Free A Gift of Dragons by Anne McCaffrey Page B

not to weep so childishly.
    “’Mina! What happened to you?” Pell knelt beside her, his hand hovering over the bleeding scalp wound. “It was really Thella? Who else was with her?”
    K’van was beside her, patting her shoulders.
    “You did the right thing, ’Mina. Heth heard you and told me. We were setting snares. Heth’s called for reinforcements. They won’t get away. If there hadn’t been so many trees, Heth would’ve caught ’em already!”
    “Dragons,” she said in gasps, “aren’t built . . . to run in forests.” Sniffing, she pointed to Heth, who was retracing his way, weaving in and out of the trees, snarling as one wing caught on a protruding branch. He looked so funny; she oughtn’t to laugh at the dear dragon who had saved her from Thella and Giron, but it
was
funny, and she began to giggle and then couldn’t stop her laughing.
    “What’s so funny!” demanded Pell, outraged by his sister’s laughter.
    “I expect she’s a bit hysterical. Not that I blame her. You take her other arm, Pell. We’ve got to get her back to the cave.”
    “What about Heth?”
    Heth rejoined them, his roars now reduced to belly rumbles.
    I told her I was coming! I told her I heard her! Didn’t you hear me, ’Mina?
Heth curled his neck around K’van to peer anxiously up at Aramina.
    Hiccuping somewhere between laughter and tears, Aramina speechlessly patted Heth’s muzzle.
    I was so scared
. . . even her thought hiccuped . . .
I couldn’t even hear myself.
    “Shards!” said K’van as a whoosh of wind signaled the arrival of a wing of dragons. Heth swiveled his head toward the display.
    The guards chase them through the woods!
    As the three youngsters watched, Aramina marveling at the snippets of conversations she caught in the confusion of orders given and received, the dragons began to peel off from the wing formation, going in all directions in a search for the renegades.
    “T’gellan’s leading the wing,” K’van informed them, deftly picking out of the stream the information that escaped Aramina. “They’ll search. We’re to get back to the cave.”
    “Oh, my sackful of nuts!” cried Aramina.
    “Nuts, she worries about! At a time like this!” Pell was disgusted.
    Aramina started to cry again, unable to stop the tears. “Mother
needs
them for bread flour. . . .”
    “I’ll come back for ’em,” exclaimed Pell at the top of his voice in frustration. “I’ll come back!”
    Not completely reassured, since she knew her brother so well, Aramina was nonetheless willing to be helped back to the cave. Her mother, after her first startlement, bathed and salved Aramina’s scalp and the other scratches she had received from the rough handling. If Barla did so with compressed lips and a decidedly pale face, she did not scold Aramina. Pell, under K’van’s stern eye, had gone back for the nuts and Aramina’s jerkin. K’van brewed more
klah
, a very welcome cup that infused Aramina’s cold stomach with welcome heat.
    Aramina, Lessa waits without
, said Heth.
For your mother, too
.
    “Mother, we’re wanted outside,” Aramina said.
    “By whom?”
    “By Lessa, the Weyrwoman of Pern,” said K’van. “Heth just relayed the message.”
    Barla looked at her daughter as if she had never really seen her clearly before.
    “You don’t just hear dragons,” she said in a puzzled voice, “they hear you, and they talk to you, and you can answer them?”
    “A very useful knack,” K’van said with a grin; then he added, “Lessa’s waiting.”
    “Is she angry with me?” Aramina asked timorously.
    “Why would she be angry with you?” K’van asked, puzzled.
    We could not be angry with you, Aramina
, said the most beautiful dragon voice that Aramina had yet heard.
    “C’mon.” K’van took Aramina firmly by the arm to haul her out of the cave. “You don’t keep Lessa waiting.”
    Aramina’s first impression of the slender figure standing in the clearing was surprise. The Weyrwoman of