Chap. 167 Shelter from the storm

Chap. 167 Shelter from the storm

Do you want me to go catch you another fish? Raventh asked, trying hard not to laugh. How could a smart creature like a human not know a 'fish left alone is a fish that has flown"?

No. I feel stupid, honestly. This will be a lesson for me. I didn't think. I just didn't think. So go ahead and laugh, it's just us.

Raventh snorted.

Besides, I probably wouldn't have liked it raw, anyway. I don't see a way to make a fire.

You can't eat it…what did you say, raw?

Raw. Meaning, uncooked. We humans like to burn our meat before we eat it. We don't have teeth like dragons, we have to soften it up before we can chew it.

Dragons can. We can even chew firestone.

But not anymore, and it's done you so much good. You don't need oiling anymore, for instance.

That IS good. It made me itch.

He decided to go into the forest on the ridge, hoping to find fruit.

He went in the same spot he'd entered to look for firewood, but as he progressed, the undergrowth grew so thick as to keep him from going any further. Of course, he'd not thought to bring a machete.

"Siskin. Look for fruit? In the jungle?"

Siskin flew down from his perch high up on the rocky pinnacle. He twisted his head sideways, wondering what K'ndar wanted.

K'ndar visualized several types of fruit-their colors and their shapes, without realizing that none of them would grow here in the tropics.

Siskin chipped and whirred into the jungle.

He was gone a very long time. K'ndar was beginning to worry when the blue fire lizard materialized, having gone between rather than fly all the way back.

His mindset was mournful.

"Nothing?"

He saw nothing, nothing like you visualized. But…

K'ndar 'saw' a picture of a winding pathway through the jungle.

A path!!

"How far from here, Siskin?"

That was too complex for the blue. But if it was there, he might be able to find it.

Perhaps you should wait. Look at the sky to the east Raventh said.

The eastern sky had turned a menacing indigo blue with dark, towering clouds reaching almost to the stars. I am an utter fool, he thought, I've neglected everything I ever learned about exploring. Can't build a fire, let a wherry snatch my lunch, didn't bring anything sharper than my knife, and I've totally neglected to always keep an eye on the weather. How many times did B'rant say it? "It rains every day in the tropics." By the egg, those clouds are ugly.

Rain is coming. High winds. It's coming fast

I don't have time to make a shelter!

Get into the cave

Right. It would take some time, climbing that pinnacle, but he judged he had it, if he started right now.

He shouldered his backpack, then saw his harness on the ground.

The harness. He couldn't let it get wet.

He started to roll it up, then realized it would probably impede his progress.

I will come down and cover it.

What?

I can't fit in that cave, it's too small. Siskin and you can.

Yes, but...

I don't mind being rained on. It's safer down there, on the beach, then up here. I don't want to get hit by lightning.

DUH.

"K'ndar, you are a total buffoon. The minute the rain passes, you're going home and re-enroll in Weyrling class," he said out loud.

Raventh dropped from his pinnacle perch to the bare beach and covered his harness. He tucked his forefeet under his chest, wrapped his tail alongside, and pressed his wings close to his sides. How like a cat he looked when he did that, K'ndar thought.


K'ndar scratched under Raventh's jaw, his heart swelling with love for his dragon. The dragon half closed his eyes in blue whirling bliss.

You deserve someone with more brains than I have.

Maybe. But you do give the best scritches. So I'll keep you

K'ndar laughed.

Siskin, after scouting the cave, seemed to be happy with it, so K'ndar began to climb.

The rocks were sharp edged, and overgrown with vegetation that was treacherously deceptive in its anchoring.

After two or three tries at using the plants as a handhold, only to have them tear loose, he resorted to using just the solid rocks as hand and footholds. Should have worn my riding gloves, he thought, but had he thought to bring those? Of course not…

After ten minutes of tediously slow climbing-or it seemed that way, as the wind was rising quickly-he was at the lip of the cave. He crawled in on his hands and knees, the rocky floor grinding into his knees.

The opening was no wider than his outstretched arms and barely higher than the top of his head. But it opened up into a room of a few meters in width and length, narrowing to a tiny opening on the other side of the pillar. Siskin greeted him with a chirp.

He stood up and looked out to sea. The opening faced east, parallel to the water's edge. He'd beat the oncoming storm by moments.

The wind came first, howling, pushing the lagoon's water far up the beach, almost, but not quite reaching Raventh.

Then the sky opened up with an earsplitting crack of thunder. He clapped his hands to his ears.It sounded as if it were right overhead. The rain came slashing down in sheets.

Lightning stabbed down to the sea.

He was very grateful to be in the cave. The storm wasn't as bad as the hurricane had been, but then, he'd been far inland. Still, it was exciting to watch the power of the storm.

The wind thrashed the palms, bending them to a degree that would have snapped a wood tree in half. How can a tree sustain such pressure? But the palms were pliant, submitting to rather than fighting the wind. Their slotted leaves allowed the wind to pass through, with only the dead ones being ripped off.

When the wind pushed the rain into the cave, he retreated.

A meter or two from the opening of the cave, the bare floor gave way to a carpet of seabird nests.

Circular piles of flattened beach grass, dried palm ribs and individual blades, and dried seaweed carpeted the entire cavern almost to his knees. Here and there were eggs that hadn't hatched, or the skull of a bird that had died while nesting. The skulls and bones of fish were everywhere. The few boulders that poked up from the carpet were heavily layered with guano. It was pretty rank in the cave, but it beat being out in the storm.

He pulled his backpack off and rummaged around in it for the dried meat he'd thought to bring with him. Well, at least I thought this far ahead, he thought. A sliver of rock, halfway up the vertical wall and too narrow for a seabird to perch on was relatively guano free. He sat down on it and munched as the storm raged outside. He was dry, but Raventh was out there in the tempest.

Are you okay?

I'm fine. Don't worry. This will pass quickly

It got dark in the cave, so he pulled a glow out of his pack and set it next to him.

It lit up the wall of the cave across from him.

He looked idly…and then looked closer.

There were marks on the wall, about the length of his hand.

His lunch forgotten, he got up to look closer.

They were close to the floor of the cave, almost buried by the nearest nests.

The marks were a line of grouped tick marks, in sets of seven. They'd been etched into the only smooth part of the cave's wall. They were obviously a calendar, scratched with a knife? a rock? Someone had been keeping track of the days he'd been in the cave. He counted the groups quickly and came up with five, for a total of 35 days.

Under them, near the juncture of wall and floor, he saw the tops of letters peeking  just above the top of a nest.

Using his boot to move the nest aside, he revealed them, scratched over and over to make them deep. 

Shipfish killed me

He stared for long moments, wondering at their import.

He stepped backwards and felt something roll underneath his boot. He moved his foot to keep from stepping on it.

Next to his boot, something white, but much larger than the bird skulls gleamed dully in the glow's light.

Knowing, somehow, what it was, he gingerly swept the rest of the nest aside.

It was a skull. Human.