Sky Dragons Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Does it really have to be that long?” Taria asked, trailing along at the rear of the group.

  “T’mar said that K’dan would probably know best,” X’lerin said, pausing in his efforts to follow the path Xhinna blazed through the branches as they descended. He glanced around. “I don’t think I’ve ever been up this high in a broom tree before.”

  “It is unusual, isn’t it?” K’dan responded. “Apparently Xhinna’s Tazith first tried it.”

  “Is Kivith too heavy?” Xhinna wondered suddenly. “We hadn’t really planned on making it permanent, just until we could find a better location. The hatchlings—including K’dan’s Lurenth—all seem to enjoy the height.”

  “Kivith assures me that he is quite pleased at the moment,” X’lerin said.

  “Something to do with a whole flight of queens and he the only mature bronze,” J’keran quipped.

  “I think it’s too early to consider such things, J’keran,” K’dan told him evenly.

  “Better too early than too late,” J’keran replied, not at all repentant. He leered at X’lerin as he added, “I’m sure there’ll be a proper bronze to attend to the matter.”

  “J’keran,” X’lerin said, “perhaps you’d best get back to the rest of the wing and help with the off-loading of supplies.”

  “Check with Javissa—she’ll find someplace to put them,” K’dan added frostily. “I do hope that Fiona thought to send coverings—something we could use to cover the supplies and for tents in the rain.”

  “Javissa’s here?” Xhinna asked in surprise.

  “She insisted,” J’keran said with a note of respect in his voice. “She didn’t want J’riz to—”

  “J’riz’s Qinth is recovering,” K’dan said. The brown and bronze riders looked amazed.

  “Bekka doesn’t like losing a patient,” Xhinna said dryly.

  “She is some healer,” X’lerin said. Shaking his head, he added, “I wouldn’t have given the little green more than a day.”

  “How did you know about it?” K’dan asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  X’lerin gave him a wry grin. “Ah … I believe Fiona mentioned something about a note left at Red Butte?”

  “So we know something that has to go into this note we’ve yet to write,” K’dan commented sardonically.

  X’lerin looked alarmed. “Fiona said we weren’t supposed to tell you anything!” He sighed, then in an effort to change the topic, asked, “And how is this Qinth?”

  “Qinth proves that dragons are even tougher than we thought,” K’dan said. “Did you bring anyone else with you?”

  “Javissa’s daughter, Jirana,” X’lerin said. “She insisted that she’d be needed as much as her mother.”

  Xhinna noted that J’keran was still with them. “Tell Javissa that I’m glad she’s here and ask her to coordinate with Taria about storing the goods.”

  “I don’t think I can find my way back,” J’keran said wryly.

  “I’ll show you,” Taria offered.

  “Lead on, green rider!” J’keran said with a mock bow.

  “Did you bring any klah bark?” K’dan asked. “I’m pretty certain we’re almost out.”

  “Not enough for three Turns,” X’lerin told him ruefully.

  “Klah and rolls for four, please!” Xhinna yelled down to the group at the fire near the base of the tree.

  “On the way,” C’nian called back.

  “Sit,” Xhinna said, gesturing to the makeshift seats marked by nothing more than pads strategically placed on horizontal branches.

  “We’ll have to eat in shifts,” X’lerin remarked as he found a spot.

  “We can seat six in a pinch,” Bekka said stiffly.

  “I don’t think he meant to be rude,” Xhinna said to her, referring to J’keran.

  “No, he probably did,” X’lerin said, shaking his head.

  “He was always a bit of a hothead,” K’dan agreed. “I remember Fiona regaling me with his antics as a weyrling.”

  “And the knot between really shook him,” X’lerin added.

  “Not only him,” K’dan declared, giving the younger man a probing look.

  “No, not only him,” X’lerin agreed.

  “Tell us.”

  X’lerin sighed. “As I said, I’ve got notes from Fiona, Lorana, Shaneese, and T’mar.”

  “We can read them later,” K’dan said.

  X’lerin gave K’dan a pained look. But before he could start his account, C’nian’s voice called up from below.

  “Ready!”

  “Thanks!” Xhinna called back. They had rigged a platform and rope that served to carry items up and down between ground and treetop camp. Now she pulled on the rope to bring up the food prepared below. A tray set on the branches between the padded seats served as a table.

  “I’ll serve,” K’dan told her agreeably. “Just sit.”

  There was a pitcher of klah, mugs for all, and a basket of warm rolls.

  “There’s no butter, nor sweetening,” Xhinna said. “If you want cold meat—”

  “This is fine,” X’lerin assured her. They sat in companionable silence for several moments as they ate and sipped their klah.

  Finally, X’lerin nodded to K’dan. “As I said, being stuck between shook many people—”

  “Fiona in particular,” K’dan guessed.

  “Fiona in particular,” X’lerin said, nodding. “She was lost all alone in between and abandoned until Lorana came back for her. And when she did, Fiona wasn’t breathing.”

  “But she recovered?” K’dan asked.

  “She did,” X’lerin assured him. “We were only back a few days before she woke up in the middle of the night, convinced that she’d heard Xhinna.”

  “Well, I’m glad T’mar was wise enough to listen to her,” K’dan said, thinking back to a time when he had doubted Fiona’s intuition.

  “Her, Lorana, and Talenth,” X’lerin said. “Even so, D’gan was totally—”

  “D’gan?” K’dan broke in. “He’s alive?”

  “Yes,” X’lerin said. “I’m sorry, I should have explained better.” He took a breath. “No one at Telgar understands it completely, but when we tried to jump forward in time to Telgar, we crossed with the riders who’d tried to jump to fight Thread—the lost riders of Telgar Weyr.”

  “Yes, I thought as much,” K’dan said.

  “And we got caught, part of us locked in Fiona’s cry and part locked in D’gan’s cry—”

  “ ‘Can’t lose the babies,’ ” Bekka repeated. She turned to K’dan. “She was talking about her babies.”

  “ ‘The Weyrs must be warned’ was D’gan’s cry,” K’dan remembered. He shuddered. “I remember when I first heard that cry.” The others looked at him. “Lorana said it, echoing him.”

  “And now she’s brought him—and all those lost riders—back to Telgar.”

  “Oh,” Xhinna said with sudden understanding.

  “That must be … awkward,” K’dan said.

  “We’d only just started to see some of that … awkwardness when Fiona heard Xhinna’s cry,” X’lerin said.

  “D’gan was opposed to your going,” K’dan guessed.

  “D’gan doesn’t know you went,” Xhinna said.

  X’lerin raised his mug to her with a smile. “Precisely.”

  “You’d hardly be noticed in the throng of all those old Telgar riders,” K’dan said. He tipped his mug and took a hefty gulp of klah. “I can’t imagine him yielding his leadership to T’mar with any grace.”

  “And the problem won’t necessarily be solved by the time we return,” Bekka noted. When the others looked at her, she explained, “It might be three Turns for us, but it may be less than a day for them.”

  “Indeed,” K’dan said.

  There was a tone of worry in his voice that made the others glance away from him until Xhinna reached across the table to put a hand on his arm. “She’ll be fine, K’dan.” The harper looked over to
her. “They’ll all be fine.”

  “What matters for us, now, is what we’re going to do,” Bekka declared.

  Xhinna dropped her arm and turned to X’lerin. “So, Weyrleader, what should we do?”

  “Me?” X’lerin gasped, sitting bolt upright. He threw a hand beseechingly toward K’dan. “You’re oldest. By the First Egg, you were my Weyrlingmaster—you should be Weyrleader!”

  “I’m already Werylingmaster, father, and harper,” K’dan said, shaking off the offer. “And my dragon’s just out of the shell.” He jerked his head toward the bronze rider with a smile. “No, X’lerin, I’d say your position is clear.”

  “Um,” X’lerin said, glancing around the table. “Ah … who managed everything before?”

  Bekka cocked her head toward Xhinna. “She was in charge.”

  “I ride a blue,” Xhinna protested. “I was just doing what was needed.”

  “Fine,” X’lerin said firmly. “What’s needed now is for you to brief me.” His lips quirked upward. “After that, we’ll see.”

  The first priority was stowing the goods the others had brought. After that, Xhinna found herself introducing the rest of the group to the bronze rider and, strangely, in charge of the evening hunt—at least coordinating it, as X’lerin insisted that her Tazith had strained himself too much to do more work that day.

  Even so, Xhinna managed to get aloft on Tazith because she had to show the new riders some of the tricks they’d learned in driving game to hunters, and also because she was the only one who knew how to find the various spots that R’ney, Jepara, and the other hunters preferred for their traps.

  “What do you know of J’keran?” R’ney asked softly as he rode behind Xhinna on their way back to camp with two large wherries—his catch—slung beneath Tazith’s belly.

  “He was one of the ones who went back in time with Fiona to Igen Weyr,” Xhinna replied noncommittally, her senses alerted by the lack of tone in the other’s voice.

  “Hmm,” R’ney said. “He seems rather … abrasive.”

  “He’s been through a lot, and the loss of F’jian affected him more than some,” Xhinna said. She shrugged. “To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to the riders at Eastern because I spent so much time with Fiona and the babies.”

  “He seemed to be making an effort to be sociable with Taria,” R’ney said. “There was a green rider, V’lex, who looked upset.”

  “Well, things will sort themselves out soon enough,” Xhinna said, trying to keep any sense of misgiving from her voice.

  “I’m sure they will,” R’ney agreed.

  Tazith descended to the clearing nearest the cooking area, and then, getting busy unloading the wherry carcasses, they had no opportunity to continue the conversation.

  Among other things that X’lerin’s wing brought with them was a decent supply of herbs and—

  “Seeds!” Bekka cried in triumph when she first saw them. She rapidly pawed through the small packets and quickly stuffed a few into her pockets, saying to a perplexed Javissa, “These’ll grow here. We can start a garden.”

  “Jirana can help,” Javissa said. “But for now, I need to find some of the peppers and a few other herbs to spice the meat tonight.”

  “Did anyone think to get redfruit?”

  “And bitter bulbs,” Javissa assured her with a smile. “We’ll have spiced wherry tonight.”

  “That and the bread—”

  “I’m sorry, the bread won’t be ready until the morning,” Javissa said. “We haven’t started the dough yet.”

  That evening a great feast was prepared on a roaring fire in the clearing nearest the treetop Weyr. There was klah, fruit juice, fresh hardnut, a smattering of greens, and plenty of roast wherry for all.

  “If I’d known what the cooking was going to be like, I would have volunteered quicker,” V’lex exclaimed as he came back for another helping.

  “Well, you should’ve known, dimglow, as you had much the same in Eastern,” J’keran snarled, pulling him out of the line. “And if you think you’re going to gorge yourself to sleep—”

  “J’keran,” X’lerin cut in smoothly, “I think tonight is a night when we can all eat our fill.”

  “A jump between times is tiring and uses a lot of energy,” K’dan added.

  “Well, at least wait until the others have all had theirs, then,” J’keran grumpily told the green rider.

  V’lex flushed, but turned away and moved to the back of the line.

  “You should let the weyrfolk here eat first,” J’keran continued, raising his voice to make it carry. He glanced toward Taria and winked. “After all, they’ve been on short rations for too long.”

  Seeing Xhinna tense, K’dan said quickly, “Xhinna did her best.”

  “I’m sure,” J’keran said in a tone that belied his words. “It’s hard enough for a blue, but given his rider …” He let his words trail off. He cut a quick glance in Xhinna’s direction, smirking when he caught the expression on her face. He turned to Taria, placing his back to the others. “Did you want some more?”

  Taria shook her head and moved away quietly to sit beside Xhinna. R’ney joined them after filling his plate for a second time. He glanced in J’keran’s direction, but said nothing.

  “He’s not usually like this.”

  Xhinna looked up and saw V’lex standing before them. He gestured at the log on which she was seated. “May I join you?”

  “Certainly,” she said, shuffling over to make room.

  V’lex sat down, nodded to Taria and R’ney, and then said quietly to Xhinna, “He’s baiting you, you know.”

  “He’s a brown rider, he has Turns more experience than I do—he outranks me in all things,” Xhinna said tonelessly.

  “He could never have done what you did,” R’ney declared stoutly. “Single-handedly you saved us all.” He nodded toward the young queen riders who were grouped around X’lerin and K’dan, chatting and giggling. “They know it.” He jerked his head toward the silent group of bronze weyrlings and added, “So do they.”

  “Well, things will be different now,” Xhinna said.

  “Different isn’t always better,” R’ney said.

  Xhinna nodded, buoyed by his confidence in her, but saddened that those words hadn’t come from Taria.

  The new arrivals soon adapted to the routine of life in the broom trees. X’lerin’s bronze even located the perfect spot for their “weyr”—right at the very edge of Sky Weyr’s forest. Every morning when they rose, X’lerin slipped onto Kivith’s back and the bronze simply fell out of their high loft to glide easily down toward the main camp, where he’d deposit his rider before continuing on to the burnt plateau for a meal if he felt hungry, or to the sea beyond for a dip, usually waking Colfet, who had set himself up in a small cot by the shore. Often the old seaman would return to camp on the bronze’s back with fresh catch for breakfast or for an afternoon stew.

  That Kivith’s path took him over the whole camp, as well as the burnt plateau, allowing X’lerin to scout the whole area each morning, was not lost on Xhinna.

  “It just seemed the thing to do,” X’lerin had said with a modest shrug when Xhinna complimented him on his and Kivith’s planning.

  He was nearly half a Turn her elder, but still half a head shorter and not likely to get any taller; he’d once told her that he came from a long line of short people. He seemed comfortable with his lack of height; he was well-muscled and wiry, with hazel eyes and a sharp-hewn face that smiled often.

  This morning, however, more than a month after the newcomers had settled into their own weyrs, Kivith let out a challenging bellow as he reached the end of the camp, startling everyone awake.

  Mrreows, Tazith said, relaying the bronze’s warning to Xhinna as she raced from her bed toward his weyr.

  Tell them not to kill them, she told him. Have the net crew go after them. Let’s see if we can catch one.

  A cage had been built the sevenday before, with R’ney
and J’riz leading the effort. Xhinna was pleased to see that the brown rider had taken the young green rider as one of his own; they worked well together, J’riz following R’ney’s designs with silent grace, almost seeming an extension of the ex-smither’s will. R’ney seemed a natural father: He enjoyed the presence of the lad, and didn’t mind when his sister and their mother, Javissa, occasionally accompanied them on their various construction projects.

  For her part, Javissa, who had taken over from Taria the role of headwoman of Sky Weyr, was spending more and more time with the old seaman, Colfet. Sometimes X’lerin had his bronze carry Javissa down to Colfet’s hut before breakfast. The two would return not only with fresh fish, but also with the contented expressions of two who had shared the silence of the dawn and the meditative pleasure of sitting together with their poles and waiting for fish to be lured onto their hooks.

  Taria had put her finger on the value of the seaman when she’d said, “He’s got the calm of the sea.”

  It had been Javissa and Colfet who had come up with the idea of capturing a Mrreow so they could study it. Taria had blanched at the notion, still remembering the pain her Coranth had felt when the Mrreow had scored her leg with its claws. Xhinna was tempted to side with her, but the tantalizing possibility of being able to control the tawny-furred beasts was too important: If they could prevent the Mrreows from attacking, then no other dragon would be mauled like Coranth.

  Now Tazith relayed Xhinna’s order as she climbed onto his neck. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of green rising into the sky.

  Tell Coranth to stay back, she said. The green was heavy with egg and Xhinna didn’t want anything to happen to her.

  She’ll stick with us, Tazith replied. Xhinna grinned at Taria’s tactic: with Taria on her tail, she’d not let herself get too close to the Mrreows, either.

  Taria’s caution probably saved them both a mauling as the Mrreows fought ferociously to free themselves from the nets, one tearing a strip out of a brown who’d come too close.

  Kill it! Xhinna ordered, waving at the group of blues she’d assigned to just this duty. One of them swooped low enough to let the rider fire an arrow deep into the Mrreow’s head, killing it instantly. The brown—J’keran’s Perinth—dropped the net with the dead Mrreow in it, wheeling away back toward the Weyr.