Blue, green, brown, and bronze dragons lifted from the Weyr Bowl in quick order. A trifle more than sixty dragons hovered briefly above the Weyr where eighty had lingered so few minutes before. So few dragons. So few riders. How long could they take such toll? Canth said Fnor needed more firestone. She looked about anxiously. None of the weyrlings were back yet from their messenger rounds. A dragon was crooning plaintively, and she wheeled, but it was only young Pridith, stumbling across the Weyr to the feeding grounds, butting playfully at Kylara as they walked. The only other dragons were injured orher eye fell on C’gan, emerging from the weyrling barracks.
“C’gan, can you and Tagath get more firestone to F’nor at Keroon?”
“Of course,” the old blue rider assured her, his chest lifting with pride, his eyes flashing. She hadn’t thought to send him anywhere, yet he had lived his life in training for this emergency. He shouldn’t be deprived of a chance at it. She smiled her approval at his eagerness as they piled heavy sacks on Tagath’s neck. The old blue dragon snorted and danced as if he were young and strong again. She gave them the references Canth had visualized to her. She watched as the two biinked out above the Star Stone.
It isn’t fair. They have all the fun, said Ramoth peevishly. Lessa saw her sunning herself on the Weyr ledge, preening her enormous wings.
“You chew firestone and you’re reduced to a silly green,” Lessa told her Wyermate sharply. She was inwardly amused by the queen’s disgruntled complaint.
Lessa passed among the injured then. B’fol’s dainty green beauty moaned and tossed her head, unable to bend one wing that had been threaded to bare cartilage. She’d be out for weeks, but she had the worst injury among the dragons. Lessa looked quickly away from the misery in B’fol’s worried eyes.
As she did the rounds, she realized that more men were injured than beasts. Two in R’gul’s wing had sustained serious head damages. One man might lose an eye completely.
Manora had dosed him unconscious with numbweed. Another man’s arm had been burned clear to the bone. Minor though most of the wounds were, the tally dismayed Lessa.
How many more would be disabled at Keroon?