The Master Harper of Pern

Distant shouts and a thundering sound made Robinton look back at the dreadful carnage. The fields were being emptied of their ru

They got the best speed possible out of their exhausted mounts on their way to the nearest of Groghe's border checks, where they roused the startled guards and told them to light the beacons to spread the alarm. Then they changed to fresh mounts and sped back towards Fort Hold. There, while Nip charged up the stairs to the Drum Tower, Robinton banged on Groghe's door, rousing not only the Lord Holder but the entire corridor.

"Fax has invaded Ruatha Hold," Robinton said, leaning against the door post to get breath enough to speak. The drums began to roll out their dreadful message. Nip hadn't lost his touch with a drumstick.

"What?" Groghe stared unbelieving at the MasterHarper. "He can't have."

"He has – and killed them all, even the children. I saw their bodies. I've warned your border men. The beacons are lit."

"Oh, Master Robinton, you look awful," Groghe's wife said, guiding the Harper to the nearest chair and sensibly getting him a cup of wine. "You don't mean to tell me dear Lady Adessa's dead, as well. Surely--' She broke off, seeing the answer in the bleakness of his expression. "Oh, how terrible! How simply terrible! You're right to fear that man, Groghe."

"I don't fear him, Benoria, I despise him!" Groghe unbuckled his belt and threaded a hefty dagger on to it before he girded himself again.

"Oh, don't, don't, Groghe!" she cried.

"I've got my eyes well and truly open about Fax, m'dear, and hiding from him is not an option!"

"There's nothing you can do, Groghe," Robinton said, shaking his head. "By the time you can get there, he'll have completed his looting and be on his way back to Nabol."

"Well, then, the guards he'll have left at Ruatha shall see me and my men lining the border, MasterHarper, and know that they may not encroach on my lands."

"I'll rouse the Hall. You'll need as many men as you can muster," Robinton said.

"Not you, though," Groghe told him.

Down the hall came Grodon, the current Ford Hold harper, already armed.

"Good lad," Robinton said, catching him by the arm. "Go to the Hall. I want every journeyman and apprentice, anyone who can ride and carry a sword, to mount and go with Groghe. If anyone challenges this order ..." He could not continue.

Grodon gripped his shoulder. "No one will unless they're too deaf to have heard the drums."

"Good man." And Robinton watched him clattering down the hallway.

Groghe was banging on doors to speed up the mustering, and the place was alive with armed men and anxious women. Robinton laid his head against the back of the chair, his eyes drooping.

"Here." Lady Benoria held up the limp hand in which he still held the cup. She filled it again, tears of distress marking her face.

"Are you sure ... about the ... children?"

He nodded. He would never forget those lifeless little bodies. How could Fax possibly claim Ruatha too? Ah, and his heart sank: Lady Gemma.

"Are you hurt?" Lady Benoria exclaimed, touching his arm in anxiety.

He laid one hand on his heart, a dramatic gesture perhaps, but it certainly expressed the coldness which had seized him at the core of his being.

"You should rest," she said. "I am," he had the strength to say, and she went away and let him close his eyes.

Silvina shook him awake. She and Oldive saw him down the stairs of Fort Hold and across what seemed an awfully wide court to the Harper Hall and his bed. Sebell appeared, holding up a glow-basket to light their way up the stairs.

"Nip?" he asked as Silvina and the lad pulled off his boots.

"Took another mount and was gone. Looked like death warmed over," Oldive told him.

"I made up some food for him," Sebell said.

"Good lad!" said Robinton, grateful once more for Sebell's adroit assistance. He wondered where Nip would have gone and why, but it was too much to think about and, as he laid his head down, he realized that his cheeks were wet. The last thing he knew, Silvina was covering him with the fur. As if anything would ever cover over the memory of that early morning scene in Ruatha Hold!

Fax had the country thoroughly stirred up. The major western Lord Holders, resolute Oterel, Tarathel, Groghe and Lord Sangel of South Boll, made an orderly march to Nabol to meet the gri

In the cramped main Hall of Nabol, Fax, surrounded by contemptuous soldiery, listened to what they said and then told them that if they were not out of his Hold by nightfall, he would order them all slaughtered for trespass.

No one doubted that he would implement that threat.

"You are not Lord Holder of Nabol or Crom or Ruatha by any right, other than that of conquest," Tarathel said, stiff with outrage but impressive with dignity. "You will usurp no more lands without full contest at arms."

Fax smirked, glancing at the gri

At a signal, his men began to advance on the group of Lord Holders and Harpers.

"Careful, you at the door," Fax said, raising his voice. "Don't want you trampled in the rush!"

Tarathel looked about to burst, Groghe was livid with rage, Oterel dead white. With stately dignity they turned smartly about and walked in a measured tread out of the Hall, down the steps and across the narrow courtyard to their waiting mounts. If the ru

Once there, the Lord Holders made their way back to Fort Hold. Aware that they were being followed – and that they were meant to know they were being followed – they stopped only to rest and water their mounts and eat travel rations from their saddles, both grateful and furious that they had no opportunity to vent their bottled-up emotions until they were back on safe lands.

What Robinton noticed, to keep his sanity, was the difference in the very atmosphere as soon as they had forded the Red River.

Even the ru

There, at last, they could give vent to their repressed feelings and argue that they should have come in force, with enough men to show Fax that they meant business about meeting any further aggression with equal force and its defeat.

Robinton, food and drink in his hands, could no longer listen to such useless ranting and wandered off far enough to avoid hearing a recapitulation of what ought to have been said, or done, or implied, or threatened. He felt that, considering the large contingent of armed men which Fax had around him, they had been lucky indeed not to be harmed – except in pride and dignity. Such a delegation had been futile from the outset and only let them in for ridicule, but some show of protest had to be made! That much he knew. If only R'gul had been willing to let them ride dragons to Nabol, their retreat would not have proved such a mortification of their intent. But R'gul had denied them the convenience of dragons, saying he knew only too well what Fax's opinion of dragonriders was and had no intention of jeopardizing another dragon and rider. Robinton had argued against confronting Fax at all. Not from a lack of courage, but from a desire to avoid what had happened: Fax's contemptuous disregard of their condemnation.