs, it was an avalanche. We’re going to have to dig our way out.”

“Avalanche?”

Larad’s anxious expression, lit by the glow basket, matched his worried tone, but the crouching young trooper seemed to make nothing of their cramped and closed-in condition. His face reflected so much hatred and frustration that Asgenar was stunned. A man that young ought not to feel such passions, he thought.

“Yes, sir,” Jayge said. “They’d a deadfall arranged. Someone got out to release it. They’ve used that trick before. Didn’t anyone think to check?”

“You forget yourself,” Larad said icily.

“Jayge?” Asgenar slewed around and took the glowbasket from him. “You were in that ambush at Far Cry, weren’t you?”

“Yes … sir.”

“Bloodkin lost?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, the courtesy not as sullenly added. “This isn’t the dead end it looks like! See the marks there on the ground. Something’s scraped.”

Larad and Asgenar heaved and pushed, thinking of a cantilevered slab.

“Lords,” Swacky called. “You’re needed out front. We’ll keep on here.”

Larad and Asgenar crawled back out to where they could stand erect again, and Swacky gave a fuller report.

“The Benden Weyrleader’s got his dragons digging us out. We’ve accounted for all but three of the faces in those drawings, and some who weren’t, plus one guy who swears blind he’s got to talk to whoever’s in charge. And there’re troops following every alley and furrow in the place.”

Larad swore under his breath, his expression unreadable.

“Which three faces, Swacky?” Asgenar asked.

“The woman they call Thella, the empty-faced man someone said was dragonless, and one other, a real brute.”

“Swacky, you’re too broad to crawl that tunnel,” Asgenar said, letting Larad digest the news. “Find someone else to go down and help Jayge. And a crowbar or chisel would be useful if you can find such tools in here.”

“We found an awful lot of stuff, Lord Asgenar. They’d settled in with nothing missing.”

“Thank you, Swacky. The tools, please, and as many men as needed to find that exit.” He took Larad by the arm and escorted him back to the main chambers.

The smallest room, which had only one entrance, was where the prisoners were being guarded. One of Larad’s men greeted the two Holders and returned the drawings. “There’re all here, and sixteen more, Lord Larad.”

“Any casualties on our side?” Larad asked, noticing bloody head wounds and other signs of injury among the prisoners.

“A broken bone or two when the avalanche caught people unawares. Them,” the trooper said contemptuously, “we mostly caught still in their bedrolls. There’s one over in that small room that you should speak to.” He nodded to his left, in the direction of the main hall of the complex, where one of Asgenar’s foresters stood guard. “And there’s some fresh klah in the pot,” he added, gesturing to the bigger hearth where a fire had been freshened and a huge kettle was slightly steaming. “They lived pretty good all right.”

Asgenar steered Larad toward the hearth, and a trooper sprang to serve them. Then they went to see the man the guard had mentioned.

When they entered the room he rose, smiling with obvious relief. “Did they escape after all?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Larad said sternly.

“Certainly, Lord Larad.” He turned his head to nod politely at the Lemosan. “Lord Asgenar.” Then he waited.

“Who are you?” Larad asked after a long pause. The man showed not the slightest bit of tension or insolence.

“My name is Perschar, Lord Larad, a journeyman whom Master Robinton hoped could penetrate this band. I gather that someone finally sent you the sketches I’ve been dropping whenever and wherever I could. I’d swear Thella has eyes in the back of her head. Did she escape? Please, the suspense is very hard on my stomach.”

“Perschar? Would the name Anama mean anything to you?” Asgenar asked, pulling at Larad’s sleeve before the other could interrupt.

“Of course!” The man’s long face was wreathed with a happy smile. “Lord Vincet’s second daughter. I did her portrait, oh, far too many Turns back, I fear. She’ll be grown and married, with children of her own to be painted, I’ve no doubt.”

“He’s Perschar, all right,” Asgenar assured Larad. Taking a seat at the table, he noticed that Perschar had not been idle while waiting. There were more sketches.

“It was the only way I had of dropping information. Not that they suspected me, but it was as well not to raise any doubts whatsoever. The Lady Thella—”

“The woman is holdless,” Larad said harshly.

“Exactly her problem,” Perschar replied with some acerbity, then sighed. “She styled herself Lady Holdless, and, while not appropriate, as she did hold here—” His long hand made a graceful gesture indicating the room they were in. “—she was devilish quick, quite brilliant with her schemes—flawless almost, so I had to be cleverer still. Did she escape?” His eyes sought Asgenar’s, almost pleading, certainly urgent.

Asgenar nodded, disgusted. “We think so. But until we’ve reestablished communications with those outside, we can’t be certain.”

“We had every hole out of this warren covered,” Larad said, stalking about the small room.

“I heard the avalanche,” Perschar said in a lugubrious tone. “That means someone got out. I’d lay odds with a Bitran, she did. Unless you caught Giron or Readis. Those three used the right-hand rooms.”

“The guard said all but three of the faces in your invaluable drawings are accounted for—Thella, the dragonless man, and the heavyset man.”

“That’d be Dushik. Thella sent him off on some special affair as soon as we made it back here. So at least Readis is accounted for, if they’re the only ones missing. Yes, either Giron or Thella herself loosed that avalanche. She was rather taken with the notion. Had all of us working on it during the last Fall. Bloody cold work.” Perschar shivered dramatically. “Is there any more klah in the pot?” he asked hopefully.

It took just as long for the dragons to dig them out as it did for Perschar to discover, after he had drunk his klah, that Readis was not among the prisoners. And it took twice as long for Jayge to discover how to open the clever door.

“And there was where we underestimated Thella,” Asgenar said with as grim a smile as Larad’s. “Gone up a bit, you might say,” he added, unable to stifle the observation as he stared up the vertical tunnel through which escape had been effected. “Your charts were a trifle out of date, Larad.”

Larad cursed and Asgenar listened sympathetically.

Jayge had scrambled up the rungs of the ladder and come out well above the entrance stormed by the troops. “The avalanche was set off from here,” he hollered down. Both men clasped hands on their ears against the echoes his call set up. “A bronze dragonrider says that he’s sent out sweep riders. They can’t have gotten far on foot.”

Larad leaned disconsolately against the wall, shaking his head, and sighed at the futility of their efforts. “She knows how to use snowstaves. She’s very good at it.”

“We can send messages ahead to be on the lookout for three refugees. Send copies of Perschar’s sketches,” Asgenar said as Larad once more got down on hands and knees to navigate the low tunnel. “We’ve blocked up most of the caves we think she’s been using. She’s going to have a long cold trip before she finds any safety at all.” He saw Larad, just in front of him, shaking his head. “If we can get just a little cooperation from Sifer, Laudey, and Corman, surely someone will notice three such unusual people out and about at this time of year.”

Once they emerged from the tunnel, Larad strode purposefully through the rooms where troopers were already gathering up the more expensive-looking articles of clothing and miscellaneous items. Asgenar followed, storing up hopeful suggestions, racking his brains to think of some logical and ultimately successful course of action. It was ludicrous that they should have failed. Yet they had.

When Asgenar saw Larad making for the eating area, he paused, looking around for one of the Benden dragonriders. F’lar, F’nor, and three troopers, still busy jotting down notes on improvised slates, came out of the storage area of the cavern.

“I found the Kadross Hold grain. They’ve got stables back there, baled fodder in quantity, and supplies enough to eat as well as Benden Weyr does,” F’lar said, slapping his heavy fleece gauntlets against his leg. “What’re we going to do with those, anyway?”

“Whose hold does this place fall in, Larad? Yours or mine?” Asgenar asked. “Does it matter?”

“Well, sort of. You’ve got all those mines, and I have trees, but trees don’t need much tending in the winter, and your mines can be worked year round.”

Larad turned, a look of surprise on his face, but Asgenar felt that was an improvement on despair.

“I tell you what,” Asgenar went on. “Let’s leave them with enough to keep them going through the winter—what with the snowslide and all, I doubt they can get out, and I’m certainly not going to ask Benden dragons to give them the treat of their sordid lives. Let’s see who’s alive come spring.”

F’lar and F’nor found that solution amusing, as did the troopers, who tried to disguise their grins. At the last, a slight smile tugged at Larad’s mouth, and he began to regain his usual manner.

“I think I had better leave someone in charge, after all,” he remarked. “Thella has really improved this place—it’s isolated, but a stout holding.”

“All right then, let’s get busy.” Asgenar clapped his hands together to call the troopers and foresters to attention. “What’ve you got on those sheets? I don’t want to keep the dragonmen here any longer than necessary. We’ll want to move the bulk out as fast as we can.”

“Lord Asgenar, some of the supplies still have purchasers’ markings.”

“Good man, that’ll spare us a lot of trouble. Swacky, organize your troop to haul identifiable things up front. I’ll go separate what this lot—how many are there? Forty? Well, I leave rations for forty for three months. Then we’ll come back to see who wants to work for a living.”

“Meanwhile?” F’lar asked politely, his eyes dancing at Asgenar’s masterful organization.

“Oh, please, F’lar, find that unholy trio!”