“They will work this out together. They are together, more now than ever before,” Manora said in a voice that was no more than a rough whisper. She passed them quietly, her head bent and her shoulders drooping as she hurried down the corridor to Brekke.
“Ramoth?” asked Lessa, looking down to where her queen had settled on the sands. It was not that she doubted Manora’s wisdom, but to see F’nor so – so reduced – upset her. He was much like F’lar . . .
Ramoth gave a soft croon and folded her wings. On the ledges around the Bowl, the other dragons began to settle in uneasy vigil.
As Lessa entered the Cavern of the Weyr, she glanced away from the empty dragon couch and then halted mid-step. The tragedy was only minutes past so the nine bronze riders were still in severe shock.
As well they might be, Lessa realized with deep sympathy. To be roused to performance intensity and then be, not only disappointed, but disastrously deprived of two queens at once! Whether a bronze won the queen or not, there was a subtle deep attachment between a queen and the bronzes of her Weyr . . .
However, Lessa concluded briskly, someone in this benighted Weyr ought to have sense enough to be constructive. Lessa broke this train of thought off abruptly. Brekke had been the responsible member. She turned, about to go in search of some stimulant for the dazed riders when she heard the uneven steps and stertorous breathing of someone in a hurry. Two green fire lizards darted into the weyr, hovering, chirping excitedly as a young girl came in at a half-run. She could barely manage the heavy tray she carried and she was weeping, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Oh!” she cried, seeing Lessa. She stifled her sobs, tried to bob a curtsey and blot her nose on her shoulder at one and the same time.
“Well, you’re a child with wits about you,” Lessa said briskly, but not without sympathy. She took one end of the tray and helped the girl deposit it on the table. “You brought strong spirits?” she asked, gesturing to the anonymous earthenware bottles.
“All I could find.” And the consonant ended in a sob.
“Here,” and Lessa held out a half-filled cup, nodding toward the nearest rider. But the child was motionless, staring at the curtain, her face twisted with grief, the tears flowing unnoticed down her cheeks. She was washing her hands together with such violent motions that the skin stretched white across her knuckles.
“You’re Mirrim?”
The child nodded, her eyes not leaving the closed entrance. Above her the greens whirred, echoing her distress.
“Manora is with Brekke, Mirrim.”
“But – but she’ll die. She’ll die. They say the rider dies, too, when the dragon is killed. They say . . .”
“They say entirely too much,” Lessa began and then Manora stood in the doorway.
“She lives. Sleep is the kindest blessing now.” She flipped the curtain shut and glanced at the men. “These could do with sleep. Have their dragons returned? Who’s this?” Manora touched Mirrim’s cheek, gently. “Mirrim? I’d heard you had green lizards.”
“Mirrim had the sense to bring the tray,” Lessa said, catching Manora’s eye.
“Brekke – Brekke would expect – ” and the girl could go no further.
“Brekke is a sensible person,” Manora said briskly and folded Mirrim’s fingers around a cup, giving her a shove toward a rider. “Help us now. These men need our help.”
In a daze, Mirrim moved, rousing herself to help actively when the bronze rider could not seem to get his fingers to the cup.
“My lady,” murmured Manora, “we need the Weyrleader. Ista and Telgar Weyrs would be fighting Thread by now and . . .”
“I’m here,” F’lar said from the weyr entrance. “And I’ll take a shot of that, too. Cold between is in my bones.”
“We’ve more fools than we need right now,” Lessa exclaimed, but her face brightened to see him there.
“Where’s T’bor?”
Manora indicated Brekke’s room.
“All right. Then where’s Kylara?”
And the cold of between was in his voice.
By evening some order had been restored to the badly demoralized High Reaches Weyr. The bronze dragons had all returned, been fed, and the bronze riders weyred with their beasts, sufficiently drugged to sleep.
Kylara had been found. Or, rather, returned, by the green rider assigned to Nabol Hold.
“Someone’s got to be quartered there,” the man said, his face grim, “but not me or my green.”
“Please report, S’goral.” F’lar nodded his appreciation of the rider’s feelings.
“She arrived at the Hold this morning, with some tale about the lake here being fouled and no kegs to hold any supply of water. I remember thinking that Prideth looked too gold to be out. She’s been off cycle, you know. But she settled down all right on the ridge with my green so I went about teaching those Holders how to manage their fire lizards.” S’goral evidently did not have much use for his pupils. “She went in with the Nabolese Holder. Later I saw their lizards sunning on the ledge outside the Lord’s sleeping room.” He paused, glancing at his audience and looking grimmer still. “We were taking a breather when my green cried out. Sure enough, there were dragons, high up. I knew it was a mating flight. You can’t mistake it. Then Prideth started to bugle. Next thing I knew, she was down among Nabol’s prize breeding stock. I waited a bit, sure that she’d be aware of what was happening, but when there wasn’t a sign of her, I went looking. Nabol’s bodyguards were at the door. The Lord didn’t want to be disturbed. Well, I disturbed him. I stopped him doing what he was doing. And that’s what was doing it! Setting Prideth off. That and being so close to rising herself, and seeing a mating flight right over her, so to speak. You don’t abuse your dragon that way.” He shook his head then. “There wasn’t anything me and my green could do there. So we took off for Fort Weyr, for their queens. But – ” and he held out his hands, indicating his helplessness.
“You did as you should, S’goral,” F’lar told him.
“There wasn’t anything else I could do,” the man insisted, as if he could not rid himself of some lingering feeling of guilt.
“We were lucky you were there at all,” Lessa said. “We might never have known where Kylara was.”
“What I want to know is what’s going to happen to her – now?” A hard vindictiveness replaced the half-shame, half-guilt in the rider’s face.
“Isn’t loss of a dragon enough?” T’bor roused himself to ask.
“Brekke lost her dragon, too,” S’goral retorted angrily, “and she was doing what she should!”
“Nothing can be decided in heat or hatred, S’goral,” F’lar said, rising to his feet. “We’ve no precedents – ” He broke off, turning to D’ram and G’narish. “Not in our time, at least.”
“Nothing should be decided in heat or hatred,” D’ram echoed, “but there were such incidents in our time.” Unaccountably he flushed. “We’d better assign some bronzes here, F’lar. The High Reaches men and beasts may not be fit tomorrow. And with Thread falling every day, no Weyr can be allowed to relax its vigilance. For anything.”
CHAPTER XIII
Night at Fort Weyr:
Six Days Later
ROBINTON was weary, with fatigue of the heart and mind that did not lift to the thrill the Masterharper usually experienced on dragonback. In fact, he almost wished he’d not had to come to Fort Weyr tonight. These past six days, with everyone reacting in varying ways to the tragedy at High Reaches, had been very difficult. (Must the High Reaches always push the knottiest problems on Pern?) In a way, Robinton wished that they could have put off this Red Star viewing until minds and eyes had cleared and were ready for this challenge. And yet, perhaps the best solution was to press this proposed expedition to the Red Star as far and as fast as possible – as an anodyne to the depression that had followed the death of the two queens. Robinton knew that F’lar wanted to prove to the Lord Holders that the dragonmen were in earnest in their desire to clear the air of Thread, but for once, the Masterharper found himself without a private opinion. He did not know if F’lar was wise in pushing the issue, particularly now. Particularly when the Benden Weyrleader wasn’t recovered from T’ron’s slash. When no one was sure how T’kul was managing in Southern Weyr or if the man intended to stay there. When all Pern was staggered by the battle and deaths of the two queens The people had enough to rationalize, had enough to do with the vagaries of Threadfall complicating the seasonal mechanics of plowing and seeding. Leave the attack of the Red Star until another time.