The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [122]
“Do you mean to say that you allow your queens to fly—against Threads?” F’lar ignored the fact that F’nor was grinning, and T’ton, too.
“Allow?” D’ram bellowed. “You can’t stop them. Don’t you know your Ballads?”
“’Moreta’s Ride?”
“Exactly.’
F’nor laughed aloud at the expression on F’lar’s face as he irritably pulled the hanging forelock from his eyes. Then, sheepishly, he began to grin.
“Thanks. That gives me an idea.”
He saw his fellow Weyrleaders to their dragons, waved cheerfully to Robinton and Fandarel, more lighthearted than he would have thought he’d be the morning before the second battle. Then he asked Mnementh where Lessa might be.
Bathing, the bronze dragon replied.
F’lar glanced at the empty queen’s weyr.
Oh, Ramoth is on the Peak, as usual. Mnementh sounded aggrieved.
F’lar heard the sound of splashing in the bathing room suddenly cease, so he called down for hot klah. He was going to enjoy this.
“Oh, did the meeting go well?” Lessa asked sweetly as she emerged from the bathing room, drying-cloth wrapped tightly around her slender figure.
“Extremely. You realize, of course, Lessa, that you’ll be needed at Telgar?”
She looked at him intently for a moment before she smiled again.
“I am the only Weyrwoman who can speak to any dragon,” she replied archly.
“True,” F’lar admitted blithely. “And no longer the only queen’s rider in Benden. . . .”
“I hate you!” Lessa snapped, unable to evade F’lar as he pinned her cloth-swathed body to his.
“Even when I tell you that Fandarel has a flamethrower for you so you can join the queens’ wing?”
She stopped squirming in his arms and stared at him, disconcerted that he had outguessed her.
“And that Kylara will be installed as Weyrwoman in the south . . . in this time? As Weyrleader, I need my peace and quiet between battles. . . .”
The cloth fell from her body to the floor as she responded to his kiss as ardently as if dragon-roused.
From the Weyr and from the Bowl,
Bronze and brown and blue and green,
Rise the dragonmen of Pern,
Aloft, on wing; seen, then unseen.
Ranged above the Peak of Benden Weyr, a scant three hours after dawn, two hundred and sixteen dragons held their formations as F’lar on bronze Mnementh inspected their ranks.
Below in the Bowl were gathered all the weyrfolk and some of those injured in the first battle. All the weyrfolk, that is, except Lessa and Ramoth. They had gone on to Fort Weyr where the queens’ wing was assembling. F’lar could not quite suppress a twinge of concern that she and Ramoth would be fighting, too. A holdover, he knew, from the days when Pern had had only one queen. If Lessa could jump four hundred Turns between and lead five Weyrs back, she could take care of herself and her dragon against Threads.
He checked to be sure that every man was well loaded with firestone sacks, that each dragon was in good color, especially those in from the southern Weyr. Of course, the dragons were fit, but the faces of the men still showed evidences of the temporal strains they had endured. He was procrastinating, and the Threads would be dropping in the skies of Telgar.
He gave the order to go between. They reappeared above, and to the south of Telgar Hold itself, and were not the first arrivals. To the west, to the north, and, yes, to the east now, wings arrived until the horizon was patterned with the great V’s of several thousand dragon wings. Faintly he heard the claxon bell on Telgar Hold Tower as the unexpected dragon strength was acclaimed from the ground.
“Where is she?” F’lar demanded of Mnementh. “We’ll need her presently to relay orders . . .”
She’s coming, Mnementh interrupted him.
Right above Telgar Hold another wing appeared. Even at this distance, F’lar could see the difference: the golden dragons shone in the bright morning sunlight.
A hum of approval drifted down the dragon ranks, and despite his fleeting worry,