“No way.” Sean made a decisive cut with his hands. “That’s not been laid on us. When we’ve cleared Landing, Paul wants us to cross to Seminole and make the final crossing north from there. That’s okay.” He gave a genuinely rueful smile. “But Desi would like us to take some of the irreplaceable stuff with us.”
“So long as everyone understands we’re not in the freight business,” Peter said in an aggrieved tone that echoed Sean’s sentiments.
“That’s not at issue, Pete,” Sean said firmly. “We’re coming along as dragonriders, coming along fine. But Desi’s caught between a rock and a hard place and he needs us.”
“I just wish we were needed for what we’re supposed to do,” Tarrie remarked.
“Once we’ve fulfilled our commitment here,” Sean said, “we concentrate on that, and that alone. I mean to see us all teleporting by the time we reach Seminole.”
“To places we’ve never seen?” asked the practical Otto.
“No, to the places we’ve just been. Look on our flight to Seminole as a chance to see the most important stakes in the south,” Sean replied in a bracing tone. He was surprised to find himself believing it. “We’ll need such reference points to teleport when we’re fighting Thread.” Sorka’s face was glowing with pride as he managed not only to turn around his own anger but to restate the dignity of their future. Above their heads, the yellow was fading from dragon eyes. “I can smell food. I’m hungry. Let’s go eat. We’ve earned it.”
“We’re going to have to hunt the dragons before we go skiting across the continent,” Peter said, jerking his chin toward the animal enclosures.
Sean shook his head, smiling as he remembered Emily’s oblique warning. “Can’t go to that well twice, Pete. Tomorrow, we’ll hunt the critters that got through the roundup in the Landing area.” He began to push through the ring of dragons. “Food tomorrow, Carenath,” he said, affectionately clouting the bronze as he passed him.
Fish? Carenath queried in a tone that carried dismay.
“Meat. Red meat,” Sean said. He laughed when some of the dragons bugled gratefully. “But this time we won’t kidnap it for you.” Then he put an arm around Sorka and started up the beach to the cooking fires.
The next day, as the three wings of dragonriders crossed the Jordan River, they spread out in three different directions, bypassing the ash-covered settlement and heading south and east at low levels.
Faranth says that she has found running meat, Carenath reported to her rider. Have we?
Sean had his binoculars trained on a little valley. They were north of the path of the two Threadfalls that had dropped on that area, so there was vegetation to attract grazers.
“Tell her we’ve hit pay dirt, too.”
Not meat? Carenath asked wistfully.
Sean grinned, and slapped his dragon’s shoulder. “Yes, meat, by another name. And all you can eat this time,” he added as the small mixed herd of sheep and cattle stampeded to escape the danger above them. He signaled to the rest of his wing in the exaggerated arm gestures that they had been rehearsing. Since the dragons could communicate with one another, the riders had chosen not to use handsets. But Sean had retained those Pol had scrounged. Although too valuable to risk dropping from a height, the handsets were too useful to be surrendered. “Land me on that ridge, Carenath. There’s enough room there for the others.”
Porth says they’ve enough for all of us, Carenath reported as he touched down gracefully and dipped his shoulder for Sean to dismount.
“Tell Porth we’re grateful, but you’d better hurry to catch that lot,” Sean advised. The herd was making all possible speed down the valley. He had to shield his face from the gravel and omnipresent thrown up by Carenath’s abrupt departure. Bright streaks followed the bronze. “Welcome back,” Sean said derisively as he distinguished blue and greens among the small colorful fire-lizard bodies following Blazer as she led the way.
The rest of his wing soon joined him. Even Nora Sejby managed a creditable landing on Tenneth; she was improving all the time. He worried more about Catherine Radelin-Doyle: she had not giggled with Singlath since the tragedy. Nyassa, Otto, and Jerry Mercer completed his wing. Once their dragons followed the hunt, Sean turned his glasses on Carenath in time to see the bronze swoop and grab a steer neatly without slowing his forward motion.
“Nice catch, Carenath!” Sean passed the binoculars to Nyassa to check on Milath.
“Seemed to me there were quite a lot of cattle in that bunch,” Jerry said, pulling off his helmet and ruffling his sweat-damp hair. “What’ll happen to them?”
Sean shrugged. “The best stock went north. These’ll survive, or they won’t.”
“Sean, look who’s come to dinner!” Nyassa pointed northward at the unmistakable outline of five wherries. “Go to it!” she added as she caught a glimpse of fire-dragonets launching an attack on the intruders. “Wait your turn!”
“I brought some lunch,” Catherine said, twisting out of her backpack. “We might as well take a meal break, too.”
Sean called a halt to the hunt when each dragon had consumed two animals. Carenath complained that he had eaten only one big one and he needed two of the smaller kind. Sean replied that Carenath’s belly would be so full that he would be unable to fly, and they still had work to do. The dragons grumbled, Carenath ingenuously remarking that Faranth wanted another meal, too, but Sean was adamant, and the dragons obeyed.
Sean re-formed the wing once they were aloft.
“All right, Carenath,” he said, thinking ahead with relief to the last loads at Landing. “Let’s get back to the tower as fast as we can and get this over with!”
He raised his arm and dropped it.
The next instant he and Carenath were enveloped in a blackness that was so absolute that Sean was certain his heart had stopped. I will not panic! he thought fiercely, pushing the memory of Marco and Duluth to the back of his mind. His heart raced, and he was aware of the stunning cold of the black nothingness.
I am here!
Where are we, Carenath? But Sean already knew. They were between. He focused intense thoughts on their destination, remembering the curious ash-filtered light around Landing, the shape of the meteorology tower, the flatness of the grid beyond it, and the bundles awaiting them there.
We are at the tower, Carenath said, somewhat surprised. And in that instant, they were. Sean cried aloud with relief.
Then he went wide-eyed with sudden terror. “Jays! What have I done?” he shrieked. “Where are the others, Carenath? Speak to them!”
They’re coming, Carenath replied with the utmost calm and confidence, hovering above the tower.
Before Sean’s unbelieving eyes, his wing suddenly materialized behind him, still in formation.
“Land, Carenath, please, before I fall off you,” Sean said in a whisper made weak by the unutterable relief he felt.
As the others circled in to land, Sean remained seated on Carenath, reviewing everything, half in wonder, half in remembered terror at the unthinkable risk that had just been unaccountably survived.
“Keeeeyoooo!” Nyassa’s yodel of triumph brought him up short. She was swinging her riding helmet above her head as Milath landed beside Carenath. Catherine and Singlath came in on the other side, Jerry Mercer and Manooth beyond them, and Otto and Shoth beside Tenneth and Nora.
“Hip, hip, hooray! “ Jerry led the cheer while Sean stared at them, not knowing what to say.
It was easy, you know. You thought me where to go, and I went. You did tell me to go as fast as possible. Carenath’s tone was mildly reproving.
“If that is all there is to it, what took us so long?” Otto asked.
“Anyone got a spare pair of pants?” Nora ask plaintively. “I was so scared I wet myself. But we did it!”
Catherine giggled. The sound brought Sean to his senses, and he allowed himself to smile.