Dragongirl

by Todd J. McCaffrey

  “I’ve got to use the necessary!” Fiona complained.

  “Then the bath, and hot!” Bekka said. Fiona looked at her mulishly. “Do you want to lose the baby?”

  Fiona was shocked.

  “You’ve got a chill, now get into a bath while I sort things out,” Bekka said, turning to head toward Jeila, ready to perform the same treatment.

  Fortunately the other queen rider had remembered to put on her vest and jacket before returning between from the Bitran mountains.

  Fiona managed to make it to her quarters without any more fuss even as she realized how her head ached.

  “Idiot!” she said to herself as she made her way into her rooms.

  “What?” Lorana asked sleepily from the bed where she’d been napping. She glanced more closely at Fiona and sat up. “What is it?”

  “I was an idiot and I forgot to put my vest and jacket on when I came back here between,” Fiona said. She started toward the bathroom. “Bekka says I’m to have a hot bath while she figures where to put you.”

  “Nonsense,” Lorana said peremptorily. “Come here.”

  Fiona grimaced but approached the bed. Lorana lifted a hand to her head, repeated Bekka’s examination and frowned. “Well, you’ve got a fever, there’s no doubt,” Lorana said, her lips pursed tightly. She thought for a moment, then slid farther to the back of the bed. “Get out of your gown and get in here with me.”

  “But Bekka—”

  “Bekka’s not the only one healer trained,” Lorana said. “Get Talenth to have Shaneese send us some chicken broth and in the meantime, you get in here.”

  Fiona was tired and not at all disposed to argue. In a short while she was cuddled in tight against Lorana, who had thrown on extra blankets. Not long after, she was fast asleep.

  She awoke much later, in a muck sweat.

  “Fiona!” Lorana called urgently. “Fiona, wake up!”

  “Mmm,” Fiona murmured, thrashing about in search of a place in the sheets that wasn’t soaked with her sweat.

  “You were dreaming, it’s all right, you’re all right now,” Lorana told her soothingly. Fiona felt her hand stroking her head. She made a pleasant sound, and turned her head closer to the comforting fingers. Slowly she drifted off again, even as she recalled the horrors of her dream: Can’t lose the baby! Can’t lose the baby! Can’t lose the baby!

  TWENTY-THREE

  Cold between

  Freezes harm.

  Wear jacket,

  Keep warm.

  Telgar Weyr, early evening, AL 508.7.17

  “Your fever’s broke, you’re lucky,” a voice told her softly as Fiona opened her eyes. The glows that lit the room seemed overly bright and she closed her eyes again.

  “The baby?”

  “Fine as far as we can tell,” the voice replied. Terin; it was Terin’s voice.

  “Lorana’s?” Fiona asked, her stomach knotting in some unreasonable dread.

  “Fine, that we know for sure,” Terin told her. “She’s in the bath now, you’ll see her soon.”

  “They didn’t move her?”

  “She wouldn’t move,” Terin said, adding with a snort, “You can open your eyes, you know. You haven’t got the Plague, just the sort of fever you pick up when you’re overdoing things and go between while wet with sweat.”

  “Igen’s a dry heat,” Fiona said in response to the editorial undertone in the other girl’s voice.

  “Still, you should have known,” Terin said. Fiona heard her friend stretch and felt her hand touch her forehead in a soft, gentle caress. “You’ve got the whole Weyr on edge.”

  Fiona groaned, and rolled over, raising herself on one arm and making to sit up.

  “No you don’t, lie back down!” Terin ordered. “Lorana’s still in the bath and I want her to take her time.”

  Fiona made a face as she ruefully absorbed her friend’s words. “I stink,” Fiona said sourly.

  “You’ve been in bed for four days, of course you do,” Terin said. “You can have a bath when Lorana’s all done and ready.”

  “She should be sleeping.”

  “Not the least because it’s nighttime,” Terin said in agreement.

  “Four days?” Fiona repeated, her mind picking the number over. “Threadfall tomorrow.”

  “That’s right,” Terin agreed. “K’lior’s been here, and Seban was here whenever Bekka was; they’ve all looked in on you.” She paused, adding, “I even have a note from Weyrwoman Sonia.”

  “Sonia?” Fiona asked. “What did she say?”

  “One word,” Terin said, her voice sounding chipper.

  “‘Idiot,’” Fiona said, beating the other girl to the punch.

  “How’d you know?”

  Fiona snorted, glad to be right. “It’s what I would have said to her under the same circumstances.”

  “And you’d be right, too.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Lorana spoke up from the entrance to the bathroom.

  “Some more than others,” Fiona amended glumly.

  “Well, after T’mar’s head, your fever is nothing, really,” Terin told her. She stood up briskly, giving Fiona a quick smile before she turned toward the exit into Talenth’s weyr. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a dragon of my own to tend.”

  “Oh, I doubt if you’re tending it all on your own,” Fiona teased and was delighted at the expression on Terin’s face. “I’m sure that even at this moment there’s either a gaggle of goggle-eyed weyrkids tending her every need or at least one very attentive bronze rider at her beck and call.”

  “Both, actually,” Terin agreed with a grin. With a final wave, she strode off, out of sight.

  “F’jian’s keeping an eye on the weyrlings,” Kindan explained as he escorted Fiona and Lorana back to the queen’s weyr that evening after dinner.

  Fiona had insisted that as she was “fully recovered,” she was more than able to sit at the high table and mingle with her Weyr.

  She was glad she had. The relief visible on the faces of some of the weyrwomen was more than ample vindication of her decision.

  “You rest up, now, Weyrwoman!” one of the most sour of them had called as Fiona departed. She was joined by a chorus of agreeing voices, the most heartening of which was one who said: “We don’t want anything to happen to our Weyrwoman!”

  Our Weyrwoman. The phrase resonated in Fiona’s mind and cheered her. It had not been all that long since the old Telgar weyrfolk had looked on her with stern faces. Now she was theirs—and they worried about her. It wasn’t just that this was her Weyr, now they were her weyrfolk, too. The realization brought a smile to her lips.

  Still, she had to admit that the walk to the Dining Cavern and back was as much exercise as she was good for that evening.

  She suspected that her visible fragility was the strongest reason that she and Lorana had for Kindan’s comforting presence. Idly she thought of suggesting that she spend time with T’mar, but she dismissed the thought almost as soon as she had it—she didn’t doubt that Shaneese was with T’mar on this evening before Threadfall. Fiona grinned as she mused that T’mar was probably so tense that Shaneese was there more for her skills as masseuse than as lover.

  Lorana was in a mothering mood, demanding that Fiona get in the bed first, then herself, then Kindan.

  “I suppose we could fit four,” Fiona mused as they found themselves close, but not without room of their own under the blankets.

  “Children are smaller,” Lorana said. “We could fit five.”

  “Should I take up with the woodsmith about a new bed?” Kindan asked as he turned the last of the glows and the room went dark.

  “Perhaps,” Fiona said. “I’m sure if he made a bed and we didn’t need it, someone would find a place for it.”

  “Xhinna’s brood would doubtless love to romp on it, at the very least,” Kindan said in agreement.

  Something about his tone alerted Fiona. “And who is handling her brood now that she’s Impress
ed?”

  “She is, for the most part,” Kindan said, his tone going grave.

  “I can talk with Shaneese,” Fiona said.

  “No,” Kindan said. “I think we should see how this works out.”

  Fiona’s agitation prompted him to explain, “If we are to have more women riders, we’re going to have issues like this.” He paused consideringly. “Xhinna and Taria have been handling it well, so far.”

  “But what about when they start flying?” Fiona asked.

  “That’s two or more Turns in the future and the children of her brood will all be that much older,” Kindan said.

  Fiona made a note to herself to spend more time with the weyrlings. She admitted that the reason she hadn’t done so earlier was partly that she didn’t want to monopolize Kindan’s time and partly that she didn’t want to become embroiled in any issues regarding the women riders; she’d heard enough mutterings from H’nez.

  Perhaps, though, she had put her worries in front of her duties as a Weyrwoman.

  “How are they working out?”

  “Well, actually,” Kindan said, sounding pleased, “there are only four girls, Xhinna with her blue, the rest with greens.”

  “I wonder if that will change, in future Hatchings,” Lorana mused.

  “It takes a particular sort of woman to be a blue rider,” Kindan said.

  “It takes a particular sort of person to be a blue rider,” Fiona corrected drowsily. “I can understand greens far more easily.”

  Kindan made no reply and slowly Fiona drifted off to sleep with Lorana’s warm presence beside her and the distant susurrations of Kindan’s breathing to comfort her.

  “No, no, no! Cold! Cold!” Fiona awoke, startled, to find Lorana thrashing beside her, her words quick and frantic.

  “Lorana, wake up!” Fiona said, reaching to push the older woman on the shoulder.

  “What is it?” Kindan asked. “What’s up with her?”

  “Cold, no cold!” Lorana wailed. “Lorana, wake up!” Fiona persisted.

  “Lorana, shush now, it’s all right,” Kindan added soothingly.

  With a start, Lorana woke up, her breath coming in gasps. Fiona could smell her fear and feel the heat coming off of her.

  “You had a nightmare,” Fiona told her quietly. “It’s all right.”

  “Not a nightmare,” Lorana said, shuddering. “A memory.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Kindan asked in a gentle tone that sounded well-practiced to Fiona’s ears. She closed her own eyes in thought and remembered—it was the tone he’d used to talk to those with nightmares from the Plague.

  “You’re both so cold,” Lorana said, shivering. She twitched as Fiona laid a hand on her forehead.

  “No, you’re very hot,” the Weyrwoman said. “Kindan, feel her head.”

  Kindan’s hand was little warmer than Fiona’s and Lorana gasped once more.

  “So we felt cold,” Kindan said as he removed his hand. “Was that it?”

  “Yes,” Lorana said quietly.

  “You were in bed with two others who were cold?” Fiona guessed.

  “My brother and sister.”

  “I’m not going to die on you,” Fiona assured her fervently.

  “Sometimes,” Lorana said in a pained voice, “you remind me exactly of my sister.”

  “And she said the same thing,” Fiona guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m still here, my heart’s still beating,” Fiona said, moving closer to Lorana, grabbing a resisting hand in her own and dragging it to her heart.

  “See? Feel it?”

  “No one can predict the future,” Lorana said in protest, pulling her hand free.

  “Not unless you go there and look,” Fiona agreed. “But, by the First Egg, I’ll never abandon you: as long as I draw breath, I’ll be there for you.”

  “That’s all anyone can ask.” Lorana took a deep, calming breath.

  “Well, that and some more blankets,” Fiona said. “Kindan, could you pull the spare ones up?”

  The harper complied and moments later, Lorana felt Fiona turn on her side, the length of her warm back closest to her. Kindan reciprocated not long after and Lorana found the heat she’d been missing in her nightmare.

  “Everything’s ready here,” Fiona assured T’mar as she steadied him on his climb up to his perch on Zirenth. “Just make sure we don’t need it, okay?”

  T’mar swung his right leg over Zirenth’s neck and adjusted his seat, tying himself to the riding straps and checking, once more, the straps that held the sacks of firestone on the harness close to hand.

  “We’ll try, Weyrwoman.”

  “You come back in one piece, with no nicks or cuts,” Shaneese told him fiercely from where she stood next behind Fiona.

  “Of course, headwoman,” T’mar agreed, a broad grin on his face. “I wouldn’t dare disappoint either of you!”

  “Just as long as that’s understood,” Fiona said, moving back to grab Shaneese by the hand. Her own mood slipped and she strained upward, using her hold on the headwoman to aid her as she added, “Fly safe.”

  T’mar nodded, his grin slipping into a steady look. He took a deep breath, then turned to the rest of his Wing and gave the arm-pumping gesture for them to fly.

  Fiona guided Shaneese back as the downdraft from Zirenth’s great wings blew up dirt and pebbles, while behind them more circles of dust rose in the early afternoon air under the other dragons of his Wing.

  The Wing itself was half the size of a normal, full-strength Wing, as were the other three Wings that rose with it. Telgar Weyr could count only seventy-three fighting dragons as its strength now.

  Fortunately, they would be joined by the eighty-nine dragons of High Reaches Weyr, forming almost two full Flights of dragons. Almost.

  Less, really, when the reserve Wing of thirteen dragons was counted. Those thirteen, under C’tov’s leadership, still waited on the ground, ready to fly to aid or to replenish those low on firestone.

  Still, Fiona thought with relief, it was much better than the notion of flying with only three short Wings.

  She glanced around at the first-aid stations being set up without any real concerns; time and practice had drilled the weyrfolk to a fine pitch. Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of Lorana arranging bandages near the Hatching Grounds and, suppressing an irritated growl, Fiona sprinted over toward her.

  “Don’t say anything!” Lorana said, a hand raised to forestall Fiona’s incipient scolding. “I’m going to sit down as soon as this is arranged and I won’t get up again until I’m needed.”

  “You should be getting your rest.”

  “No,” Lorana retorted, her lips curving upward in a slight smile, “you should be getting your rest.”

  “She’s right,” Shaneese chimed in, having caught up with her peripatetic Weyrwoman. She shook her head at the Weyrwoman in exasperation as she added, “If anyone should be resting, it’s you.”

  Fiona glanced back and forth between the two women, caught sight of Bekka and Terin bearing down out of the corner of her eyes, and surrendered sweetly, saying, “How about if I just sit here?”

  Lorana examined her carefully, suspicious at her sudden acceptance. “Well …”

  “Don’t!” Bekka’s voice cut across hers even as the youngster raced up and halted, nearly breathless, to stand bent over with her hands resting on her knees in front of the table. “Don’t let her get away with anything!”

  “I was just—” Fiona began in protest.

  Terin caught up with Bekka, her face split in a big grin: She’d heard the whole exchange. She glanced at the young healer, saying facetiously, “So, you’ve heard about our Weyrwoman, have you?”

  Bekka ignored her, catching her breath enough to push herself upright once more and tell Fiona, “You get to bed and rest.”

  “The Weyrwoman—”

  “—has more than enough help and will show that she can follow orders,” Lorana cut acros
s Fiona’s protests. Fiona glared at her, but the older woman was unrelenting. “Didn’t you mention something about setting an example?”

  “But—” Fiona spluttered.

  “Rest,” Bekka ordered, jerking a thumb toward Fiona’s quarters. She glanced up. “It’s too hot to argue out here and we’ll need our strength for later.”

  “Come on, Fiona, I’ll get you settled in,” Terin told her kindly. “You’ve been going nonstop since you woke up this morning, don’t think we haven’t noticed.”

  “Do you really want to be in bed with that fever for another four days?” Bekka asked menacingly, her arms on her hips.

  “Sometimes,” Fiona said phlegmatically as she allowed Terin to escort her away, “I think it was a mistake to let Bekka come back here.”

  “Only sometimes,” Terin said, smiling. “But that’s just a sign that you’re still feverish, you know.”

  Fretfully, Fiona allowed herself to be settled in to her quarters, but she stoutly refused to get into her bed.

  “I’ll sit here with Talenth,” she said with a pout. “You can bring me some blankets.”

  “I’ll bring you a chair,” Terin said. “You can’t get comfortable on all that stone and dirt, not if you’re going to sleep by yourself.”

  “I can’t sleep by myself,” Fiona said. “I can never sleep by myself.”

  Despite her words, propped up in a comfortable chair with cushions cheerfully plumped up by Terin, Fiona found herself dozing as the heat of the midday sun warmed the Weyr and the susurrus of Talenth’s steady breathing seemed to lull her into a daze.

  She reached out with her mind, hazily, toward Lorana and felt a comforting, humorous response; not quite a rebuff but a gentle pushing away, kind and amused. She heard Kindan’s voice in the distance and opened her eyes long enough to pick him out of the group of weyrlings busily bagging more firestone and stacking it in readiness for the reserve Wing.

  Soon, she thought. The Wings would meet Thread, be joined by the High Reaches riders, and the battle would commence.

  It was odd, she mused; once before High Reaches had come to Telgar’s aid. Only then—and a chill ran through her—there were no Telgar dragons to fly with. Her eyes snapped open in fright at the thought and she reached out desperately for T’mar, for Zirenth—she couldn’t find them!