Part four

N’jol woke, coughing.

“Faranth, make it stop,” B’frea moaned.

N’jol wished he’d stop. The other weyrling’s complaining made his head hurt. And his head already hurt. Along with the entire rest of his body.

Half the weyrlings were miserably abed. The sickest couldn’t even get up to feed their dragons. The least unwell weyrlings were cutting and feeding for the worst, while suffering grimly through their shivers and sweats and sneezes, and worst of all, the dreadful cough that left the sufferers gasping for air.

N’jol was among the most ill. He shifted in his sweat-drenched sheets, feeling wretched. Every inch of his body ached, and his head, throat, and chest felt like one huge mass of mucus. Kistrith moved her nose an inch closer to his hand. She was distraught that N’jol could no long bear to sleep with her cuddled up against him, owing to his body’s rapid lurches from too hot to too cold and back again. He felt even worse that she was upset. That distressed her even more.

Hal came over from the front of the barracks. “How’re you doing, Jolly?”

N’jol didn’t even have the strength to shrug. “Pretty…bad,” he croaked through a throat that felt like he’d swallowed gravel. It made him cough again, and then he had to suck in a harsh, noisy breath afterwards. He sank back down, panting.

“Why don’t you sit up?” said Hal. “Have some water?”

N’jol needed both hands to grip the mug Hal pressed into his hands. “Thanks.” He gulped water. It cooled his throat, but it still hurt going down. “How’re…you?”

“I’m all right,” Hal said. “Didn’t get the lurgy as bad as you. Just a headache and a bit snotty.”

“S’good,” said N’jol.

“You know, the Dragon Healer came in to see the dragonets who were sneezing,” said Hal. “And there’s nothing wrong with them. He said the illness doesn’t affect dragons, so they must be doing it out of sympathy for their riders! Funny, right?”

N’jol wasn’t finding anything very funny. “Right.”

“Kistrith’s lunch is all cut up and ready to go,” said Hal. “I chopped it good and small, so she doesn’t barf on it like she did yesterday. I told you she barfed yesterday, didn’t I, Jolly?”

“Yeah,” said N’jol.

I like it better when you make my food, Kistrith said mournfully.

“Vammers has settled on his name at last,” Hal went on. “He wanted to be V’sion, but that’s too close to his dad’s name, and D’hor said V’mersion would be too long. So he’s going to be V’mersin.”

“Uh huh,” said N’jol.

The conversation lapsed. He forced himself to find something to say. “Did you pick…” He coughed. “Your name?”

“Yeah,” Hal said, with a forced sort of cheer. “F’hal, because Valth doesn’t like Fr’hal.”

“Easier t’say than Fr- Fr-” Even trying to get it out made him cough, the deep, hacking cough that pained his chest without ever actually bringing up any of the phlegm clogging his lungs.

Hal waited patiently for the fit to end. “Yeah, I guess when the alternative nearly makes your best mate choke…!”

“Did you see,” N’jol began, and had to take a breath to finish the sentence. “My dad?”

“No-oo,” said Hal, looking away. “I said, didn’t I, the watchmen don’t patrol this close to the barracks.”

“Does he know. I’m sick?”

“I don’t know,” Hal said, with a helpless shrug.

“Not seen him,” N’jol said. “Since Hatchin.”

“I know.” Hal put a gentle hand on N’jol’s shoulder. “You said already.”

“I reckon he must be. Mad. At me.”

“Ah, I’m sure he’s not,” said Hal, unconvincingly.

I don’t like him, said Kistrith.

You never met him, N’jol told her. At least talking to Kistrith didn’t require breath.

I still don’t like him.

“I could –” Hal began.

“F’hal,” the Weyrlingmaster barked, from the doorway of the barracks.

“Uh-oh,” Hal said. He got up from the edge of N’jol’s bed. “He looks grim. Better go find out what I’ve done this time.”

“Thanks,” N’jol said. “Fr’everythin.”

“Sure, Jolly,” said Hal. “Any time.”

N’jol lay down again. Neither side of his pillow was cool, just warm and damp with fever sweat. He followed Hal with his eyes as his friend reported to D’hor.

And witnessed Hal’s expression transform from dutiful to disbelieving to devastated before he ran from the barracks with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Why is Valth’s rider crying? Kistrith asked.

Don’t know, said N’jol. Ask Valth?

Kistrith shrank into herself – she was a little scared of the bigger dragonets, and Valth was one of the biggest – but then, very bravely, she reported, He says his rider’s sibling went between.

Between? That was confusing. Hal didn’t have any rider family. Then N’jol suddenly grasped his dragonet’s meaning. D’you mean – died?

I think so. Valth is sad for his rider.

Later, N’jol discovered that Lirenzy, Hal’s little sister, had been the first child to die of the coughing sickness afflicting the youngsters of Madellon Weyr.

She was far from the last.

In time, N’jol’s condition improved.

The Weyr Healer’s staff brought him a concoction that, for all its foul taste, seemed to help. His headache eased. His muscle pain went away. His chest cleared, although he was still occasionally racked with noisy coughing fits that bent him double and left him with tears in his eyes. As soon as he could stand unaided, he started tending Kistrith again, though he was easily tired and much slower than the other weyrlings. He’d missed a lot of lessons.

Kistrith had grown. He hadn’t really noticed while she was curled up beside him in the barracks, but she’d put on almost a foot in length and several inches in height. N’jol walked with her daily – a routine all the weyrlings followed to strengthen their dragonet’s muscles – but it was as much about his own rehabilitation as Kistrith’s development.

“I got to sit down,” B’frea exclaimed, flinging himself onto the sand, halfway round the path that lapped Madellon’s lake.

It was the farthest N’jol had been from the barracks since he’d gone down with the sickness. He wanted to keep going, keep pushing himself to stay with the other weyrlings, but Evie sat wearily down, and so he did, too. B’frea and Evie had been almost as sick as N’jol, so Kistrith and the other two greens, Amillioth and Grissenth, were used to being left behind when their riders tired. The dragonets sat in a little circle, grooming themselves and each other.

“Look at her,” Evie said, nodding towards a fully grown green dragon on the other side of the lake. “That’s Othanth. Suzallie’s green. With everything that’s happened at Madellon recently, she still wants to flirt and fly.”

“Shards, who can blame her,” said B’frea. “If Grissenth could fly, I think I’d strap in and have her just keep flying, as far away from here as possible, just me and her. Hunting wherries, sleeping under the stars…”

“Well, rather you than me,” said Evie. She looked back at the cavorting Othanth. “There she goes.”

They all watched as Othanth threw herself aloft, beating her wings powerfully, and hurtled over the Rim, with half a dozen browns and blues in pursuit.

“Where’d they go?” asked N’jol.

“Up,” said Evie, shrugging. “Away. Does it matter?”

“Wonder if Su’s going to have to leave,” said B’frea. “Once ours are old enough, anyway. She’s got three brothers with dragons now.”

“Why’s it matter?” asked N’jol.

“I suppose it doesn’t, if they remember they can’t chase Su’s green,” said Evie. “But dragons aren’t always good at remembering things, especially with greens that look similar.” She smiled at Amillioth, who was busily licking Kistrith’s headknob. “Milli and your Kistrith could almost be twins, they’re so alike.”

“I don’t think they look the same,” said N’jol.

“Not to you and me,” said Evie. “But to a brown who just wants to catch a tail?”

“His rider’d have a bit of a shock if he was expecting you and got Jolly,” B’frea said, laughing.

“Oh, Faranth, yes!” Evie said, covering her eyes with her hand. “What a rude awakening that would be!”

N’jol laughed along with them, though he wasn’t quite sure what they found so funny. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was missing something important.

The rest of the weyrlings had almost lapped them by the time the three of them got up to continue. N’jol thought about falling in beside Hal, but his friend was walking alone with his brown, his chin on his chest and his hands shoved deep in his pockets in the universal sign language for leave me be.

Instead, N’jol walked diffidently up beside Vammers. “Hey, Vam –” he began, and corrected himself, “V’mersin.”

“You can still call me Vammers, Jolly,” the older weyrling said. “If I can still call you Jolly.”

“Yeah,” said N’jol. “Sure.”

They walked along together for a bit. Kistrith hop-skipped good-naturedly side-by-side with Vammers’ Unoth. Kistrith was much happier in the company of other greens than she was with the male dragonets, N’jol had noticed.

“Something on your mind, Jolly?” Vammers asked.

“When folks go on ’bout green dragons,” N’jol began.

“Yeah?”

“An how they’s for girls and not boys.”

Vammers smiled. “Unoth and Kistrith had other ideas, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, they did.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” said Vammers. “At least, it doesn’t have to.”

“What d’you mean, ’xactly?”

Vammers gestured with his head. “You saw that green go up a minute ago, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You were thinking, that’s going to be you and Kistrith.”

N’jol hadn’t been thinking that, but he nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

“And you and – whichever dragon’s rider.”

“Yeah,” said N’jol, and then, “No. What d’you mean?”

Vammers stopped. So did N’jol. Kistrith nearly walked into the back of his legs. Ow! she exclaimed, rubbing her snout. He leaned down to rub it for her.

“You know what happens when dragons rise, don’t you?” Vammers asked.

“Yeah, course I does,” N’jol insisted. “They – they do it.” He could feel his face getting warm.

“Right,” said Vammers, “but you know that their riders…”

He left it hanging.

“Their riders what?” asked N’jol.

“Their riders do, too,” Vammers explained carefully.

“They does…what?”

“Have sex with each other,” said Vammers. “The green’s rider, and the rider of the blue or brown or maybe bronze who catches her.”

N’jol just looked at Vammers. “But they’s all…boys,” he said, feeling stupid.

You’re not stupid, said Kistrith.

“Yup,” said Vammers.

“But…but how –”

“But – but – but,” D’valen mocked him, as he and B’stroc passed with their dragonets. “Exactly! Right up the fork!”

“Oh, shut up, you little brat,” S’fen told his brother, clipping him around the ear.

“Ow!”

“I didn’t realise you didn’t know,” Vammers said, smiling ruefully. “I suppose we’re all just so used to it, and with no boys coming in on Search, D’hor didn’t bother to go over it.”

“Boys what like it like girls,” N’jol said, repeating, with awful, belated understanding, the scathing remark his father had made about green dragons.

“That’s stupid holder whershit,” said Vammers. “Look, Jolly. It doesn’t mean anything. You have to put up with it when your green rises. But that’s way off. And the rest of the time you don’t have to be with another boy if you don’t want to.”

“What about you?” N’jol asked, bewildered. “Does you like…it…with a boy?”

“I mean, I have,” Vammers said, shrugging. “It’s all right. I like girls better. But I like Unoth best, and I wouldn’t swap her for any blue, brown, or bronze, just so I wouldn’t have to sleep with a boy in a flight.” He paused. “Would you?”

N’jol looked down at Kistrith. Kistrith put his muzzle on his thigh and gazed back up at him.

“I wouldn’t swap her for nothin,” he said.

“There you go,” said Vammers. Then he laughed. “Anyway, Z’fell rides a green. And Faranth knows, he has more girlfriends than just about anyone else in the Weyr!”

N’jol spent a lot of time thinking about everything Vammers had told him over the next few days.

So many things that Tirrol had said made sense now. His distaste for green riders. His stern admonition that he not look at a green. A green dragonrider ain’t even a man.

Was that why green riders were so maligned in the Weyr? Because their riders weren’t proper men? N’jol shook his head. Half the greens had girls for riders. And then he suddenly realised something that had been right in front of his eyes. Basalgette – B’get – and Zaffo. They’d always had their heads together, been quick to put their arms around each other, loved wrestling with each other, more than any of the other boys. Was that because they were…? But B’get had a brown. And no one ever said a brown rider wasn’t a proper man.

N’jol tried to think of himself kissing another boy. Yuck, he thought, recoiling at the faintly disgusting idea. But then so was the thought of kissing a girl. Or – was it? Was it disgusting, or was it just…uncomfortable? Vammers said he’d done it with boys and girls. N’jol hadn’t ever even held a girl’s hand, nor kissed one, let alone…it. He hadn’t come across many girls, in the watchhouse. But now he was thinking about it, he did want to.

Want to what? Kistrith asked sleepily from her couch.

Never mind, Kisi, he told her.

Kistrith got the thought from his mind anyway. I’m a girl, she informed him. You can kiss me!

I was thinkin about an actual girl, N’jol said. A girl person, not a girl dragon.

But I like when you kiss me, Kistrith objected.

N’jol sat up to his dragonet’s muzzle in his face. He took it between his hands and planted a big kiss on the end of Kistrith’s broad nose. She wiggled happily and licked him all the way up his cheek. I love you, N’jol.

I love you too, Kisi, he told her.

Did that make him less of a man? That his dragon was a green, a female; that she liked him to kiss her, and he didn’t mind? No. He’d seen almost all his classmates hugging and kissing their dragonets, even G’fien, and he was nineteen and had a brown. He didn’t think he’d understood himself, before Kistrith, just how much he’d love his dragon; how much he could love anything. Tirrol didn’t understand, either. How could he, when he’d never Impressed a dragon, never even been closer than thirty feet to one?

Maybe he just needed to meet Kistrith. Then he’d understand. And N’jol could explain that he wasn’t a boy-lover like he thought, not that there was anything wrong with that, but he wasn’t, if that was what Tirrol thought, just because he’s Impressed a green.

But the weyrling barracks were strictly off-limits to anyone who didn’t have good reason to be there. And the weyrlings weren’t supposed to go farther than a few lengths from wherever their dragons were, except with prior permission from the Weyrlingmaster, in case the dragonets panicked without them.

“No,” said D’hor, when N’jol brought the request to him. “Your father’s made it plain enough that he’s not interested in seeing you. He didn’t congratulate you after the Hatching, did he?”

“Nosir, but he might’ve been on patrol,” said N’jol.

“He could have come to me after he completed his duties and requested to see you,” said the Weyrlingmaster. “He did not.”

“P’raps he didn’t know he could’ve,” N’jol insisted.

“He didn’t come to see you when you were abed with the affliction,” D’hor pointed out.

“Maybe he’d not heard –”

“He’d heard, weyrling,” the Weyrlingmaster said crisply. “I took the news to himself myself when you first came down, and again at the peak of your fever, when you didn’t wake for a full day.”

N’jol hesitated. He hadn’t dared ask anyone if Tirrol had visited when he was at his sickest. He’d been afraid to know the answer. “Maybe…maybe he were afeared he’d sicken too.”

“N’jol,” D’hor said, and while the Weyrlingmaster’s tone was sharp, there was something in his eyes that almost looked like sympathy. “Chief Tirrol’s words – his precise words – were, ‘If the boy dies the boy dies. He ain’t my problem no more.’”

N’jol couldn’t hold D’hor’s uncharacteristically compassionate gaze. He looked away, feeling his cheeks go hot with emotion. “He just – he just…”

“Living and working at the Weyr doesn’t make a man of the Weyr,” D’hor told him. “Your father’s not of the Weyr. But for better or worse, you now are. And while I may not agree with the Chief’s indifference to your well-being – in fact, I find it callous beyond belief, given the tragedies other parents have endured – he is right, in a sense. You aren’t his problem any longer. You’re mine.” The Weyrlingmaster’s face, and tone, hardened. “Permission to visit your father in the watchhouse is denied, weyrling N’jol. Focus on your dragonet. Focus on your classmates and your training, and let that sleeping watch-wher lie. The sooner you put your origins as a watchman behind you, the better. You’re a dragonrider now, and dragonriders shouldn’t trouble themselves with the petty concerns of lesser men.”

N’jol came away from that encounter even more confused and miserable than before. He wrestled with Tirrol’s apparent hardheartedness, trying to come up with a justification for it. The best he could manage was that his father had never held many dragonriders in high regard, and so being petitioned by a bent-backed old man like D’hor was hardly likely to be the exception to that rule. Sh’ror would have met with more respect…but N’jol hadn’t seen him since his Impression of Kistrith. And even had he been inclined to disobey the Weyrlingmaster’s directive about not bothering senior riders, everyone knew that the Flightleader was one of the parents D’hor had alluded to, in deep mourning for the daughter he’d lost to the sickness. The worries of a mere green weyrling would be the very last thing on Sh’ror’s mind.

But could N’jol really give up on his father completely?

Tirrol might not have been the most loving parent. Perhaps he’d brought Narjol up as successor more than son. Perhaps he’d had tunnel vision when it came to what he might be capable of achieving. But he’d done his best after Narjol’s mother’s death. He’d taught him, trained him, for the trusted and respectable role of a watchman. He’d brought him to Madellon Weyr in the first place, and without that change in the direction of Narjol’s life, he’d never have Impressed Kistrith at all. The way N’jol saw it, he owed Tirrol everything. He couldn’t turn his back on him without at least trying to change his mind.

But D’hor had forbidden him from going out of bounds, and N’jol wasn’t in the habit of disobeying orders.

And yet….

Permission to visit your father in the watchhouse is denied, D’hor had said.

He’d never said N’jol couldn’t see Tirrol somewhere else.

N’jol knew every patrol route that the watchmen took in the Weyr. He’d walked them all himself dozens of times, alone and with the other watchmen. None of them came close to the weyrling barracks – not close enough that he could intercept a patrol without flouting the rules, anyway.

But if he could give the patrolling Chief a reason to divert from his route….

“You’ll get it bad from D’hor if he catches you,” Hal said, when N’jol told him his plan.

“That’s why I needs you t’help,” N’jol said. “I got no way to get over to the watchhouse and check the rota. No point riskin it if Tirrol ain’t even on night patrol.”

Hal nodded slowly. “I guess I could walk that way when I come back from seeing Liggary.”

“Is she all right?” N’jol asked, feeling bad for asking his friend to use his visits with his bereaved mother to help him.

“Not really,” said Hal, grimly. “Not like she’s the only mum mourning though, is she?” He sighed. “I told her I’d changed my name again. Don’t think she really understood why. But it feels right, this time. Valth thinks so, too.” He straightened. “I get it, though. Family. Yeah. I’ll help.”

“Thanks, Hal,” said N’jol. “I mean, F’halig.”

The windows in the weyrling barracks were placed high in the walls. Even N’jol wasn’t tall enough to see out of them. But if he stood on his bed, balancing his weight cautiously on the wooden frame, and got right up on his very tiptoes, he could peer through the small clear patch he’d carefully cleaned and scan the narrow slice of the Weyr that the vantage point afforded.

It was after middle watch. The watchpair had changed up on the Rim. Tirrol should be on patrol by now, according to the roster Hal had seen. But N’jol had already climbed up and peered out three times, to no avail. The Weyr was quiet, still, asleep.

So was Kistrith on her couch beside him. She’d been interested in the scheme until she’d learned that it involved N’jol’s father, whom she had firmly decided she did not like. She’d then forgotten all about it. Hal said that was normal for dragons, especially greens. As far as N’jol was concerned, he was glad. He didn’t want D’hor’s Defronth getting wind of his plan from his green, even accidentally.

He got up again, stepping barefoot onto his bed, and stretched up to look out of the window. Still nothing.

All around, boys and dragons snored and muttered and farted in their sleep. The dragonets had grown immensely. D’hor had measured Kistrith at just under eight feet in length the morning after the Hatching; now, she was over ten feet long, although her tail accounted for half of that, and she was quickly becoming too heavy for N’jol to lift. He still found it hard to imagine her being big enough to carry him, but the Weyrlingmaster didn’t seem concerned.

He was halfway out of his blankets, intending to get up and look out again, when one of the boys near the front of the barracks rolled out of bed and shuffled sleepily towards the bathing room at the rear. N’jol froze. He was fully dressed under the covers. The last thing he needed was for one of his classmates to dob him in.

The other boy disappeared into the bathing room. N’jol got up, climbed onto his bed, and peeked out.

In the darkness, the green blob of a glowbasket’s light bobbed steadily along the night patrol route beyond the weyrling barracks. N’jol watched just long enough to decide that, yes, the steady, measured stride of its bearer matched Tirrol’s. His father was out there.

N’jol clambered down and stuffed his feet into the pair of work boots sitting by his clothes trunk. He snatched up the glowbasket he’d hidden underneath his bed. Then, tiptoeing to keep the heavy boots from thudding against the swept tile floor, he hurried to the front of the barracks. He and Hal had greased the hinges of the sally port to the side of the big double doors with the oil they used on their dragons. The door swung open with barely a whisper, and N’jol slipped outside.

Weyrlings weren’t meant to leave the barracks after lights-out, but that was because they were assumed to be sneaking out to meet girls. The notion baffled N’jol, given his new understanding of the relationships between riders who were both male, because surely there was nothing to stop them getting up to things they weren’t meant to right there in the barracks. He wondered if the Weyrlingmaster was glad Zaffo hadn’t been allowed to stand. He put the thought out of his mind.

The perimeter of the barracks, beyond which was out of bounds, was marked with white rocks. N’jol went right up to the boundary, making sure not to put a single toe over it, and carefully turned his glowbasket to the position that would create the tightest, brightest beam. Then he held the light at arm’s length and swung it back and forth, sweeping it across the dark Weyr.

Across the Bowl, the motion of Tirrol’s light slowed, stopped.

And then approached.

N’jol steeled himself. His mind whirled with all the things he wanted to tell his father.

“Who goes there?”

The Chief’s rough growl made N’jol flinch, but he stood his ground. “It’s me, Chief,” he said, low but steady. “It’s N’jol. Narjol.”

“The…shaffin…?”

Tirrol thrust his glowbasket high, and N’jol did take an instinctive step back then, shielding his eyes as the bright light blinded him.

And then looked down at the pike blade resting on his chest.

“Chief?” he asked stupidly.

Tirrol held the pike there for a moment longer, then returned it to the vertical. He lifted his chin. His eyes were shadowy pits in the green-washed mask of his face. “Stupid shaffin boy playing stupid shaffin games in the dark. Yer lucky I didn’t spit you.”

“I had to see you, Chief,” N’jol explained. “Weyrlinmaster wouldn’t let me come to the watchhouse –”

“And what business did y’think you ’ad there?” Tirrol asked. “You ain’t no watchman no more. And if I’d known what you was, I’d never’ve ’ad you there.”

N’jol felt himself crumpling in on himself, as he always had when his father bawled him out, and then he caught himself. He put his shoulders back. “I’m a dragonman of Madellon Weyr,” he said defiantly. “And I ain’t ashamed t’be.”

“Dragonman?” Tirrol hacked a laugh. “That dragon what chose you puts the lie t’that. It showed up yer true colours!”

“She ain’t an it,” N’jol insisted, feeling himself flushing. “She’s a she.”

“It’s a female,” Tirrol spat. “An when she gets in heat, you’ll be female too!”

“Vammers said it don’t say nothin about a man, that he does what he’s gotta for his dragon –”

“And you knows what that is, does you?” Tirrol’s face contorted with revulsion. “I warned you. I told you. And you turned yer back on every word o’wisdom I ’ad fer you. My own son.” Tirrol raised his head. “Well, not no more you ain’t. I don’t got no son no more. No boy o’mine would set ’isself up to be a catamite.”

N’jol didn’t recognise the word. He did recognise the vicious, ugly look in Tirrol’s eyes. “I know you’re mad wit’ me,” he tried, desperate. “But Kistrith chose me. She loves me. I love her. And I’ll do anythin, anythin in the world, to keep her safe. Whatever it takes.”

Tirrol spat at him, a full mouthful of saliva that splattered, hot and hateful on N’jol’s face. “T’would be better neither mewlin one o’you were ever born,” he said, into N’jol’s frozen shock. “Give me a big enough barrel and I’d drown the filthy blighted creature meself!”

Fury and outrage and hot crimson hatred erupted in N’jol’s body in a way he’d never experienced before, like monstrous living things. He could have lived with his father disowning him to his face. He could have endured the spittle dripping warm and sticky down his cheek. But Tirrol had threatened his dragon, and that – that, N’jol would not allow.

Kistrith came awake all at once, a sudden urgent presence in his mind. N’jol?

He ignored her. He bunched his muscles, planted his feet, and put his fist into Tirrol’s sneering, twisted face.

N’jol!

Tirrol’s head snapped back on his neck, but he didn’t go down. “You filthy little shit!” he roared. “You’d put yer ’ands on me? On me?”

“You take it back!” N’jol howled. “Take it back!”

But Tirrol’s pike was moving. The Chief’s face was hard and cold and terribly, perversely, pleased. Satisfied. Vindicated. And nine inches of cold steel blade, polished and sharpened a hundred times, was coming for N’jol’s belly.

“Better you was dead,” Tirrol rasped.

N’jol stepped into the jab, knocking the polearm aside, and the blade only glanced across his arm, leaving it numb.

N’jol, N’jol, N’jol! Kistrith screamed.

He didn’t care. Tirrol’s weapon was out of position now. N’jol stepped inside its range, reaching for his father’s neck. “You ain’t never gonna hurt her,” he told him, suddenly as brutal and vicious as his sire. “I’ll kill you first an piss on your grave!”

“Come on, then, boy,” Tirrol snarled. “Come an do me, quick, afore I do you!”

And his hand was suddenly on his knife.

“Or is you too craven?” Tirrol asked. His eyes had a frenzied shine to them in the light of their two glowbaskets. He caressed the knife hilt. “You afeared o’this?” He held up his empty hands. “Now come get yer old man, ’less you’re too yella t’try!”

The instant slowed to an eternity. N’jol’s hand was so close to Tirrol’s throat. Another inch and he could end his father’s monstrous threat to Kistrith.

This young man’s father is the quickest out with a blade I’ve ever seen, Sh’ror had said.

Even he had never bested Tirrol with a knife.

Injured pride won’t kill you, the Flightleader had said. But a knife in your gut will.

And Kistrith pleaded, I love you, N’jol. Please don’t leave me!

Tirrol went for his knife, and N’jol flung himself backwards. His father’s blade glanced across the top of his chest, slicing through the fabric of his shirt, leaving a thin line of fire in its wake.

“Coward!” Tirrol spat.

N’jol scrambled away on his backside. He could feel blood pouring down his chest and tears pouring down his cheeks.

There were people running towards him in the dark, shouting. He could hardly identify them through his blurry eyes. Then he realised they were his classmates. Hal. Vammers. S’fen. B’stroc and D’valen. Pettra and Schanna. F’tra and B’frea. Every face was hard and angry, shocked, outraged. For him. For N’jol, Kistrith’s rider, their classmate, their fellow weyrling of Madellon.

“Dragon woman!” Tirrol bawled. “Craven! Catamite! You ain’t my son!”

“You get back!” Hal roared, suddenly as frightening as his forceful dragonet, even in his pyjamas. He put himself between N’jol and his father. S’fen and Vammers came up either side of him: three big young men, angry and indignant. “You get away from N’jol!”

S’fen demanded, “How dare you attack a dragonrider!”

“The Weyrlingmaster’s coming,” Vammers added. “Shards, the Weyrleader will be!”

Tirrol had his pike back in both hands. He swung it wildly at the wall of angry weyrlings standing between him and his son. “Out of my way, you dirty little bum-boys!”

The three weyrlings jumped back from Tirrol’s violent swings, but they didn’t break their defensive formation. “You are in such deep shit!” Vammers exclaimed.

The other weyrlings of Monsoon class surrounded N’jol. Arms went around his shoulders; hands patted at his bleeding chest. Someone pulled off their pyjama top and shoved it against his wound.

“It’s all right, N’jol, it’s all right,” a female voice said gently. It was Evie. “It’s just a scratch. You’re going to be fine.”

“We’ve got you,” said Pettra. “We’re not going to let him hurt you!”

“Crazy old bastard!” F’tra yelled, balling his fists at Tirrol

“How shaffing dare he try to hurt you?” G’mar exclaimed. “You’re a dragonrider!”

With a shuddering impact, Defronth, the Weyrlingmaster’s skinny old brown, landed hard between the weyrlings and the ranting, screaming Chief of Watch. With one swipe of Defronth’s forepaw, Tirrol’s pike went flying. With a second, the Chief was flat on his back, with Defronth’s paw pinning him to the ground.

And then the dragonets broke out of the barracks, pouring out like a herd of stampeding runnerbeasts, tails and wings in disarray, eyes red and yellow in the darkness, squealing with distress and excitement. All around in the night, adult dragons were waking, calling to each other in confusion at the events by the weyrling barracks.

“Dragons in the dark” by Chrisi S Baily

Grateful as he was, N’jol pushed away his classmates, and they scattered, each to intercept his or her own dragonet. But N’jol only had eyes for the forest-green dragonet running fearlessly at the head of the pack with her fragile wings outstretched and her eyes fiercely amber. He climbed to his feet, spreading his arms to stop her.

N’jol, N’jol! she cried, putting her forepaws up on his shoulders, almost knocking him over. Don’t be hurt! Please don’t be hurt!

She’d got so big. N’jol sat down heavily, suddenly too exhausted to bear his own weight, much less his dragonet’s. I’m not, Kistrith. It’s just a scratch. It’s nothing.

That’s what you always say, Kistrith told him crossly, but she licked his face. I told you I didn’t like him, didn’t I? I told you!

Hal came over with Valth in tow. He sat down next to N’jol, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Shaffing Void, N’jol. D’hor’s going to lay an egg when he gets down here. I mean, when he does. I bet he’s still in his slippers and nightcap!”

The two of them sat there in the darkness as the other weyrlings and dragonets milled excitedly around Defronth and his suddenly silent prisoner. Tirrol had been struggling weakly, but the Weyrlingmaster’s crotchety brown put an end to that with an irritated snarl.

“I wonder what they’ll do about your dad,” Hal said. “They’ll probably –”

“He wanted t’hurt Kistrith,” N’jol said. He heard the words come out. “T’kill her. He woulda killed me. For bein a green rider.”

“Shaff,” Hal said. “I’m sorry, Jolly. That’s…that’s… Faranth, your own dad!”

“He said I weren’t his son no more,” N’jol went on. The words seemed to be coming from someone else’s mouth. He was too shocked, too numb, to stop them. “That means he ain’t my father no more, neither. I got Kistrith now. I don’t need no family.”

“Shaff, Jolly,” said Hal, as N’jol buried his face in Kistrith’s neck. “Maybe you don’t, but…I just lost both my siblings. I’ve still got Mum, but…I sure as shells could do with a brother to watch my back.”

N’jol lifted his head from Kistrith’s soft hide.

Hal’s hand squeezed hard on his shoulder. “Can we be brothers, Jolly?”

You’re leaking again, Kistrith said, licking N’jol’s bloodied chest. Why are you always leaking?

N’jol put his left hand on his dragonet’s head. With the right he grasped Hal’s wrist. Hal’s fingers gripped hard on his. “I reckon I’d like that, Hal. Yeah. Reckon I’d like that a lot.”

Epilogue

Vanzanth followed Nathronth out of between over Crookpass Hold.

This is it? L’stev asked as his brown spiralled down towards the unfinished fire-heights, the tallest of the ramshackle buildings surrounding an incompletely paved courtyard.

It’s not very pretty, Vanzanth agreed.

Mineholds generally aren’t, L’stev told him. Don’t land on the heights.

I wasn’t planning to.

Vanzanth descended towards the paved portion of the courtyard, and then swerved at the last moment, jerking L’stev around in the harness. Sorry.

“What the –” L’stev exclaimed, an instant before he saw the dark stain on the rough paving slabs. His gorge rose, and he tore his eyes away. “Never mind.”

I have warned Nathronth.

The two dragons landed in the other half of the courtyard. Vanzanth’s feet sank into the mire as he folded his wings. This is very unpleasant.

Tell me about it, said L’stev. He released his safety strap and jumped down into the mud. The ground was a rutted bog, churned by the passage of heavy-wheeled wagons and many hobnailed boots. Dirt had splashed up the walls of every building. The summer sunshine overhead did nothing to brighten the grim little settlement. The faces at every window, peering out at the two dragons, looked more angry than awed. “Don’t turn your ankle, P’keo,” he called as the Weyrleader climbed down from Nathronth’s ridges.

“Holder Kratin, is it?” P’keo said, stepping carefully across the peaks and troughs of mud towards the dust-grimed, pinch-faced man who’d emerged from one of the buildings.

The dirty man shook his head shortly. “Kerant. Kratin’s my brother. He ain’t takin visitors. Had to bury his boy this morning.”

“A duty with which we are both also too painfully familiar,” said P’keo, making a brief, respectful bow.

Ferant eyed him suspiciously. “You blame us.”

It was both statement and accusation, and P’keo seemed unsure how to answer. L’stev stepped forwards. “It may be that the sickness started here. That doesn’t make it your fault –”

“Shaffin right it don’t,” said Kerant. “We never had no trouble here before. Never asked for that dragonman to come and get himself kilt. Now it’s dragons every other day and Void knows what calamity comes down on us next. Fer all we know, Hannaa’s little one got what kilt her at the Weyr. We never asked for no dragonmen here, nor no plague to kill our bairns –”

“That’s enough, Holder Ferant,” L’stev said, raising his voice slightly. The mineholder shut his mouth, though his glare lost none of its force. “We’ve come for the dragonrider who died here. That’s all.”

“Best you’ve a strong stomach,” said Kerant.

The floor of the burial cave bore mute testimony to Crookpass Hold’s recent losses. The sight of the row of small graves, freshly dug and freshly occupied, made L’stev’s chest contract. He leaned against the wall, fighting back the tears that burned in his eyes from the all-too-raw memory of laying first little Lirenzy and then tiny Eravan to rest in Madellon’s own burial cavern. L’stev, Vanzanth said, and pressed up against him in his mind, completely present, sharing in his grief. Don’t hold me apart. Let me share this with you.

L’stev straightened. He looked at P’keo, whose eyes were moist and distant with the tragedy of his own daughter’s death. Then he set his jaw, his shoulders, and with Vanzanth shoring him up, his resolve. “Where –”

Kerant pointed towards the back of the cavern. “There.”

The grave was larger, adult sized. L’stev took the spade leaning against the wall, its blade smeared with fresh earth, and began to dig.

“We’d no way to keep the rot from him,” Kerant said, as L’stev shovelled away the top layer of soil. “Hot as it was. An no shardin dragon came for a sevenday. He were ripe long before that. Stank to the high skies. Even the watch-wher turned its nose up. Nothing to do but put him in the ground.”

“I suppose there was no hope, when you found him,” P’keo said. “His injuries –”

“No one coulda fell from that tower and lived,” said Kerant. “We had to scrape him off the slabs.”

The first whiff of decomposing flesh hit L’stev like a fist. “Faranth’s tits,” he muttered, gagging. Pulling his flying scarf up over his face barely helped block the appalling stench. He kept digging, trying to breathe only through his mouth.

He’d excavated perhaps two feet when the spade struck something soft. L’stev cleared the remaining dirt away from the coarse burial shroud, stained with earth and blood and worse. The shape within was both long and broad. Tellingly. Expectedly. He looked up at P’keo, who was standing with Kerant, both hands cupped over his nose and mouth, his eyes sick with revulsion. “Should I…open…?”

P’keo swallowed, hard. “We have to be certain,” he mumbled from behind his hands. “For his weyrmate’s sake.”

“Shaffing Void,” Kerant swore, and ducked abruptly out of the burial cavern, retching.

Grimly, L’stev slit the rough burlap of the shroud with his belt knife.

A few moments later, he and P’keo squatted on their haunches outside the cavern, gasping for air. “Faranth,” P’keo said weakly. “Faranth, L’stev.”

L’stev was still trying to get the dreadful stink out of his nostrils. He fumbled out his hip flask, took a sharp swig, then handed it to the Weyrleader. P’keo took a grateful gulp and gave it back

“There’s not any doubt at all, is there?” he asked miserably.

L’stev gave a short shake of his head, not trusting himself to speak, lest opening his mouth invited the contents of his stomach to make a violent exit. The sight of the maggots seething in the putrefying corpse’s still recognisably red-blond curly hair was branded upon his mind’s eye, clear and vivid and awful. He swallowed hard. “He didn’t –” he began, and then stopped. He couldn’t say the word. “Do this to himself?”

No, Vanzanth said immediately. No dragon would allow that. No matter what.

“Throw himself off that deathtrap of a fire-height, you mean?” P’keo asked, at the same moment. He shook his head. “Not with his dragon, and his youngest son safe and healthy, and his weyrmate, still to live for. He didn’t kill himself, L’stev. That was never his intention.”

“That night in your office,” L’stev said. “His face… He was out of his mind with grief, P’keo. I’ve never seen a man that broken. He made me feel like I hadn’t mourned mine half enough.”

“He had a way of making us all seem somehow inadequate,” P’keo agreed.

“He was like that even before he Impressed,” said L’stev. “Not for making us feel bad. Just for being so shaffing good.”

“That’s right,” said P’keo. “You knew him before the Weyr.”

“He was a fosterling at Jessaf,” said L’stev. “Briefly. He put my half-brother on his ass before he’d been there a sevenday, for being an entitled little shit.” The memory made his mouth quirk. “I’d never seen anyone with the balls to stand up to Win before, much less at his own heirship Gather. We by-blows and younger ones never forgot, even after he got packed off to Madellon to salve Win’s pride.”

“I should dearly have loved to see that,” said P’keo. “He was the best of us, wasn’t he, L’stev? The very best of us.” He covered his face with both his hands, suddenly stricken. “Nathronth wouldn’t have been the same loss. Fianine was right about Argunth’s line being blighted. I should never have let Nathronth fly Cherganth. It should have been us who came here. It should be me buried in that awful hole, not…not….”

L’stev had no comfort to offer the despairing Weyrleader. He looked up to the clifftop above, where Vanzanth and Nathronth waited like a pair of silent gargoyles. What use are you? he asked, turning his anger on his own dragon. We could have done something. You wouldn’t even let me try.

Would you have liked us to die for trying like they did? asked Vanzanth, mercilessly. What has happened will not be undone. Time protects itself. I protected you.

“He’s giving you the speech, isn’t he?” P’keo asked. He’d clawed back his self-control. “The one about shielding you from time’s obduracy.”

“It’s all just so shaffing pointless,” said L’stev. “Going back in time to do – what? What we’d already done? What none of us ever chose to do, only we had to because our future selves already had? I’ll never understand it.”

“Maybe we’re not meant to,” said P’keo.

“Understand it?”

“Go back in time.”

“But what if we hadn’t?” L’stev asked.

P’keo raised his shoulders. “Maybe weyrlings would have died. Maybe Master Firland wouldn’t have made the cure. Maybe the children who are improving now would be in the ground, too. Maybe that one little green wouldn’t have her rider.”

“Maybe no one would have come here and set the whole blighted horror in motion,” L’stev said. “Maybe my kids wouldn’t be dead. Or yours. Or his.”

“And maybe it’s not for us to know.” P’keo rose from his crouch. “Let’s get this done, L’stev. Qualth’s been alone between without his rider far too long. It’s time we brought Sh’ror home.”

Part three

“Did either of you actually touch the eggs?”

“Weyrwoman –” Narjol began

“I didn’t ask you, Watch,” Fianine told him curtly. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Holned and Zaffo, shifting her angry gaze from one boy to the other. “I want to hear what these two have to say for themselves. Well? Zaffolde? Holned? Did you?”

“No,” said Zaffo.

“Yeah,” said Holned, at the same instant, and then threw a contemptuous glance at the other boy. “I did.”

The Weyrleader hurried in at that moment, looking dishevelled, as if he’d been rudely awoken from sleep – which, Narjol supposed, he probably had. “What’s all this about?” he asked, looking around the Weyrwoman’s office, to which the two offending boys – and Narjol himself – had been marched by a furious Fianine.

“These two little snakes invited themselves into the Hatching Ground,” the Weyrwoman said. “At night! When Cherganth was sleeping!” He nostrils flared with contained rage.

Narjol could’ve sworn he saw a grin crook the corner of P’keo’s mouth for just an instant before the Weyrleader put his hand up to rub his chin gravely. “Well, that won’t do, will it?” he said, fixing the two offenders with a stern look. “That won’t do at all.”

“We wouldn’t’ve had to if you hadn’t cut us from the pool,” Holned insisted.

P’keo turned his attention to Narjol. “And what about you, Watch?” The Weyrleader frowned, then looked more closely. “I say – you were a candidate, too, weren’t you?”

“What?” Fianine asked sharply.

“Yes, yes, you were!” P’keo exclaimed. “I thought I recognised you yesterday when I addressed the pool, but I didn’t make the connection, out of your tabard!”

“Then this one was in cahoots with the other two?” the Weyrwoman demanded.

“No, ma’am –”

“Did you let Holned and Zaffolde into the Hatching Ground?” asked P’keo.

“Nosir,” said Narjol, indignant. “I would never.”

“Did you contrive to get the night patrol so you could turn a blind eye to their invasion?” Fianine snapped.

“No, ma’am,” said Narjol.

“He didn’t,” Holned piped up. “I didn’t even know he was there until he nabbed –”

“Be silent!” Fianine told him, and the boy gulped and shut up.

P’keo was looking at Narjol with a furrowed brow. “You’ve been patrolling the Hatching Ground the last two nights, haven’t you, son?”

“Yessir, I have, sir,” said Narjol.

“And during your patrols, did you – hmm – did you happen to touch one of Cherganth’s eggs?”

“Faranth’s teeth,” Fianine swore.

Narjol straightened his shoulders. He looked first P’keo and then Fianine straight in the eye, as his father had taught he should when reporting. “Nosir. No, ma’am.”

“Well, then –” P’keo began.

And then, despite himself, Narjol blurted, “’Cept…”

Fianine raked him with her withering glare. “Except what?”

“When I grabbed Zaffo,” said Narjol. “He pushed me back a step. I put my hand out. For balance, like.” He hesitated, feeling like a trundlebug writhing on a pin beneath the Weyrwoman’s piercing eye. “I think…I think I mighta brushed an egg. Not on purpose. On accident.”

“Faranth, Jolly!” Holned breathed, half in horror, half in envy.

“Brushed,” Fianine repeated. “You didn’t deliberately lay your hands on it. You didn’t concentrate on it?”

“No, ma’am,” said Narjol. “I grabbed my hand away soon as I realised.”

“And which egg was this?” the Weyrwoman asked.

He shook his head. “I dunno. It were dark. I couldn’t rightly see.”

Weyrwoman and Weyrleader exchanged a look.

“Cherganth says her eggs have taken no harm,” Fianine said, sounding fractionally mollified. “And if it was accidental contact, not intentional –”

P’keo did something strange then. He mouthed something silently. Narjol wasn’t sure, but he thought it looked like make eggs action forty watchman.

Then the Weyrleader said, “I think, perhaps, better safe than sorry, Fianine.”

Fianine blinked. “What?”

“Even if the contact was inadvertent, the dragonets are very close to Hatching now, and this is the first time they’ve been exposed to a male prospect.” Then P’keo went on, as if lighting on a new argument, “And with the young watchman – what’s your name, son?”

“Narjol,” he said, wondering why the Weyrleader didn’t remember him from the night of the storm.

“With young Narjol here having been in the Hatching Ground the last couple of nights,” P’keo continued, “if any candidate has come to the attention of a nascent dragonet, it would surely be him.”

Fianine looked Narjol up and down. “Why was he cut from the pool?”

“D’hor had listed him among the youngsters,” said P’keo.

“Youngsters?” Fianine repeated incredulously. “He’s surely not underage!” She stared at Narjol. “How old are you, Watch?”

“I’m fourteen, ma’am,” he said, “though I’ll be fifteen, day after tomorrow.”

“The day after tomorrow!” P’keo exclaimed. “Faranth’s teeth, why didn’t you say so?” He looked at Fianine. “I did wonder at this young man being cut, well-grown as he is. D’hor adhered to the letter of the cut-off age, but not the spirit, I’m guessing.”

“So it would seem,” she agreed, in a chilly tone that made Narjol feel sorry for the Weyrlingmaster.

“Well,” said P’keo, jovially. “I think that’s settled, then. Narjol, you’re reinstated. Can’t run the risk that the egg you happened to touch might have your dragon inside, eh?”

“N-no, sir,” Narjol stammered, unable to believe his luck.

“And as for you two scoundrels,” the Weyrleader went on, frowning at Zaffo and Holned.

“Yes, sir?” Holned asked, sitting up straight with hope shining on his face.

P’keo looked at Fianine. “Total exclusion from the Hatching Ground.”

“What?” Holned wailed.

“You’ll be confined nearby,” the Weyrleader went on relentlessly. “If a dragonet won’t take anyone else, and it seems like you have had an influence, you’ll be brought in front of it. Otherwise, you’re banned from the Hatching.”

“But –”

“Shut up, Holned,” Zaffo hissed, elbowing the younger boy in the ribs.

“And your foster-mothers will be instructed to apply any punishment they see fit,” P’keo continued. He looked at Fianine. “Right, Weyrwoman?”

Fianine was frowning slightly, her gaze focused on some indistinct middle-distance. “They’re early.”

“Weyrwoman?” P’keo repeated, and then exclaimed, “Oh!”

Narjol looked at Holned and Zaffo. “What is it?”

Zaffo shrugged, as puzzled as he, but Holned cocked his head, listening.

“Oh, no,” he cried, distraught. “They’re humming!”

“Who’s humming?”

“Watch,” said P’keo. “Candidate Narjol, that is.” His round face had flushed with sudden anticipation. “Report to the Weyrlingmaster. Take these two reprobates with you and he’ll tell you where to put them. Then you’d best make your preparations.”

“But what for, sir?” Narjol asked, bewildered.

“The Hatching, son,” said P’keo. “The dragons are humming. The eggs will have hatched by the end of the day.”

“Shaffing Void, Jolly!” Hal shouted, and almost knocked Narjol over, jumping on his back. “You’re in the pool and the eggs are Hatching! This is the best day ever!”

From the dirty looks some of the other candidates threw at Narjol when they arrived on the training ground, Hal was in the minority. Basalgette, devastated by Zaffo’s exclusion not only from the pool but from the entire Hatching, wouldn’t talk to him. But Vammers came to congratulate him on his reinstatement, and Narjol thought that was good of him. If Vammers didn’t Impress this time, neither he nor his older brother Pan would have another chance.

The Weyr had been seething with activity since dawn. Cherganth’s clutch hadn’t been expected for several more days, and nothing was ready. Most of the candidates – Narjol included – didn’t even have robes, and half the Weyr had been pressed into service washing dishes and setting tables in the dining hall. “It’s a bloodbath down at the butchery,” Pettra reported with a shudder. “And not just because of all the meat they’re preparing for the dragonets. It’s all the extra animals they’re having to slaughter to feed the guests. It’s awful.”

“At least there aren’t many coming who’ve got candidates on the Sands,” said Svefen.

“My mum’s coming, and my aunt,” said Hopajan.

“T’reno said he’d go and get my mum and my little sister,” said Schanna.

“Haven’t you got a mum somewhere, Jolly?” asked Vammers.

“She died,” Narjol said. “It were her uncle K’stey who was –”

“A brown rider at the Peninsula,” Hal and Svefen chorused.

Narjol flushed. “Well, he was.”

“Sorry about your mum, Jolly,” said Evie.

He flushed even more. The girls didn’t often talk to him. He didn’t have much experience of women at all, truth be told. The watchhouse was an entirely male domain, though some of the men had families in the Weyr proper.

“How much longer?” Bostrocke complained.

“Not long, I don’t think,” said Vammers. “Last time the humming started around dinnertime and the eggs Hatched just before middle watch. Everyone was half asleep.”

Liggary, Hal’s mother, came through the door, followed by a procession of other lower caverns women, each carrying a heaped laundry basket. “Here you are, boys and girls,” she announced, setting down her burden. “Robes!” She took one from under her arm. “Frahaligger, I’ve yours here.”

Hal looked embarrassed as she held the robe up against him. “All right, mum,” he complained. “Don’t make a fuss.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she told him. “You only stand at your first Impression once.”

“Well, what about Jolly?” Hal asked. “It’s his first too.”

Liggary frowned at Narjol. “Shells, you are a big chap, aren’t you? I’m not sure we have anything in your size.” She fished a tape from her pocket. “Come here. I’ll take your measurements.”

“You needn’t,” Narjol objected, embarrassed.

“Don’t be silly,” said Liggary. “You can’t go out on the Hatching Sands with those great hairy knees on show, can you? Now stand still.”

Narjol obeyed, keeping as motionless as possible while Liggary measured him, though it was weird and uncomfortable being touched by a woman, even one as old as Hal’s mother.

“There,” she said. “Give me half an hour and I’ll run something up for you.”

“Thanks,” Narjol said, ducking his head awkwardly. When Liggary had bustled off, he said, “Your mum’s really nice, Hal.”

Hal shrugged. “She’s all right. Glad I’m a candidate, or I’d be up to my neck in vegetable peelings by now!”

Some of the boys were stripping off to put on their robes, to the general disgust of the female candidates. “Come on, ladies,” said Evie, putting her arms around Schanna and Wiklia, the two Searched girls. “I think we should go somewhere a bit more private and less – urgh – sweaty, to get dressed for the Hatching.”

The girls, now numbering nine with the addition of Pettra, who was almost twenty Turns old, and Rinely who’d apparently been persuaded to stand at the last minute, trooped off after Evie.

It grew warmer as the bright summer day wore on, and the boys sitting on the training ground benches perspired in the sun. Narjol sweated more than most in his regular clothes. The Weyrlingmaster came to do a headcount. “Where’s your robe, boy?” he queried, sounding agitated.

“Liggary said she’d make one for me,” said Narjol.

“Well, she’d better be quick about it,” said D’hor. “You can’t go on the Sands like that!” He snatched a robe from the picked-over basket and thrust it at him. “Can’t you wear this?”

Narjol held the garment up against himself. It barely reached to mid-thigh. He looked at the Weyrlingmaster mutely.

“At least the dragonets would be able to see you’re a boy,” Gemmarty snickered.

D’hor raised his hands in frustration. “Go and find Liggary,” he told him. “See what’s taking her so long.”

“I’ll come with you,” Hal volunteered.

They headed across the Bowl at a jog: past the weyrling barracks, where a veritable Wing of caverns women were going in and out with mops and buckets and bales of bed linen; past the Hatching Cavern, where dragons were landing, dropping off passengers, and taking off again in a constant stream. “C’mon, there’s a quick way,” Hal said, and led Narjol through a series of storerooms and workshops until they emerged at the sewing room.

“Oh, boys, I was just about to bring this out to you!” Liggary exclaimed, rising from her table. She held out an armful of white fabric. “Pop this on, Narjol, and see if I’ve got the length right. I didn’t have time to baste in the sleeves, but you probably won’t mind showing off those big strong arms of yours.”

Narjol pulled off his shirt and tugged the robe over his head. It fell past his knees, affording him substantially more modesty than the one D’hor had made him try.

Liggary tugged at the hem and pinched some excess fabric at the waist. “I made it a bit big – let’s cinch you in so you don’t look like you’re wearing an entire bedsheet.”

“It does look kind of baggy,” Hal laughed.

Liggary rummaged about and came up with a sash in light grey. “Not white, but I think it’ll do,” she said, tying it around Narjol’s waist and blousing the robe over it. She stepped back to assess her handiwork. “There.” She took him by the shoulders and turned him towards the long mirror on the wall. “How’s that?”

Narjol looked at his reflection. The person looking back at him was…imposing. His arms did look big and muscly in the sleeveless robe, and the white fabric made a striking contrast to his dark skin. For the first time he felt like maybe…maybe he could Impress a dragon. Maybe he really could.

“Look at you, admiring yourself!” Hal exclaimed, grabbing his arm and squeezing his bicep. “Shaff, Jolly, forget about the dragonets – all the girls’ll be after you! Better watch out a green doesn’t nab you!”

“Get off, Hal,” Narjol said, shoving him.

“Yes, you’ll do fine,” said Liggary. “Slip off those boots and trousers, Narjol, and I’ll make sure they find their way back to you after the Hatching.

He obeyed, feeling oddly vulnerable with bare feet and nothing on his legs.

Liggary seized Hal’s face and planted a big kiss on his cheek that made him grimace. “Good luck, darling. Lirenzy and Tallig are down for their naps in the creche, but I’ll be in the stands, cheering you on. And good luck to you too, Narjol!”

Everyone they passed as they trotted back through the caverns to the Bowl had some word of encouragement. Narjol kept feeling slaps on his back from people he didn’t know. He couldn’t help feeling proud at the recognition. Nor could Hal. They exchanged a glance, both grinning fit to crack their faces.

Dragons were still dropping off passengers outside, and it seemed like everyone in the Weyr was pouring into the Hatching Ground. The female candidates were already there, waiting in a cluster, all rather beautiful in their robes. “Weyrlingmaster’s gone to get the other boys,” Evie told them. “I think it’s about to start!”

“Nice robe, Jolly,” Alienne said, eyeing his bare arms speculatively.

“Oh, mum!” Schanna exclaimed suddenly, dashing forward to greet a tall woman and a little girl who’d just been handed down from a green dragon. “Taylie!”

D’hor arrived then with the male candidates surrounding him in a cloud. Most of the ones who’d stood before – Svefen, Vammers, Pan – wore grave expressions. The younger ones, Bostrocke and Darvalen and Gemmarty, were bouncing, jubilant. “Settle down, boys, settle down,” the Weyrlingmaster told them querulously. “Ah, you’re properly attired, Narjol; good. Come along, now, Schanna; you’ll have ample opportunity to see your family after the Hatching. Now, are we all present and accounted for…”

Narjol, curiously, found himself standing near the back with the girls as D’hor started another headcount. Even more curiously, he found he didn’t mind.

And then, “Son,” he heard.

He turned to find Tirrol approaching, out of uniform, and realised that in the excitement of the morning, he hadn’t gone back to the watchhouse to report to his father.

“Chief –” he began.

Tirrol tipped his head back to examine him. “So yer a candidate after all,” he said. The chief’s tone was neutral. Flat. “An after all we talked yes’day.”

“Weyrleader said I was to take my place, Chief,” Narjol said. The other candidates were stepping back from them, giving them space. He could feel his shoulders rounding, his head drooping.

“An you didn’t see fit t’inform me.”

“I’m sorry, Chief, I –”

“You didn’t see fit t’inform me,” Tirrol repeated, stabbing himself in the chest with a finger. “T’get my say so –”

“Don’t bust his balls, Chief. Your loss would be our gain.”

Narjol and Tirrol both startled at the new voice.

It was Sh’ror. The Flightleader had a little girl riding on his broad shoulders and two slightly older children clinging, wide-eyed with excitement, to his hands. They all had Sh’ror’s curly, tawny-blond hair. Behind him, a slender, pretty woman who must have been his weyrmate had a squirming toddler in her arms.

“Flightleader,” Tirrol said, grudgingly nodding his head.

Sh’ror came over to Narjol, grinning his broad, friendly grin. “I’m glad you’re in the pool, kid. I’d be pleased to have a big man like you in my Wing, keeping order among my riders, huh?”

Pride filled Narjol’s chest so full he almost couldn’t speak. “Yessir,” he said, putting his shoulders back and holding his head high, so he could almost look the bronze rider in the eye.

“And maybe you’ll make me a good sparring partner, too, if you still come down to the ring?” Sh’ror went on. He lifted the child on his right off the ground, to the little lad’s delighted shriek. “At least until Shen here’s big enough to wrestle his old dad.”

“Oh, put him down, Sh’ror,” the Flightleader’s weyrmate told him. “You’ll tear his new shirt!”

“Is he going to be a dragonrider?” the little girl holding his other hand asked.

“I don’t know, Rorenn; what do you think?” asked Sh’ror.

“He’s really big and strong like you,” Rorenn said, looking up at Narjol.

Sh’ror cocked his head to look at the smaller girl on his shoulders. “And what about you, Bheri? Do you think Narjol here’s going to Impress a dragon today?”

His daughter, no more than five Turns old, bounced happily and tugged Sh’ror’s hair. He made a good-natured face. “Bronze dragon, bronze dragon!” she exclaimed.

“I want a bronze dragon!” Shen declared.

“Give it about another, oh, five Turns, and you will,” Sh’ror told him. “But this is Narjol’s day.” He dislodged Shen’s grip from his and extended his hand. “Good luck, kid. I hope you’ll do me the honour of introducing Qualth and me to your dragon later.”

“Yessir,” Narjol said, grasping the Flightleader’s wrist. “I hope so, sir.”

“We should go in, Sh’ror,” his weyrmate said quietly, shifting the restless child in her arms. “Eldoren’s getting fractious.”

“All right, Farren,” said Sh’ror. He turned back to Tirrol. “You should be proud of your son, Chief. It’s not every kid who earns a place on the Sands twice.” He resettled his daughter on his shoulders and took up Shen’s hand again. “Come on, my little dragonlings. Let’s go see if they’ve saved us a good seat.”

Narjol turned back to Tirrol, and realised with a start that, even barefoot, he was taller than his father.

“I’m taking my chance,” he told him, without apology.

“So I see,” said Tirrol.

He walked away without another word. He suddenly looked old. Sad. Defeated.

“Far-anth,” Hal breathed, drifting back over to Narjol. “He basically just said he wants you as a Wingsecond! Sh’ror thinks you’ll make Wingsecond! That’s brown at least! Maybe bronze!”

“Yeah,” said Narjol. He couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah.” He looked around at the other candidates, finally feeling like he belonged among them.

And then he saw Schanna’s face. She was staring after Sh’ror as he led his family into the Hatching Ground, looking…stricken.

“All right, candidates; it’s time!” the Weyrlingmaster called. “Follow me! In an orderly manner, please! No pushing or shoving!”

“This is it,” Hal whispered. “Let’s go!”

Narjol almost felt like he was floating as he walked into the Hatching Cavern. He was near the back of the procession, but that didn’t matter. There were still a lot more candidates than eggs, but that didn’t matter either. He, Narjol, was walking into the Hatching Ground of Madellon Weyr as a candidate, not a watchman, and he was going to Impress his dragon.

“I wonder why Nathronth’s not with Cherganth?” Hal asked quietly, as they approached the clutch.

“She don’t like anyone on the sand with her,” Narjol told him. “Weyrleader said.”

Hal elbowed him in the ribs. “Look at you, knowing something I don’t!” Then he shifted his bare feet uncomfortably. “Shards, it’s hot, isn’t it?”

There was a suddenly collective intake of breath from the stands. Narjol glanced in that direction. He’d never seen so many people all in the same place. The whole Weyr must have been there, and more besides. Up above, dozens of dragons had found perches on a series of galleries up near the roof of the cavern. “What is it? What happened?”

“Look,” Hal whispered. “That egg just fell over!”

Across the clutch, one of the smaller eggs, plain white, had toppled off its pile of sand. And then Narjol realised that others were moving, too. A pale green egg kept rocking to one side and then returning to its original position, as if the dragonet inside was banging intermittently on the same spot inside. The striated shell of another seemed to be splitting along its own banded markings. And one of the big ones, cream-coloured with blue and green speckles, was cracking around the bulge in its side.

By some coincidence, Narjol and Hal had ended up close to the silvery egg that had been the focus of so much speculation. It was in the same place it had been for the last two nights, on the outer edge of the clutch. Narjol looked at it closely, but he couldn’t see it moving yet. His heart was hammering in his chest. What if that was the one he’d touched last night?

Then another egg that hadn’t so much as twitched suddenly fractured, cracked – and hatched.

Every candidate surged forwards as a dark shape emerged from the broken egg. “Step back!” the Weyrlingmaster barked in a low voice.

Not many of the eager boys, and slightly less forward girls, obeyed. Narjol just lifted his head to look over the shorter boys in front of him, staring with fascination at the creature flopping out of the ruins of its shell.

Hal was right. The hatchling was much bigger than the size of its egg had suggested. Narjol could hardly believe that so much neck and tail and wing could possibly have fit in an egg less than two feet high, even if the thing looked more like a tunnel-snake than a dragon: long, skinny, angular. Its eyes seemed too large for its skull, and goo dribbled from one nostril. It made a strangled, whistling shriek, waving its spiny wings like tattered flags.

‘First Out’ by Chrisi S Baily

“Is they meant to look like that?” he asked Hal, in a whisper.

Hal didn’t answer, or didn’t hear him, his eyes riveted to the dragonet.

“What colour is it?” someone asked.

There was a pause, and then, “Green,” came the answer, repeated in a disappointed whisper all along the ring of candidates surrounding the clutch. “Green. It’s just a green.”

“Girls,” D’hor directed.

Pettra was first to step forward. She approached the ugly thing, holding her hand out cautiously. “Hello,” she said softly. “Are you for me?”

Narjol didn’t see what happened with them. Three more eggs broke open and spilled screaming, slimy hatchlings onto the sand. One was pale blue, the next another green, and the third –

“Is that a bronze?” someone whispered.

An older candidate Narjol didn’t know suddenly walked unhesitatingly forward, straight towards the third dragonet. It turned its misshapen snout up towards him and its shrieking cry stuttered and then stopped.

“Aylanth,” the candidate said, reaching down to the wet, ugly head. “Aylanth, he says he’s Aylanth!”

A cheer went up from the crowd, almost completely drowning out a second exclamation. “Her name’s Amillioth!” It was Evie, and she was hugging the dragonet that had hatched out first.

“Look, that big one’s splitting!” Hal said, pointing at the speckled egg.

They weren’t the only ones to notice. Fully half the boys had their eyes on the bulging cream shell. With shocking abruptness, a pointed muzzle broke through the cracked area, and then the eggshell collapsed all at once as the dragonet shook itself free.

“Another brown,” someone said, and the forward surge of boys ceased again.

“That was s’posed to be a bronze, wasn’t it?” Narjol asked.

“Yeah…” Hal was still looking at the brown that was shaking a back foot loose of a tangle of shell. It was just as ugly, though less spindly, more beefy, than the others.

More eggs cracked or shattered or just yielded holes big enough for their occupants to slither through. Narjol looked from creature to creature. A pair of blues, another brown, three more greens. Wiklia stepped forward suddenly and a hatchling staggered and stumbled to meet her, screeching. Most of the boys were still holding back, but suddenly a blue swung its overlarge head on its overlong neck in Pan’s direction. Its cry made a shift from pathetic to excited, and Pan ran forwards and fell to his knees in front of it.

There were suddenly dragonets everywhere, crawling over each other and between eggs both intact and wrecked. A green quested towards Pettra, who stepped forwards again, and then the hatchling turned aside and flung itself against Schanna’s knees. “Oh, oh, Etymonth!” the Hold girl exclaimed, putting her hand to her own head. “Yes, I hear you, I can hear you!”

“Where are the bronzes?” Fastrall asked, sounding as confused as Narjol felt.

Three eggs remained uncracked: the silver, the buff, and a medium-sized grey and blue. Over a dozen green, blue, and brown dragonets still roamed the chaotic landscape, their screams blending into a discordant, desperate symphony.

“Ah, shaff the bronzes!” Hal shouted above the cacophony, running forwards.

Two dragonets, a brown and a blue, went for him at the same instant. The blue got its claws into the hem of his robe, and the brown shrieked and lunged at its smaller sibling. For a horrible moment Narjol was certain Hal was going to get caught in a fight between the pair. And then the brown – the big one from the speckled egg – windmilled its oversized forepaws at the blue, and the smaller dragon fell over, crying, taking a scrap of Hal’s robe with it. The brown took one threatening step after its smaller sibling, its bug eyes reddish orange and angry.

Then Hal said, “Don’t, Valth, I don’t want him, I want you!”

And as Narjol’s friend hugged the dragonet’s slavering muzzle to his chest, the brown’s furious squawking transformed into a happy cry.

“If you boys want to Impress dragons, stop thinking about bronzes and step forward now!” D’hor ordered the candidates. “Girls, you too!”

The Weyrlingmaster almost didn’t need to bark the command. Hal’s daring had galvanised the other candidates. Two of the girls stepped back, afraid of or repelled by the grotesque hatchlings, but there was a sudden push forward into the mass of shells and dragons.

Narjol went, too. He looked around for a brown like Hal’s, but one had its forepaws up on Svefen’s chest, and as he watched, another made for Basalgette. A nearby blue caught his eye, and he tried to attract its attention, but it completely ignored him. Another shouldered casually past him on its way to Darvalen. He couldn’t see another unpaired brown. There were boys everywhere, hugging dragonets, laughing, crying. Vammers had a green on his lap. Bostrocke almost tripped over a blue, and his voice cracked as he shouted, “Ivorth, he’s called Ivorth!”

Suddenly the only dragonets left unmatched were greens. Pettra had tears running down her face as she stumbled from dragonet to dragonet. Gemmarty sudden stopped backing away from the pair of greens converging on him and collapsed in a heap beside the smaller of the two. The larger one turned around abruptly and rushed in Pettra’s direction.

And Narjol stood, frozen and stupid, amidst the chaos.

Greens is for girls, and boys what like it like girls, Tirrol had said.

Green lover! Holned had sneered.

Green’s just never going to be anyone’s first choice, is it? Hal had said.

But with all the other dragonets taken, and no sign that the last three eggs were ever going to hatch, it seemed that the only alternatives left to Narjol were green – or nothing.

And then he thought about how satisfied his father would be at his failure.

How Sh’ror would be disappointed to have been wrong about him.

How the Weyr boys, most of them weyrlings now, would crow that they’d been right about poor, thicko Jolly being of no interest at all to a dragonet.

But what if it’s a bronze would want me? The insidious little thought wormed its way into his racing mind. Maybe next time there’d be a bronze for him. Or a brown. Even a blue. Pan had had to wait for his blue, hadn’t he? Maybe that’s what Narjol had to do. Be patient. Wait for the next Hatching.

But there wasn’t going to be a next Hatching for someone like him.

I could be a green rider, he told himself. I could. Be better than no dragon at all, wouldn’t it?

And no sooner had he made up his mind, he saw her.

No one wants me. Everyone’s ignoring me. Are you going to ignore me, too?

He met her eyes across the Sands. They weren’t bulgy or bug-like at all. They were shining and precious and blue, like a Master Harper’s sapphire pin. They were beautiful. She was beautiful. Her hide was dark, rich and deep, like the forests of Kellad where Narjol had grown up, dappled with lighter smudges, like sunlight on the canopy. She had a smear of sand on her rather broad nose, like a blaze on a runnerbeast. His fingers itched to wipe it off for her. She was crying, and the sound made his chest hurt.

Don’t cry! He found he was clambering over the piled wreckage of eggshells to get to her. She was making for him too, though her weak, gangly back legs and short forelegs kept snagging on her floppy wings. Don’t hurt yourself, neither! Stay there! I’m comin!

She was already there in his mind before he reached her. But when Narjol took her blunt muzzle in his hands it was like grasping a mug of hot klah on a bitterly cold day: warming, fortifying, wonderful. She loved him. She loved him. He’d never been so certain of anything in his life. In the next instant he was just as certain that he loved her. He loved her harder than he’d ever thought he could love anything. He loved her so much.

He hugged her sticky, sandy head to his chest. She’d stopped crying the instant he’d touched her, but he realised that tears were pouring down his own cheeks. He hadn’t wept since he was nine Turns old and his father had come to tell him that his mother had died in the night. In the next breath Tirrol had told him to dry his tears, because men didn’t cry, and Narjol had to grow up and be a man, now. He couldn’t believe how wrong his father had been, because he was a man, now, wasn’t he, a dragonman, like Sh’ror had said, and crying seemed like the only possible thing he could have done.

Don’t cry, his dragon told him, and her tongue lapped his face, rasping over his cheek. That is, you can if you like, but you needn’t. Then she added, My name can be Kistrith.

“Kistrith,” Narjol said aloud, and he laughed with the pleasure of feeling the lovely shape of the word in his mouth for the very first time. “Kistrith, Kistrith!”

That’s what I said. Kistrith. And you’re Narjol and you’re my rider, and I’m starving! Isn’t there something to eat?

“Eat,” Narjol repeated, so stupidly happy that it took him a moment to remember that it was his job to feed her now. Now that he was Kistrith’s rider. Kistrith’s rider! “Yeah, there’s meat. Meat to eat!”

You’re leaking, said Kistrith, curving her sleek beautiful neck towards the ground. Oh, does it hurt?

Narjol looked down and saw that his foot was bleeding from a laceration between his toes. He hadn’t even noticed it in his haste to reach Kistrith. “It’s nothin,” he promised her. “Musta stepped on somethin, big clumsy idiot I am!”

You are not a big clumsy idiot, she told him. You are my rider. Though I don’t think I’m big enough to carry you, yet.

“Carry me,” Narjol repeated. The notion that this darling little creature – his dragon, his dragon! – would one day carry him was an extraordinary thought. “No, but I can carry you!”

He stooped to pick her up. She wasn’t heavy – about the same as a sack of coal – though her long tail unbalanced him and so did her wings until she worked out how they folded. Then she hooked her back feet in his belt, got her forepaws on his shoulder, and put her chin on top of his head. Look, I’m riding you!

“Yeah, you is,” Narjol said, grinning so hard he thought his face might split.

“Dragon, riding” by Sylvus Tarn

His awareness of the Hatching cavern came back to him in a rush. He’d been so completely and adoringly wrapped up in Kistrith he’d forgotten all about the people watching from the stands. As he limped towards where the other boys had converged with their new dragonets, Kistrith’s tail swaying from side to side and almost tripping him with every step, Narjol scanned the tiers for his father. He didn’t see him, and while a few people pointed at him, smiling, the faces he saw looked strangely disappointed.

“Put that dragonet down, boy!” the Weyrlingmaster told him as he joined the other candidates – weyrlings. “She has functional legs, doesn’t she?”

“Yessir,” said Narjol, too happy, for once, to mind being told off.

Oh, Kistrith complained as he set her down, her claws catching for a moment in the fabric of his robe, which was no longer white and clean.

“Her name?” D’hor asked.

“Kistrith,” Narjol replied, grinning.

“Jolly?” It was Hal. He turned around from his dragonet with hands bloody to the elbows. “Hey, you did it!”

“Yeah, you too!” said Narjol. He felt not one speck of envy for the colour of Hal’s dragon, which wasn’t half as nice as Kistrith’s pretty green hide, but he said, “You got a brown, wow!”

“Valth!” Hal said, with gusto. “Isn’t he great? And, um, Kistrith? Look at her!” Then he frowned. “You haven’t started feeding her yet, have you? Your foot’s all bloody!”

“Weyrling, did you step on eggshell?” D’hor interrupted irritably. “For Faranth’s sake! You’re bleeding everywhere. You’ll have to get that seen to once your dragonet’s down. A septic foot’s the last thing we need!”

The next hour or so happened in a rush. Kistrith fell upon her first meal with great enthusiasm and some very sharp fangs, although she didn’t have any chewing teeth yet. Then she needed to be oiled, after which she became very sleepy, and asked him to carry her from the Hatching Ground. None of the other weyrlings were carrying their dragonets, and Narjol was mindful of the Weyrlingmaster’s reprimand, but he did pick her up and put her on one of the big raised platforms when they reached the weyrling barracks. He had to move her again, when D’hor said that the green riders were all to take the smaller couches at the back of the barracks. He discovered that three other boys had greens – Vammers, Gemmarty, and Ben – and then, with Kistrith already fast asleep, the Weyrlingmaster ordered Narjol and Svefen, whose dragonet had scratched him quite badly, to change out of their no-longer-white robes and present themselves at the Weyr’s infirmary.

“So you’re N’jol, now?” Svefen asked, as they headed across the Bowl in the afternoon sunshine. It seemed impossible that it was still so early in the day. Impossible that his life could have changed so completely in such a short span of hours.

In the flurry of activity, Narjol realised he hadn’t even thought about himself. His mind was full of Kistrith. “I guess so,” he said. “N’jol, Kistrith’s rider.” He grinned as he said it. He loved saying Kistrith’s name. “Is you Sv– Sf–”

The other candidate – the other weyrling – nodded. “S’fen,” he said, “Weddrith’s rider.” He was grinning, too. “And, hey, Jol– N’jol. I owe you an apology for saying you wouldn’t Impress.”

“S’okay,” N’jol said, a little bashfully.

“You all right with a green?” S’fen asked.

“Sure,” said N’jol. “Why wouldn’t I be? Still more rank’n I’d ever get as watchman.”

“Yeah,” said S’fen, “but…” He hesitated. “Wonder what happened with the last three eggs.”

“The ones what didn’t hatch?” asked N’jol.

“There was one at the last Hatching, and I remember one at the first Hatching I saw, when I was just a kid, but to have three not hatch, two of them the big ones, and not a single bronze?” S’fen shook his head. “No way Cherganth ever lets Nathronth fly her again.”

N’jol’s foot started hurting a lot halfway across the Weyr, and he was limping pretty badly by the time they reached the infirmary. “You look worse than me; you should go first,” S’fen told him.

But there was some sort of altercation happening in the Weyr Healer’s domain. Master Firland’s voice, ordinarily so soft and reassuring, was raised in clear agitation. “I don’t know what you’re raving about, Wingsecond, but I think you should drink some water and go and lie down!”

“Lisshen t’me, man, lisshen, for pity’s sake! You gotta…you gotta lisshen!”

S’fen and N’jol exchanged a look. The Weyr Healer was fending off the determined attempts of a brown rider to clutch at his smock. With a shock, N’jol recognised the staggering, slurring man. It was the watch rider who’d been on duty by the Star Stones the night of the storm.

“L’stev, you’re drunk,” Firland said firmly. “How much have you had?”

“Black…black cashroot,” the brown rider insisted. “Tincture of…of…vyrian. Gishcap…”

“Well, if that’s what you’ve been taking, it’s no wonder you’re paralytic!” the Master Healer said. “Especially the giscap! I’d’ve thought you’d be more sensible than to meddle with that sort of herb!” He glanced past the rider. “I have two real patients to see, Wingsecond. There’s no remedy for giscap intoxication except time. I suggest you make your way back to your weyr and sleep it off. Come back in the morning if you’re still drunk.”

He gestured N’jol and S’fen forward. As they approached, the brown rider shambled past them, his head down, his shoulders slumped. He glanced up at them. His face was ashen, his eyes black coals in deep hollows. If he recognised N’jol, he showed no sign of it.

“Sorry about that, boys,” Master Firland said, assessing them briskly with a glance. “Riders get up to all sorts of silly things on a Hatching day. What can I do for you lads –”

S’fen interrupted him. “Weyrlings S’fen and N’jol.”

“Oh; congratulations, then, truly!” said Firland. “I missed it all, of course, on duty here. Do sit now here, weyrling N’jol; you look very sore; indeed, and S’fen, that’s a nasty claw mark, isn’t it? You can tell me how I can help you today, and then you must tell me all about the Hatching….”

“I’m going to run on ahead to the dining hall, Nar– N’jol,” S’fen said, when they’d both been poulticed and bandaged. “Darvalen’s probably only been talking non-stop about himself, but someone’s eventually going to ask about me, and I don’t want him blabbing out Weddrith’s name before I get a chance!”

N’jol made his own slow and footsore way back across the Weyr. He started thinking, with dismay, how he’d be useless on patrol until he healed – and then remembered, with a happy sense of buoyancy in his belly, that he wouldn’t be on patrol anymore, because he was Kistrith’s rider now. When he thought about her, he could feel her in his head, even though she was asleep. It was easy to imagine her there, in a corner of his mind, curled up in a little dark green ball.

And then, as he approached the lower caverns, it occurred to him how Tirrol must be feeling, to have his son Impress a dragon and no longer be living and working with him in the watchhouse. N’jol had never thought far enough beyond the idea of becoming a dragonrider to really consider how it would change everything, not only for himself, but for his father. It was a lot simpler for the Weyrbred weyrlings who’d been expected to Impress and weren’t leaving jobs.

He limped into the dining hall. It was boiling hot in there, much hotter than the Hatching Ground, and noisy, with hundreds of people crammed shoulder to shoulder. He saw Vammers and Pan with their beaming Wingleader father; Basalgette hugging a tearful but smiling Zaffo; Pettra talking to her family, gesticulating extravagantly, and to much applause, in a lively re-enactment of her Impression.

Then the Weyrlingmaster caught sight of him and gestured him peremptorily over. “All patched up, are we?” he asked, and then frowned. “You don’t have a shoulder knot?”

“Nosir,” N’jol said. “I didn’t know I was meant to, sir.”

D’hor pressed his lips together disapprovingly. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter very much, with you Impressing a green.”

“Is my father here, sir?” N’jol asked.

D’hor hesitated for a fraction of an instant before he replied. “I don’t believe so. Perhaps he had to cover a patrol.”

“But he ain’t on rota ’til second evening watch.”

“Perhaps something came up,” said D’hor. “He’s the Chief of Watch, weyrling, and Madellon’s never so in need of guarding as when it’s full of strangers, hmm?”

That made sense, N’jol had to admit. “Is Flightleader Sh’ror –”

“Weyrling,” D’hor said. “I know you fancy you have a connection with the Flightleader. I saw your little interaction before the Hatching.” He paused. “But you need to understand your situation, now. You have Impressed a green dragon. A green dragon. An important rider like Sh’ror has much more pressing demands on his time and attention than a boy who’s just Impressed a green dragon.”

“Yessir,” said N’jol, “but, sir, he –”

“You’re my responsibility now, weyrling,” D’hor said. His tone was sharp. “You have, against all expectations, become a dragonrider today, and I appreciate that for a young man of your origins, even the modest achievement of Impressing a green is apt to go to your head. So let me make this perfectly clear. You’ll speak to a ranking rider if spoken to, and not before. Is that understood?”

N’jol ducked his head. “Yessir.”

“If I hear you’ve pestered Flightleader Sh’ror, or any senior rider, there will be consequences,” D’hor went on. “You find yourself a green weyrling, N’jol – a male green weyrling – and you’ll swiftly learn that your new rank comes with expectations and obligations, among which is the importance of knowing your place.”

“Yessir,” said N’jol, dully.

“Good. Now, you may go and celebrate with your – well, your friends, or whomever is here – but I warn you, any overindulgence in either food or drink will trouble you twice over, for your dragonet – Kissith, is it?”

“Kistrith,” N’jol said, lifting his head and looking down at the Weyrlingmaster.

“Yes, well, any bodily distress will upset Kistrith, too,” said D’hor. “You may be accustomed to drinking ale with the watchmen, but I won’t tolerate drunkenness among my weyrlings. Is that clear?”

N’jol found he had to take a deep breath to calm himself. He wished he could declare honestly that he’d never touched a drop of alcohol. Instead, he said, “Yes. Sir.”

His defiance wasn’t lost on D’hor. The Weyrlingmaster looked up at him with narrowed eyes. Then he sighed ill-temperedly, as if resigning himself to something unpleasant. “Dismissed, weyrling.”

Angry, offended, and oddly wounded by Tirrol’s absence, N’jol drifted around the edges of the Hatching feast. No one stopped him to congratulate him on his Impression. All the other weyrlings had shoulder-knots to identify them. By the time he saw Hal with his mother and siblings, he was too resentful and upset to want to join them. And the insult added to injury was witnessing Sh’ror and his family with Schanna and hers, the charismatic Flightleader offering Schanna’s young sister a handkerchief for her sniffling nose where she was playing on the floor with his own energetic children.

No one noticed N’jol leave the dining hall. He limped moodily all the way back to the weyrling barracks. It wasn’t fair. He’d Impressed a dragon, even if only a green. Didn’t he deserve even a little bit of praise?

The barracks smelled awful when he got there, the foetid, rotten egg smell of more than a dozen unwashed dragonets. N’jol passed the browns occupying the prime front spaces, then the blues, until he reached the back, where the four green dragonets who’d been Impressed by boys had been relegated to the darkest, most stifling positions.

And yet his temper evaporated when he laid eyes again on Kistrith. She slept exactly as he’d left her, in a little spiral of forest-green perfection, her muzzle resting on her forearms. He didn’t want to wake her, but he couldn’t stop himself stroking her elegant neck, her fragile wing, the beautiful curve of the ridge above her eye. She shifted towards him in her sleep, breathing a long sigh through her delicate nostrils.

There was a cot beside her platform. It didn’t look much softer than Kistrith’s hard tiled couch, and nor did it look long enough. N’jol dragged the pillow and all the covers off the mean little bed and piled them next to his dragonet. He curled himself around her, so her sleeping exhalations washed over his face.

“I love you, Kistrith,” he mumbled.

And was asleep in moments.

Turns later, N’jol would remember the next few days as a blur, a fever dream both figurative and, ultimately, literal.

For the first three days, he and the other weyrlings of the cohort designated Monsoon Class woke when their dragonets did, fed them, bathed and oiled them, put them back down to sleep. By the time they’d cleaned the barracks and themselves, sat through a lecture from the Weyrlingmaster and wolfed down some food, it was time to cut more meat for the dragonets. They fed four times a day, with the last feed shortly before midnight and the next six hours later, halfway through middle watch, but most of the dragonets still woke hungry in the night, disturbing everyone else with their piteous, starveling pleas for food. No one got much rest. Even N’jol, accustomed to night-time patrols and irregular sleeping patterns, found himself stumbling through Kistrith’s care half stupefied from lack of sleep.

And then, on the fourth day, all five of the girls arrived at morning feeding with sore throats, headaches, and runny noses. By the fifth, most of the boys had come down with the same symptoms. Few of the weyrlings had any contact with the rest of the Weyr – D’hor kept them close to the barracks and their dragonets. N’jol and S’fen, though, continued to report to the infirmary daily for their wounds to be examined and re-dressed. And the few sniffling Weyrbrats sitting in the waiting area with their foster-mothers to be seen by Master Firland’s staff became first a Wing, then a Flight, and eventually a whole Gather full of breathless, feverish children.

N’jol had never been sick in his life.

That was about to change.

Part two

By the next morning, the sky over the Weyr was perfectly clear and blue, as if the storm had never happened. Narjol had caught a few restless hours of sleep when he’d been relieved on watch, and woken wondering if the peculiar, dreamlike events of his patrol had actually happened. His foul-weather cape – hung out to dry on the washing line outside the watchhouse – was the only evidence that he’d been out last night at all.

He was last, again, to join the candidate party down the Bowl from the barracks. “You can’t keep being late, boy,” the Weyrlingmaster told him sternly. “You’ll arrive promptly to class each morning, or you’ll give up your place, do you understand?”

“Yessir,” Narjol said, and then, “Each mornin, sir?”

“Each and every one,” D’hor said. “You, especially, need to learn all you can about weyrlinghood, not being born to the Weyr.”

“But my duties –”

“Are secondary to your responsibility to learn the role of a weyrling.” D’hor gave him a sharp look. “While you’re a candidate, your forenoon belongs to me. And if the Chief of Watch takes issue with that, you may tell him to report to me, too. Now go and join the others.”

There was a new girl among the female candidates. Narjol wouldn’t have noticed, too dismayed by the Weyrlingmaster’s reprimand, but Hal did. “Seven girls now,” he said. “I don’t recognise her. Must be a Search.”

“They’re not meant to be Searching at all!” Basalgette complained. “The pool’s already too big!”

“D’sion says there isn’t an official Search,” said Vammers. “But we’re light on girls this time, so if a Search rider finds one by accident, they’re not going to turn them away.”

“That’s what Evie says,” said Svefen. “And she’s not even sure all the girls we’ve got now really want to Impress.”

“Good,” said Ben, the Headwoman’s son. “More for us.”

“You’re such a green lover!” Holned jeered. He was the smallest and youngest candidate, only twelve. And the most prickish, Narjol thought.

“Don’t be a fork,” Vammers told him. “I wouldn’t turn a green away if she wanted me, and neither would you.”

“I would,” said Holned. “I’m going to get a bronze.”

“If every candidate who said he was going to Impress a bronze got a bronze, we wouldn’t be able to move for shaffing bronzes,” said Svefen.

“Yeah, but there’s got to be at least three, haven’t there?” asked Zaffo. “The yellow with blue flecks, the round buff one, and the big silver.”

“Big silver’s mine,” Holned asserted.

“Any bronze worth his hide’s going to see you’re a ginger, and run as fast as possible in the opposite direction,” said Darvalen.

Holned folded his arms. “You can all go and get sore forks if you want, but I’m Impressing a bronze.”

“All right, lads,” the Weyrlingmaster said. “And ladies,” he added, glancing at the small cohort of girls. “Sit yourselves down and pay attention. We’re going to talk about the consequences of overfeeding a dragonet.”

“Why don’t anyone want a green?” Narjol asked Hal quietly, as D’hor droned on about dragonet gag reflexes. They were both sitting on one of the rearmost benches on the weyrling training ground, sweating in the bright morning sunshine.

“Not anyone,” said Hal. “Green’s just never going to be anyone’s first choice, is it? I mean, they’re girls, for a start, and they’re the smallest, and green riders can’t ever make rank.”

“Blues can’t neither, though, can they?” asked Narjol.

“No-o,” Hal said thoughtfully. “But a blue would be all right, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Narjol said, more to be agreeing with his friend than because he really meant it.

“Brown would be really good,” Hal added. “You can be a Wingsecond with a brown.”

“Doesn’t you want a bronze?” asked Narjol.

“Well, sure, of course I do,” said Hal. “But it’s like Svefen said, isn’t it? There’s never enough bronzes for everyone who wants one. And what if you spend the whole Hatching waiting for a bronze, and one doesn’t want you, and then you missed your chance for another colour?”

“Yeah,” said Narjol, gloomily. “Bet that’ll be me.”

“Nah, it won’t,” Hal told him bracingly. “Hey, you know that brown rider who’s really good at predicting Hatchings?”

Narjol didn’t. “Yeah?”

“I heard he reckons the clutch is going to hatch on the seventeenth or eighteenth,” said Hal. When Narjol didn’t react, he spread his hands. “That’s either my Turnday or yours! No way those dragonets are going to refuse us on our Turndays!”

“Does dragons know about Turndays?” Narjol asked, frowning.

“Well…no, probably not!” Hal shook his head. “Just – you know, buck up, Narjol! You have to believe in yourself. Holned’s a little squirt, but you can’t say he’s not confident!”

Narjol looked over the heads of the boys in the rows in front, thinking again about his patrol last night. “What does you think of the Weyrleader, Hal?”

“P’keo?” Hal shrugged. “He’s all right.”

“But what about him?” Narjol insisted. “Doesn’t you think he’s…you know…kinda…strange?”

“How would you know if he’s strange, Jolly?” Hal asked. “You ever talked to him?”

“Ye–” Narjol began, and then recalling the Weyrleader’s instructions, hastily amended his answer. “No, that is. Course not.”

“Bet you anything Nathronth won’t fly Cherganth again next time, though,” Hal said sagely. “They never do. One Weyrleader’s hardly got his knees under the desk before Fianine picks another!”

Narjol shifted uncomfortably. He’d gone to the Weyrleader’s office last night as commanded. The door was unlocked, but he still hesitated on the threshold, fighting with his instinctive aversion to being somewhere he had no right to be. At last, he gathered up the nerve to venture inside, though he winced with every illicit step. The Weyrleader’s desk was covered in haphazardly piled stacks of slates and records, and it was easy to tuck the little bit of hide underneath a big book that didn’t look like it was moved very often. He hadn’t read what was written on the scroll. The Weyrleader hadn’t said he could, and besides, Narjol didn’t read very well. Tirrol said a watchman didn’t need to, so long as he had a good sharp memory and could read his name and post off a rota. Narjol wondered if a dragonrider needed more letters than that. The Weyrleader certainly must.

The Weyrlingmaster completed his lecture and dismissed the candidate cohort back to their other duties – to general complaints. “Don’t we get to see the eggs again?” Bostrocke protested.

“Cherganth still hasn’t got the stink of unwashed boy out of her nostrils from yesterday,” D’hor said. “And none of you had better even think about trying to sneak in while she’s asleep. I’ve asked the Chief of Watch to put an extra patrol on, just to make sure no one tries it.”

“That true?” Hal asked Narjol, in a low voice.

Narjol raised his shoulders. “Was you gonna try?”

“Nah,” said Hal. “Not worth getting snapped at by Cherganth. Or worse, chewed out by Fianine.” He got up from the bench, stretching his legs. “You off duty now?”

“Nah,” said Narjol. “Gotta go relieve Yarling on gate.”

“Faranth, your dad works you like a shaft wher,” said Hal. “I just have to keep out of Liggary’s sight. I don’t want to spend another afternoon watching Renzy and Tal. I wish she’d remember I’m a candidate, not a shaffing creche mother!” He looked over in the direction of the female candidates, who were still clustered together. “That new girl looks nice, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” said Narjol, following Hal’s gaze. “Actually she looks kinda scared.”

“Yeah, well, she would be, wouldn’t she,” said Hal. “Chucked on a dragon. Coming between. I near peed my undies the first time I went between; didn’t you?”

“I’ve never went between,” said Narjol. “Never been on a dragon, neither.”

“Right. Wow.” Hal shook his head. “You have to be the only candidate that never did!”

“When’d you go?” Narjol asked, envious.

“Oh, a few times, with the caverns women,” said Hal. “For herb picking and the big wherry hunt at Little Madellon before Turn’s End. Renzy’s dad took me last time. How’d you get to the Weyr, then?”

“Rode in a wagon,” Narjol said. “Though Tirrol had me get down and walk some of the way.” He sighed. “I better go. Gotta figure out how to tell him I’m for the Weyrlinmaster every mornin till the Hatchin.”

“Good luck with that,” said Hal, making a face. Then he grinned. “I’m going to go talk to the new girl.”

Narjol made the same face back. “Good luck with that!”

Yarling, and another watchman named Menzies, were standing guard either side of the outer gate of the Weyr when Narjol arrived, tugging his indigo-and-black tabard on over his clothes. “There’s the lad now,” Yarling said, straightening from the slouch that an older watchman could get away with but that would have earned Narjol an irate cuff from the Chief. “Here, Jolly, take my pike.”

“Mebbe he knows more’n we does, hobnobbin wi’ riders in t’Weyr,” said Menzies. “’Ere, lad; ye heard owt about a missin dragon that ent missin?”

Narjol put Yarling’s pike on his shoulder. “How can a dragon be missin and not missin at the same time?”

“See, that’s what I tol’ ye, ent it?” Yarling said to Menzies. “Ye must’ve ’eard wrong.” He looked at Narjol. “Got trundlebugs in ’is ears. Best hope yer young ’uns be sharper! Now, what did ye learn ’bout yon dragins this morn, lad?”

Narjol considered it. He hadn’t really been listening to D’hor’s lesson. “They reckons there’s three bronzes.”

“That so!” Yarling chortled. “Well, ye keep that to yesself, eh, and mebbe I’ll make a bit or two wagerin on t’outcome, eh?”

The remainder of forenoon watch was uneventful, as most gate watches were, except on days with a tithe caravan or stock drive when there might be an unruly wagoner or drover to wrangle. Once relieved, Narjol went straight to the watchhouse mess for something to eat. His father was there, scowling over the roster. “Weyrlinmaster’s tasked me to put a man on ’Atching Ground overnights,” he said abruptly, when Narjol came in. “Like we ain’t stretched thin a’ready.”

Narjol quietly dipped out a mug of soup from the pot on the hearth. “I’ll do ’em, Chief.”

“I’ve you down forenoons.”

Narjol bunched up his courage, and said, “Weyrlinmaster says I’m to be at lessons every day, or I lose my place. I’ll take the night watches to make up.”

“And when ye gonna rest yer head, boy?” Tirrol asked.

Narjol straightened. “I’m young. I can get by on half sleep for a sevenday.”

“Aye, I’d ’ave it you can,” Tirrol grunted, and wrote Narjol’s name on the roster.

“Her name’s Schanna, and she’s from Crookpass Hold in Jessaf,” Hal reported triumphantly the next morning.

Narjol, who’d taken pains not to be late for once, was impressed. “She told you that?”

Hal deflated slightly. “No. I got it from Evie. They’re bunking together.”

“Where is the girls?” Narjol asked, looking around. Only the boys of the candidate pool had assembled on the training ground.

“In with the eggs again,” Hal said. He sighed. “And we still don’t get to touch them yet!”

“When does we get to?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Hal. “Vammers?”

“Probably a couple more days yet,” said Vammers. “Fianine doesn’t like anyone touching them until the last day or so.”

“That’s because of what happened at Ista,” said Basalgette.

“What happened at Ista?” asked Hopajan.

Vammers shook his head. “This old aunties’ tale again?”

Basalgette ignored him. “They always used to let their boys handle the eggs almost from day one. This one time, some candidates had some bad fish and died the sevenday before the Hatching. And when the dragonets hatched, two of them refused to pick a rider.”

“Faranth, what happened?” asked Fastrall.

“They died, didn’t they?” said Basalgette, with relish. “And not that quick. They wouldn’t eat or drink. They just got weaker and weaker until they starved to death.”

“Shaff,” said Zaffo, wide-eyed. “That’s horrible!”

“It’s also not true,” Vammers cut in.

“It is too!” Basalgette insisted.

“It’s not,” said Vammers. “That story’s been doing the rounds since my dad was a weyrling. It’s complete whershit.”

“It isn’t?” asked Darvalen, almost sounding disappointed.

“Dragonets can be fussy, but not to the point that they’d die before choosing someone,” said Vammers. “Though D’sion does reckon that some dragonets choose their riders before they’ve even hatched. Which would make it unfair on candidates joining the pool late, if the Weyrbred ones had spent the whole month pawing at the best eggs. And the late ones might’ve been a better match if not for all that contact with the unhatched dragonets.”

“Then they’re alive in there?” asked Narjol.

“Faranth, Jolly, how thick are you?” said Gemmarty. “Of course they’re shaffing alive!”

Narjol flushed. “I didn’t mean –”

“You think they just suddenly come to life?” Gemmarty mocked. “Like the eggs are just empty and the dragonets get into them out of between?”

“I just thought –”

“You are so thick,” said Fastrall, sniggering.

“Ah, shut up,” Hal told them.

“Everyone shut up,” said Vammers. “Weyrlingmaster’s coming!”

“Hey, is that – that’s Sh’ror with him!” said Zaffo.

“Look sharp,” Vammers hissed.

All the boys straightened up in a way that they never did just for D’hor as the Weyrlingmaster and Flightleader approached. The two riders made a strange pair. D’hor was a stooped, balding, grey old man who commanded more derision than respect from the candidate pool. Sh’ror couldn’t have been more different. The Flightleader was tall and broad-shouldered, with a runner-tail of curly red-blond hair, storm-blue eyes, and a quick, easy smile.

“Gather round, candidates, gather round,” D’hor said, and the boys elbowed and shouldered into a circle around the two riders. “You’ll notice that we’re honoured with Flightleader Sh’ror’s presence today. Can anyone guess what that means you’re going to be learning?”

“How to Impress a bronze!” Holned piped up.

Sh’ror grinned. “Sorry, kid. That’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own.”

“Any other guesses?” asked D’hor.

“Wrestlin,” Narjol muttered, though he didn’t raise his voice.

“What was that?” Hal asked.

“Wrestlin. Best wrestler in the Weyr, is Sh’ror. Tirrol says might be he’s best on Pern.”

“Well, shout it out, then!”

Narjol shook his head.

“Don’t be daft, Jolly!”

“You say it,” Narjol insisted

Hal sighed. “You’re such a watch-wher!” He raised his voice. “Is it – wrestling?”

“Who said that?” Sh’ror asked, looking around.

“That was young Frahaligger,” said D’hor.

“Frahaligger,” Sh’ror repeated, as if to commit the name to memory, and Hal beamed at the Flightleader’s recognition. “Very good shout.”

“Well, close, but not quite,” said D’hor. “The Flightleader is going to talk to you all about how dragonriders can best defend themselves.”

That elicited a positive reaction among the boys, many of whom swung their arms in readiness, or put their fists up, or aimed mock punches at their friends.

“So that’s why the girls aren’t here,” said Basalgette, fending off Zaffo’s jabs. “Gerroff, Zaf!”

Narjol looked at Hal. “Your name’s Fr – Fral…?”

“Frahaligger,” Hal said, screwing up his face. “Mum wasn’t sure who my dad was, so she gave me the longest, stupidest name in the Weyr, to cover all the possibilities.”

“Settle down!” the Weyrlingmaster shouted over the general volume.

“All right,” said Sh’ror. He looked around the circle of candidates. “Faranth, there’s a whole Flight of you.” His gaze fell on Narjol. “It’s Narjol, isn’t it? Tirrol’s son?”

Narjol ducked his head. “Yessir.”

“How come he knows his name?” Fastrall asked incredulously. “He’s just a watchman.”

“This young man’s father is the quickest out with a blade I’ve ever seen,” Sh’ror said. “If he has half his dad’s talent, you could all learn from him. Come over here, Narjol.”

Narjol obeyed, half proud at Sh’ror’s recognition of Tirrol’s skill, half self-conscious about being singled out.

“Don’t slouch, Narjol,” Sh’ror told him. “Stand up straight. Shoulders back. I know it’s not easy being the big man, at your age, but don’t be ashamed of it. Own your size. Don’t let it own you.”

Narjol tried to do what Sh’ror asked. It was oddly reassuring to be physically smaller than someone for a change.

“All right. You’re a dragonrider at a Gather, somewhere outside Madellon, and I’m some guy who’s just –” Sh’ror abruptly came at Narjol, clipping him with his burly shoulder and spinning him halfway round. “Barged into you. Right?”

“Yessir,” Narjol said instinctively.

Sh’ror’s demeanour changed instantly. He squared up to Narjol, scowling. “Watch where you’re shaffing going, you stupid fork!”

The sudden change made Narjol blink, but he’d been trained to stand his ground when challenged. “You walked into me!”

“I walked into you?” Sh’ror looked Narjol up and down. “Oh, you’re a dragonrider, are you? Think you’re better than me, do you?”

“Nosir,” said Narjol. He found he was sweating, both from the unexpected confrontation, and from knowing that all the other candidates were watching. “I didn’t do nothin, sir.”

“‘Sir’? Are you shaffing mocking me, you soft-handed little dragonman?” Sh’ror’s angry glare shifted to Narjol’s watchman rank knot. Sh’ror stabbed a finger into Narjol’s chest. “You’re one of those sissy green riders, are you?”

That provoked titters from the watching candidates. “I ain’t no sissy,” Narjol insisted, feeling his cheeks go hot.

“You won’t even defend yourself, will you, you shaffing coward!” Sh’ror barked. “Sissy. Coward.” And then Sh’ror slapped Narjol right in the face. “Dragon woman!”

Narjol just reacted. “Get your hands offa me!” he shouted, smacking Sh’ror’s hand away.

In a flash, Sh’ror seized his wrist, caught him in an armlock, and twisted so severely that Narjol went to his knees with an embarrassing squawk.

The watching boys whooped and hooted.

Sh’ror didn’t sustain the hold an instant longer than necessary. “Sorry, lad,” he said, releasing the painful armbar and offered Narjol a hand to get up. “I always like to make that point using the biggest candidate, and I knew you’d be able to take it.”

Narjol rubbed his arm, mumbling, “Yessir.”

The bronze rider clapped him companionably on the shoulder. “Go on back to your buddies, Narjol. Well done.” He looked around. “All right, boys. Narjol here is the biggest and strongest of you lot. So what’s the lesson?”

“Jolly’s a big sissy!” shouted Darvalen.

Sh’ror fixed him with a stare, and Darvalen withered. “Does someone else who isn’t too stupid to learn want to give me a proper answer?”

“That even the biggest and strongest dragonrider could run into someone who’s bigger and stronger,” said Vammers.

Then Svefen added, “Or a better fighter.”

“Correct,” said Sh’ror. He pointed at Holned. “Come here, kid.”

Holned swaggered up to him. His head barely reached the middle of Sh’ror’s chest. The big Flightleader leaned down and spoke to him. Holned nodded eagerly. Then Sh’ror took a step back. “This time, I’m the dragonrider,” he said, “and this lad is the holder who has a problem with me.”

“Dragonriders are stupid and you’re stupid!” Holned cried, and kicked Sh’ror hard in the shin.

“Think you can take on a dragonrider, boy?” Sh’ror grabbed Holned by the front of his shirt, lifting him bodily into the air with no discernible effort. “You little –”

And stopped.

Several boys gasped.

Holned had the tip of his belt-knife pressed against the centre of Sh’ror’s broad chest.

“Shaff,” Hal breathed.

Sh’ror set Holned back on his feet. The red-haired boy sheathed his knife and made an exaggerated bow to the other candidates.

“And this lesson?” Sh’ror asked, into the sudden hush.

“Even a stupid little brat could kill you if he’s got a knife,” said Des.

“Correct.” Sh’ror looked around the circle. “Some of you are big guys already, like Narjol and Frahaligger. Some of you will get big by the time you’re finished growing. When you Impress your dragons in a few sevendays’ time, you’re going to have a best friend who’s orders of magnitude bigger and stronger than you. And none of that matters a damn if some drunk holder stabs you because you smiled at his wife.” The bronze rider’s intense blue gaze met one pair of eyes after another. “Dragonriders don’t get into fights. Not with words, not with fists. We keep out of trouble, and if we find ourselves in trouble, we walk away. It doesn’t matter if your pride’s hurt. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been accused of being a boy-lover. It doesn’t matter if that illiterate, shit-shovelling, three-toothed peasant has just looked you in the eye and told you the Weyrwoman’s a filthy whore who’d open her legs for a watch-wher.” That got a couple of sharp intakes of breath. The Weyrlingmaster pursed his lips. Sh’ror nodded, grinning savagely at the outraged reaction. “I’ve heard worse. You’ll hear worse. And you’ll walk away.”

“But what if you can’t?” Narjol heard himself say it. He regretted it immediately as all eyes turned back to him, but he set his shoulders. “Chief says sometimes, no matter what you do, if there’s gonna be a fight, there’s gonna be a fight.”

“The chief’s right,” said Sh’ror. “Sometimes you can’t walk or talk your way out of a confrontation. That’s why you will learn to defend yourselves, with belt knives and with empty hands. But standing your ground will always be the last resort. Injured pride won’t kill you, but a knife in your gut will. Walk away. Run away. Hide if you have to. It’ll keep you alive, and it’ll keep your dragon alive. You’re all boys now, but when you Impress your dragons, you’ll become men and the one thing that every man understands is that nothing in the world matters more than keeping the ones you love, the ones who rely on you, safe.”

“All right, candidates, settle down,” said D’hor, over the burst of excited chatter that erupted when Sh’ror had finished speaking. “I said settle down!” he repeated, when they didn’t heed him.

“Enough, boys,” Sh’ror said, his voice rising over the hubbub, and that did make the buzz subside. “Listen to your Weyrlingmaster.”

D’hor put them into groups of four, and they spent the rest of the class practising how to break out of several common ways that someone might grab them by their clothes. Sh’ror walked among them, demonstrating and assisting, which made most of the boys more keen than usual to show off.

“See what I mean about how he’d be a great Weyrleader?” Vammers said, as Hal grabbed Hopajan by his tunic and Hopajan tried to break his grip.

“Why doesn’t he want to be, anyway?” asked Hal.

“Yeah, why don’t he?” asked Narjol.

“He’s a family man,” said Hopajan, bringing his arms up between Hal’s two-handed grip and striking outwards to break it. “I was in his weyr with a crew last sevenday. The pipes in his bathing room were leaking, and we fixed them. He’s got a weyrmate and a whole pile of little kids.”

“Why doesn’t he just put them in the creche like all the other riders do?” Hal asked, and then exclaimed, “Ow!” as Hopajan’s second attempt broke his grip.

“Well, he’s not Weyrbred, is he?” said Vammers. He grabbed the front of Narjol’s jacket. “His nephew’s the new Lord Holder of Kellad. So he thinks like a holder when it comes to family.”

“How do you know all this stuff, Vammers?” Hal complained. “You should’ve been a Harper!”

Narjol struck Vammers’ hands off his tunic with trivial ease. “Have you heard anythin ’bout a missin dragon?”

“What, missing from Madellon?” Vammers shook his head. “Why? What have you heard?”

Narjol lifted a shoulder awkwardly. “Dunno. Just that there’s a missin dragon.”

“I think they’d have noticed if someone had gone missing,” said Vammers.

“Yeah,” said Narjol. “Sorry. It’s stupid.”

“Pretty stupid,” Hopajan agreed. “You shouldn’t repeat every rumour you hear, Jolly.”

Narjol didn’t venture anything further for the rest of the training session. Afterwards, Hal thumped his back. “Don’t let Hop wind you up. He’s been at Madellon longer than you, in the lower caverns too, and he still doesn’t know much about anything.”

“Still knows more than stupid Jolly,” Narjol mumbled. “They ain’t never gonna accept me, is they?”

Hal made a face. Even he couldn’t deny that truth. “Well, you’ll just have to Impress a bronze and show them all up, won’t you?”

“Yeah,” Narjol agreed moodily, but he increasingly didn’t believe it himself.

Cherganth eyed Narjol sharply when he entered the Hatching Ground that night.

P’keo was with the Weyrwoman in the stands nearby. “I asked Chief Tirrol to put a man on,” he told her. “I know Cherganth detests having anyone on her sands, but I thought one watchman doing a round might keep any other visitors at bay.”

Fianine, Madellon’s fearsome Weyrwoman, glanced at Narjol’s quartered tabard and pike, then disregarded him. “Show me this list again,” she told the Weyrleader.

Narjol moved out of earshot, painfully conscious of not eavesdropping. If P’keo recognised him from the other night, the Weyrleader showed no indication of it.

The rocky walls of the Hatching Ground were full of dark crevices and shadowy holes, any of which might have been an illicit way in. Narjol made a slow first circuit of the huge cavern, shining his glowbasket into hollows and poking his pike into cracks. Cherganth watched him for a while, and then, apparently deciding that he was no threat, ignored him.

She was rearranging her eggs: rolling this one over, moving that one closer to the centre, banking more sand around a third. Narjol watched from the corner of his eye as the queen studied one of the biggest eggs for several long minutes, then passed it over without touching it.

He walked the perimeter a couple of times. He climbed the steps to the top of the stands and tried each of the doors to the lower caverns to make sure they were locked. He went out into the Bowl and stood there for a bit, peering into the darkness. Then he went back in and did it all again.

By his third circuit, the Weyrleaders had gone, presumably back to their weyrs. By the fifth, Cherganth was asleep. Around and around Narjol walked, alive to every tiny sound in the Hatching ground: the crunch of sand beneath his boots, the squeak of his glowbasket’s handle, the soft snoring of the queen dragon. It was the very early hours of the morning, late in middle watch. Narjol thought he was probably the only soul awake at Madellon, other than the watchdragon and his rider.

Cherganth’s dead to the world by this hour, the brown rider on watch had said, the night of the storm.

Narjol looked at the eggs. The queen lay curled around them as always, but a small group of them were quite far from her: three with speckled white shells, a round beige one, a spotty yellow oval – and the big silver egg.

He wiped the sudden film of perspiration from his top lip.

Who would know?

Moving almost without thinking, Narjol leaned his pike against the wall. He dried his sweaty palms on his trousers, one and then the other. He kept the glowbasket. It was dark, and he didn’t want to miss his footing and fall on an egg. The thought made him shudder.

Step by soft step, Narjol walked towards the clutch. The sand grew steadily hotter underfoot as he approached the eggs. His feet were swimming with sweat inside his boots, and he could feel dampness sticking his tunic to his back under his stiff heavy tabard.

Closer…closer…. If he reached out now, he could almost touch –

And his glowbasket went squeak.

Beyond the clutch, Cherganth roused.

In the instant between the queen’s eyelids slitting redly open and full awakening, Narjol ran.

He felt like he had a target painted on his back. He cringed at the thought of the queen’s fury, at the notion of her lungeing for him, teeth bared. He braced himself for her inevitable trumpet of rage at his sacrilegious approach.

It never came.

Narjol snatched up his pike, symbol of his right to be there – and turned, gingerly, back towards the clutch.

Cherganth was licking her forearm, perfectly at ease.

Narjol leaned on the shaft of his polearm, weak with relief, and resolved never to try approaching the eggs uninvited, ever again.

‘Cherganth’ by Chrisi S Baily

There was a palpable tension among the candidates the next morning. Boys were standing with their heads together in groups of three and four, talking in intense low voices.

“What’s goin on, Hal?” he asked his friend.

Hal was talking urgently with Basalgette and Zaffo. “Something’s happened,” he said. “It’s not good.”

Narjol thought of his near-miss with Cherganth and felt his face warming. What if she had noticed his intrusion after all? “Is the eggs all right?”

“It’s not the eggs,” said Basalgette. “It’s the candidates.” He motioned with his head. “Look.”

Narjol followed his gaze. A group of older boys – young men, really – he’d not seen before were standing near the Weyrlingmaster. D’hor had a record slate in each hand, and he was looking from one to the other and frowning. “Is they new?”

“They’re old,” said Basalgette. “That’s Pan, Vammers’ brother. His older brother.”

“And Barillion’s next to him,” said Hal. “The one who looks about thirty.”

“Why the shaff are they here?” Zaffo demanded. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, in high agitation. “They’re way too old!”

“Oh, shards,” said Basalgette. “Look. Weyrleader.”

P’keo was walking down from the lower caverns, looking sombre.

“Shaff,” said Hal.

“Shaff,” Narjol echoed.

“Settle down, boys,” D’hor called. “I’d like the following to step over here.” He consulted one of his slates. “Altonder. Holned. Mabbron. Narjol.”

Narjol stiffened at his name. He looked at Hal uncertainly. Hal spread his hands helplessly. “You’d better go.”

The Weyrlingmaster was still reading out names as Narjol joined the trickle of boys moving reluctantly towards him. By the time he got there, they numbered almost twenty, close to a third of the candidate pool. And as he glanced around at the other lads who’d been summoned, he realised that they had something in common. They were all young.

Zaffo came up next to Narjol, looking miserable. “You too?” Narjol asked.

“Yeah,” Zaffo said, looking anxiously back towards Basalgette.

“Attention on the Weyrleader,” D’hor told them.

P’keo folded his hands soberly behind him as he looked around the straggle of anxious boys. “Well, this isn’t news you’ll want to hear, lads, but I thought it only fair you hear it directly from me.” His gaze fell briefly on Narjol, and the Weyrleader frowned slightly, as though trying and failing to place him. “You’ll be aware that there’s an unusually large group of candidates this time, chiefly because there’s been a long gap since Cherganth’s last clutch. So long, in fact, that some the candidates who had only their first opportunity to Impress last time have recently passed out of the age of candidacy.”

He paused. The assembled candidates shifted their feet uneasily, glancing between themselves.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” P’keo went on. “The Weyrwoman and I have decided that some of those older fellows should be given a second chance at Impression.” He nodded in the direction of the cluster of newcomers. “A decent chance. And since you young gentleman are tender enough of Turns that you’ll still be of age to stand to the next clutch – well, I’m afraid we’ve decided to stand you all down from the candidate pool this time.”

There was an instant’s silence, a moment of speechlessness and sucked-in breaths – and then the angry cacophony broke out.

“What?”

“But that’s not fair –”

“My father promised –”

“Not fair!”

“They already had a chance –”

“Not fair, not fair, not fair!”

Narjol didn’t say anything. His face was hot with emotion, and he was grateful to his dark complexion for hiding it, but it was harder to keep his expression stoic. He held his breath until his chest burned. His stomach felt bruised, like he’d been punched. Beside him, Zaffo was slack-jawed with disbelief. Holned had burst into furious tears.

“That’s enough, lads,” D’hor said, in his thin voice. “I know you’re disappointed, but you’ll all have another chance in the future. Just not this time.”

Narjol turned wretchedly away. Maybe he’d never really believed he’d Impress a dragon, but for a little while, he’d been able to dream of it. Now he wouldn’t even have the experience of standing on the Hatching sands as a story to tell.

“They’ve cut you?” Hal asked incredulously, coming to meet him. “All of you?”

Narjol nodded dejectedly. Zaffo had flung himself into Basalgette’s arms, his shoulders heaving. Other boys were wiping away tears, or being consoled with pats on the back.

“All the young ones,” said Vammers. He looked torn between sympathy and relief. “Anyone under – what, fifteen? The twelve to fourteen-Turn-olds?”

“But you’ll be fifteen in a few days, Jolly,” said Hal. “Maybe even by the Hatching.”

Narjol just shrugged. “Still fourteen now though, ain’t I?”

“I’m going to tell the Weyrleader,” Hal declared. “It’s not fair!”

“Don’t, Hal, don’t,” Narjol said. “It’s not worth it. He might chuck you out.” Then he said, glumly, “I were never gonna Impress anyway.”

“Jolly!” Hal said, scrubbing his hands through his hair, visibly distraught.

His genuine distress made Narjol feel slightly, just slightly, better. “Anyway, it gives you a better chance, don’t it?” he said. “Just – when you got a dragon, will you let me have a ride, one time?”

“Yeah,” said Hal. He lowered his hands. “Yeah, course I will.” He sighed, his face a picture of unhappiness. “Faranth, Jolly. I’m sorry. I really am.”

It was a long and grim walk back to the watchhouse. Narjol spent the time trying to think how he’d tell his father the news. Tirrol would probably be pleased, he thought resentfully. He’d never wanted him to be a candidate anyway. He’d be happy.

But he was wrong. Tirrol was standing in the doorway of the barracks when Narjol got there. His weathered face was set in an unusual expression. “There you is, boy,” he said, when Narjol approached, and then, “Ah, son, I am sorry. I am.”

Narjol raised his head. “You heard already?”

“Bad news travels faster’n a dragon between,” said Tirrol. He clapped Narjol’s shoulder. “It’s shite, son. Gettin yer ’opes up and then dashin ’em last minute. Proper shite.”

“I weren’t gonna Impress anyway,” Narjol said, and then added, with the last shred of pride that remained to him, “prob’ly.”

“You ’ad a claim, Kistrinar’s uncle bein a rider,” Tirrol said. It was the first time he’d ventured any support to the idea of Narjol being capable of Impressing. “P’raps a slim chance, but either way, it’s no way to treat no young man doin ’is best.”

Narjol nodded mechanically. “Yeah.”

“Come on, lad, let’s take a bit o’lunch and a mug o’beer,” Tirrol said bracingly.

“Beer?”

“Aye, beer,” said Tirrol. “Never were a watchman that wouldn’t take a mug. You’re big enough an old enough to learn to ’old it.”

Narjol bobbed his head. “Yes, Chief.”

“And, lad, you’ll not need to stand that watch tonight in the ’Atching Ground.”

“Yessir,” Narjol said, and then, “I mean, nosir. I said I’d stand it and I will. Wasn’t because I were a candidate. Being cut don’t let me off my word.”

Tirrol regarded him with slow approval. “Aye, that it don’t,” he said. “Come now. There’s a mug wi’ my fine big son’s name on it. And we’ve yer future to discuss.”

Narjol regretted his choices later: both his stubborn insistence on taking the overnight watch in the Hatching Ground, and his subsequent decision to try matching his father pint for pint in the watchhouse.

He dragged himself out of bed just before middle watch with a pounding head and a mouth that tasted like a tunnel snake had crawled in there and died. The greasy bacon roll that a chuckling Menzies pressed upon him as he left for his patrol didn’t stay down long. Narjol threw it all up halfway across the Bowl. His only comfort was that at least he hadn’t puked on the actual Hatching Sands.

And it stung, being there. An afternoon of drinking with his father, followed by several soddenly oblivious hours of sleep, hadn’t given him much time to really think about the events of the day. He stayed as far away from the clutch as he could, and kept his eyes off the eggs, but as Narjol walked his solitary route around the Hatching Ground, with only the snoozing Cherganth for company, he had all the uninterrupted time in the world to torture himself with thoughts of what might have been.

“…light…think we’re almost…”

“…shut up, you idiot…”

“…you shut up…”

It was into morning watch, though still almost totally dark, when Narjol registered the snatches of conversation. He raised his glowbasket, peering around the dark Hatching Ground. But the puddle of light from his basket only went so far, and its brightness made it hard for him to see beyond that limited circle. He leaned his pike on his shoulder and closed the glowbasket’s aperture.

For a moment he was completely blind in the pitch-black Hatching Ground. And then a gleam caught his attention, the tiniest flicker of illumination in the darkness. Narjol turned to face that way, straining his aching eyes, gripping the shaft of his pike with urgent fingers.

And across the sands, not far at all from where Cherganth slept, two figures emerged from a crevice in the rocky wall, poorly lit by the faint shine of their own, very dim, glows.

Narjol froze. He hadn’t considered what he’d do if someone actually tried to get into the Sands during his patrol. In over a Turn of watches, he’d never dealt with a real intruder. If he called out a challenge, he’d wake Cherganth, and in the dark, who knew how a startled queen might react? She might harm herself. Or her eggs. She might harm him.

He started instead across the sand towards the bobbing light, first at a fast walk, then a trot, and then, as he realised that the intruders were already almost on top of the clutch, a jog.

“…there…the silver…”

“…I don’t think we should…”

“…don’t be such a girl, Zaff…”

“…what if the queen…”

“…fine…go back then…gimme the basket…”

“…don’t…gerroff, Holned…”

The light danced crazily as the two boys fought over the basket, shining off the curved outlines of the eggs that were perilously close to their struggle.

Narjol broke into a sprint.

And just as Holned – his distinctive red hair catching the flickering glowlight – shoved Zaffo hard enough to send him careening towards the clutch, Narjol dropped his pike and basket, got himself between the staggering boy and the clutch, and seized Zaffo’s shirt to arrest his fall.

As if in slow motion, Zaffo’s momentum carried Narjol backwards. Not even a full step. Just half of one. Just enough to make him throw an arm backwards for balance.

And the fingertips of his left hand grazed something round and smooth and warm.

He snatched his hand back, as if from the burning heat of a stove, lunged at Holned, getting hold of the front of his tunic, and snarled, “Who goes there?” in as low a whisper as he could manage.

“Shaff!” squeaked Holned.

“Faranth, Faranth, Faranth, Faranth!” Zaffo chanted.

“What the shaffin shaff are you doin?” Narjol demanded, shaking the two younger boys fiercely.

Holned squinted at him in the trembling light of the glowbasket that had fallen onto the Sands. “Jolly?”

“What are you doin?” Narjol repeated. “You can’t be in here! You was cut!”

“But don’t you see, that’s why we’re here!” said Holned. “If we touch an egg, that’ll make the dragonets want us! Like Basalgette said happened at Ista, ’cept we won’t be dead, we’ll be right here in the stands!”

“You’re not touchin no egg!” Narjol hissed. “No one’s touchin no egg! Not on my watch!”

“All right, all right!” Holned pawed at Narjol’s hand, to no avail. Clearly, he hadn’t learned much from Sh’ror’s lesson.

He let both boys go. “You’s both shaffin idiots!”

“Don’t dob us in!” Zaffo pleaded, his face slack with fear in the dim green illumination of the fallen glowbasket.

“Yeah, don’t snitch on us, Jolly,” said Holned. “You’re not gonna snitch, are you? You’re our mate, right?”

Narjol glared down at them, two Weyr boys even younger than him. Both just little kids. “I should,” he said at last. “I shaffin should. But I ain’t gonna. You just walk out and don’t come back. Don’t you never come back!”

“Thanks, Jolly,” said Holned, and drove his fist into Narjol’s shoulder. “You’re all right, you are.” He jerked his chin at the grimacing Zaffo. “C’mon, Zaf.”

Still confident, still entitled, Holned snatched up his glowbasket and marched in the direction of the faint starlit exit to the Bowl.

And tripped over the fallen shaft of Narjol’s pike with a yell and a full-face pratfall that brought Cherganth roaring awake.

Part one

Prologue

P’keo didn’t even lift his chin off his chest when D’hor came shuffling in. “The weyrlings?” he asked dully.

“Suffering, Weyrleader,” said D’hor, in a quavering voice that suggested he shared the Weyrleader’s gloomy condition. “Miserable. But Master Firland’s potion seems efficacious, and they’re motivated to improve. And not running the fever that…the younger ones….”

On the other side of P’keo’s desk, L’stev raised a hand sharply, cutting D’hor off. “Enough. We know.”

“I only thank Faranth you kept the younger boys out of the Hatching Grounds, P’keo,” the old Weyrlingmaster said. “That was quite opportune of you.”

The Weyrleader looked up sharply. “What?”

“The youngsters,” D’hor clarified. “As it is, I have six weyrlings too sick to get out of bed or feed their own dragonets. And we’ll be short of boys for the next two or three Hatchings –”

L’stev slammed his fist down on the Weyrleader’s desk. “Faranth’s tits, D’hor,” he barked. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

“It’s all right, L’stev,” P’keo said, flapping a hand vaguely at him. “The Weyrlingmaster’s only thinking of the future.” He nodded to D’hor. “That’ll be all.”

When D’hor had gone, L’stev said bleakly, “I suppose he has a point about the weyrlings. Some of the twelve and thirteen-Turn-olds who might have Impressed are in rough shape. Shaffing lucky you decided to cut the pool in favour of the older boys.”

“You see, old friend,” P’keo said softly, “that’s the thing.” He paused. “I didn’t.”

L’stev gave the Weyrleader a hard look. “Say again?”

P’keo met his eyes uncomfortably. The bluff, jaunty bronze rider who’d been L’stev’s very first Wingleader had aged five Turns in the last ten days. “I’ve had a suspicion since before the Hatching that wheels were turning beyond our control. That business at Crookpass. The dragon that no one’s missing. And last night, when I finally sat down to write of this wretchedness in Madellon’s Chronicle…I found instructions tucked beneath it.”

L’stev felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Vanzanth, listening nearby, stirred uncomfortably. “Instructions.”

“In my own handwriting,” P’keo said. “And I have no recollection of writing such a note. None whatsoever. So I suppose, as Nathronth tells me, I shall have to.”

L’stev stared at him, feeling a sudden wild hope leap in his chest. “You mean to avert all this?”

“If only it worked that way, L’stev,” said, P’keo, shaking his head.

“You could warn us! You could prevent –”

“But I wasn’t warned,” P’keo said. “It hasn’t been prevented.” He sighed. “Didn’t D’hor give you that lecture when he rollicked you and Vanzanth for doubling up?”

“We got the rollicking,” said L’stev. “But not the lecture. Brown riders don’t get taught about timing, remember? It’s not necessary for us to know.”

Most brown riders aren’t bright enough to figure it out, Vanzanth remarked.

“You were the sort of brown rider for whom it was,” P’keo said, at the same moment. “Altogether too bright.”

L’stev huffed a mirthless chuckle. He had little appetite for laughter, however hard Vanzanth was working to keep his grief from spiralling into despair.

“I know what I need to do, L’stev, and more pertinently, I know what you need to do,” P’keo said. “That’s why I asked you to come. The note I’ll write to myself at least makes that part clear.”

“Do you still have it?” L’stev asked.

The Weyrleader fished a slip of hide from his belt pouch and held it out to him.

Three riders, three tasks

1. No Search. No one under 15.
2. Have L’stev take the formula to the Weyr Healer.
3. Crookpass must play out as it has.

Then, in a different ink, scribbled as if in haste:

4. Make exception for the watchman.

“The watchman?” L’stev asked.

“For the sake of one little dragon,” P’keo said sadly.

He read the note one more time, then opened the door of the stove by the hearth and tossed it inside.

They both watched it blacken, curl, and turn to ash.

“Why so shaffing obtuse, P’keo?” L’stev asked. “Couldn’t you have made yourself plainer?”

The Weyrleader spread his hands. “I can’t make plain something I didn’t. And none of us can prevent from happening what already has. Whatever mitigation we can make, we’re already seeing its results.”

“Then it could be even worse than it is?” asked L’stev.

“If we fail to act in the way that we already have?” P’keo sighed. “That’s as impossible a change as any other. We all have our parts, L’stev, and we must play them to the end.”

“Wonderful.” L’stev stared at the stove. “You’re the first rider. I’m the second. Who’s the third?”

“I’d wondered that myself, until today,” P’keo said, with a great sigh, and when L’stev looked askance, the Weyrleader said, “He lost two more of his children this morning.”

“Not –” L’stev began, and then closed his eyes. “Ah, shaff.”

As if on cue, footsteps approached: heavy ones, purposeful.

“I suspect that’s him now,” said P’keo.

“You called him here, too?” L’stev asked. “Knowing what you know?”

P’keo shook his head. “I didn’t have to.”

L’stev exchanged a pained look with his old Wingleader. “But it has to be him?”

“Who else would do it?” P’keo asked.

Then, as the door burst open, the Weyrleader leaned forwards. “Come in. Close the door.”

Part one

Three sevendays earlier

“I guess a dragon might want you – if it was so weedy it needed a big stupid lout like you to protect it,” Fastrall jeered, when Narjol joined the tail end of the candidate pool outside the Hatching Ground, still panting from his full-speed sprint across the Bowl from the end of his watch shift.

“Better hope it has a nice short name so he can spell it,” Fastrall’s buddy, Gemmarty, added. “Ath, or Oth….”

“Th,” said Fastrall. “Three whole letters would probably confuse poor thicko Jolly.”

“Quit winding him up,” Svefen told them. He was the eldest candidate in the pool, almost nineteen Turns old. “If he gives either of you tail-forks a smack, you’ll all get washed. If he doesn’t bash your tiny brains out.”

“’Preciate you tellin them to lay off me,” Narjol mumbled to Svefen as they all filed into the Hatching Ground.

“They ought to know better,” Svefen said. Then he looked coolly at Narjol. “But you know you’re probably not going to Impress, don’t you, coming from where you come from?”

As if Narjol had ever been allowed to forget. He’d come to the Weyr only three Turns ago, shortly after his mother had died and his father, Tirrol, a guardsman at Kellad Hold, had taken up the role of Madellon’s Chief of Watch. And while Narjol had been officially granted a place in the candidate pool, most of the other boys had already dismissed the chances of an over-sized, under-educated oaf from the watchhouse ever catching a dragonet’s eye.

“S’demp said –” Narjol began.

“Yeah, look; Ralnath passes pretty much everyone he sees,” said Svefen. “S’demp probably doesn’t even know you’re not really Weyrbred. And even if they think you could Impress, doesn’t mean you actually will. There’s sixty of us – more if you count the girls – and most of us have more rider blood in our little fingers than you do.”

“My granddad’s brother were a brown rider,” Narjol insisted.

“And?” Svefen asked. “My brother’s a bronze rider. My sister got a green last clutch. Darvalen and I have so many dragonriders in the family it’d be more shocking if we don’t Impress.”

“Ain’t yet, though, have you?” asked Narjol. “And you had a chance last time.”

“I’m not getting into a debate, Narjol,” Svefen said. “All I’m saying is the numbers aren’t in your favour. That’s not me being a wher like those two idiots. It’s just the truth. There are going to be better candidates than you out there come Hatching day – a lot of them.” He shrugged. “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and all the girls are useless, and a green’ll have you.”

“You boys keep your yammering down,” the Weyrlingmaster, D’hor, said, coming along the line. “Cherganth’s resting. You’re lucky she’s letting you in at all. The least you can do is show some respect. You should know that already, Svefen.”

“Yes, Weyrlingmaster,” Svefen said contritely.

Then D’hor eyed Narjol. “As for you –”

Narjol didn’t straighten. At almost fifteen Turns old, he was already taller than the Weyrlingmaster. Grown-ups didn’t like looking up at boys Narjol’s age, and standing to his full height only made it worse. “Yessir?”

“You just stay at the back and don’t get in the way,” D’hor said.

Narjol bobbed his head. “Yessir.”

Standing at the back didn’t much trouble him. But he stopped stock-still when he caught sight of the eggs over the other boys’ heads, gaping. A shiver went through him, from his toes to the roots of his short-shaven hair.

Hal came up behind him, thumping his shoulder. He was one of the few Weyr boys who hadn’t turned his nose up at Narjol when he’d joined the candidate pool. Hal wasn’t a rider’s son or brother, so he wasn’t stuck up, but he’d been at Madellon his whole life, so he was considered a proper Weyrbred. He was a Turn and a day older than Narjol, and closer than most of the others to his size and weight, so he didn’t resent Narjol for being bigger than him, either. Narjol liked him a lot. “Keep up, Jolly. They’re not going to bite!” Hal craned his neck to look at the immense queen dragon curled around the circle of eggs. “Though she might!”

“Does they get bigger?” Narjol blurted out.

“What, the eggs?” Hal shook his head. “How could they? There’s nothing else going into them, is there? And they dry out as they get closer to hatching, so if anything, they get smaller, not bigger. But these’ve been here a few sevendays now. They’re about the size they will be when they’re ready to pop.”

“But how’s a dragon fit in there?”

“Did you think they come out fully grown?” asked another boy, turning around from the row in front of them. “What are you, stupid?”

“Shut up, Bostrocke,” Hal told him. “It’s not Jolly’s fault he’s never seen a clutch before.” He turned back to Narjol. “They grow once they hatch, of course. But you’d be amazed how much dragonet fits in an egg. That silvery one there – that could have ten feet of dragon in it.”

Narjol peered at the egg Hal pointed out, almost waist-height compared to the knee-height of most of them. “Is that one a bronze?”

“Maybe,” Hal said. “Maybe not. No one knows for sure ’til they’re out. Have to think the bigger ones are more likely to be bronzes, though.”

That opinion certainly seemed to be borne out by the way the candidates treated the eggs. The Weyrlingmaster kept them back from the side of the clutch not directly in Cherganth’s protective semi-circle. “This is a viewing, not a touching; keep your grubby hands to yourselves,” he snapped, when several candidates edged too close to the eggs and prompted an irate switch of the queen’s tail-tip. Still, almost every boy stared possessively at the big silver egg, and two others nearly its size. The consensus was clear. Bronzes.

The female candidates, six of them, were allowed to approach. “How come they gets to go in?” Narjol asked Hal.

He wasn’t the only one to ask. There were several other complaints from boys nearer the front. “It’s not fair!” Kerlane objected. “How come they can get up close and we can’t?”

“The Weyrwoman favours girls for greens,” said the Weyrlingmaster. “A fact for which many of you will be grateful in the Turns to come.” He turned a rheumy eye on the crowd of disgruntled boys. “And those shells are brittle, this close to hatching. One fumble-footed lad tripping on his own boots and sticking out an elbow, or stubbing a toe on a shell, and you have an egg that might never hatch properly. And Cherganth’d snap him up and eat him in two bites.”

Cherganth confirmed that threat by lifting her top lip, exposing her terrible fangs.

“Why’s there hardly any girls?” Narjol asked.

“Most girls don’t want to be riders,” said Hal. “’Cause they can only ride a green, unless there’s a gold egg, and there’s not been a gold egg for Turns.”

“That’s why the Weyrwoman never lets the same bronze fly Cherganth twice,” said Basalgette self-importantly. Narjol had never seen him separately from his best friend Zaffo. The pair of them were thick as thieves. “There should’ve been a queen by now.”

Darvalen sniggered. “More like it’s just Fianine’s a big sl–”

Svefen put an elbow into his younger brother’s ribs that would definitely have cracked an egg. “Shut up, idiot.”

“I heard she’s pissed off with the Weyrleader because there still isn’t one,” said Mabbron.

“I heard she’s pissed off with Sh’ror because he still won’t let Qualth fly Cherganth,” said Gemmarty.

That name made Narjol’s ears prick up. Sh’ror, apart from being a very important bronze rider, was a regular at the watchmen’s morning hand-to-hand practices. He was nearly as good as Narjol’s father with a knife, better than him with bare fists, and no one in the Weyr could touch him in a wrestling bout. Tirrol grudgingly respected him, and there weren’t many dragonriders the Chief admired.

“You’d think Qualth would be the one pissed off,” said Zaffo.

“Why won’t Sh’ror let him fly Cherganth?” Narjol asked.

“He doesn’t want to be Weyrleader,” said Vammers, with authority. The other boys always listened when he weighed in. He was another of the older candidates, and his father was a Wingleader, so he always knew what was going on. “Which is a shame, because he’d be a shaffing good one. And Qualth’s the best bronze at Madellon. Crying shame he’s never sired a clutch.”

“I like Sh’ror,” said Hopajan. He, like Narjol, wasn’t Weyrbred: he’d come to Madellon as a candidate for Cherganth’s last clutch and stayed on after failing to Impress. He was from the Smithcraft, but he didn’t like his apprenticeship, so he’d joined the crew that maintained the Weyr’s pipes and water tanks. “He’s not up himself like some bronze riders are. And he’s a Wingleader, isn’t he?”

“Flightleader,” Svefen corrected him, though without the relish with which most of the Weyrbred boys liked to school Narjol when he got something wrong. “He’s got three Wings and eight bronzes under him. And they wouldn’t let Qualth be their leader if they didn’t respect the shaff out of him.”

“Eh, Qualth’s all right,” said Bostrocke. “It’s Pelranth, for my marks.”

“Pelranth?” scoffed Jareck. “Oh, that’s right; your old man’s sucking up to L’mis for a Wingsecond bump –”

“He is not,” Bostrocke asserted.

“Pelranth’s not even top five,” Svefen said. “Bronzes don’t hit prime until they’re fifteen. Qualth, definitely; then Staamath –”

“Staamath?”

“He sired four bronzes –”

It continued in that vein for a bit, until finally D’hor ordered the increasingly rowdy cohort out of the Hatching Ground. Weyr boys were always bickering over which bronze or bronze rider was the best, though no one argued much about browns or blues. And as for greens – greens were for girls, and they weren’t worth discussing at all.

Narjol ate his dinner that evening in the watchhouse, as usual. His father stepped over the bench opposite him and sat down. “’Eard you took off from yer patrol this morn like a watch-wher at sun-up, son.”

“I were late for seein the eggs, Chief,” Narjol explained.

Tirrol grunted, flipping his belt-knife between his fingers, one-two-three-four-five, as he often did. “An what fool notions did them dragonlovers put in yer ’ead, eh?”

“They ain’t so big as I thought they’d be,” said Narjol. “The eggs.” He indicated with his hand. “Biggest’s so-high. Others’re smaller.”

“Eh,” Tirrol said, without much interest.

“Weyrlinmaster said I’m to go to class t’morrow, forenoon watch,” said Narjol.

Tirrol stopped playing with his knife. “Did ’e, now.”

“Yes, Chief.”

“You’ve gate watch forenoon t’morrow, son.”

“But Weyrlinmaster –”

“Weyrlinmaster’s business be weyrlins, son, an ye ain’t no weyrlin,” Tirrol said. “My business is keepin the Weyr secure. I’ll not let gate go undermanned fer lettin my son chase fancies.”

“Ah, give the boy a break, Chief,” said Yarling, one of the older watchmen. He sat down beside Narjol, giving him a clout on the back. “Tell you what, lad. You take my morning watch, and I’ll stand gate forenoon till you’re back from candidate-ing.” He looked at Tirrol. “That square with you, Chief?”

Tirrol nodded, slowly. “An ’ow long’s this dragon nonsense o’yours like t’be messin with t’rota, son?”

“Not so long,” Narjol told him. “Weyrlinmaster says dragons’ll hatch next sevenday.”

“It’s not many of the likes of us ever get to step on a Hatching ground, Chief,” Yarling said. “Let the boy have that to tell his grandsons about, eh?”

“There’s a lot of eggs,” Narjol said. “Hal said the most Cherganth ever laid. More’n twenty.”

“So ’alfs greens, an no proper lad wants no part o’that,” said Tirrol.

“What’s wrong with greens?” Narjol asked. “They’s still dragons, ain’t they?”

“Greens is for girls, and boys what like it like girls,” Tirrol said flatly. “You unnerstand me”

Narjol didn’t understand, not really. “Yes, Chief.”

“Dragonriders be soft an wet, best o’times,” Tirrol went on. “But a green dragonrider ain’t even a man. You don’t ever look at no green. You don’t even think about it. Got it?”

“Yes, Chief,” Narjol said.

Tirrol nodded to himself. “I’ll let you ’ave this ’Arper fancy o’yours, boy, far as it goes, but you’ll still pull your weight on patrol. You start getting ’igh an mighty about bein a candidate, an I’ll put you on yer ass afore you can say ‘Impression’.”

“Yes, Chief.”

“An when them eggs ’atches, and none o’them dragons wants ye, ye’ll not cry an whinge like a little girl,” Tirrol continued. “You’ll put it out yer mind, yeah? Ye’ll be fifteen next sevenday – that’s a grown man, and a grown man sets ’is mind to ’is work.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Tirrol stared into Narjol’s face. “A’right, son,” he said at last and, stabbing his knife into a loaf of bread, gave him a rough swipe around the back of the head. “That’s a good lad.”

A lot of the men hated standing morning watch, the shift starting in the dead of night and ending around dawn. Narjol didn’t mind it – usually. But the summer storm that had been brewing all day finally erupted just as he rose from his cot to take Yarling’s watch, and a wet patrol was the very worst kind.

‘The Watch’ by Chrisi S Baily

The oiled hide of a foul-weather cape couldn’t keep the torrential rain at bay for long. Narjol trudged in lone misery along his route, drenched. Rain poured in an unending stream from the peak of his hood and down the front of his tunic. His feet squished inside his sodden boots. The wet wooden shaft of the pike he carried on his shoulder chafed ceaselessly through his sopping fingerless gloves. There was hardly a dragon to be seen on a ledge – they’d all gone into their individual weyr caves, up on the inside walls of the Bowl. Even the watchdragon was a hunched, unidentifiable shape up by the Star Stones, the glow of his eyes reduced to two stoic slits as he endured the weather beneath the canopy of his domed wings.

Narjol climbed the gravel track that switchbacked up the face of the Bowl to the watch rider’s station, clutching the rope handrail with clammy fingers. Close against the rock wall, the rain didn’t slant straight into his face – at least, not until he reached the top, and the unimpeded squall blew his hood straight off his head. “Shaff!” he exclaimed, almost dropping his pike as he tried to claw the soggy leather back into place.

“Who goes there?” the watch rider called from his post.

“Shaffin…shardin… Watch!” Narjol shouted back.

“Faranth’s tits, man, come in out of the rain!”

Almost blind, Narjol stumbled under the shelter of the big dragon’s wing. The respite of being out of the storm was almost shocking. He wiped rain from his eyes with his wet sleeve. “Thanks –” He glanced at the dragon’s side, drenched and black. He was too cold and wet to recall which rider was on the watch roster. “–Uh, bronze rider?”

“There’s a first for you, eh, being mistaken for a bronze,” the watch rider said to his dragon. “Give me that cape, Watch, and I’ll set it to dry a bit. You’re wetter than a seahold floozy on regatta day.”

Narjol peeled the cloak off and handed it over. “Thanks.”

The dragonrider spread the waterlogged cape over a frame beside the little brazier the watch riders used to keep their klah warm. Then he eyed Narjol strangely from beneath heavy black eyebrows. “Shaff, you’re just a boy. Took you for a grown man, the size of you.”

“I’m near f-fifteen,” Narjol stammered, through chattering teeth. Now that he’s stopped, he was more aware than ever of being soaked to the skin. “My f-father’s chief of w-watch.”

“Chip off the old block, huh?” the watch rider asked. He poured from a klahpot on the other side of the brazier and pressed the mug into Narjol’s wet fingers.

Narjol gulped the hot brew gratefully, feeling the heat warm him right to his toes, and heard himself say, “I’m a c-c-c-” He asserted control over his jaws. “Candidate.”

“Well, good for you,” the rider said. “Been in to lay claim to your egg yet?”

“We was let in to look, earlier,” said Narjol uncertainly.

The dragonrider chuckled. “Doesn’t count if you’re meant to be there.” He touched his nose conspiratorially. “And Cherganth’s dead to the world by this hour, if you take my meaning.”

The dragon – Narjol looked at him again, and decided if he wasn’t bronze, then he must be brown – turned his muzzle suddenly towards the Bowl. A shadow had detached from a weyr ledge, gliding over towards them. The brown’s rider squinted that way. “Givranth?” he asked his dragon. “Hope for their sake western Jessaf’s missed this weather. Bad enough sitting out in the rain without having to fly a sweep in it.”

The klah, and the removal of the heavy wet cape, was making Narjol feel a lot better. He stole another look at the watchdragon. He saw dragons all the time, but not often up close. Ralnath, the blue who’d approved him as a candidate, had barely glanced at him, and that from a distance. The big brown dragon suddenly tilted his head to regard him with one narrowed blue eye, and Narjol quickly averted his gaze. “I didn’t mean no disrespect.”

“He’s taken none,” said the brown rider. He grabbed his dragon’s lower jaw and tugged it around. “Here, kiddo. The likeliest candidate on Pern won’t get a dragon to choose him if he can’t look him in the eye. Give this one a good stare, straight in the eyeball.”

Hesitantly, Narjol obeyed, gazing into the gemlike eye, bigger than his fist. It wasn’t like making eye contact with another person. Up so close, it was hard to know if the dragon was even looking at him. He wondered if he was meant to hear something, in his head. He was awed, of course, by the brown dragon’s presence, his size, the heat coming off him; but he couldn’t hear anything, like he’d heard dragonriders could hear their dragons. Then he wondered if the dragon could hear him, and suddenly every mean and rude and inappropriate thought he’d ever had seemed to leap into his mind all at once. “Can he…  Does he know what I’m thinkin?”

“Course,” the watch rider said. “Why? Suddenly thought of something you shouldn’t have?”

Narjol caught his breath, mortified

The brown rider laughed and smacked his shoulder. “I’m ribbing you, kiddo. He can’t hear what you’re thinking. And even if he could, there’s nothing you could have in your young head that he’s not heard twice as bad in mine.”

Narjol exhaled hard. “Best I get back on patrol.” He drained his klah. “Thanks for the brew.”

“Any time, Watch. Don’t slip on your way back down.”

The foul-weather cape hadn’t dried out much, but it was at least slightly warm when Narjol hauled it back on, his skin cringing away from the clinging damp leather.

He picked his cautious way back down the trail, using his pike as a walking staff on the steepest and most slippery parts, and continued his patrol.

The encounter with the watchpair had confused him. Should he have felt something when he’d looked in the brown dragon’s gigantic eye? Narjol tried to picture the watch rider’s dragon much smaller, the size of something that could hatch out of one of the eggs. Somehow all he could visualise was that enormous head on a body the size of a spit-dog. Then he tried to imagine himself standing next to a brown dragon. “I’m a brown rider,” he muttered out loud, trying out the sound of it. “Brown rider Narjol…no, N’jol. I’m brown rider N’jol and this be my dragon….”

He couldn’t think of a name. All he could think of was Gemmarty’s sneering suggestions. “Ath,” he said. “Oth.” Then he shook his head angrily at how stupid it sounded. “You is too much of a thicko to be a dragonrider, Jolly,” he told himself savagely.

He plodded on, as downcast by his own thoughts as by the weather, staring at the mud-spattered toes of his boots.

A wash of warm air and light made him look up again. He was passing the Hatching cavern, and both heat and brightness emanated from within. Narjol paused, turning towards the tunnel into Cherganth’s lair, closing his eyes and letting the welcome warmth fall on his cold wet face.

Been in to lay claim to your egg yet? the brown rider had asked.

Narjol opened his eyes.

He’d heard the other boys talking about sneaking into the Sands to touch the eggs before they were allowed. Hal had put him off the idea. “There’s a couple of ways, but I’ve got too big to fit, so you definitely wouldn’t,” he’d said. “And you wouldn’t want to get stuck in a vent, would you? Listening to the tunnel-snakes slithering closer and closer to where you’re stuck fast, in the dark…feeling them start to chew your toes… Brrr!”

But if the watch rider had been right, and Cherganth was asleep…

Narjol thought about the big silver egg – the egg everyone was certain contained a bronze dragon. There had to be some advantage to touching it. Why else would the Weyrlingmaster have them in looking at the eggs? Why would he let the favoured girls in before any of the boys, if not to give them a leg up? And if he, Narjol, could touch that silvery shell before any of the other boys got a chance….

But what if Cherganth wasn’t asleep? What if she was asleep, and she woke up? What if he touched that silver egg and damaged it and it never hatched, and it was all his fault?

He dithered there, agonising.

And then he thought about how stupid Gemmarty and Fastrall and Bostrocke would look, how mad they’d be, if he, thicko Jolly, the watchman’s son, Impressed a bronze dragon.

That’d show them. That’d shaffing show them.

Narjol screwed up his courage, tugged his hood down over his eyes, hefted his pike more firmly to his shoulder, and stepped decisively into the tunnel.

And almost collided with the person coming out.

Narjol yelled. The other man yelled. For an awful, endless instant, they stared at each other, frozen in place.

Then Narjol got his pike in both hands, pointed it at the interloper’s chest, and bellowed, “Who goes there!”

“Oh, Faranth,” the intruder said. “Put that thing down.” Then, with impatient irritation, “Don’t you recognise your Weyrleader, young man?”

Narjol yanked back the hood whose lowered peak had obscured his view, and gaped.

It only was the Weyrleader.

The pike clattered from his suddenly strengthless grip.

“S-sir,” he stammered. “That is, I mean, W-Weyrleader, sir, beggin your pardon, I –”

“Oh, nonsense, Watch,” the Weyrleader said. “You’ve nothing to apologise for. Doing your job just splendidly, I see, finding an intruder in Cherganth’s inner sanctum in the dead of night. Though best you retrieve your weapon, there, watchman…?”

Narjol picked up the pike, setting it back on his shoulder. “Yessir. Watch Narjol, sir. Weyrleader.”

“Narjol,” the Weyrleader said, fixing him with a stare. There was something a little strange about his gaze; something a little unfocused. If Narjol had dared think such a disrespectful thing, he’d have wondered if the man were drunk. “Narjol,” he said again, rolling the name around his mouth. And then realisation lit in the Weyrleader’s bleary eyes. “The watchman, ah, the watchman!” he exclaimed, fishing in his belt pouch. “I knew I’d forgotten something!”

“Sir?”

“Turn around, young fellow, turn around,” the Weyrleader told him, coming up with a roll of hide and a pen. “Let me just scribble…”

Narjol did as he was bid, feeling the pressure as the Weyrleader used his back as a desk to write on the piece of hide.

“There!” The Weyrleader rolled the hide up. “Now – yes, this will do quite nicely, won’t it? You’re to deliver this to my office, young Watch Narjol. To my office, yes, and hide it somewhere on my desk.”

“Hide it, sir?” Narjol queried. “Where –”

“Well, if you tell me, if won’t be hidden, will it?” The Weyrleader shook his head. “Off with you now, young N– Narjol, that is, yes – and, oh, don’t tell anyone you saw me here tonight, will you?” He smiled, and again, the vagueness in his eyes struck Narjol. The Weyrleader looked odd – unwell, greyish somehow, gaunt, as though he’d lost a lot of weight in a short time. “After all, I’m sure a hopeful young candidate like you wouldn’t want it put about that he was lurking about the Hatching Ground in the very teeth of the night, hmm?”

“No, sir?” Narjol replied, unsure what was being asked of him.

“Splendid, splendid; just between the two of us, eh, that’s a good fellow.” The Weyrleader caught himself against the wall. “Dearie me; I must be off now.”

“Does you need a hand, sir?” Narjol asked.

“No no; I’m absolutely fine, Watch, absolutely fine. Off about your patrol, now.”

And the Weyrleader staggered, rolling like a drunkard, into the darkness.

Narjol watched him go, baffled.

The thought of sneaking into the Hatching Ground had suddenly lost its appeal. Narjol resumed his patrol: just as wet, just as cold, and even more confused than before.