Dragonheart

and J’keran and brought them into the secret.

“He’s going to hate it!” K’rall declared, his face drawn in as wide a grin as he could manage. Fiona smiled in agreement, then narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized the muscles in his face.

“We’ll need to get some moisturizer or salve for you,” she declared, motioning to Terin in the private shorthand they had developed to indicate when Fiona wanted the headwoman to make a mental note.

“This is where it’d be nice to have a healer,” Terin said, frowning thoughtfully.

“Bah!” K’rall snorted. “I’m well-healed and have you to thank for it. A bit of a pinch is all I feel, and I’m sure that’ll fade as I work the muscles more.”

Fiona had reluctantly approved K’rall’s pleas to be allowed full expression of his face again. In the week since his first dinner in the Dining Cavern, her respect and affection for the gruff old rider had grown immensely. K’rall was less conservative in his thinking than Fiona had initially guessed. In fact, she realized that a lot of what she’d branded as hidebound in his behavior was more a result of caution and a certain amount of fear of failure. And a lot of that fear, Fiona had decided, had vanished with his first Thread injury and its slow recovery.

Father always said that many sticks-in-the-mud were saplings trying to grow new leaves after winter, Fiona reminded herself. She smiled softly at the memory, and was shocked to realize that if she were to go to Fort Hold now,  she’d find a father only forty Turns and still in mourning — scarcely a Turn had passed here since the Plague had taken his wife and other children from him. A part of her desperately wanted to go to him, to assure him that she would grow up healthy, wise, and strong under his parenting. She realized how much such knowledge could mean to him at the moment and the notion surprised her.

“What is it?” K’rall asked, seeing Fiona’s expression. “A burden shared . . .”

“I was thinking of my father,” Fiona admitted, knowing that the older rider would understand.

“Your Talenth is still far too young to fly, let alone between, ” K’rall admonished her. “And she’s far too sensible to try.”

“True,” Fiona agreed sardonically. While Talenth was well into her fourth month, it surprised Fiona sometimes how maturely her marvelous queen comported herself. Talenth was insistent that she be last to use her ledge for the now traditional morning weyrling glide and she was the first to greet a newly healed dragon when it tested its wings for the first time in his or her recovery. Fiona cocked her head at the older rider but stifled the question on her lips.

“Something else, now,” K’rall rumbled, feigning a hint of exasperation. “What is it?”

“Why are there so many more injured greens?”

“I don’t know,” K’rall admitted with a shrug. “Perhaps it’s because there are so many more greens than bronzes or browns” — he held up a hand to restrain her from interjecting — “and the blues are smaller, so they’re harder for Thread to hit.”

Fiona nodded, and K’rall smiled affectionately at her.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Weyrwoman, I’ve duties — more  duties — to attend!”

She waved him away, certain that she’d gained another convert to her secret plan.

Fiona waited until after dinner that evening as the younger weyrlings were clearing the dishes and preparing to bring around the desserts and then, with a nod to K’rall, she rose from her position.

“If I may have your attention,” she said in a loud, carrying voice. A bugle from a dragon in the Weyr Bowl outside ensured that the Dining Cavern was stone silent.

T’mar eyed her suspiciously and she grinned at him.

“As you know,” Fiona began, unable to keep her face straight, “we have taken to celebrating events in here, in this  time as well as those that would occur back in our own time at Fort Weyr .” She paused to allow the riders to digest her words. “You may recall that this started with my birthing day and continued with Terin’s.”

She glanced toward T’mar. “And while it will be some time before we celebrate another birthing day, tonight we celebrate something that I think, for a dragonrider, is far more significant.” She nodded to Terin, who pulled out a nicely decorated cake and started walking ceremoniously toward the high table.

“Tonight we celebrate the fact that this is the same day, in the same time, that a young Candidate stood on the Hatching Grounds — ” Fiona paused dramatically, long enough for the instructed weyrlings to trot toward various other riders with smaller confections. “ — and one, in particular, Impressed a bronze.”

T’mar’s gasp of surprise was matched by Zirenth’s delighted bugle. Several other riders were equally surprised to have small cakes placed in front of them by grinning weyrlings.

Fiona reached for her glass and raised it high. “To all those who Impressed this day!”

She was instantly joined by a thunderous roar of approval that rang around the room.

“I never even thought . . .” T’mar began when he could find his voice again, but it broke and he just sat there, silently shaking his head in shock, surprise, and pure elation. Words came to him again at last as he reached out a hand to Fiona, saying, “Thank you.”

Fiona grinned and nodded in response, thrilled that she had put one over on the all too aware T’mar.

“I’m surprised we never thought of this back at the Weyr,” K’rall murmured to Fiona as she sat back down.

“Yes, I was surprised, too,” Fiona agreed. “I suspect it will soon become a Weyr tradition.”

“It is already at Igen,” K’rall responded, and, eyes twinkling, he raised a glass in toast to Fiona.

By the next sevenday, supplies were once again beginning to run low at Igen Weyr, and so it was with a sense of relief that Fiona heard the watchdragon’s report that the trader caravan had been spotted.

“They’ll be here in the morning,” T’mar said that evening. He glanced over to K’rall. “Do you think we are ready?”

“To collect ice in this time?” K’rall asked. He had been drilling the older weyrlings in recognition points by flying himself and his Seyorth on long reconnaissance flights up the Igen mountain range, selecting prominent locations for references. Fiona fondly recalled the look of pure boyish pleasure two days earlier when K’rall had returned with a clump of ice — again she found more to admire under the older rider’s gruff exterior.

“It would be nice to have something cooling for the traders,” she said.

“How many hundredweight would you like?” K’rall asked. “I’m certain of six of the older weyrlings, but I’d not want them to haul more than a hundredweight each.” He glanced toward his weyr as he added, “Seyorth will easily handle two hundredweight.”

“I think I should come along, then,” T’mar responed. “That way, between the eight of us, we’d have ten hundredweight — a half ton.”

“Even Karina will be amazed!” Fiona said with glee. She caught T’mar’s reticence and prompted, “What?”

“Ice will do for some things but it won’t answer for our main need,” he told her.

“I think you’re right, T’mar,” K’rall agreed. “Having a watch-wher egg would be our greatest asset with the local holders.”

“I thought we had to wait on the traders for that,” Fiona objected.

“We do, which is why I’m glad to hear they’re coming,” T’mar said. He rose from his chair, gesturing for K’rall to precede him. “But until they arrive — we’ve got some chilly work to do.”

While T’mar and K’rall organized their riders, Fiona and F’jian organized the canvas and ropes the riders would need to haul back the ice.

“Fly well!” Fiona called as the eight dragonriders mounted their dragons.

T’mar and K’rall sketched salutes at her and then, at K’rall’s command, the small wing lifted and went between.

“I hope they’re not too tired when they return,” F’jian remarked as they returned to their duties. Fiona gave him an inquiring look. “Well,” he said with a shrug, “they’re going to have to time  it to get back before the traders arrive.”

Fiona nodded glumly, then lifted her head up. “Which means we need to get the storeroom ready now. ”

F’jian groaned in response and Fiona slapped his shoulder affectionately. “Just wait until your dragon is old enough to fly . . . then you’ll be able to collect the ice and  store it yourself.”

“That might not be so bad,” F’jian responded wistfully.