Dragonriders of Pern 25 - Dragonheart by McCaffrey Anne

Author:McCaffrey, Anne
Language: eng
Format: epub

Dragonriders of Pern 25 - Dragonheart

THIRTEEN

The stars shine so cold at night,?The sun burns so hot by day,?The wind whips in wild de­light:?The weath­er at Igen is fey.

Igen Weyr, Ear­ly Morn­ing, AL 498.7.3

Tal­enth woke Fiona ear­ly the next morn­ing. The watch­drag­on says that they are get­ting ready to leave. Fiona propped her­self up on an el­bow and looked at Terin sleep­ing next to her on their makeshift bed of blan­kets, con­sid­er­ing whether to wake her. She de­cid­ed against it; the younger girl had had a busy enough first day as head­wom­an.

She made a men­tal note to send a par­ty of weyr­lings to get mat­tress fill­ings and start­ed to crawl over Terin to the edge of the bed, but stopped when she saw her open her eyes.

“What is it?”

“The traders are leav­ing,” Fiona told her qui­et­ly.

Terin rubbed her eyes and sat up. “I’ll come with you.”

“It’s still dark out­side,” Fiona cau­tioned as she rose and hasti­ly pulled on the clothes she’d been wear­ing the day be­fore. Terin fol­lowed suit and in short or­der the two fol­lowed the gleam of Tal­enth’s eyes in­to the queen’s new lair.

Did you want to come, too? Fiona asked her drag­on.

Will it be fun? Tal­enth asked. Fiona shrugged. Tal­enth glanced around her lair and de­cid­ed that she’d got her­self too well set­tled to want to move. I’ll stay here, then.

One of the moons was high enough to pro­vide some dim light in the Weyr Bowl out­side—enough for eyes to see, if not in col­or. Fiona picked out the shape of the watch drag­on on the heights near the Star Stones to the east. The night air was chill, fresh, ex­pec­tant. She made out a shape: T’mar.

He must have seen them, for he stopped and wait­ed for them to catch up. To­geth­er, the three of them made their way to the Kitchen Cav­ern.

“Klah or tea?” Terin asked, grab­bing a glove to snag a pot of wa­ter from the hearth.

“You will find that it’s best to change your hours when you live in the desert,” they heard Moth­er Ka­ri­na say from some­where be­hind them. They turned to face her. “Night is your friend.”

“Thread falls when it will,” T’mar told her.

“Thread does not yet fall,” Ka­ri­na re­mind­ed him. “Even when it does, Igen Weyr pre­pares in the ear­ly morn­ing and late evening. Avoid the sun when­ev­er you can.”

Azeez en­tered be­hind her. Ka­ri­na turned to him.

“Ev­ery­thing is ready,” Azeez told her re­spect­ful­ly.

“The night awaits,” Ka­ri­na said, turn­ing to fol­low Azeez.

“Let us see you on your way,” Fiona of­fered, trot­ting af­ter them.

They made their way through dark­ened cor­ri­dors dim­ly lit by half-​charged glows un­til they reached a deep­er dark­ness where the heights of the Weyr Bowl shad­ed them from the moon’s light. Stars glit­tered beck­on­ing­ly in the night sky.

Azeez climbed up to his perch on the first dray. “We shall see you soon.”

“Ex­pect us be­fore the next sev­en­day,” Ka­ri­na amend­ed.

Whips cracked, en­cour­ag­ing the large herd­beasts to start mov­ing. With Azeez in the lead, the drays be­gan to move slow­ly out in­to the dark night.

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