Minket screamed and flailed, finally collapsing into a weeping pile in the arms of one of the black uniformed Guard, bustled off to safety. Minket away Fulsa organized the rest of the Guard to find her scattered brood, and getting them to their greiving mother. Peripherally she noticed a dragonrider, kneeling next to the dying Lord Holder, tears streaming down his face, holding the man's hand. Kestle's lips moved and the dragonrider bent close, listening intently. In the back of her mind Telgarsk wailed a split second before keening aloud, a keening echoed by Namusk and every other lizard kin in attendance.
In the infirmery, Namul groaned and cursed ineffectually in the darkness. He was bed bound, his left side from the hip down crushed when the runner was bowled over by the wher's bellow. The worthy beast broke both forelegs in the fall, and had to be put down, but Minket had asked for the creature's hide once tanned, planning to honor the runner with having it prominately displayed in the Great Hall.
Namul had been dozing when Namusk flooded his mind with images she must have gleaned from the green fire lizards and Fulsa. Kestle was dead. He didn't need to hear the wher-keen to know the gut wretching saddness at the Lord Holder's passing, both watchwhers had a fondness for the Lord Holder that went beyond merely considering him part of their territory. Tears spotted his pillow. All of Pern lost with Kestle's death.
Mebeckle's frown deepened. None of the people he was chasing, all youths, were running towards the Hold gate. His frown turned to a curse when the three split up, and after an agonized moment, he followed the one running into the hold proper.
In the depths of his anguish Namul had managed to sit up, and fumbled for the water pitcher when he heard the lock on the door click. He froze, for the only people with a key to his room were the Hold healer and his assitant, and both of those, he knew both were with the body of the Lord Holder. A girl, maybe ten turns old, stepped in, a naked blade in her hands.
"Namul of the Guard?" Her voice was soft, but contorted with rage. "My pa died because of you." She raised her sword.
"Don't-!"
Mebeckle paused, and looked up and down the hall, uncertain where the girl had gotten off to, when a man's shout had him racing to the right hand passage. There where two more shouts, one a shriek of pain and rage, suddenly cut off, and the unmistakable bellow of a watchwher. He skidded to a stop, and half stumbled back from the open door way of the infirmary, the floor slick with blood, and the girl he had been chasing torn nearly in half. Namusk snarled and snapped at him, eyes as red as the blood on her muzzle and claws. The quiet analytical corner of his brain that was untouched by the sight of the gruesomely evicirated child recognized that the only thing that saved him from the girl's grisly fate was that the thrashing watchwher couldn't fit her shoulders past the doorsill.
"Namusk! Stop! Namusk you wherry neck, tunnel snake scaled lard butt CALM DOWN!" Namul pummeled his green's hanch until she turned and looked at him over her shoulder at him. She hissed softly, returning her attention back to the Farmer.
"Fold your great bloody wings!" Namul snapped back at her in exasperation, and rumbling ominously the wher complied. "Identify yourself." Namul called, keeping one hand on the green's haunch, the wher half laying on the infirmary bed, from cramped quarters.
"Mebeckle of Cliffside" The Farmer replied phlegmatically, ignoring the sickening scent of life's blood.
"Mebeckle..." Namul cast about for a moment, then remembered the hatching at Telgar. "Calm down, Namusk! That's the Weyrleader's brother." He thumped her again, and she snorted, backing up to curl possessively around the handler, the infirmary bed creaking warningly as she shifted half of her weight onto it.
"Welmet and apologies, Master Farmer." Namul rallied tiredly, consigning himself to the green's jealous possesion. "Is there any chance she's still alive?"
"No. Would this sword have anything to do with why your lady attacked her?" Mebeckle knew better than to pick up the sword. Just because the watchwher's eyes had faded to yellow shot with orange didn't mean that she wouldn't find a way to end him if she thought he was continuing the attack on her bondmate.
"Shards. Yes, Namusk stopped her from making me into a sheath." He reached up and rubbed the green behind the earhole, which she permitted, the orange fading from those lantern eyes.
"Fardles. Those other two might be assasins as well." Mebeckle grimaced, wishing he'd followed on of the others.
"Other two?" Namul struggled to sit up straighter and Namusk helpfully propped him against her neck.
"Yes. There were three that ran away from the Lord Holder when he was attacked. I followed." Mebeckle explained, toeing the body to one side.
"Did you see where they went?" Namul asked, urgency coloring his tone.
"One to the stable the other to the drumheights. May I take this blanket?" He pointed to a folded linen just inside the door. Namul nodded, and Namusk staid very still, although her eyes never left Mebeckle as he reached in and withdrew the blanket, to cover the the remains of the girl with.
"Who's in the drumheights?" Namul asked his green, who took a moment before she shook her head, indicating it wasn't anyone she was familiar with. "What about the stables?" This time she showed him three images, two stable hands he vaguely knew and Fulmar.
"Fulmar! Warn Fulsa!"
Fulsa jerked to one side, eyes wide as she darted towards the stable. She was maybe a quarter of the way there when she was tackled to the ground as a dragon bellowed from the heights. Breath knocked out of her she twisted about to scream at her attacker, and saw the dragonrider that had held Kestle looking past her grimly, an arrow buried in the soil where she would have been had he not knocked her down. Wings beating rapidly a blue dragon clung to the drumtower, his head half in the gazebo like construction, trying to tug a bow out of the hands of a young man, who was shouting defiantly at him. There was a moment of further pulling, then the bow splintered into three pieces, and the youth tumbled back, and over the edge of the tower. The dragon made two desperate attempts to catch him, but his body hit the hard packed soil at the bottom of the tower with a sickening thud.
"Ho-how-?" Fulsa asked the dragonrider as Telgarsk raged in her mind - Fulmar had been attacked and injured, but had stopped the would be assassin without any assistance.
"Escath saw him draw down on you." The dragonrider, who looked strangely familiar replied in a thick voice - a greiving voice she corrected herself. He wore Igen colors, she would recall later, and helped her up. "I'm sorry Whermistress, there wasn't time." There was a funny hitch in his voice when he said the last word, but she chose to ignore it. "Tell Mo- Minket he asked her to see the end of the pass for him, and- and-" he pinched the brow of his nose, as if reciting the man's lasts words were physically painful for him. "He said 'I had hoped to see those clear skys with her.'" He managed with a deep sigh, his dragon coming to land gently by the fallen boy. "I'm sorry, I have to return to my Weyr." He mumbled, turning to his blue, tears dripping off his face. For one breif second he looked so much like a painting of a much younger Kestle the hung in the Lady Holder's private quarters that Fulsa nearly asked if the bluerider, easily in his thirties, if Kestle was his father. Instead she merely nodded and asked for his name.
"K'in of Escath." He replied, before mounting at a run. Blue Escath glanced once at her and nodded, before launching skyward.
Up in the Weyr B'ton leapt into action, ordering every dragon able to put to flight to meet him above the gates of Telgar. This was more than a show of force, once in the air he was organizing the Wings into separate groups, most conducting searches of the lands around the main hold, the liaison blues and greens ordered to speak to the holdings - to spread the dire news and seek any information on Redell's whereabouts. This time, he vowed, there would be no escape for the murderer.
If you see an spelling or grammatical errors, let me know. Thank you!