I’ll really  need my friends.” She glanced imploringly at Xhinna. “Will you be there then?”

“Of course I will,” Xhinna declared. She hugged Fiona tightly.

“Good,” Fiona said, “because I’m sure I’ll be a right proper wherry when that day comes!”

Xhinna snorted a laugh. “I don’t doubt it for an instant.”

“But now,” Fiona added with a wide yawn, “it’s late and we should sleep.” She draped an arm over Xhinna and, in moments, was sound asleep.

“Wake up!” Fiona urged Xhinna. “Something’s happening!”

A draft of cold air hit her as she leapt out of the bed, and she yelped as her bare feet touched the cold floor. The sense of urgency that had awakened her overwhelmed her fatigue.

Pulling on slippers and a robe, she ran to the ledge and looked out into the Weyr Bowl. “I’m right!” she declared. “Get up, Xhinna — now! Something’s up!”

Startled into full wakefulness, Xhinna darted out of bed without any of Fiona’s cold-feet histrionics and was at her side seconds later.

“See?” Fiona said pointing. “There are dragons down there and — listen!”

A male voice was issuing instructions softly in the night fog. “All here, then?” It was H’nez.

“Come on!” Fiona urged, darting into Talenth’s weyr and out through the entrance into the Weyr Bowl proper.

“Help me with her,” an old woman’s voice demanded querulously.

“I’m all right,” Tannaz replied, her voice sounding dead in the night air. “It’s Kelsanth — she can barely move.” Softly, she added, “Come on, dear, just a short walk and then we can go together.”

“No!” Fiona’s shout rent the night air. “No, you can’t!” She turned back to her weyr. “Talenth! Talenth, wake up! Talk to Kelsanth, tell her she can’t! She can’t go between !”

“Fiona,” Tannaz called. To the others, she said, “I told you, you were too loud.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Melanwy said soothingly. “Just get Kelsanth down the ledge, now, and we can go.”

“No!” Fiona cried again, willing Talenth to wake up. The young queen snorted in her sleep and lifted her head blearily.

Fiona?

Tell her to stop!  Fiona shouted to her dragon.

“Fiona,” someone else called softly through the night air. It was Cisca.

“They’re going between  forever!” Fiona cried.

“I know,” Cisca replied calmly. “It’s their choice.”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Tannaz called from her place in the Weyr Bowl.

Fiona turned and rushed out of her weyr, jumping off the ledge and landing hard on the packed ground below, her anger and despair carrying her quickly to Tannaz.

“You weren’t even going to say good-bye?” Fiona demanded hotly. She turned to the other shining dragon eyes arrayed in the Weyr Bowl. She recognized them through some instinct beyond normal — Asoth, Panunth, Danorth — all the sickest dragons, including Kelsanth, who wheezingly trundled down the ramp from her lair.

“They won’t last another day,” Tannaz said imploringly. She gestured miserably to Kelsanth. “And I can’t live without her.”

“There must be another way!” Fiona cried. “There has to be!”

“There is none,” H’nez declared.

“I have to agree,” K’lior chimed in. His voice came from the ledge near his weyr. He was carrying a glow basket and Fiona saw it approach her, a shimmering ball of light in the night mist. “Once joined, a dragon and rider are together until death.”

“I spoke with Mikal once,” M’rorin called out from the dark. “He said that if he’d had the chance, he would have gone between  with his dragon.”

“But not everyone does,” Fiona complained. “ Salina stayed behind when her Breth went between !”

“Fiona,” Cisca said, “it is their choice.”

“I hope you never have to make it,” Tannaz added quietly.

It was too much. Fiona broke down, great sobs engulfing her and her eyes blurring with tears. An arm wrapped around her shoulder and someone was embracing her, and then, suddenly, she was looking up into Tannaz’s eyes.

“Let us say good-bye,” the older Weyrwoman said quietly.

“I’ll never see you again,” Fiona wailed, crushing herself against Tannaz’s tall frame, clinging to her. But her strength was spent, and after a moment, Tannaz pulled herself free of her grasp. Someone else replaced her.

“Be strong, Weyrwoman,” M’rorin told her huskily. Fiona hugged him tightly, her senses informing her that all around her, the scene was being repeated with K’lior, Cisca, H’nez, T’mar, and the others.

“We must hurry,” Melanwy called from above them, clearly having managed to climb onto Kelsanth. “There is not much time.”

“Weyrwoman,” J’marin said to Fiona, hugging her tightly and then pushing her away. “You will survive, you will thrive.”

Fiona could say nothing in response, her stomach heaving with sorrow and despair.

“Don’t forget what I said, Weyrwoman,” L’rian whispered quietly to her as he gave her a hug. “Given a chance, let her on the Hatching Grounds.”

“For this?” Fiona demanded, gesturely wildly around at the dying dragons.

“There must come better days,” L’rian replied.

“Then stay  for them,” Fiona demanded.

“Not without my Danorth,” L’rian said, shaking his head sadly. “There’d be no life without her.” He gestured behind her to her weyr and Talenth, whom Fiona heard crooning anxiously in the background. “Could you live without your queen?” Before Fiona could reply, L’rian continued, “I can’t live without my dragon. I’m a dragonrider.” He reached down and, with one hand, gently raised her chin so her eyes met his. “Let me be remembered as a dragonrider, Weyrwoman.”

“All right,” Fiona agreed softly, her tears dimming her vision. L’rian hugged her quickly, stepped away, and patted her on the back. “Good girl!”

“We must get going!” Melanwy declared once more. “We’ll wake the whole Weyr!”

“The loss of just one dragon will wake the whole Weyr,” Cisca retorted sourly.

“Cisca,” Tannaz called out from the darkness, now closer to her dragon, probably climbing onto her shoulders, “I’m sorry.”

“You do what your heart tells you,” Cisca replied, “and I can’t argue with you.”

At last all were on their dragons.

“Weyrwoman, we’re ready,” J’marin called to Tannaz through the night fog.

“Very well,” Tannaz replied. At an unspoken command, four sets of dragon wings cupped air, four sets of feet leapt up, four dragons climbed briefly in the still night and then — were gone, between.

Fiona only vaguely remembered the massed bugles and keening of the Weyr; she only vaguely remembered collapsing as the grief, magnified a hundredfold by all the dragons of Fort Weyr, rebounded through her, but she dimly recalled Xhinna hovering anxiously nearby, and then being scooped up by strong, warm hands and gingerly carried back to her weyr and laid into her bed, and then sleep swept over her and she remembered no more until the dawn.

NINE

Blackdust, crack dust

Floating in the sky,

Вы читаете Dragonheart
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату