Dragonsong (20 page)

Menolly craned her head about as she felt Manora’s strong gentle fingers turn first one foot and then the other.

‘Yes, lighter bandages today, Mirrim, and salve. Tonight, no bandages at all. Wounds must have fresh air, too, you know. But you’ve done a good job. The fire lizard eggs are fine this morning, Menolly.’

With that she left, and Mirrim quickly set about dressing the feet. When she’d finished and Menolly rose to put on her clothes, her fingers lingering in the soft folds of the overshirt, Mirrim sank on to the bed with an exaggerated sigh.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Menolly asked.

‘I’m getting all the rest I can while I can,’ Mirrim replied. ‘You don’t know what a Hatching is like, with all those holders and crafters stumbling about the Weyr, poking here and there where they’re
NOT
supposed to be and getting scared of and scaring the dragons and the weyrlings and the hatchlings. And the way they eat!’ Mirrim rolled her eyes
expressively
. ‘You’d think they’d never seen food and …’ Mirrim flopped over on the bed and started to sob wildly.

‘Mirrim, what’s the matter? Oh, it’s Brekke! Isn’t she all right? I mean, won’t she re-Impress? Sanra said that’s what Lessa hoped …’

Menolly bent to comfort her friend, herself upset by those heart-rending sobs. Mirrim’s words were garbled by her weeping, although Menolly gathered that Mirrim didn’t want her foster-mother to re-Impress and the reason was obscure. Brekke didn’t want to live, and they had to find some way to make her. Losing her dragon was like losing half herself, and it hadn’t been Brekke’s fault. She was so gentle and sensible, and she loved F’nor, and for some reason that was unwise, too.

Menolly just let Mirrim cry, knowing how much relief she had felt the day before when she’d wept, and hoping deep in her heart that there might be joyful tears, too, for Mirrim later that day. There had to be. She forgave Mirrim all her little poses and attitudes, aware that that was how Mirrim had masked her intense anxiety and grief.

There was a rattling of the cubicle’s curtain, a squabble of fire lizard protest, and then Mirrim’s Tolly crawled under the curtain, his eyes whirling with indignation and worry.
He
saw Menolly stroking Mirrim’s hair and, raising his wings, made as if to launch himself at her when Beauty warbled sharply from the corner. Tolly sort of shook his wings, but when he leaped to the bed, he landed gently on the edge and remained there, his eyes first on Mirrim, then on Menolly. A moment later the two greens entered. They settled themselves on the stool, watchful but not obtrusive.

Beauty, in her corner, kept an eye on them all.

‘Mirrim? Mirrim?’ It was Sanra’s voice from the living cavern. ‘Mirrim, haven’t you finished Menolly’s feet yet? We need both of you! Now!’

As Menolly rose obediently, Mirrim caught her hand and squeezed it. Then she rose, shook her skirts out and marched from the cubicle, Menolly following more slowly behind her.

Mirrim had by no means exaggerated the amount of work to be done. It was just past sunrise, but obviously the main cooks had already been up for hours, judging by the breads – sweet, spiced and sour – cooling on long tables. Two weyrmen were trussing a huge herdbeast for the main spit and at the smaller hearths, wild wherries were being cleaned and stuffed for roasting later.

For added protection in the busy kitchen, someone had placed the small table over her fire lizard egg basket. They were doing fine, the sand nice and warm all around. Felena caught sight of her, told her to feed herself quickly from the sauce hearth and did she know anything flavorful to do with dried fish? Or would she prefer to help pare roots?

Menolly instantly elected to cook fish, so Felena asked what ingredients she’d need. Menolly was a little dismayed to learn the quantity she’d have to prepare. She had no idea that so many people came to a Hatching: the number coming was more than
lived
at Half-Circle Sea Hold.

The knack in making the fish stew tasty was in the long baking so Menolly applied herself to prepare the huge pots quickly, to give them enough time to simmer into succulence. She did so with such dispatch that there were still plenty of roots left to pare.

Excitement filled the air of the kitchen cavern. The mound of root vegetables in front of Menolly melted away as she listened to the chatter of the other girls and women. There was great speculation as to which of the boys, and the girls for the queen egg, would Impress the dragons to be hatched that day.

‘No-one has ever re-Impressed a dragon,’
said
one woman wistfully. ‘D’you think Brekke will?’

‘No-one’s ever been given the chance before.’

‘Is it a chance we should take?’ asked someone else.

‘
We
weren’t asked,’ said Sanra, glaring at the last speaker. ‘It’s Lessa’s idea, but it wasn’t F’nor’s or Manora’s …’

‘Something has to help her,’ said the first woman. ‘It tears my heart to see her lying there, just lying, like the undead. I mind me of the way D’namal went. He sort of … well … faded completely away.’

‘If you’ll finish that root quickly, we can put this kettle on,’ said Sanra, briskly rising.

‘Will all of this be eaten?’ asked Menolly of the woman beside her.

‘Yes, indeed, and there’ll be some looking for more,’ she said with a complacent smile. ‘Impression Days are good days. I’ve a fosterling and a blood son on the Hatching Ground today!’ she added with understandable pride. ‘Sanra!’ she turned her head to shout over her shoulder, ‘just one more largish kettle will take what’s left.’

Then white roots had to be sliced finely, covered with herbs and placed in clay pots to bake. The succulent odors of Menolly’s fish concoction aroused compliments from Felena,
who
was in charge of the various hearths and ovens. Then Menolly, who was told to keep off her poor feet, helped decorate the spiced cakes. She giggled with the rest when Sanra distributed pieces of one cake about, saying they had to be certain the bake had turned out well, didn’t they?

Menolly did not forget to turn the fire lizard eggs, or to feed her friends. Beauty stayed within sight of Menolly, but the others had been seen bathing in the lake and sunning themselves, scrupulously avoiding Ramoth, whose bugles punctuated the morning.

‘She’s always like that on Impression Day,’ T’gellan told Menolly as he grabbed a quick bite to eat at her table. ‘Say, will you get your fire lizards to hum along with you again this evening? I’ve been called a liar because I said you’d taught them to sing.’

‘They might turn difficult and shy in front of a lot of people, you know.’

‘Well, we’ll wait till things get quiet, and then we’ll give it a try, huh. Now, I’m to see you get to the Hatching. Mid-afternoon, I’d say, so be ready.’

As it happened, she wasn’t. She felt the thrumming before she heard it. She and everyone else in the cavern stopped working as one-by-one they became aware of
the
intensely exciting noise. Menolly gasped, because she recognized it as the same sort of sound the fire lizards had made when their eggs had hatched.

There was suddenly no time for her to return to her cubicle and change. T’gellan appeared at the cavern entrance, gesturing urgently to her. She made as much speed as her feet would permit because she could see Monarth waiting outside the entrance. T’gellan had already taken her hand when she exclaimed over the cooking stains and wet marks on her overshirt.

‘I told you to be ready. I’ll put you in a corner, pet, not that anyone will notice stains today,’ T’gellan reassured her.

A trifle resentful, Menolly noticed that he was dressed in new dark trousers, a handsomely overstitched tunic, a belt worked with metal and jewels, but she didn’t resist.

‘I have to get you in place first, because I’m to collect some visitors,’ T’gellan said, climbing nimbly into place in front of her on Monarth’s neck ridges. ‘F’lar’s filling the Hatching Ground with anyone who’ll ride a dragon
between
.’

Monarth was awing, slanting up from the Bowl floor to an immense opening, high up on the Weyr wall, which Menolly had not noticed before. Other dragons were angling towards
it
, too. Menolly gasped as they entered the mouth, with a dragon before them and one abaft, so close that she had momentary fears of collision. The dark core of the tunnel was lit at the far end, and abruptly they were in the gigantic Hatching Ground.

The whole north quadrant of the Weyr must be hollow, thought Menolly, awed. Then she saw the gleaming clutch of dragon eggs and gasped. Slightly to one side was a larger egg, and hovering over it was the zealous golden form of Ramoth, her eyes incredibly brilliant with the coming of Impression.

Monarth dropped with distressing abruptness, then backwinged to land neatly on a ledge.

‘Here you are, Menolly. Best seat in the Ground. I’ll be back for you afterwards.’

Menolly was only too glad to sit still after that incredible ride. She was in the third tier, by the outer wall, so she had a perfect view of the Hatching Ground and the entrance through which people were beginning to file. They were all so elegantly dressed that she brushed vainly at the stains and crossed her arm over her chest. At least the clothes were new.

Other dragons were arriving from the upper entrance, depositing their passengers, often
three
and four at a time. She watched the now steady stream of visitors coming in from the ground entrance. It was amusing to watch the elegant and sometimes overdressed ladies having to pick up their heavy skirts and run in awkward little steps across the hot sands. The tiers filled rapidly, and the excited thrumming of the dragons increased in pitch so that Menolly found it difficult to sit quietly.

A sudden cry announced the rocking of some of the eggs. Late arrivals began to hurry across the sands, and the seats beyond Menolly were filled with a group of minecraftsmen, to judge from their red-brown tunic devices. She crossed her arms again and then uncrossed them because she had to lean forward to see around the minecraftsmen’s stocky bodies.

More eggs were rocking, all of them except the smallish gray egg that had somehow got shoved back against the inside wall.

Another rush of wings, and this time bronze dragons entered, depositing the girls who were candidates for the queen egg. Menolly tried to figure out which one was Brekke, but they all looked very aware and healthy. Hadn’t the weyrwomen remarked that morning how Brekke just lay like someone dead? The girls formed a loose but incomplete semicircle about
the
queen egg while Ramoth hissed softly behind it.

Young boys marched in now from the Bowl, their expressions purposeful, their shoulders straight in the white tunics as they approached the main clutch.

Menolly did not see Brekke’s entrance because she was trying to figure out which of the violently rocking eggs would hatch first. Then one of the miners exclaimed and pointed towards the entrance, to the slender figure, stumbling, halting, then moving onward, apparently insensitive to the hot sands underfoot.

‘That would be the one. That would be Brekke,’ he told his comrades. ‘Dragonrider said she’d be put to the egg.’

Yes, thought Menolly, she walks as if she’s asleep. Then Menolly saw Manora and a man she didn’t recognize standing by the entrance, as if they had done all they could in bringing Brekke to the Hatching Ground.

Suddenly Brekke straightened her shoulders with a shake of her head. She walked slowly but steadily across the sands to join the five girls who waited by the golden egg. One girl turned and gestured for her to take the space that would complete the semicircle.

The humming ceased so abruptly that a little ripple of reaction ran through those assembled.
In
the expectant silence, the faint crack of a shell was clear, and the pop and shatter of others.

First one dragonet, then another, awkward, ugly, glistening creatures, flopped and rolled from their casings, squawking and creeling, their wedge-shaped heads too big for the thin, sinuous short necks.

Menolly noticed how very still the boys were standing, stunned as she’d been in that very little cave with those tiny fire lizards crawling from their shells, voracious with hunger.

Now the difference became apparent; the fire lizards had expected no help at their hatching, their instinct was to get food into their churningly empty stomachs as fast as possible. But the dragons looked expectantly about them. One staggered beyond the first boy who sidestepped its awkward progress. It fell, nose first at the feet of a tall, black-haired boy. The boy knelt, helped the dragonet balance on his shaky feet, looked into the rainbow eyes.

Emotion like a fist squeezed Menolly’s heart. Yes, she’d her fire lizards, but to Impress a dragon … Startled, she wondered where Beauty, Rocky, Diver and the others were. She missed them acutely, wanted Beauty’s affectionate nuzzling, even the choke-tight twist of the little queen’s tail about her neck.

The crack of the golden egg was a summons for all attention to be centered on it. The egg split right down the center, and its inmate, protesting her abrupt birth, fell to the sand on her back. Three of the girls moved to assist it. They got the little queen to her four legs and then stepped back. Menolly held her breath as they all turned towards Brekke. She was unaware of anything. Whatever strength had sustained her to walk across the sands had now left her. Her shoulders sagged pathetically, her head listed to one side as if too heavy to hold upright. The queen dragonet turned her head towards Brekke, the glistening eyes enormous in the outsize skull. Brekke shook her head as if aware of the scrutiny. The dragonet lurched forward one step.

Menolly saw a bronze blur out of the corner of her right eye and for an unnerving moment thought it must be Diver. But it couldn’t be, because the little bronze just hung above the dragonet’s head, screaming defiantly. He was so close to her head that she reared back with a startled shriek and bit at the air, instinctively spreading her wings forward as protection for her vulnerable eyes.