Xhinna sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. Coranth will need more than a month to heal.” She pursed her lips. “Maybe Tazith can help her into the air.”
“Maybe,” R’ney said dubiously. “But you’d have to carry all the others.”
“Tazith is strong for his size,” Xhinna declared staunchly. She couldn’t help but turn toward the sturdy blue, who craned his neck up and lowered his head to peer at her, his multifaceted eyes whirling green with pride and confidence in his rider.
In that moment, with her dragon gazing at her with such adoration, Xhinna realized that everyone in the camp was looking to her. She was responsible for all six of the newest queens on Pern, more precious than anything, and fifteen bronzes who were just as valuable. And Fiona’s children. As well as R’ney’s brown Rowerth and J’riz’s ailing green Qinth—along with K’dan and all the others who had so mysteriously disappeared. The weight of their loss bore heavily on her. And now, because of Coranth’s injury, she was also responsible for Taria’s green.
Xhinna straightened her shoulders as she nodded to R’ney. She thought she understood now how Fiona had felt when she’d gone to Igen Weyr. The weight of responsibility seemed both to crush her and buoy her up. She could not fail.
“We’re three Turns back in time,” she said. “We’re safe from Thread. We can find a camp, find food, settle in, and let these weyrlings grow until help comes.” She nodded firmly toward R’ney. “And, if need be, we can survive until we return with all our dragons fully grown and ready to fight Thread.”
To keep the twins out of mischief, Xhinna brought them with her when she went scouting. Once aloft, she set a course northward along the coastline. She wanted to find something like a Weyr, a safe rocky place up high where neither Mrreows nor tunnel snakes could threaten them. She searched in vain for over an hour. Tiona had fallen asleep only to be pinched awake by her brother and was now presently bawling quietly to herself. Xhinna tried to ignore both children as she strained to scan the land below.
“Those trees are funny,” Tiona said suddenly, pointing. “They’re upside down.”
“Broom trees,” Xhinna said, following an imaginary line from Tiona’s finger to its distant target. Silently, she asked Tazith to change direction. The blue complied with alacrity, spinning on a wing tip in a maneuver that still thrilled Xhinna and drew excited shrieks from the twins. “They grow larger at the top, like they were an upside-down broom.”
“There are more branches at the top than the bottom,” Tiona agreed.
“You could almost sleep in them,” Kimar said in awe as they drew nearer to the trees.
“I’ve never seen them so close together,” Xhinna said.
“Could Tazith sleep there?” Tiona wondered. “It looks itchy.”
“Let’s see,” Xhinna said, the beginnings of a mad plan forming in her mind. She urged Tazith closer and the four of them inspected the forest. The broom trees, growing in a ring near the top of one of the taller hills in the area, were so close together that they formed a near-level canopy tens of meters above the forest floor.
How about it, Tazith? Xhinna asked her blue. In response, Tazith descended and lightly touched down on one of the sturdier trees.
“Xhinna,” Kimar asked, “could we live here?”
“Let’s see,” Xhinna said, throwing one leg over Tazith’s neck and carefully climbing down. She had a moment’s fright as her foot almost slipped off the first branch, but soon, as she learned to choose her position carefully, she found herself at relative ease traversing the dense tops of the broom trees.
The leaves were thick and prickly, but not so much that they hurt. She heard a noise above her and saw Tiona scampering down Tazith’s side.
“Careful!” Xhinna called, reaching out to guide the girl’s foot onto a thicker cluster of leaves. Kimar followed after, and only on Xhinna’s invitation.
“This is nice,” Tiona said, as she spread herself out over a thicker cluster of leaves, then, “Ouch!” as one of the pricklers stuck her cheek.
“Careful,” Kimar said in an imitation of Xhinna’s voice. Tiona gave him an irritated look, but Kimar ignored her, asking Xhinna, “Can we climb down?”
“Let’s see,” Xhinna said, looking for a way through the thick leaves. It was Tiona who found it, quickly bored with pretending to sleep and idly examining the canopy for an opening. In an instant she was through, calling, “Race you to the bottom!”
“Tiona!” Xhinna called. “Come back here this instant!”
The toddler’s head popped up through the canopy, her sea-green eyes wary.
“What would I tell your mother if something happened to you?”
“I’ll be fine,” Tiona said.
“I’d like to see you a bit older before you break your first bone,” Xhinna told her.
“What’s a bone?” Kimar asked.
Xhinna touched his forearm and, pressing down lightly, traced the bone. “That is a bone.”
“They break?” Tiona asked, surprised at the notion and idly tracing the line of the forearm she was using to hold on to the top of the canopy.
“They do, indeed, break,” Xhinna assured her gravely. “And they take months to heal.”
“Months?” Kimar asked, his blue eyes wide.
“Months,” Xhinna repeated. “In a cast, something that keeps the bone still so that you can’t move.”
“Can’t move?” Tiona said, aghast. She examined her arm with more respect and slowly climbed back up to the canopy. “I’ll stay here.”
“You can follow me, if you’re careful,” Xhinna said.
“What if you break something?” Kimar asked.
“Well, I’d better make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Pretending to have more confidence than she felt, Xhinna cautiously picked her way through the canopy. Beneath it, she discovered a thick network of branches. It took concentration to negotiate her path through them, and after a while, she found herself at an impasse. With a sigh, she climbed back up toward the canopy, shooing Tiona ahead of her.
Tazith, keep an eye on Kimar, Xhinna thought to her dragon.
Always, the blue dragon replied laconically.
“There’s a thin tree here!” Tiona said as they moved upward. “It’s got a branch right here!”
Before Xhinna could say anything, she heard a grunt, and the toddler said, “Oh, these branches are much easier!”
Xhinna saw Tiona scamper on down beside her and wave from the other tree.
“I can go all the way down,” the little girl exclaimed.
“Wait!” Xhinna called. “Let me get over there, too.”
“Aw!” But Tiona waited for Xhinna to make her way across. The branch that Tiona had used was pretty thin for the adult dragonrider, but Xhinna managed and soon was among thicker branches. She glanced down and saw that Tiona was right: they could go nearly all the way down to the ground.
With Tiona still in the lead, the two went down to the lowest branch on the tree. Xhinna was relieved to see that there was a good half-dragonlength between it and the ground—high enough that she was certain neither a Mrreow nor a tunnel snake could negotiate the gap—not that Xhinna had ever heard of a tunnel snake climbing aboveground.
“Okay, time to go back up,” Xhinna said. Tiona groaned in protest, so Xhinna added teasingly, “Race you to the top!”
Tiona, as Xhinna had planned, won easily and was peering down at Xhinna as she broke through the canopy. Kimar was sitting nearby, cross-legged, staring into the distance.
“I kept watch,” he told them. “I think I saw some wherries.”
“Wherries!” Xhinna said. They hadn’t seen the avians on Eastern Isle. If they could be caught, they’d make good eating, particularly for the growing weyrlings. And their fat could be rendered into oil to soothe patchy dragon skin.