Chapter 7
Smiling, and still somewhat in awe of his luck, Martonal approached the bronze dragon. Some of the other candidates were already at work; Martonal joined the small group clustered around a bucket placed by the dragon's outstretched forelegs. Niko and another lad he didn't recognise were working on the dragon's chest, while Porrigor, perhaps unsurprisingly, was working his way down one of Arsheth's forelegs.
"Hey," Martonal said, "looks like I'm sharing your bucket."
"You get his wing, then?" Niko asked, peering over his shoulder but not pausing in his work, as if reluctant to break contact with the dragon's hide.
"Nah, shoulders and neck."
"Wings are for Weyrbred," the other boy said. "Gallogren'll be doing it, just wait."
Martonal dipped his cloth in the oil for the first time as the other boys shifted to make room, the trader boy ducking down to a crouch beside Arsheth's elbow. Should he greet the dragon, somehow? Or just get to work? A quick glance towards Arsheth's head answered his question: the dragon's faceted eyes, whirling green, were already on him. He nodded, and the dragon blinked and looked away, now watching the approach of the weyrbred boy who'd been assigned to oil his head.
"Right then," Martonal said under his breath. He stretched as high up the dragon's shoulder as he could, finding the base of the last neck ridge just within reach, and began to work the oil into the warm, bronze hide. It was awkward working with his arms so far above his head, and the continual stretching and bending to replenish the oil on his cloth soon had his back protesting. But even so, the job was far more pleasant than currying a runnerbeast. There was no hair getting everywhere, or dust, or the stench of urine in the straw underfoot. The last time he'd helped Green Lake's visiting Harper with his runner, the beast had seemed ready to kick him half the time, and when it wasn't twitching and stamping and eying him evilly, it had been determined to squash him by leaning its full weight on his side. Arsheth did lean in a little to Martonal's hands, he realised, but he was pretty sure a dragon wouldn't do that out of malicious laziness.
Maybe... Martonal dipped his cloth in the oil bucket beside him, and moved on to the next neck-ridge. A gentle squeeze sent the oil trickling downwards, then a few quick strokes smeared it more evenly over the dragon's hide. Making the small circular strokes with the heel of his hand a little heavier than he had before, Martonal steadily massaged the oil into Arsheth's now gleaming skin. Perhaps he was imagining it, but the dragon didn't seem to be pushing against him any more. What if he pressed too hard though?
"Hmph"
Starting at the sound, Martonal turned to see G'rem, supported by a pair of crutches, standing behind him.
"Sir?"
"That'll do. You've got the idea, and a good feel for it, Arsheth says. Harder is better than softer, unless the skin is really cracked, and you won't find anythng like that on MY dragon. Just use a little more oil on the next ridge, where the skin creases. And don't worry if he flinches a little when you get closer to his head - got a few ticklish spots on the underside of his neck, that's all."
G'rem moved on, and Martonal looked down the dragon's neck towards the short weyrbred boy who was working the other way, and caught his eye. Albadril, that was his name. "Never knew a dragon could be ticklish," he said softly.
"Some do," Albadril said, his hands working swiftly and confidently. "Arsheth's not the worst of them - just don't do it when they're belly full of firestone!"
Martonal grunted a laugh. "I guess that could be a problem... You help with the dragons a lot then?"
"Arsheth, Lallyth, Umdenoth, and Seth mostly. Willith, whenever he gets really dirty. Never Tomrenth, though A'sheb knows he needs the help. Some riders have more pride than sense, I can tell you. Sometimes Callinth, if I'm lucky."
"Callinth?" Surely Martonal had misheard the last dragon's name. B'dril wouldn't need any help from anyone, would he? "B'dril's Callinth? He needs help?"
"Oh, you've met my da then? Course he doesn't need any help! But I don't see much of him otherwise, and he IS the best rider in the Weyr. Gotta learn from someone, right, why not your own sire? And Callinth'll speak to me sometimes, which not everyone can say of their father's dragon, if they have one."
"Really? He speaks to you?" Martonal hadn't thought dragons could speak to other people, and wasn't sure if he really believed the other boy.
Albadril grinned smugly, and went on. "Yeah. Pretty good, huh? He sounds like my Da, sort of, but not so serious. And right there in my head, like someone's snuck up behind you. Fair made me jump, the first time."
"What did he say?" Martonal asked, genuinely curious, as he moved on to the next neck-ridge.
"Told me 'B'dril needs a clean shirt' - don't look at me like that, he did! And then he said that he'd see I got to the Gather like I wanted if I could run it down to my Da fast enough. Which I did, I'll have you know, and that's how I was the only one of us Weyrboys that went to Igen's Spring Gather two turns back. THAT shut Timolit and Gallogren up all right."
"Didn't their fathers take them?"
Albadril gave him a quick frown. "Some people you don't talk about fathers to. Plague hit the Weyrs as hard as the Holds, you know. Worse, probably."
"Worse?" Weyrbred bias, Martonal wondered? Dragonriders had to care for their dragons, sure, but they weren't likely to starve. Holders had to grow enough for their tithes as well as for themselves, and even after ten turns life hadn't really improved all that much.
"Dragons hate it when one of them goes between to die," Albadril explained. "It really upsets them. With the old ones, it's not that often and you kind of expect it, but some days the Weyr lost half a dozen, one after the other. I don't remember it myself, but it was awful, everyone says."
That made sense. The deaths would be worse for Weyrfolk. But not everyone died. "Are there many riders that were... like G'rem, that didn't fully recover?"
"Cripples, you mean?" The Weyrboy sighed. "Sometimes, the dragons would pull them through, them as wouldn't have survived, Ellian says. She's my foster-ma, and one of the Healers. But then they didn't get any better, and some of them couldn't face it, and went between anyway. There's some who think more of the survivors should've gone between - that we don't need riders like G'rem any more, and it's not like they're needed with Thread gone - but that's just wrong. My da says, should be that more of them had the courage to stay, that there's always stuff they can do, and it's bad for the Weyr for them to go. G'rem there, his Arsheth flew the previous junior queen six turns back, before she swapped for weyrwoman Erris and Saerlith. Good clutch. My half-brother Impressed at that one. And G'rem was one of the best wingleaders, my da says, taught him lots. More use to the Weyr than some riders."
"Oh?"
Albadril's chatter continued non-stop after that, and by the time the two boys had finished oiling Arsheth's neck Martonal was sure he'd been introduced to the failings and merits of half the riders and dragons in the Weyr, and most of the lower caverns too. Midway through dinner, he began to wonder if the other boy ever stopped talking, and whether his small stature really was just because he was younger than the other candidates, or if it was because he was always too busy saying something to actually get any eating done.
By the time R'ben called him aside and sent him off to the firestone bunker, Martonal was simply grateful for some peace and quiet at last!
Thanks for all the reviews, both the simply appreciative ones and the heavy concrit! They're all hugely motivational, which is a great thing for an author with my appalling record for timely updates. That said, I'm off on holiday to visit family tomorrow. I thought about doing a double update before I go, but decided to give you one when I get back in about two weeks time instead - in the meanwhile, I'll be busy writing. Chapter 13 is now finished, with three or four yet to finish. Hopefully I'll get the story finished while I'm away, in which case I can accelerate posting updates.