Dragonsblood

by Todd McCaffrey

  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.

  EIGHTEEN

  Thread scores

  Dragons scream.

  Thread burns

  Freeze between.

  Benden Weyr, Third Pass, 12th Day, AL 508

  I will stay with her. You go get some rest,” Salina declared, shoving Kindan out of Lorana’s quarters.

  It had been two days since the Weyr had been jolted awake by Lorana’s grab of all the dragons, by Arith’s horrific cry, and Lorana’s soul-torn shout.

  “She’s wasting away,” Kindan cried. “See if you can get her to eat something.”

  “I’ll try,” Salina told him. “You get some rest, Kindan. It’s your strength she needs now.”

  “Go on,” M’tal declared gruffly, entering the room. “She’s right.”

  Kindan gave the dragonrider a wary look that settled as it registered in his sleep-numbed mind that M’tal had comforted Salina on her loss.

  “You’re all worn out,” M’tal said, patting the harper on the shoulder as he passed by. “Get a good night’s rest. We’ll call you if she stirs.”

  After Kindan left, M’tal spoke to Gaminth, who replied miserably, She won’t hear me. She won’t hear any of us.

  M’tal crouched down by Salina. “Gaminth says she’s blocking the dragons’ voices,” he told her.

  “Can you blame her?” Salina asked, her voice blurred with sorrow. “I can only imagine how much that would torment her.”

  “It would have helped so much today,” M’tal said. He had just returned from flying Fall over Ista. “Two dead, eight injured, three seriously,” he told her.

  “That’s good,” Salina murmured approvingly. “In a normal Fall I would have expected five times that many casualties.”

  “Ista’s losses were worse,” M’tal continued, grimacing. “Three dead, nine injured. They have only thirty-four dragons left fit to fly.”

  “J’lantir must be beside himself with worry.”

  “B’nik pledged that, as long as there are dragons at Benden Weyr, Ista would have them at their side,” M’tal said, his voice full of adamant approval.

  “He does you proud,” Salina said, grabbing his hand and clenching it tightly.

  “He does us all proud,” M’tal agreed. “He always had the makings. He’s risen marvelously to the challenge.”

  “If only we could say the same of Tullea,” Salina said. Beside her, M’tal nodded mutely.

  The sound of boots outside the doorway alerted them and they looked up to see K’tan enter.

  “I’ve come to check on her,” he told them. He looked around the room. “Has Kindan finally left for some rest?”

  “I sent him on his way,” M’tal said. He asked Gaminth to get one of the weyrlings to check on the weary harper.

  K’tan nodded wearily. “Good.”

  He gestured entreatingly to Salina, who stood up and moved away from Lorana’s bedside to give him room to examine her. K’tan listened to her breathing, took her pulse, and then straightened up again.

  “Has she eaten anything? Drunk anything?” When Salina shook her head twice in response, K’tan grimaced. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You know yourself better than any what this is like. What made you decide to live?”

  M’tal gripped Salina’s hand tightly. The ex-Weyrwoman’s eyes shimmered with tears, which she wiped away hastily before explaining, “I couldn’t go. I was needed.”

  M’tal circled behind her and hugged her tightly against him. K’tan nodded, uneasy in the presence of their intense emotions.

  “Then let’s hope that Lorana feels as needed,” he said softly. He looked up at Salina, his lips showing the hint of a smile. “I’m glad you decided to stay—it would have been much harder without you.”

  M’tal felt Salina stiffen in his arms and, through years of intimacy, correctly interpreted her gratitude at the healer’s words. The ex-Weyrleader eyed the healer, however, with the eyes of a leader of dragonmen.

  “You need to take your own advice, K’tan, and get some rest.”

  “Lorana was the last of the charges I needed to check on,” K’tan said.

  “One of us will stay with her,” Salina promised.

  She will not hear us but she knows we are here for her, Gaminth told M’tal.

  “Drith says the dragons are doing what they can to comfort her,” K’tan added.

  “Gaminth also,” M’tal said. He gestured K’tan out the door. “Get some rest, Healer.”

  K’tan, intent on rousing Kindan from his depression, paused outside the Benden Weyr harper’s door at the sound of the harper singing:

  “A thousand voices keen at night,

  A thousand voices wail,

  A thousand voices cry in fright,

  A thousand voices fail.

  You followed them, young healer lass,

  Till they could not be seen;

  A thousand dragons made their loss

  A bridge ’tween you and me.

  And in the cold and darkest night,

  A single voice is heard,

  A single voice both clear and bright,

  It says a single word.

  That word is what you now must say

  To—“

  Kindan paused, intent, trying to remember the next words. With a growl of disgust and a ragged jangle on the guitar’s strings, he threw the instrument onto his bed.

  “Harper, you sing a mournful tune,” K’tan said loudly as he entered Kindan’s rooms.

  Kindan turned to face the Weyr healer, scowling and shaking his head. “I can’t remember it!”

  “Is it so important?” K’tan asked mildly.

  Kindan bit off a quick retort and paused before giving K’tan a thoughtful answer. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It just seems to fit the times we’re in.”

  “How could anyone know about the times we’re in?” K’tan mused, shaking his head. “I think it’s just a song. Perhaps it was written after a fever or plague—”

  “But that’s just it!” Kindan protested. “There hasn’t been a fever or plague that affected dragons—you know that. We’ve looked through all the Records.”

  “Perhaps it was . . .” He trailed off as he caught sight of Kindan’s expression.

  The harper bounded beyond him, grabbing the guitar back from the bed, and shouting, “That’s it!”

  Triumphantly, he strummed and sang:

  “That word is what you now must say

  To open up the door


  In Benden Weyr, to find the way

  To all my healing lore.”

  “I remember now, I remember it all.”

  With a wince of pain, the Benden Harper continued:

  “It’s all that I can give to you,

  To save both Weyr and Hold.

  It’s little I can offer you,

  Who paid with dragon gold.”

  “That’s great, Kindan,” K’tan told him, clapping him on the back. “That’s marvelous. I’m glad you’ve remembered the song.” He paused. “But what does it mean?”

  Kindan’s cheerful look faded. “I don’t know,” he admitted sadly. “Only . . . I’m sure it means something.” He frowned in thought.

  The drums on the watch heights sounded sharply and Kindan held up a hand for silence as he strained to hear the incoming message.

  “What is it?” K’tan asked, not knowing the drum codes as well as the harper.

  “It’s a message from Fort Weyr,” he said. “They flew Threadfall last night over Ruatha and the Weyr itself.”

  Still listening, the harper gasped and smiled, eyes alight. K’tan bottled his curiosity up until the Weyr drummer sent back his acknowledgment.

  “And?” he asked then.

  Kindan smiled at him. “And the watch-whers fought the fall,” he said, taking delight in the way the healer’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.

  “Nuella led them,” Kindan went on cheerfully. “Looks like Wind Blossom’s creatures have more of a purpose—”

  “What?” K’tan asked, catching the surprised look on Kindan’s face.

  “The song,” Kindan said slowly, in amazement. “I remember the title.”

  K’tan urged him to go on, but Kindan was transfixed in thought.

  Finally, the healer said, “The title, Kindan, what is it?”

  Kindan shook himself out of his musings and gave K’tan an apologetic look.

  “ ‘Wind Blossom’s Song.’ ”

  “I said get out!” Tullea shouted for the third time at Tilara. “I’ll call you when you’re needed.”

  With a worried look toward Lorana, Tilara retreated from Tullea’s anger.

  “It’s not like she needs a whole guard,” Tullea muttered to herself as she heard Tilara’s feet hasten down the corridor. “Probably going to tell Mikkala. Well, let her. I’m the Weyrwoman. Not even Salina can criticize me.”

  She looked down at Lorana, lying on her back, motionless, in her bed.

  “I tried to keep you away,” Tullea said, almost apologetically. “But you had to do it your way. Wouldn’t tell anyone. The first we hear is you and your dragon shrieking in the middle of the night.”

  Her voice rose as her anger grew. “You didn’t deserve that dragon, you know? You were so sure, so certain, so willing to risk everything. You deserved to lose her, do you hear? You deserved it!” Tullea realized that she was shouting at the top of her lungs into Lorana’s ear and pulled back, both appalled at her own behavior and amazed by Lorana’s unresponsiveness.

  “You can’t die,” Tullea said. “Salina was with her Breth for ten times more Turns than you had months with your dragon, and she didn’t die.

  “You can’t die. You’re not allowed, do you hear me? It wouldn’t be right. You’re not allowed, you’re not . . .”

  Tullea found herself on her knees at Lorana’s bedside, cradling the woman’s head in her arms, her tears falling onto Lorana’s hair like rain.

  “Please don’t die,” Tullea whispered, begging. “Please.”

  For all his Fort riders’ work, K’lior was certain that some Thread had fallen through to the ground in the night Fall over Southern Boll. He shuddered at the thought of what the ground might look like in the morning.

  Take us to the Hold, Rineth, K’lior said. I must speak with the Lord Holder.

  Contrary to K’lior’s fears, Lord Egremer was effusive with his praise of the dragons and their riders.

  “We’ll have ground crews out at first light, I promise,” Egremer said. He looked nervously northward, toward where Thread had fallen. “How bad is it, do you suppose?”

  K’lior shook his head. “We did our best,” he said. “But the warm weather meant that every Thread was alive. The watch-whers were overwhelmed and we’d never trained with them, so our coordination was lousy.”

  Lady Yvala’s eyes grew wide with alarm.

  “We’ll have sweepriders out at first light,” K’lior promised. “As soon as we see anything, we’ll let you know.”

  “I’d hate to lose the stands of timber to the north,” Lord Egremer said. “They’re old enough to be harvested, but I was hoping to hold off until mid-Pass, when we’ll really be needing the wood.”

  K’lior nodded. “We’ll do our best,” he promised.

  “And we’re grateful for all that you’ve done,” Egremer replied.

  Wearily, K’lior mounted Rineth and gave him the image for Fort’s Bowl.

  The morning dawned gray, cold, and cloudy. Even Cisca was subdued.

  “The reports are in from T’mar on sweep,” she said as she nudged K’lior awake, handing him a mug of steaming klah. “Five burrows.”

  K’lior groaned. Cisca made a face and he gave her a go-on gesture.

  “Two are well-established. They’ll have to fire the timber stands.”

  K’lior sat up, taking a long sip of his klah. He gave Cisca a measuring look, then said, “Casualties?”

  Cisca frowned. “Between the illness and Thread, twenty-three have gone between. F’dan and P’red will be laid up with injuries for at least the next six months. Troth, Piyeth, Kadorth, Varth, and Bidanth are all seriously injured and will also take at least six months to heal. There are eleven other riders or dragons with injuries that will keep them from flying for the next three months.”

  “So, we’ve what—seventy dragons and riders fit to fly?”

  “Seventy-five,” Cisca corrected, emphasizing the difference. “And we’ve got over three sevendays before our next Fall. I’m sure that we’ll have more dragons fit to fly by then.”

  “Three sevendays is not enough time,” K’lior grumbled, rising from their bed and searching out some clothes.

  “No you don’t,” Cisca said sharply, getting up and pushing him toward the baths. “You smell. You’re getting bathed before you do anything else.”

  K’lior opened his mouth to protest but Cisca silenced him with a kiss.

  “If you’re nice,” she taunted, “I may join you.”

  K’lior tried very hard to be nice.

  Lord Holder Egremer scowled at the line of smoke in the distance. Forty Turns’ worth of growth, gone. Three whole valleys had been put to flames before the dragonriders and ground crews could declare Southern Boll Hold free from Thread.

  The rains would come soon and the burnt land would lose all its topsoil. He could expect floods to ravage the remnants of those valleys. In the end, there might be a desert where once there had been lush forests.

  It would be worse for his holders. They had expected years of work and income culling the older trees, planting new, and working the wood into fine pieces of furniture. Now Southern Boll would be dependent upon its pottery, spices, and the scant foodstuffs it could raise for trade with the other Holds.

  The Hold would take Turns to recover.

  “I’m sorry, Egremer,” a disconsolate K’lior repeated. “If there’s anything the Weyr can do to help . . .”

  Egremer sighed and turned back to the youthful Weyrleader. K’lior was no more than ten Turns younger than he, and while Egremer wanted desperately to blame someone, he knew that it would be unfair to blame the dragonrider.

  Egremer forced a smile. “I appreciate that, K’lior,” he replied. “And there might be more that you can do than you know. If I could have the loan of a weyrling or two, to help scout out the damage and maybe haul some supplies . . .”

  “Weyrlings we have aplenty,” K’lior said. He shook his head. “It’s full-grown dragons that are scarc
e.”

  “I’d heard that your losses are high from the illness,” Egremer replied. “Is there anything we can do for you, my lord?”

  For a moment, K’lior made no reply, staring off into space, thinking.

  “Time,” he said at last, angrily. “We need time for the weyrlings to grow up, time for the wounded to heal.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid you cannot give that to us, my lord.”

  Egremer’s face drained. “How long do we have, then, my lord?”

  K’lior’s face grew ashen. “Fort is lucky. We don’t have another Threadfall in the next three sevendays. We’ll probably be able to fight that.” He shook his head. “But I can’t say about the Fall after.”

  The despair that gripped the Weyrleader was palpable. Egremer looked for some words of encouragement to give him but could find none. It was K’lior who spoke next, pulling himself erect and willing a smile back on to his face.

  “We’ll find a way, Lord Egremer,” he declared with forced cheer. “We’re dragonriders—we always find a way.” He nodded firmly to himself and then said to Egremer, “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  “Certainly!” Egremer replied. “I’ll see you out. And don’t worry about those weyrlings, if it’s too much bother. Having them would only save us time.”

  K’lior stopped so suddenly that Egremer had to swerve to avoid bumping into him.

  “Time!” K’lior shouted exultantly. He turned to Egremer and grabbed him on both shoulders. “That’s it! Time! We need time.”

  Egremer smiled feebly, wondering if the dragons’ sickness could affect riders, as well. K’lior just as suddenly let go of the Lord Holder and raced out of the Hold.

  “Thank you, Lord Egremer, you’ve been most helpful,” he called as he climbed up to his perch on Rineth.

  “Any time, Weyrleader,” Egremer called back, not at all certain what he had done, but willing to use the Weyrleader’s good cheer to elevate that of his holders, rather than depress them more by looking at the Weyrleader as if he were mad.

  “Cisca, it’s time!” K’lior yelled up from the Bowl to their quarters as soon as he returned between from Southern Boll. “That’s what we need—time!”