Presuming N’ton was not the only new rider able to transfer to another beast, what good would such flexibility do in the long run? F’lar had definitely said the incursions would not be so frequent at first, when the Red Star was just beginning its fifty-Tum long circling pass of Pern. How frequent was frequent? He would know, but he wasn’t here.
Well, he had been right this morning about the appearance of Threads at Nerat, so his exhaustive study of those old Records had proved worthwhile.
No, that wasn’t quite accurate. He had forgotten to have the men alert for signs of black dust as well as warming weather. As he had put the matter right by going between times, she would graciously allow him that minor error. But he did have an infuriating habit of guessing correctly. Lessa corrected herself again. He didn’t guess. He studied. He planned. He thought and then he used common good sense. Like figuring out where and when Threads would strike according to entries in those smelly Records. Lessa began to feel better about their future.
Now, if he would just make the riders learn to trust their dragons’ sure instinct in battle, they would keep casualties down, too.
A shriek pierced air and ear as a blue dragon emerged above the Star Stone.
“Ramoth!” Lessa screamed in an instinctive reaction, hardly knowing why. The queen was a-wing before the echo of her command had died. For the careering blue was obviously in grave trouble. He was trying to brake his forward speed, yet one wing would not function. His rider had slipped forward over the great shoulder, precariously clinging to his dragon’s neck with one hand.
Lessa, her hands clapped over her mouth, watched fearfully. There wasn’t a sound in the Bowl but the flapping of Ramoth’s immense wings. The queen rose swiftly to position herself against the desperate blue, lending him wing support on the crippled side. The watchers gasped as the rider slipped, lost his hold, and felllanding on Ramoth’s wide shoulders. The blue dropped like a stone. Ramoth came to a gentle stop near him, crouching low to allow the weyrfolk to remove her passenger.
It was C’gan.
Lessa felt her stomach heave as she saw the ruin the Threads had made of the old harper’s face. She dropped beside him, pillowing his head in her lap. The weyrfolk gathered in a respectful, silent circle. Manora, her face, as always, serene, had tears in her eyes. She knelt and placed her hand on the old rider’s heart. Concern flicked in her eyes as she looked up at Lessa. Slowly she shook her head. Then, setting her lips in a thin line, she began to apply the numbing salve.
“Too toothless old to flame and too slow to get between” C’gan mumbled, rolling his head from side to side. “Too old. But ‘Dragonmen must fly/When Threads are in the sky… .’ ” His voice trailed off into a sigh. His eyes closed. Lessa and Manora looked at each other in anguish. A terrible, ear-shattering note cut the silence. Tagath sprang aloft in a tremendous leap. C’gan’s eyes rolled slowly open, sightless. Lessa, breath suspended, watched the blue dragon, trying to deny the inevitable as Tagath disappeared in mid-air.
A low moan sprang up around the Weyr, like the torn, lonely cry of a keening wind. The dragons uttered tribute.
“Is he … gone?” Lessa asked, although she knew.
Manora nodded slowly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached over to close C’gan’s dead eyes.
Lessa rose slowly to her feet, motioning to some of the women to remove the old rider’s body. Absently she rubbed her bloody hands dry on her skirts, trying to concentrate on what might be needed next.
Yet her mind turned back to what had just happened. A dragonrider had died. His dragon, too. The Threads had claimed one pair already. How many more would die this cruel Turn? How long could the Weyr survive? Even after Ramoth’s forty matured, and the ones she soon would conceive, and her queen daughters, too?
Lessa walked apart to quiet her uncertainties and ease her grief. She saw Ramoth wheel and glide aloft, to land on the Peak. One day soon would Lessa see those golden wings laced red and black from Thread marks? Would Ramoth … disappear?
No, Ramoth would not. Not while Lessa lived.
F’lar told her long ago that she must learn to look beyond the narrow confines of Hold Ruatha and mere revenge. He was, as usual, right. As Weyrwoman under his tutelage, she had further learned that living was more than raising dragons and Spring Games. Living was struggling to do something impossibleto succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!
Lessa realized that she had, at last, fully accepted her role: as Weyrwoman and as mate, to help F’lar shape men and events for many Turns to cometo secure Pern against the Threads. Lessa threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin high.
Old C’gan had had the right of it.
Dragonmen must fly When Threads are in the skyl
AS F’LAR had predicted, the attack ended by high noon, and weary dragons and riders were welcomed by Ramoth’s highpitched trumpeting from the Peak.
Once Lessa assured herself that F’lar had taken no additional injury, that F’nor’s were superficial and that Manora was keeping Kylara busy in the kitchens, she applied herself to organizing the care of the injured and the comfort of the worried.
As dusk fell, an uneasy peace settled on the Weyrthe quiet of minds and bodies too tired or too hurtful to talk.
Lessa’s own words mocked her as she made out the list of wounded men and beasts. Twenty-eight men or dragons were out of the air for the next Thread battle. C’gan was the only fatality, but there had been four more seriously injured dragons at Keroon and seven badly scored men, out of action entirely for months to come. Lessa crossed the Bowl to her Weyr, reluctant but resigned to giving F’lar this unsettling news.
She expected to find him in the sleeping room, but it was vacant. Ramoth was asleep already as Lessa passed her on the way to the Council Roomalso empty. Puzzled and a little alarmed, Lessa half-ran down the steps to the Records Room, to find F’lar, haggard of face, poring over musty skins.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded angrily. “You ought to be asleep.”
“So should you,” he drawled, amused.
“I was helping Manora settle the wounded …”
“Each to his own craft.” But he did lean back from the table, rubbing his neck and rotating the uninjured shoulder to ease stiffened muscles.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, “so I thought I’d see what answers I might turn up in the Records.”
“More answers? To what?” Lessa cried, exasperated with him. As if the Records ever answered anything. Obviously the tremendous responsibilities of Pern’s defense against the Threads were beginning to tell on the Weyrleader. After all, there had been the stress of the first battle, not to mention the drain of the traveling between time itself to get to Nerat to forestall the Threads.
F’lar grinned and beckoned Lessa to sit beside him on the wall bench.
“I need the answer to the very pressing question of how one understrength Weyr can do the fighting of six.”
Lessa fought the panic that rose, a cold flood, from her guts.
“Oh, your time schedules will take care of that,” she replied gallantly. “You’ll be able to conserve the dragon-power until the new forty can join the ranks.”
F’lar raised a mocking eyebrow.
“Let us be honest between ourselves, Lessa.”
“But there have been Long Intervals before,” she argued, “and since Pern survived them, Pern can again.”
“Before there were always six Weyrs. And twenty or so Turns before the Red Star was due to begin its Pass, the queens would start to produce enormous clutches. All the queens, not just one faithful golden Ramoth. Oh, how I curse Jora!” He slammed to his feet and started pacing, irritably brushing the lock of black hair that fell across his eyes.