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It took much more-time to disencumber the dragons on the summit. To his disgust, F'lessan found the knots with which Bi
"You should know how!" he accused F'lessan and ran the chair to his grandmother.
F'lessan rued not his ignorance of sea knots but the time consumed fussing with them. Time! Time! He vaulted-not as effortlessly as usual-astride Golanth. The bronze ran toward the precipice, wings wide, and fell off the edge. When F'lessan heard shocked cries of alarm from behind him at Golanth's timesaving exit, he gri
Bi
On his way back down to the sands, he saw that one of the fishing dories had been manhandled up over the dune high-tide barrier. Four men were racing seaward, obviously to get a second one. "Don't let them talk you into conveying their boats," T'gellan had warned him.
"We can't handle that!"F'lessan cried, leaping off Golanth's back to confront a belligerent Bi
"No boats, no fish, we starve."
"We sailed 'em all the way down from Big Bay, dragon-rider," Lias put in, his wizened face fierce. "Days of sailing. We can't abandon them."
Gasping for breath, the other four arrived with a second dory.
"The masts're unstepped," Bi
F'lessan delayed his answer, wiping sweat off his face and neck. Did they have the time? He glanced at the two small craft, then at his watch. These seaholders were about to lose their cotholds, and neither of the dories was longer than a dragon's body. He saw they were clap-sided, only the sharp V of the transom covered. They couldn't weigh that much. Lias grabbed a cleat, slung a line quickly about it as if this proof would be sufficient to sway F'lessan's doubt.
"You said dragons're as strong as they need be! Be they strong enough, dragonrider?" Bi
F'lessan swallowed.
"Rope 'em, then. We'll give it a try. Be quick about it."
"Three dragons? Three sma' little dories?" Bi
F'lessan groaned. He couldn't believe he was agreeing.
"Quick, a-fore he changes his mind," Bi
And F'lessan found himself wrapping lines around cleats on the second dory.
"Everyone out of the holds? Everything you need?" F'lessan cried as the exhausted fishmen arrived with the third hull, collapsing against it, wheezing, their sweating bodies covered with sand where they'd stumbled.
"You, go check!" Bi
When C'reel and Galuth arrived to find the first ship rigged to be conveyed, the brown rider obviously thought F'lessan was asking too much of them. All sorts of odds and ends, buckets, rakes, hand nets, a pair of sandals, more nets, fish spears, small buoys, floats, light anchors, and even some folded sails had been dumped in the dories.
"Nothing really heavy," F'lessan said, peering over the new cargo as he wondered how all that had been stashed in when he was looking elsewhere.
"We can do it, C'reel. Galuth can do it! Upyou go, Galuth!" And he gave the Wingleader's signal to lift.
Golanth added a roar and Galuth was aloft so fast C'reel's head snapped, but the brown dragon had the knot in his claws and the dory was rising, swinging erratically in the air. Galuth waited until its swaying lessened and slowly rose, leading the sway slightly. If he didn't get the height, the ship could be dashed to bits on the cliff. It just cleared the edge. The fishmen cheered and then Mealth positioned himself to receive the knot for the second.
F'lessan nervously eyed the still-calm surface of the wide bay until a spray of sand a
"Everyone's out, Bi
"Then we're for the steps, dragonrider. Mount and I'll give the knot to your bronze."
Just then the sea seemed to creep up the sands, leaving behind a wide lacy border. Bi
F'lessan swept his eyes across the sea but he could see nothing that looked like the crest of a tsunami. The shoals were at least fifty meters out, where the dolphins had been swimming. And shoals were bad when a tsunami was rolling shoreward.
"Lift, dragonrider," cried Bi
F'lessan obeyed, Golanth rising and craning his head down, trying to look between his front legs. F'lessan felt Golanth catch the knot and take up the slack in the lines. They had barely risen a few feet from the sands when they saw Bi
It isn 't that heavy,Golanth reassured his rider, but it took him time to lift so as not to unbalance his load or lose his grip on the rope cradle. The summit was alive with people and goods, leaving no clear spot for the dory. Shouting orders from her rocking chair, the old woman solved the problem. It was with great relief that F'lessan felt the tension ease in the bronze shoulders as Golanth succeeded in getting the third dory landed. Golanth soared up, bugling with his success. Well, it wouldn't be their problem to get the dories back down to the shore.
Not today!
Golanth tilted northward, dipping low around the granite outcrop, so that they could see the last of the seaholders reach the top of the rough stairs, crawling a little farther from the cliff edge. Rider and dragon could see Bi
That's when F'lessan saw the water being sucked back, away from the beach, all along the shoreline.
He will not make it!
Golanth did not wait for an order but dove sideways toward the man who was straining with effort, head up, arms carried tight to his chest, elbows flaring to suck air into his labored lungs, knees pumping.
The bronze intercepted him, dipping to secure the man in his front paws.
Bi