Dragonsblood

SEVENTEEN

Lightning tore through the sky over the College, with thunder following right on its heels in vengeful intensity. Wind Blossom turned over in her bed, willing herself to sleep in spite of the noise outside. She needed her rest, she knew it. But her mind, traitorous in the night, insisted on turning over and over the problems she would face in the morning.

What did it matter that fire-lizards sometime in the future had gotten sick? Would the same illness affect dragons? Kitti Ping and she had tried to guard against that, even while knowing that nature and environment would work against them.

How could she convince the Weyrleaders and the Holders to devote their energies to guarding against some unseen future that might never come to pass?

“In the morning.” Kitti Ping’s saying came back to her. “There is always enlightenment in the morning.”

Her mother was right, Wind Blossom knew. Often the problems that plagued her in the night would be solved in the morning. She often wondered how much of the solution came from her worrying and how much from a good night’s sleep.

Sleep was harder to come by these days, she mused. With this lightning and thunder, it would be a wonder if she would have any energy come the morning. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself back to sleep once more.

A thunderclap, loud and without lightning, startled her completely out of sleep. There was something more, something special, urgent, like a voice crying in the night. Electrified, she threw off her covers and raced down the stairs to the courtyard, despite the pouring rain.

Tieran was there, too, with his fire-lizard-Wind Blossom remembered that fire-lizards did not like the rain-skittering and chittering above him.

“Look!” Tieran shouted above the thunder and the rainfall. He darted out from under the courtyard tunnel and onto the roadway that led from the College.

Wind Blossom followed him. She looked up. There was a shape high up in the air, falling. Before she could react, the shape hit the ground in front of them with a sickening thud.

It was a dragon. Wind Blossom peered at it through the rain and dark night until another lightning bolt illuminated it. She gasped in horror.

“Rouse the College!” she shouted over the rain. “Get the agenothree!”

“Wind Blossom, what is it?” a voice called from behind her. She recognized it as Emorra’s. “Get the agenothree! We must burn this corpse. We must burn it now!”

“It’s infected?” Emorra asked, gesturing to the others behind her and quickly issuing orders.

“And worse,” Wind Blossom agreed, as teams formed up with barrels of agenothree. “Pour it on. Don’t stop. All of Pern depends on this.”

As the first agenothree hissed over the young dragon’s corpse, Tieran rushed forward, his belt knife in his hand.

“Tieran!” Wind Blossom shouted, her voice merging with Emorra’s at her side. “What are you doing?”

Quickly Tieran cut a part of the dragon’s riding harness, tore off a silver buckle and retreated toward the others. He nodded curtly at one of the groups carrying a barrel of agenothree and, jaw clenched against the pain, plunged his hands into the acid.

“What are you doing?” Wind Blossom shouted again.

“It’s all right,” Tieran said, showing her his hands. They were pitted and raw from where the acid had burned through the oils of his skin. He waved the piece of metal at them. “This will tell us whose dragon this is.”

He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes as the pain from his hands burned through the adrenaline that had carried through his wild act.

“Besides,” he added, gasping in pain, “it doesn’t hurt as much as wher-bite.”

When the cold, gray light of morning finally broke through the scattering clouds, Wind Blossom was still hunched beside the steaming remains of the dragon. The agenothree had eaten all its flesh and left only bleached bone. As each barrel of the nitric acid had burned another layer of flesh and muscle away from the dead dragon, Wind Blossom had felt herself similarly stripped, her emotions laid open and raw to her as they never had been before.

The stream of green mucus that had been forced from the dragon’s nostrils on its impact with the ground had made it crystal clear to Wind Blossom that the dragon had been infected with the same illness as the two fire-lizards.

Over and over again her mind replayed the instant when she had known that she had to go outside, that something was coming. Over and over her memory showed her the images of the dragon appearing, faintly, high in the sky and falling uncontrollably to the ground-dead. The sickening sound of the dragon’s body hitting the ground still made her shudder.

Again she replayed the memory in her mind, fighting with herself to slow it down, to bring every detail into sharp relief. She sighed angrily as she once again failed to determine the precise feeling she had the instant she had known she had to go outside. She had felt it before, when the fire-lizards had appeared. Some connection, something.

Bitterly, Wind Blossom shook her head to rid herself of the problem. There were other problems.

She expected M’hall and maybe even Torene to arrive presently. She wouldn’t be surprised if every dragon on Pern arrived. She had started workmen digging a grave large enough for the skeletal remains of the young dragon. The grave would be lined with lime; even though Wind Blossom was certain that the infection itself had been destroyed by the agenothree, she was not certain enough.

All those images and memories ought to have been enough to keep Wind Blossom awake through the night.

But there was one more. And it alone had kept her up, had kept her from accepting anything more than a winter cloak and hot klah.

It was the image of the dragon’s skin, mottled, patchy, and pockmarked, as though it were changing consistency. She had only seen it for a moment and in the gray of night. The image bothered her for a reason she couldn’t explain. Deep inside her, she knew that what she had seen held some special significance, but she couldn’t identify it. That bothered her-and kept her awake through the night.

“Mother?” Emorra’s voice startled her. “Have you been up all night?”

Wind Blossom nodded. “I’m trying to remember something.”

“Well, come to breakfast-perhaps you’ll remember better when you’re warm,” Emorra suggested.

“M’hall and the others will be here soon,” Wind Blossom said.

“I’ll stay,” Tieran said, walking up with a breakfast roll in one hand. “I…” He trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.

Wind Blossom turned and smiled at him understandingly. Emorra added her smile, as well.

“Go on,” Tieran said. “I’ll direct any dragonriders to you and keep watch here.”

“Thank you,” Wind Blossom said, her throat unexpectedly tight.

Tieran nodded and turned back to survey the charred remains of the dead queen dragon.

To keep watch.

And honor the dead.