They were back in the moist southern air, a half dozen other dragons erupting nearby.
Cardiff herder spotted the pride. A big one.
They had come out low above the rolling highland plateau where the ancients had turned loose their grazers and ruminators, unable to transport more than breeding stock to the north. The herds had multiplied over the centuries and mutated slightly from their northern relatives, affording them some protection against the local parasites and poisonous plants. The Master-Herder had found the alterations “fascinating.” Right now, a huge herd of mixed varieties was stampeding from the edge of the jungle where the predators lurked to ambush the unwary.
As a relatively new southern Hold, Cardiff did its best to oversee its grasslands, but the hundred or so herders could not always protect the far-ranging stock. Watched by no more than three or four men or women, the beasts covered wide tracts in their search for edible grasses. Thunder, lightning, or the occasional jungle fire could send them into terror-stricken stampedes, which occasionally ended with masses of them falling over cliff edges or into ravines. Now they had been spooked by felines. The southern continent had a lot of problems with the big predators, the product of an ill-advised zoological experiment by one of the Charterers. Like the abandoned herdbeasts, they had flourished, too, and ranged freely through the jungles, grasslands, and up into the southern foothills. Humans avoided the felines whenever possible; dragons were thrilled by the challenge of hunting them.
Zaranth was gliding silently and speedily toward the nearest herdbeasts, which had obviously been split off from the main herd by the canny felines. The predators were as apt to injure beasts, rendering them lame enough to attack later, as to kill outright. Tai had seen the result of such tactics, a wide pasture dotted with bleating, moaning animals, awaiting the pleasure of the cubs that the felines hunted for.
There! A tawny spot, one of the fast ones, Zaranth cried.
Tai caught the merest glimpse of the yellowish-brown form, bounding after the terrified herdbeasts. She grabbed her straps instinctively as Zaranth turned on a wing tip that just cleared one of the stunted trees that dotted the grassland. A shape leaped from its shadow, barely missing Zaranth’s wing, and in spectacular leaps, made for the cover of the jungle. To flush a feline was unusual. Neither dragon nor rider would have seen it lurking in the shade. Of course, neither would the herdbeasts who were obviously the intended prey.
Zaranth hissed at so close a swipe; a small flame, residue of the most recent Fall, escaped, spurting after the beast.
Watch it, love! The hide’s worth more unsinged, Tai cried.
Despite being large for a green, Zaranth had lost none of the agility that was her color’s most valuable characteristic. She dove, with a burst of speed that took the breath out of Tai’s mouth. Matching the rhythm of the feline’s bounds, she caught it midleap. Tai felt Zaranth’s heavy shoulder muscles convulse, then relax. She had a glimpse over her shoulder of the limp spotted body stretched out on the plain, its back broken.
The other one! Zaranth cried, spinning obliquely to her left and heading back up the plateau toward the first predator they had seen, who was now closing in on a herdbeast and unaware that its hunting partner had just been taken down.
The most successful—and safest—tactic was to come up behind a feline as Zaranth was now doing, keeping their shadow from warning the carnivore of pursuit. Now, just as the feline swiped its front paws at the herdbeast’s galloping hindquarters, Zaranth’s claws made contact and snapped its neck in one clean jerk.
Not bad hunting, Tai said, well pleased with a bag of two, both prime specimens and, unless Zaranth had singed the first one, quite saleable. Shall we continue?
Monarth says it is all in hand. A big pride, but a half wing is sufficient, Zaranth said as she circled back with her second kill, depositing it with an almost disdainful negligence beside the first. These, and Zaranth’s tone was possessive, are mine!
No one will dispute it, but I get the skins.
And skinning was hard work. Tai’s brief elation departed.
I’ll help, Zaranth said.
If you promise not to drool all over me or lick while I’m working, Tai replied with mock severity. In the heat of the day, in an open field, there was no shelter at all from the pests that would smell blood and come for their share. However, she told herself, two pelts would be worth the discomfort.
She debated throwing the bodies over Zaranth’s neck and taking them up to the cooler, swarm-free foothills to skin. Once she was on the ground beside them, she discarded that idea. They were big brutes. She was strong, but these dead weights would be impossible to shift onto her dragon. The first one was smaller, of a different mix, with a mottled hide; the other was a tawny yellow-brown, with striped markings on its legs. Both were females with engorged dugs, and Tai sighed at the thought of yet more of these monsters maturing to savage herds.
She removed her jacket and hung it on a low bush, taking a well-honed knife from her boot.
“Lift the first one up, please!” she said, “and remember, you get the carcass faster if you hold still—and don’t salivate all over me.”
I know, I know, but Zaranth’s mouth was very wet as she lifted the feline by the head so Tai could make the first incision at the base of the thick throat. One zip down, slit the legs. Zaranth did drool as she helped. Tai quickly worked up a sweat. To distract herself, she pondered once again about meeting F’lessan and his interest in astronomy. Was he going to make that his career After? Maybe she’d meet him again. Then she reproved herself. He was a Benden Wingleader, son of Lessa and F’lar, and despite the fact that he had quite earnestly said that green dragons were essential for every wing, their paths were unlikely to cross again. She concentrated on her task. Helpfully, the green idly moved her wings to deflect the swarms of insects drawn to the smell of blood and raw flesh. The most persistent attacked between wingstrokes.
It was dry work, too, in this heat and Tai regretted that she hadn’t grabbed up her water bottle in her haste to answer T’gellan’s summons. She took a deep breath as Zaranth rotated the feline so Tai could strip the pelt from the limp body. A mass of flying insects covered skin and skinners as Zaranth, fanning furiously and growling, lifted the carcass a length away.
Without Zaranth’s wings, clouds of insects attached themselves to the blood on Tai’s arms. She broke a wide leaf off a low-growing shrub and, beating the air about her, walked up the slight incline to see how the rest of the wing was faring before she started the backbreaking task of skinning the second feline.
Shading her eyes, she saw that two dragons were still aloft, chasing felines away from the safety of the thick vegetation bordering the plateau. She counted eight dragons on the ground, waiting for their treats to be skinned. Three more were already eating. Dust settling off to the northeast indicated that the herdbeasts, stupid as they were, had stopped running. It was a good-sized herd. Then she caught sight of bright-colored shirts and galloping Runners streaming down toward them: the Cardiff herders catching up with the stampede. Brave of them, she thought, since they could still be attacked by any of the remaining pride. One of them hailed Tai on the hillock and turned his mount toward her. Slung across his back were a short bow and a weyrhide carrier full of the sort of barbed arrows that would be needed to bring down felines.
“Our thanks for such a prompt response,” he said, halting beside her and swinging down. “Tai, isn’t it? And Zaranth? We been following the herd since dawn. Got stampeded by last night’s heat lightning, and with the smarts only such dumb critters possess, they headed right toward the thickest congregation of felines anywhere in Cardiff. We keep huntin’ ’em, but they keep producing. And you got two. Big mothers!”
“You said it. Both were nursing cubs.”
He cursed under his breath, wiping his forehead on his red sleeve. “More of the sharding killers to get. And getting smarter all the time.”
“Dragons’re even smarter
,” Tai said, grinning with pride. But quickly she shut her mouth tightly so as not to inhale any of the fresh insect clouds that zoomed in on both of them and the sweaty mount. She swept her frond in a wider arc to discourage the swarm.
“Miserable things, ain’t they?” he commented with a rueful smile, using his broad-brimmed hat as a fan and tugging a big, dirty cloth from a leg pocket to mop his sweaty, sun-weathered face. She didn’t recognize him, but she wasn’t surprised that he knew who she was; Cardiff holders were punctilious about knowing the riders who weyred at Monaco Bay.
“I’m Rency, Cardiff Hold Journeyman,” he said, squinting against the sun glare. “Ain’t easy to bring down two,” he added, impressed.
“We flushed the first by chance,” she said easily. “Zaranth’s fast.”
“Obviously.”
“The other didn’t see its partner go down and we came up behind her.”
He chuckled appreciatively, but her disclaimer did not lessen his respect for her double kill.
“Heard tell you’re as good bringing down vandals,” he said, touching his own face to indicate he had noticed her healing cheek. He untied the water bottle from the back of his saddle and handed it to her. As she drank, he kept fanning.
“Thanks,” she said, refreshed by the cool water. His canteen must have been one of the new thermal types. She coveted one for herself. They were expensive, and the waiting list was long. Still, the price of the two pelts would bring that wish closer.
“Drink up, Tai. We’re not far now from water. Can I help you skin the second one?” He gave her a broad smile. “Won’t take two of us long.”
She nodded, her smile appreciative. As he divested himself of the bow and arrow sheath, she took a second, longer drink, carefully replaced the plug, and handed it back to him.
“Would you know yet how many the dragons brought down?” he asked as she led the way down to the second feline. Zaranth didn’t raise her head from her meal.
“I saw eleven dragons on the ground. T’gellan brought half the wing, and a couple are still hunting.”
“And you accounted for two!” he said again.
She skinned up the front leg as he deftly did the hind one.
“We’d been trying to catch up with this part of the herd,” he explained in a rueful tone through clenched teeth. “Wanted to get ’em turned before they got this close to the jungle. Felines don’t usually hunt so late in the day, but if there were two with litters, they’d be hungry and more apt to attack when they saw so much food on the hoof.”
He gave a resigned sigh, swiveling to look at the dense forest with its multiple shades of green leaves, fronds, and spikes that bordered the plateau, the light breeze ruffling the taller, more flexible branches. He mopped his forehead and cheeks and shook his head. “Wal, if we didn’t have so much on the hoof nearby, it’d save us to track down and finish the cubs before they start hunting.” He paused. “As it is, they’ll have to take their chances like the rest of us.”
“Can we help you turn the herd back out of immediate danger?” Tai asked as they flipped the hide from the legs and wrestled the carcass over. Rency was almost as good as Zaranth as a helper.
“We’d sure appreciate it,” Rency said.
Herdbeasts were as terrified of dragons in the air as felines on the ground, so herding them merely required the dragons to keep their shadows on the beasts.
“Sure. Dragons have to fly straight with full stomachs, you know,” she said. “No reason we can’t help you spook the herd in the right direction for now.” Today’s feed would last Zaranth a sevenday.
“Just need to set them in the right direction, Tai,” he said. “There’s a ravine”—he pointed in a northwesterly direction—“and water. Whooshing ’em that way is all we’d need.”
“No problem,” Tai said. If you’ll be kind enough to stop eating long enough to tell Monarth what’s needed, she said to her dragon.
He just told me, Zaranth said, sucking the tail into her mouth and licking her lips.
“Makes short work of it, doesn’t she?” Rency remarked approvingly.
Tai grinned. “Monarth says we’ll be glad to help. Half the wing has fed today.”
I am the only one who has two. Zaranth, her faceted eyes flickering with orange pleasure, strolled indolently over to them to await her second course.
Rency and Tai pulled the skin cleanly off the flesh. Once they had rolled it up, he went back to his mount, which stood far enough away from the dragon to feel safe. Tai, letting Zaranth move in on her bloody kill, followed him, hoping to get away from the worst of the insect swarms. Rency handed her the water bottle and a towel.
“Take a good swig and then we can wash off some of the gore. Like I said, I’m not that far from water,” he said and Tai was grateful to be able to rinse herself.
Feeling somewhat less sticky, they walked to the top of the incline. Though they had washed off most of the blood, the swarms began a renewed assault in waves so that they clenched their teeth and kept their eyes narrowed. Fanning vigorously with his hat, Rency watched with satisfaction as they could see other riders heaving pelts to their dragons’ backs. Suddenly the mass was whisked away. Zaranth had finished eating and was sweeping her wings broadly, scattering the insect cloud.
I’m ready to leave when you are, Zaranth announced with a final lick of her lips.
“D’you need the loan of my rope?” Rency asked.
“That’d be real welcome,” Tai agreed. Her riding harness would secure one … but two?
“Be sure to check no nits burrowed into your skin,” he said.
“I most assuredly will,” she told him through clenched teeth.
Deftly the two humans roped the pelts on either side of Zaranth’s second neck ridge. Flying straight was time-consuming, but Zaranth could fly high enough—once they’d helped move the herd—to be cool and escape the insects. Tai held out her hand to Rency to thank him for his help and the loan of his rope, and swung onto Zaranth’s back.
“My pleasure, dragonrider,” Rency said, stepping back, fanning with his hat as swarms tried to settle to the hides.
Get us out of here before I eat bug, Zaranth, Tai said, windmilling her hands in front of her face.
I ate very well, Zaranth said smugly and Tai could feel a satisfied belch rumbling from her chest, to her throat and out.
Inelegant, Tai muttered with mock severity as Zaranth leaped skyward.
Courteously, Zaranth dipped her wings, causing Rency’s mount to back away from him in sudden panic.
Out of here. The man doesn’t need to be chasing his Runner. Then they were out of range of bloodsuckers and into cooler air. Zaranth circled, looking for Monarth and the rest of the dragons.
Monarth is aloft, and so is Path, Zaranth told her and headed in their direction. We are to swing wide behind the beasts, she added.
It’s not the first time we’ve herded, Tai said grumpily. She wished she had more in her belly than cold water; she’d had no lunch.
At this altitude, she had a good view of the bright-shirted herders, stringing out over the grassy plain, starting the beasts back the way they had stampeded.
It would be good to have a swim when the herd is turned.
It most certainly would. There were plenty of hospitable coves on the way back to Monaco Weyr, and trees full of ripe fruit.
Altogether, Tai thought, apart from the insects, the day had been profitable. It would take time to clean and stretch the pelts, but once word got around to the traders of today’s kill, she might even get to sell them raw. One day she might keep a particularly fine one—she fancied a clouded fur with ghost stripes—but in the meantime, northerners prized whatever was taken.
Part 2
DISASTER (THROUGHOUT THE SAME DAY)
Ruatha Hold—local time 12:04 in the morning—1.9.31
Stepping out of the cothold, Sharra wrapped her cloak tightly around her. It was very cold, but the wind, which could cut like a knife
down the broad avenue back to Ruatha Hold, had died out. She was tired from a long nursing, but relieved that the weaver would recover from his accident. She silently thanked Aivas once more for the medical information he had left. She had been able to repair the tendon in Possil’s hand—something she could not have done five Turns earlier—and to stitch shut the jagged wound. She could honestly tell him that he would have the use of his hand and be as skillful as ever in two months’ time.
A light caught her eye. To the east! Startled, because it was automatic to be fearful of anything coming from the east, she saw shooting stars, long straight slashes in the dark sky. She stopped in her tracks. These were not like the Ghosts of Turnover, for all they’d been bright this year. Ghosts lasted a second or two. These were visibly longer, almost ribbons in the night sky. One bright spot seemed to linger, then exploded.
She blinked. This could not be the result of fatigue after a delicate surgery. Certainly not Thread! She told herself firmly. Thread isn’t due to fall anywhere tomorrow, and Thread came down silver-gray, like rain, in daylight, not like a streak of fire at midnight.
She didn’t realize she was running until she was halfway up Ruatha’s broad causeway and could hear the fretful whine of the watchwher.
“Mickulin!” she called, remembering from the duty roster who was on guard that night.
“I’m not seeing things, am I, Lady Sharra?” Mickulin’s hoarse whisper sounded scared as he leaned over the top of the smaller tower.
“If you’re seeing long white streamers, you’re seeing the same thing I am!” She raced up the stairs. “I’m calling Jaxom. Go rouse Brand. But it’s not Thread, Mickulin, and it’s not Turnover Ghosts either.” Ruth! Ruth! Wake up. She felt the very reassuring presence of the white dragon—a sleepy one—in her mind. Wake Jaxom. Tell him to bring his binoculars. There’s something he must see. Hurry! And it’s cold.
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