Chap 15 Barracks discussions

Chap. 15 Barracks discussions

K'ndar was relaxing in the barracks room he shared with B'rost. He was singing a teaching song and braiding horse tail into a choker at the same time. It was raining, and while he didn't mind being out in it, he was glad he wasn't.

B'rost came up, a cup of klah in his hands. 

"Whatcha' making?"

"A horsetail choker, like the one I'm wearing."

B'rost looked closer. "I noticed it some time ago, never thought to ask. That looks difficult."

K'ndar glanced down at his hands. 

"It's not, really, but the funny thing is, is if I TRY to do it, or I'm trying to do a new braid, my fingers get stupid. Like now…I have to stop and think what did I just do?  If I ignore them, they do the work and I can think of other things. You only brought one cup of klah?"

B'rost bridled. "I'm not a drudge, you know. Sorry. I kinda didn't think," he apologized.

"That's okay, I was just teasing you. I'm not thirsty right now anyway. So…now that we've been here with our dragons for a few weeks, what do you think?"

"That I'm lucky to be here, lucky to have the world's best dragon, " his eyes softened at the thought of his blue dragon, "'and that it took me a few days to get used to this place but I really like it." He stretched out on his bunk. "This, and not having to share a room with a dozen other people, especially my father who snores so loud the ground shakes."

K'ndar laughed. His fingers resumed braiding, smoothing the wiry hairs, making sure they were straight and neat. 

"They tell me that dragons snore. I haven't heard Raventh do it yet," he said. B'rost's blue was on the other side of the room, both dragons curled up on their stone couches.

A crack of thunder interrupted them. "I sure am glad I'm not out in that," B'rost said. 

"Me, too, and until I got here, I never appreciated how wonderful rain can be. Rain means not having to fly at thread." K'ndar said. Then he continued on a subject that had been worrying him for a while.

"They keep telling us that the year after we graduate will be the last for Thread, so we need to start learning a skill or a trade." He put down the choker, setting a rock atop it so it wouldn't unravel, and continued, "I know how to do a lot of things, like build rock shelters, or cook, or handle livestock. I know how to deliver a foal or a calf. I've never delivered a baby, but after foals, how different can it be?"

B'rost pounced. "Your mum had a foal?" he shrieked in laughter.

K'ndar caught the boy and wrestled with him, laughing, too.

"You wherry, my mum will skin you when I tell her what you said."

They separated, still laughing.

"I think the reason they send us to do tasks in the afternoon is to teach us different things. I've learned a lot more skills in the short time I've been here.  The woodshop I really liked a lot, but I sure know that I don't want to be a latrine cleaner ever again," K'ndar said, evoking a sputtering laugh from B'rost. 

"I helped make numbweed. I think I'd prefer the latrines," B'rost said, "I don't know how those women stand it."

"But I also don't have any idea what to do, the things I can do are things everyone knows how to do. Except cheese…don't know how that's made," K'ndar said.

"Well, I sure don't want to go back to cheese making. It's boring. I don't know, either, what to do for a skill. I don't want to do just some craft that keeps me inside. I want …well, I want to…explore. Does that make sense? This continent is huge. I've heard it's only partly mapped. I've never done any wandering, but..I'll have a dragon. I'll have the freedom. I'll just need a place to sleep, and eat, like I do now."

K'ndar let the idea of exploring wander in his mind. He liked that idea. Having grown up on the steppe just the other side of the Southern Range, he'd done some exploring, but he knew the steppe went on for days. For now, only wildlife lived on them, and vast herds of cattle and horses.

"Have you ever seen the steppe?"

"No. I'm not even sure why this place is called Kahrain STEPPE Weyr," B'rost said, "when there's no steppe. It's right next to the sea."

"It starts just the other side of these mountains. This weyr is part of what we call the front range. I grew up just on the other side of them. The steppe is one big grassland. Once you're past the mountains, it's flat, like the sea, but without much water, very few trees. Perfect for herdbeasts. I think we'd have fun."

"We?"

"Okay, me. And Raventh. With an entire continent to wander."

"You'll need maps. You'll need to know how to navigate. I bet there's no dragonstones out there."

"There are no maps for most of it. So I'll need to know how to make maps. I know how to navigate by the stars. I know how to live off the land, although it gets slim eating out there. I need to think this stuff through. I don't even know what a map maker is called. Or if there are books telling you what to do and how."

B'rost considered it. "Y'know, I kind of like that idea, too. I'm too small to do metalsmithing, I haven't worked in the carpenter shop but I would be afraid of cutting my fingers off. I don't know how to handle any livestock other than milk cows. Milk cows are nothing but work. Milk them day and night, clean up their dung,  process the milk, make cheese, milk the cows milk the cows. Blehhhh, it gets old in a hurry."

"No milk cows on the steppe. Just meat animals. They can be tough. I mean, hard to handle. They're pretty smart at taking care of themselves. It can get cold on the steppe, and the thunderstorms can be scary," K'ndar said, pondering the possibilities. "Being caught out in one is scary as shards."

"You're afraid of thunder?" B'rost asked, incredulous.

"Shards, no. It's just noise. It's the lightning that's scary."

"Isn't it just flash and bang?"

"Oh, NO. It's dangerous. I don't know why, but lightning likes to go for anything that's tall. Meaning, if you are out there and you're the tallest, highest point, you might get struck.  I've seen bulls get struck by lightning because their horns were the highest point in the herd. And it's why, even if it's a long walk home, if a storm brews up suddenlike,  you get off your horse and just hope you don’t get hit. It's also the reason I like a small horse, like Jordan. He's shorter then most horses."

"That IS scary," B'rost said.

 That, and…it can be dangerous, alone out there. The big cats, the wild herds, the tunnel snakes that don't live in tunnels and get BIG. But mostly the possibility of getting lost, and no one knowing where you went. If you don't trust your horse, or you're on foot, You can get confused and start wandering in circles, because everything looks the same."

"K'ndar, stop thinking of it in terms of riding a horse. You'll be on a DRAGON. Right?"

"Huh. You're right. Raventh…."

"They know where they are. I don't think I ever heard of one getting lost." B'rost finished his klah and put the mug down. "Besides, if the steppe is that empty, why bother?"

"Well, it is important to know where water sources are."

"But still. What I would be interested in is mapping and exploring the Western Continent," he said, "I hear they're talking about putting an ''observatory'' on the continent, with a far seer, I mean a telescope, to watch the stars."

"Why watch the stars?"

"Where did the fireball come from?" B'rost said, almost harshly.

K'ndar remembered THAT day. There'd been long white streaks in the sky, not  the small meteorites that they called "ghosts", but long streamers that stretched for kilometers from sky to land. Than a BOOM! that shook the world. It had been so loud it had been heard all over Pern. Landing in the ocean, it had killed millions of fish and worst of all, had sent tsunamis completely around the planet. He knew, too, that this very weyr had been destroyed by the resulting tsunamis, though no one had been hurt. That was due to the weyrs throughout Pern, coming to warn people living in seaside holds and halls and move them to higher ground. Living behind a protective range of mountains, he'd not seen what must have been a most frightening phenomenon: giant walls of water, higher than the ridge of the bowl, smashing into the weyr.  There'd been FIVE of the giant waves.

Other than the frightened livestock, his family cothold had been unaffected-if you discounted homeless refugees.  The family they'd hosted for a week told stories about the sea, (something he'd never seen at the time) rising up "to the sky" and destroying everything.  At the time he'd discounted it, but now…seeing the water line on the rock wall of the weyr not a meter from the top, and knowing, now, why his friend Lindea, had warned to 'never turn your back on the ocean', he believed. 

The most sobering remnant of the tsunami was not far from the barracks. A kilometer in from the edge of the sea was a giant tree trunk, that had been ripped from somewhere else INLAND, and dropped atop the weyr's cliff. It was bigger around than the largest bronze dragon. 

HOW had it been done? How could a rock falling into the ocean cause such damage?

"So now they're hoping that if another fireball comes, there will be advance notice, there might be some way to lessen the damage. Some people are saying that dragonriders should be the ones to flame it out of the sky."

"That's nonsense! It was a rock! Not thread, and even if I haven't even flown against it, I know what Thread is."

"Well, I agree, but I don't know how they intend to do it. That's what they want to study the stars for, to learn."

He thought, hard. He had no idea what the name of such a skill was, but if he asked the harper, he'd probably find out. That, and hopefully, Aivas had a book to teach him.

I like this idea. A lot. 

What idea is that?

What you and I will do after there is no more Thread.

Eat. Sleep. Hunt. Fly. Meet dolphins.

Is that what you want?

I want to meet a dolphin. 

We might be able to do that sooner than next year.

That would be fun.

K'ndar stopped, entranced. THAT, TOO, was something he wanted to do! Meet dolphins, maybe go to sea, learn how to pilot ship...

Maybe there was too much that he wanted to do after Thread was gone, instead of not enough!

"The problem, I’m beginning to see, is where to start!" he said.