Wings of Fire

by Jonathan Strahan

  “It was but gibbering when Canth spoke to it,” F’nor remarked. He was leaning against the mantel, turning slightly from side to side to gather some warmth. He watched his wingleader’s impatient pacing.

  “Mnementh is calming it down,” F’lar replied. “He may be able to sort out the nightmare. The creature may be more senile than aware, but…”

  “I doubt it,” F’nor concurred helpfully. He glanced with apprehension up at the webhung ceiling. He was certain he’d found most of the crawlers, but he didn’t fancy their sting. Not on top of the discomforts already experienced in this forsaken Hold. If the night stayed mild, he intended curling up with Canth on the heights. “That would be more reasonable than anything Fax or his Warder have suggested.”

  “Hm-m-m,” F’lar muttered, frowning at the brown rider.

  “Well, it’s unbelievable that Ruatha could have fallen to such disrepair in ten short Turns. Every dragon caught the feeling of power and it’s obvious the watch-wher had been tampered with. That takes a good deal of control.”

  “From someone of the Blood,” F’lar reminded him.

  F’nor shot his wingleader a quick look, wondering if he could possibly be serious in the light of all information to the contrary.

  “I grant you there is power here, F’lar,” F’nor conceded. “It could easily be a hidden male of the old Blood. But we need a female. And Fax made it plain, in his inimitable fashion, that he left none of the old Blood alive in the Hold the day he took it. No, no.” The brown rider shook his head, as if he could dispel the lack of faith in his wingleader’s curious insistence that the Search would end in Ruath with Ruathan blood.

  “That watch-wher is hiding something and only someone of the Blood of its Hold can arrange that,” F’lar said emphatically. He gestured around the Hall and toward the walls, bare of hangings. “Ruatha has been overcome. But she resists… subtly. I say it points to the old Blood, and power. Not power alone.”

  The obstinate expression in F’lar’s eyes, the set of his jaw, suggested that F’nor seek another topic.

  “The pattern was well-flown today,” F’nor suggested tentatively. “Does a dragonman good to ride a flaming beast. Does the beast good, too. Keeps the digestive process in order.”

  F’lar nodded sober agreement. “Let R’gul temporize as he chooses. It is fitting and proper to ride a firespouting beast and these holders need to be reminded of Weyr power.”

  “Right now, anything would help our prestige,” F’nor commented sourly. “What had Fax to say when he hailed you in the Pass?” F’nor knew his question was almost impertinent but if it were, F’lar would ignore it.

  F’lar’s slight smile was unpleasant and there was an ominous glint in his amber eyes.

  “We talked of rule and resistance.”

  “Did he not also draw on you?” F’nor asked.

  F’lar’s smile deepened. “Until he remembered I was dragon-mounted.”

  “He’s considered a vicious fighter,” F’nor said.

  “I am at some disadvantage?” F’lar asked, turning sharply on his brown rider, his face too controlled.

  “To my knowledge, no,” F’nor reassured his leader quickly. F’lar had tumbled every man in the Weyr, efficiently and easily. “But Fax kills often and without cause.”

  “And because we dragonmen do not seek blood, we are not to be feared as fighters?” snapped F’lar. “Are you ashamed of your heritage?”

  “I? No!” F’nor sucked in his breath. “Nor any of our wing!” he added proudly. “But there is that in the attitude of the men in this progression of Fax’s that… that makes me wish some excuse to fight.”

  “As you observed today, Fax seeks some excuse. And,” F’lar added thoughtfully, “there is something here in Ruatha that unnerves our noble overlord.”

  He caught sight of Lady Tela, whom Fax had so courteously assigned him for comfort during the progression, waving to him from the inner Hold portal.

  “A case in point. Fax’s Lady Tela is some three months gone.”

  F’nor frowned at the insult to his leader.

  “She giggles incessantly and appears so addlepated that one cannot decide whether she babbles out of ignorance or at Fax’s suggestion. As she has apparently not bathed all winter, and is not, in any case, my ideal, I have…” F’lar grinned maliciously “…deprived myself of her kind offices.”

  F’nor hastily cleared his throat and his expression as Lady Tela approached them. He caught the unappealing odor from the scarf or handkerchief she waved constantly. Dragonmen endured a great deal for the Weyr. He moved away, with apparent courtesy, to join the rest of the dragonmen entering the Hall.

  F’lar turned with equal courtesy to Lady Tela as she jabbered away about the terrible condition of the rooms which Lady Gemma and the other ladies had been assigned.

  “The shutters, both sets, were ajar all winter long and you should have seen the trash on the floors. We finally got two of the drudges to sweep it all into the fireplace. And then that smoked something fearful ’till a man was sent up.” Lady Tela giggled. “He found the access blocked by a chimney stone fallen aslant. The rest of the chimney, for a wonder, was in good repair.”

  She waved her handkerchief. F’lar held his breath as the gesture wafted an unappealing odor in his direction.

  He glanced up the Hall toward the inner Hold door and saw Lady Gemma descending, her steps slow and awkward. Some subtle difference about her gait attracted him and he stared at her, trying to identify it.

  “Oh, yes, poor Lady Gemma,” Lady Tela babbled, sighing deeply. “We are so concerned. Why Lord Fax insisted on her coming, I do not know. She is not near her time and yet…” The lighthead’s concern sounded sincere.

  F’lar’s incipient hatred for Fax and his brutality matured abruptly. He left his partner chattering to thin air and courteously extended his arm to Lady Gemma to support her down the steps and to the table. Only the brief tightening of her fingers on his forearm betrayed her gratitude. Her face was very white and drawn, the lines deeply etched around mouth and eyes, showing the effort she was expending.

  “Some attempt has been made, I see, to restore order to the Hall,” she remarked in a conversational tone.

  “Some,” F’lar admitted dryly, glancing around the grandly proportioned Hall, its rafter festooned with the webs of many Turns. The inhabitants of those gossamer nests dropped from time to time, with ripe splats, to the floor, onto the table and into the serving platters. Nothing replaced the old banners of the Ruathan Blood, which had been removed from the stark brown stone walls. Fresh rushes did obscure the greasy flagstones. The trestle tables appeared recently sanded and scraped, and the platters gleamed dully in the refreshed glows. Unfortunately, the brighter light was a mistake for it was much too unflattering.

  “This was such a graceful Hall,” Lady Gemma murmured for F’lar’s ears alone.

  “You were a friend?” he asked, politely.

  “Yes, in my youth.” Her voice dropped expressively on the last word, evoking for F’lar a happier girlhood. “It was a noble line!”

  “Think you one might have escaped the sword?”

  Lady Gemma flashed him a startled look, then quickly composed her features, lest the exchange be noted. She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head and then shifted her awkward weight to take her place at the table. Graciously she inclined her head toward F’lar, both dismissing and thanking him.

  F’lar returned to his own partner and placed her at the table on his left. As the only person of rank who would dine that night at Ruath Hold, Lady Gemma was seated on his right; Fax would be beyond her. The dragonmen and Fax’s upper soldiery would sit at the lower tables. No guildmen had been invited to Ruatha. Fax arrived just then with his current lady and two underleaders, the Warder bowing them effusively into the Hall. The man, F’lar noticed, kept a good distance from his overlord… as well as a Warder might whose responsibility was in this sorry condition. F’lar flicked a crawl
er away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lady Gemma wince and shudder.

  Fax stamped up to the raised table, his face black with suppressed rage. He pulled back his chair roughly, slamming it into Lady Gemma’s before he seated himself. He pulled the chair to the table with a force that threatened to rock the none too stable trestle-top from its supporting legs. Scowling, he inspected his goblet and plate, fingering the surface, ready to throw them aside if they displeased him.

  “A roast and fresh bread, Lord Fax, and such fruits and roots as are left. Had I but known of your arrival, I could have sent to Crom for…”

  “Sent to Crom?” roared Fax, slamming the plate he was inspecting into the table so forcefully the rim bent under his hands. The Warder winced again as if he himself had been maimed.

  “The day one of my Holds cannot support itself or the visit of its rightful overlord, I shall renounce it.”

  Lady Gemma gasped. Simultaneously the dragons roared. F’lar felt the unmistakable surge of power. His eyes instinctively sought F’nor at the lower table. The brown rider… all the dragonmen… had experienced that inexplicable shaft of exultation.

  “What’s wrong, Dragonman?” snapped Fax.

  F’lar, affecting unconcern, stretched his legs under the table and assumed an indolent posture in the heavy chair.

  “Wrong?”

  “The dragons!”

  “Oh, nothing. They often roar… at the sunset, at a flock of passing wherries, at mealtimes,” and F’lar smiled amiably at the Lord of the High Reaches. Beside him his tablemate gave a squeak.

  “Mealtimes! Have they not been fed?”

  “Oh, yes. Five days ago.”

  “Oh. Five… days ago? And are they hungry… now?” Her voice trailed into a whisper of fear, her eyes grew round.

  “In a few days,” F’lar assured her. Under cover of his detached amusement, F’lar scanned the Hall. That surge had come from nearby. Either in the Hall or just outside. It must have been from within. It came so soon upon Fax’s speech that his words must have triggered it. And the power had had an indefinably feminine touch to it.

  One of Fax’s women? F’lar found that hard to credit. Mnementh had been close to all of them and none had shown a vestige of power. Much less, with the exception of Lady Gemma, any intelligence.

  One of the Hall women? So far he had seen only the sorry drudges and the aging females the Warder had as housekeepers. The Warder’s personal woman? He must discover if that man had one. One of the Hold guards’ women? F’lar suppressed an intense desire to rise and search.

  “You mount a guard?” he asked Fax casually.

  “Double at Ruath Hold!” he was told in a tight, hard voice, ground out from somewhere deep in Fax’s chest.

  “Here?” F’lar all but laughed out loud, gesturing around the sadly appointed chamber.

  “Here! Food!” Fax changed the subject with a roar.

  Five drudges, two of them women in brown-gray rags such that F’lar hoped they had had nothing to do with the preparation of the meal, staggered in under the emplattered herdbeast. No one with so much as a trace of power would sink to such depths, unless…

  The aroma that reached him as the platter was placed on the serving table distracted him. It reeked of singed bone and charred meat. The Warder frantically sharpened his tools as if a keen edge could somehow slice acceptable portions from this unlikely carcass.

  Lady Gemma caught her breath again and F’lar saw her hands curl tightly around the armrests. He saw the convulsive movement of her throat as she swallowed. He, too, did not look forward to this repast.

  The drudges reappeared with wooden trays of bread. Burnt crusts had been scraped and cut, in some places, from the loaves before serving. As other trays were borne in, F’lar tried to catch sight of the faces of the servitors. Matted hair obscured the face of the one who presented a dish of legumes swimming in greasy liquid. Revolted, F’lar poked through the legumes to find properly cooked portions to offer Lady Gemma. She waved them aside, her face ill-concealing her discomfort.

  As F’lar was about to turn and serve Lady Tela, he saw Lady Gemma’s hand clutch convulsively at the chair arms. He realized that she was not merely nauseated by the unappetizing food. She was seized with labor contractions.

  F’lar glanced in Fax’s direction. The overlord was scowling blackly at the attempts of the Warder to find edible portions of meat to serve.

  F’lar touched Lady Gemma’s arm with light fingers. She turned just enough to look at F’lar from the corner of her eye. She managed a socially correct half-smile.

  “I dare not leave just now, Lord F’lar. He is always dangerous at Ruatha. And it may only be false pangs.”

  F’lar was dubious as he saw another shudder pass through her frame. The woman would have been a fine weyrwoman, he thought ruefully, were she but younger.

  The Warder, his hands shaking, presented Fax the sliced meats. There were slivers of overdone flesh and portions of almost edible meats, but not much of either.

  One furious wave of Fax’s broad fist and the Warder had the plate, meats and juice, square in the face. Despite himself, F’lar sighed, for those undoubtedly constituted the only edible portions of the entire beast.

  “You call this food? You call this food?” Fax bellowed. His voice boomed back from the bare vault of the ceiling, shaking crawlers from their webs as the sound shattered the fragile strands. “Slop! Slop!”

  F’lar rapidly brushed crawlers from Lady Gemma who was helpless in the throes of a very strong contraction.

  “It’s all we had on such short notice,” the Warder squealed, juices streaking down his cheeks. Fax threw the goblet at him and the wine went streaming down the man’s chest. The steaming dish of roots followed and the man yelped as the hot liquid splashed over him.

  “My lord, my lord, had I but known!”

  “Obviously, Ruatha cannot support the visit of its Lord. You must renounce it,” F’lar heard himself saying.

  His shock at such words issuing from his mouth was as great as that of everyone else in the Hall. Silence fell, broken by the splat of falling crawlers and the drip of root liquid from the Warder’s shoulders to the rushes. The grating of Fax’s boot-heel was clearly audible as he swung slowly around to face the bronze rider.

  As F’lar conquered his own amazement and rapidly tried to predict what to do next to mend matters, he saw F’nor rise slowly to his feet, hand on dagger hilt.

  “I did not hear you correctly?” Fax asked, his face blank of all expression, his eyes snapping.

  Unable to comprehend how he could have uttered such an arrant challenge, F’lar managed to assume a languid pose.

  “You did mention,” he drawled, “that if any of your Holds could not support itself and the visit of its rightful overlord, you would renounce it.”

  Fax stared back at F’lar, his face a study of swiftly suppressed emotions, the glint of triumph dominant. F’lar, his face stiff with the forced expression of indifference, was casting swiftly about in his mind. In the name of the Egg, had he lost all sense of discretion?

  Pretending utter unconcern, he stabbed some vegetables onto his knife and began to munch on them. As he did so, he noticed F’nor glancing slowly around the Hall, scrutinizing everyone. Abruptly F’lar realized what had happened. Somehow, in making that statement, he, a dragonman, had responded to a covert use of the power. F’lar, the bronze rider, was being put into a position where he would have to fight Fax. Why? For what end? To get Fax to renounce the Hold? Incredible! But, there could be only one possible reason for such a turn of events. An exultation as sharp as pain swelled within F’lar. It was all he could do to maintain his pose of bored indifference, all he could do to turn his attention to thwarting Fax, should he press for a duel. A duel would serve no purpose. He, F’lar, had no time to waste on it.

  A groan escaped Lady Gemma and broke the eye-locked stance of the two antagonists. Irritated, Fax looked down at her, fist clenched and half-raise
d to strike her for her temerity in interrupting her lord and master. The contraction that contorted the swollen belly was as obvious as the woman’s pain. F’lar dared not look toward her but he wondered if she had deliberately groaned aloud to break the tension.

  Incredibly, Fax began to laugh. He threw back his head, showing big, stained teeth, and roared.

  “Aye, renounce it, in favor of her issue, if it is male… and lives!” he crowed, laughing raucously.

  “Heard and witnessed!” F’lar snapped, jumping to his feet and pointing to the riders. They were on their feet in the instant. “Heard, and witnessed!” they averred in the traditional manner.

  With that movement, everyone began to babble at once in nervous relief. The other women, each reacting in her way to the imminence of birth, called orders to the servants and advice to each other. They converged toward Lady Gemma, hovering undecidedly out of Fax’s range, like silly wherries disturbed from their roosts. It was obvious they were torn between their fear of the lord and their desire to reach the laboring woman.

  He gathered their intentions as well as their reluctance and, still stridently laughing, knocked back his chair. He stepped over it, strode down to the meatstand and stood hacking off pieces with his knife, stuffing them, juice dripping, into his mouth without ceasing his guffawing.

  As F’lar bent toward Lady Gemma to assist her out of her chair, she grabbed his arm urgently. Their eyes met, hers clouded with pain. She pulled him closer.

  “He means to kill you, Bronze Rider. He loves to kill,” she whispered.

  “Dragonmen are not easily killed, but I am grateful to you.”

  “I do not want you killed,” she said, softly, biting at her lip. “We have so few bronze riders.”

  F’lar stated at her, startled. Did she, Fax’s lady, actually believe in the Old Laws?

  F’lar beckoned to two of the Warder’s men to carry her up into the Hold. He caught Lady Tela by the arm as she fluttered past him.

  “What do you need?”

  “Oh, oh,” she exclaimed, her face twisted with panic; she was distractedly wringing her hands. “Water, hot. Clean cloths. And a birthing-woman. Oh, yes, we must have a birthing-woman.”