Dragonsdawn (47 page)

Fire-breathing dragons, indeed! A ridiculous concept, straight out of folk tales. And yet . . .

Resolutely Paul began to scroll out the stark facts and figures of the colony’s dwindling supplies.

“Tarrie!
” Peter Chernoff came rushing to greet his sister from the cavernous barn set on the east edge of the Seminole Stake headquarters. A tall young man, he was able to look down at the riders who were surrounding him. “Say, you guys, where have you all been?”

“We’ve been reporting in to Fort everyday,” Sean said, surprised.

“I made yesterday’s report and even spoke to brother Jake,” Tarrie added, her expression anxious. “What’s the matter, Petey?’

Reluctant to explain, Peter stamped his feet as he hedged and hawed. “Things are getting tougher. We’re not to fly anything anywhere that isn’t a priority number one top emergency.”

“So that’s why we saw so much Thread damage,” Otto said, shocked.

Peter nodded solemnly. “And there’s Fall at Fort Hold today, and they’ll have to sit it out.”

“Without any attempt . . .” Dave Catarel was appalled.

“Transporting Landing to the north put too big a strain on sled and power packs.” Peter peered down at them, judging their reaction. “And the governor was injured, you know. No one’s seen her in weeks.”

“Oh, no,” Sorka said, leaning into Sean for comfort. Nora Sejby began to weep softly.

Peter gave another of his solemn nods. “It’s pretty bad. Pretty bad.”

Suddenly everyone was demanding news of his or her own kin, and Peter did his best to answer when he could. “Look, guys, I don’t sit on the comm unit all the time. The word is out to sit tight and keep the home stake as clear as possible with ground crews. There’s plenty of HNO
₃
, and it’s easy to maintain tanks and wands.”

“But not the land,” Sean said, raising his voice authoritatively. The babble died abruptly, and his riders looked to him. “There’s Thread at Fort today, you said. When?”

“Right now!” Peter replied. “Well, it starts out over the bay—”

“And you have throwers here? Ten of ’em that we could use?” Sean asked eagerly.

“Use? Well, you’d have to ask Cos, and he’s not here right now. And what do you need ten throwers for?”

Grinning, Sean turned with a flourish of his hand to indicate the gold riders. “The girls need them to fight Thread! And we’ve got to work fast to be ready!”

“Whaddya mean?” Peter was dumbfounded. “The Fall’s started. You wouldn’t even make it out across the sea before it’s over. And you’re supposed to get in touch with Fort the moment you get here!”

“Peter, be a good lad, don’t argue. Show the girls where the throwers are kept and let me see the latest fax of Fort Hold. Or better, the Fort harbor I heard they built. Dragons are a lot faster than that fleet Jim Tillek’s shepherding. They haven’t passed the Delta West Head yet.”

Sean gave Peter no time to think or protest. He sent Otto to run off copies of the installation at the mouth of the Fort Hold River. Tarrie chivvied her brother into showing them where the flamethrowers were kept and helping the girls check out the tanks. In a flurry of golden wings, the queens landed at that storehouse and permitted Sean, Dave, and Shih to secure additional tanks to their backs. Sean shouted directions to Jerry and Peter Semling to check the cargo nets of firestone on the browns and bronzes. Peter Chernoff went from one rider to another, pleading with them to stop. What was he to do? How was he to explain all this? When would they bring all this equipment back? They could not leave Seminole defenseless.

Then all the frenzied preparations were completed, and the bronze and brown dragons had chewed as much firestone as they could swallow.

“Check straps!” Sean roared. He was developing quite a powerful bellow. Of course, he did not need to shout, as all the dragons were listening to Carenath, but it served to release adrenaline into his system, and it helped to encourage those who would soon follow him into danger.

“Checked!”
was the prompt response.

“Do we know where we’re going?”
Setting the example himself, he spread out the fluttering fax for one last long look at the seafront installation with its wharf and the metal unloading crane that looked like an awkward alien species hunched high over the metal beams that had once been part of a space ship.

“We know!”

“Check your airspace?”
He turned his head to the left and the right of Carenath, who was vibrating in his eagerness to jump off.

“
Checked!”

“Remember to skip! Let’s go!”

Rising up from Carenath’s neck as far as the riding straps would permit, Sean raised his arm high, rotated his hand, and then dropped it: the signal to spring.

Seventeen dragons launched themselves skyward, arrowing upward in the bright tropical sky in two V formations. Then, as a bewildered and incredulous Peter Chernoff watched, the Vs disappeared.

Mouth open, Peter stared for one more long moment. Then he turned on his heels, raced to the office, and launched himself at the comm unit. “Fort, this is Seminole. Fort, do you copy? Only you won’t.”

“Peter, is that you?” his brother Jake asked.

“Tarrie was here, but she left, with a flamethrower.”

“Get a hold of yourself, Pete. You’re not making any sense.”

“They all came. They took our flamethrowers and half the tanks and left. All of them. All at once.”

“Peter, calm down and make sense.”

“How can I make sense when I don’t believe what I saw anyhow!”

“Who was there? Tarrie and who else?”

“Them. The ones who ride dragons. They’ve gone to Fort. To fight Thread!”

Paul picked up the comm unit. Any occupation was preferable to sitting like a barnacle on a hull in a shuttered room while a voracious organism rained down outside.

“Admiral?” Excitement tingled through Ongola’s single word. “We’ve had word that the dragonriders are on their way here.”

“Sean and his group?” Paul wondered why that would excite Ongola. “When did they start?”

“Whenever they started, sir, they’re already here.” Paul wondered if disappointment had got the better of his imperturbable second-in-command, for he could swear the man was laughing. “The seaport asks should they join the aerial defense of the harbor? And, Admiral, sir, I’ve got it on visuals! Our dragons are fighting Thread! I’ll patch it in to your screen.”

Paul watched as the picture cleared and the focus lengthened to show him the unbelievable vision of tiny flying creatures, undeniably spouting flame from their mouths at the silver rain that fell in a dreadful curtain over the harbor. He had that one view before the picture was interrupted by a sheet of Thread. He waited no longer.

Afterward Paul wondered that he had not broken his neck, going down stone steps three at a time. He ran full pelt across the Great Hall and down the metal stairway leading to the garage where the sleds and skimmers were stored. Fulmar and one mechanic were bent over a gyro, and stared in surprise at him.

“You there, get the doors open. Fulmar, you’d better come with me. They may need help.” He all but fell into the nearest sled, fumbling with the comm unit. “Ongola, tell Emily and Pol and Bay that their protégés have made it. Record this, by all that’s holy, get as much of this on film as you can.”

Paul had the sled motor turning over before Fulmar had shut the canopy. He slipped the sled under the door before it was fully open, a maneuver he would have reamed anyone else for attempting, and then, turning on the power, he made an arrow ascent straight up out of the valley. Emerging from the shelter of the cliffs of Fort, he could see the ominous line of Thread.

“Admiral, have you gone mad?” Fulmar asked.

“Use the screen, high magnification. Hell, you don’t need it, Fulmar, you can see it with your bare eyeballs!” Paul pointed wildly. “See. Flame. See the bursts. I count fourteen, fifteen emissions. The dragons are fighting Thread!”

It was frightening, Sean thought. It was wonderful! It was the finest moment in his life, and he was scared stiff. They had all emerged right on target, just above the harbor, dragon-lengths ahead of the Fall.

Carenath started flaming instantly, and then skipped as they were about to plow through a second tangle of the stuff.

Are the others all right?
Sean anxiously asked Carenath as they slipped back into real space.

Flaming well and skipping properly,
Carenath assured him with calm dignity, veering slightly to flame again, turning his head from side to side, searing his way through Thread.

Sean glance around and saw the rest of his wing following in the step formation they had adopted from Kenjo’s sled tactics. That gave them the widest possible range of destruction. Even as Sean looked, he saw Jerry and Manooth wink out and back in again, neatly escaping. Then he and Carenath skipped.

A thousand feet below them, he caught a glimpse of Sorka’s wing of five and, following that formation, Tarrie leading the remaining queens.

More!
Carenath said imperiously, arrowing upward in a trough between Thread. He turned his head backward, mouth wide open. Sean fumbled for a lump of firestone. This will have to be practiced, he thought. Carenath skipped them out.

Shoth has a wing-score,
Carenath announced.
He will continue to fly!

He’ll learn to fly the better for it!
Sean retorted.

Then the straps strained at the belt as Carenath seemed to stand on his tail to avoid a stream of Thread which he then followed with flame.

Back in formation!
Sean ordered. The last thing they needed was to sear one another. He saw that the others had held their positions as Carenath resumed his.

After that first exhilarating cross of the Threadfall, they all got down to business until flame and evasion became instinctive. Carenath went
between
several times to lose Thread that had wrapped about his wings. Sean locked his jaw against his dragon’s pain each time Carenath was scored. By then all the bronzes and browns had received minor injuries. Still they had fought on. The queens constantly encouraged them. Then Faranth reported the arrival of a sled; reported again that ground crews were out in the harbor area, destroying the shells that had made it to the surface. The queen riders had used up the tanks they had taken from Seminole. Sorka was going to get more from the harbor hold.

Faranth asks how long will we fight?
Carenath asked.

As long as we have firestone to fight with!
Sean replied grimly. He had just taken a faceful of char, and his cheeks stung. In the back of his mind he noted that full face masks would be useful.

Manooth says they have no more firestone!
Carenath announced suddenly after a nearly mindless length of fighting time.
Shall they see
if
there is more at Fort Hold?

Sean had not realized how far inland their battle had taken them. They were indeed over the imposing ramparts of Fort Hold. He stared in a moment of bewilderment, suddenly very much aware of how he ached from cold and strain. His body felt bruised from the riding straps, his face smarted, and his fingers, toes, and knees were numb.

Tell them to land at Fort!
he said.
Thread has moved up into the mountains. We can do no more today!

Good!
Carenath replied with such enthusiasm that Sean forgot his sore cheeks and grinned. He slapped affectionately at his dragon’s shoulder as the formation executed a right turn, spiraling down to land.

“Emily!” Pierre burst into his wife’s room. “Emily, you’ll never believe it!”

“Believe what?” she said in the tired voice that seemed all she could muster since the accident. She turned her head on the cushioned back of the support chair and smiled wanly at him.

“They’ve come! I heard, but I had to see it to believe it myself. The dragons and their riders have all reached Fort. They reached it in triumph! They’ve actually fought Thread, just as you dreamed they would, as Kit Ping designed them to do!” He caught the hand she lifted, the one part of her that had not been broken in the crash. “All seventeen brave fine young people. And they cut a real swath in the Fall, Paul says.” He found himself smiling broadly, tears in his eyes as he saw color flushing across her cheeks, the lift of her chest, and the flash of interest in her eyes. She raised her head, and he rattled on. “Paul watched them flame Thread from the skies. They didn’t stay for the entire Fall, of course, part of it was over the sea anyhow, and the rest will fall in the mountains where it can’t do much harm.

“Paul said it was the most magnificent thing he’s ever seen. Better than the relief at Cygnus. They have a record of it, too, so you can see it later.” Pierre bent to kiss her hand. He had tears in his eyes for Emily, and for the valiant young people who had ridden against so terrible a menace in the skies of their wondrous and frightening new world. “Paul’s gone down to greet them. A triumphant arrival. My word, but it puts heart in all of us. Everyone is yelling and cheering, and Pol and Bay were weeping, which is something quite unscientific for that pair. I suppose they feel that the dragonriders are their creations. I suppose they’re right, don’t you agree?”

Emily struggled in the support chair, her fingers clutching at him. “Help me to the window, Pierre? I must see them. I must see them for myself!”

Most of the inhabitants of Fort Hold turned out to greet them, waving impromptu bannersof bright cloth and shouting tumultuously as the dragons backwinged to land on the open field, where here and there ground crews had gotten rid of what Thread had escaped the dragons’ fire. The crowd surged forward, mobbing the individual riders, everyone eager to touch a dragon, ignoring at first the riders’ strident appeals for something to ease Thread-pierced wings and scored hide.

Gratefully Sean saw a skimmer hovering, and heard the loud-spoken orders to give the dragons room, and let the medics in.

The hubbub subsided a decibel or two. The crowds parted, allowing the medical teams access, giving the dragonriders space to dismount, and whispering sympathetically when the cheering had died down enough so that the dragons could be heard whimpering in pain. Some of those gathered around Carenath eagerly helped Sean doctor him.