Dragon's Fire

CHAPTER I Sent from hold, sent from craft, Whether old, whether daft. Shunned for good into the wild Father, mother, baby child. Harper Hall, Second Interval, After Landing (AL) 490.3 He's still waving, isn't he?" Master Zist called back for the third time. He sat at the front of the wagon as it slowly drew away from the Harper Hall. The last of the winter snow covered the fields on either side of the track. Every now and then the wagon skidded as the workbeast lost his footing on the hard-packed icy snow and struggled to regain it. "Yes, he is," Cayla agreed, looking back out of the brightly painted wagon at the small figure slowly diminishing in the distance. "We couldn't bring him," Zist said regretfully. "He'd be too obvious." At least, Zist thought to himself, the lad was taking it better than he had when they'd first told him their plans. Pellar had thrown a silent tantrum, had sprawled on the ground in the Harper Hall's courtyard, feet and fists hitting the ground in his outrage. He stopped only when Carissa had started howling in sympathy with him. "She's crying for me, isn't she?" he scrawled quickly on the slate that was never far from his hands. "Yes, I suppose she is," Cayla answered. Pellar swiftly rubbed his slate clean and scrawled a new comment on it, thrusting it under Zist's eyes. "Are you taking her?" "We have to, she's still nursing." "We want to know that you're safe, here," Cayla added. "Aren't I part of your family?" Pellar scrawled in response, tears streaming down his face. "Of course you are!" Zist declared vociferously. "And we need you, as a member of our family, to stay here out of trouble." "You are always part of our family, Pellar," Cayla said firmly. "You've been part of our family since we first found you, ten Turns ago," Zist told him. "Then why can't I come?" Pellar scrawled on his slate, his mouth working soundlessly in emphasis. "Because we don't know who abandoned you," Zist told him, catching Pellar's chin in his hand and forcing the youngster to meet his eyes. "It could be some who were Shunned. If you come with us and they see you, they'll know that we're not Shunned." "You could get in trouble then?" Pellar wrote. Zist nodded. Pellar chewed his lip miserably, shoulders shaking so hard with his unvoiced sobs that he could barely wipe his slate to write a new message. "I'll stay. No trouble for you." Cayla read the note, thrust baby Carissa into Zist's arms, and grabbed Pellar into a firm and fierce hug. "That's my boy," she said proudly, kissing the top of his head. "I'll be here when you get back," Pellar wrote. "I promise you'll be the first to hear us return," Zist swore, freeing a hand to clap the boy on the back. "He's stopped waving," Cayla reported. "Oh, dear! His shoulders are all slumped and he looks so sad." Zist blew out a misty breath and pulled on the reins controlling theMcCaffrey, Anne is the author of 'Dragon's Fire', published 2006 under ISBN 9780345480286 and ISBN 0345480287.