Cautiously she looked up, met the fascinated whirling of ten pairs of eyes. “Look, a bargain! One long song and then let me up the cliff? Is that agreed?”
Fire lizard eyes whirled.
Menolly took it that the bargain was made and sang. Her voice started a flutter of surprised and excited chirpings, and she wondered if by any possible freak they actually understood that she was singing about grateful holds honoring dragonriders. By the last verse she eased out into the open, awed by the sight of a queen fire lizard and nine bronzes entranced by her performance.
“Can I go now?” she asked and put one hand on the ledge. The queen dived for her hand, and Menolly snatched it back.
“I thought we’d struck a bargain.”
The queen chirped piteously, and Menolly realized that there had been no menace in the queen’s action. She simply wasn’t allowed to climb.
“You don’t want me to go?” Menolly asked.
The queen’s eyes seemed to glow more brightly.
“But I have to go. If I stay, the water will come up and drown me.” And Menolly accompanied her words with explanatory gestures.
Suddenly the queen let out a shrill cry, seemed to hold herself midair for a moment and then, her bronzes in close pursuit, she glided down the sandy beach to her clutch. She hovered over the eggs, making the most urgent and excited sounds.
If the tide was coming in fast enough to endanger Menolly, it was also frighteningly close to swamping the nest. The little bronzes began to take up the queen’s plaint and several, greatly daring, flew about Menolly’s head and then circled back to the clutch.
“I can come there now? You won’t attack me?” Menolly took a few steps forward.
The tone of the cries changed, and Menolly quickened her step. As she reached the nest, the little queen secured one egg from the clutch. With a great laboring of her wings, she bore it upward. That the effort was great was obvious. The bronzes hovered anxiously, squeaking their concern but, being much smaller, they were unable to assist the queen.
Now Menolly saw that the base of the cliff at this point was littered with broken shells and the pitiful bodies of tiny fire-lizards, their wings half-extended and glistening with egg fluid. The little queen now had raised the egg to a ledge, which Menolly had not previously noticed, about a half-dragon length up the cliff-face. Menolly could see the little queen deposit the egg on the ledge and roll it with her forelegs towards what must be a hole in the cliff. It was a long moment before the queen reappeared again. Then she dove towards the sea, hovering over the foamy crest of a wave that rolled in precariously close to the endangered clutch. With a blurred movement, the queen was hovering in front of Menolly and scolding like an old aunt.
Although Menolly couldn’t help grinning at the thought, she was filled with a sense of pity and admiration for the courage of the little queen, single-handedly trying to rescue her clutch. If the dead fire lizards were that fully formed, the clutch was near to hatching. No wonder the queen could barely move the eggs.
“You want me to help you move the eggs, right? Well, we’ll see what I can do!”
Ready to jump back if she had mistaken the little queen’s imperious command, Menolly very carefully picked up an egg. It was warm to the touch and hard. Dragon eggs, she knew, were soft when first laid but hardened slowly on the hot sands of the Hatching Grounds in the Weyrs. These definitely must be close to hatching.
Closing the fingers of her damaged hand carefully around the egg, Menolly searched for and found foot and hand holds, and reached the queen’s ledge. She carefully deposited the egg. The little queen appeared, one front talon resting proprietarily on the egg, and then she leaned forward, towards Menolly’s face, so close that the fantastic motion of the many-faceted eyes were clearly visible. The queen gave a sort of sweet chirp and then, in a very businesslike manner, began to scold Menolly as she rolled her egg to safety.
Menolly managed three eggs in her hand the next time. But it was obvious that between the onrushing tide and the startling number of eggs in the clutch, there’d be quite a race.
“If the hole were bigger,” she told the little queen as she deposited three eggs, “some of the bronzes could help you roll.”
The queen paid her no attention, busy pushing the three eggs, one at a time, to safety.
Menolly peered into the opening, but the fire lizard’s body obscured any view. If the hole was bigger and the ledge consequently broader, Menolly could bring the rest of the eggs up in her carry-sack.
Hoping that she wouldn’t pull down the cliffside and bury the queen, clutch and all, Menolly prodded cautiously at the mouth of the opening. Loose sand came showering down.
The queen took to scolding frantically as Menolly brushed the rubble from the ledge. Then she felt around the opening. There seemed to be solid stone just beyond. Menolly yanked away at the looser rock, until she had a nice tunnel exposed with a slightly wider opening.
Ignoring the little queen’s furious complaints, Menolly climbed down, unslinging her sack when she reached the ground. When the little queen saw Menolly putting the eggs in the sack, she began to have hysterics, beating at Menolly’s head and hands.
“Now, look here,” Menolly said sternly, “I am not stealing your eggs. I am trying to get them all to safety in jig time. I can do it with the sack but not by the handful.”
Menolly waited a moment, glaring at the little queen who hovered at eye level.
“Did you understand me?” Menolly pointed to the waves, more vigorously dashing up the small beach. “The tide is coming in. Dragons couldn’t stop it now.” Menolly put another egg carefully in the sack. As it was she’d have to make two, maybe three trips or risk breaking the eggs. “I take this,” and she gestured up the ledge, “up there. Do you understand, you silly beast?”
Evidently, the little creature did because, crooning anxiously, she took her position on the ledge, her wings half-extended and twitching as she watched Menolly’s progress up to her.
Menolly could climb faster with two hands. And she could, carefully, roll the eggs from the mouth of the sack well down the tunnelway.
“You’d better get the bronzes to help you now, or we’ll have the ledge stacked too high.”
It took Menolly three trips in all, and as she made the last climb, the water was a foot’s width from the clutch. The little queen had organized her bronzes to help, and Menolly could hear her scolding tones echoing in what must be a fair-sized cave beyond the tunnel. Not surprising since these bluffs were supposed to be riddled with caverns and passages.
Menolly gave a last look at the beach, water at least ankle deep on both ends of the little cove. She glanced upward, past the ledge. She was a good halfway up the cliff now, and she thought she could see enough hand and foot holds ahead.
“Good bye!” She was answered by a trill of chirps, and she chuckled as she imagined the scene: the queen marshalling her bronzes to position her eggs just right.
Menolly did not make the cliff top without a few anxious moments. She was exhausted when she finally flopped on the sea grasses at the summit, and her left hand ached from unaccustomed gripping and effort. She lay there for some time, until her heart stopped thudding in her ribs and her breath came more easily. An inshore breeze dried her face, cooling her; but that reminded her of the emptiness of her stomach. Her exertions had reduced the rolls in her pouch to crumby fragments, which she gobbled as fast as she could find them.
All at once the enormity of her adventure struck her, and she was torn between laughter and awe. To prove to herself that she’d actually done what she remembered, she crept cautiously to the bluff edge. The beach was completely underwater. The sandy wallow where the fire lizard eggs had baked was being tideswept smooth. The rubble that had gone over the edge with