As one, dragons swiveled their wedge-shaped heads to their riders for firestone. Great jaws macerated the hunks.
The fragments were swallowed and more firestone was demanded. Inside the beasts, acids churned and the poisonous phosphines were readied. When the dragons belched forth the gas, it would ignite in the air into ravening flame to sear the Threads from the sky. And bum them from the soil.
Dragon instinct took over the moment the Threads began to fall above Nerat’s shores. As much admiration as F’lar had always held for his bronze companion, it achieved newer heights in the next hours. Beat ing the air in great strokes, Mnementh soared with flaming breath to meet the down-rushing menace. The fumes, swept back by the wind, choked F’lar until he thought to crouch low on the lee side of the bronze neck. The dragon squealed as a Thread flicked the tip of one wing. Instantly F’lar and he ducked into between, cold, calm, black. The frozen Thread cracked off. In the flicker of an eye, they were back to face the reality of Threads.
Around him F’lar saw dragons winking in and out of between, flaming as they returned, diving, soaring. As the attack continued and they drifted across Nerat, F’lar began to recognize the pattern in the dragons’ instinctive evasion-attack movements. And in the Threads. For, contrary to what he had gathered from his study of the Records, the Threads fell in patches. Not as rain will, in steady unbroken sheets, but like flurries of snow, here, above, there, whipped to one side suddenly. Never fluidly, despite the continuity their name implied. You could see a patch above you. Flaming, your dragon would rise. You’d have the intense joy of seeing the clump shrivel from bottom to top. Sometimes, a patch would fall between riders. One dragon would signal he would follow and, spouting flame, would dive and sear.
Gradually thedragonriders worked their way over the rainforests, so densely, so invitingly green. F’lar refused to dwell on what just one live Thread burrow would do to that lush land. He would send back a low-flying patrol to quarter every foot. One Thread, just one Thread, could put out the ivory eyes of every luminous vineflower.
A dragon screamed somewhere to his left. Before he could identify the beast, it had ducked between. F’lar heard other cries of pain, from men as well as dragons. He shut his ears and concentrated, as dragons did, on the here-and-now.
Would Mnementh remember those piercing cries later? F’lar wished he could forget them now.
He, F’lar, the bronze rider, felt suddenly superfluous. It was the dragons who were fighting this engagement. You encouraged your beast, comforted him when the Threads burned, but you depended on his instinct and speed.
Hot fire dripped across F’lar’s cheeks, burrowing like acid into his shoulder … a cry of surprised agony burst from F’lar’s lips. Mnementh took them to merciful between. The dragonmen battled with frantic hands at the Threads, felt them crumble in the intense cold of between and break off.
Revolted, he slapped at injuries still afire. Back in Nerat’s humid air, the sting seemed to ease. Mnementh crooned comfortingly and then dove at a patch, breathing fire.
Shocked at self-consideration, F’lar hurriedly examined his mount’s shoulder for telltale score marks.
/ duck very quickly, Mnementh told him and veered away from a dangerously close clump of Threads. A brown dragon followed them down and burned them to ash. It might have been moments, it might have been a hundred hours later when F’lar looked down in surprise at the sunlit sea. Threads now dropped harmlessly into the salty waters.
Nerat was to the east of him on his right, the rocky tip curling westward.
F’lar felt weariness in every muscle. In the excitement of frenzied battle, he had forgotten the bloody scores on cheek and shoulder. Now, as he and Mnementh glided slowly, the injuries ached and stung. He flew Mnementh high and when they had achieved sufficient altitude, they hovered. He could see no Threads falling landward. Below him, the dragons ranged, high and low, searching for any sign of a burrow, alert for any suddenly toppling trees or disturbed vegetation.