“Be your word? And what does that mean to you, youngling?”
“It means you can count on me to stand by the words I speak,” Terin replied. “And as I’ve been appointed headwoman here by Weyrwoman Fiona, and that appointment’s been approved by senior wingleader T’mar, you can take my word to stand for that of all the riders here at Igen.”
“There must be a lot of trader stock in the weyrfolk!” Karina declared with a laugh. She held out a hand to Terin. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, headwoman.”
“Thank you,” Terin replied, her expression lightening once more as she took Karina’s old, withered hand in her much younger, smaller grasp and shook it firmly.
“So, do you know how to prepare lentils, headwoman?” Karina asked. “Or how to make desert bread?”
“Could you show me?” Terin asked politely.
Karina nodded and gestured for Terin to precede her to the kettles.
In short order J’keran and the traders arrived with barrels and more sacks of goods. The first barrel contained klah bark, which was quickly put to the boil. The first sack contained some small hard disks that none of the riders had ever before seen.
“These are lentils,” Karina explained. “They are full of protein and good eating, hardy enough for our desert climes. They make an excellent soup—which can be our first course.”
She started to lead Terin away, talking about garlic, ginger, and carrots. Fiona was torn between following and checking on the work unloading supplies.
Glancing back at her, Karina said, “Go on, Weyrwoman! Terin and I can handle this.”
The relaxed smile on Terin’s face was the final assurance Fiona needed, so, with a half-wave, she took off into the corridors toward the storerooms.
“We’ll be done shortly, Weyrwoman,” T’mar told her when she arrived. Quietly, just for her ears, he added, “I hope that we’ll eat soon—we’re building quite an appetite.”
“Terin and Karina are working on it,” Fiona replied. “But it’ll be close to another hour.” Seeing T’mar’s face fall, she added hurriedly, “But we’ve got fresh klah for those who need it.”
“We can wait until lunch,” he decided.
Fiona nodded and left, wondering what to do next. She decided to check on the injured riders and their supplies, and ended up in the small herbal room, sorting through medicines. It took Talenth to break through her concentration.
T’mar says that lunch is ready, the gold dragon told her.
Good! Fiona replied, suddenly aware of the amazing aromas that were filling the Weyr. How about you?
I’m not hungry, Talenth assured her. A little itchy, maybe.
Her words reminded Fiona that she needed to be sure there was enough oil on hand for all the young and old flaky dragonhide. She almost turned back to check the stores, but her stomach grumbled again and she headed for the Kitchen Cavern.
In addition to the promised lentil soup, there was something she’d never encountered before: a spicy mixture of onions, sweet potatoes, and black beans, all wrapped up in a very thin, soft flatbread. It was both sweet and piquant.
“It tastes good,” Fiona said as soon as she swallowed. “Good, but different.”
“Hot food for hot climes,” Tenniz told her with a grin. “You’ll get used to it soon enough.” His eyes held some hint of mystery, but Fiona was too busy enjoying the new tastes and smells to linger upon it.
“Early afternoon in this climate tends to be too hot for work,” Azeez said to T’mar, “so usually we take a nap.”
“That make sense,” Fiona said before T’mar could object. “It will be particularly good for the injured riders and those with injured dragons.”
“Why the dragons?” T’mar wondered, frowning.
“If their riders are resting, they’ll rest, too,” Fiona reminded him.
“But we don’t have—” T’mar began, gesturing toward Azeez.
“We have gear we could set up in your unused living quarters,” Azeez assured him.
Karina shot him a glare and Fiona noticed.
“You’ve stayed here before,” she stated. Tenniz looked down, avoiding her eyes, but Karina nodded.
“No one was using it,” Azeez said.
“We kept the water flowing,” Karina said.
“I’m glad you did,” Fiona said. “I’m sure the Weyr would have been much harder to clean if you hadn’t used it.” She turned to T’mar, then added, “I see no reason why you can’t continue to use it while we’re here.”
T’mar thought about it, then nodded. “We will be using less than a third of the weyrs, and would be glad of your company.”
“Let me be clear,” Azeez said. “We’re traders; we need to move to trade. We’d only be here occasionally, for no more than a night.” “Not if I can help it,” T’mar replied, then laughed as he caught Azeez’s bemused look.
“We talked about this when we met,” T’mar continued. “We could carry supplies for you.” Azeez nodded, still no closer to comprehension. “And you would need to store them, occasionally?”
“We could store them here?” Karina asked, eyes alight with the prospect.
“Whatever we can do to help,” T’mar offered.
“For a reasonable fee, of course,” Terin added from her place at the table. She caught Karina’s eyes challengingly and locked with them until the older woman threw up her hands in surrender.
“Another with the soul of a trader!”
THIRTEEN
The stars shine so cold at night,
The sun burns so hot by day,
The wind whips in wild delight:
The weather at Igen is fey.
Igen Weyr, Early Morning, AL 498.7.3
Talenth woke Fiona early the next morning. The watchdragon says that they are getting ready to leave. Fiona propped herself up on an elbow and looked at Terin sleeping next to her on their makeshift bed of blankets, considering whether to wake her. She decided against it; the younger girl had had a busy enough first day as headwoman.
She made a mental note to send a party of weyrlings to get mattress fillings and started to crawl over Terin to the edge of the bed, but stopped when she saw her open her eyes.
“What is it?”
“The traders are leaving,” Fiona told her quietly.
Terin rubbed her eyes and sat up. “I’ll come with you.”
“It’s still dark outside,” Fiona cautioned as she rose and hastily pulled on the clothes she’d been wearing the day before. Terin followed suit and in short order the two followed the gleam of Talenth’s eyes into the queen’s new lair.
Did you want to come, too? Fiona asked her dragon.
Will it be fun? Talenth asked. Fiona shrugged. Talenth glanced around her lair and decided that she’d got herself too well settled to want to move. I’ll stay here, then.
One of the moons was high enough to provide some dim light in the Weyr Bowl outside—enough for eyes to see, if not in color. Fiona picked out the shape of the watch dragon on the heights near the Star Stones to the east. The night air was chill, fresh, expectant. She made out a shape: T’mar.
He must have seen them, for he stopped and waited for them to catch up. Together, the three of them made their way to the Kitchen Cavern.
“Klah or tea?” Terin asked, grabbing a glove to snag a pot of water from the hearth.
“You will find that it’s best to change your hours when you live in the desert,” they heard Mother Karina say from somewhere behind them. They turned to face her. “Night is your friend.”
“Thread falls when it will,” T’mar told her.
“Thread does not yet fall,” Karina reminded him. “Even when it does, Igen Weyr prepares in the early morning and late evening. Avoid the sun whenever you can.”
Azeez entered behind her. Karina turned to him.
“Everything is ready,” Azeez told her respectfully.
“The night awaits,” Karina said, turning to follow Azeez.
“Let us see you on your way,” Fiona offered, trotting after them.
They made their way through darkened corridors dimly lit by half-charged glows until they reached a deeper darkness where the heights of the Weyr Bowl shaded them from the moon’s light. Stars glittered beckoningly in the night sky.
Azeez climbed up to his perch on the first dray. “We shall see you soon.”
“Expect us before the next sevenday,” Karina amended.
Whips cracked, encouraging the large herdbeasts to start moving. With Azeez in the lead, the drays began to move slowly out into the dark night. When they could no longer be seen, T’mar turned to lead the way back.
“So, klah or tea?” Terin repeated when they returned to the Kitchen Cavern.
“Klah,” Fiona replied. “And I’ll help you get started with breakfast.”
T’mar raised his eyebrows in a wordless question.
“I don’t think that I’ll be able to get back to sleep,” Fiona explained. “And while we haven’t enough charged glows to do much, I think I’d prefer to start adopting Karina’s suggestion.”
“Karina’s suggestion works well for those who bring wares from one place to another,” T’mar said, “but not so well for those who need eyes to see what wares to gather.”
Fiona nodded in agreement.” We must see if there are any light mirrors in storage,” she said. “We could do with more light in the lower quarters, and I’d like to examine the Records.”
“You could bring them here, into the Kitchen,” T’mar suggested.
“They’re heavy; I don’t think I could carry many.”
“Get the weyrlings to help.”
“They’ll be busy enough tending the injured,” Fiona said. “We should plan how we’re going to do it.” She gestured for T’mar to take a seat. “Terin, do you have a spare slate and some chalk?”
Terin’s cheeks dimpled—if there was one thing on which Fiona could rely, it was that Terin would never be far from her tools.
“Our worst injured are N’jian, P’der,” T’mar began, ticking off the list on his fingers as Terin delivered the slate to Fiona, “F’dan’s Ridorth, K’ranor’s Troth—”
“Hold it!” Fiona interjected. “You’re going faster than I can write, for one, and for two, we should be talking injuries and treatments.”
T’mar replaced the frown on his face with an apologetic look. His brows rose in surprise as Fiona snagged the cuff of her sleeve and used it to erase the half-filled slate.
“Very ladylike,” he teased her.
Fiona glared at him, but without any real feeling. “I think we should have separate slates: one for injured riders, the other for injured dragons.”
“It’s a pity that we couldn’t bring the healer,” Terin remarked.
“But—” Fiona began to protest, then paused. “Actually, you’re right.”
“It would have made sense if we’d decided to bring the most injured back in time,” T’mar corrected. “As it was, we deemed it too risky.” He glanced up at Fiona, the merest hint of accusation in his eyes, as he added, “Until we got our unexpected help.”
Fiona shook her head in irritation. “You know that I have no idea who it was—”
“I do,” T’mar cut across her. “But it is not something I would put past your older self.”
“I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t me from some time in the future,” Fiona admitted, not bothering to hide her frustration, “but it doesn’t matter—they’re here now and we’ll have to care for them as best we can.”
She glanced down at the two slates she now had, one of which had been silently placed in front of her during her latest exchange with T’mar.
“So,” she said, turning back to the problem at hand, “we’ve got P’der and . . .”
“N’jian,” T’mar supplied, his face devoid of feeling. “His right side was severely Thread-scored.”
“Fortunately they went between before the Thread ate far into his chest,” Terin said. Fiona glanced over to the younger girl—Terin looked queasy but persisted. “His injuries are to the skin and muscle of the chest and abdomen.”
“His right side looks like a slab of meat badly butchered,” T’mar said, grimacing. He continued bleakly, “Whether he survives or not is up to us.”
“What do we need to do?” Fiona asked.
“We need to keep his wounds clean, keep him flat on his back, give his skin a chance to grow again, and then—slowly—help him to recover his strength,” T’mar replied. He gestured for the slate, but then pointed at the other one instead, writing down a list of dragon names. After a moment he glanced up at Terin. “We’ll need more slates—at least two.”
Terin nodded and rushed off, grabbing a glowbasket as she passed out into the darkened storeroom corridors.
“Troth, Piyeth, Kadorth, Varth, and Bidanth are all the worst injured dragons,” T’mar said as he wrote down their names.
“When it gets light enough, I’ll start a search of the Records,” Fiona told him. “I’ll look for descriptions of treatments, as well.”
“As well as what?”
“Just about everything,” Fiona replied with a shrug. “Watering holes, cattle and herdbeast plains, crops grown, glow supplies, herb gardens, local medicines, weather reports—”
“Whoa!” T’mar interjected, raising a hand to fend her off. “You’ll need a Turn before you find all that.”
“I hope not,” Fiona replied with a shake of her head; she regretted the movement instantly, as her longer bangs whipped across her face, causing her to irritably blow them aside and run her hands through her rebellious locks to pull them back once more behind her ears.
When she was finished, she was surprised by the look on T’mar’s face. “What?”
“Nothing,” the bronze rider replied, glancing hastily down to the slates.
“What?” Fiona persisted.
T’mar reluctantly looked back up at her. “It’s just that you looked cute when you did that.”
Fiona felt her cheeks flush and a thrill run through her at his words. Cute!
T’mar looked away again and ended the awkward silence by clearing his throat. “Of the dragons, I’m most worried about the damage to Troth’s and Varth’s wing joints—if they don’t grow back fully, they’ll never be able to fly again.”
Fiona nodded, suppressing a shiver.
Terin returned at that moment with a stack of slates, her glowbasket perched precariously on top. She returned the glowbasket to its place, trotted over to the table, picked up two, and blew the dust off them, coughing. She placed those two slates in front of Fiona, scooping up the rest and saying, “Whew! These were left behind when they abandoned the Weyr. They’re all musty and dirty, so I’m going to wash and dry them.”
“You know,” T’mar said as he took one of the proffered slates, “we really need a slate for every injury, so that we can keep track.”
“Seventy-seven slates?” Terin called from her place by the hearth. “I don’t think that’s practical.”
“Why?” Fiona returned, glad to be distracted from T’mar.
“How would you cart them all around?” Terin asked. “And how would you keep them from being erased?”
“We should set up a Flight board,” T’mar declared. Fiona didn’t hide her confusion, so he explained, “We have them back at the Weyr.”
“This is a Weyr,” Fiona reminded him.
T’mar gave her an irritated look.
“I think it’s a pity it was abandoned,” Fiona said.
“You haven’t been here a full day,” T’mar reminded her. “Perhaps you should wait to make up your mind.”
“Our ancestors founded it for a purpose,” she disagreed. “I’m sure they considered its location carefully.”
“Times change,” T’mar said with a shrug. “They might not have foreseen such a drought.”
“You were saying something about a Flight board?” she said, returning the conver
sation to the subject at hand.
T’mar nodded. “Every wing has them and there’s a master board—or two—one in the Records Room and the other here, in the Living Cavern.”
“I remember,” Terin piped up from her corner, pulling out another freshly washed slate and laying it on a drying board. “It was at the Weyrleaders’ table, on the wall behind.”
“That’s it,” T’mar agreed. “Although that was only a summary board. It shows each wing with totals fit to fly or injured. With one look, the Weyrleader knows the fighting state of the Weyr.”
“K’lior had it cleaned off before we left,” Terin put in, pulling another clean slate out of the washbowl.
“I imagine he—or Cisca—decided it was too depressing,” T’mar said. He glanced over at Fiona, shaking his head. “Do you realize that we have no fewer than three of our nine wingleaders here with us?”
Fiona was surprised.
“Myself, N’jian, and K’rall,” T’mar told her. “Not to mention K’lior’s wingsecond, P’der.”
“K’rall?” Fiona repeated in surprise. She couldn’t recall the sour old bronze rider’s face among those she’d seen.
“His face was scored,” T’mar said. “He should recover in two months or so.”
“We had to dose him with fellis juice, to keep him from moving his mouth.” Terin sounded amused.
“Until the youngsters get old enough to fly, we’ll have to keep the older weyrlings for flights and other work,” T’mar declared, glancing at Fiona, who nodded in agreement. He took another breath. “In that case, we can split the thirty-three youngsters into three groups—”
“Four,” Fiona corrected instantly. “We’ll need a work party for housekeeping chores here at the Weyr.”
“And that would give them some rest, as well,” Terin added.
“F’jian and J’nos would be the first two leaders—”
“Are you sure you want J’nos?” Terin interjected. The other two turned to her and she shrugged as she explained, “Did you see how dozy he looked yesterday? He could barely walk.” She paused, her lips pressed together firmly and her eyes thoughtful. “He wasn’t the only one, either. It’s like—”
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