Yarrow blinked, feeling her heartbeat increase. She bit her lip, and sent a message to B'nick. Do you know of any dragonriders who are – dragonless?
You're all right? was the instant reply. We've been worried.
She let him know what had happened in the past two days – carefully. The reply was what she figured; stunned silence.
Then, slowly, there've been a couple riders missing. . . K'drin is the one we are not absolutely certain of. Brownrider. Uh. . . but he wouldn't do anything. . . Yarrow could sense a little mistrust there, that she didn't normally get from dragonriders. But, she also knew that they could be a very catty bunch, under the right circumstances.
I didn't mention that he'd done anything, B'nick, she pointed out. Though, she couldn't get the image of Petia reappearing – with the dragonrider – at the questionable Hold that Brevis had now. Well, maybe I sort of did, I guess.
It is an offense, replied Visigoth forcibly. He sounded troubled, more so than his rider did. No dragon in his right mind would allow his rider to do something of this sort!
Yarrow thought about those words, as she went up into the Hold and met Brevis, giving the excuse that she'd been figuring on something. For once her reputation for being the quiet, thoughtful type of person was useful, instead of a hindrance.
Petia of course was not to be seen. Yarrow didn't mention what she'd seen at all during breakfast, instead making small talk about the weather and praising Brevis again for his ingeniousness in the face of disaster to his Hold. But the whole time she was thinking, is it better to go back to Besic at Southern or stay here with Petia and some rogue ex-dragonrider ? She sighed; no ideas on that front. She did know, though, that her two-day sojourn at Brevis's Hold, if continued, would raise questions with the quick-thinking Besic. "I should return," she signed to the young Lord Holder.
He just nodded. "What do you need?"
"A little foodstuffs," she replied.
"A little" was what she'd expected; not the giant amount her lover decided to pile on her, plus a runnerbeast to carry the stuffs. "I'd escort you myself, but I need to get something done here," he signed to her, looking regretful. "I'll send Mason with you. He's trustworthy, it'll be all right." There was something odd about the man's words, Yarrow thought. He kissed her goodbye as if he didn't expect to see her again, and that put her more on her guard.
The ex-dragonrider moved at a pretty good pace for an injured man. He didn't seem to care about slag pits or insects, just charged through the brush at a clip, slashing at whatever was in his way like nothing mattered. Yarrow wondered if that was what all people were like if they lost their dragons. It must be a horrible fate, to live on after your dragon dies, she thought sadly. Still, she was panting before very long.
She finally had to grab Mason's shoulder and make him face her. "Rest. NOW. I need to rest, "she signed, pointing at her chest.
The answer surprised her. He threw back his head and laughed. And when he looked back at her, his eyes – they were glittering, not with anger but with something else. "You want to rest, eh?" he sneered. "Hear that, Yagoth, she wants to rest!"
Yarrow whirled, expecting to see a dragon, or even a firelizard, but there was nothing with them. When she turned back, Mason was patting the air, giving it scritches or something. She blinked, feeling blood drain from her face. Must be strong, she thought forcibly. "Um – yes, rest."
He spat at her, then. "No, Yagoth says we shouldn't rest," he informed her. "And he's never wrong about things, you know." He grabbed her hand and they kept moving, through the heat and the brush and insects. They passed through the areas that were extremely difficult to breathe in, because of smoke, and they went over rocks that Mason kept trying to go through, because "Yagoth says we can go through rocks – dragons have a number of skills that the older riders didn't know about, you know." This way, she got a lot of bruises and skinned knees. Her hand hurt from a cut she'd gotten in the brush.
After awhile, it was obvious to Yarrow that she wasn't being led in the right direction. "We are going the wrong way," she tried to sign to Mason once, but she didn't manage to get much through to him. The runnerbeast was thankfully a rugged sort, and didn't seem much to mind where they were headed. The imaginary dragon or whatever it was, on the other hand, had its own agenda, it seemed.
"We are going to go back to the Weyr, and apologize for it," he said, those eyes flashing at her and at the same time welling up with tears. The unstable man clearly had something on his mind.
"For what?" Maybe she could get him to talk, maybe that would help some.
He laughed again. "You don't know. Nobody knows, of course! Except me and Yagoth here." He tenderly nuzzled a patch of air. "Oh yes, we know what we did. And YOU, you won't stop us from apologizing for it!"
"No, no I won't," she indicated firmly, by shaking her head. Then she got a great idea. "I am representative of your Weyr, you know." She indicated his Weyr by the sign for it: pointing to the knot on his shoulder. B'nick's Weyr, she knew.
Mason blinked. But then he nodded. "Sorry, Lady Rider, it must be the heat. I didn't recognize you at first."
She put a consoling hand on his arm. "Tell me," she urged. Part of her was terrified; this man was very confused, very erratic – probably more so than Brevis had even thought, whatever his plan's had originally been. She put that out of her mind for the moment. "Tell me what happened."
Mason burst into tears then, sinking to the ground. Oh good, some rest, she thought, as the man sobbed.
"We killed Toric!" he wailed, looking right at her, his eyes wide and terrified, his pock-marked, burned face horrible to see. "Besic – the young Lord, he said the lord was getting cold feet about the Abominators, didn't want to make the final push against the Halls. . . I went to talk to him, and we fought about it. . . " That seemed likely. Toric's temper was pretty legendary. The ex-dragonrider leaned closer to Yarrow and she had to steel herself not to balk. "He called his dogs, tried to run me off the place – what was I supposed to do?" His voice was obviously canting lower and lower, and for once in her life Yarrow was thankful she couldn't hear. "He called his dogs on me," he repeated, moving his lips very little, but she understood well enough. His voice went up again, and she could read better. The heat swirling around them seemed to be more intense by the minute. "They attacked me, when I hit him – and then it was all smoke and flame. . . ."
Yarrow blinked, horrified. Such a thing had never happened on Pern before, not to anybody's knowledge.
He grabbed her arm, making her look at him, pulling her in. There was a pleading look on his face. "Please – he was just defending me, he didn't realize anything else was going to happen, he was just defending me! I didn't tell him to kill Toric, I was just trying to make the lord listen. . . ."
Yarrow's mind felt numb. A thousand thoughts were running around inside that didn't fully connect. She wanted to cut and run from this frightening man, who'd actually managed to make a dragon kill someone – no, wait, his dragon had to have been a little screwed up to be able to do that, she realized. M'sun, M'sun.
Besic.
Yarrow suddenly realized the quick-minded young lord had known very well that M'sun was someone who'd fight with Toric. Besic was slimy, but no fool – he was probably thrilled at the outcome of the whole matter, she thought blankly. Shocked. Besic had been responsible for the death of his own father.
She gulped, seeing that the ex-dragonrider was still clutching her arm and staring at her intently. "Well, this is good," she tried to convey. "We should – return to the Weyr."
"All right, but Yagoth's injured, I'm afraid, so we have to walk," was his prompt reply.
B'nick? She sent.
The instant reply was blinding rage, and confusion.
He's been through a lot, she sent firmly, trying to cut through the emotion. Before more people were hurt by this. He was not to blame, it seems – I don't actually feel any malice from him. Whatever he was once is very much covered in years of guilt and pain.
To kill. . . Visigoth seemed as rattled as his rider.
Please, be gentle with him when he comes. I don't want to scare him by getting dragons to come pick us up.
He will know the way to his Weyr. And that was all B'nick would send.
Yarrow hoped so.