For the second time Charel was shaken awake, although this time it wasn't her father's voice urging her up.
"Keslo?" She asked, yawning. The drover put a finger to his lips, then motioned for her to follow him. Charel trotted after him, sleeping furs pulled over her shoulders. Keslo led her back to the entrance, where her father and two other drovers stood, staring eastward into the gloomy dawn.
"Pa what..." The words died in her throat as the horizon flickered with bursts of light.
"We thought you might like to see this." Keslo said, picking up a flamethrower. It was only then that Charel noticed that all four men were thusly armed. She swallowed apprehensively, then looked back out at the valiant dragons.
"This isn't a sight many non-riders get to see." Thallon, Old Larst's right hand man added in the otherwise dead silence.
"It's... amazing..." she could now make out the colors. The upper wings comprised mostly of greens, midlevel solidly of blues and browns. The flying significantly lower, sweeping up what little made it through the upper wings, four gold bright specks, their fire flaming down and to the side of the dragons, rather than directly ahead of the dragons.
"I only count four queens," she said suddenly, pulling the furs tighter around her shoulders.
"There are eggs on the sands of Telgar," Reelon reminded her, divining the source of her worry.
"And queens don't leave their eggs until they hatch," Charel supplied in return, falling into the pattern of the learning game her father had devised.
"And if one of the queens can't fly...?" Reelon added his eyes never leaving the sight of the dragons fighting Thread.
"Then there should only be four queens in the sky." Charel grinned, and they watched in awed silence as the Fall advanced onward, until Charel could make out the riders themselves.
"Bar the door, Keslo." Thallon said, breaking the long silence. Regretfully Charel helped Keslo close the heavy door, skybroom wood lined with copper, sealing out the cool air of the morning and the spellbinding sight of the dragons.
"Now, back to bed with you." Thallon added, when Charel cracked a massive yawn. She nodded and followed her father back to the kitchen area, and dreams of flaming dragons.
"Wheel and turn or bleed and burn. Fly between, blue and green. Soar, dive down, bronze and brown. Dragonmen must fly when threads are in the sky!" The weyrlings chanted the rhyme as two girls skipped rope. Jurille smiled, hearing the chant, pausing in her set up to watch the children play. Koru had introduced the game, which Jurille heartily approved, as it gave the children something active to keep them both physically and mentally active. Weyrlings weren't immune to the unnerving mood that settled over the Weyr while the fighting wings were out, and physically demanding games provided a much needed channel for the youngsters' energy.
The wings fight well. Graesth informed her, rearranging her eggs in patterns only the queen could divine.
Is B'ton ready for the changeover wings? Jurille asked, glancing up at the four green wings waiting along the rim of the Weyr. Greens lacked the stamina to fly an entire Fall, so the Weyrleader had divided them into two separate flights, only flying slightly longer than half of each Fall.
No. this Fall still light. Graesth replied, then looked up from her eggs at the empty sky. Glorith comes. Jurille smiled at her queen's pleasure as the Fortian brown appeared overhead. Dr'v, the nearly seventy Turn old rider, had been Fort Hold's harper before his surprise Impression, at the age of thirty. He brings the Masterhealer, Graesth warned her as she bugled a greeting to the brown as he landed near the Hatching sands. He is very unhappy. She added, touching noses to the brown.
Anyone else might worry about the senior queen's affection for the brown, but Jurille knew it stemmed from the queen's dragonet days when she napped against the older brown's flank.
"Welcome and welmet!" She called as Dr'v helped Master Cici, a white headed woman in her sixties, off his dragon.
"Jurille, you look lovely as ever." Dr'v said easily, although something in his demeanor suggested a warning.
"May I interest you in a refreshment, Master Cici?" She asked cordially. The shorter woman shook her head.
"Nay, but my thanks all the same, Weyrlady. I know you've wings fighting." She explained with a perfunctory wave. "I've just come from Congress."
Jurille felt her spine stiffen. While the Lord Holders met annually for Conclave, a Congress of the Craftmasters was a much rarer event, and usually predicated by an immense need.
"My apologies, Jurille, but the Crafthalls are in agreement. You are no longer welcome to Search from our ranks." Cici said, her tone final and somewhat saddened.
Jurille blinked, and only the strong surge of love from Graesth sent her kept her from rocking back on her heels.
"M-may I ask why?" She finally managed in the awkward silence that followed.
"You know why." Cici replied bluntly, then her expression softened. "It's not personal, Jurille, I promise you that. But you are not the only Weyr with eggs on the sands." The Masterhealer looked back at Dr'v.
"It's time I return my Hall, Brownrider."
Dr'v nodded, shooting Jurille a quick glance before he helped the Healer up on Glorith.
"One moment please," he said to her, then turned back to Jurille. "Don't look so devastated, Juri," he murmured, calling her by her fosterling name, "the Halls have pulled all their people from Benden."
"But, the candidates!" Jurille all but despaired, wringing her hands.
"You were always a clever one, Juri. Find a way." He winked at her and ran up Glorith's leg.
Graesth, please bespeak Courath for me. Jurille asked her queen as the brown leapt skyward and vanished.
Yes, I-oh! Jurille's gasp matched Graesth's mental one as the sky above the Bowl filled with golden bodies. Nor was she alone, as the entire Weyr stopped what they were doing as first eleven, then nineteen, then twenty-three queens appear above the Bowl.
Everyone is here! Graesth stood at the edge of the Hatching Ground and touched muzzles with Courath, her mother. Everyone is here to see you. She added, her eyes whirling faster.
Brinda, Courath's rider and senior most queenrider in all of Pern, strode up to Jurille, pulling off her gloves.
"I suppose you just heard the news?"
"Just! How did you all get here so fast?" Jurille motioned to all the other queens. Brinda glanced over her shoulder with a satisfied look, as the other queenriders hurried to join them.
"I told them to time it," she said with a grim smile. "They need to hear this from the source, particularly since you and Benden are the only two with eggs at the moment."
"I know you have Fall, so I'll be quick. Ista stands ready to fly at your command." She added, modulating her voice so all the queenriders could hear.
"And High Reaches!" Called that Weyr's senior queenrider.
"And Fort!"
"And Igen!" Came the additional shouts.
"Thank you, but, we're not going to fly en mass and demand C'seld's resignation!" As repulsive as the Weyrleader's actions were to Jurille, she baulked at the idea of forcing a conflict between dragons.
"No one said you had to," Meredad, the Igen Weyrwoman said, having moved to the center of the crowd. "But we must do something."
Jurille took a deep breath, before plunging ahead.
"We must meet the father's obligation. I have the list, you'll receive a copy of it by tonight-"
"Both lists?" Gakate, Weyrwoman of Fort asked. Jurille grimaced internally.
"Both of them, even if I have to dangle Degal from the drumtower myself to get it." She vowed, causing a ripple of laughter through the crowd. The dangerous air eased a little as Jurille took another, looser breath.
"Sisters, this won't change overnight simply because we're meeting a need ten turns in the making. May I beg the pleasure of your company at a Turn's End meeting?" Twenty-three heads nodded in accord. "Good, we can reconvene then."
Impulse and inspiration seized her at the same moment and she added, "Can I ask that you offer conveyance to the Hall lads we've already promised a candidacy to?"
"Are we going to have to smuggle them out?" A younger queenrider asked with a broad grin.
"Quite possibly. I'll get that list to you as well." Jurille fleetingly wondered if Degal's mania for lists was infectious.
"Any chance Jentlth will rise before then?" Another junior queenrider from Ista asked.
"Plenty of chances, but Kimi is utterly devoted to C'seld." Brinda replied, making all the queenriders grimace. Rider preference did affect mating flights regardless of what bronzeriders might tell themselves.
"I know a couple of bronzeriders that might change her mind." Someone called from the back.
"That I don't doubt." Brinda sniffed causing another ripple of laughter.
"I'd be rather surprised if we all didn't" Jurille interjected. "Hold onto those names, for if by Turn's End things haven't improved we may need to utilize that list."
Wubath says to send the second wave. Graesth announced. The four green wings looked up from the congregation of queens to their Wingleaders. With a precision usually reserved for the All Weyrs Games each Wing went aloft and vanished exactly three wing beats after leaping.
"Your Flight's looking good." Gakate remarked with a smile.
"They had an audience," Jurille retorted with a smile to her longtime friend.
"We'd better be going." Brinda announced with a sigh. "Come youngsters, before all of Pern learns of our Conclave." The queenriders dispersed in smaller groups returning to their dragons.
"Brinda, thank you." Jurille said sincerely, walking with the ninety-two turn old queenrider to her dragon.
"Nonesense. Thank you for agreeing to host the Queen's Meet." Brinda looked away listening to something beyond normal hearing. "You may not have to hang Degal from that drumtower, either. Dr'v's bringing Harper Algyr," she smiled impishly at Jurille as Courath kneeled down.
"Still keeping tabs on us?" Jurille asked, returning the smile.
"Always, lass." Brinda pat her shoulder before climbing up onto Courath. "Someone must keep a weather eye on the horizon when you choose to fight Thread in a windstorm."
The weyrlings' jumprope chant is copyright of Anne McCaffery, 1967.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if I've mispelt anything. I'm going to try to update with shorter chapters every Sunday for the month of April.