The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (69 page)

A stifled roar from the throats of eighty men and dragons broke the dawn air above Nerat’s green heights—as if the Threads might hear this challenge, F’lar mused.

As one, dragons swiveled their wedge-shaped heads to their riders for firestone. Great jaws macerated the hunks. The fragments were swallowed and more firestone was demanded. Inside the beasts, acids churned and the poisonous phosphenes were readied. When the dragons belched forth the gas, it would ignite in the air, into ravening flame to sear the Threads from the sky. And burn them from the soil.

Dragon instinct took over the moment the Threads began to fall above Nerat’s shores.

As much admiration as F’lar had always held for his bronze companion, it achieved newer heights in the next hours. Beating the air in great strokes, Mnementh soared with flaming breath to meet the down-rushing menace. The fumes, swept back by the wind, choked F’lar until he thought to crouch low on the lee side of the bronze neck. The dragon squealed as Threads flicked the tip of one wing. Instantly F’lar and he ducked into
between
, cold, calm, black. In the flicker of an eye, they were back to face the reality of Threads.

Around him, F’lar saw dragons winking in and out of
between
, flaming as they returned, diving, soaring. As the attack continued, and they drifted across Nerat, F’lar began to recognize the pattern in the dragons’ instinctive evasion-attack movements—and in the Threads. For, contrary to what he had gathered from his study of the Records, the Threads fell in patches. Not as rain will, in steady unbroken sheets, but like flurries of snow; here, above, there, whipped to one side suddenly. Never fluidly, despite the continuity their name implied.

You could see a patch above you. Flaming, your dragon would rise. You’d have the intense joy of seeing the clump shrivel from bottom to top. Sometimes, a patch would fall between riders. One dragon would signal he would follow and, spouting flame, would dive and sear.

Gradually the dragonriders worked their way over the rainforests, so densely, so invitingly green. F’lar refused to dwell on what just one live Thread burrow would do to that lush land. He would send back a low-flying patrol to quarter every foot. One Thread! Just one Thread could put out the ivory eyes of every luminous vineflower.

A dragon screamed somewhere to his left. Before he could identify the beast, it had ducked
between
. F’lar heard other cries of pain, from men as well as dragons. He shut his ears and concentrated, as dragons did, on the here-and-now. Would Mnementh remember those piercing cries later? F’lar wished he could forget them now.

He, F’lar, the bronze rider, felt suddenly superfluous. It was the dragons who were fighting this engagement. You encouraged your beast, comforted him when the Threads burned, but you depended on his instinct and speed.

Hot fire dripped across F’lar’s cheek, burrowing like acid into his shoulder…a cry of surprised agony burst from F’lar’s lips. Mnementh took them to merciful
between
. The dragonman batted with frantic hands at the Threads, felt them crumble in the intense cold of
between
and break off. Revolted, he slapped at injuries still afire. Back in Nerat’s humid air, the sting seemed to ease. Mnementh crooned comfortingly and then dove at a patch, breathing fire.

Shocked at self-consideration, F’lar hurriedly examined his mount’s shoulder for telltale score marks.

I duck very quickly,
Mnementh told him and veered away from a dangerously close clump of Threads. A brown dragon followed them down and burned them to ash.

It might have been moments, it might have been a hundred hours later when F’lar looked down in surprise at the sunlit sea. Threads now dropped harmlessly into the rocky tip curling westward.

F’lar felt weariness in every muscle. In the excitement of frenzied battle, he had forgotten the bloody scores on cheek and shoulder. Now, as he and Mnementh glided slowly, the injuries ached and stung.

He flew Mnementh high and when they had achieved sufficient altitude, they hovered. He could see no Threads falling landward. Below him, the dragons ranged, high and low, searching for any sign of a burrow, alert for any suddenly toppling trees or disturbed vegetation.

“Back to the Weyr,” he ordered Mnementh in a heavy sigh. He heard the bronze relay the command even as he himself was taken
between
. He was so tired he did not even visualize where—much less, when—relying on Mnementh’s instinct to bring him safely home through time and space.

Honor those the dragons heed,

In thought and favor, word and deed.

Worlds are lost or worlds are saved

From those dangers dragon-braved.

Craning her neck towards the Star Stone at Benden Peak, Lessa watched from the ledge until she saw the four wings disappear from view.

Sighing deeply to quiet her inner fears, Lessa raced down the stairs to the floor of Benden Weyr. She noticed someone was building a fire by the lake and that Manora was already ordering her women around, her voice clear but calm.

Old C’gan had the weyrlings lined up. She caught the envious eyes of the newest dragonriders at the barracks’ windows. They’d have time enough to fly a flaming dragon. From what F’lar had intimated, they’d have years.

She shuddered as she stepped up to the weyrlings but managed to smile at them. She gave them their orders and sent them off, checking quickly with each dragon to be sure the riders had given clear references. The Holds would shortly be stirred up to a froth.

Canth told her that there were Threads at Keroon, falling on the Keroon side of Nerat Bay. He told her that F’nor did not think two wings were enough to protect the meadowlands.

Lessa stopped in her tracks, trying to think how many wings were already out.

K’net’s wing is still here,
Ramoth informed her.
On the Peak.

Lessa glanced up and saw bronze Piyanth spread his wings in answer. She told him to get
between
to Keroon, close to Nerat Bay. Obediently the entire wing rose and then disappeared.

She turned with a sigh to say something to Manora when a rush of wind and a vile stench almost overpowered her. The air above the Weyr was full of dragons. She was about to demand of Piyanth why he hadn’t gone to Keroon when she realized there were far more beasts a-wing than K’net’s twenty.

But you just left,
she cried as she recognized the unmistakable bulk of bronze Mnementh.

That was two hours ago for us,
Mnementh said with such weariness in his tone, Lessa closed her eyes in sympathy.

Some dragons were gliding in, fast. From their awkwardness it was evident they were hurt.

As one, the weyrwomen grabbed salve pots and clean rags, and beckoned the injured down. The numbing ointment was smeared on score marks where wings resembled black and red etched lace.

No matter how badly injured they might be, every rider tended his beast first.

Lessa kept one eye on Mnementh, sure that F’lar would not keep the huge bronze hovering like that if he’d been hurt. She was helping T’sum with Munth’s cruelly pierced right wing when she realized the sky above the Star Stone was empty.

She forced herself to finish with Munth before she went to find the bronze and his rider. When she did locate them, she also saw Kylara smearing salve on F’lar’s cheek and shoulder. She was advancing purposefully across the sands towards the pair when Canth’s urgent plea reached her. She saw Mnementh’s head swing upwards as he, too, caught the brown’s thought.

“F’lar, Canth says they need help,” Lessa cried. She didn’t even notice, then, that Kylara slipped away into the busy crowd.

F’lar wasn’t badly hurt. She reassured herself about that. Kylara had treated the wicked burns which looked to be shallow. Someone had found him another fur to replace the tatters of the threadbare one. He frowned, and winced because the frown creased his burned cheek. He gulped hurriedly at his
klah
.

“Mnementh, what’s the tally of able-bodied? Oh, never mind, just get ’em aloft with a full load of firestone.”

“You’re all right?” Lessa asked, a detaining hand on his arm. He couldn’t just go off like this, could he?

He smiled tiredly down at her, pressed his empty mug into her hands, giving them a quick squeeze. Then he vaulted to Mnementh’s neck. Someone handed him a heavy load of sacks.

B
LUE, GREEN, BROWN
and bronze dragons lifted from the Weyr Bowl in quick order. A trifle more than sixty dragons hovered briefly above the Weyr where eighty had lingered so few minutes before.

So few dragons. So few riders. How long could they take such toll?

Canth said F’nor needed more firestone.

She looked about anxiously. None of the weyrlings were back yet from their messenger rounds. A dragon was crooning plaintively and she wheeled, but it was only young Pridith, stumbling across the Weyr to the feeding grounds, butting playfully at Kylara as they walked. The only other dragons were injured or…her eyes fell on C’gan, emerging from the weyrling barracks.

“C’gan, can you and Tagath get more firestone to F’nor at Keroon?”

“Of course,” the old blue rider assured her, his chest lifting with pride, his eyes flashing. She hadn’t thought to send him anywhere yet he had lived his life in training for this emergency. He shouldn’t be deprived of a chance at it.

She smiled her approval at his eagerness as they piled heavy sacks on Tagath’s neck. The old blue dragon snorted and danced as if he were young and strong again. She gave them the references Canth had visualized to her.

She watched as the two blinked out above the Star Stone.

It isn’t fair. They have all the fun,
said Ramoth peevishly. Lessa saw her sunning herself on the weyr ledge, preening her enormous wings.

“You chew firestone and you’re reduced to a silly green,” Lessa told her weyrmate sharply. She was inwardly amused by the queen’s disgruntled complaint.

She passed among the injured then. B’fol’s dainty green beauty moaned and tossed her head, unable to bend one wing which had been threaded to bare cartilage. She’d be out for weeks but she had the worst injury among the dragons. Lessa looked quickly away from the misery in B’fol’s worried eyes.

As she did the rounds, she realized more men were injured than beasts. Two in R’gul’s wing had serious head damages. One man might lose an eye completely. Manora had dosed him unconscious with numb-weed. Another man’s arm had been burned clear to the bone. Minor though most of the wounds were, the tally dismayed Lessa. How many more would be disabled at Keroon?

Out of one hundred and seventy-two dragons, fifteen already were out of action; some only for a day or two, to be sure.

A thought struck Lessa. If N’ton had actually ridden Canth, maybe he could ride out on the next dragonade on an injured man’s beast, since there were more injured riders than dragons. F’lar broke traditions as he chose. Here was another one to set aside—if the dragon was agreeable.

Presuming N’ton was not the only new rider able to transfer to another beast, what good would such flexibility do in the long run? F’lar had definitely said the incursions would not be so frequent at first, when the Red Star was just beginning its fifty-turn-long circling pass of Pern. How frequent was frequent? He would know but he wasn’t here.

Well, he
had
been right this morning about the appearance of Threads at Nerat, so his exhaustive study of those old Records had been worthwhile.

No, that wasn’t quite accurate. He had forgotten to have the men alert for signs of black dust as well as warming weather. As he had put the matter right by going
between
times, she would graciously allow him that minor error. But he did have an infuriating habit of guessing correctly. Lessa corrected herself again. He didn’t guess. He studied. He planned. He thought and then he used common good sense. Like figuring out where and when Threads would strike according to entries in those smelly Records. Lessa began to feel better about their future.

Now, if he would just make the riders learn to trust their dragons’ sure instinct in battle, they would keep casualties down, too.

A
SHRIEK PIERCED
air and ear as a blue dragon emerged above the Star Stone.

“Ramoth!”
Lessa screamed in an instinctive reaction, hardly knowing why. The queen was a-wing before the echo of her command had died. For the careening blue was obviously in grave trouble. He was trying to brake his forward speed, yet one wing would not function. His rider had slipped forward over the great shoulder, precariously clinging to his dragon’s neck with one hand.

Lessa, her hands clapped over her mouth, watched fearfully. There wasn’t a sound in the Bowl but the flapping of Ramoth’s immense wings. The queen rose swiftly to position herself against the desperate blue, lending him wing support on the crippled side.

The watchers gasped as the rider slipped, lost his hold and fell—landing on Ramoth’s shoulders.

The blue dropped like a stone. Ramoth came to a gentle stop near him, crouching low to allow the weyrfolk to remove her passenger.

It was old C’gan.

Lessa felt her stomach heave as she saw the ruin the Threads had made of the old harper’s face. She dropped beside him, pillowing his head in her lap. The weyrfolk gathered in a respectful, silent circle.

Manora, her face as always serene, had tears in her eyes. She knelt and placed her hand on the old rider’s heart. Concern flickered in her eyes as she looked up at Lessa. Slowly she shook her head. Then, setting her lips in a thin line, she began to apply the numbing salve.

“Too toothless old to flame and too slow to get
between
,” C’gan mumbled, rolling his head from side to side. “Too old. ‘But dragonmen must fly/When Threads are in the sky…’” His voice trailed off into a sigh. His eyes closed.

Lessa and Manora looked at each other in anguish. A terrible, ear-shattering note cut the silence. Tagath sprang aloft in a tremendous leap. C’gan’s eyes rolled slowly open, sightless. Lessa, breath suspended, watched the blue dragon, trying to deny the inevitable as Tagath disappeared in midair.