[Disclaimer: I own only the characters. Pern and all associated names and places are the property of Anne McCaffrey]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The strand of Thread which had wrapped around Yalith's tail was almost a dragonlength long, malevolent and voracious from end to end. Yalith roared and T'mar felt the pain rip into him through their bond. After twenty Turns of fighting Thread, T'mar had never seen anything like it. It took maybe a second longer than usual for him to make an emergency leap between, back to Ista Weyr.

"Yalith!" T'mar screamed aloud as the bronze dragon emerged barely inches from the Bowl floor. Weyrfolk scattered as the stricken pair crash-landed in a space already crowded with scored dragons, healers and injured riders. T'mar was nearly flung from his dragon's neck on impact, whiplashing back and forth against his riding straps. He hung on to the firestone sack to try and steady himself as Yalith slid to a halt.

The Thread had frozen and detached from the dragon's flesh between but it had butchered and flayed the powerful length of muscle into raw meat before splintering into harmless chips of frozen matter. Teams of healers scrambled to assist, cutting T'mar right out of his straps and lowering him to the ground.

"Help Yalith, you fools!" As three people made him lie down, he could barely put up a resistance. His dragon's pain weakened him almost as much as the bruising to his chest and abdomen he had sustained against Yalith's neck ridges and the tension in the strained muscles in his neck. He found himself looking at sky, occasionally obscured by the silhouettes of dragons, and completely unable to move to help his mate.

Yalith… He found only his dragon's primal pain and confusion. He had to retreat into himself.

Both dragon and rider were dosed heavily with felis juice, numbing the link between the two of them, and calming Yalith whose concern for his rider threatened to send him between with worry.

T'mar faded into a state of semi-consciousness. His senses dulled but his mind couldn't quite slip into an state of cold rest. He lolled his head to one side so he could watch the healers work through blurry eyes. A team of men and women armed with paddles were applying the contents of a vast cauldron of numbweed to the bronze dragon's tail. The wounds were too deep to accommodate the towl dressings that were normally used to treat Threadscore. All they could do was numb the pain and hope that no infection set in. The score would be left open to the elements.

It hurts less.

Yalith's message was faint, as if heard through a long tunnel or thick walls. It was the felis. T'mar couldn't muster the words to reply. Feelings – love and thankfulness were all he hoped got through the haze.

"We'll take you to the infirmary now T'mar."

T'mar felt himself being rolled onto a stretcher and carried off. Sky was replaced by glowlit tunnels. As his bearers jostled him slightly around a corner he groaned slightly at the pain. He had not been lathered with numbweed as Yalith had been. His injuries were not so obvious.

He recognised the infirmary by the ceiling. Dragonriders spent extended periods of time in here. The ceiling was high and rounded, originally intended for a storage cavern before a stream of fresh air flowing through the room had been discovered, providing natural ventilation. It was blessedly cool.

The felis and the discreet lighting of the glows began to nudge him into unconsciousness. He closed his eyes as light fingers undid his flying gear. Numbweed was generously smeared onto his chest, groin and hips, and he quietly slipped into a place of bleak comfort.

*

"That may not be the last Fall, but it's certainly his," H'nas said to the new weyrlings as the bronze rider was carried away. Every face had turned pale as they witnessed the carnage. Some of them flinched every time the sun was unexpectedly obscured by the shadow of an incoming dragon-rider pair.

The Bowl was a scene of ordered chaos. Healers and dragons and riders and weyrfolk all milled around, attending to injuries by order of severity. Some riders were left to tend to their own dragons. Several solemn tableaux of dragon being gently soothed by numbweed and silent, loving vigil by their riders were oases of tranquillity.

Blues and greens seemed to have escaped with minor scorings and singe marks, whilst three bronzes and five browns lay prone with their sides, necks and wings festooned with major full or partial thickness scoring.

Dragons also delivered their stricken riders to the healers, having escaped injury themselves. Most of the healers were occupied with these casualties.

"Dragons can recover from far worse than what we riders are capable of," H'nas explained to the weyrlings. "The rider is the dragon, so it's always imperative to take care of yourself. Whilst your dragon will be able to carry on after a scoring, the same doesn't always go for you. If you're hit, it's usually the case that the Fall is over for you both."

The newly-Impressed dragonriders were united in mute contemplation over their teacher's words and the scene as it unfolded before them. They had been halfway through their first morning with their charges as the signal to prepare for Fall had spread throughout Ista Weyr. They had been instructed to take their dragonets back to the barracks and await their until given further notice. Every weyrling had grown up under the constant shadow of Threadfall; the sequence of drilled retreat under stone was familiar to each of them.

When H'nas had requested they join him in the Bowl however, only those few who had been raised in Ista Weyr had been prepared for the sight they now beheld. Even they were sobered at the sight of mutilated flesh and frenzied activity, and at the thought of their own dragon suffering, themselves in mortal danger, and of a threat so terrible that every new rider repressed the slightest hint of it in their thoughts.

Many of them could see that the bronze Yalith faced an uncertain future, perhaps crippled by the injury that affected over a third of his total length. The blue and the green riders were hardly comforted by the fact that most of their like-coloured brethren were largely unaffected by major blemishes to hide or limb. Agility and skill in the air might not be inherent traits in their dragons. They would have to be just as good, just as the browns and bronzes would have to be responsible for leading and protecting their wings.

H'nas watched each of them closely, following their reactions. Their dragons' hides would never be marred or mutilated by ravening Thread. Relief however, was not something he wanted to see reflected in their expressions.

Mostly, he saw fear. It was the same basic primal expression on nearly every face, the shade of their pallor being the only variation. Despite the spate of drawn complexions, H'nas was encouraged by the healthy emotions.

They will remember this day. Bronze Quirath reflected his rider's thoughts.

H'nas smiled sadly at his dragon's comment.

You've been watching through my eyes Quirath.

I am. You are pleased with them, no?

They've done nothing yet to earn it. That will have to wait until next Fall.

There are none who disappoint you though?

H'nas could think of one, but he didn't dwell on that. None of the young riders assembled had fled the scene, nor had any of them shown any signs of detachment. He could hope to build on that.

What of their dragons Quirath? Do they understand?

There was a distracted pause as Quirath touched on each of the hatchlings' minds. H'nas could not intrude on dragon conversations. Not for the first time, H'nas wondered how dragons communicated amongst themselves. The few people on Pern who had been privy to those exchanges rarely reported on exactly how they 'sounded.'

Quirath spoke to his rider, his voice a sound that only H'nas could hear.

They know Thread and they recognise their enemy. They cannot see it, but we know it is here.

Their bond seemed to stretch for a moment, and H'nas winced at his dragon's words. It can never break, he told himself.

A crack sounded overhead and the sky opened up as the wings began to return, still in tight formation. From the ground, H'nas could see one wing led by a brown rider, with every member intact.

It broke the weyrlings' daze. They blinked up at the sky only to be transfixed by a new sight: the entire complement of the Weyr appearing in the heavens like a cloud. A great amorphous shadow was cast over the Bowl by dragon wings.

After several minutes, the queens' wing appeared at last and led the Weyr in their descent towards Ista. Even the Weyrleader's wing fell in place behind the two golds and their entourage of greens and blues.

The queens touched down on the rocky floor of the Bowl, and were approached by healers to check for any minor scoring. This was the signal that Fall was truly over. Dragons broke formation, with most dragons peeling off to their respective weyrs. Others joined the queens on the ground to seek numbweed. These riders began to tend their dragons' injuries themselves, without taking valuable healing hands away from the more serious casualties lying in prone heaps around the Bowl.

"Werylings!" H'nas had to project his voice to get the attention of his charges. "Each of you is to attend to a rider and help dress any wounds they may themselves have received. We riders have a tendency to ignore our own discomfort when we feel our dragons' pain as our own. We seem to forget that the link is two-directional. Over there by the entrance to the infirmary you will find cloths and jars of salve. Don't be afraid to approach riders, you're all equals here. The only difference between you is that you have something to learn and they have something to teach. Go."

As the weyrlings dispersed, H'nas held back the two queen riders.

"Come with me," he told them, and led them over to where bronze Yalith was stationed on the ground. He knew the weyrbred girl, Leila. He had been instructing her for several weeks and he had known her in the lower caverns for far longer. She came from Harper parents, as had he. Also like himself, she had been fostered to the Weyr due to her complete lack of musical ability. He had several Turns over her, but they were well acquainted.

"Leila," he said as they drew alongside Yalith. "You'll be helping with Yalith today. A fine opportunity to continue with your apprenticeship and to show everyone why you'll make a fine Weyrwoman."

Leila nodded and immediately applied herself to the task, peeling away a layer of the fine dressings from a stack the healers were now using, soaking it first in a pail of numbweed and beginning to dress the scores at the base of the bronze dragon's tail.

The other girl moved to follow Leila. H'nas was quick to stop her.

"You should do as the rest of the weyrlings are," he told her. "Help the rider. He's been taken to the infirmary. Over there." He pointed in the general direction, and then moved around her so he could assist with the efforts to save the bronze dragon's tail.