Read Online Dragon's Fire by Anne McCaffrey - Free Book Online Page A

as he suddenly remembered that Kaylek was supposed to have been on that shift for the first time. Was Kaylek among the injured?
    Feeling an indistinct bond with the lad, who was near his own age, Pellar strained through the distance for any sign of him.
    For hours Pellar watched the tragedy, saw the few injured brought up out of the mine, caught sight of a red-haired boy being brought up. Hours later, Pellar gasped in relief as he spotted a youngster emerge from the mine shaft. His relief was short-lived: He saw the figure find the red-haired boy and realized that the other boy was not Kaylek but his little brother.
    He kept looking and hoping until he saw one of the women throw a blanket over the two boys and realized that they were the only children in the aid station.
    There was no sign of the watch-wher, Dask, of his handler, Danil, or of any of the sons of Danil that had were assigned to that shift. Nor was there any sign of the red-haired boy’s father.

    Chitter arrived with a cryptic note from Master Zist later the next day: “He can’t stay here for a while.”
    Pellar considered the notion of sending the brown fire-lizard back to the Harper Hall, but he was not at all sure that Chitter would go, nor that he could recall the fire-lizard from such a distance.
    Pellar waited several days before making his way circuitously to the camp. He’d seen the shrouded bodies of the dead miners brought up—there were nine.
    He’d started his journey at the first of the dark, so there was a chance that the Shunned might also be moving. He sent Chitter ahead to the miners’ graveyard to reconnoiter and followed more slowly, going down the southern side of his mountain, around west below the lake, crossing the stream that fed it at the far side before going east again toward the camp. The night was noisy with the light winds that carried the cold mountain air down into the cooling valley.
    The graveyard was in a clearing beside a waterfall that gushed down the cliffside a kilometer west of the miners’ camp.
    It was a peaceful place with thankfully few graves—most of them, sadly, the nine new ones from this latest accident.
    Pellar had picked some yellow flowers on his way and wasn’t surprised to see, among other large floral bouquets, small bunches of yellow flowers already at the graves, each bunch tied together with a blade of grass. Even though it was possible that the yellow flowers had been left by one of the miners’ children, Pellar was certain that the little girl had left them.
    He wondered if the little girl who had left the flowers did so because she felt somehow responsible. Or was it just because she was remembering her own dead, and honoring them by honoring these—as Pellar was honoring Cayla and Carissa.
    Pellar’s musings were interrupted as Chitter suddenly ruffled his wings loudly and disappeared
between.
It was a warning. Pellar pushed himself tight against a tree, motionless.
    A figure appeared near the grave site, not three meters from Pellar. The figure made its way to the graves. Pellar caught sight of a strand of blond hair around the person’s face. It was a youngster—a girl, Pellar thought—perhaps two years younger than himself. Definitely not the flower girl, who was much smaller and probably younger, too.
    Something alarmed her, and she turned toward Pellar’s hiding place, reached down, and searched the ground with her hand, coming up with a large rock.
    “Who’s there?” she called—definitely a girl. “I’ve got a rock.”
    Pellar pressed closer against the tree, though he was positive that she couldn’t see him in the darkness.
    Strangely, the girl sniffed the air. “I can tell you’re not from the camp,” she called over the breeze. “If you don’t identify yourself, I’ll—I’ll tell Master Zist about you.”
    Pellar allowed himself a smile; Master Zist would be the least of his worries. But he wondered how the girl could tell he wasn’t from the camp, and why