“Wingleader, my life is yours,” he said.
“Heard and witnessed!” the crowd called. Behind him, he heard dragons roar, heard his beautiful, precious Perinth among them. He would live. He could fly again, fight Thread as he was meant to do.
He glanced up at Xhinna and was surprised when she winked at him, reached down and slipped her forearm behind his, and heaved him to his feet.
“Live long, brown rider,” she told him quietly. As he looked into her deep blue eyes, he saw that she truly meant it.
“Thank you.”
“One more thing,” she said, raising a hand warningly. “You belong to the Weyr, and so for it I say: You may not drink again unless the Weyrleader gives leave.”
“As you say,” J’keran had said, bowing his head once more.
And now, he followed Jepara’s orders without a word, collecting the best scraps from the newly-butchered herdbeast, placing them in a clean light bowl, finding a wooden hammer, and placing all the items near to Jirana’s hand.
Then, at Jepara’s gesture, he sat and waited as the sun slowly rose in the sky.
He said nothing when Xhinna woke and rose, throwing on her tunic and rushing off to gather the Candidates. She was back moments later at a surprise summons from Bekka, who glided from the sky to land behind the strange brownish-green egg. Sarurth walked sedately to the other side, forming a triangle of queens, with Jirana’s bed and the egg in the center—they were thrumming in anticipation of the hatching.
The thrumming grew louder and Xhinna looked down at Jirana. “Ready?”
“Yes,” the girl said, reaching up her arms as Xhinna leaned down and lifted her to a sitting position.
The thrumming grew louder and the egg cracked.
“Come on, girl, you can do it!” Jirana called encouragingly. She looked around and was surprised to find the wooden hammer placed into her hand. She beat—feebly—on the shell. Cracks grew, and the queen dragons thrummed loudly in greeting.
The shell cracked wide open, shards flying, as a small gold head thrust through.
“Hi!” Jirana called, dropping the hammer. “I’m happy to see you, Laspanth!”
And I, you, the newest queen on Pern replied. A moment later, wistfully eyeing the nearby scraps of food, she asked, Is that something to eat?
J’keran raised the dish up to Jirana, who happily fed a great gob of warm, fresh meat to her queen.
Xhinna, smiling so wide her face hurt, supported Jirana until the little queen was completely out of her shell and her hunger sated, at which point the trader girl asked to be put down so that she could have her queen lie with her.
As Xhinna settled the girl back on the sand, Jirana looked up at her, smiling. “See? You did it, Xhinna! You saved the eggs! You saved Pern!”
“No,” Xhinna said, smiling back at her as she reached out to pull Taria to her side, “you did it, little one.”
Jirana shook her head and, freeing one hand from Laspanth, pointed to Taria and Xhinna.
“We all did it.”
BOOK TWO
The Sky Dragons
SIXTEEN
The Battle of Friends
“Shards, Fiona, it may only be soft wood, but I’m still sore there, you know!” Xhinna cried, rubbing her chest where the Weyrwoman had scored—once again—on the front of her padded leather armor. “I’ve got a baby to nurse,” she added in a lower tone, “and he’s not going to like it if I’m wincing because of you.”
“You can always yield,” Fiona said, eyes dancing as she circled the point of her practice blade in the vicinity of Xhinna’s chest. “And you’ve scored as much on me—also nursing!—as I have on you.”
In the near distance, sheltered under the shade of a large canvas awning, Mirressa shook her head at the two women.
“See, your mommies are arguing again,” she said in a singsong voice to the two babies sleeping on either side of her. Her voice carried as she intended and she waved mildly to Xhinna and the Weyrwoman, not at all apologetic.
“On your guard, Weyrwoman!” Xhinna called, raising her blade once more.
Instead, Fiona lowered her blade and raised her free hand in pax, turning away from Xhinna to glance down the long stretch of beach beyond them.
“I still can’t believe it,” Fiona said as Xhinna moved up beside her. Xhinna followed her gaze and nodded in mute agreement.
From where they stood, staring down the length of the coast, there was nothing for two kilometers but dragons, riders … and dragon eggs.
The midday heat baked the sand and blurred the farthest images, but Xhinna knew that there were more than ninety eggs ready to hatch in the next sevenday or less.
Around and over them a full Flight of dragons frolicked—three wings of thirty dragons each. And that was only the Rest Day Flight. Two other Flights were engaged in various activities: hunting, working, providing for the whole of Sky Weyr.
That industry in nearly the same numbers was repeated no less than five more times across the width and breadth of the Western Isle.
“Two thousand fighting dragons,” Fiona said to herself, reaching to grab Xhinna’s hand. “And no one in our time knows about it.”
“Well …”
“None that are saying,” Fiona agreed with a light chuckle. Nerra, Lady Holder of Crom, had been instrumental in helping them provide the Candidates for so many of the new dragons, aided in no small part by Javissa, Aressil, and a whole group of very tight-lipped traders.
Pulled from the wreck of the Plague, twenty-three hundred people had been brought here, to the Western Isle, to rebuild the dragon strength of Pern.
Fiona shook her head in wonderment. “I keep thinking …”
“What?”
Fiona turned to look up at the blue rider. “I just keep thinking that it’s too good to last.”
Xhinna nodded silently. She’d had the same feeling.
Footsteps crunched in the sand, causing them to turn. A small form approached. Jirana. Rider of the first of the “green queens”—queens hatched from green clutches. Two Turns had done little for her height, but her eyes showed an age far greater than her twelve Turns. “It won’t last,” she said. “In half a Turn, at most, we’ll be back in our own time.”
She wore the light robe that was used as both towel and body covering by so many of the Weyr’s beach worshippers—she’d been part of one of several parties speckled up and down the beach who’d mixed their rest with swimming and sunbathing. Now her gaze swept down the sands toward Mirressa, sitting in the shade, and a look of pain twisted her face for a fleeting moment.
Xhinna, who’d been watching, nudged Fiona. The Weyrwoman, rubbing where the blue rider had scored on her in the previous bout, nodded quietly.
Presently, Jirana turned her attention back to them. “How did your practice go?” she asked Fiona. She turned to Xhinna. “Have you managed to disarm her yet?”
“Bruise, yes; disarm, no,” Xhinna replied easily.
“You fight like a girl,” Jirana said, deadpan.
“Take a sword and you’ll see how I fight,” Xhinna challenged.
“I think I’ve seen how you can fight, blue rider,” Jirana returned easily, eyes twinkling.
“Did you want to challenge me, then?” Fiona asked with a grin.
Surprised, Jirana gave her a shocked look and hastily shook her head. “I’d never do that, Weyrwoman.”
A noise from above and a sudden darkening of the sky heralded the arrival of a dragon. The three craned their necks up as a bronze dragon overflew them and banked into a steep turn. K’dan and Lurenth.