Dragonheart

“Eleven,” someone else called out. “V’lex was injured in the last Fall.”

“Thirty-three weyrlings to bag — ”

“Thirty-four,” Xhinna put in stoutly.

“You’re not a weyrling!” one of the younger boys complained. “You’re a girl!”

“I’m  a girl,” Fiona said warningly.

“Were you addled in your Shell, D’lanor? She’s offering to help!” another weyrling put in, eyeing Xhinna with a combination of surprise and awe.

“And what will happen when you’re all in fighting wings?” Fiona asked.

“Well, there’ll be more weyrlings,” J’keran suggested cautiously.

“Not unless Melirth rises soon!” J’gerd replied derisively.

“Why should we worry about that?” D’lanor wondered.

“You shouldn’t,” Fiona said. I  should, she added to herself. “So, who should we set to counting?”

“Why not get V’lex?” someone suggested.

“Are you witless? V’lex can barely stand,” J’keran rounded on the hapless weyrling.

“I can do it,” Fiona suggested.

“Not a good idea, Weyrwoman,” J’gerd said at once. “You’ll need to be everywhere, keeping an eye on everything.”

“And your dragon,” J’keran added, glancing around in search of Talenth.

“You’ll need her to coordinate with us,” J’gerd explained. “When we’re at the rendezvous.”

“I could do it,” a new voice piped up. “I’m good at counting.”

Fiona discovered that the voice belonged to a young girl, younger than Xhinna. She had close-cropped strawberry-blond hair and vivid green eyes.

“Terin!” Xhinna exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here? Does Ellor know?”

“I asked,” Terin replied stubbornly. “She said, ‘Just as long as you don’t get underfoot.’ ”

“Another girl,” a weyrling in the distance murmured disapprovingly.

Fiona’s doubts vanished with those words and the look on Terin’s face.

“Very well, you can be our counter,” she said. J’gerd gave her a doubtful look, then handed a slate to the young girl.

“Make a mark for every bag filled,” he told her.

“I know,” Terin replied testily. “My father is a bronze rider.”

“No, he’s not,” a voice whispered loud enough to be heard by all.

“Enough!” Fiona bellowed, causing Terin to shrink visibly and the weyrlings to back away in surprise. “We’ve work to do, and we need to do it now.” She turned to the younger werylings. “You know what to do. Get moving.”

“They’re going to need a full sack for every flying dragon,” J’gerd told her. “And then we’ll need twice that for the weyrlings.”

“That’s one hundred and sixty-four sacks to start,” Fiona translated, “and . . .”

“Three hundred and twenty-eight for the weyrlings,” Terin supplied from beside her. Catching the looks of surprise around her, she added, “I said  I was good with numbers.” She paused and looked at the weyrlings. “With Xhinna, that’s just under five sacks each to start and another . . . not quite ten for the weyrlings.”

“With that number, the werylings will be carrying close to thirty bags each, won’t they?” Fiona asked, looking to J’gerd for agreement. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded. “That’s too much weight, isn’t it?”

“Each sack weighs — ” Terin dodged past the first of the young weyrlings carrying two full sacks of firestone. “We should get out of the way.”

“One sack at a time!” J’keran shouted at the weyrling.

Terin quickly made two marks on her slate and continued, “Each sack weighs two stone. So thirty sacks would be — ” She paused to mark off another filled sack leaving the storeroom. “ — sixty stone.”

“Too much,” Fiona said. Talenth, tell Rineth that the weyrlings can only provide half the firestone at a time.

Rineth has told K’lior,  Talenth responded immediately.

“You’ll carry half the load,” Fiona told J’gerd and J’keran, “and come back for the rest.”

The two riders nodded, and quickly exchanged looks of relief. H’nez wants to know when his wing will have its firestone,  Talenth relayed to her.

Ask Rineth in what order K’lior wants the wings provisioned,  Fiona responded.

H’nez first,  Talenth replied, her voice sounding slightly amused.

“Be sure to get the firestone to H’nez’s wing first,” Fiona called to the weyrlings as they rushed past.

“It’d be quicker if the younger ones just did the bagging and the older ones distributed,” Terin said, her tone reminding Fiona somewhat of Xhinna.

“Excellent suggestion, Terin,” Fiona replied, gesturing to J’gerd to implement it.

“Are you hoping to be Weyrwoman yourself, then?” J’gerd asked the young girl teasingly before hoisting a firestone sack and trotting off toward H’nez’s waiting wing.

“Don’t listen to him,” Fiona said to Terin. “He’s just annoyed that he didn’t think of it himself.” The younger girl’s expression brightened.

Fiona could feel the tension from the dragons out in the Weyr Bowl and didn’t need to see H’nez’s irritated gestures to realize that the dragonriders expected their supplies to be delivered more quickly. She sighed and resolved to start earlier before the Fall when it really came. But “drills are how people learn,” as her father often said. She smiled to herself at the thought of how surprised her father would be to see her in her current position. Lord Bemin had always been appalled when Fiona had taken it upon herself to order the Hold guard and other holders about — yet now she was ordering dragonriders !

Fiona stood at the entrance of the firestone room until Terin’s count reached thirty sacks and then decided to follow the last sack to see how things were with the dragonriders.

Her eyes first went to H’nez’s depleted wing. The older weyrling carrying the last load was struggling to bring it to the waiting blue rider at a trot, but the distance from the firestone room was such that it took several minutes to get there.

“Who’s next?” Fiona murmured aloud to herself, determined to order the next wing to move closer to the firestone. Irritably, she realized that she didn’t know. Probably M’valer and K’rall, H’nez’s favorite wingleaders, Fiona decided with a grimace. Fiona guessed that K’lior was giving the prickly flightleader the opportunity to be first into the drill.

Talenth, have M’valer bring his wing here,  she told her dragon. They’ll get their firestone that much quicker.

A mild bugle in the distance alerted Fiona that her queen had relayed the message and that M’valer was surprised at it.

They come,  Talenth replied a moment later. Linth was surprised that I told him.

“Upsetting the bronze riders, I see,” a woman’s voice said. Fiona whirled and was surprised to find Cisca looking down at her, an expression of approval on her face.

“This is quicker,” Fiona said, gesturing to the wing of dragons that had arrived in front of the firestone room.

“I know,” Cisca agreed in an easy, amused tone. “But having your new queen — ‘not months out of her shell’ — order grizzled veterans around is something new to them.”

“I suppose it must be,” Fiona agreed reluctantly. “But they seemed so upset at not getting their firestone quicker — ”

“Don’t apologize,” Cisca interrupted, holding up a hand. “You’re doing your duty as a Weyrwoman.”

“Was this another test?” Fiona asked, her feelings mixed between relief that she’d passed and annoyance that she’d been tested again.

“Every day is a test,” Cisca replied soberly. “But we’ll never learn new ways of doing things if we insist on