1
Eastern Telgar Hold, Present (Ninth) Pass, First Turn,
Third Month, Fourth Day
Jayge had hoped his father would stay longer at Kimmage Hold. He did not want to leave as long as he and his shaggy mare were doing so well in races against the holder boys’ runners. Fairex looked so clumsy with her winter hair that it had been easy to fool the other lads into wagering against her. And to give the Kimmage boys their due, they had not warned off any of the outholders who came in with their fathers to visit the main Hold. So Jayge now had a most satisfactory collection of credit bits, almost enough to trade for a saddle when next their wagons encountered those of the Plater clan. He needed only another race or two—just a seven day more.
The Lilcamps had been at Kimmage all through the wet spring. Why did his father want to move out now? No one argued with Crenden. He was fair but tough, and although he was not a very big man, anyone who had experienced his fist—and Jayge still did at times—knew that he was far stronger than he looked. Just as a holder, major or minor, was the final authority on his property, so Crenden was obeyed by his kin. A shrewd trader, a hard worker, and honest in all his dealings, he was welcome in those smaller, less accessible holds that were unable to get to the main Gathers on a regular basis. To be sure, some Crafts sent travelers on regular routes to take orders for their Halls, but they rarely ventured up the narrow tracks into the mountains or across broad plains too far from water. Not all of Crenden’s goods bore a Crafthall stamp but they were well-made, and cheaper than Crafthall products. Crenden also had a fine memory for what his clients might need and carried a varied stock, limited only by the space of the wagons.
So, early that morning, bright and clear, Crenden gave the order to break camp, and by the time a hot breakfast had been eaten and everything was once again neatly stored in the wagons, the teams were harnessed and all the Lilcamps stood ready to move out.
Jayge took his position by the lead wagon; now that he was ten, he rode courier for his father on the nimble Fairex.
“I admit it’s a fine day, Crenden,” the holder was saying, “and the weather looks to hold fair awhile, but the roads are hub deep in mud yet. Stay until they’ve dried out enough to make travel easier.”
“And let other traders make it to the Plains Hold before me?” Crenden laughed as he swung up onto his rangy mount. “Thanks to your good fodder and hospitality, my beasts—and my folk—are well fed and rested. That lumber’s going to fetch a fine price at Plains, and we’d best be on our way with it. The track is downhill most of the way from here, so the mud won’t be a problem. A little gentle exercise will work the winter fat off all of us, get us in shape for the hills again! You’ve been a good host, Childon. I’ll have those new clamps for you when we’re back this way in a Turn or two, as usual. Be in good health and heart in our absence.” He stood in the stirrups, looking back over the train, and Jayge, seeing the look of pride on his father’s face as he surveyed his clan, drew himself straighter in the saddle.
“Move ’em out!” Crenden cried, his deep voice reaching to the last of the seven wagons. As the beasts leaned into their yokes and harnesses and the wheels began to turn, there was waving and cheering from the holders lining the flagged apron in front of the entrance. Some of the holder boys raced up and down the line, yelling and snapping their drive-whips, showing off the proper pop! they had learned managing the Kimmage herdbeasts. Jayge, who had long since proved his prowess with the lash, kept his long whip neatly tied to his saddle horn.
Above Kimmage Hold, the hills were covered with fine stands of the timber that, lovingly nurtured and wisely logged, brought Kimmage holders their income. Once every five years they made the long journey to Keroon Hold to sell the timber that had seasoned in their work cavern. The Lilcamp clan had traded labor with Kimmage Hold for many generations, chopping and hauling timber, or, in the worst of the winter season, helping to enlarge Kimmage Hold into its rock fastness. Now the trees that the Lilcamps had felled five Turns before were loaded on the wagons. A good profit would be made of that lumber.
As Jayge leaned back to check his bedroll, a lash whistled past his ear. Startled, he swiveled to catch sight of the rider going past him and recognized the holder boy he had bested in wrestling the night before.
“You missed,” Jayge called cheerfully. Gardrow would have bruises today, for Jayge had given him some hard falls, but maybe the boy would not be so eager in the future to bully the little kids into doing his chores for him. Jayge hated a bully, almost as much as he hated someone who abused animals. And it had been a fair fight: the lad was two Turns older than Jayge and two kilos heavier.
“I’ll match ye again when we come back, Gardrow,” Jayge cried, and managed to duck out of the saddle as the other boy wheeled his pony, lash swinging above his head for another attempt.
“Unfair, unfair!” two holder boys yelled.
That caught Crenden’s attention. He hauled his spirited mount back to his son. “You been fighting again, Jayge?” Crenden did not approve of any of the Lilcamp folk brawling.
“Me, Father? Do I look like I’ve been fighting?” Jayge concentrated on looking surprised at the question. He had never mastered the air of genuine innocence that his sister could turn on.
His father gave him one long, undeceived look and held up a scarred, thickened forefinger. “No racing now, Jayge. We’re on the move, and that’s no time for foolery. Steady in the saddle. We’ve a long day ahead of us.” Then Crenden let the runner have his head and moved forward to lead.
Jayge had to fight down temptation when the holder boys begged him for one last race. “Just down to the ford? No? Then up over the spur trail? You’d be back before your father could miss you.” Even the stakes mentioned were good, but Jayge knew when to obey. He smiled and, with a sigh, turned a deaf ear, even though winning would have ensured him the coveted saddle. Then one of the wagons caught a wheel in the side ditch, and he and Fairex were called to help get it back on the track. When he looked over his shoulder to ask the boys to help, they had already scattered.
Good-naturedly Jayge looped his towrope through the haul bar on the side of the wagon and urged his sturdy runnerbeast forward. The wheel came free all of a sudden, and clever Fairex danced out of the wagon’s way. Recoiling his rope and knotting it on the worn nub of his saddle horn, Jayge glanced back at Kimmage Hold, impressive in its bluff that overlooked the energetic Keroon River. On the other side the home herds grazed eagerly on the new grass. Sun warmed Jayge’s back, and the familiar creak and rumble of the wagons reminded him that they were moving on to Plains Hold where, he consoled himself, there surely would be someone who would underestimate Fairex. He would have that new saddle the very next time they passed the Platers.
Ahead of him strode his father’s big mount, leading the way along the track by the riverbank. Jayge settled himself deeper into the saddle, stretching his legs in the stirrups and only then realizing that he would need to lengthen the leathers. He must have grown a half-hand since they pulled into Kimmage Hold. Shards, if he had grown too tall, his father might switch him off Fairex, and Jayge was not sure what his father would have him up on next. Not that any of the Lilcamp runners were slugs, but they would not fool other kids the way Fairex had.
They had been several hours on the trail and were nearly ready for a nooning stop when the cry went up: “Rider coming fast!” Crenden raised his arm to signal a halt, then swung his big mount around and looked back the way they had come. The messenger, racing after them, was plainly visible.
“Crenden,” the oldest Kimmage son cried, yanking his runner to a stop. His message came out in gasps. “My father says—come back—all speed. Harper message.” Hauling a scroll out of his belt and thrusting it at Crenden, the boy gulped, his face blanching, eyes wide with fright. “It’s Thread, Crenden. Thread’s falling again!”
“Harper message? Harper tale!” Crenden began dismissively until he noticed the blue harper seal on the roll.
“No, really, it’s not a tale, Crenden, it’s truth. Read it yourself. Father said you’d need to believe it. I can’t. I mean, we’ve always been told that there’d never be more Thread. That’s why we didn’t even need Benden Weyr anymore, though Father’s always tithed because he’s beholden to Lemos and we’ve more than enough to do it out of charity since the dragonriders did protect us when we needed it—”
Crenden cut the boy’s babbling off with another gesture. “Quiet, while I read.”
All Jayge could see was the black-inked words bold on the white surface, and the distinctive yellow, white, and green shield of Keroon Hold.
“You can see it’s real, Crenden,” the boy rattled on. “It’s got Lord Corman’s seal and all. Message has been on the way for days because the runner popped a tendon and the messenger got lost trying for a shortcut. He said Thread’s fallen over Nerat, and Benden Weyr saved the forests, and there were thousands of dragonriders over Telgar for the next Fall. And we’re next.” The boy gulped again. “We’re going to have Thread right down on us and you’ve got to be inside stone walls ’cause only stone, metal, and water protect from Thread.”
Again Crenden laughed, not at all dismayed, although Jayge felt a spasm of cold uncertainty shiver down his spine. Crenden rolled the message up again and thrust it back at the boy. “Thank your father, lad. The warning is well meant, but I’m not felling for it.” He winked at the boy good-naturedly. “I know your father’d like us to help finish that new level in the hold. Thread, indeed! There hasn’t been Thread in these skies for generations. Hundreds of Turns. Like the legends told us, it’s gone now. And we’d best be going now, too.” With a cheerful salute to the astonished boy, Crenden stood in his stirrups and roared out, “Roll ’em!”
There was such a look of total dismay and fear on the lad’s face that Jayge wondered if his father could possibly have misread the message. Thread! The very word caused Jayge to squirm in his saddle, and Fairex danced under him in response. He soothed her and argued with himself. His father would never let anything happen to the Lilcamp train. He was a good leader, and they had wintered profitably. Jayge’s pouch was not the only one that was reassuringly plump. Still, it was hard not to be scared. His father’s response had surprised him. Holder Childon was not the sort to play jokes; a straight man, he said what he meant and meant what he said. Crenden had often described him so. Childon was a good deal straighter than some holders who looked down on trains as feckless folk little better than thieves, too lazy to carve out a hold for themselves and too arrogant to be beholden to a lord.
Once, when Jayge had been in a fearful brawl and his father had given him a thorough hiding, he had justified the fight by saying that he had been defending his Blood honor.
“That’s still not a reason to fight,” his father had said. “Your Blood is as good as the next man’s.”
“But we’re holdless!”
“And what’s that to mean?” Crenden had demanded. “There’s no law on Pern that has ever said a man and his family had to have a hold and live in one place. We can’t invade another man’s property, but there’s land no one’s even set foot on all around us. Let those who are weak or scared shiver in four walls … not that we’ve to worry about Thread anymore. But, lad, we’ve been holders in our time, in Southern Boll, and there’re Bloodkin living in it still who’re glad to claim us as relatives. If that’s all you need to keep from brawling, take no taunt on that score.”
“But—but Irtine said we were only one step above thieves and pandlers.”
His father had given him a little shake. “We’re honest traders, bringing good wares and news to isolated holds that can’t always get to a Gather. We travel from inclination and choice. This is a broad and beautiful world we live in, Jayge, and we’ll see as much of it as we can. We spend long enough in one place to make friends and understand different ways of doing things. That’s far better, to my mind, than never moving out of one valley all your born days, and never hearing a new way of speaking or a new way of doing. Keeps the brain blood circulating; shifts ideas and opens eyes and hearts.
“You’re old enough to know how welcome we are at every hold the train stops at. You worked along with us at Vesta River Hold, extending their upper story, so you know we’re not lazy folk. Now, hold your head up proud. You’ve a good Bloodright. And don’t let me catch you scrapping again because someone teases you into it. Fight for a good reason, not such a damfool prideful reason. Now, you’ve taken your punishment. Get to your bedroll.”
He had been only a kid then, but now he was nearly a man and had learned to ignore silly taunts. That had not stopped him from using his fists and his naturally agile body, but he had learned which fights to get into, and how to protect himself well enough to avoid the too visible marks of a brawl. And pride in his Bloodline gave him an air of confidence that only a real fool would challenge. Jayge liked the kind of life his family led: never staying long enough in one place to grow weary of it. There was always something new to see, new friends to make, old ones to reencounter, and, for the time being, races to be won on Fairex.
The trail turned abruptly south, skirting a granite outcropping and affording a wide view of the other shore and the low foothills that would culminate in the immense Red Butte. Suddenly Jayge was conscious of the odd sky to the east, a lowering, threatening gray. He had seen plenty of bad weather in his ten Turns, but never something like that. Glancing toward his father, he saw that Crenden had also noted the strange sky, slowing his mount’s walk to study the grayness.
Suddenly Readis, Jayge’s youngest uncle, came tearing up from the rear, shouting at Crenden and pointing to the cloud. “That came up sudden, Cren. It’s like no weather I’ve ever seen before,” Readis cried. His mount circled Crenden’s as both men scanned the horizon.
“Looks like a local storm,” Crenden said, marking the discernible edges of the cloud.
Jayge had joined his father by then, and the first wagon was slowing, but Crenden waved them on down the track.
“Lookit!” Jayge’s arm shot up, but Crenden and Readis had also seen the flashes of fire that proceeded in bursts along the edge of the cloud. “Lightning?” He was unsure himself, for he had never seen sparks that flared and remained airborne like that. Lightning always connected with the surface!
“That’s not lightning,” Crenden said. Jayge saw the color drain out of his father’s face, and his runner began jigging under him, snorting with fear. “And it’s been awful still. Not a single wherry or snake around.”
“What is it, Cren?” His brother’s uncertainty was making Readis nervous.
“They warned us. They did warn us!” Crenden hauled his runner up on its hindquarters, yelling at the top of his lungs and gesturing with his head for Readis to get to the rear. “Get moving! Get ’em rolling! Challer, whip ’em up. Get that rig moving!” He kept turning his mount, his eyes scanning the wooded hillside. “Jayge, get down the track. See if there’re any ledges we can shelter under. We’ve got to find some shelter. If even half of what they say about Thread is really true … we sure the flaming hell can’t stay out here in the open!”
“Couldn’t the lighter wagons make it back to the Hold?” Readis asked. “Borel’s team’s fast. Dump everything. Put the children in it and go like hell!”
Crenden groaned, shaking his head. “We’re hours down the track. If I’d believed the message …” He pounded his saddle horn with his clenched fist. “Shelter. We’ve got to find shelter. Go, Jayge. See if there’s any shelter at all.”
“Then timber, Cren, slanted against the wagon …” Readis suggested, his mount sliding about the track and narrowly missing the edge overhanging the river.
“Thread eats wood, too; that’d be no use. Stone, metal … water!” Crenden stood in his stirrups, pointing down to the river that frothed along its rocky bed.
“That?” Readis responded. “Not deep enough, and far too fast!”
“But there’s a pool, a big one, near the first cascade. If we could make that … Jayge, scoot along. See how far away that pool is. Challer, whip up that team and follow Jayge as fast as you can. Readis, unhitch the beasts from that timber wagon. We can’t save it, but we’ll need the beasts. Move out! Whip ’em up!”
Jayge dug his heels into Fairex’s side. Why did they have to be caught on this part of the track? On the one day’s trek through forest and hill that could provide no real shelter? He knew the pool his father meant—it was a good fishing spot, and it would be deep with all the winter rains shedding from the hills. But a pool? That was no real shelter from Threadfall. Jayge knew the Teaching songs as well as any kid of Pern, and it was stone walls and stout metal shutters that one needed during Threadfall. As the track rose to the crest of a hill, the deep basin came into view, its waters sparkling invitingly. Thread could devour flesh. How deep did one have to be under water to be safe?
Jayge lifted Fairex into a hard gallop, counting in rhythm with the little beast’s strides so that he could judge the time it would take to reach the pool. He kept watching the banks and the track, hoping that he might notice a rock ledge or even a burrow. They could put the babies in the burrows. How long did a Fall last? Jayge was so agitated that he could not bring the Traditional Duty ballads to mind.
It would have to be the pool then, he thought as he and Fairex plunged down the incline. Fifteen minutes even for the biggest, heaviest wagon. And there was a line of big boulders that formed a natural dam—he could see the current flowing smoothly over the lip. He kicked Fairex on into the water to test its depth. The gallant little mare was swimming in moments, and Jayge plunged off her back, shuddering at the chill in the water and bobbing under as his feet found no purchase. Deep enough! Everyone but the wee babies could swim. But swim where? Jayge yanked on Fairex’s rein, and obediently she circled to face the river’s edge. When he saw her hit the bottom, he swung himself up into the saddle and started her back the way they had just come.
He could hear the sounds of the train echoing loudly down the valley: the thunder of hooves and wagon wheels, the urgency of strident calls. Jayge thanked the Dawn Sisters that all the wagons had been scrupulously checked before they had left Kimmage Hold. Now was not the time for a wheel to spin off or an axle to break. He only hoped the burden beasts could be forced out of their usual plodding pace.
Jayge kept his eyes on the cloud as he raced back. What were those gouts of flame? It looked like thousands of flameflies, the nocturnal creatures he and his friends had tried to capture in Nerat’s lush jungles. And then he realized what he was seeing. Dragons! Benden Weyr’s dragonriders were flying Thread! As dragonriders should! As dragonriders always had and now were again, protecting Pern from Threadfall. Jayge felt a surge of relief that was instantly overwhelmed by confusion. If the dragonriders were already flaming Thread from the skies, why would the traders need the river pool?
“Worlds are lost or worlds are saved, by those dangers dragon-braved?” The verse sprang to Jayge’s mind, but it was not the one he wanted. “Lord of the hold, your charge is sure, in thick walls, metal doors, and no verdure.” But Lilcamp folk were holdless.
Then his father came galloping around the bend, Challer’s rig nearly at his heels.
“The pool’s just down this hill …” Jayge began.
“I can see it myself. Tell the others!” Crenden waved his son back down the line.
The other wagons were strung out, their canvas tops swaying dangerously from side to side. Already bundles had toppled—or been tossed out—on the roadside, and Jayge started to pull Fairex up in order to retrieve something.
“Don’t stop!” his father ordered.
Habit warred with that order: Lilcamp folk never littered their path with discards. Jayge made his way back to the next wagon, halting Fairex only long enough to shout to Auntie Temma, always a clever driver, who actually had her two yokes clumping along at an awkward canter. He had to jump Fairex up into the woods to avoid being caught up in the stampede of the loose runners and stock. He saw the deserted timber wagon, rocks propped under its wheels, and, lumbering along behind the loose animals, the eight yoke of burden beasts that had pulled the Lilcamp payload. Borel, his oldest uncle, had all his kids prodding the bawling creatures, who bucked and kicked against the sticks instead of moving forward until the two drovers began to flick weighted lashes at the knobby rumps.
Jayge cantered on down the line, passing Auntie Nik and her husband, who were riding burden beasts and hauling others by their nose rings. The last wagon had been switched to runner teams and was picking up speed. Jayge swung in behind it, making Fairex sidle as he punched at crates perilously close to falling out. He did pick up some lost baggage, scooping it up and lobbing it into the back of the nearest wagon. He also tried to keep in mind just where the strewn belongings had landed, so that after all the fuss was over he would know where to retrieve them. Traders learned to be very good at marking places. Once Jayge had been somewhere new, he could always return, the way was so clearly printed in his head.
By the time the Lilcamps were all in the pool, the gray mass of Thread was nearly upon them. The pool was full of floating debris from the wagons that had been driven into the deepest part. Crenden and the uncles were trying to make certain that the animals would not drown themselves, for the burden beasts were bawling and the runners were neighing in panic. Some of the yoked beasts were trying to climb up onto the far bank.
Jayge had swum Fairex to the dam side of the pool, where some boulders loomed above the water. The mare’s eyes were wide with fright, her nostrils distended. Only his stubborn hold on her reins kept her from swimming off. He was treading water, one hand locked desperately around a rocky knob.
The scene before him would be forever etched in his mind: people thrashing in the water, their yells and shrieks no less terrified than those of the animals; bundles floating free and going over the dam; mothers holding young children onto the tops of submerged wagons; Crenden, in the shallows, rushing from one side of the ford to the other, enforcing orders with his lash, yelling that they were only safe under the water, that when Thread fell they all must hold their breath under the water! Forever Jayge always would remember the scene framed by the sight of the inexorable approach of Thread—and the dragonriders flaming it.
Then, not wanting to believe his eyes, Jayge had his first glimpse of Thread. Three long spears of the stuff slapped into the tall standing trees on the bank. Their trunks flared briefly and then began to vanish. So did the brush and trees on either side. Jayge blinked, and there was a bald patch and something disgustingly pulsing, rolling—and with every turn more of the thick mulch disappeared and more trees fell. Suddenly a fountain of flame washed across the spot. He saw the long twisting thing in the center of the flame turn black and burn quickly, adding an oily yellow smoke to the clean fire. Jayge almost missed seeing the dragon at all, he was so caught by the terror of the Thread burrow. But the dragon hovered briefly, to be sure of the destruction, so Jayge caught the sight of the huge golden body as the dragon—gold was for queens, wasn’t it?—beat strongly upward and flamed again, farther up the hill. There was another dragon farther down the river valley, another gold. But someone had told him that gold dragons did not fly. And there was only the one queen in Benden Weyr.
Before he could puzzle that, he heard hissing, the sound of something hot entering the pool. Fairex thrashed, shrilling in terror, and Jayge saw the thick rope of Thread coming down almost on top of them. Diving for Fairex’s head, he ducked them both under the water, working his arms violently to ward the stuff away from him.
Something hit Jayge on the back of his head, and his warding hand came into contact with a pot, floating free from some wagon. Flailing to the surface, he found himself in the midst of cooking wares. Fairex had her head above water again, snorting to clear her nostrils. The current pulled at Jayge, and he grabbed at a floating saddle tie and yanked himself to the mare. He guided her away from the break, water pressure pushing them against the boulders. The pot, and a big lid, clanked against the stones beside him.
The screaming about him took on a new note, shrill with fear and pain, both human and animal. He looked over his shoulder and saw Thread falling across the pool, falling on everything. Where were the dragonriders? He craned his head up and saw the wriggling, falling things. Then there was a dreadful hiss and a terrified bawl from Fairex beside him told him that a thick tendril of Thread was attacking. Jayge grabbed the pot and scooped up the hideous thing, then plunged pot and its contents under water. The lid bounced against him, and Jayge grabbed it and held it as a shield over his head and that of his frantic mare. When he felt something hit it, he yelled and gave a frantic push to dislodge the Thread, propelling himself backward and kicking water over Fairex’s head in case that would do some good.
He had no sooner done so than he caught sight of flame and was aware of a tremendous whooshing noise, followed by a shout that his ears heard as “You bleeding fools!” Then there were more licks of fire while Jayge huddled under his pot lid, one arm around his mare’s neck. Blood ran from her rump and turned the water pink. He also saw, disbelieving, the blackened head of a runner, turning idly and then disappearing as the current caught it and took it over the dam. Then he was far too occupied with fending Thread off himself and his mare, trying to keep any of the drowning stuff from touching him. His leather pants were reduced to shreds, and his boots, he found when he was able to examine them, were Threadscored.
Much later, Jayge learned that it took about ten to fifteen minutes for the full Threadfall to overpass a stationary point, and that the dragonriders did not always overpass rivers and lakes because Thread drowned in water—and that the Oldtimers, who came from an earlier time when Thread had been a constant menace, were resentful of having to protect so much forestry.
That terrible noon, when Jayge finally led an exhausted Fairex out of the water, the pool was filled with lifeless bobbing bodies, animal and human, and the pitiful remnants of the prosperous trader train.
“Jayge, we’ll need a fire,” his father said in a dull voice as he followed his son out of the water, dragging the sodden gear he had removed from the body of his rangy runner.
Jayge looked up the bank to the forested slope, amazed to see that fine stand of trees reduced to smoldering trunks and charred circles, black and oily smoke rising ominously. The rich, dense woods had been changed to barren smoking poles, branchless and charred.
The hillside hid from view the continuation of Fall and dragonfire, and once again the sun blazed down. Jayge shivered. He paused long enough to take the saddle off Fairex who stood, all four legs Threadscored, head down and uncertain, too tired to shake water or blood from her body.
“Move it, lad,” his father muttered, starting back to the pool to help Temma, who was carrying a still form out of the cold water.
Muted sobbing and louder cries of grief followed Jayge up the slope. It took him a long time to find enough unconsumed wood to start any sort of a fire. He walked very cautiously, terrified that a tendril of Thread might have survived the dragonfire. When he got back to the river, he kept his eyes on the fire he was starting, unwilling to look at the still forms lying on the stony verge. He was immensely relieved to see that his mother was there, bandaging someone’s head. He saw Aunt Temma, too, but he had to turn away from the sight of the hideous raw marks, like something cut by the claws of the biggest wherry ever, on Readis’s back. Aunt Bedda was rocking back and forth, and Jayge could not bear to find out if his baby cousin was injured or dead. Not just yet.
As soon as he got the fire going, he took the rope from his saddle and brought Fairex with him to bring more wood down to the shore. On his way back, he made himself see the extent of the tragedy. Beyond the new piles of soaking bundles and wet crates, there were seven small bundles, three very small and three larger ones. No, the babies would not have made it. They would not have known to hold their breath under water. Nor would his younger sister, or his youngest cousins.
Tears streamed down Jayge’s face as he piled the wood by the stones that surrounded the fire. Two dented kettles were heating water, and, astonishingly, a soup pot had been recovered. Saddles had been placed in a ring around the fire to dry. Someone was splashing in the pool, and he saw there, for the first time, the metal bands that had once spread the canvas wagontops, like the ribs of some great water snake. Aunt Temma burst to the surface and began to tug on a rope. He saw his father struggling with something still under the rope. Borel and Readis, despite their wounds, were desperately pulling at yet another submerged article.
Jayge had just turned to untie the wood piled on Fairex’ back when abruptly she wheeled and dashed back up the slope, racing away from the camp as if a wherry had attacked her. Then dirt and sand flew around him, over the fire and into the soup pot. Startled, Jayge looked up, unable to imagine what new hazard faced them.
A huge brown dragon was settling to the top of the track above the pool.
“You there, boy! Who’s in charge of this ground crew? How many burrows have you found? These woods are disastrous!”
At first Jayge could not understand the words rattled at him. There was an odd inflection in the man’s voice that startled him. The harpers kept the language from altering too much, his mother had once told him when he had first encountered the slower speech of the southerners. But the voice of the dragonrider, so small up there perched between the neck ridges of the big beast, sounded strange to Jayge’s ears. And the man did not really look like any man Jayge had ever seen. He seemed to have huge eyes, and no hair, and leather all over. Were dragonmen different from the rest of Pern’s people? Realizing that his mouth had dropped open, Jayge clamped his jaws shut.
“You can’t be ground crew. You’re much too small to be any use! Who’s in charge here?” The rider sounded offended, annoyed. “This isn’t what I’m used to, I assure you. You’ll have to do better than this!”
“Will we just?” Crenden strode forward, Borel right behind him along with Temma and Gledia.
“Lads and women! Only two men! You can’t have efficient ground crews if this is all you can provide us,” the rider continued. Suddenly he took off a close-fitting cap, revealing a face that was quite human, if creased with a deep scowl and accentuated by the soot marks on his cheeks.
Jayge stared, aware of many details that he would recall later and with cynical accuracy: except that the rider wore his hair cropped close to his scalp, he was really like any other man. Under other circumstances and with later knowledge, Jayge might have forgiven him his irascibility, and even some of his scathing disapproval. But not that day.
However, it was the dragon that fascinated Jayge. He noted the dark streaks of soot on the dragon’s brown hide; the two damaged ridges; the rough scars on its forequarters—long thin scars, darker brown, many of them along its barrel and back—and the thickening of tissue along several wing vanes. But it was the ineffable weariness in the dragon’s eyes, whirling slightly and coloring from a purple to a blue-green, that Jayge noted particularly. Those eyes whirled in Jayge’s dreams for many nights thereafter—but his strongest impression was of the weariness, a fatigue that he himself certainly felt down to his very bones.
Although it was the dragon who dominated that first moment, the rider soon took center stage with his strong words and the contemptuous tone in which he delivered them. He spoke to Crenden as if the trader were a drudge, an unperson of no importance but to serve the dragonrider’s orders. For his father, and for himself, and for the shattered remainder of their kin, Jayge resented that tone, that dragonrider, and all he stood for. And he hated the dragonrider for all he had not done to protect them.
“We aren’t ground crew, dragonrider. We’re what’s left of the Lilcamp train,” Crenden said in a hoarse voice. Those behind stared wearily up with unspoken resentment.
“A train?” The dragonrider was contemptuous. “A train—out during Threadfall? Man, you’re insane.”
“We knew of no Threadfall when we left Kimmage Hold.”
Jayge drew in his breath. He had never heard his father utter a falsehood—yet that was not a true lie. They had not heard of Threadfall at the time they had set out from Kimmage Hold. And it was right for his father to shame the dragonrider.
“You should have known!” The dragonrider would not accept responsibility. “Word was sent out to all holds.”
“It didn’t reach Kimmage Hold before we left.” Crenden was equally determined to set the blame.
“Well, we can’t protect every stupid trader and isolated spot, you know. And I’m beginning to wonder why we bothered to come here at all, if this is all the gratitude we receive! Which lord are you beholden to? Take it up with him. It was up to him to be sure you were warned. And if there’re no ground crews from Kimmage, this entire area could be at risk. C’mon, Rimbeth. Now we’ve got to check the whole bloody area!” He glared at Crenden. “It’ll be your fault if there’re burrows here. You hear me?”
With that, the dragonrider replaced his helmet and took a firm grip on the straps that fastened him into position. In the brief moment, Jayge was certain that the dragon was looking directly at him as he stood there by the fire. Then the big beast turned his head, spread his wings, and launched himself into the sky.
“Rimbeth’s rider, I’ll know you again! I’ll seek you out if it’s the last thing I do!” Crenden’s words were a fierce shout as he raised his fist skyward.
Jayge watched, incredulous, as first the dragon was there, and then it was not. Dragonriders were not what he had expected them to be, what he had been taught they should be. He never wanted to see another dragonrider in his life.
The next morning, they managed to get four wagons out of the pool, along with as much of their baggage as remained usable after the immersion. Their foodstores had been destroyed, or swept away by the current. Many of the lighter bundles and crates had either been burned up, or had floated loose and been lost. Three of the twelve surviving beasts had lost eyes to Threadfall; all were savagely scored across their backs and the muzzles they had lifted out of the water to breathe. But they could be harnessed, and without them the retrieval of the wagons would have been impossible. Only four of the loose runners made their way back, badly scored but alive.
Jayge counted himself and Fairex very lucky indeed when he had time to think about anything but the appalling tragedy. His mother seemed scarcely to realize the loss of her two youngest children. She kept looking about her, a puzzled frown on her face. Even before Crenden had made the decision to seek help from Kimmage Hold, she had begun to cough, a soft, apologetic cough.
The second morning, with patched harness and wagons still damp, the Lilcamps turned back to Kimmage Hold. It was an uphill journey, hard on animals with open sores on their backs, and on people weighed down by grief and despair. Jayge led his little mare as she trudged patiently with Borel’s three small weeping children on her back. Their mother had shielded them from a tangle of Thread that had eaten her to the bone before her lifeless form had slid into the pool, drowning the voracious organism. Challer had died trying to protect his prize team.
“I don’t understand it, Brother,” Jayge heard his Uncle Readis murmur to his father as they trudged up the road. “Why did Childon not send someone to help us?”
“We survived without them,” Crenden said emotionlessly.
“I can’t call the loss of seven people and most of our wagons ‘survival,’ Cren!” His voice was rough with anger. “Simple decency requires Childon—”
“Simple decency flew out of the hold when Thread fell. You heard that dragonrider, clear as I did!”
“But … I heard Childon beg you to stay. Surely they’ll need us more now.”
Crenden gave his younger brother a long cynical stare and then shrugged, plodding along in boots that had split open with the wear of the last few days. Jayge squirmed inside himself, and his hand went to his little hoard of credits. There would be no new saddle now. Other things would be needed more. Young as he was, Jayge knew that everything had abruptly altered. And young as he was, he also recognized the essential injustice that Childon, and all Kimmage Holders, imposed on the Lilcamps when they returned. Where before they had been honored guests, valuable partners in a logging venture, the Lilcamps had lost most of their assets—wagons, livestock, and tools.
“I’ve my own folk, beholden to me, to provide for now, for the fifty long Turns this Pass will last. I can’t take in any holdless and improvident family to apply to me,” Childon said, never once looking Crenden straight in the eye. “You’ve wounded and sick, and kids too young to be useful. Your stock’s all injured. Take time and medicine to heal ’em. I’ve got to provide ground crews for every Fall, to support not only Igen Weyr but Benden when they call on us. I’m going to be hard-pressed to look after my own. You must understand my position.”
For one long hopeful moment, Jayge thought his father was going to storm indignantly out of the hold. Then Gledia coughed, trying to smother it in her hand. That was the moment, Jayge later decided, when his father capitulated. His wide shoulders sagged and he bowed his head. “I do understand your position, Holder Childon.”
“Well, just so’s you understand, we’ll see how things go on. You can bed down in the beasthold. I lost a lot of stock that’re going to be very hard to replace. I’ll talk about compensation for yours later, for I can’t waste fodder on the useless, not with Thread falling I can’t.”
No Lilcamp was really surprised when Readis, unwilling to accept such humiliation, left during the night. For many nights afterward, Jayge had nightmares involving dragon eyes shooting fire lances through his uncle’s twisting, bloody body. Later that spring, Jayge’s hoarded credits helped pay the healer for Gledia’s treatment. But Gledia died before full summer, while all the ablebodied men, including Jayge, were out as ground crew.