Dragonheart

by Todd J. McCaffrey

  “I certainly hope so,” Cisca agreed fervently, but she looked dubious. She looked off into the distance for a long, thoughtful moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “Whether it will or not, that’s how we should act.”

  “Like it will be all right?”

  “Yes,” Cisca said. She leaned over and extended a hand to Fiona. “And so you’d best make yourself presentable. Meet me in the Kitchen Cavern. I’m sure others will want that reassurance—to see that it will be all right.”

  Fiona took Cisca’s hand gratefully and stood up, feeling sore from her awkward sleeping position.

  “So if Arith has gone between, what will Lorana do?” Fiona asked.

  “She’ll grieve,” Cisca said, her eyes bright with tears.

  “What about the cure, was she working on that?” Fiona wondered.

  Cisca’s eyes widened in horror. “Arith said, ‘It burns!’ What if the cure was what killed her dragon . . .” Cisca’s voice trailed off. From her expression, Fiona could see that Cisca was speaking to Melirth, but then the Weyrwoman stopped abruptly.

  “Benden flies today with Ista; I won’t add to their worries,” she declared. “We can find out later.” She nodded to herself firmly, then told Fiona, “Get! Go have a bath, and meet me when you’re ready.”

  “Yes, Weyrwoman.”

  Fiona discovered just how fast news traveled in the Weyrs when she arrived at the Weyrleader’s table for breakfast.

  “If Arith went between, what does that mean for our weyrlings? They’re nearly the same age,“ M’kury was saying as Fiona sat. Getting no response from the Weyrleaders, he turned to her. “What do you think, Weyrwoman?”

  “I think it will be all right,” Fiona replied, trying to sound as if she believed it.

  “They were working on a cure, weren’t they?” K’rall asked from his side of the table. His eyes rested on Fiona so she felt obliged—if utterly unqualified—to answer.

  “I know no more than you,” Fiona told him honestly.

  “Well, I hope they hurry,” M’kury said. “I’ve got three sick dragons in my wing.”

  “I doubt two of mine will last the day,” K’rall said by way of agreement.

  “How many will be left to fight the next Threadfall?” H’nez demanded.

  “More than Ista,” M’valer said morosely.

  “Fighting Thread is hard enough without this illness eating away at our strength,” V’ney observed, disheartedly spooning up some cereal.

  “Too right!” M’kury agreed sourly. “And the illness itself—it’s hard enough when you can tell with the sneezing, but Jakoth, he was fine one moment and then just gone—how can we tell if we’re taking sick dragons against Thread?”

  “It will be all right,” Fiona ventured again, wishing she could find the same conviction as whoever had spoken to her earlier.

  V’ney looked across at her, disbelief written on his face. “No offense, Weyrwoman, but you’re young, and the young are always convinced they’ll live forever.”

  “Lorana’s Arith was not much older than your Talenth,” H’nez observed. He turned to K’lior. “Are we certain that none of the weyrlings are sick?”

  His implication was not lost on Fiona, who suddenly found it harder to be optimistic and lost her appetite for her roll. Cisca shot her a quick look, her eyes dropping to Fiona’s food, and getting the hint, Fiona forced herself to take a bite.

  “None that we’ve noticed,” T’mar said. The other wingleaders looked less than reassured at this, so he continued, “Tajen has been keeping a special eye on them.”

  The implication that Tajen, who had lost his dragon to the illness, would be a diligent observer was not lost on the wingleaders.

  “That’s good,” V’ney said.

  K’rall wasn’t so pleased. “Ah, but his dragon was coughing up that green infection before—”

  “Wingleaders,” K’lior said, raising his voice to cut across K’rall’s words, “in six days we ride Fall over Ruatha Hold and our own Weyr. For now, I think that should be all that concerns us.”

  The wingleaders nodded in reluctant assent, returning their attention to the food on their plates.

  After breakfast, K’lior had the wingleaders assemble their wings for more practice drills.

  “You’ll have the weyrlings today, Weyrwoman,” T’mar informed Fiona as she strode out into the Weyr Bowl with him after breakfast. Fiona couldn’t hide her surprise, and T’mar chuckled.

  “Just tell them to go about their chores, then drill them like we did the other day and—if they’re good—let them have another romp on the Weyrwomen’s ledge,” he told her.

  “What about you? Tajen?” Fiona asked worriedly.

  “We’re going to try your trick with the firestone,” T’mar told her with a grin. He laughed when he saw her stricken expression. Turning away to wave to Tajen, he called over his shoulder, “The rewards of a job well done!”

  Another job, Fiona thought, remembering that her father had often said the same thing to her. The thought of him braced her and she squared her shoulders and turned toward the weyrling barracks.

  J’gerd and J’keran were joking with F’jian, the young bronze rider, off to one side.

  “Weyrwoman,” J’keran said, nodding respectfully when she approached.

  “You’re to finish your chores, then drill the older wings,” she said, glancing at J’gerd to see that he understood. The curly-headed youth pursed his lips in readiness of some objection, then thought the better of it and nodded in acceptance. Satisfied, Fiona turned to F’jian. “When the younger weyrlings are done with their chores, let me know. We’ll be drilling on the ground.”

  F’jian nodded, somewhat surprised at hearing her give orders—he was a good head taller than she and at least a full Turn older. “Yes, Weyrwoman.”

  Xhinna joined her before the chores were done, so Fiona took her aside for a hasty conference.

  “T’mar says I’m to drill the younger weyrlings today,” Fiona told her, allowing her panic to show.

  “You’ll do fine,” Xhinna assured her. As Fiona began to shake her head, Xhinna added, “Just pretend like you mean everything as a test—especially any orders you get wrong.”

  With Xhinna by her side, murmuring encouragement, the drill went well enough, especially when Fiona had the brilliant idea to have Talenth join in again and also tried alternating who gave the drills—she even surprised everyone by giving Xhinna a chance.

  “ ‘Just pretend like you mean everything as a test,’ ” Fiona quoted back at her as she rushed off to lead Talenth. The other girl’s eyes flashed angrily, but then she grinned.

  Despite the weyrlings’ initial mutinous murmurs, Xhinna proved as adept at drill as Fiona had expected, giving her orders in a well-timed cadence that actually made the drills work better.

  “That was amazing!” Xhinna told Fiona when they finally called halt, her eyes shining with joy. “I could almost feel how they’d be in the air and—” She cut herself off abruptly and dropped her eyes to the ground.

  Fiona could guess what the other girl was thinking: that it was something she’d never experience. She wanted to say something to reassure her, to give her hope, but she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound false or silly.

  “Help me walk Talenth to the lake,” she said instead, leading them to the tail of the long line of weary but exhilarated weyrlings.

  Why is she sad? Talenth asked, turning her faceted eyes toward Xhinna.

  She wants to Impress, Fiona told her.

  Xhinna, you could Impress one of my hatchlings, Talenth told the younger girl but “loudly” enough that Fiona could hear, adding hurriedly, when I have them.

  Xhinna stopped in her tracks, jaw agape as she looked at the young queen. She raced up and wrapped her arms around Talenth’s neck, reaching up toward her head to scratch her eye ridges. “Thank you, Talenth!”

  Of course, it will be a while before I’m old enough, Talenth adde
d privately to Fiona. Fiona smiled at her dragon and raced around to her other side, to scratch her other eye ridge. Talenth stopped, momentarily lost in draconic rapture, then realized that the weyrlings were leaving them behind and started forward once more, alternating hopeful looks from side to side in an effort to keep both girls scratching.

  The high point of the day for Fiona was back at the Weyrwomen’s ledge watching Talenth and the other weyrlings practice flying again. Finally, though, the practice was over, and she dispersed the tired but happy weyrlings back to their barracks. She had just finished oiling and settling Talenth comfortably in her weyr when T’mar and Tajen returned on bronze Zirenth. She raced over the ledge, jumping high with all the enthusiasm of a weyrling, landed on bent knees, and tore off toward them.

  “How did it go?” she cried as she approached.

  Tajen was first down and he met her grin with one of his own. “It went well.”

  “Help me down, will you?” T’mar called irritably from his perch, flapping his injured arm in its sling like a wounded dragon. “I can’t manage yet with this on me!”

  Tajen shortly had the bronze rider on the ground.

  “I can’t wait to get better,” T’mar said, sourly massaging his shoulder with his free hand.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed,” Tajen observed drolly.

  The bronze rider’s eyes flashed, then the anger faded as he realized he was being teased. “It’s just—”

  “It was too much for your arm,” Tajen finished, meeting T’mar’s stubborn look squarely. “You shouldn’t have tried so much this first time.”

  T’mar started to argue but caught himself and sighed, shaking his head. “You’re right,” he agreed glumly. “But we need every dragon—”

  “And rider,” Tajen interjected.

  “—and rider,” T’mar agreed, “to fight the Fall.”

  “We need every healthy rider and dragon,” Fiona corrected him. “It’s no use having sick dragons or injured riders trying to fight Thread.”

  T’mar glanced from Tajen to Fiona and back again, deciding not to argue the point.

  “Anyway,” Tajen said, returning to Fiona’s original question, “it went well.”

  “It would have been better if both of us were uninjured,” T’mar added.

  “That slowed things down,” Tajen agreed with a wave of his hand. “Even so, trailing six sacks of firestone was much quicker than trailing two at a time.”

  “Why did we never do it this way before?” Fiona wondered.

  “Because it only makes sense in certain circumstances,” T’mar replied. “It works when there are grown dragons fit enough to haul firestone but not fit enough to fly a Fall.”

  “And when the Weyr is short of able weyrlings,” Tajen added.

  “Yes,” T’mar agreed, glancing toward the Hatching Grounds and quickly back at the others as if questioning why there weren’t more weyrlings old enough to haul firestone. “And it’s hard work: hard on the dragon, hard on the riders.”

  “More weyrlings is definitely the better choice,” Tajen agreed.

  There was a sound above them and all three craned their necks upward: The rest of the Weyr was returning.

  Fiona watched in wonder as the dragons of the six fighting wings dispersed, first dropping their riders off and then heading either to the Feeding Grounds or their weyrs for a much-needed rest. Her expression changed as she noticed how ragged each of the wings appeared—small, disordered . . .

  “It’s the illness,” Tajen said.

  Fiona looked over at him and saw that he’d been watching her. “The wings are disarrayed because of sick or lost dragons.” His voice choked on the word “lost,” and Fiona realized that rarely did anyone refer to the dragons as “dead”—it was just too hard to say.

  “But they’ll fight well enough,” T’mar declared, glancing over toward K’lior as he and his riders dismounted.

  “I wonder how it went with the others today?” Tajen asked. No one doubted that he meant the other Weyrs.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” T’mar said, slapping the other man on his shoulder. “Let’s get cleaned up and meet with K’lior.”

  Cisca wants you. The “voice” was that of a grown female dragon: Melirth.

  Where? Fiona asked, craning her neck around the Bowl and not spotting the Weyrwoman.

  The Records Room.

  Fiona turned to explain her summons to the two men but they were already on their way to their quarters. She walked briskly back to the Weyrwomen’s ledge and on to the Records Room, where she found K’lior, Cisca, and Kentai. The harper had chalk in hand and was writing on a slate. Fiona saw that he had divided the slate into two columns: on the left he listed the names of the Weyrs, and on the right he listed numbers.

  “This is the fighting strength of the Weyrs as best we know,” Kentai said out loud.

  “Does that include dragons with the illness?” K’lior asked.

  “We can’t say for certain,” Cisca replied. “I got the numbers by asking the Weyrwomen of each Weyr.”

  “So Benden has one hundred and seventy-five,” K’lior began. “How many did they lose against Thread today?”

  “They started with one hundred and eighty-five,” Cisca replied. “But we don’t know how many were injured, or how seriously.”

  “Ista has only thirty-four?” Fiona exclaimed as she examined the numbers. Cisca nodded bleakly.

  “And this one hundred and fifty for Telgar . . .” K’lior asked skeptically.

  “That’s the number Lina’s Garoth gave me,” Cisca replied with a shrug. “It wasn’t too clear if that included dragons with the sickness or not.”

  “I wonder if D’gan wouldn’t just think they were all slacking,” K’lior agreed with a sour look on his face.

  “Why isn’t there a number for High Reaches?” Fiona asked.

  “Because Sonia would only say that they had enough dragons, wouldn’t be able to lend any, and wouldn’t need any more,” Cisca replied, her annoyance undisguised.

  “That doesn’t seem very nice,” Fiona remarked.

  “D’vin and Sonia have been very aloof for a number of Turns,” K’lior said.

  Kentai meanwhile had totaled the numbers and he frowned at the tally.

  “Four hundred and ninety-five?” Cisca said, standing up to read over his shoulder. “Between four Weyrs we have less than Telgar started this Pass with?”

  “That number stays in this room,” K’lior said, his voice full of authority. Kentai raised an eyebrow questioningly, and K’lior answered, “Oh, I’ve no doubt that others can do the sums, but I would prefer to leave them to do it on their own.”

  “Leave it for gossip rather than fact?” Kentai guessed.

  “That and it would be best if this news didn’t come from us,” K’lior said.

  “Everyone knows about Ista, though,” Fiona said. “Even the weyrlings are talking about it.”

  “I wish we knew how many injured there were at the Weyrs, and how soon they’d be fighting again,” Cisca said, frowning at the numbers.

  “We can guess from our own, though,” K’lior said. “We’ve got thirty-five dragons who won’t be flying the next Fall.”

  “We can’t know for certain, though,” Kentai reminded him. “There are too many variables.”

  “So, are you saying we shouldn’t guess?” K’lior pressed. “That we shouldn’t make plans?”

  “No,” Kentai replied with a quick shake of his head. “I’m saying that we shouldn’t put too much faith in our guesses.”

  “There are some things we know, though, don’t we?” Fiona asked, looking hopefully at the adults. Cisca quirked her mouth into a half-smile and motioned for her to continue. Fiona hadn’t planned on saying more, so it was a moment before she continued, “We can say that Ista Weyr can’t fly a Fall unaided, right? I mean, it takes at least three wings usually to fly a full Fall, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” K’lior agreed. “Fortuna
tely, Benden has agreed to help out.”

  “And we know that High Reaches Weyr won’t help anyone,” Cisca added, her expression grim.

  “And I’m not sure if Telgar can be counted on for much,” Kentai remarked.

  “So what we know is that we’re pretty much on our own,” K’lior surmised. He glanced at each of the others in turn for agreement, then continued. “And we know that our fighting strength today is just a bit more than four wings.” He paused for a moment and murmured to himself, “We could send out a Flight and have a wing in reserve.”

  “They could haul firestone,” Cisca suggested.

  “Or carry extra firestone and join the fight after they’ve replenished the rest of the Flight,” Fiona suggested hopefully.

  K’lior turned to jab a finger toward her. “That is an excellent idea!”

  “It is at that,” Cisca agreed warmly.

  “What about the dragons that are ill?” K’lior wondered, glancing toward Cisca. “Could they haul firestone?”

  Cisca shook her head. “M’tal said that they lost too many of their feverish dragons between in their first Fall.”

  “If they weren’t ill, we’d have fifty more dragons at this moment,” K’lior said with a grimace. “Then we’d have two full Flights!”

  “But we don’t,” Cisca said.

  “I just wonder how many of the other Weyrs are in the same situation,” K’lior replied.

  Cisca shrugged, conceding the point. “If Tannaz hadn’t gone between, Kalsenth would be rising soon . . . she might even have risen by now.”

  Fiona reflected on that. “What if she rose during Threadfall?”

  “According to the Records, no queen has risen during Threadfall,” Kentai told her.

  “Does that mean that the queens know when Thread is coming?” Cisca wondered.

  “I suspect it’s simpler than that,” K’lior replied. To Cisca’s raised eyebrows, he explained, “Thread falls every three days, so there are more Threadfree days than not.”

  “Hmmm,” Cisca murmured appreciatively.

  K’lior pursed his lips and turned to the door. “I think we’ve spent all the time out of the glowlight that we can without it being noticed,” he said to the others. He nodded at Cisca. “Your idea of using the reserve wing to carry extra firestone is a good one—we’ll need to practice it in the morning.”