Anne McCaffrey - Dragonquest

“If that’s why there are always so many coming back, I’ll give her other duties.” T’bor sounded so bitter that F’nor stared at him. “Brekke, how many more wounded can we accommodate?”

“Only four, but Varena at West can handle at least twenty.”

From her expression, F’nor could tell she hoped there weren’t that many wounded.

“R’mart asks to send ten, only one badly injured,” T’bor said, but he was still resentful.

“He’d best stay here then.”

F’nor started to say that he felt Brekke was spreading herself too thin as it was. It was obvious to him that, though she had few of the privileges, she had assumed all the responsibilities that Kylara ought to handle, while that one did much as she pleased. Including complaining that Brekke was shirking or stinting this or that. Brekke’s queen, Wirenth, was still young enough to need a lot of care; Brekke fostered young Mirrim though she had had no children herself and none of the Southern riders seemed to share her bed. Yet Brekke also took it upon herself to nurse the most seriously wounded Dragonriders. Not that F’nor wasn’t grateful to her. She seemed to have an extra sense that told her when numbweed needed renewing, or when fever was high and made you fretful. Her hands were miracles of gentleness, cool, but she could be ruthless, too, in disciplining her patients to health.

“I appreciate your help, Brekke,” T’bor said. “I really do.”

“I wonder if other arrangements ought to be made,” F’nor suggested tentatively.

“What do you mean?”

Oh-ho, thought F’nor, the man’s touchy. “For hundreds of Turns, Dragonriders managed to get well in their own Weyrs. Why should the Southern ones be burdened with wounded useless men, constantly dumped on them to recuperate?”

“Benden sends very few,” Brekke said quietly.

“I don’t mean just Benden. Half the men here right now are from Fort Weyr. They could as well bask on the beaches of Southern Boll . . .”

“T’ron’s no leader – ” T’bor said in a disparaging tone.

“So Mardra would like us to believe,” Brekke interrupted with such uncharacteristic asperity that T’bor stared at her in surprise.

“You don’t miss much, do you, little lady?” said F’nor with a whoop of laughter. “That’s what Lessa said and I agree.”

Brekke flushed.

“What do you mean, Brekke?” asked T’bor.

“Just that five of the men most seriously wounded were flying in Mardra’s wing!”

“Her wing?” F’nor glanced sharply at T’bor, wondering if this was news to him, too.

“Hadn’t you heard?” Brekke asked, almost bitterly. “Ever since D’nek was Threaded, she’s been flying . . .”

“A queen eating firestone? Is that why Loranth hasn’t risen to mate?”

“I didn’t say Loranth ate firestone,” Brekke contradicted. “Mardra’s got some sense left. A sterile queen’s no better than a green. And Mardra’d not be senior or Weyrwoman. No, she uses a fire thrower.”

“On an upper level?” F’nor was stunned. And T’ron had the nerve to prate how Fort Weyr kept tradition?

“That’s why so many men are injured in her wing; the dragons fly close to protect their queen. A flame thrower throws ‘down’ but not out, or wide enough to catch airborne Thread at the speed dragons fly.”

“That is without doubt . . . ouch!” F’nor winced at the pain of an injudicious movement of his arm. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Does F’lar know?”

T’bor shrugged. “If he did, what could he do?”

Brekke pushed F’nor back onto the stool to reset the bandage he had disarranged.

“What’ll happen next?” he demanded of no one.

“You sound like an Oldtimer,” T’bor remarked with a harsh laugh. “Bemoaning the loss of order, the permissiveness of – of times which are so chaotic . . .”

“Change is not chaos.”

T’bor laughed sourly. “Depends on your point of view.”

“What’s your point of view, T’bor?”

The Weyrleader regarded the brown rider so long and hard, his face settling into such bitter lines, that he appeared Turns older than he was.

“I told you what happened at that farce of a Weyrleaders’ meeting the other night, with T’ron insisting it was Terry’s fault.” T’bor jammed one fist into the palm of his other hand, his lips twitching with a bitter distaste at the memory.

“The Weyr above all, even common sense. Stick to your own, the hindmost falls between. Well, I’ll keep my own counsel. And I’ll make my weyrfolk behave. All of them. Even Kylara if I have to . . .”

“Shells, what’s Kylara up to now?”

T’bor gave F’nor a thoughtful stare. Then, with a shrug he said, “Kylara means to go to Telgar Hold four days hence. Southern Weyr hasn’t been invited. I take no offense. “Southern Weyr has no obligation to Telgar Hold and the wedding is Holder business. But she means to make trouble there, I’m sure. I know the signs. Also she’s been seeing the Lord Holder of Nabol.”

“Meron?” F’nor was unimpressed with him as a source of trouble. “Meron, Lord of Nabol, was outmaneuvered and completely discredited at that abortive battle at the Benden Weyr Pass, eight Turns ago. No Lord Holder would ally himself with Nabol again. Not even Lord Nessel of Crom who never was very bright. How he got confirmed as Lord of Crom by the Conclave, I’ll never understand.”

“It’s not Meron we have to guard against. It’s Kylara. Anything she touches gets – distorted.”

F’nor knew what T’bor meant. “If she were going to, say, Lord Groghe’s Fort Hold, I’d not be concerned. He thinks she should be strangled. But don’t forget that she’s full blood sister to Larad of Telgar Hold. Besides, Larad can manage her. And Lessa and F’lar will be there. She’s not likely to tangle with Lessa. So what can she do? Change the pattern of Thread?”

F’nor heard Brekke’s sharp intake of breath, saw T’bor’s sudden twitch of surprise.

“She didn’t change Thread patterns. No one knows why that happened,” T’bor said gloomily.

“How what happened?” F’nor stood, pushing aside Brekke’s hands.

“You heard that Thread is dropping out of pattern?”

“No, I didn’t hear,” and F’nor looked from T’bor to Brekke who managed to be very busy with her medicaments.

“There wasn’t anything you could do about it, F’nor,” she said calmly, “and as you were still feverish when the news came . . .”

T’bor snorted, his eyes glittering as if he enjoyed F’nor’s discomposure. “Not that F’lar’s precious Thread patterns ever included us here in the Southern continent. Who cares what happens in this part of the world?” With that, T’bor strode out of the Weyr. When F’nor would have followed, Brekke grabbed his arm.

“No, F’nor, don’t press him. Please?”

He looked down at Brekke’s worried face, saw the deep concern in her expressive eyes. Was that the way of it? Brekke fond of T’bor? A shame she had to waste affection on someone so totally committed to a clutching female like Kylara.

“Now, be kind enough to give me the news about that change in Thread pattern. My arm was wounded, not my head.”

Without acknowledging his rebuke, she told him what had occurred at Benden Weyr when Thread had fallen hours too soon over Lemos Hold’s wide forests. F’nor was disturbed to learn that R’mart of Telgar Weyr had been badly scored. He was not surprised that T’kul of High Reaches Weyr hadn’t even bothered to inform his contemporaries of the unexpected falls over his weyrbound territories. But he had to agree that he would have worried had he known. He was worried now but it sounded as if F’lar was coping with his usual ingenuity. At least the Oldtimers had been roused. Took Thread to do it.