Dragonriders do trust
Thread will soon be nigh.
FortWeyr , Morning, AL 507.13.26
The pall of disaster the next morning was shattered by the watch dragon’s bugled cry.
The news galvanized the Weyr.
“Mmph!” Xhinna complained as Fiona nudged her to get up. “What is it?”
“Dust fall at Fort Hold ,” Fiona told her shortly, jumping out of bed and pulling on her clothes. “The Weyrleader wants to meet with me.”
“Where?” Xhinna called out as Fiona tore out of the room, still adjusting her tunic.
“Records Room!” Fiona called back over her shoulder, and then she was gone, leaving friend and dragon exchanging bemused looks.
“Where’s Xhinna?” Cisca grumbled as Fiona stumbled into the Records Room. The Weyrwoman and Weyrleader were hunched over an old chart, peering closely at it in the dim light of their night glow. “I was hoping she’d bring
“Still getting up,” Fiona replied. She stood next to Cisca, leaning her arms on a chair back to look at the chart laid out on the table. She vaguely recognized the shape of Pern’s Northern Continent and she could pick out the symbols for the major Holds and Weyrs, but she didn’t understand the meaning of the wiggly lines that were drawn like snakes over everything. Unless the snakes were Thread or — “Do those lines show the Threadfalls?”
“Yes,” K’lior agreed, glancing at her approvingly. “Master Archivist Verilan and your friend, Kindan, worked them out.”
“If they’re accurate,” Cisca added, “then the next fall should be . . . here — High Reaches Tip.” The tip of her tongue stuck out between pursed lips. “High Reaches again for the next Fall, at Southern Tillek .”
“And then Benden Weyr and Bitra,” K’lior said, pointing to another squiggle. Fiona saw that each line had a number next to it.
“But why is this one marked seven and not one?” she asked, tapping the line for the Fort Hold Fall.
“I don’t know,” K’lior confessed with a shrug. “I suppose that’s a question for Kindan — ”
“Verilan,” Cisca corrected absently, still intent on the chart. “Kindan has enough to deal with at Benden.”
“All Verilan was willing to say was that the charts were the best guess, based on old Records they’d found at the Harper Hall and the Weyrs,” K’lior remarked. He paused, still scanning the chart, and then pointed. “This one here, the twelfth Fall by this chart, that’s when we’ll next see Thread.”
“We must warn Benden,” Cisca said. “If we’re getting blackdust, I suspect it’ll be even colder up High Reaches way, but Benden gets those warm winds from the sea.” She frowned in thought, then asked K’lior, “How warm does it have to be for Thread to survive?”
“Or how cold to freeze?” K’lior replied, turning the question on its head. He shrugged. “I imagine that Thread probably freezes like any other living thing — ” He nodded appreciatively as both Fiona and Cisca shuddered at his use of the word
“Well, now we know,” Cisca said firmly, indicating the chart. “If these charts are to be believed — ”
“Let’s see if these other falls come as predicted,” K’lior suggested.
“ — then we’ve got a little more than fifteen days to prepare,” Cisca concluded, riding over K’lior’s interjection.
K’lior nodded and took on the distant look of a rider communing with his dragon. “I’ve called a wingleader’s meeting for breakfast.”
Xhinna rushed in at that moment, asking breathlessly, “Weyrleader, Weyrwoman, is there anything I can get you?”
K’lior and Cisca exchanged amused looks. Cisca shook her head. “You’re just in time to escort us to the Kitchen Cavern where we’ll all have breakfast.”
The breakfast with the wingleaders was a somber affair. H’nez professed no faith in the Threadfall charts when K’lior mentioned them.
“Which is why we’ll keep our patrols out,” K’lior assured the grumpy wingleader.
H’nez accepted that decision with a contented look. “We must alert the Weyrs, of course,” he observed.
“Of course,” K’lior agreed drily. “Although I rather suspect that D’gan at Telgar will not take kindly to anything we have to say.”
“D’gan has a problem,” Cisca murmured angrily.
“What about High Reaches?” P’der asked. “D’vin wouldn’t come to your council earlier.”
“I’ve already alerted Lyrinth, the queen dragon there,” Cisca replied.
“I’ll go to Benden,” T’mar offered.
“I’ll go to Ista,” P’der said.
“I can imagine how Weyrleader C’rion will feel to be briefed by a wingsecond,” H’nez drawled.
“Are you offering to go instead?” K’lior asked, cocking his head.
“I’ve my wing to attend to,” H’nez responded. “They suffered grievous losses.”
“We all did,” Cisca replied, her eyes flashing. H’nez did not reply.
“P’der, T’mar, when can you leave?” K’lior asked. The Kitchen Cavern had slowly been filling up as they conferred, and he could feel the concern and grief flowing in equal measures amongst the weyrfolk and dragonriders.
“I can leave now,” T’mar announced, rising from his chair.
“I think — ” H’nez’s words halted T’mar’s motion. “ — that we need to consider the larger issue before we break up.”
“And that is?” K’lior asked politely.
“The question is,” H’nez replied as though speaking to a particularly slow weyrling, “how are we going to survive Threadfall with sick dragons?”
“
“I’ll want all the wings at the Weyr ready for drill after lunch,” K’lior declared. He glanced at P’der and T’mar, adding, “If you’re not back by then, we’ll work without you. We know that we’ll have casualties when we fight Thread, so it makes sense to practice for that now.”
“By the First Egg, that’s more like it,” H’nez declared. To T’mar he said, “You go and spend time with M’tal, while we do real work back here.”
“His job is no less important, H’nez,” K’lior said warningly. He waved T’mar and P’der away. “And now,” he said, reaching for a fresh roll, “I think we should finish our breakfast and get ready for the work of the day.”
“T’mar!” Cisca called as the bronze rider prepared to mount Zirenth . They were in the Weyr Bowl, less than half an hour after the end of their breakfast.
“Weyrwoman?” T’mar responded, turning around to face her.
Cisca crossed the distance between them so that she could speak in a normal voice. “You understand that there’s a risk, going to Benden.”
T’mar nodded.
“We can’t say how the illness spreads,” she continued, relieved at his easy response, “so don’t stay any longer than necessary.”
“I will,” he assured her. With a grin he added, “I want to get back in time to see how my wing flies without me!”
“Fly well!”
