Dragongirl

by Todd J. McCaffrey

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” T’mar asked the brown rider.

  “We know that I already did,” B’len said. He straightened as he looked toward Lareth, his brown. “I’ve had time to say good-bye, and that’s more than J’lantir had.”

  B’len had come to Telgar as J’lantir’s wingsecond; they’d flown together for many long Turns.

  “You know,” B’len said philosophically, “it’s really true that knowing you’re going to die gives you a greater appreciation for all that’s good in life.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” B’len told him. “I’ve had a good life and I know that I’ll die the way I wanted—taking Thread with me.”

  “And saving Pern,” T’mar said. “If I had known, B’len, I wouldn’t—”

  “Don’t say it, Weyrleader!” B’len cut him off, clapping him on the shoulder. “You would have done it, because it was needed. And still is needed.”

  T’mar groped for words, found none, and shook his head in mute sympathy for the brown rider who would shortly go back in time to his death.

  “B’len!” Fiona cried, running up to him and wrapping her arms around the brown rider’s waist, enveloping him—as best she could—in a tight hug.

  “Weyrwoman,” B’len said, returning the hug. After a moment, he pushed away from her. “It has been a pleasure knowing you.”

  “And you,” Fiona said, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. “Somewhere, somewhen, if there is something beyond between, we’ll meet again.”

  “It will be a merry meeting,” the brown rider replied with a weary grin.

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Not too soon, I hope, Weyrwoman,” B’len told her. He caressed her cheek softly and she leaned into it. “You have Turns yet, and more, before your time.” He grinned, adding, “Not to mention children of your own to raise.”

  Fiona could say nothing in reply, nodding mutely. B’len turned away and climbed up to his mount on brown Lareth.

  “I’ll see you later,” Fiona said to T’mar, embracing him fiercely. T’mar hugged her back but was unable to suppress a weary yawn and Fiona called, “I’ll have klah ready!”

  Later, in the dark night as she lay awake, worried, Fiona felt the warm, wet tears of the Weyrleader who had led his men back in time to death.

  She moved slowly and softly against him, shushing any protests he made as she gave him all the comfort she could.

  In the morning T’mar woke to see her young, freckled face grinning up at him. He arched an eyebrow questioningly and she chuckled. “There are always things to live for!”

  T’mar frowned, perplexed, until the young Weyrwoman proceeded to demonstrate.

  At breakfast, Fiona noted the weary, wary look on H’nez’s face, saw the way that Jeila cautiously caressed his hand, and guessed that the other weyrwoman had herself demonstrated to her mate one of the fruits of life. Jeila caught her look and gave her a half-smile in response, confirming Fiona’s suspicion. The dark-skinned weyrwoman’s smile flared briefly across her face as the two shared a quiet flash of understanding. Fiona reached a hand across to Jeila, who grabbed it and clenched it firmly before releasing it. Men might fly the Falls, Fiona thought, but it was the women who kept the Weyrs whole.

  Kindan and Lorana approached and sat beside her. Fiona gave the harper a quick glance, saw his troubled look, and raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

  “Benden lost six,” Kindan told her softly, his expression grim.

  “Six dead, seven mauled, three injured,” Lorana said in a quiet voice, a shiver of pain running down her body.

  “And?” Fiona prompted, aware that that older woman had more news to impart.

  “Ciaday’s Sadenth clutched,” Lorana said. Ciaday was the younger weyrwoman at High Reaches.

  “Twenty-one or twenty-two?” Jeila asked, guessing that Lorana was distressed over the paltry number of eggs.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “One queen egg,” Kindan added, his tone upbeat.

  “So that’s good news,” Fiona said brightly. Lorana glowered in her direction. Fiona knew that the older woman was convinced otherwise. “We’ll have weyrlings soon and that always cheers a Weyr. We’ll have them everywhere on Pern.”

  “Weyrlings aren’t fighting dragons,” H’nez said. He jerked as Jeila pinched him under the table, but he was not to be deterred. “It takes three Turns to make a fighting dragon.”

  “Two, if need be,” T’mar said, dropping his tray onto the table beside Fiona and glancing over in the older bronze rider’s direction in greeting. “I’m sure we’ll hold off as long as we can, but I imagine they’ll be fighting before we would like.”

  “Lorana has news from Benden,” Fiona told the Weyrleader and then groaned inwardly as he winced in anticipation. “They lost six and ten injured.”

  T’mar’s expression cleared; this wasn’t the news he’d feared.

  “They don’t fly again for a while,” Kindan said.

  “Nor do we,” Fiona said. “The rest will do us good and we’ll have two more ready to fly again before the month’s end.”

  “But only three and a half Wings,” H’nez remarked sourly. He glanced over to T’mar. “And we’ll have to time it again, almost certainly.”

  “We’ll be well-tested,” T’mar said, not disagreeing with the grim bronze rider.

  “We can’t keep taking these losses.”

  “We’ll do what we must,” T’mar responded in a tone more acerbic than he’d meant. H’nez jerked in reply, his eyes glowering. In an effort to restore the mood, T’mar turned to Jeila. “And how is your Tolarth today, Weyrwoman?”

  “She’s doing well, thank you, Weyrleader,” Jeila said, her tone almost as frosty as H’nez’s. Fiona shot her a surprised expression, which the other weyrwoman ignored.

  “She can hardly sleep with all the little ones crawling over her,” H’nez growled. He glanced at Fiona, then turned back to T’mar. “I don’t see why you allow it; none of those will Impress.”

  T’mar flushed at the heat in the other man’s words.

  “Xhinna and Taria will stand on the Hatching Grounds,” Fiona said. “It’s right that they get to see the eggs early.”

  “And it’s good for the rest of the Weyr,” Kindan said. At H’nez’s look, he continued, “Children are the future of the Weyr, we all know that.”

  Jeila gave the harper a warm smile and turned to H’nez, her hand caressing his possessively. The lanky rider looked down at her hand and covered it with his other hand, his mood lifting.

  Fiona gave the weyrwoman a quick, probing glance and leaned back in her seat, her eyes glowing brightly. Jeila was definitely pregnant; her previous fears had clearly vanished.

  The dark-eyed weyrwoman noticed her expression and gave just the slightest shake of her head, imploring Fiona to keep the revelation to herself. Fiona nodded.

  “We’ll have weyrlings soon enough to teach,” Fiona said, raising her voice and casting about for Shaneese even as she rose from her chair. “I doubt I’ll need to ask Shaneese, but it is a Weyrwoman’s duty to see to such things as preparations for the weyrling quarters.” With a nod toward T’mar, she added jokingly, “And, O Weyrleader, whom will you entrust with the care and rearing of our future flock of flamers?”

  “Kindan,” T’mar replied immediately. The harper, who was eyeing Jeila with an abstracted, thoughtful air, startled at the mention of his name.

  “Weyrleader?” Kindan asked, bemused.

  “He’s no rider!” H’nez said.

  “He knows the lore!” C’tov shouted back, having paid closer attention to the conversation than Fiona had expected, given his unusually morose look.

  “It’s all moot until they’re older, anyway,” F’jian said in Kindan’s defense. “It’s not as though he doesn’t know the drills, and he’d be teaching them the ballads regardless.”

  Kindan’s eyes widened as he caught up with the import of the conversa
tion and he turned to T’mar in surprise. “You want me to be Weyrlingmaster?”

  “I can’t think of anyone better,” T’mar told him. “You’ve raised watch-whers and fire-lizards, you know all the dragon lore, and”—he frowned as honesty compelled him to admit—“we can’t easily spare any fighting pair for the duty.”

  “He’s flown Threadfall, too!” F’jian declaimed loudly with a challenging look in H’nez’s direction. The older bronze rider snorted derisively.

  “Actually,” Jeila spoke up, her tone conciliatory, “he has more experience than anyone else.” She smiled at Kindan as she ticked off her fingers, “Raising a watch-wher, and a fire-lizard.”

  “It won’t be forever,” T’mar told Kindan, with a half-glance in H’nez’s direction. “But …”

  “Weyrleader, I …” Kindan groped for the right words and trailed off as he realized he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He glanced at Lorana, his eyebrows arched questioningly.

  Lorana met his eyes for a long moment, then turned to T’mar. “What if he Impresses on the Hatching Ground himself?”

  H’nez snorted in surprise at the question. A moment later, he admitted, “I suppose it might happen.”

  “I think he should still take the duty,” Jeila said. “His age would make him steadier than any other rider and his understanding of dragons would make him a natural choice as senior.”

  “And it’d be about time!” C’tov agreed heartily, pounding the table before him emphatically. Kindan found himself grinning broadly at the man who had been his boyhood enemy. C’tov grinned back, then wagged a pointed finger toward him. “Although you may find your age makes your aches all the greater.”

  “I think we’re counting our eggs too quickly,” T’mar said, bringing the conversation back to the ground. He rose and leaned on the table, looking down at the harper, his expression firm, hand outstretched. “Will you accept the position?”

  “I will, Weyrleader,” Kindan said, taking T’mar’s hand.

  “Heard and witnessed!” C’tov and F’jian roared in approbation.

  “You do realize that you’ve agreed to take on a third job, don’t you?” Fiona asked Kindan later that evening as they prepared for bed. Lorana, who was already curled up in a comfortable spot, chuckled wickedly.

  “Three?” Kindan repeated blankly.

  “Harper, Weyrlingmaster, and father,” Fiona said, ticking the duties off on her fingers.

  “Four, if you count mate and lover,” Lorana murmured from the bed.

  “Not to mention comforter and caresser,” Fiona agreed, turning to Kindan and tugging him toward the bed. The older man gave her a startled look, but before he could make any protest, Fiona giggled and shook her head, gesturing toward Lorana.

  “It’s her that needs the comforting and caressing,” she assured him, turning toward Talenth’s unoccupied weyr. “I’ll see that T’mar gets some rest.”

  Kindan nodded vaguely, relieved that he hadn’t been required to ask the Weyrwoman to leave; particularly as it would have required him to ask her to leave her own quarters. Still, he felt awkward: She was so gracious in her behavior that he wanted to dash her off her feet and wrap her in his arms, yet at the same time he was pleased that she didn’t expect it.

  “She offered,” Lorana said, looking up from the bed and gesturing for him to climb in. A smile played on her lips. “She is a remarkable person; you’re lucky she loves you.”

  “I’m lucky you love me,” Kindan replied emphatically.

  “I suppose,” Lorana said, her tone uncertain.

  Fiona’s voice from the entrance startled them. “Hey! There are warming stones at the side of the bed, Kindan! You’re supposed to comfort her, not talk her ear off!”

  She made a gesture of someone rubbing with their hands, then shook her head in exasperation and trotted off into the darkness of the Weyr.

  “Oil, too,” Kindan observed as he turned in the bed and found the small basket of warming stones. He poured some oil over them, inhaled deeply of their soothing scent, carefully wrapped his hand around one, and turned back to Lorana. “Roll over, and we’ll ease those sore muscles.”

  Kindan ignored her feeble protests and, as the warm stones and his oily fingers sought out the tense and tired muscles of her lower back, was rewarded with her soft contented sighs. When he was done he placed the used stones back in their basket with warm feelings for Fiona’s foresight: He would never have thought of such things!

  The soft noise of a woman clearing her throat alerted T’mar to Fiona’s presence and he looked up from the slates he was poring over as he stretched out on the table in the back room of his quarters.

  “You should be sleeping,” she said to him as she approached and peered down at his work. “Reorganizing?”

  T’mar agreed with a frazzled nod, and bent back over the table.

  “You’ve two sets of slates here, enough for two Flights but we’ve barely one,” Fiona remarked. Her eyes narrowed as she peered at the marks he’d chalked. “Timing?” When T’mar nodded, she cried, “You’re planning on timing it with the full Weyr?”

  “I think it’s our best choice.”

  “Are you hoping to imitate B’nik and die in a blaze of glory?”

  “I’m hoping to save the Weyr and do our duty until we have enough weyrlings,” T’mar countered, running a weary hand through his hair and rubbing the back of his neck. Fiona batted his hand aside and replaced it with both her own.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized, as she found a knotted muscle and started gently kneading it. “I know you’re under a lot of stress.”

  T’mar stood up straighter, easing the tight muscles Fiona was working, and grunted, “What if they’re right?”

  “They, who?” Fiona dropped one hand from its work and ducked around under his shoulder to peer up at him inquiringly while still working on his neck with her other hand.

  “Everyone,” T’mar said. She quirked an eyebrow and frowned, so he expounded, “The ones who say that the cure caused the small clutches and that all we’ll get are small clutches.”

  “And that they won’t be enough and that we’ll die out and lose Pern?” Fiona asked softly. T’mar dipped his head in agreement. Fiona took a deep breath and met T’mar’s eyes frankly. “I don’t think it’s so. But even if it is, I won’t stop, and you won’t stop, either.” T’mar frowned, unconvinced. Fiona continued, “If worse comes to worst, then I’ll feed Talenth firestone and you and I will fly together, with Lorana and Kindan flying any uninjured dragon and Nuella and all the watch-whers of Pern flaming at everything we can.” She paused, pursing her lips grimly. “And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll go together, you, I, our dragons, everyone—we won’t stop until the last of us falls or is charred beyond life.”

  “You,” T’mar said in voice choked with emotion, even as he wrapped his hands around her and dragged her tight against him, “are a gift.”

  Fiona’s eyes welled with tears; she could find no words. A moment later she pushed back against T’mar and he looked down at her as she told him in a soft, firm voice, “You have to share me, you know.”

  “I know,” T’mar said, his voice both soft and tender. His lips quirked up as he added, “You’re far too much for one man alone!”

  Fiona joined him in a smile and he crushed her in another hug that he only broke when she gasped, “And you’ve got to let me breathe!”

  TWENTY

  Sands heat,

  Dragons hum.

  Shells crack,

  Mates become.

  Telgar Weyr, early morning, AL 508.6.19

  Xhinna blearily rubbed her eyes as one of the youngsters whimpered beside her, clearly disturbed by a bad dream. She saw that it was little Darri and moved herself close enough to touch the youngster’s head, crooning, “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

  Darri rolled her head away from Xhinna’s hand with a soft sigh as the dream lost its grip on her.

  Xhinna spared
a fond look for the little girl and then her expression darkened into a frown as she wished that events of the past twelve days could be as easily forgotten.

  Sixty-six! That was the total fighting strength of the Weyr at this moment. There were nearly as many injured, but only the thirty-five least wounded could be expected to fight again in the next thirty days.

  In the past two Falls, the strength of the Weyr had fallen by more than a full Wing.

  Xhinna heard others muttering darkly that Telgar was unlucky, that it was taking a far greater strain than the other Weyrs, that timing it was killing dragon and rider. There was a certain truth in that last moan; it was evident that timing it left both dragon and rider more exhausted and less able to fight a Fall than those who didn’t time it.

  The second Fall, the last one over Igen, had been the worse of the two last Falls, causing twenty-one casualties, including ten lost—the majority of the losses occurring when the fighting dragons timed it back to fight again.

  Xhinna wondered how anyone could force themselves to jump back in time knowing already that it would mean their death. But the brave words of B’len were echoed time and again by dragonriders, bright-eyed with repressed sorrow as they assured themselves and their lovers that it was for the best; that they were glad to actually know it was their time, that they were glad to have a chance to give a proper farewell.

  Xhinna wasn’t sure if T’mar’s practice of allowing enough time between the original fight and the timed return to the Fall made it easier or harder for the riders. Clearly, resting up from a Fall was important, but she wondered if it really helped the riders who knew that they were leaping back in time to their death.

  Darri stirred again and Xhinna absently hummed a little melody to ease the child back to sleep even as her eyes darted to the entrance of the darkened Hatching Grounds; she could just make out the first gloaming of morning. She would have to get up soon. Carefully she schooled her worries away, knowing that the little ones would be looking to her for guidance.