“Hold it,” Marco Galliani said firmly, raising both hands in restraint. “My father’s shipping them on to Roma as soon as sleds are free. Prime breeding stock.”
“So are dragons.” Sean rose, an odd grin on his face. “Peter, Dave, Jerry, come with me. Sorka, you run interference – if there is any.”
“Hey, wait a minute, Sean,’’ Marco began, dual loyalties in conflict.
Sean grinned slyly, laying a finger along his nose. “What the eye doesn’t see, Marco, the heart won’t grieve.”
“It’s for your dragon, man,” Dave muttered as he passed him.
An hour later, several dragons disappeared in a westerly direction skimming the tree tops. The other riders were so conspicuous in their efforts to help the crew struggling to organize the chaos on the beach that no one would have noticed that the riders were not all present at any one time. By noon, seventeen brightly hued, sated dragons lolled on the strand. One sat patiently on the headland while fire-dragonets dove into the sea, fishing for packtail.
Caesar and Stefano Galliani, taking a poll count as their sheep were loaded, discovered that the tally was short by some thirty-six animals, including one of the best rams. Caesar called on the dragonriders to search the area and herd the missing sheep back to the shore.
“Useless things, always wandering off,” Sean agreed, nodding his head pathetically at the frustrated and puzzled Gallianis. “We’ll give a look.”
When Sean reported back an hour later, he suggested to Caesar that the sheep must have dropped into some of the many potholes in the area. Reluctantly the Gallianis took off with the depleted flock. The big transport sleds had schedules to keep, and shipment could not be postponed.
As the last of the sleds departed, Emily came over to Sean. “Are your dragons fit for duty?”
“Anything you say!” Sean agreed so amiably that Emily shot him a long look. “The fire-lizards worked hard all morning to feed the dragons. He gestured toward the cove where Duluth was accepting a packtail from a bronze.
“Fire-lizards?” Emily was momentarily baffled by “lizards,” then remembered that Sean tended to use his own name for the little creatures. “Oh, yes, then your fairs have returned?”
“Not all of them,” Sean said ruefully, and then added quickly, “but enough of the queens and bronzes to be useful.”
“The eruption scared them all, didn’t it?”
Sean gave a snort. “The eruption scared all of us!”
“Not out of our wits, it would seem,” Emily said with a crooked smile. “At least nobody acted as foolish as sheep, did they?” Sean pretended neither innocence nor understanding; he turned her look until she broke eye contact. “If your dragons have lost the taste for fish, hunt wherries. That eruption whittled down our herds quite enough, thank you.” Sean inclined his head, still noncommittal. “There’s so much to be done, and done quickly.” Consulting the thick sheets on her clipboard, she paused to rub her forehead. “If only your dragons were fully functional . . .” Then she shot him a penitent smile. “Sorry, Sean, that’s an egregious comment.”
“I, too, wish we were, Governor,” Sean replied without prejudice. “But we’re not sure how it’s done. Not even what to tell them to do.” He blotted the sweat from his forehead and neck, a sweat not entirely provoked by the hot sun.
“A point well made and a matter we must look into, but not here and now. Look, Sean, Joel Lilienkamp’s worried about the supplies still at Landing. We’re shifting loads out of here as fast as we can.” She swept her arm over the mounds of color-coded crates and foam-covered pallets. “The orange stuff has to be protected from Threadfall, so it has to go north as fast as possible to be stored in the Fort Hold. We still have to try to save what’s left at Landing before the ash covers it.”
“That ash burns, Governor. Burns as easily through dragon wings as – ” Sean broke off, staring fixedly toward the western beach, one hand coming up in a futile gesture of warning. Emily twisted around to see what had prompted his concern.
The dragon’s trumpet of alarm was faint and thin on the hot air. The driver of the sled on collision course with the creature seemed unaware that he was descending onto another flyer. Then, just before the sled would have hit, dragon and rider disappeared.
“Instinct is marvelous!” Emily exclaimed, her face lit with both relief at the last-minute evasion and joy that a dragon had displayed that innate ability. She looked back to Sean and her expression changed. “What’s the matter, Sean?” She glanced quickly up at the sky, a sky empty of both dragon pair and the sled, which was lost in the many coming and going on the Kahrain cove. “Oh, no!’’ Her hand went to her throat, which seemed to close as she felt the wrenching fear in her guts. “No. Oh no! Shouldn’t they be visible again now? Shouldn’t they, Sean? Isn’t it supposed to be an instantaneous displacement?”
Distressed, she reached out to clasp his arm, giving him a little shake to attract his attention. He looked down at her, and the anguished expression in his eyes gave her an answer that altered fear to grief. She turned her head slowly from side to side, trying to deny the truth to herself.
Just as one of the cargo supervisors came striding up to her, a sheaf of plasfilm in his hand and an urgent expression on his face, the most appalling keen rose into the air. The dissonant noise was so piercing that half the people on the beach stopped to cover their ears. In the same moment as the unbearable sound mounted steadily, the air was full of fire-dragonets, each adding its own shrill voice to swell the sound of lament.
The other dragons rose, riderless, to fly past the point where one of their number and his human partner had lost their lives. In a complex pattern that would have thrilled watchers on any other occasion, fire-dragonets flew around their larger cousins, emitting their weird counterpoint to the deeper, throbbing, mournful cry of the dragons.
“I’ll find out how that could have happened. The driver of that sled – ” Emily stopped as she saw the terrible expression on Sean’s Face.
“That won’t bring back Marco Galliani and Duluth, will it?” He whipped his hand sideways in a sharp, dismissive cut. “Tomorrow we will fly wherever you need us for whatever we can save for you.”
For a long long moment Emily stood looking after him until the image of the sorrowing young man was indelibly imprinted in her mind. In the sky, as if escorting him back to the dragon-riders’ camp, the graceful beasts wheeled, dipped, and glided westward to their beach.
Whatever pain Emily felt, it could be nothing, she realized, to the sense of loss that would be experienced by the dragon-riders. She scrubbed at her face, at a chin that trembled, determinedly swallowing the lump in her throat, and irritably gestured for the cargo supervisor to approach her.
“Find out who drove that sled and bring him or her to my tent at noon. Now, what’s on your mind?”
Marco and Duluth disappeared, just the way the fire-lizards do,” Sean said, his voice oddly gentle.
“But they didn’t come back,” Nora cried out in protest. She started to weep afresh, burying her face in Peter Semling’s shoulder.
The shock of the unexpected deaths had been traumatic. The dragons’ lament had subsided over the afternoon. By evening, their partners had coaxed them to curl up in the sand and sleep. The dragons seen to, the young people hunched about a small fire, dispirited and apathetic.
“We have to find out what went wrong,” Sean was saying, “so that it can never happen again.”
“Sean, we don’t know even know what Marco and Duluth were doing!” Dave Catarel cried.
“Duluth was exhibiting an instinctive reaction to danger,” a new voice said. Pol Nietro, Bay beside him, paused in the light thrown by the fire. “An instinct he was bred to exercise. May we offer condolences from all those connected with the dragon program. We – Bay and I – why, all of you are like family to us.” Pol awkwardly dabbed at his eyes and sniffed.