Benden Weyr’s peak grew to dominate the horizon, serene and invulnerable with its high steep sides. The bigger it got, the faster Jayge urged Kesso, and the longer he traveled each day. He was up at dawn on what he judged to be the last morning on the track, when he saw the unmistakable bloom of a fire being stoked up on a ledge across the river. He was instantly alert.
Studying his map again, Jayge saw that his campsite was not the only cave in the immediate vicinity. Could Thella have come over the mountains directly? Without bothering with her informants in Igen low caverns? And who had killed old Brare? He told himself that the fire could well have been made by a herdsman, checking on his flocks, but he felt compelled to take a look. Aramina was in Benden Weyr, and if Thella was outside it, the dragonriders should know.
He tied Kesso up again, gathered some dry grasses to keep the runner occupied, and after testing the edges of his daggers, he made his way in the dawn-dark down to the river. A bridge, somewhat rickety and probably dating from the time the Lord Holders had attempted to storm Benden Weyr, provided him with a quick, dry, and quiet crossing. He caught sight not of the fire itself but of its glow on the rock face that sheltered it from the northeast. There was light enough now in the sky for him to pick a careful route. He soon crossed a narrow, twisting path and nearly slipped on some herdbeast dung. Judging that the faint path was safer than a more direct line, he followed it, climbing to a point higher than the spot from which he had seen the fire. Then he left the trace, parting the scraggly bushes with a care to thorns and stiff branches, and crept ahead a step at a time.
He heard their voices—two men, and a voice he recognized as Thella’s. He could distinguish no words, nor could he get any closer, as the steep ridge before him was too smooth to be climbed and he could not see a way around it in the semidark.
Hunkered down, he waited—until suddenly he realized that the voices had stopped. He moved as quickly as he could in the growing light, but when he reached his objective, the only evidence that anyone had been there was the warmth of the stone where the fire had been, and a few fragments of charcoal. The interior of the small cave was clean—far too clean, Jayge realized. He could see the river below him, and not a sign of travelers. Could his quarry have gone west, up and over the hill, and down to another concealed spot?
Just as Jayge craned his neck to examine the slope above him, he caught sight of dragons emerging from the crater mouth of Benden Weyr, soaring majestically into the sky as if welcoming the sun’s rising with their own. His first encounter with a dragonrider had given him a warped opinion of them, but that had been tempered gradually as he met others when working ground crew. He had heard the high opinion in which Benden riders were held, and had actually ridden Heth to Thella’s hideout. The early morning flight before him was so beautiful that his whole perception of dragons and riders altered completely.
Absorbed in that beauty, Jayge gave no thought to the possibility of his being discovered there. He watched until they had either returned to the Weyr or winked out between, an ability that the young trader found frightening even after surviving a demonstration of it on Heth. Then it occurred to him to wonder why the dragons, known to be long-sighted, had not reacted to his presence, sprawled there as he was across the rock face. They had not seemed to be alert at all. True, he had not moved, but surely Thella and her companions were on the move! Were the dragons even watching out for her? Clearly not. Those dragonriders were so secure in their bloody Weyr, they did not bother to keep sentries, he thought in disgust. And what was to keep Thella from brazening her way right into the Weyr and making off with Aramina?
Jayge took the fastest way down, racing across the bridge and back to the cave, hoping that a dragon would appear to bar his way, his rider demanding to know who he was and the nature of his errand. But no one stopped him, and Jayge tightened Kesso’s girth with unusual violence. Vaulting to the saddle, he had the gelding galloping at full stretch up the valley to the tunnel that was the only surface entrance to Benden Weyr.
There he met with resistance. And while he was somewhat reassured by the evidence that not everyone could enter the tunnel, he was irritated at the way his concise statement of danger to Aramina by Thella’s covert presence in the valley was questioned by every member of the guard, none of them dragonriders and all of them taking far too long looking over his warranty. Then his sketch of Readis, which he accidentally dislodged from his chest pocket in his haste to show his warranty, was picked up by one of the guards.
“This guy was here yesterday. Kin of yours?” Jayge was paralyzed for a moment with shock. “He’s in Benden?”
“Why should he be? He only wanted to deliver a packet of letters to Aramina, and she’s in Benden Hold.”
“And you told him that? You smokeless weyrling, you consummate dimwit.” Jayge was primed to elaborate on the antecedents of all six guards when the oldest man suddenly held his spearpoint right against Jayge’s throat.
“State your business.” The spearman pricked the sharp point encouragingly.
Jayge swallowed both ire and insolence and, raising his hand, moved the point away from his neck, all the while staring back at the hard-eyed guard. “I must see K’van, Heth’s rider, immediately,” he said more reasonably. He kept his tone urgent. “Thella was camped last night in the valley. I heard her this morning. And if she knows Aramina’s at Benden Hold, the girl is in grave danger.”
The spearman gave him a faint reassuring grin. “Someone who hears dragons has all the protection she needs. But if that raider female is in the vicinity, Lessa will wish to hear all about it. Ride through. I’ll inform them you’re coming.”
Kesso did not like the tunnel despite the glows that illuminated it at frequent intervals. He sidled, spooked, and twitched his ears constantly at the echoes of his own rattling hooves. When he stumbled on the ruts made in the floor by hundreds of Turns of cart wheels, Jayge kicked him smartly to make him pay attention. Finally they came to a second, inner gate, whose guards waved him on through into a vast, high-ceilinged area furnished with platforms of varying heights for the unloading of any sized wagon or cart. From there Jayge was directed to a second, longer tunnel, its far end a mere circle of brightness. He trotted Kesso, disliking the sensation of being enclosed in rock. He kept hearing noises that reminded him a shade too much of the avalanche in Telgar, and he resisted the urge to gallop Kesso out of the place.
Then he was out in the Bowl of Benden and gawking like the most ignorant back-of-the-hill hold apprentice. The immense crater was an imperfect oval—actually two coalescing craters, rather than a single one. The irregular sides loomed high and were dotted with the dark mouths of individual weyrs. Many of the protruding ledges already held dragons lolling in the sunlight. One whiff of the dragons’ scent, and Kesso threw his head up until Jayge could see the whites of his frantic eyes.
A youngster came trotting up to him. “If you’ll come with me, Trader Lilcamp, you can put your runner where the dragons won’t scare him.” The boy pointed to his right. “The blackrock bunker’s not too full right now, so there’s enough space. I’ll get him some water and hay.”
Jayge had his hands full with the beast’s terrified behavior, and by the time they got safely inside, Kesso was lathered with sweat. Fortunately the acrid dusty smell of the blackrock masked dragonspoor, and Kesso, his fright forgotten, was glad to slake his thirst in the water pail. After checking that the hay was of good quality, Jayge left him to it.