“I think it’s time to set out watchriders.”
“At this hour?” Cisca inquired.
“Immediately,” K’lior replied with a firm nod, gesturing for Cisca to precede him. As they left, Fiona heard him continue quietly, “I think it would be a good idea to post several healthy dragons at the holds.”
His voice was cut off as he and the Weyrwoman turned toward their quarters.
Fiona entered Tannaz’s quarters with a bucket of fresh glows. While she replaced the old glows with new, she also found herself tidying up, making the bed, picking up clothes, and generally behaving in a manner that, she knew, would have surprised everyone back at Fort Hold .
You’re a dragonrider now, she told herself sternly. It’s time to behave like one.
But, deep down, Fiona knew that her behavior was more to convince herself that she wasn’t some sort of monster.
“I’m rather glad that happened,” Cisca said as she and K’lior entered the Council Room.
“With Fiona, or Melanwy?”
“Both, I think,” Cisca replied, a thoughtful look on her face. She sighed. “ ‘Out of the mouths of babes!’ Xhinna is right that we — I — should replace Melanwy as headwoman but . . .”
“You were afraid?” K’lior teased gently.
Cisca gave him a measuring look, her lips pursed tightly, before finally admitting, “Yes.”
K’lior nodded and said nothing.
“Well, maybe not so much afraid as . . . considerate,” Cisca corrected herself.
“That’s what I thought,” K’lior told her.
“And,” Cisca said, persisting with her self-examination, “because I was hoping that the problem would solve itself without my pushing.”
“And so it did,” K’lior observed.
Cisca shook her head. “Only because Fiona lost her temper and pushed instead.” She furrowed her brow, deliberating internally.
“She’ll be careful now,” K’lior said. “You scared her.”
“I hope I didn’t scare her too much,” Cisca admitted ruefully. She smiled at K’lior. “Such power!”
“She said she was angry,” K’lior remarked.
“Yes, but she compelled Melanwy,” Cisca persisted. “Can you imagine the power that took?”
“Melanwy’s — ”
“ — getting old, yes,” Cisca said, cutting across his objection, “but she also has had tens of Turns more time to learn resistance to such compulsions.”
“Are you suggesting that Fiona might be a problem?” K’lior asked, his eyes hooded.
“No,” Cisca replied with a firm shake of her head. “I’m saying that she’s going to be an awesome Weyrwoman when the time comes.”
K’lior mulled that over silently until the sound of the wingleaders’ footsteps disturbed him.
As usual, H’nez was first, followed closely by T’mar.
Really, K’lior reflected, it should be the other way around. Carefully he schooled his face to hide his thoughts as he examined his eight wingleaders.
H’nez was hotheaded, bold, decisive, and unwilling to admit error. Not quite foolish, but given to moods.
T’mar . . . T’mar was not himself, K’lior thought in agreement with Cisca’s earlier disturbing observation. T’mar was more than ten — closer to twelve — Turns older than K’lior. In fact, except for an excessive level of restraint, he was the rider that K’lior himself had most hoped to emulate. But something had happened to T’mar, something that left him slightly off his peak, distracted . . . and it had cost him the leadership of the Weyr when Cisca’s Melirth had unexpectedly risen after the death of Nara ’s Hinirth.
M’kury was a weyrmate of K’lior’s; they had Impressed at the same time. M’kury was enthusiastic, outgoing, but perhaps overexuberant. He was also blunt in the extreme, which often rubbed people the wrong way. K’lior had no problem with it, as he had learned that M’kury expected no less in return. In fact, K’lior found it refreshing, even if occasionally overwhelming, to know that M’kury would never refrain from speaking his mind.
V’ney was almost the exact opposite; a person for whom manners were of paramount importance. His polish was well rewarded as he was liked — no, adored — by all his riders and had no lack of weyrmates, either. However, he was not as quick as H’nez or T’mar — when he was on form — when it came to handling a wing in flight. He could be counted to perform magnificently in ordinary maneuvers, but he — and his wing — tended to come apart when things got out of hand.
M’valer and K’rall were old, both having been wingleaders ever since K’lior could remember. And while they were steady, K’lior was concerned that they’d spent so much of their lives preparing — they were both nearing their fiftieth Turn as dragonriders — that they would have neither the stamina nor the flexibility when it came time to fight live Thread.
The last two wingleaders came last to the Council Room and looked anxious and out-of-place as they entered. K’lior waved them in and gave them encouraging looks, but he could see the way they stiffened when confronted by H’nez’s glower and K’rall’s half-heard snort.
S’kan and N’jian were brown riders, and all of K’lior’s work had not yet reconciled H’nez or K’rall to the fact that there were not enough mature bronzes to lead all the wings. And, in all honesty, K’lior wasn’t sure that even if he’d had enough bronzes, he’d consider displacing these two as wingleaders. For, in constrast to the steady V’ney or the aging K’rall and M’valer, S’kan and N’jian were natural leaders — and natural wingleaders.
In fact, K’lior admitted to himself, it was a pity that queens were almost always caught by bronzes, for these two brown riders would both have made excellent Weyrleaders.
“It’s not right, browns leading wings!” H’nez had complained when K’lior had first implemented his plan, and the grumbling had never ceased since. And no matter how hard K’lior or Cisca praised the brown riders or encouraged them, the resentment of H’nez, K’rall, and M’valer always kept S’kan and N’jian feeling unworthy.
K’lior gestured for the wingleaders to sit as he pulled out a chair for Cisca, but all except for M’kury waited until the Weyrwoman was properly seated. M’kury gave Cisca an unapologetic grin, which she returned; she was used to the prickly bronze rider and preferred his lack of airs to those of some others.
“So why did you call us at this late hour, K’lior?” M’kury began without preamble. “I was already well into a nice beer and looking forward to some — ” He broke off with a meaningful glance toward Cisca.
“I’m not sorry to interrupt your revelry,” K’lior replied just as briskly, “particularly as you have made it plain to everyone how tender your backside was after the last time you — ”
“All right!” M’kury broke in with a hand upraised, conceding defeat. “Forget I spoke.”
“Forgotten,” Cisca said, her eyes dancing. She wondered which poor weyrfolk was dealing with M’kury’s latest attentions — the young bronze rider seemed to have a different bedwarmer for every one of a sevenday.
“If your reasons for calling us were only to . . .” H’nez began suggestively.
“They were nothing of the sort,” Cisca interjected hotly. “However some of us believe in exchanging pleasantries.”
K’lior cleared his throat loudly. Cisca gave him a look that was not quite sorry but was, at least, attentive.
“I want to start posting riders to the holds,” the Weyrleader announced without preamble.
The outburst was immediate and predictable. “The holds!” “Why now?” “You’d be dispersing our strength!”
“Not that any explanation is required, Weyrleader,” M’kury cut in loudly and clearly, quelling the others into silence, “but I’d like it if you could explain your plan and the duration of the dispersement.”
“We know that Thread is due very soon,” K’lior began, ignoring the expected disgruntled body language displayed by H’nez, K’rall, and M’valer. He hid his surprise at T’mar’s similar expression as he continued, “The weather is cold this time of year and may be cold enough that the Thread will freeze when it falls — ”
“Blackdust!” M’kury exclaimed, slapping a hand to his forehead. “By the First Egg, why didn’t I think of that?”
“Perhaps that’s why you’re not the Weyrleader,” V’ney ventured in a tone that suggested that the exuberant rider might consider containing himself and letting K’lior continue.
M’kury smiled and gestured for K’lior to go on, but before he could, H’nez objected, “And what good would it do to send riders to the holds?”
