The stones of the weyr itself seemed to reverberate with the mourning dirge of the dragons.
“T’bor, send someone for Manora,” F’nor cried in a hoarse voice as he bore Brekke to her couch. Her body was so light in his arms—as if all substance had been drained from it. He held her tightly to his chest with one arm, fumbling to find the pulse in her neck with the free hand. It beat—faintly.
What had happened? How could Kylara have allowed Prideth near Wirenth?
“They’re both gone,” T’bor was saying as he stumbled into the sleeping room and sagged down on the clothes chest, trembling violently.
“Where’s Kylara? Where is she?”
“Don’t know. I left this morning to fly patrols.” T’bor scrubbed at his face, shock bleaching the ruddy color from his skin. “The lake was polluted . . .”
F’nor piled furs around Brekke’s motionless body. He held his hand against her chest, feeling its barely perceptible rise and fall.
F’nor?
It was Canth, his call so faint, so piteous that the man closed his eyes against the pain in his dragon’s tone.
He felt someone grip his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see the pity, the understanding in T’bor’s. “There’s nothing more you can do for her right now, F’nor.”
“She’ll want to die. Don’t let her!” he said. “Don’t let Brekke die!”
Canth was on the ledge, his eyes glowing dully. He was swaying with exhaustion. F’nor encircled the bowed head with his arms, their mutual grief so intense they seemed afire with pain.
It was too late. Prideth had risen. Too close to Wirenth. Not even the queens could help. I tried F’nor I tried. She—she fell so fast. And she turned on me. Then went between. I could not find her between.
They stood together, immobile.
Lessa and Manora saw them as Ramoth circled into High Reaches Weyr. At Canth’s bellow, Ramoth had come out of the Hatching Ground, loudly calling for her rider, demanding an explanation of such behavior.
But F’lar, believing he knew Canth’s errand, had reassured her, until Ramoth had informed them that Wirenth was rising. And Ramoth knew instantly when Prideth rose, too, and had gone between to Nabol to stop the mortal combat if she could.
Once Wirenth had dragged Prideth between, Ramoth had returned to Benden Weyr for Lessa. The Benden dragons set up their keen so that the entire Weyr soon knew of the disaster. But Lessa waited only long enough for Manora to gather her medicines.
As she and the headwoman reached the ledge of Brekke’s weyr and the motionless mourners, Lessa looked anxiously to Manora. There was something dangerous in such stillness.
“They will work this out together. They are together, more now than ever before,” Manora said in a voice that was no more than a rough whisper. She passed them quietly, her head bent and her shoulders drooping as she hurried down the corridor to Brekke.
“Ramoth?” asked Lessa, looking down to where her queen had settled on the sands. It was not that she doubted Manora’s wisdom, but to see F’nor so—so reduced—upset her. He was much like F’lar . . .
Ramoth gave a soft croon and folded her wings. On the ledges around the Bowl, the other dragons began to settle in uneasy vigil.
As Lessa entered the Cavern of the Weyr, she glanced away from the empty dragon couch and then halted midstep. The tragedy was only minutes past so the nine bronze riders were still in severe shock.
As well they might be, Lessa realized with deep sympathy. To be roused to performance intensity and then be, not only disappointed, but disastrously deprived of two queens at once! Whether a bronze won the queen or not, there was a subtle, deep attachment between a queen and the bronzes of her Weyr . . .
However, Lessa concluded briskly, someone in this benighted Weyr ought to have sense enough to be constructive. Lessa broke this train of thought off abruptly. Brekke had been the responsible member.
She turned, about to go in search of some stimulant for the dazed riders when she heard the uneven steps and stertorous breathing of someone in a hurry. Two green fire lizards darted into the weyr, hovering, chirping excitedly as a young girl came in at a half-run. She could barely manage the heavy tray she carried and she was weeping, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Oh!” she cried, seeing Lessa. She stifled her sobs, tried to bob a curtsey and blot her nose on her shoulder at one and the same time.
“Well, you’re a child with wits about you,” Lessa said briskly, but not without sympathy. She took one end of the tray and helped the girl deposit it on the table. “You brought strong spirits?” she asked, gesturing to the anonymous earthenware bottles.
“All I could find.” And the consonant ended in a sob.
“Here” and Lessa held out a half-filled cup, nodding toward the nearest rider. But the child was motionless, staring at the curtain, her face twisted with grief, the tears flowing unnoticed down her cheeks. She was washing her hands together with such violent motions that the skin stretched white across her knuckles.
“You’re Mirrim?”
The child nodded, her eyes not leaving the closed entrance. Above her the greens whirred, echoing her distress.
“Manora is with Brekke, Mirrim.”
“But—but she’ll die. She’ll die. They say the rider dies, too, when the dragon is killed. They say . . .”
“They say entirely too much,” Lessa began and then Manora stood in the doorway.
“She lives. Sleep is the kindest blessing now.” She flipped the curtain shut and glanced at the men. “These could do with sleep. Have their dragons returned? Who’s this?” Manora touched Mirrim’s cheek, gently. “Mirrim? I’d heard you had green lizards.”
“Mirrim had the sense to bring the tray,” Lessa said, catching Manora’s eye.
“Brekke—Brekke would expect—” and the girl could go no further.
“Brekke is a sensible person,” Manora said briskly and folded Mirrim’s fingers around a cup, giving her a shove toward a rider. “Help us now. These men need our help.”
In a daze, Mirrim moved, rousing herself to help actively when the bronze rider could not seem to get his fingers to the cup.
“My lady,” murmured Manora, “we need the Weyrleader. Ista and Telgar Weyrs would be fighting Thread by now and . . .”
“I’m here,” F’lar said from the weyr entrance. “And I’ll take a shot of that, too. Cold between is in my bones.”
“We’ve more fools than we need right now,” Lessa exclaimed, but her face brightened to see him there.
“Where’s T’bor?”
Manora indicated Brekke’s room.
“All right. Then where’s Kylara?”
And the cold of between was in his voice.