“Hold her,” F’nor murmured. Lessa had forgotten him.
Ramoth rose, screaming, and with incredible speed landed on a second squealing buck. She made a second attempt to eat from the soft belly of her kill. Again Lessa exerted her authority and won. Shrilling defiance, Ramoth reluctantly blooded again.
She did not resist Lessa’s orders the third time. The dragon had begun to realize now that irresistible instinct was upon her. She had not known anything but fury until she got the taste of hot blood. Now she knew what she needed: to fly fast, far, and long, away from the Weyr, away from these puny, wingless ones, far in advance of those rutting bronzes.
Dragon instinct was limited to here-and-now, with no ability to control or anticipate. Mankind existed in partnership with them to supply wisdom and order, Lessa found herself chanting silently.
Without hesitation, Ramoth struck for the fourth time, hissing with greed as she sucked at the beast’s throat.
A tense silence had fallen over the Weyr Bowl, broken only by the sound of Ramoth’s feeding and the high keening of the wind.
Ramoth’s skin began to glow. She seemed to enlarge, not with gorging but with luminescence. She raised her bloody head, her tongue forking out to lick her muzzle. She straightened, and simultaneously a hum arose from the bronzes ringing the feeding ground in silent anticipation.
With a sudden golden movement Ramoth arched her great back. She sprang into the sky, wings wide. With unbelievable speed she was airborne. After her, in the blink of an eye, seven bronze shapes followed, their mighty wings churning buffets of sand-laden air into the faces of the watching weyrfolk.
Her heart in her mouth at the prodigious flight, Lessa felt her soul lifting with Ramoth.
“Stay with her,” F’nor whispered urgently. “Stay with her. She must not escape your control now.”
He stepped away from Lessa, back among the folk of the Weyr, who, as one, turned their eyes skyward to the disappearing shining motes of the dragons.
Lessa, her mind curiously suspended, retained only enough physical consciousness to realize that she was in fact earthbound.
All other sense and feeling were aloft with Ramoth. And she, Ramoth-Lessa, was alive with limitless power, her wings beating effortlessly to the thin heights, elation surging through her frame, elation and—desire.
She sensed rather than saw the great bronze males pursuing her. She was contemptuous of their ineffectual efforts. For she was wingfree and unconquerable.
She snaked her head under one wing and mocked their puny efforts with shrill taunts. High above them she soared. Suddenly, folding her wings, she plummeted down, delighting to see them veer off in wingcrowding haste to avoid collision.
She soared quickly above them again as they labored to make up their lost speed and altitude.
So Ramoth flirted leisurely with her lovers, splendid in her newfound freedom, daring the bronze ones to outfly her.
One dropped, spent. She crowed her superiority. Soon a second abandoned the chase as she played with them, diving and darting in intricate patterns. Sometimes she was oblivious of their existence, so lost was she in the thrill of flight.
When, at last, a little bored, she condescended to glance at her followers, she was vaguely amused to see only three great beasts still pursuing. She recognized Mnementh, Orth, and Hath. All in their prime; worthy, perhaps, of her.
She glided down, tantalizing them, amused at their now labored flights. Hath she couldn’t bear. Orth? Now Orth was a fine young beast. She dropped her wings to slide between him and Mnementh.
As she swung past Mnementh, he suddenly closed his wings and dropped beside her. Startled, she tried to hover and found her wings fouled with his, his neck winding tightly about hers.
Entwined, they fell. Mnementh, calling on hidden reserves of strength, spread his wings to check their downward fall. Outmaneuvered and startled by the terrific speed of their descent, Ramoth, too, extended her great wings. And then . . .
Lessa reeled, her hands wildly grabbing out for any support. She seemed to be exploding back into her body, every nerve throbbing.
“Don’t faint, you fool. Stay with her.” F’lar’s voice grated in her ear. His arms roughly sustained her.
She tried to focus her eyes. She caught a startled glimpse of the walls of her own weyr. She clutched at F’lar, touching bare skin, shaking her head, confused.
“Bring her back.”
“How?” she cried, panting, unable to comprehend what could possibly entice Ramoth from such glory.
The pain of stinging blows on her face made her angrily aware of F’lar’s disturbing proximity. His eyes were wild, his mouth distorted.
“Think with her. She cannot go between. Stay with her.”
Trembling at the thought of losing Ramoth between, Lessa sought the dragon, still locked wing to wing with Mnementh.
The mating passion of the two dragons at that moment spiraled wide to include Lessa. A tidal wave rising relentlessly from the sea of her soul flooded Lessa. With a longing cry she clung to F’lar. She felt his body rock-firm against hers, his hard arms lifting her up, his mouth fastening mercilessly on hers as she drowned deep in another unexpected flood of desire.
“Now! We bring them safely home,” he murmured.
Dragonman, dragonman,
Between thee and thine,
Share me that glimpse of love
Greater than mine.
F’LAR CAME SUDDENLY awake. He listened attentively, heard and was reassured by Mnementh’s gratified rumble. The bronze was perched on the ledge outside the queen’s weyr. All was peacefully in order in the Bowl below.
Peaceful but different. F’lar, through Mnementh’s eyes and senses, perceived this instantly. There was an overnight change in the Weyr. F’lar permitted himself a satisfied grin at the previous day’s tumultuous events. Something might have gone wrong.
Something nearly did, Mnementh reminded him.
Who had called K’net and himself back? F’lar mused again. Mnementh only repeated that he had been called back. Why wouldn’t he identify the informer?
A nagging worry intruded on F’lar’s waking ruminations.
“Did F’nor remember to . . .” he began aloud.
F’nor never forgets your orders, Mnementh reassured him testily. Canth told me that the sighting at dawn today puts the Red Star at the top of the Eye Rock. The sun is still off, too.
F’lar ran impatient fingers through his hair. “At the top of the Eye Rock. Closer, and closer the Red Star came,” just as the Old Records predicted. And that dawn when the Star gleamed scarlet at the watcher through the Eye Rock heralded a dangerous passing and . . . the Threads.
There was certainly no other explanation for that careful arrangement of gigantic stones and special rocks on Benden Peak. Nor for its counterpart on the eastern walls of each of the five abandoned Weyrs.
First, the Finger Rock on which the rising sun balanced briefly at dawn at the winter solstice. Then, two dragon lengths behind it, the rectangular, enormous Star Stone, chest-high to a tall man, its polished surface incised by two arrows, one pointing due east toward the Finger Rock, the other slightly north of due east, aimed directly at the Eye Rock, so ingeniously and immovably set into the Star Stone.
One dawn, in the not too distant future, he would look through the Eye Rock and meet the baleful blink of the Red Star. And then . . .
Sounds of vigorous splashing interrupted F’lar’s reflections. He grinned again as he realized it was the girl bathing. She certainly cleaned up pretty, and undressed . . . He stretched with leisurely recollection, reviewing what his reception from that quarter might be. She ought to have no complaints at all. What a flight! He chuckled softly.
Mnementh commented from the safety of his ledge that F’lar had better watch his step with Lessa.
Lessa, is it? thought F’lar back to his dragon.
Mnementh enigmatically repeated his caution. F’lar chuckled his self-confidence.
/>
Suddenly Mnementh was alert to an alarm.
Watchers were sending out a rider to identify the unusually persistent dust clouds on the plateau below Benden Lake, Mnementh informed his wingleader crisply.
F’lar rose hastily, gathered up his scattered clothes, and dressed. He was buckling the wide rider’s belt when the curtain to the bathing room was flipped aside. Lessa confronted him, fully clothed.
He was always surprised to see how slight she was, an incongruous physical vessel for such strength of mind. Her newly washed hair framed her narrow face with a dark cloud. There was no hint in her composed eyes of the dragon-roused passion they had experienced together yesterday. There was no friendliness about her at all. No warmth. Was this what Mnementh meant? What was the matter with the girl?
Mnementh gave an additional alarming report, and F’lar set his jaw. He would have to postpone the understanding they must reach intellectually until after this emergency. To himself he damned R’gul’s green handling of her. The man had all but ruined the Weyrwoman, as he had all but destroyed the Weyr.
Well, F’lar, bronze Mnementh’s rider, was now Weyrleader, and changes were long overdue.
Long overdue, Mnementh confirmed dryly. The Lords of the Holds gather in force on the lake plateau.
“There’s trouble,” F’lar announced to Lessa by way of greeting. His announcement did not appear to alarm her.
“The Lords of the Hold come to protest?” she asked coolly.
He admired her composure even as he decried her part in this development.
“You’d have done better to let me handle the raiding. K’net’s still boy enough to be carried away with the joy of it all.”
Her slight smile was secretive. F’lar wondered fleetingly if that wasn’t what she had intended in the first place. Had Ramoth not risen yesterday, it would be a different story altogether today. Had she thought of that?
Mnementh forewarned him that R’gul was at the ledge. R’gul was all chest and indignant eye, the dragon commented, which meant he was feeling his authority.
“He has none,” F’lar snapped out loud, thoroughly awake and pleased with events, despite their precipitation.
“R’gul?”
She was quick-witted all right, F’lar admitted.
“Come, girl.” He gestured her toward the queen’s weyr. The scene he was about to play with R’gul ought to redeem that shameful day in the Council Room two months back. He knew it had rankled in her as in him.
They had no sooner entered the queen’s weyr than R’gul, followed by an excited K’net, stormed in from the opposite side.
“The watch informs me,” R’gul began, “that there is a large body of armed men, with banners of many Holds, approaching the Tunnel. K’net here”—R’gul was furious with the youngster—“confesses he has been raiding systematically—against all reason and most certainly against my distinct orders. Of course, we’ll deal with him later,” he informed the errant rider ominously, “that is, if there is a Weyr left after the Lords are through with us.”
He turned back to F’lar, his frown deepening as he realized F’lar was grinning at him.
“Don’t stand there,” R’gul growled. “There’s nothing to grin about. We’ve got to think how to placate them.”
“No, R’gul,” F’lar contradicted the older man, still grinning, “the days of placating the Lords are over.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“No. But you are out of order,” F’lar said, his grin gone, his face stern.
R’gul’s eyes widened as he stared at F’lar as if he had never seen him before.
“You’ve forgotten a very important fact,” F’lar went on ruthlessly. “Policy changes when the leader of the Weyr is replaced. I, F’lar, Mnementh’s rider, am Weyrleader now.”
On that ringing phrase, S’lel, D’nol, Thor, and S’lan came striding into the room. They stopped, shock-still, staring at the motionless tableau.
F’lar waited, giving them a chance to absorb the fact that the dissension in the room meant that authority had indeed passed to him.
“Mnementh,” he said aloud, “call in all wingseconds and brown riders. We’ve some arrangements to make before our . . . guests arrive. As the queen is asleep, dragonmen, into the Council Room, please. After you, Weyrwoman.”
He stepped aside to permit Lessa to pass, noticing the slight flush on her cheeks. She was not completely in command of her emotions, after all.
No sooner had they taken places at the Council Table than the brown riders began to stream in. F’lar took careful note of the subtle difference in their attitudes. They walked taller, he decided. And—yes, the air of defeat and frustration was replaced by tense excitement. All else being equal, today’s events ought to revive the pride and purpose of the Weyr.
F’nor and T’sum, his own seconds, strode in. There was no doubt of their high, proud good humor. Their eyes flashed around daring anyone to defy their promotion as T’sum stood by the archway and F’nor marched smartly around to his position behind F’lar’s chair. F’nor paused to make a deeply respectful bow to the girl. F’lar saw her flush and drop her eyes.
“Who’s at our gate, F’nor?” the new Weyrleader asked affably.
“The Lords of Telgar, Nabol, Fort, and Keroon, to name the principal banners,” F’nor answered in a similar vein.
R’gul rose from his chair; the half-formed protest died on his lips as he caught the expression in the faces of the bronze riders. S’lel, beside him, started to mumble, picking at his lower lip.
“Estimated strength?”
“In excess of a thousand. In good order and well-armed,” F’nor reported indifferently.
F’lar shot his second a remonstrating look. Confidence was one thing, indifference preferable to defeat, but there was no wisdom in denying the situation was very tight.
“Against the Weyr?” S’lel gasped.
“Are we dragonmen or cowards?” D’nol snapped, jumping up, his fist pounding the table. “This is the final insult.”
“Indeed it is,” F’lar concurred heartily.
“It has to be put down. We’ll swallow no more,” D’nol continued vehemently, encouraged by F’lar’s attitude. “A few flaming . . .”
“That’s enough,” F’lar said in a hard voice. “We are dragonmen! Remember that, and remember also—never forget it—this fellowship is sworn to protect.” He enunciated that word distinctly, pinning each man with a fierce stare. “Is that point clear?” He glared questioningly at D’nol. There were to be no private heroics today.
“We do not need firestone,” he continued, certain that D’nol had taken his meaning, “to disperse these foolish Lords.” He leaned back and went on more calmly, “I noticed on Search, as I’m sure you all did, that the common holder has not lost one jot of his . . . let us say . . . respect for dragonkind.”
T’bor grinned, and someone chuckled reminiscently.
“Oh, they follow their Lords quickly enough, incited with indignation and lots of new wine. But it’s quite another matter to face a dragon, hot, tired, and cold sober. Not to mention on foot without a wall or Hold in sight.” He could sense their concurrence. “The mounted men, too, will be too much occupied with their beasts to do any serious fighting,” he added with a chuckle, echoed by most of the men in the room.
“However consoling these reflections are, there are more powerful factors in our favor. I doubt the good Lords of the Hold have bothered to review them. I suspect”—he glanced around sardonically at his riders—“they have probably forgotten them . . . as they have conveniently forgotten so much dragonlore . . . and tradition.
“It is now time to reeducate them.” His voice was steel. An affirming mutter answered him. Good, he had them.
“For instance, they are here at our gates. They’ve traveled long and hard to reach this remote Weyr. Undoubtedly some units have been marching for weeks. F’nor,” he said in a calculated aside, “remind me to discus
s patrol schedules later today. Ask yourselves this, dragonmen, if the Lords of the Holds are here, who is holding the Holds for the Lords? Who keeps guard on the Inner Hold, over all the Lords hold dear?”
He heard Lessa chuckling wickedly. She was quicker than any of the bronze riders. He had chosen well that day in Ruatha, even if it had meant killing while on Search.
“Our Weyrwoman perceives my plan. T’sum, implement it.” He snapped that order out crisply. T’sum, grinning broadly, departed.
“I don’t understand,” S’lel complained, blinking in confusion.
“Oh, let me explain,” Lessa put in quickly, her words couched in the sweet, reasonable tone F’lar was learning to identify as Lessa at her worst. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to get some of her own back from S’lel, but this taste of hers for vengeance could become pernicious.
“Someone ought to explain something,” S’lel said querulously. “I don’t like what’s going on. Holders at the Tunnel Road. Dragons permitted firestone. I don’t understand.”
“It’s so simple,” Lessa assured him sweetly, not waiting for F’lar’s permission. “I’m embarrassed to have to explain.”
“Weyrwoman!” F’lar called her sharply to order.
She didn’t look at him, but she did stop needling S’lel.
“The Lords have left their Holds unprotected,” she said. “They appear not to have considered that dragons can move between in seconds. T’sum, if I am not mistaken, has gone to assemble sufficient hostages from the unguarded Holds to insure that the Lords respect the sanctity of the Weyr.” F’lar nodded confirmation. Lessa’s eyes flashed angrily as she continued. “It is not the fault of the Lords that they have lost respect for the Weyr. The Weyr has . . .”
“The Weyr,” F’lar cut in sharply. Yes, he would have to watch this slim girl very carefully and very respectfully. “. . . the Weyr is about to insist on its traditional rights and prerogatives. Before I outline exactly how, Weyrwoman, would you greet our newest guests? A few words might be in order to reinforce the object lesson we will impress on all Pernese today.”