Chapter 1

BENDEN'S FIRST CLUTCH

Torene came running out of her Weyrwoman's quarters, calling to M'hall.

"What is wrong with Alaranth?! She nearly bit my head off when I wished her good morning!"

M'hall met her on the ledge outside the queen's weyr and watched the golden dragon, wings aspread, drift down towards the Bowl of the Bendan Weyr.

"I do believe your golden dragon is beginning her clutch," M'hall said, kissing Torene on the temple. "We will find out if Uloa was right in making us bring all that extra sand up from the coast to pad the grounds." He then turned his head and his gray blue eyes lost focus while he communed with his big bronze dragon, Brianth.

Yes, I will come and take you both down to the hatching ground, and yes, you DID lose track of time, as Alaranth is clutching her first egg right now. He always spoke loud enough in his mind for Torene to hear, too. The big bronze stepped quickly to the ledge and dipped his forearm so his two passengers could easily mount.

"Ungrateful dragon-child," Torene said as she reached up and gripped M'hall's outstretched arm and clambered aboard, "You'd think she was trying to hide her condition like a wild beast!"

M'hall laughed. "Instead of being cossetted and pampered and praised."

Brianth spread his wings and made a graceful leap into the air, but instead of the critical downsweep of wing to send him aloft, he merely lifted his right wing to begin spiraling down to the Bowl, as the caldera of the old volcano was commonly called. As his passengers leapt off, he accompanied them over to the entrance of the hatching ground and lowered his head to observe the proceedings.

Alaranth hissed at him, her head darting toward him from her place across the Hatching Grounds. Brianth's eyes whirled reddish with alarm and he hummed deep in his throat to reassure his mate.

Torene strode across the sands, surprised at the heat she felt coming through the soles of her leather boots. Normally the sands were cool, getting only a few hours of direct sunlight each day. But today, they were quite warm.

Alaranth turned her head towards her rider. Torene ran up and stroked the big triangular shaped head and found the itchy spot above the eye ridge. Does it hurt, love? Torene thought to her dragon.

No, it is a very odd feeling, but it doesn't hurt. The golden queen laid her head on her rider's shoulder, and suddenly shuddered a little bit. OH. And suddenly there was a second egg on the sands. Alaranth moved a little to the right and shuddered again.

Quite some time later, when Torene became aware of her surroundings again and of the rumbling of her stomach, she realized it was both her and Alaranth's hunger pangs. Looking about the Hatching Grounds, Torene shook her head slowly in amazement. The floor appeared to be covered with various shades of mottled eggs. Deep bronze and brown shades mixed with deep blue, blue green and green shades. And there, in the exact center, a large, beautiful golden egg. Larger than the other eggs, the deeply golden egg lay on its cushion of warm sand, gleaming.

"What a clutch!" M'hall exclaimed as he came up to the pair. He slipped his arm around Torene's waist and reached up to give Alaranth's jaw a good scratching. "How many?"

"Forty-one, if my count is correct," Torene leaned into M'hall. "Quite a feat from quite a flight, if I must say so myself," she quipped. M'hall tightened his arm.

"It was that," he murmured. "The other times weren't so bad either."

"Not bad," Torene allowed, a teasing note in her voice. Then it turned plaintive. "But we're starving! Do we just leave? Or should we put someone on guard? Or..." Her voice trailed off at the incredulous look on M'hall's face.

Torene glanced around and saw that they'd had a small audience. Weyr folk and dragonriders were clustered loosely at the Hatching Ground entrance, giving the queen her privacy, but beaming proudly nonetheless at the great dragon's accomplishment.

"Guard? The most well-known experiment on Pern? The salvation of the planet needing guarding? I should hope not!" M'hall turned with Torene still in his arm. "Let's go get you two beautiful creatures some food

before Alaranth's color fades to dull dun and you expire in my arms," he laughed.

The group at the archway parted and broke up, the kitchen staff preceding the couple to the dining cavern, and the dragon riders back to their tasks. The golden queen emerged into the sunlight and Torene, glancing back, saw that the queen was, indeed, off color, though not drastically so.

As Torene sat down, she heard a squeal from her golden queen, the death squawk of a wherry from the hunting grounds and felt immediately less faint as her dragon fed. Odd, how that linking worked, Torene mused. She could hear her dragon, feel what her dragon felt, and was impacted by things that happened to her dragon, such as now, when Alaranth fed, Torene's feelings of hunger lessened so she didn't feel so lightheaded.

Torene also heard all the other dragons, which she initially thought to be a normal fact with everyone. But found out that she was the only person who could hear everyone else's dragon. Sorka had been able to for a short while, but as Faranth grew, it seemed that Sorka's link with Faranth grew stronger and the other dragons' voices faded.

That fact was brought home to her unexpectedly the first time she fought the planetary menace, Thread. The Queens' Wing was awaiting the signal from Faranth and Sorka to rise out of the bowl with their flamethrower packs. Carenath and Sean voiced their command to rise and Torene asked Alaranth to rise, also. But the Queens' Wing was waiting for the other dragons to clear the Bowl before rising. Torene shamefacedly asked Alaranth to resettle to the ground. She admitted to Sean and Sorka after Threadfall that she could hear every dragon. Sean and Sorka asked Torene to keep this bit of information to herself until such time that it would be crucial for her to be able to communicate with everyone.

That crucial time came when Torene and Alaranth moved to Bendan Weyr and being able to communicate with Fort Weyr, half a world away, was a great asset. Hearing others' dragons all the time got confusing and a little unnerving at times, but Alaranth helped her mentally shield the bulk of those conversations to help

preserve Torene's peace of mind. When fighting Thread, the two of them were invaluable communication links between the upper ranks of fighting dragons and the lower ranks of queen dragons carrying flamethrower tanks and sometimes just from one dragon to another for avoiding tangles of Thread. Torene figured that if any emergency should arise, her ability to communicate instantaneously with all dragons would be extremely useful.

Torene turned her attention to the savory soup and freshly baked bread that Julie's staff had set down in front of her. "Here, eat, Torene, you look pale," the young woman said and set a cup of klah next to the bowl, "We have croissants, too, with a cream filling that Julie is trying out-it's pretty heavenly." Smiling up at the girl, Torene tucked into her soup.

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