Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  She has strength, Tazith told her. Mother strength.

  Yes, now Xhinna could see it. She could imagine this girl grown into motherhood, fiercely fighting for her children, taking on all opponents—and winning.

  “We’ve a chance that there will be greens in the Hatching,” Xhinna said to her. “Would you be willing to ride a green dragon?”

  “And fight Thread?” Mirressa asked, suddenly coming alive, her voice no longer simply bubbly but determined.

  “Yes.”

  Mirressa stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

  “Are we going now?” Jirana asked suddenly. “We’ve got another stop and I need to use the necessary first.”

  “I’ll take you,” Mirressa said, stepping forward and extending her hand. Jirana took it unhesitatingly and followed Mirressa from the Great Hall.

  “We’ll get our things,” Alimma said, turning to leave and pulling Cliova with her. Danirry said nothing, glancing silently at Nerra and then back to Xhinna, giving the blue rider a scrutinizing look.

  Xhinna walked over to her and reached out a hand. Danirry stared at it for a moment, then raised her hand to take Xhinna’s in return. Xhinna lifted the hand to study it and frowned.

  “I bite them when they get ugly,” Danirry said, glancing at her fingernails, which were bitten to the quick.

  “Then you should never bite them,” Xhinna said, smiling at the surprised look on the girl. “You’ve got pretty hands, and they’ll look prettier with nice nails.”

  Danirry jerked her hand from Xhinna’s as though stung. Xhinna turned to Nerra, who gestured, urging patience.

  “Don’t you need to get your things?” Xhinna asked.

  “No, nothing’s mine—I should leave it for the next girl,” Danirry said.

  Xhinna bit her tongue on a sharp retort. This girl was clearly convinced she was worthless. She wondered why both Jirana and Tazith thought she would Impress. Xhinna’s nose twitched, and she realized that Danirry had not cleaned her clothes in a while either.

  “Danirry, why don’t you go check on Mirressa and Jirana,” Nerra said, gesturing toward the exit. The girl nodded once and scuttled away, her shoulders slouched, her bare feet dragging on the floor.

  “A dragon won’t put up with that,” Xhinna said as soon as the girl was out of earshot.

  “She gives the others her food; gives them the new clothes,” Nerra said, shaking her head with a sad smile. “She’s lost half a stone’s weight since she came here.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Plague, the famine that followed, aunts and uncles who had too little of their own, who fed her last, worked her hardest,” Nerra said. She frowned, eyes narrowed. “She came here from somewhere nearby, but won’t say where. She arrived in my camp two days before you, half-dead with hunger.” She paused. “She bartered down to the very last thing she could offer for food, until that final time.” Nerra sighed. “She’s not the first and won’t be the last, I’m afraid. But after that, she lost interest in eating.”

  “We’ll take care of her,” Xhinna said. She could guess how Danirry could become the fighter Tazith and Jirana had seen in her. The thought of what the girl had gone through filled her with rage. “Did you find the one who made that last ‘barter’?” she asked, her voice low with anger.

  “She was old enough—though far too thin for anyone to think she was of age,” Nerra said.

  When the others came back, each with a small carisak, Xhinna asked, “Are you ready?”

  Danirry was, surprisingly, the first to nod. Alimma was not far behind her. Cliova seemed to take Alimma’s nod as indication of her own agreement, and Mirressa could do no more than bob her head nervously.

  “When will we see you again?” Nerra asked, moving to hug each of her charges.

  “I think you’ll see us—all—soon,” Xhinna told her. “But we’ll have nearly three Turns more ourselves.”

  “And I’ll have a queen,” Jirana declared brightly. “The best queen in all Pern.” There was some hidden sadness behind her cheer, something Xhinna couldn’t quite pin down. The girl must have felt her unease for she turned to Xhinna and raised her arms, demanding to be picked up. Xhinna’s eyes narrowed in suspicion even as she complied, and the little girl whispered in her ear, “Nothing lasts forever.”

  Xhinna shivered. What must it be like, she thought, to know what will come and be unable to change it? She hugged Jirana tightly. “Whatever it is, little one, I’ll be there for you.”

  “I know,” Jirana said in a ragged voice.

  “There are only four here; I thought you said five,” Xhinna said, changing the subject.

  “One more,” Jirana agreed, “but not from here.”

  Xhinna narrowed her eyes. “Please?” the little dark-haired girl pleaded. “It’ll be all right, I know it.”

  Nerra escorted them to the courtyard and stood, with Jefric at her back, waving as Tazith lifted into the sky with his increased burden.

  “Igen next,” Jirana said. Xhinna glanced at her in a mix of surprise and concern. “I’ve got the image, can Tazith get it from me?”

  Tazith?

  She gives a good reference, the blue responded, relaying the image to Xhinna who closed her eyes for a moment to “see” it better.

  In the image, the sun was low in the evening sky and black dots were visible in the Weyr Bowl. Xhinna recognized one of the larger ones as a trader dray.

  Without further urging, Tazith went between.

  The dots below them enlarged into shadows and men as Tazith made a gentle landing in the center of Igen’s Weyr Bowl. The men had stopped, and Xhinna could tell that they were perplexed by her arrival.

  “Greetings, dragonrider,” a man said as he stepped forward from the shadows.

  “Grandfather!” Jirana claimed, jumping down from Tazith and flinging herself into his arms. “It’s me, Jirana!”

  “Jirana?” Azeez scooped her up with a deep laugh and hugged her tightly. “You’ve gotten bigger and heavier.” He paused to examine her more closely. “Wiser, too.”

  “I’ve got the Sight, Grandfather,” Jirana said in a voice mixed with pride and terror. “I got it early because the need was great.”

  “You did, did you?” Azeez asked. “And what did you see, little one?”

  “I saw you here,” she said in a slightly defensive tone. Her voice dropped as she added, “And I saw other things that I can’t talk about yet.”

  “That’s hard, little one,” Azeez said, scooping her head with his big hand and pulling it against his shoulder comfortingly. “That’s hard.”

  Jirana pushed back against his hand so she could look up into his eyes. “Not all of it. I’m going to get a queen and her name will be Laspanth and she’ll be the best queen on all Pern.”

  “Well, that does sound nice,” Azeez admitted. “Your father always said that there was good with the bad.”

  “And I don’t die until I’m really, really old,” Jirana said. In a smaller voice, she added, “It’s not so bad, don’t worry.”

  “How many Turns have you now?” Azeez asked, slipping her away from him to examine her face carefully. “You should only have seven, but you look—”

  “I have ten!” Jirana exclaimed. “I’m just small for my age.” She smiled at him. “I’m going to be the youngest ever to Impress a queen.”

  “Why are you here, little one?” Azeez asked. He glanced beyond her to Xhinna, still perched on Tazith with the four girls from Crom.

  “To Search,” Jirana told him, sounding surprised that he hadn’t guessed. “We’re here for—”

  “Me!” a boy’s voice cried. A boy slightly taller than Jirana raced into view. “Me, pick me, have the dragon pick me, Jirana!” He paused as he caught sight of her. “What happened to you? You’re so big!”

  “I’ve ten Turns now,” Jirana told him proudly. “So I’m older than you.” She shook her head as she continued, “And it’s not you, anyway, it’s—”

&nb
sp; “Me!” the boy cried again. “I know it is.”

  “Jasser—” Azeez began.

  “It’s me,” Jasser insisted. “I know it.” He looked up accusingly at Jirana. “You came back for me, you know it.”

  “Jasser!” a girl’s voice cried. “Mother says if you’re not back this instant—”

  “Aliyal, it’s Jirana! She’s come back and she’s older—she’s come back because she loves me!”

  “I do not!” Jirana said, squirming out of her grandfather’s arms and turning to stand in front of the boy. “You’ve got red hair and no trader’s got that.”

  “Jirana!” Azeez growled.

  “I wouldn’t say anything bad about red hair,” Xhinna called warningly.

  “Aliyal, we came for you! We ride in Search,” Jirana said, dodging around Jasser and racing to leap into the arms of a young willowy teen whose red hair shone even in the gloom.

  She is the one, Tazith confirmed.

  “Green Coranth has clutched and we need Candidates,” Jirana told the teen, gesturing to the women on Tazith’s neck. “There’ll be blues and greens, mostly.”

  “Search?” Aliyal repeated in surprise. “But—the greens?”

  “Or blues,” Xhinna said from her perch on Tazith.

  Aliyal’s face broke into a huge, hopeful smile as she turned to Azeez and said, “Oh, could I?”

  I can carry eight—they’re small, Tazith told Xhinna.

  Only seven, Xhinna told him, surprised that he’d got the number wrong; he was usually spot on with such things. Tazith flicked his wings from his sides and ruffled up a light dust from the ground below.

  “Mother, can I go, too?” Jasser spoke up. “You know Aliyal will need me.”

  A woman came bustling out of the dray and stopped suddenly, taking in the tableau of dragon, riders, and Jirana. “Oh!”

  “Aressil—” Azeez began consolingly.

  “Is this what you want, child?” the dark-haired woman asked, glancing at her daughter with Jirana still in her arms. “You’re of age—it’s your decision.”

  “Don’t go without me!” Jasser cried. “You need me to comb your hair.”

  “I can comb her hair,” Jirana snipped.

  Jasser stuck his tongue out at her. “You’ll get it all tangled.”

  “Jasser, I need you here,” Aressil said, moving toward the boy.

  “I won’t stay,” Jasser declared, pulling away from his mother. “I’ll run away and find her, you know I will.”

  “You’re not coming,” Jirana said. “I didn’t see you.”

  “That’s because you’re blind!” Jasser shot back. “If you saw Aliyal, then you must know I’d be there. I can’t leave her: She needs me.”

  Xhinna glanced at the mother and saw from Aressil’s expression that, as she’d guessed, the reverse was probably true and it was Jasser who needed his sister more.

  Aressil moved closer to Tazith, looking up at Xhinna and asking wistfully, “There isn’t room for two more, is there?”

  “Oh,” Jirana said with sudden insight, glancing up at Aressil. “You don’t want to lose them both.”

  From their perch on Tazith, the Crom girls heard the entire conversation.

  “If we left our things, could Tazith carry them all?” Mirressa suddenly asked.

  Yes, the blue told Xhinna. He must have answered Mirressa directly, for the girl quickly unfastened her carisak from its straps and threw it to the ground.

  “My stuff isn’t as important to me as her children must be to her,” Mirressa said. Alimma sighed, and two other carisaks fell to the ground a moment later.

  Tazith warbled in a tone that Xhinna recognized as amusement, even as it startled the others. Their things are light; I can manage.

  “Aressil, you can come with us,” Xhinna called. “We’ll make room.” To the girls she said, “Tazith says that he can manage the carisaks, too—they’re light enough.” To Azeez, she added, “Could you hand them back?”

  And so it was arranged, the carisaks returned along with two hastily assembled light carisaks for Aressil and Aliyal, even as Jirana complained, “But that’s not what I saw!”

  “You don’t see everything, you know,” Jasser taunted from his place behind her. Xhinna had put the lightest in the front to ease the burden on Tazith’s shoulder muscles. The straps were strained, and her position was awkward with her legs spread wide.

  Tazith took a long run before pushing himself up into the air and, with only two beats of his wings, took them between.

  NINE

  A Knife in the Dark

  “They’ve barely next to nothing,” Taria complained the night that Xhinna returned with her Candidates. “And that little one—she really has seventeen Turns? She looks like she won’t last a sevenday.”

  “She’ll do fine, Tazith said so,” Xhinna told her comfortingly, working hard to maintain a calm and even tone. Taria had made her annoyance with the new weyrfolk obvious in the disdainful look with which she greeted them—her expression made it obvious that, as far as she was concerned, they were all girls, there weren’t enough of them, and they seemed so woebegone—and things had gone downhill from there. “And we’ll make up what they lack from our stores or our own supplies. I’m pretty sure some of my older clothes will fit them easily.”

  “You don’t have any old clothes—you left them all at Eastern,” Taria snapped.

  “J’keran has volunteered—”

  “J’keran?” Taria interrupted. “He isn’t going to time it, is he?”

  Xhinna was momentarily taken aback by Taria’s sharp reaction. Finally, she said, “I think he’s already gone, along with W’vin and V’lex.”

  “What if he—they get caught in that knot?”

  “K’dan was careful to give them a good image,” Xhinna said. “Tazith and I both checked it.”

  “But—” Taria snapped her mouth shut and stormed off, leaving Xhinna hurt and confused.

  “There’s more left, but not much,” W’vin told X’lerin and K’dan when the three dragons returned later that afternoon. They stood in the clearing not far from the broom trees that constituted their aerial home. “We’ve got all the clothes, more canvas, more rope, and anything edible that was left.”

  “It was a heavy load,” J’keran said, “but not too much for our browns.” He smirked at V’lex as he added, “I think even V’lex’s Sarinth worked off some fat this trip.”

  X’lerin caught V’lex’s hurt look and said, “Well, I appreciate it, all of you.” He gestured to the full cargo nets that lay on the ground below. “I’ll have some of the bronze weyrlings help you with the stowing.”

  J’keran’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s the rest of our wing?”

  “Hunting,” X’lerin replied easily. “Xhinna found a nest of wherries and they’ve all gone after them.”

  “Ah, Wingleader Xhinna,” J’keran muttered softly. “I’m sure that’s the best use of her abilities.”

  “It doesn’t matter, J’keran,” X’lerin replied, “as I am the one who set the work.”

  “And she did so well in finding five Candidates,” J’keran said. “I can see why you’d want her hunting wherries.”

  “We’ve time enough to get more,” X’lerin told him coldly. He nodded to W’vin and V’lex, saying, “Once you get the goods stored, you can join the hunt or rest as your dragons need.”

  “Weyrleader,” W’vin said with a firm nod to X’lerin and a beckoning look toward V’lex and J’keran. They each gave X’lerin quick nods, though J’keran’s was sketchy, barely perceptible—just short of insult.

  A noise overhead heralded the return of the hunting party. X’lerin glanced up as the others were departing and declared loudly enough for his voice to carry, “Ah, good! They’ve each got a wherry! We’ll be able to celebrate our bounty tonight.”

  In a quiet voice that carried only to X’lerin’s ears, K’dan said, “He’s pushing you, you know.”

  “I know,” X’lerin r
eplied with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. “I know.”

  “I think he’s angry that they didn’t get lost.”

  “Caught between?”

  K’dan nodded. “We need to keep an eye on him.”

  “I’ve heard that he’s got a new brew going,” X’lerin said. “He’ll be trying the first batch tonight.”

  K’dan’s brow creased. “How can it be any better than the others?”

  “Rumor,” X’lerin laid stress on the word, “has it that he’s found a secret ingredient and does a double brew.”

  “Wonderful,” K’dan said in a tone that belied the word.

  “We’ve only got a little time,” Xhinna said as she reached up to help the girls down onto the sands. “They’ll be serving dinner soon—roast wherry.”

  Alimma was the first down, followed by Mirressa and Aliyal. The other two followed more slowly, insisting that they could climb down from Tazith’s neck by themselves. Alimma looked around wide-eyed at the eggs clustered on the sands, dim in the evening’s fading light. Xhinna could see her counting and waited until she said, “Eighteen?”

  “Yes,” Xhinna said. “The first clutch of a green on Western Isle.”

  “Is that where we are?” Mirressa asked, turning around to look back inland to the stand of broom trees from whence they’d come.

  “Why can’t we live down here?” Cliova asked hopefully. She’d found the height of the broom trees frightening and at first had closed her eyes and refused to move. Fortunately, Timar and Kiona had chosen that moment to race by, shouting and chattering, causing Cliova to open her eyes and follow their antics with amazement. After that, she was willing to try a few steps, but not on her own—she insisted upon holding Alimma’s hand until the other threw it off in annoyance.

  “Tunnel snakes and Mrreows,” Xhinna replied. “The tunnel snakes are like the ones at home, only bigger.”

  “Mrreows?” Alimma asked.