Read Online A Gift of Dragons by Anne McCaffrey - Free Book Online Page A

you?” said the older guard. “Now, young lady, if you’ll just lead the way to this cave of yours . . .”
    “K’van, where’s Heth got to? You’re here. Where’s he?” Pell wanted to know, looking all about him as if the bronze dragon might be roosting in a nearby tree.
    “He’s up at the cave, Pell. Probably asleep in that small clearing . . . if it’s big enough. Dragons like the sun and we had a very busy day yesterday.”
    “And a busy one so far today, too,” Pell said amiably, digging his toes into the damp mulch of the bank.
    “You could do with some steps cut in this bank,” said the younger soldier, who had just slipped as far as he had come.
    “Oh, we couldn’t do that,” Pell replied, horrified. “We don’t really live in that cave. Though I’d sure like to,” he added with such ingenuousness that the older guard chuckled. “Can you make a good snare?” he asked him. “’Cause that cave is just crawling with tunnel snakes. They’d make mighty good eating after months and months of nothing but roots and fish.”
    “I tie a pretty good snare,” K’van said, grabbing a sapling to pull himself onto the top of the ridge.
    “You? But you’re a dragonrider.”
    “I wasn’t always,” K’van admitted, grinning over Pell’s head at Aramina. “
Before
I was a dragonrider I was a very lowly weyrboy, and small. Just the right size to set snares for tunnel snakes. My foster mother used to give an eighth of a mark for every fifty snakes we caught.”
    “Really?” Pell was awed by the thought of riches beyond the eating. “Well,” and Pell recovered from his awe, “I’m bloody good at snake-snaring, too, aren’t I, Aramina?”
    “Not if you use the word ‘bloody’ you aren’t,” she said in reproof, not wishing the soldiers to think that the holdless were also mannerless.
    They had reached the clearing—and there was Heth, curled in a tight ball that just fit in the available space. The soldiers grinned as Pell, eyes wide, carefully circled the sleeping bronze dragon.
    “The cave is where, young lady?” asked the guard leader.
    Aramina pointed. “There!”
    “There’s water just to the right,” Pell said hospitably, “and there’s a whole grove of nuts just beyond the copse if you’re hungry.”
    “Thank’ee, lad, we’ve rations with us.” The guard patted a bulging pouch. “Though a drink of cold water would be welcome. Traveling
between
sort of dries a man’s mouth of spit. You go on in, tell your folks not to worry. We’ll be out here on guard.”
    “I’d rather stay with you,” Pell said confidentially.
    Aramina caught the guard’s expression and hastily vetoed that option.
    “Aw, Aramina, you had all the fun yesterday.”
    “Fun?” Aramina got a firm grip on his arm and pulled him ruthlessly toward the cave entrance.
    “Later, perhaps, Pell,” K’van said in the role of conciliator, “after you’ve eaten your breakfast, for I know I woke you out of a sound sleep. I’ve got enough
klah
here to serve everyone, and some bread, because Mende knew you wouldn’t have had a chance to bake yesterday.” K’van’s engaging grin dared Aramina to reject the treats.
    “Bread?
Klah?
What else do you have in that sack, K’van?” Pell, displaying the manners of the worst Igen holdless riffraff, tried to pull open the neck of the sack for a glimpse of its contents.
    “Pell!” Aramina’s shocked whisper reminded her brother of their sleeping parents as well as his manners.
    “But, ’Mina, do you know how long it is since we had
klah
?”
    “I’ve promised to make it for the guards, ’Mina,” K’van said in a voice that had brought many around to indulge his whimsies. “Surely a cup between friends . . .”
    She relented, though she was sure to receive a scolding on that account as well as for her other errors. But a cup of
klah
would do much to ease the trembling in her stomach and knees, and give her the energy to bear whatever other shocks