“We’ve been doing that,” Avarra snapped. She shot the other wingleader an apologetic look immediately, but her words hung in the air.
“I think we’re doing all that we can,” Xhinna said. She raised a hand as the other two started to protest. “I know that the work seems dull now—”
“And it’ll be near a month before we first see Thread—” Jerilli interjected sourly.
“Actually, not true,” Xhinna corrected, raising a hand to forestall Jerilli’s protests. “We know that dustfall was seen over Fort two days before Turn’s End—”
“Great, so we’ve only nineteen more days to—”
Thread! Thread! Thread falls over Bitra!
The three riders were out of the room and into the air in an instant, grateful for the sacks of firestone that were still tied to the neck of their dragons.
Tazith, tell K’dan that we’re going to investigate, Xhinna told her dragon as they rose into the evening air. Tell the wing to join me at the Dawn Sisters. She paused for a moment. Have you got the image?
In response, Tazith took them between. They burst out in the early morning sky high over Benden, next to the watch riders who were still close to the Dawn Sisters.
Xhinna quickly found Bitra. There, dark smudges seemed to mar the landscape. She looked around, saw the rest of her wing form around her, and called to her blue, Take us there!
They came out in the sky high above Bitra. The air was cold, and the pocket of evening air that Tazith had brought with them from over Sky Weyr shone at its edges with small ice crystals frozen by the colder Bitra air.
Without urging, the blue turned his head to her and Xhinna found herself fumbling as she opened a firestone sack and fed him chunks. She knew, without looking, that behind her the rest of her wing was doing the same.
Far, far above Bitra, the dragons prepared for what they had been born and bred to do: flame and kill Thread.
No flame! Tazith cried as his first belch brought forth only the merest flicker of light.
Lower, lower! Fall with it! Danirry’s Kiarith relayed.
Do it, Xhinna agreed.
They fell, twenty-five dragons in unison, following the small oblongs through the thin atmosphere.
R’ney is worried about our air, Tazith relayed after they’d fallen for thousands of meters.
Look! Look at the Thread! Coranth relayed.
Xhinna looked at the Thread, so tantalizingly close, deadly, threatening. The clumps were changing, glowing with a heat of their own and—extending, growing, streaming into—
Thread! Tazith bellowed, bursting forth with another belch of firestone—this time it lit and the streaming Thread in front of him caught fire, crisped, and charred into nothingness.
Behind her, Xhinna suddenly heard the triumphant bellows of the dragons, heard the roar of flame, and the fantastic sound of Thread charring, burning, turning into lifeless dust.
Avarra, Jerilli! Xhinna called. Where Tazith had found them was suddenly empty as they went between and Xhinna knew that the two other wings were en route to join them. And then, to her left she saw Jerilli, waving and crying with joy; to her right, Avarra was diving toward a clump of Thread and flaming at it even as it started to stream from a small ball into its normal, long, thread-like shape.
They flew until there was no more Thread, until there was only dust, until Xhinna and the others had exhausted their sacks of firestone.
Back, Xhinna called to the exhausted riders and dragons. Back to the Weyr.
Moments later, there was nothing over Bitra to indicate that the Sky Dragons had ever been present, except for small shards of ash that were presently borne upward and away by the morning breeze.
“We caught it just as it was Threading!” Davissa exclaimed jubilantly, rushing to grab Xhinna in a bear hug. Xhinna had barely a moment to catch her breath before the two of them were engulfed in huge, strong arms and lifted off their feet.
“We did it, we did it!” R’ney’s voice boomed in Xhinna’s ears.
“Put us down, put us down!” she begged, banging on R’ney’s arm ineffectually and laughing all the while. No sooner had the brown rider complied than Xhinna found herself embraced once more, this time by the two exuberant blue riders.
“You know what this means—,” she said to them, only to hear K’dan reply, “It means that perhaps you should report to the Weyrleader.”
Instantly the circle broke and Xhinna turned to meet the bronze rider’s eyes.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like it’s necessary,” Fiona said, moving by K’dan’s side. “Danirry’s Kiarith reported to everyone, and you knew that Xhinna and her—ahem—consorts were going to fight the Thread.”
“It worked! It worked just like I thought it would!” Danirry crowed exultantly, causing everyone to turn toward her with wide eyes. “Flaming Thread!”
“Uh, dear …,” R’ney prompted.
At this, Danirry seemed to realize that she’d left a few important words out—a habit of hers that her fellow blues and greens had come to accept, but which was foreign to most others.
“I’m sorry, Weyrleader,” Danirry said. “It’s just that I was sure we could flame the Thread up high, just as it blossomed—”
“Blossomed?” Fiona cut in, her face going pale at the revolting image.
“Spooled, then, if you will,” Danirry corrected with a quick shrug.
“Please explain, blue rider, and assume that we’ve never heard what you’re talking about before,” Fiona said.
“Because we haven’t,” R’ney added, reaching forward to poke the blue rider affectionately on the shoulder. “Once again, dear heart, you forget what you haven’t told us.”
“Oh,” Danirry said, only slightly repentant. She collected herself, glanced in the direction of K’dan and Fiona, and then said, “Well, it’s just that I thought that—well, Thread burns, right?”
K’dan nodded slowly.
“And it grows; it eats things,” Danirry continued. “So it’s something that lives and needs air.” She glanced around, her eyes darting quickly toward K’dan and Fiona before coming to rest on Xhinna as she took a deep breath. “So I figure that it lives. And if it lives, then while it’s in the cold of space it must be dead—”
“Dead?” K’dan repeated, his brows furrowed.
“Asleep, like a seed out of the ground,” Danirry said. “Inert, if you will.”
“I see,” K’dan said.
“So when it falls, something has to wake it, as it were, or it would still be a seed when it hit the soil, wouldn’t it?” Danirry said.
“We’re with you,” R’ney said encouragingly.
“So I figured that when it woke up would be when it was at its most vulnerable, when it would be smallest and easiest to destroy,” Danirry continued. She looked K’dan full in the eyes as she concluded, “Just when it was spooling out into Thread. Just when there was enough air to slow it down, enough air that we could flame it into dust.”
“By the First Egg!” Fiona swore in awe. She glanced to K’dan.
“It worked?” K’dan asked.
“Perfectly,” Xhinna said, moving to Danirry’s side and hugging the blue rider’s shoulders. She glanced toward Avarra and Jerilli. “Not a dragon or rider injured, and no Thread reached the ground.”
“We could kill it before it ever got near enough to threaten Pern,” Fiona said, looking up hopefully to the Sky Weyrleader.