The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [119]
T’ton took complete charge and had his Fidranth pass the order to return to the references Lytol had given, adding by way of Ramoth a description of the humans and Mnementh.
The cold of between restored Lessa to herself, although her error had badly jarred her confidence. But then there was Ruatha again. The dragons happily arranged themselves in tremendous display. And there, silhouetted against the light from the Hall, stood Lytol, Robinton’s tall figure, and . . . F’lar.
Mnementh’s voice gave a brassy welcome, and Ramoth could not land Lessa quickly enough to go and twine necks with her mate.
Lessa stood where Ramoth had left her, unable to move. She was aware that Mardra and T’ton were beside her. She was conscious only of F’lar, racing across the Court toward her. Yet she could not move.
He grabbed her in his arms, holding her so lightly to him that she could not doubt the joy of his welcome.
“Lessa, Lessa,” his voice raggedly chanted in her ear. He pressed her face against his, crushing her to breathlessness, all his careful detachment abandoned. He kissed her, hugged her, held her, and then kissed her with rough urgency again. Then he suddenly set her on her feet and gripped her shoulders. “Lessa, if you ever . . .” he said, punctuating each word with a flexing of his fingers, then stopped, aware of a grinning circle of strangers surrounding them.
“I told you he’d shake me,” Lessa was saying, dashing tears from her face. “But, F’lar, I brought them all . . . all but Benden Weyr. And that is why the five Weyrs were abandoned. I brought them.”
F’lar looked around him, looked beyond the leaders to the masses of dragons settling in the Valley, on the heights, everywhere he turned. There were dragons, blue, green, bronze, brown, and a whole wingful of golden queen dragons alone.
“You brought the Weyrs?” he echoed, stunned.
“Yes, this is Martha and T’ton of Fort Weyr, D’ram and . . .”
He stopped her with a little shake, pulling her to his side so he could see and greet the newcomers.
“I am more grateful than you can know,” he said and could not go on with all the many words he wanted to add.
T’ton stepped forward, holding out his hand, which F’lar seized and held firmly.
“We bring eighteen hundred dragons, seventeen queens, and all that is necessary to implement our Weyrs.”
“And they brought flamethrowers, too,” Lessa put in excitedly.
“But—to come . . . to attempt it . . .” F’lar murmured in admiring wonder.
T’ton and D’ram and the others laughed.
“Your Lessa showed the way . . .”
“. . . with the Red Star to guide us . . .” she said.
“We are dragonmen,” T’ton continued solemnly, “as you are yourself, F’lar of Benden. We were told there are Threads here to fight, and that’s work for dragonmen to do . . . in any time!”
Drummer, beat, and piper, blow,
Harper, strike, and soldier, go.
Free the flame and sear the grasses
Till the dawning Red Star passes.
Even as the five Weyrs had been settling around Ruatha Valley, F’nor had been compelled to bring forward in time his southern weyrfolk. They had all reached the end of endurance in double-time life, gratefully creeping back to quarters they had vacated two days and ten Turns ago.
R’gul, totally unaware of Lessa’s backward plunge, greeted F’lar and his Weyrwoman, on their return to the Weyr, with the news of F’nor’s appearance with seventy-two new dragons and the further word that he doubted any of the riders would be fit to fight.
“I’ve never seen such exhausted men in my life,” R’gul rattled on, “can’t imagine what could have gotten into them, with sun and plenty of food and all, and no responsibilities.”
F’lar and Lessa exchanged glances.
“Well, the southern Weyr ought to be maintained, R’gul. Think it over.”
“I’m a fighting dragonman, not a womanizer,” the old dragonrider grunted. “It’d take more than a trip between times to reduce me like those others.”
“Oh, they’ll be themselves again in next to no time,” Lessa said and, to R