“Hear that?” Jirana said, cupping hands to her ears and turning her head for the best sound. “The eggs are rocking.”
Unable to hear anything over the pounding of the surf, Xhinna urged Tazith lower. She kept her head turned away from the place where she’d heard J’keran and Taria—the green rider was her own woman and could make her own choices.
Then she heard the noise, like shells cracking. In an instant she was on the ground, running from egg to egg and kicking them, shouting with all her might. “Get away! Get away! Get away from them!”
Tazith! Get help, rouse the Weyr! The eggs, the tunnel snakes are attacking them!
“What are you doing?” Taria cried, rushing up half-clothed and throwing herself at Xhinna. Xhinna dodged her and continued kicking and rocking the eggs. Three just rolled over and over and away, toward the sea.
“What, are you killing them?” Taria cried, throwing herself back on Xhinna. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but don’t kill the eggs!”
“They’re already dead,” Xhinna cried, trying to point to the small holes in their base as they rolled down into the sea. “Don’t you see?”
“Don’t kill them, don’t kill them,” Taria wailed, her efforts getting feebler and feebler. J’keran rushed up and shoved Xhinna out of the way.
“Xhinna!” he cried, his hand going to his belt knife. Xhinna, suddenly enlightened, pulled her own knife, preparing to hack open another suspiciously light shell, to show them the destruction inside—
She grunted as J’keran threw his full weight on her, shoving her to the ground.
“I won’t let you!” he growled. Xhinna rolled just in time, although J’keran’s knife tore the sleeve of her tunic. “She’s with me, that’s all there is to it. You know the rules!”
In the background, Xhinna vaguely heard Jirana wailing next to the remains of one of the ruined eggs. Xhinna rolled onto her feet only to dodge the brown rider as he tried to slam her once again onto the ground.
“J’keran, hold!” Xhinna cried. “The eggs are dead, J’keran!”
“Only if you kill them!” J’keran cried, overwhelmed by rage and righteousness. “You’d kill all Pern in your jealousy.”
“No,” Xhinna said. She heard the cracking again and dodged away from him, turning toward the sound. If she could just get J’keran to—
She missed his motion and his knife came slicing down her back, as a thin line of pain and then a hot, searing agony. Behind her, Tazith roared in challenge and leapt into the air, ready to tackle the brown rider, prepared to challenge his dragon.
And then, suddenly, before Xhinna could slip aside, regain her composure, try to reason with the drink-addled man, she slipped on a rock, knocked her head against the ruined egg, crashed it open, and—vaguely she heard a series of bellows above her as her sight dimmed and her breath fled her lungs.
“Now that’s one thing I never thought of,” a soft voice said as Xhinna stirred to wakefulness. “Fighting with another rider.”
“I doan recommen’ it,” Xhinna said with a thick tongue. The other person was Bekka—she knew just from the healer’s scent, that mix of lemon and something astringent. “How long …”
“Shh,” Bekka said, putting fingers on Xhinna’s lips. “You’ve done your talking for the day.” She paused until she was certain the blue rider would obey, then lifted her fingers and brushed Xhinna’s cheek tenderly. “You can ask your questions through Tazith.”
“He’ll tell me,” a small voice spoke up. Jirana sounded tired, tremulous, relieved, and still very, very scared.
Whatever it is that frightens you, it’s coming closer, Xhinna thought, forming the words with Jirana in mind. She heard the girl gasp and realized that Tazith had relayed her words exactly. I’m sorry. Xhinna apologized. You should tell someone. You aren’t supposed to know so early.
“I can’t,” Jirana said out loud. “You cannot break time.”
“Oh,” Bekka said even as Xhinna thought the same. “We know that,” she added softly, “but don’t forget that sometimes you can cheat it.”
Not this time, Tazith relayed from the young girl to Xhinna.
Little one, Xhinna thought, sending the dark-haired trader girl a soothing feeling, a caress of thought, a sister’s encouragement, a mother’s love.
“You’d better ask your questions—I’m going to need a nap soon,” Jirana said aloud. Xhinna knew from the touch of her—the nuanced tone that Tazith used when relaying Jirana’s words and emotions—that Jirana had slept by her side, had not left her for more than the necessary.
“Nine days,” Bekka said, wringing out a rag over a basin and placing the damp cloth on Xhinna’s head. “I thought we were going to lose you.”
I’m tough.
I wouldn’t let you go, Tazith said in a voice that seemed to hold an echo of Jirana—a voice that was still a child’s, with a tone that was only a woman’s. You have to stay.
The hatchlings?
Only five, Jirana thought to her with a sadness that matched Xhinna’s own emotions. “Two blues, three greens.”
“Riders just as we thought: Alimma and Danirry the blues, the rest the greens,” Bekka added.
Taria!
Jirana said nothing, but Xhinna felt her turn to Bekka.
“Taria and J’keran fled,” Bekka said. “I wanted to find them, but K’dan stopped me.”
Why?
“She asks why,” Jirana supplied.
“Because of that vile drink J’keran had been brewing,” Bekka said. “K’dan said something about bad brew that I don’t understand—sensible people drink wine—and told me that until the effects wore off, the two of them were a danger to one and all.” She sniffed. “The stuff was bad in small doses, dangerous in large ones, and lethal if they’d drunk another bottle.”
Taria! Xhinna cried, full of fear for her pregnant friend.
She heard the sound of brisk footsteps approaching. Two sets, one smaller than the other.
“Okay, you get out of here and find your mother,” Bekka said peremptorily to Jirana. “She’s awake. We kept our promise, and now you’ve got to sleep. You’re skin and bones.”
“Okay,” Jirana said glumly. Xhinna felt Jirana’s hand press lightly on her eyelids, warning her not to open them, and then she felt small lips kiss her cheek. “I’ll come back as soon as they let me.”
Probably sooner, Xhinna sent sardonically through Tazith. You get your sleep, little one.
“We’ll take care of her,” Bekka said, giving Jirana a soft, affectionate whack on the butt to keep her moving. The heavier footsteps retreated with Jirana; Xhinna guessed that it was J’riz who remained.
Bekka started moving Xhinna delicately but purposefully, making comments softly to J’riz. The blue rider thought for a moment to protest such an invasion of her privacy, but she decided against it—she wasn’t supposed to talk. Besides, she couldn’t fault Bekka’s logic in training him, even if she did have to suppress a smirk when she thought how it kept him near the healer.
Another moment of inspection and then, painfully, Xhinna was rolled onto her stomach and her robe lifted so that Bekka could inspect the wound that, judging from her comment and the touch of her fingers, ran all the way from the bottom of her shoulder blade to the base of her hip.
“Your hip and the fall saved you,” Bekka said. “If his knife had gone deeper, it would have not only ruined your kidney but ruptured your intestines, and then the only thing I could do would be to give you lots of fellis mixed with that idiot drink of J’keran’s.”