Dragonriders of Pern 24 - Dragons Harper by McCaffrey Anne

Author:McCaffrey, Anne
Language: eng
Format: epub

Dragonriders of Pern 24 - Dragons Harper

CHAPTER 8

Harp­er to your word be true Hold­er, crafter you al­so hew To hon­esty, in­tegri­ty, and re­spect All oth­ers with­out re­gard to in­tel­lect.

BEN­DEN WEYR T he cold of be­tween re­mained in Kin­dan’s bones as they burst out in­to the wan­ing day­light of a Ben­den Weyr ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a mid­win­ter freeze. The crest of the Weyr was snow-​cov­ered as were all the moun­tains in the dis­tance.

The cold of be­tween was al­so in the air they brought with them from the Harp­er Hall, the mois­ture frozen out in­to a rain­bow of ice crys­tals that sur­round­ed Gaminth and his rid­ers un­til they dropped through it when the bronze drag­on dove steeply in­to the Weyr Bowl.

Gaminth land­ed deft­ly, but Kin­dan was still so numb phys­ical­ly and emo­tion­al­ly that he near­ly fell from his perch on the drag­on, slam­ming awk­ward­ly against Vax­oram and man­ag­ing to stay on the drag­on’s back on­ly with the help of Vax­oram’s steady­ing hand.

Mor­ti­fied, he swift­ly clam­bered off the drag­on. Af­ter he helped Vax­oram down, he stood in to help Ko­ri­ana on­ly to be el­bowed aside by the old­er harp­er.

“My job’s to serve you, and you’re like­ly to drop her,” Vax­oram told him curt­ly.

Hurt, Kin­dan stood back and watched en­vi­ous­ly as Vax­oram gen­tly caught Ko­ri­ana in his strong arms and low­ered her to the Weyr Bowl.

“Come on, I’ll show you the Records room,” M’tal called as soon as he hopped down from his drag­on. He led a brisk pace up two flights of stone stairs and turned right, lead­ing through the first door­way.

The room was stacked full of Records, with many more stacked awk­ward­ly in dark al­coves.

Dim morn­ing light from the Bowl shone in from a win­dow cut in the far side of the room.

“Kin­dan,” M’tal or­dered, “come with me and we’ll get some klah and glows.”

Out of breath, Kin­dan turned im­me­di­ate­ly and start­ed to fol­low M’tal on­ly to be stopped by Vax­oram, who said to the Weyr­lead­er, “I am un­der vow to be with him at all times.”

M’tal pursed his lips, then nod­ded quick­ly. “Very well, you may come.” He glanced to­ward Ko­ri­ana. “Will you get start­ed?”

“Of course,” Ko­ri­ana replied, her gaze reach­ing out to Kin­dan for a mo­ment be­fore she turned her head quick­ly away and be­gan to search through the first stack of Records.

“By the Shell of Faranth!” M’tal swore to Kin­dan as they trot­ted down the stairs to­ward the Weyr Bowl. “What ev­er could you have been think­ing of, Kin­dan?”

“I-”

“And you,” M’tal round­ed on Vax­oram. “Didn’t you du­el him for much the same rea­son?”

Be­fore Vax­oram could re­spond, he con­tin­ued, “Don’t you know you can re-​chal­lenge him and win your hon­or?”

“He did noth­ing dis­hon­or­able,” Vax­oram de­clared hot­ly. “They were nev­er out of my sight.”

Kin­dan looked at Vax­oram in sur­prise and then re­al­ized that the old­er harp­er had spo­ken the truth.

“Then why-?” Kin­dan be­gan ques­tion­ing­ly on­ly to be cut off by M’tal who spoke with dawn­ing com­pre­hen­sion, “For­sworn, you could not pro­vide wit­ness to Lord Be­min.”

“Yes, my lord,” Vax­oram agreed, glanc­ing apolo­get­ical­ly to Kin­dan.

“Thanks,” Kin­dan told Vax­oram feel­ing­ly.

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