Dragongirl (3 page)

The changeover had been perfect but now, only an hour into a two-hour fight, the dragons were getting weary, particularly the Istan dragons whose riders seemed determined to handle the entire left half of the Fall on their own. K’lior understood pride and worked as best he could with it, but when the Istans took their second loss—one that looked permanent—K’lior didn’t hesitate to dispatch a replacement from T’mar’s wing.

Tell Lolanth that we’ll thicken his wing
, K’lior said, sending D’teril and S’gan to join them. The two blue riders were glad to tear away from the reserves, dropping their spare sacks, and were quickly assimilated into the left and right flanks of the Istan riders.

A sudden roar from behind caused K’lior to duck and send Rineth plummeting out of the way of a clump of Thread that had fallen dangerously close while he’d been distracted.

K’lior had the image of a blue wall in motion, flame at the forefront as F’dan and Ridorth fought to protect him—but not without cost. K’lior heard F’dan’s terrible shriek and Ridorth’s concerned bugle and then the pair were gone,
between
.

It was all the warning that K’lior had as remnants of the clump, only partly charred, continued to fall toward him. With a move that he later couldn’t explain, he and Rineth were suddenly twenty meters lower in the sky, the great bronze climbing straight up, jaws agape with vengeful flame and an air-shattering bellow, engulfing the Thread in a ball of fire.

And then, as suddenly, they were flying level once more, K’lior trying to regain his composure and sending a silent salute to F’dan.

More Thread
, Rineth warned him. K’lior turned as he caught sight of a blur of bronze wheeling beside him—H’nez had decided to join the fray.

His decision was ill-timed as scant seconds later, Ginirth bellowed in pain and disappeared,
between
.

K’rall says he did not send him
, Rineth relayed. K’lior dismissed this with a grimace. There was Thread to fight, matters of discipline would come after.

T
he bellow of pain from the dragon bursting into the morning sky above Fort was mortal and Fiona knew it even as the blue plummeted toward the ground.

Talenth!
Fiona shrieked in her mind as she rushed toward the falling pair, even before she could register that her queen had already left her post, was diving beneath the blue, pushing up against him, slowing his fall.

The rider tumbled off and, as he fell, Fiona could see that the entire left half of his back was one giant open wound, with ribs severed and organs dripping with the heat of the Thread’s voraciousness. The Thread itself was nothing more than dusty
between
-seared crusty remnants of clotted blood. The wound was fatal but Fiona rushed toward the falling rider all the same.

Just as she reached him, another dragon burst into the sky above, a bronze creeling horribly, its left wingtip shredded.

Fiona needed no words to direct Talenth to the bronze’s aid; the blue was already close enough to the ground that Talenth could easily roll him off her back.

The blue rider landed in her arms facing her.

“F’dan!” Fiona cried. He was dead.

A grief-filled cry from Ridorth distracted her.
Ridorth, stay!

Fiona reached out to Talenth and, together, they held on to the blue, forcing him to remain as Fiona cried for help, dragging F’dan toward his mate as quickly as she could. A moment later a pair of hands grabbed his feet and her movement became easier.

“Get him to Ridorth,” Fiona begged through her heaving breaths.

Hold him!
Fiona ordered Talenth. She was dimly aware of someone shouting at her, of another dragon crying in pain, but her whole focus was on the distance between her and blue Ridorth, who trembled wild-eyed at her approach.

It’s okay
, Fiona assured him,
I just want you to take F’dan with you
.

Ridorth calmed and lowered himself as close to the ground as possible.

He’s hurt
, Talenth said.
I don’t know if he can get
between.

Fiona nodded, even as she indicated to her helper—it was Xhinna—to lay F’dan’s body against Ridorth’s neck. Xhinna anticipated her and climbed up the blue’s side, pulling F’dan up into place on his blue’s neck before hopping down once more, eyes streaming with tears.

Talenth
, Fiona called and her beautiful queen settled beside her. Xhinna was looking at her, crying something with a horrified look on her face but Fiona didn’t hear the words, ignored the bellowing bronze in the distance, and concentrated only on this last gift to her friend as she climbed up onto Talenth’s neck.

Tell Ridorth to follow us
, Fiona said, feeling a pressure behind her eyes that grew even as Talenth helped Ridorth gain his feet and leap into the sky. In a moment, they were
between
.

Take him with you
, Fiona called to the blue she couldn’t see, hear, or touch.
Good flying!

And in a moment that seemed to last forever, Ridorth and F’dan were gone.

Let’s get back, Talenth, there are more injured
.

Their return into the daylight, the warmth, the sounds, and the sights were like a slap to Fiona as she took in the growing number of injured, the anxious look on Cisca’s face, the shock on Tintoval’s and—

Get me down
, Fiona ordered Talenth. The great queen swooped and had barely touched before Fiona had jumped down and was rushing over to the injured bronze.

“Where were you?” Cisca shouted, rushing toward her. “We couldn’t find you, we thought—”

Fiona cut her off with a grim smile, shaking her head. “I was merely honoring him.”

“Honoring a dead blue while there are bronzes here injured?” a voice cried in shock. It was H’nez. Fiona turned to him, her face bone white with anger, but the bronze rider didn’t notice. “Your duty is—”

Fiona didn’t hear him finish, turning on her heels to walk away.

“Where do you think you are going?” H’nez bellowed after her. In the distance she could hear Ginirth’s pained bellowing and it tugged at her heart. “You call yourself a weyrwoman!”

Too much. Fiona twisted on the balls of her feet even as her hand rose and she leaped across the distance between them, her hand landing with a resounding
slap
on the side of his face, sending him reeling.

In the distance Talenth cried in dismay and anger, joined by Melirth.

“Get yourself under control, bronze rider,” Fiona said icily, eyeing the man who now knelt, a hand raised to his injured face in surprise. Her own hand stung from the blow but she willed the pain from her consciousness. She reached out to Ginirth with her mind, apologetically.

“Tintoval, get the aid kit,” she called, as she strode over to the injured bronze. “We’ll need sutures and the fine needle.”

She was about to say something reassuring to H’nez, words of peace and healing when she heard Talenth:
He broke ranks
.

“You broke ranks?” Fiona exclaimed, her eyes impaling H’nez with burning ire.

“When Ridorth and F’dan went
between,”
H’nez said, licking his lips, his eyes not quite meeting hers. Fiona felt his confusion, his anger—directed at himself, his sense of loss, and suddenly she saw the man in a different light.

“That’s for the Weyrleader,” she said, her tone dismissing the issue. She jerked her head, indicating that he should join her. She gave Ginirth’s wound a close examination, but she was certain that she already knew enough from what she’d seen during his landing and what she’d felt in her brief contact with the bronze. “This is ugly but it will heal. You’ll be flying next Fall.”

Tintoval approached, handed the aid kit to Fiona, and, as another casualty burst out of
between
, went off, more than willing to leave the difficult rider and his injured bronze in her care.

Dowsed with numbweed, Ginirth allowed her to stitch him up. Fiona couldn’t say how long it took to finish. She waved aside H’nez’s fervent thanks, too aware of the other cries in the Bowl around them, racing off to check on Tintoval and then help Xhinna sew up a badly burned arm before finally checking on Cisca.

The Weyrwoman looked up from her work long enough to give Fiona a grateful nod, then went back to the difficult job of suturing a punctured dragon’s neck. Afterward, when rider and dragon were turned over to the care of weyrfolk, Cisca gave Fiona a longer look, flicking a lock of brown hair away from her face irritably.

“We thought you were going with them, grief-stricken,” Cisca said, referring to F’dan and Ridorth. She cocked her head toward Melirth, who was anxiously watching the proceedings from her lair. Fiona shrugged, at the moment too exhausted both physically and emotionally to be concerned with the past worries of others. Cisca’s face hardened. “If you can’t work with me, I can’t have you in my Weyr.”

For one brief instant, Fiona thought longingly of her days at Igen Weyr, but the moment passed and she hung her head. “I’m doing the best I can, Weyrwoman.”

Cisca gave her a long thoughtful look before glancing up and over toward H’nez’s weyr. “You are too much alike with that bronze rider, more willing to listen to yourself than anyone else.”

Fiona lifted her head, eyes flashing angrily, but she said nothing.

“You were too long your own counsel,” Cisca declared in a tone that was shaded with pity. “You carried a grown woman’s burden and more.”

“I did what I had to,” Fiona replied.

“And now, you don’t have to anymore,” Cisca reminded her. “Do you think you can live with that?”

Fiona grimaced, her eyes troubled. “I don’t know.”

“S
even lost, eleven severely injured, and eighteen lightly injured,” Tintoval reported that evening as the Weyr recovered from their fourth Fall.

“That’s not all,” Cisca reminded her glumly, nodding to her to tell K’lior the rest.

“And ten more feverish.”

“We’ve one hundred and forty-eight fighting dragons,” K’rall murmured from his end of the table. “That’s nearly twice what we had two Falls back.”

“But,” K’lior objected, “as you just said, in two Falls we lost nearly half that number.”

“Our next Fall isn’t for another sixteen days,” M’kury said. “Couldn’t we send our injured back again to Igen?”

“I’m sure that Fiona could handle it,” T’mar said, glancing toward the abnormally subdued weyrwoman. She stirred at his gaze, giving him a bleak, unfathomable look. Longing? Dread? He couldn’t tell.

THREE

Wheel and turn
Or bleed and burn
.
Flame and dodge
Or
between,
dislodge
.

Fort Weyr, AL 508.2.6

“It’s still hard for me to accept: You’re three Turns older than when I last saw you,” Tintoval marveled to Fiona as they started out of the Kitchen Cavern on their rounds of the sick and injured early the next morning.

“It’s just as hard for me to accept that everyone here hasn’t become three Turns wiser,” Fiona replied. She’d let Xhinna sleep in: The youngster had been up most of the night leading the weyrfolk in their ministrations of the worst injured dragons and riders.

“Wait!” a voice called from behind them. “Wait up!”

Terin raced to them. “I thought I could help.”

Fiona grinned and nodded in response.

“So,” Tintoval said to Terin as they started up the stairs to the highest weyr of their convalescents, “you’ve thirteen Turns now?”

Terin smiled. “Nearly fourteen.” She glanced at Fiona and added, “And Fiona has nearly seventeen. Did you know that she was born twelve days before me?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It was funny back in Igen, celebrating our birthdays and our birthdays.”

“Excuse me?”

“One for our birthdates and the other for when we Turned,” Fiona explained.

“We turned in the thirteenth month,” Terin said when she noticed that Tintoval looked no more enlightened.

“Because we went back in time to the summer,” Fiona added.

They reached the level of their first injured pair, W’jer and Janorth, and turned right toward his weyr.

“I’ll check on W’jer if you two will look at Janorth,” Tintoval suggested as they approached the entrance to W’jer’s quarters.

“No,” Fiona said. Tintoval’s eyebrows furrowed in surprise. “You’ll need to learn to treat dragons, too.”

“I’m still learning my craft with humans, weyrwoman,” Tintoval told her reprovingly.

“Why don’t you both check on him while I take a quick look at his dragon and then we’ll switch?” Terin suggested diplomatically.

Fiona exchanged looks with the Weyr Healer; the compromise seemed acceptable to both of them.

W’jer was one of K’rall’s wing. His right thigh had been seared through to the bone by the same Thread that had lacerated his brown Janorth through to the bones of his neck.

“Good morning, W’jer,” Fiona called as they entered. “How are you this day?”

W’jer’s face was grizzled, weathered from Turns of flying high and squinting into the distance. His hair was disheveled and wavy, his lips drawn in a thin tight line as he fought with the pain of his injury.

“Well enough, weyrwoman,” W’jer replied, nodding to Tintoval and Terin as he spotted them behind her. He sat up in his bed, seeming a bit put back by such an invasion of younger women, and gestured to his injury. “We slept some, last night.”

Tintoval moved around Fiona and gestured for permission to examine his wounds. W’jer nodded and only twitched his lips when she began to unwrap the bandage. Tintoval hissed as the wound was uncovered.

Fiona peered around her and, without changing her expression, pulled a bottle out of the sack she had slung over her shoulder, found some clean gauze, and passed it to the healer. “Sometimes the Thread leaves an infection.”

“I’m going to have to clean out the wound,” Tintoval apologized to the rider as she took the proferred bottle. “This will sting.”

“No worse than Thread, I’m sure,” W’jer said gamely. He set his jaw tight as Tintoval gently poured the peroxide solution over his leg and it foamed as it ate away the infection.

Fiona, with a tight smile of sympathy, reached into her sack again and pulled out a small jar of salve that she passed wordlessly to Tintoval before stepping around her to the service hatch. She quickly scrawled an order for fellis juice and numbweed and sent the tray rushing on its way down to the Kitchen Cavern.

“Numbweed and fellis juice are on their way,” she reported to Tintoval as the healer finished her inspection of the cleaned wound and started applying the healing salve. Tintoval nodded silently. Fiona felt the woman’s stern self-control and laid a hand on her shoulder assuringly.

“You’re doing fine, W’jer,” Fiona said to the brown rider who had noted their exchange with growing alarm. “You’ll be up and about in three sevendays or sooner.”

“And Janorth?”

Fiona turned to look through to the brown dragon’s weyr, caught sight of Terin motioning to her urgently, and said lightly, “Let me go check.”

As soon as Fiona was close enough to speak to in a voice that wouldn’t carry, Terin told her, “He slept badly last night and tore off his bandages.”

Fiona grimaced; there was green dragon ichor everywhere.

“You should have called,” Fiona said reprovingly to the brown dragon as she cleaned away the ichor. “Talenth was ready to hear you.”

I didn’t realize
, Janorth said apologetically.

Fiona grinned and slapped the brown affectionately on his chest. “We’d rather you say too much than too little.”

I’ll remember
.

“See that you do,” Fiona said, leaning down beside Terin to examine the base of the wound. Fortunately it was forward on the neck; if the injury had been at the join to the chest, recovery would have been much more difficult. She sighed. “The stitches have come open.”

Terin nodded, absently wiping a long stream of green ichor on her tunic before wiping her forehead.

Talenth, we need some thick sutures, double dragon size
, Fiona called.
See if Xhinna is awake
.

She could have called down the service hatch, but Xhinna would be quicker, if she was available.

She sleeps
, Talenth replied instantly.
She is having strange dreams
.

Strange dreams? Fiona mused. She never knew that dragons could tell when people were dreaming, let alone have an insight into them.

Then check with Ellor
, she said.

A moment later, Talenth responded,
The Weyrwoman will fly them up
.

Surprised, Fiona moved to the edge of the weyr and glanced out. In a moment the great queen was beside her, hovering close in while Cisca threw a sack attached to a rope. Fiona caught it on the first try and quickly undid the knot, then waved in thanks.

“We need some new weyrlings for this sort of work,” Cisca called as she waved in response.

“I’ll see what I can do!” Fiona shouted back, grinning.

“I’m talking with Melirth about the problem, too,” Cisca replied, grinning in turn. “A mating flight—or two—would also do wonders for morale.”

Fiona chuckled, then returned to the job of sewing up Janorth’s gash. Once done, she rejoined Tintoval and W’jer. The healer had treated the dragonrider’s wound with numbweed, rebandaged it, and dosed him with fellis juice. Between them, Fiona and Tintoval managed to get W’jer settled back into his bed for “a good long nap.”

“We’ll check on Janorth before we leave,” Fiona said, gesturing for Tintoval to follow her to the brown’s weyr. Terin was happily scratching the brown’s eye ridge and crooning to him encouragingly.

“You just rest up, you’ll get better soon,” Terin said to him as Janorth’s multifaceted eyes whirled with the green of contentment.

Tintoval looked to Fiona for direction. Fiona smiled and raised an eyebrow, glancing challengingly at Janorth’s resutured neck.

“What sort of sutures did you use?” Tintoval wondered as she knelt down and examined Fiona’s deft handiwork.

“That’s double dragon size,” Fiona said. “Dragon size is used for most wounds; for wing-work we use regular human sutures; but
this
required the larger ones.” She paused, thinking back to her time at Igen Weyr in the past, when she’d had to learn all this on her own, by doing it. “When we were at Igen, we had the hardest time getting dragon sutures until I managed to explain what we needed to the traders.”

“Where did they find sutures?” Tintoval asked, her eyes narrowed worriedly.

“They didn’t,” Fiona said with a shake of her head. “They discovered that the Fishers use a similar rope and convinced them to produce a sterile version.”

“Clever.”

Fiona smiled in agreement. “I often wonder how much more we could do if we asked others to help us.”

“That’s a good thought,” Tintoval said reflectively, her eyes falling on Terin. Fiona gave her a quizzical look but the healer merely shrugged and smiled in response, clearly not yet ready to share her thinking.

It wasn’t until they were seated in the Kitchen Cavern for a late lunch that Tintoval broached her idea. Waiting until Terin had swallowed her last mouthful, the healer asked, “Terin, are there any young weyrfolk who’d like to help us?”

Terin frowned in thought before saying, “Mostly Ellor keeps them in classes or working, but I’m sure the ones whose fathers are riders would love to help.”

“We didn’t check on those whose families are tending them,” Fiona told Tintoval. “But there aren’t that many because too many of the women are working.”

“In the kitchen?” Tintoval asked, glancing around at the few helpers.

“In the tanneries, on the looms, in the pastures, in the storerooms, on spinning wheels, knitting, dyeing, tailoring, leatherworking, and metalworking,” Terin replied, adding, “and in the nurseries and classrooms with the children.”

“It was a bit of a shock to realize how much like a Hold a Weyr really is,” Fiona said with a grin. “Only there are more women than men.”

Tintoval mulled on Fiona’s last comment for a moment before asking, “Why is that?”

“Well, with a Weyr’s strength of about five hundred dragons, you’d expect around the same number of mates,” Fiona replied slowly as she examined the question. “I imagine that many of the boys who don’t Impress leave the Weyr.”

Tintoval’s raised eyebrows begged her to explain. “They would find themselves welcomed in every Craft and Hall.” She waved a hand expansively around the Kitchen Cavern. “They’re well-fed and tended, trained to handle most any task so they would be a boon to any holder or crafter. And,” she concluded, “there’s all the prestige associated with the Weyr and being able to boast of weyrblood.”

“Dragonriders are healthier than most,” Tintoval mused. “The women are better-fed in the Weyr, too, so they also have a better chance of surviving childbirth. So it’s to a woman’s advantage to stay in the Weyr instead of leaving.”

“And we’ll never run out of work!” Terin exclaimed.

“So,” Tintoval wondered, “are there any spare children we could draft to help us?”

“Ellor would know,” Terin said. “But I can think of at least three by myself.”

“Three would be a start,” Tintoval allowed. “But we’ve fifty-seven sick and injured, I’d much prefer a dozen or more.”

“Too many and you’d never train them,” Fiona warned.

“Train some and have them train the rest,” Terin suggested, glancing at Fiona challengingly.

Fiona grinned and said to Tintoval, “And that’s why I made
her
headwoman!”

W
hen they approached Cisca that evening at dinner with the suggestion, the Weyrwoman mused, “I wonder why we didn’t think of that before?”

“Perhaps you did,” Fiona said. “But you’ve had a lot of distractions since then, whereas I”—she gestured ruefully at herself—“have had almost three Turns now of dealing with injured dragons.”

As she spoke, she realized once again that she was nearly eye level with the Weyrwoman. Cisca had little more than nineteen Turns of age; Fiona was less than three Turns younger than her now. And, in dealing with the sick, at least, she had at least a full Turn’s greater experience. It was strange and difficult to remember: She was still the junior Weyrwoman, but the difference in age and experience had been nearly erased.

K’lior nodded thoughtfully. “And we haven’t had a healer for so long, there was no one to do the training.”

“We’ve all those helpers when we fight Fall,” Cisca remarked, sounding perplexed. She glanced tellingly at Fiona who, after all, with Tannaz had borne the primary responsibility for dealing with the sick and injured. “Why didn’t we think to use them to help afterward?”

Ellor, who had been checking on the table, heard the exchange and stepped in. “Because too many of them have regular duties during the day. We use them for first aid during the Fall, but afterward we need them elsewhere.”

“How many are clothesmakers?” Tintoval wondered. “Is that why they’re so good with sutures?”

“Some are tanners and good with awls,” Ellor replied. “And others are midwives—”

“I should have thought of them first!” Tintoval exclaimed. To Ellor she said, “Please be sure to send them to me.” When she saw the headwoman’s alarmed look, she added hastily, “I want to talk with them about midwifery.”

“Don’t they teach that at the Healer Hall?” Ellor wondered in surprise.

“They do,” Tintoval replied, “but there’s much more to
doing
than can be learned from teaching.” With a frown she added, “And it’s very much true that for birthing, most prefer a midwife to a healer, so it’s rare that the Healer Hall sees a pregnancy; they never did in the Turns I was there.”

Ellor nodded, relieved that the healer wasn’t planning on drafting the midwives.

“How many of them have children?” Terin asked. Ellor gave her a reproving look; it was obvious that she considered Terin’s involvement in the conversation to be impudent.

“That’s a good question,” Fiona said purposely.

Taking the hint, Ellor replied, “A few.”

“Perhaps those midwives would like to have their children watched during the day,” Terin said.

“The ones who are too old to just run errands and call for help if it’s needed could learn a lot with us,” Tintoval said in agreement.

Ellor nodded, a speculative look on her face. After a moment, she smiled, glancing evilly at Terin. “I know just the one to start with, too!” she exclaimed.

Terin gave her a worried look, which rapidly changed to one of alarm.