Kindan nodded, mumbling something in his throat about being glad to start out this watch-wher with the best possible feeding in between his thanks for her suggestion. Then she turned back to deal with the newcomers.
“Well done, Kindan,” Zist said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Well done, lad. What sort of soft talk did you employ?”
“Something learned from you, no doubt, Zist,” M’tal said teasingly. “No matter, Kindan, well done. Let’s get the two younglings back home, and then we can all celebrate.”
“And in time, please,” Zist said with a bit of a bow to the dragonrider.
“No easier said than done,” M’tal replied. “Come, lad, step up on Gaminth’s knee and grab the safety strap. I’ll give you a bit of a heave.”
Keeping one hand firmly under his egg, Kindan made it to the dragon’s back and settled down between two ridges with a sigh of relief. Curious, he glanced over at the lair just in time to see the man erupting out of it as if propelled by something strong and annoyed. He couldn’t help giggling at Zist’s remark about some folks not knowing when they weren’t welcome.
“Didn’t know how to sweet-talk her, I guess,” M’tal added. “Proud of you, boy. Glad to have been able to help you out.”
“This is just the beginning,” Natalon remarked. “Are you up to it, lad?”
“Sir,” Kindan said, swiveling around to speak to Natalon, “would you give Ima”—who was the main hunter and butcher for the camp—“the orders to let me get the blood I’ll need? And to Swanee to allow me enough oats?”
“Of course I will,” Natalon said briskly. “And loan you a big enough pot to make porridge for the watch-wher in. I doubt you’d have one large enough for the purpose.”
The Miner looked a bit uncomfortable at the reminder that the lad was no longer living in his own home, where he would have had a good selection of pots.
“And I have some herbal candles to burn to get rid of the stench,” Zist said, making a face as if he already knew how noxious the mixture would smell. “And you must promise me not to burn the oats.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Kindan said and fixed his face forward just as M’tal warned them of their passage between.
When they returned to the camp, it seemed to Kindan as if they had only just left. It must have taken several hours to complete their mission, and yet not much had changed; the first carts, full of the black rock, still hadn’t reached the top of the rail where their contents would be tilted over in the huge storage area. He shook his head as the dragon made a careful landing near the watch-wher’s lair.
Natalon called out as the dragon settled to the ground. Tarik came rushing out of the shaft.
Natalon motioned for Kindan to descend first. “Help him down, Tarik,” he ordered.
“You got the egg then?” Tarik asked, though it should have been obvious from the sack weighing down Kindan’s shoulder that they had been successful. As Kindan swung his leg over the dragon’s ridge, he was certain that Tarik had expected the journey to be fruitless. But he helped Kindan as if the boy had suddenly become fragile.
Politely, Kindan thanked Tarik, then made his way as fast as he could to the watch-wher’s shed. He had prepared it carefully, with lots of straw. He felt the warm bricks he had placed under the floor of the small den. They hadn’t cooled at all—which was odd, but he was just as glad that he didn’t have to wrangle more in here just yet. Choosing a spot that he thought was just as warm as the hatching lair had been, he carefully took the egg out of the sack and set it down, piling the warm straw around it to approximate the cover and warmth of the queen’s wing. He looked down at his handiwork and passed his hand over it, close to the straw. The heat felt sufficient. He was very hungry, though he had eaten a good breakfast just before the dragonrider had arrived.
Tarik and Natalon were talking together while Zist chatted with his old friend.
“Come, Kindan, we owe M’tal some hospitality. All that traveling made me hungry. How about you?” Zist held out his hand and, when Kindan reached him, waved in the direction of his cothold.
Chapter VIII
M’tal begged off lunch, as he had to return to his Weyr soon.
“I don’t want my stomach to get the wrong idea about what time it is,” he explained with a wink at Kindan.
Kindan and Zist made a quick lunch of the bread and soup that had been kindly left for them in the Harper’s kitchen. Kindan wished he’d asked Aleesa more questions, which he could have easily added when he explained that Dask had been a hatchling before he was born. When he mentioned this to Zist, the Harper frowned slightly.
“I shall see what I have here,” he said, waving toward his small collection of hide-bound books on the shelf in the living area. “I don’t recall there being much about watch-whers.” He grimaced. “They weren’t high on the Archival list when I did my time with the Master Archivist. Still, there might be some.”
“I know my father—” Kindan faltered, still keenly feeling the loss of the one parent he had known. “—trained Dask with the other two Crom Hold watch-whers. They seem to educate each other.”
“But you were talking to it,” Zist said.
“I was talking to the queen, not the hatchling. Kids have to be taught to speak, you know.”
“Yes, well, that is true enough,” Zist admitted. “So you have to teach it to respond to the sounds. Do other watch-whers always use the same ones?”
“I don’t really know,” Kindan admitted.
The Harper stared into space, idly stirring the last of the soup. “Well, the important thing is that you got the egg, Kindan. We can wing anything else, somehow. M’tal’s our ally, and they have watch-whers at Benden Hold. A few adroit questions—you’ll have to think what you need to know—could be answered surreptitiously.”
Kindan was more impressed than ever with his teacher and with the morning’s incredible events. He mopped the rest of the soup from his bowl with a fresh piece of bread. Then he took his things to the sink and stacked them.
“I’ll wash them when I get back from checking the bricks,” he told Master Zist as he left the cothold.
That seemed to be all he did every waking hour. At night he slept in the shed, wrapped warmly in his worn fur; often he started from sleep to rise and make sure the egg was warm enough. He had increased the cothold’s supply of oats, and had made a mess of porridge in the big kettle that had been placed on the back of the oven range. A pail of blood was already in the cooler. Natalon had quickly given the orders for Kindan to receive whatever he needed to tend to the watch-wher.
The first evening, after the day shift, Zenor popped in to see the egg. His expression of awe made Kindan feel warm inside. All right, it was only Zenor, but to receive such unalloyed approval alleviated some of his worst anxieties. He kept delving back in his memory for all references his father had made about watch-wher tending. He had remembered the right sounds and gestures. He had gotten the egg back to the camp. It was warm and it would hatch.
“When?” Zenor asked, his eyes glowing as he regarded the egg under its blanket of straw.
“Master Aleesa said in a couple of days,” Kindan replied as nonchalantly as he could. “Would you mind getting me some more coal so I can keep the bricks warm?”
“No, no, of course not,” Zenor said and darted out of the shed.
Kindan felt the shell of the egg, then started burrowing in the straw to find which bricks were cool enough to be reheated.
He was using the tongs to haul heated bricks out of the fire and filling in the spaces with cool ones when Zenor returned, staggering behind a loaded wheelbarrow. With an exaggerated sigh, Zenor upended it near the fire.