Todd McCaffrey

by Dragonriders of Pern 03 - Dragongirl (v5)

  They reached the start of the ledge and conversation stopped as they carefully negotiated it and their way through the empty lair to the quarters beyond. T’mar was delicately moved from the stretcher onto the empty bed.

  “Thank you,” Fiona said to the weyrfolk, who nodded and, with a worried look toward the comatose bronze rider, left with their stretcher, heading back to the aid area.

  Bekka leaned over T’mar and gently rested the back of her hand on his head for a moment, testing his temperature. When she was done, she moved her hand lower so that it hovered over his nostrils and she could feel his breath. Satisfied, she straightened up and moved back to tell Fiona, “He’s not too hot, and resting gently.”

  “We should get back,” Fiona said, turning toward the entrance even as she looked back at the stricken rider.

  “I could stay with him,” Lorana said. A rustle of wings and the sound of Zirenth’s claws alerted them to the arrival of the bronze dragon, who quickly entered the weyr, circled once around, and poked his head through the gap between the weyr and the quarters to eye T’mar worriedly.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Kindan told Lorana, pulling two chairs closer to the bed and gesturing for her to take one.

  Fiona turned her head back to the entrance, then back once more toward T’mar, Lorana, and Kindan, giving them a quick nod before gesturing for Bekka to come with her.

  As she stepped back down into the Weyr Bowl, Fiona saw Sonia with Lyrinth nearby.

  “I must get back,” Sonia said as she started to climb up on the gold’s foreleg. She nodded toward the recently occupied queen’s weyr. “There’ll be injured at High Reaches soon, too.”

  “Do you need help?” Fiona asked, glancing around for Jeila. She spotted the swarthy weyrwoman striding toward them from the aid tables, dressed in riding gear, and waved to her. As Jeila got closer, she said, “We think alike, if you’re thinking of helping at High Reaches.”

  Jeila smiled and nodded. “With Kindan and Lorana, I think you’ve got enough helping hands.”

  “They’re with T’mar,” Fiona said. She gestured toward Bekka. “But I’m sure Bekka and I can manage.”

  Jeila smiled at the younger girl, who smiled shyly in return, awed to be under the approving gaze of no less than three Weyrwomen.

  “I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Jeila said, as her Tolarth landed close by.

  “Stay there and rest, if you need it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sonia said, “I won’t let her fly if she’s too tired.”

  The two queens were soon airborne, their departure cheerfully acknowledged by Talenth from her place back on the watch heights.

  “Come on,” Fiona said to Bekka as the two queens winked out between, “we should rest while we can.”

  She led the young girl back to the aid tables. They spotted Seban and in no time Bekka had squirmed into his lap, closed her eyes, and curled up tight against his chest.

  “She’s not sleeping, is she?” Fiona whispered to the ex-dragonrider in surprise.

  “This is about all the sleep she ever gets,” Seban said with an answering grin and an affectionate glance for his youngest. “She takes little naps, worse than a baby fire-lizard, and then she’s up again, and just as much trouble.”

  Bekka got to nap for little more than twenty minutes before the next injured dragon arrived. Fiona had no more than finished dowsing the injured rider with numbweed before another dragon arrived and another.

  Somewhere during the tumult, Talenth and the other dragons sounded the keen that indicated that a dragon had been lost, and then another, and another.

  At the end of it all, H’nez, F’jian, and M’tal returned leading only twenty-six dragons and riders.

  Eight others, beside T’mar, had returned beforehand. Two were severely injured and would take many months to heal, six were more lightly injured, but not so lightly that they would be able to fly for many Falls to come.

  “High Reaches had it worse,” M’tal said as he and the others regrouped in the Dining Cavern. He glanced around the room. “Where are Kindan and Lorana?”

  H’nez heard the question and looked around, adding, “Where’s T’mar?”

  “He’s in a coma,” Fiona said. “Lorana and Kindan are keeping watch on him.” She explained how he’d fallen, victim of a threadscored riding strap, how she’d caught him, but not before he’d banged his head on the rock of the weyr wall so badly that his skull had been fractured.

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t lose Zirenth,” M’tal said. “With an injury like that, the dragon wouldn’t hear the rider and might think the worst.”

  “We nearly did,” Fiona said. “I think Lorana convinced him to stay.”

  “Like she did with Caranth?” M’tal mused. No one who had a dragon could forget that day when Lorana had pulled all their power for her desperate failed grab for the dragons of Telgar Weyr and her subsequent successful grab of Caranth from between.

  “Something like that.”

  “I should go check on him,” H’nez said, forcing himself wearily to his feet.

  “That’s my job, wingleader,” Fiona said, waving him back into his seat. “You should rest.”

  “You should all rest,” Shaneese said, approaching the table and glancing around the nearly empty cavern. She glanced toward M’tal. “If you’d like, we can put you and your brilliant Gaminth in a weyr for the evening.”

  “I put T’mar in the empty queen’s weyr,” Fiona said apologetically, “or I’d let you have it.”

  M’tal rose and gave her a gracious half-bow. “I think that Gaminth will have no trouble giving me a lift to our weyr.”

  Fiona rose as well, pausing as H’nez rose more slowly from his chair. “Do you need a hand?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Fiona said, grabbing his arm at the elbow. “You can barely stand, much less walk.”

  H’nez tried to move away from her, but M’tal blocked the wingleader’s movement with a deftly timed lurch of his own.

  “If anyone’s watching, they’ll just think that the Weyrwoman is conferring with the Weyr’s senior rider,” Fiona assured him.

  “I need to check on the riders,” H’nez protested.

  “They’ve been seen to, my lord,” Shaneese said, coming up behind them and deftly propping H’nez’s other elbow. “Telgar takes care of its own.”

  Realizing himself overborne by both Weyrwoman and headwoman, H’nez permitted them to escort him back to his quarters.

  “I’ll walk you back to your quarters, too,” Shaneese said as Fiona started across the Weyr Bowl.

  “Thanks, but I don’t—”

  “You won’t be as stubborn as he is, will you?” Shaneese asked, jerking her head back toward H’nez’s weyr.

  “No, of course not,” Fiona said with a long relenting sigh.

  “Wise.”

  Fiona waited only long enough to be certain that Shaneese wouldn’t see her before she left her weyr to check on T’mar.

  Zirenth roused at the sound of her feet outside his lair and regarded her quietly for a moment, his multifaceted eyes whirling a slowly green, before returning to his slumber.

  Zirenth’s actions alerted Kindan and Lorana. They looked up expectantly from their seats placed beside T’mar’s bed.

  “How is he?”

  Kindan frowned. “His breathing is steady.”

  That description didn’t sound very reassuring to her. She moved closer to the bed, standing behind Kindan’s chair, to peer down on the sleeping bronze rider.

  “He looks peaceful,” Fiona said. She turned to Kindan. “Does he have a fever?”

  Kindan shook his head; halfway through, the motion dissolved into a wide yawn. Fiona frowned toward Lorana who, as expected, followed the harper a moment later with her own yawn. With a look of exasperation, Fiona joined them a moment later.

  “Where are you going to sleep?” Fiona asked, trying to imagine where to set a bed. She
saw the way Kindan set his jaw and gathered that the harper and Lorana had discussed this earlier and had decided to sleep in their chairs. “Oh, no you’re not.”

  Talenth, Fiona called, would you be a love and ask Seban if he and Bekka can watch T’mar tonight?

  I was sleeping, Talenth responded petulantly.

  Just be a dear and ask.

  There was a pause before Talenth responded: They come.

  Fiona shivered in the cooling night air. “It’s too cold.”

  She went into the bathroom and came back out with a bundle of blankets. Kindan reached for one but Fiona pulled it away from him. “These are for Seban and Bekka.”

  The sound of approaching footsteps alerted them to the ex-dragonrider’s approach. He was carrying his daughter cradled in his arms.

  “Oh!” Fiona cried in surprise. “I didn’t mean to wake you!”

  Seban smiled and shook his head. “I was still awake when Talenth called.” He glanced down tenderly at Bekka and added, “And she’ll want to check on T’mar.”

  “I can kit you out with blankets,” Fiona said, gesturing with a firm nod of her head for Kindan to relinquish his chair. “I’m going to take Kindan and Lorana to my weyr, that way they’ll be close by and rested if there’s any need.”

  “That sounds wise,” Seban said. He waited until Fiona was satisfied with her arrangement of blankets before taking his seat and was immediately wrapped with another set of blankets over him.

  “Warm enough?” Fiona asked, wondering if they might need more blankets.

  “We’re fine, Weyrwoman,” Seban told her with a smile.

  “Then we’ll take our leave of you and wish you a good rest,” Fiona said, gesturing for Lorana and Kindan to precede her.

  “We could sleep somewhere else,” Kindan said, glancing toward Lorana for confirmation.

  “What? And have me freeze?” Fiona retorted, stepping forward and linking her arms with the other two. “I’ll sleep at the outside, so that I can be closest to Talenth,” she added winningly. “The bed’s so large, you two probably won’t even notice me at all.”

  “I doubt that!” Kindan said. He glanced toward Lorana. “When she was still a child, her favorite trick was to figure out a way to get me to stay the night at Fort Hold, then crawl into bed with me.” With a snort, he added, “By morning, she’d have me either on the floor or stuck in a corner.”

  “I’ve gotten older,” Fiona said with a sniff. “I’m much better at sharing.” She shivered again, pulling the other two closer to her and asking with wide-eyed woefulness, “Besides, you don’t want me to freeze?”

  “No, not after all your kindness,” Lorana said. She glanced at Kindan. He frowned but said nothing.

  Talenth did not stir at all as they passed her, stepping quietly into Fiona’s quarters. Lorana glanced back at the golden queen, her expression unreadable. Fiona followed her gaze and was surprised to see Talenth twitching in her sleep, as though flying away in a dream.

  “She’ll quiet down, I’m sure,” Fiona assured them as they passed into her quarters. Fiona urged the other two into bed before her and climbed in quickly after them. Settled, she turned the glows at the head of the bed and the room got dark. It wasn’t long before all three were warm, and not much longer before they were asleep.

  Fiona woke abruptly, alarmed. She sat up quickly, tilting her head to identify the source of the sound. A girl’s voice, high, nervous, followed by a man’s voice, soothing but feigning confidence.

  “Zirenth, it’s all right!” the man called. Seban. The girl was Bekka.

  There was a roar from Zirenth followed by the sound of him launching himself skyward.

  “No!” Fiona yelled, reaching across Kindan for Lorana. The other woman was instantly awake.

  More bugles were heard in the Bowl outside, deep, loud, threatening. Bronzes.

  “See to Talenth!” Lorana ordered, pushing Fiona out of bed in front of her. As she rolled over Kindan, she snapped to the drowsy harper, “Get up! Talenth is rising!”

  Rising? Fiona thought in horrified surprise.

  “Stay with her, don’t let her gorge,” Kindan said as he suddenly erupted into motion, joining Lorana in pushing her out of the bed.

  “We have to see to Zirenth,” Lorana said to him as the two stood on the cold stone floor, grimaced, and quickly found their slippers.

  Kindan sprinted ahead, shouting, “We’re coming!” And Fiona found herself left behind, still in shock. Lorana turned back to her at the entrance to Talenth’s weyr. She mustered a soothing smile. “You’ll do fine.”

  Fine?

  Another dragon bellowed in the morning air. Talenth twitched in her sleep, turned her head toward the Bowl in puzzlement.

  Fiona reached her thoughts to her queen lovingly. She jerked when her mind met a roil of emotions, of intense desires.

  Echoing back from the far end of the Bowl, Fiona could dimly make out the sounds of herdbeasts crying out in surprise and fear before being silenced by the rapacious bronzes.

  Talenth’s eyes snapped open, whirling a brilliant, dangerous red.

  Talenth!

  The gold dragon turned her head toward Fiona for a moment, her whirling eyes slowing and then, with a bellow, she leaped out of her weyr, into the sky, and down toward the waiting herd.

  “You mustn’t let her gorge!” a voice called to her urgently. Fiona looked up in surprise. It was Kindan. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out onto the ledge. “Reach out to her, control her!”

  Fiona reached—and found her jaws locked on the neck of a felled herdbeast, the hot blood enraging her. She hissed at Kindan and twitched away from him. She would eat this beast whole!

  No, a voice called to her. The voice was strangely familiar. Lorana? Don’t let the dragon control you. Control her!

  The blood tasted so good, so hot. She could smell the fear of the dead beast, hear the rising panic of the others and she wanted more. She wanted to rend, to tear, to rip—

  “No!” Fiona cried out loud. With a grunt, she lashed back at Talenth, who recoiled in surprise, then resisted as Fiona exerted herself. Only the blood!

  No! Talenth roared, her thoughts emphasized with a bellow that filled the whole Weyr and echoed on.

  Yes, Fiona thought back, tightening her grip on her bond with her dragon. Drop it now. There’s another nearby. Drink the blood. Hot blood! You want it!

  With a cry mixed equally with anger and anticipation, Talenth launched herself up high and dove on her next victim. Fiona reveled with her in her flight, in her pounce, and felt the hot, warm blood course into her veins.

  Fire, she was fire. She was wind, she was heat. She was queen!

  More! A voice cried and Talenth leaped again before Fiona could even wonder if the voice was hers or her dragon’s. Was there any difference?

  Again Talenth pounced, again she resisted, again she relented to Fiona’s will.

  A rush of feet punctuated the morning air and Fiona had a brief flash of anxious faces gathering around her, their excitement both arousing and threatening.

  More! Talenth cried, pouncing on her fourth buck, the largest by far. She tore its throat out with a quick deft movement and drained the dying beast’s blood into her waiting jaws.

  Sated, she lifted her head up and cried in delight and challenge, then turned back to her kill only to startle all the waiting bronzes by launching herself in the air.

  Fiona gasped as Talenth bounded into the air, her wings clawing, pulling her higher and even higher with each muscle-straining beat, up through the thick cold air of morning and into the thinner warmer air above.

  With a cry of pure delight, Talenth dove and rose again, higher, and higher until even the Telgar mountains seemed only tiny dots below.

  Yes! Fiona cried in exultation. Higher, higher!

  Below them, Talenth could make out the bronzes, dots striving piteously to match her prowess.

  With a bellow of anger, Talenth noted that there were only fo
ur—just four!—dragons following her. It was an insult. She was half-tempted to fly to Fort Weyr or High Reaches in search of greater honors but something held her back.

  She craned her neck down again, examining her escort. There was Gaminth—a noble and wise dragon, able to lead a Weyr. And Ladirth: young, virile, able. There, leading the pack was—it was Ginirth!

  Talenth let out a bellow and dove, down, down, down, scattering the group of bronzes before soaring back into the air, the strain on her wings pulling at her muscles and causing her chest to heave with the extra exertion of her climb and the thin air.

  Another bellow below her. Zirenth.

  There was an interesting choice.

  Talenth remembered something odd about Zirenth and glanced back at the bronze once more. The dragon seemed colored differently, lighter—tired?

  No, that wasn’t it. Talenth flipped a quick circle on her wingtip, reversing her course and allowed herself a squawk in pleasure when the bronzes only noticed moments later.

  She dove again, this time directing herself toward Zirenth, curious.

  Ginirth bellowed a challenge, climbed up toward her, and reached for her with his claws, but she folded her wings and slipped by him easily.

  Nearby Gaminth roared in delight and turned sharply to give chase.

  Ladirth was last, flagging.

  Zirenth was ahead of her and, to her surprise and consternation, the bronze beat away from her, pulling farther away.

  With a roar of outrage, Talenth put on a burst of speed and clawed her way up beside him.

  Just as she looked toward him again, to issue a challenge and a triumph, the bronze flipped himself on his side, his claws reaching out for her and grasping her tightly.

  Talenth screamed in surprise at the maneuver and then—

  They were falling, rolling over and over, Zirenth on top, then on bottom, Talenth on top in his stead. As they plummeted, Zirenth would beat his wings when he was on top, his bugle challenging her to emulate him.

  Intrigued, Talenth tried and discovered that their plummet became a dance in the air. She bellowed in delight and then—

  Zirenth’s neck twined around hers, his tail about hers and—