Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “It’s … I don’t know.” Taria shook her head. “It’s like you idolize her.”

  “I do,” Xhinna agreed quietly, moving her hand down to stroke Taria’s cheek. “I love you.” She caught Taria’s eyes. “See the difference?”

  “But you can’t be a queen rider like her,” Taria protested.

  “I’m not,” Xhinna said.

  “You act like one,” Taria said. “Or a Weyrleader.”

  “I do what needs doing.”

  “Precisely,” Taria replied. “That’s what makes you a Weyrleader.”

  “Well, if so, you’ll always be my Weyrwoman,” Xhinna promised. Taria giggled, shaking her head, and then, shyly, pressed her cheek into Xhinna’s hand.

  “We need more food,” Bekka said a sevenday later as she met with Xhinna, K’dan, and Colfet. Taria was keeping the twins occupied, but she sat nearby with one ear to the discussion. “We’re wasting away.”

  Twice in the past sevenday, when fierce rains and thunderstorms had driven all prey to ground, the hunters and fishers had returned without enough to feed even half-rations to the humans. On the last occasion, the hatchlings had gone hungry.

  “We may stunt the dragonets’ growth,” Bekka added, glancing longingly toward her Pinorth. “Only Qinth is thriving.”

  “That’s because we’re giving her the best of all the pickings,” K’dan said.

  “We need to move to someplace where we can gather a herd, plant crops, fish,” Xhinna agreed, shaking her head dejectedly. “I haven’t found that yet.”

  She had taken to bringing at least one other rider with her on her forays. Night after night they’d return with the blue’s color nearly matching the dawn sky, he was so tired.

  “If we go to ground, the Mrreows will get us,” K’dan said. “If we stay here …”

  “We could go back to the Weyrs,” Colfet suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” K’dan said, his lips pursed tightly.

  Xhinna gave him a questioning look.

  “I have to wonder why no one’s come yet,” he said.

  “They would have to time it,” Bekka said.

  “Maybe they don’t know where we are,” K’dan suggested. “Or maybe they’re afraid to time it after what happened to Fiona and the others.”

  “It doesn’t matter. At this rate, we’ll lose everything,” Bekka said. She glanced at Xhinna. “What are you going to do?”

  “What are we going to do,” Xhinna corrected her. Bekka’s eyes flashed angrily. Xhinna ignored her and glanced questioningly to Colfet and K’dan.

  “We’ve got one flying dragon, two injured dragons, and twenty-two other hatchlings,” K’dan said, ticking off the numbers on his fingers. His eyes suddenly lit as he said, “Who are now old enough to go between.”

  “Just,” Xhinna agreed. “But they’re not old enough to fly.”

  “Didn’t the weyrlings from Fort go between with their riders?” Bekka asked, her eyes animated with excitement. “Could we do that?”

  “Maybe,” K’dan said. “But it’s dangerous. And all those times they had Lorana or Fiona leading them.” Bekka gave him an inquiring look and he explained. “Even T’mar had to admit that Lorana has an uncanny sense of time and place. Fiona seems to have inherited it.”

  “Inherited?” Bekka asked.

  “Well, inherited isn’t exactly the right word, but Fiona might have gotten the ability from Lorana,” K’dan said. “They can talk to each other sometimes.”

  “Like dragons?” Bekka asked, eyes aglow as she reached out to her own queen. An instant later, her eyes narrowed and she studied K’dan. “Can you do it, too?”

  “No; I’ve tried,” he admitted.

  “Well,” Bekka said, “what are we going to do?”

  “Dragons can do anything,” Taria said.

  “If they’ve the strength,” Xhinna said. She shrugged as she added jokingly, “And the firestone.” Her grin died on her lips as her words gave her an idea.

  “What?” Taria prompted.

  “Firestone,” Xhinna said. “We can use firestone.”

  “How?” K’dan asked.

  “We could set a fire, burn a section of the forest, clear a space where we could keep a herd.”

  “Wouldn’t that make things easier for the Mrreows?” Bekka asked.

  “Not if we chose a high place, a plateau somewhere,” Xhinna said. “I’d thought of it before, but clearing all the trees and undergrowth … But with firestone we could do it in a day or less!”

  “Xhinna,” Taria began slowly, “do you remember that fire we saw the other night?”

  “When it was raining?” Bekka asked, frowning. “I thought it was lightning.”

  “But we didn’t hear any thunder,” Xhinna allowed. “And if we set a fire during a downpour it wouldn’t last long—”

  “And the rain would sink the ash into the soil, preparing the ground for new growth,” K’dan added, his eyebrows lifting in admiration.

  “But we don’t have any firestone,” Bekka objected.

  “Yet,” Xhinna agreed with a smile.

  They had to wait two more days before they had enough food to allow Tazith the time to go between back to Eastern Weyr and collect the firestone needed. She wasn’t timing it because she was going to Eastern Weyr in the same time—three Turns in the past from that terrible day when the tunnel snakes had destroyed the clutches—and, because no one in the future had ever mentioned this trip, she knew that she would not and must not be discovered. She came in the dark of the night and only took four sacks, Tazith silencing the watch dragon with a quick thought. She ensured that the other sacks were disarranged so that the loss would not be apparent.

  Afterward, Xhinna took her blue to the rocky promontory where they’d camped after the disastrous Hatching.

  “You’re supposed to think of your second stomach,” Xhinna said. Tazith opened his jaws to let Xhinna toss a small stone into his mouth. The blue started chewing loudly, his molars crunching hard on the rock, splintering it.

  Second stomach, Xhinna reminded him. She felt Tazith agree, his outer eyelids closing as he concentrated on his chewing. He swallowed. They waited. And waited.

  “Do you need more?” Xhinna finally asked when nothing happened.

  No, Tazith said, then urgently, Stand back!

  Xhinna jumped aside as the blue opened his mouth and a short spurt of flame came out.

  “You did it!” Xhinna cried, jumping up and down. “You did it, Tazith!”

  More, Tazith said, opening his jaws. Now I need more.

  Xhinna threw several more stones to him and he began chewing once more, thinking at the same time, It feels different, this.

  That’s because you’ve never flamed before, Xhinna thought back.

  I like it, Tazith said. Xhinna could feel the sense of power coursing through him and she moved around to his side to pat him on the neck, but when she reached up toward his eye ridges, he flinched away. I need to concentrate.

  Sorry.

  Tazith concentrated. This time he made a respectable flame, which Xhinna admired from her position just behind his head.

  Try burning that, she said, directing his attention to a stubborn bit of grass growing up through the stone. Tazith turned and opened his jaws to flame once more. The grass shriveled, turned black, then crumbled to ash. Excellent!

  With this I can set a fire? Tazith wondered.

  Well, with a lot more firestone, Xhinna allowed, looking critically at the three sacks she’d left tied on her riding harness. Are you ready? Or do you want to try some more?

  Let’s go there, then we can try, Tazith said. Xhinna nodded, seeing the sense in going to the plateau they intended to flame. She grabbed the sack of firestone she’d left on the ground and clambered up her dragon’s side to her mount on his neck.

  I want to see if I can get firestone to you from here, Xhinna said after she’d tied on the fourth sack. Tazith turned his head back toward her, and Xhinna thre
w a small piece to him. It arced by his mouth and fell to the ground. Sorry.

  Try again, Tazith told her calmly, with no rancor. This time Xhinna got it right in his mouth, and Tazith chewed the stone happily. Much better.

  Are you ready? Xhinna asked, bringing up the image of the rain-spattered ground and the dark clouds that had scudded over their camp five days earlier.

  Ready.

  In a moment they were airborne, then between. They arrived right over the tree-crowded plateau, and Tazith dived, flaming. Xhinna cried with pure joy as her blue’s flames set the first tree alight. She guided him around to the center and they built an arc of flame. She fed him more firestone as he needed it, until the act became nearly instinctive. This was what she was meant to do, this was what she had been born for: to fly a blue, to flame, to sear!

  She laughed with joy as the flames grew, even as the skies above opened with rain. Soon the entire plateau was alight, as tree after tree burst into flame and the fire spread—gradually the rain would soak the surrounding forest sufficiently to quench the firestorm, but by then, an area would have been cleared sufficient for their needs.

  Come, Tazith, let’s go home, Xhinna said as she surveyed their handiwork. You’ve earned a rest.

  I’m not tired, Tazith assured her even as Xhinna felt the weariness of their efforts overtaking both of them.

  Not much!

  “Well, it’s not much of a herd,” K’dan allowed as he helped release the last of the dozen herdbeasts they’d caught. The smell of burnt wood had been mostly washed away by the rains. Large patches of grass had been left untouched by the fires consuming the trees above, and in the areas that had been burned, new green shoots were already poking up out of the ground.

  Tazith had labored mightily to move several fallen, blackened tree trunks to form a rude corral. K’dan and half the bronze riders had done their best to help, but it was quickly evident that one blue dragon could easily do the work of seven humans—and in half the time. Instead, the humans applied their tool-using skills to making the space secure enough to keep the beasts corralled for at least a day.

  “Of course,” K’dan remarked as he straightened from chinking smaller branches into a gap, “this is pretty far from our camp. It makes for a bit of a trek.”

  “It does,” Xhinna agreed. “Which is why you should bring back as much meat as the camp will need for the evening.”

  “You’re not thinking of going now?” K’dan asked, eyes narrowed as he took in Tazith, lying where he’d collapsed from his last load.

  “I can’t see things getting any better.” With a sour expression on her face, she added, “And we can’t guarantee that Tazith won’t get injured the way Coranth was.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid if we don’t go now, we’ll never be able to.”

  K’dan moved closer to pitch his voice only for her. “We don’t know what happened to snare Fiona. What if you don’t come back?”

  “What if I don’t go?” Xhinna asked.

  K’dan met her eyes, shook his head, and spread his hands in surrender.

  “I’ll be back,” Xhinna said.

  “We’ll be waiting,” K’dan promised. He managed a small nod. “We’ll start a fire here so you’ll have warm food when you return.”

  We’re going to get help, Xhinna said as the blue raised his head. Wearily, he rose to his feet and Xhinna climbed to her seat on his shoulders. Are you ready?

  Yes, came the reply and, to match it, Tazith took a few lumbering steps and leapt into the sky. Where are we going?

  Telgar, Xhinna said, calling the vision up in her mind even as she registered surprise that she hadn’t called it home.

  The blue rumbled beneath her, and then they were between in the place of no sight, no sound, no feeling.

  She counted to herself: one, two, three, four … she knew it would be a longer jump than normal as she was moving forward through time as well as halfway around the planet.

  Suddenly she tensed. Did she hear something?

  Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!

  Fiona? Xhinna thought, hearing the woman’s fear and panic, feeling it grip her just as she heard another voice, a man’s:

  The Weyrs! They must be warned!

  But they were saved! They were warned, Xhinna thought desperately. This time made no sense, it was a pocket of fear and panic—

  And it threatened to overwhelm her. Her fear for the weyrlings, for injured Qinth, her fear of losing Tazith, of losing—

  Go back, a voice said, breaking through the others. Go back, now!

  Fiona? Xhinna cried in fear and hope.

  Go back! Beneath Fiona’s voice, Xhinna felt an echo, another voice: Lorana’s. Go back! Free yourself!

  I can’t! Xhinna wailed as the sounds of the panicked voices seemed to grow louder.

  Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!

  The Weyrs! The Weyrs must be warned!

  It is an echo, a glimmer of an instant, Fiona told her. Push back. You must go back now, while Tazith still has the strength.

  But if Xhinna couldn’t get through, she wondered, how would they know at Telgar where to find the weyrlings in the Western Isle?

  Red Butte! Lorana’s voice came to her. Leave us a message at Red Butte and we’ll find you!

  Tazith? Xhinna thought with a whimper. She could feel his strength fading, feel the fatigue biting into him, compounded by the cold of between, by the fear and panic of the voices around them.

  I will not lose you, Xhinna thought to herself. I will not lose you! I will not lose you!

  Her determination burned fierce, hot, like a bonfire. She remembered the joy of flaming the plateau, of all that they’d done and—

  She broke through.

  The cold and nothingness of between disappeared and Xhinna found herself high in the air. Tazith gave a strange rumble, and they began to plummet toward the ground.

  Tazith! She felt no response from the blue. Tazith!

  FOUR

  The Growl of a Mother

  Xhinna woke with a start.

  “Careful!” a man’s voice warned her.

  “It’s not every day dragon and rider fall from the sky,” another man added with a chuckle. Xhinna’s brows furrowed. She knew that voice.

  “J’keran?”

  “The same,” the brown rider told her agreeably. “You were quite hard to catch, I’ll have you know.”

  “It took a bronze and a brown both,” the other man added.

  Xhinna opened her eyes as she realized the identity of the other man: X’lerin, rider of bronze Kivith.

  “Is this Telgar?”

  “No,” X’lerin replied, chuckling, “we’re here in your aptly named Sky Weyr.” He turned away from her and called out, “She’s awake, she’s all right.”

  “As if I didn’t tell you that an hour ago!” Bekka’s voice came back dripping with irritation.

  A hand gripped hers and Xhinna turned to see Taria’s tear-stained face.

  “I was worried,” the green rider told her.

  “And well you should have been,” J’keran rumbled. “It’s not every day someone tries a fool stunt like that.”

  “The ‘stunt’ worked, didn’t it? Seeing as we’re here,” X’lerin reminded him.

  “Indeed, here,” J’keran agreed, his voice sounding less than pleased.

  “Fiona?” Xhinna asked.

  J’keran barked a bitter laugh even as X’lerin shook his head. “She sent us.”

  “We volunteered,” J’keran said, his voice a mixture of pride and bitterness.

  “We’re all T’mar could spare,” X’lerin said by way of agreement.

  “Two browns, five blues, four greens and, of course, X’lerin’s bronze,” J’keran enumerated. “With your blue and your friend’s green, that gives us just fourteen, barely half a proper wing.”

  “Well, there’ll be no Thread to fight,” X’lerin said jaunitily.

  “Tell us the rest,
then,” K’dan spoke up from beyond Xhinna’s sight.

  J’keran started to answer, but stopped at a glare from the younger X’lerin. Instead, with ill grace, he gestured for the bronze rider to explain.

  “I’ve notes from Fiona, Lorana, T’mar, and Shaneese,” X’lerin said, gesturing toward his dragon in the distance. “T’mar told me that we would have to stay here until the danger of jumping into the time knot—”

  “Hmph!” J’keran snorted.

  “—until the danger has passed.” He glanced over at Xhinna. “So that means we’re here for the next three Turns or so.”

  Xhinna looked stricken.

  “It was the right choice,” K’dan told her. “Under the circumstances, it was the only choice.”

  “We saw Thread,” Xhinna said.

  “So we understand,” X’lerin said. “Did you remember what Fiona said to you?”

  “About Red Butte?” Xhinna asked.

  “What about Red Butte?” K’dan echoed.

  “Fiona said that we could leave a message at Red Butte and they’d get it,” Xhinna told him. She frowned at X’lerin. “You got a note?”

  “I can’t say,” X’lerin replied, his eyes twinkling. “Lorana was rather firm on the notion of not ‘breaking time.’ ”

  “Xhinna, you’re not dead so your stomach’s going to start grumbling any moment now,” Bekka put in. “Mine already has, so why don’t we show our new riders some Sky hospitality and feed them?”

  Xhinna sat up, was pleased to discover that she felt fine if, as Bekka had guessed, a little hungry, and, with one swift movement, rose to her feet. She felt Tazith’s presence and sent him a quick mental caress.

  “It’s really springy up here, isn’t it?” X’lerin commented.

  “It takes a bit of getting used to,” K’dan agreed, “but it’s not bad. Not bad at all.”

  “I hope you brought supplies,” Xhinna said as she led the way through a tight gap in the upper branches of the broom trees and down toward their dining area. “We’ve enough herdbeasts and about the same sorts of fruits, but we’ve no grain or other such—”

  “Fiona made sure we carried as much as was possible,” X’lerin assured her. “But that won’t be enough for three Turns.”