Dragongirl

TWO

“It’s time,” Fiona said three days later, nudging Xhinna as she forced herself out of the bed and into the cold night air. She put on her slippers and pulled a warmer nightgown around her shoulders, allowed herself a moment’s memory of the hideously hot Igen summer nights, then squared her shoulders determinedly and set off to the necessary.

Xhinna joined her not long after Fiona had dressed in her riding gear, yawning widely.

“Why are you wearing that?”

“It’s warm,” Fiona said feelingly. Xhinna snorted and shook her head at the weyrwoman’s affectation. Feelingly, Fiona responded, “You try living in Igen for three Turns!”

Wisely, Xhinna said nothing, but her eyes danced mischievously as she waved the weyrwoman out with a promise to follow along shortly.

Fiona greeted Talenth cheerfully and her queen warbled a greeting in response. Out in the Weyr Bowl the dragonriders were already gathering, checking riding straps and firestone hooks carefully before patting their dragons and proceeding to the Kitchen Cavern for a last bit of warm food or klah.

Thread would fall today at Benden and over Keroon, south of Nuella’s wherhold. The sun would be rising as the Thread started to fall, so the watch-whers would not be able to help.

The sun rose three hours earlier over Keroon than over Fort Weyr, which was why Fiona and the rest had woken in the still of night.

She grabbed a spare mug and poured it full of klah, gulping the liquid as quickly as she could in spite of the heat.

“Good morning, weyrwoman,” Ellor, Fort Weyr’s headwoman greeted her.

Fiona nodded. “Everything ready?”

Ellor smiled. “We’ll be setting up the tables out in the Bowl as soon as it’s light.”

A cough, sickly and huge in the night air, reverberated around the Weyr, followed by another and another.

“We’ve eighteen for certain with the cough,” Cisca said as she entered the Bowl and spotted Fiona.

“Didn’t we have more?” Fiona asked in surprise. For three Turns back in time, Fiona had been able to forget about the sickness that had been killing the dragons. She hadn’t realized until now how much of a relief that had been for her.

“We did; they went between or died,” Cisca told her bleakly. “And more took their place.”

Without the dragons, Pern would be defenseless against Thread. With nothing to flame the Thread into char before it reached the surface, the live Thread would suck the life out of everything that grew, including humans. If the sickness couldn’t be cured soon, they would all die.

“I think we’ve got more,” Tintoval, the new Weyr Healer added as she entered the Kitchen and repeated Fiona’s action of grabbing a mug and filling it with steaming klah. She nodded to Fiona and Cisca in greeting, before continuing grimly, “I haven’t been able to identify them, nor have I heard anything more from Benden about a cure.”

“We’re set for firestone,” Fiona reported. She had directed a work party the day before in filling the sacks in preparation for the Fall. “They’ll fly out with three sacks each.”

Cisca nodded. “K’lior said that he’d detail a wing to bring more when needed.”

“I’ve got Terin and some of the younger weyrfolk assigned to help with the loading.”

“Good,” Cisca said. She turned to the Weyr Bowl, downed her klah, refilled the mug, and headed out. Fiona followed her.

The dark chill air absorbed most sounds and added an eeriness to the preparations.

Cisca found K’lior and passed the mug to him. He took it with a grateful look, downed it, and continued on his way, stopping to converse with one rider, patting another on the back, checking the harness of yet a third, passing up firestone sacks to a fourth.

Without prompting, Fiona followed suit, cheerfully greeting those she knew from Igen Weyr and politely encouraging those she knew only barely.

Even with the dragons of Igen, there were so few. F’jian led a wing of his own, J’gerd and J’keran flew as wingseconds in older wings.

H’nez flew with K’rall as his wingsecond. “I can always use an experienced hand, particularly with these young hotshots,” K’rall had declared when K’lior had made the announcement.

“Good luck, bronze rider,” Fiona called to H’nez as she passed quickly by. She might not like him, but she didn’t wish him ill; Pern needed all its riders.

H’nez was surprised by her kindness and returned with stiff awkwardness, “Thank you, weyrwoman.”

“Fly safe, old man!” Fiona called more cheerfully to K’rall when she spotted him.

“I will, weyrwoman, count on it!” K’rall’s bass voice boomed across the Bowl. No less loudly, he added, “I’ve been promising Seyorth a mating flight soon, and I wouldn’t want to let him down!”

Fiona blushed and chuckled at his impiety.

“Well, you’d best make sure he’s got his full strength,” she replied gamely, “because Talenth is going to outfly every bronze here!”

From her weyr, Talenth bugled loudly in agreement.

K’rall boomed another laugh. “Seyorth says that she can try!”

With a final snort, Fiona waved and moved on to the next dragonrider.

She paused when she came to T’mar. Since their return, she hadn’t had much chance to speak with him. He was briefing his wing, and she waited while he was speaking. He didn’t get much further because his riders started nodding significantly in her direction, distracting him. Finally, with an irritated, “What?” he turned and saw her.

“Wingleader,” Fiona said, with a polite nod.

“Well, now at least I see what all the commotion is about,” T’mar said, his eyes twinkling. He nodded back to her. “Weyrwoman.”

“Good flying,” Fiona said, wishing they were alone and she could say more.

T’mar met her eyes frankly. “Thank you.”

She turned her attention to the rest of the wing. She knew only a few of them from Igen and greeted them warmly, was polite to the others, and left them as quickly as she could.

She had almost completed her rounds when she was grabbed from behind, lifted in the air and spun in a quick circle before being placed back on the ground with a yelp of surprise.

“Hah!” F’dan said to her as he spun her on her heels to face him. “You thought I was some lovestruck bronze, I’ll bet!”

“F’dan!” Fiona exclaimed, burying her head against his chest. He held her tightly for a moment, then released her. “Whose wing are you in?”

“I’m flying with the Weyrleader, of course!” F’dan boasted grandly.

“Well, be certain you keep an eye on him,” Fiona said. She glanced around for K’lior and his wing. “Is P’der flying with you?”

“Of course!” F’dan replied. He wagged a finger at her. “You’ve done your work too well, weyrwoman—you’ve got one hundred and twenty-two dragonriders flying against this Fall who are beholden to you.”

“I did my duty,” Fiona replied with a diffident shrug.

“And did it well,” P’der added as he approached, reaching out to touch Fiona on the shoulder affectionately.

“Well enough,” Fiona said feeling uncomfortable with the praise. She stepped back and gestured toward the dragons behind them. “And now you can do yours.”

“We certainly shall,” F’dan agreed emphatically. He leaned in closer to her as he added, “And someday soon, when there are enough queens again, we’ll have you flying with us, on the queens’ wing.”

Fiona’s face lit with a huge grin. “I’ll look forward to that!”

“F’dan, P’der, mount your dragons,” K’lior called as he strode briskly past them to his waiting Rineth.

“Fly well, Weyrleader!” Fiona called.

K’lior turned and waved at her in acknowledgment before climbing up Rineth’s foreleg and settling himself on his perch, tying himself tight against his riding straps and making one final check of his firestone sacks.

Fiona’s view of him was blocked as Cisca rushed up past her and called up to K’lior. “I expect you back in one piece, dragonrider!”

“I’ll do my best, Weyrwoman,” K’lior called back with a chuckle.

“You’d better,” Cisca replied, her voice shaking with feeling. Fiona moved forward and grabbed the hand Cisca had left trailing behind her. The Weyrwoman turned at this and smiled when she saw that it was Fiona before turning back and raising her free arm in farewell. Fiona drew alongside her and waved good-bye with her free hand as K’lior gave the signal and, wing by wing, one hundred and ninety-four dragons rose to take their positions near the Star Stones and then winked out, between.

“We left no watch dragon,” Fiona noted in surprise as she scanned the heights.

I’ll do it, Talenth replied promptly. Fiona whirled in time to see her beautiful queen rush out of her lair, leap into the air, and climb gracefully with a few sweeps of her golden wings to land daintily beside the Star Stones, her gaze set intently on the distant horizon and the rising sun.

“Well, she seems eager enough!” Cisca chuckled. She turned to Fiona as she added, “I hope she rises soon. We need a mating flight.”

Fiona nodded mutely.

With the dragons gone, Fiona met with Tintoval and helped her assemble the first-aid teams.

“You’ll keep an eye on me, won’t you?” Tintoval murmured when she found a moment where she and Fiona were alone.

“You’ll do fine,” Fiona assured her.

“At this point, though, you know more about healing dragons than I,” Tintoval reminded her. Her honesty compelled her to add, “And what you did with those severely injured riders—”

“That was nothing we hadn’t discussed beforehand!” Fiona protested.

“Discussing and treating are two different things,” Tintoval told her.

“There was no one else—”

“You did brilliantly,” Tintoval said. She grimaced in Cisca’s direction as she added, “I’m not quite sure you’ve heard that enough since your return.”

Fiona grinned. “Well, we’ve had other things to discuss,” she allowed, adding more seriously, “but Cisca is a good Weyrwoman and she does well.”

“Hmm,” Tintoval murmured thoughtfully. “You’d be the best judge of that.” She paused, then added, “With your three Turns in Igen, you’ve more experience than she.”

“I wouldn’t have managed without her example,” Fiona said.

“Perhaps.”

“Come on,” Fiona said, nudging the Weyr Healer. “We need to check on the others.”

K’lior took in the situation the moment he and Rineth burst from between over Keroon.

Tell T’mar and K’rall that they are reserve and will provide firestone, K’lior said.

They are returning to the Weyr to load more firestone, Rineth reported at the same time as thirty-two dragons winked out between. K’lior nodded to himself in satisfaction.

They wouldn’t be fighting a full Fall, as it had started first over Benden and had proceeded south toward Keroon, so he felt that a full Flight of dragons would suffice—and assigning two small wings as reserve would allow him to dismiss his worries about getting extra firestone or not providing the Weyr with some final defense in case—

He spotted the pitifully few Istan riders as they appeared and waved, closing in on J’lantir.

—in case Fort Weyr suffered as badly as Ista. He turned to look over his shoulder, casually examining the formations behind him and more carefully eyeing the Threadfall.

We’ll fight as full wings, K’lior told Rineth. M’valer and M’kury will lead the other two. Have the wings re-form now.

In a moment six understrength wings had re-formed into three full-strength wings.

K’lior was greeted by J’lantir, the acting Istan Weyrleader who had taken over after C’rion had gone between in their first Fall. He gladly accepted J’lantir’s offer to let him lead the Fall and quickly integrated the Istan wing with his own wings, arraying them on his left, with the other two Fort wings on his right.

Four wings abreast, they rose to fight Thread.

Talenth’s challenge alerted Fiona, who glanced up from her position at the nearest aid table. Her eyes narrowed as she counted two wings of dragons circling in for a landing.

Zirenth and Seyorth, Talenth reported. They have been sent for firestone.

Fiona raced over to the firestone shed, calling for her helpers as she went.

“We’ve got time,” T’mar’s voice in her ear surprised her as she was opening the shed doors. “They’ve got at least an hour before they’ll need more.”

“So we should have you back in half the time,” Fiona replied, pulling open the second door and gesturing for the young weyrfolk to head inside. “You’ve got three sacks already, how many more?”

“Five each,” T’mar said after a moment’s thought. “That way we’ll be able to fight a full Fall, if needed.”

“You think that K’lior might pull replacements directly from these wings?”

“It depends upon how the Fall goes,” T’mar replied. “He could just as easily put one wing into the fight and use the other to resupply.” He shrugged. “I think this will work either way.”

Fiona, who saw no flaw in this logic, flagged Terin and started her on the count. “Five each!”

All too quickly, Terin reached, “One-fifty, stop!” And the dragons rose into the air again, climbed up to the Star Stones, and, with Talenth’s cheerful salute, disappeared once more between to battle Thread.

As they disappeared, Fiona reached out and wrapped her arm around Terin’s shoulders. The young girl looked up at her for a moment then buried her head against Fiona’s chest.

K’lior glanced around as the massed wings of Ista and Fort charged up to greet the downpouring Thread. They had arranged themselves just behind the Benden riders until M’tal’s signal for them to break off, and then with a roar, K’lior urged his men upward.

The changeover had been perfect but now, only an hour into a two-hour fight, the dragons were getting weary, particularly the Istan dragons whose riders seemed determined to handle the entire left half of the Fall on their own. K’lior understood pride and worked as best he could with it, but when the Istans took their second loss—one that looked permanent—K’lior didn’t hesitate to dispatch a replacement from T’mar’s wing.

Tell Lolanth that we’ll thicken his wing, K’lior said, sending D’teril and S’gan to join them. The two blue riders were glad to tear away from the reserves, dropping their spare sacks, and were quickly assimilated into the left and right flanks of the Istan riders.

A sudden roar from behind caused K’lior to duck and send Rineth plummeting out of the way of a clump of Thread that had fallen dangerously close while he’d been distracted.

K’lior had the image of a blue wall in motion, flame at the forefront as F’dan and Ridorth fought to protect him—but not without cost. K’lior heard F’dan’s terrible shriek and Ridorth’s concerned bugle and then the pair were gone, between.

It was all the warning that K’lior had as remnants of the clump, only partly charred, continued to fall toward him. With a move that he later couldn’t explain, he and Rineth were suddenly twenty meters lower in the sky, the great bronze climbing straight up, jaws agape with vengeful flame and an air-shattering bellow, engulfing the Thread in a ball of fire.

And then, as suddenly, they were flying level once more, K’lior trying to regain his composure and sending a silent salute to F’dan.

More Thread, Rineth warned him. K’lior turned as he caught sight of a blur of bronze wheeling beside him—H’nez had decided to join the fray.

His decision was ill-timed as scant seconds later, Ginirth bellowed in pain and disappeared, between.

K’rall says he did not send him, Rineth relayed. K’lior dismissed this with a grimace. There was Thread to fight, matters of discipline would come after.

The bellow of pain from the dragon bursting into the morning sky above Fort was mortal and Fiona knew it even as the blue plummeted toward the ground.

Talenth! Fiona shrieked in her mind as she rushed toward the falling pair, even before she could register that her queen had already left her post, was diving beneath the blue, pushing up against him, slowing his fall.

The rider tumbled off and, as he fell, Fiona could see that the entire left half of his back was one giant open wound, with ribs severed and organs dripping with the heat of the Thread’s voraciousness. The Thread itself was nothing more than dusty between-seared crusty remnants of clotted blood. The wound was fatal but Fiona rushed toward the falling rider all the same.

Just as she reached him, another dragon burst into the sky above, a bronze creeling horribly, its left wingtip shredded.

Fiona needed no words to direct Talenth to the bronze’s aid; the blue was already close enough to the ground that Talenth could easily roll him off her back.

The blue rider landed in her arms facing her.

“F’dan!” Fiona cried. He was dead.

A grief-filled cry from Ridorth distracted her. Ridorth, stay!

Fiona reached out to Talenth and, together, they held on to the blue, forcing him to remain as Fiona cried for help, dragging F’dan toward his mate as quickly as she could. A moment later a pair of hands grabbed his feet and her movement became easier.

“Get him to Ridorth,” Fiona begged through her heaving breaths.

Hold him! Fiona ordered Talenth. She was dimly aware of someone shouting at her, of another dragon crying in pain, but her whole focus was on the distance between her and blue Ridorth, who trembled wild-eyed at her approach.

It’s okay, Fiona assured him, I just want you to take F’dan with you.

Ridorth calmed and lowered himself as close to the ground as possible.

He’s hurt, Talenth said. I don’t know if he can get between.

Fiona nodded, even as she indicated to her helper—it was Xhinna—to lay F’dan’s body against Ridorth’s neck. Xhinna anticipated her and climbed up the blue’s side, pulling F’dan up into place on his blue’s neck before hopping down once more, eyes streaming with tears.

Talenth, Fiona called and her beautiful queen settled beside her. Xhinna was looking at her, crying something with a horrified look on her face but Fiona didn’t hear the words, ignored the bellowing bronze in the distance, and concentrated only on this last gift to her friend as she climbed up onto Talenth’s neck.

Tell Ridorth to follow us, Fiona said, feeling a pressure behind her eyes that grew even as Talenth helped Ridorth gain his feet and leap into the sky. In a moment, they were between.

Take him with you, Fiona called to the blue she couldn’t see, hear, or touch. Good flying!

And in a moment that seemed to last forever, Ridorth and F’dan were gone.

Let’s get back, Talenth, there are more injured.

Their return into the daylight, the warmth, the sounds, and the sights were like a slap to Fiona as she took in the growing number of injured, the anxious look on Cisca’s face, the shock on Tintoval’s and—

Get me down, Fiona ordered Talenth. The great queen swooped and had barely touched before Fiona had jumped down and was rushing over to the injured bronze.

“Where were you?” Cisca shouted, rushing toward her. “We couldn’t find you, we thought—”

Fiona cut her off with a grim smile, shaking her head. “I was merely honoring him.”

“Honoring a dead blue while there are bronzes here injured?” a voice cried in shock. It was H’nez. Fiona turned to him, her face bone white with anger, but the bronze rider didn’t notice. “Your duty is—”

Fiona didn’t hear him finish, turning on her heels to walk away.

“Where do you think you are going?” H’nez bellowed after her. In the distance she could hear Ginirth’s pained bellowing and it tugged at her heart. “You call yourself a weyrwoman!”

Too much. Fiona twisted on the balls of her feet even as her hand rose and she leaped across the distance between them, her hand landing with a resounding slap on the side of his face, sending him reeling.

In the distance Talenth cried in dismay and anger, joined by Melirth.

“Get yourself under control, bronze rider,” Fiona said icily, eyeing the man who now knelt, a hand raised to his injured face in surprise. Her own hand stung from the blow but she willed the pain from her consciousness. She reached out to Ginirth with her mind, apologetically.

“Tintoval, get the aid kit,” she called, as she strode over to the injured bronze. “We’ll need sutures and the fine needle.”

She was about to say something reassuring to H’nez, words of peace and healing when she heard Talenth: He broke ranks.

“You broke ranks?” Fiona exclaimed, her eyes impaling H’nez with burning ire.

“When Ridorth and F’dan went between,” H’nez said, licking his lips, his eyes not quite meeting hers. Fiona felt his confusion, his anger—directed at himself, his sense of loss, and suddenly she saw the man in a different light.

“That’s for the Weyrleader,” she said, her tone dismissing the issue. She jerked her head, indicating that he should join her. She gave Ginirth’s wound a close examination, but she was certain that she already knew enough from what she’d seen during his landing and what she’d felt in her brief contact with the bronze. “This is ugly but it will heal. You’ll be flying next Fall.”

Tintoval approached, handed the aid kit to Fiona, and, as another casualty burst out of between, went off, more than willing to leave the difficult rider and his injured bronze in her care.

Dowsed with numbweed, Ginirth allowed her to stitch him up. Fiona couldn’t say how long it took to finish. She waved aside H’nez’s fervent thanks, too aware of the other cries in the Bowl around them, racing off to check on Tintoval and then help Xhinna sew up a badly burned arm before finally checking on Cisca.

The Weyrwoman looked up from her work long enough to give Fiona a grateful nod, then went back to the difficult job of suturing a punctured dragon’s neck. Afterward, when rider and dragon were turned over to the care of weyrfolk, Cisca gave Fiona a longer look, flicking a lock of brown hair away from her face irritably.

“We thought you were going with them, grief-stricken,” Cisca said, referring to F’dan and Ridorth. She cocked her head toward Melirth, who was anxiously watching the proceedings from her lair. Fiona shrugged, at the moment too exhausted both physically and emotionally to be concerned with the past worries of others. Cisca’s face hardened. “If you can’t work with me, I can’t have you in my Weyr.”

For one brief instant, Fiona thought longingly of her days at Igen Weyr, but the moment passed and she hung her head. “I’m doing the best I can, Weyrwoman.”

Cisca gave her a long thoughtful look before glancing up and over toward H’nez’s weyr. “You are too much alike with that bronze rider, more willing to listen to yourself than anyone else.”

Fiona lifted her head, eyes flashing angrily, but she said nothing.

“You were too long your own counsel,” Cisca declared in a tone that was shaded with pity. “You carried a grown woman’s burden and more.”

“I did what I had to,” Fiona replied.

“And now, you don’t have to anymore,” Cisca reminded her. “Do you think you can live with that?”

Fiona grimaced, her eyes troubled. “I don’t know.”

“Seven lost, eleven severely injured, and eighteen lightly injured,” Tintoval reported that evening as the Weyr recovered from their fourth Fall.

“That’s not all,” Cisca reminded her glumly, nodding to her to tell K’lior the rest.

“And ten more feverish.”

“We’ve one hundred and forty-eight fighting dragons,” K’rall murmured from his end of the table. “That’s nearly twice what we had two Falls back.”

“But,” K’lior objected, “as you just said, in two Falls we lost nearly half that number.”

“Our next Fall isn’t for another sixteen days,” M’kury said. “Couldn’t we send our injured back again to Igen?”

“I’m sure that Fiona could handle it,” T’mar said, glancing toward the abnormally subdued weyrwoman. She stirred at his gaze, giving him a bleak, unfathomable look. Longing? Dread? He couldn’t tell.