Chapter 5 - First Flight
Spring, 35th Turn of the Present Pass
The dragons were four days shy of their first birthday when they made their first official flight. They had been flying on their own for a while, but so far they hadn't been allowed to carry their riders, which had frustrated them all. Now, however, they had been fitted for riding straps and were ready for their first accompanied flight.
There was an aura of excitement that morning as the weyrlings got up and dressed themselves for the day's lessons. The dragons, who were now feeding every third day or so, waddled out of the barracks and into the bowl, spacing themselves out so that they had room to spread their wings. Then came the moment they'd been waiting for. At F'neldril's nod, the weyrlings climbed up and attached the riding straps around their dragons' necks, making sure that the straps were fitted snugly, but not tight enough to cause discomfort. Then they seated themselves between the neck ridges and attached the short tethering straps to the belts around their waists. They weren't wearing wherhide - the days were warm and there was no question of going between yet - and B'lee could feel Margroth's heat through the thin fabric of his trousers.
F'neldril had them take off, one at a time, and fly to the landing area on the western rim. D'min was one of the first, and B'lee had to admire how graceful Aurieth was as she took off and soared up into the sky. He could see how gently she landed, too, with a gentle flourish of her wings.
When it came to Margroth's turn, B'lee was nervous. What if he did something wrong? What if he fell off?
I will not let you fall, came Margroth's reply.
I know. I'm not worried about you, I'm worried about me.
Don't worry. Flying is easy. Margroth leapt up from his powerful back legs, extended his wings and with a whoosh they were airborne.
It was exhilarating, thought B'lee, as they rose higher above the bowl with every downstroke. He loved the sensation of being carried by his dragon into the air, over the heads of everyone stuck on the ground. The wind whistled past his face and made his eyes water, and he realised why riders in the wings were issued goggles.
Margroth banked, and he was suddenly glad of the riding straps that he'd him securely to the dragon's neck - it would have been embarrassing, not to say dangerous, to fall off from this height. But he was safe and they were flying at last, and they reached the landing area beside the Star Stones far too soon. Margroth landed beside Aurieth with a neat flourish of wings and settled on his haunches.
Thank you, Margroth, said B'lee, as soon as his dragon's wings were furled.
That was fun. Can we do it again?
In a little while.
"Hey, B'lee, you made it!" D'min called out.
"Of course. Margroth had no difficulties at all."
"Nor did Aurieth. I swear we could have been flying them months ago."
At that moment bronze Breth joined them, but tried to land too close to the edge and scrabbled for a purchase. B'lee snickered. "Well, we might have been able to, but we had to wait for the slower members of the clutch."
They shared an unholy giggle at the expense of the poor bronze (whose rider, H'rellan, was the youngest in the class and not very well-coordinated himself), and waited until they could make the return flight.
It wasn't long before the whole class was up on the ridge, which was flattened by generations of dragon landings and accommodated them all with no crowding. Once they were all up there, F'neldril supervised them doing short flights around the Weyr, banking left them right and then landing back in the bowl. They were only allowed one short flight, so as not to strain the dragons' musculature, but each of them made the most of it. The greens and blues were clearly more graceful, while the browns and bronzes seemed to be a little heavy in their landings.
B'lee watched all the dragons more carefully this time, and came to the conclusion that the greens were definitely the most adept at flying. Aurieth, of course, was the most graceful of the greens - she seemed more coordinated, more in control of herself, and more confident. How much of that was her, and how much was D'min, B'lee had no idea, but it did make her easy to watch and admire.
Am I not graceful, too? Asked Margroth, a little plaintively, and B'lee immediately felt guilty for admiring any other dragon.
You're very graceful, love. And you're stronger than Aurieth.
I am strong for a blue.
You are. It was true: Margroth was a little larger than most blues, though clearly not as large as a brown. More than that, though, he wasn't as bulky as a brown. He had clean, elegant lines and flew most economically, not wasting wing strokes, which F'neldril had noted with approval, saying that this would be useful in a long flight. His hide had deepened to an iridescent blue, with hints of purple and green, and never a dry or flaky patch to be seen, since B'lee inspected him every day. B'lee thought that he was simply the most perfect dragon ever created, and Margroth was happy with that.
The flying class ended as soon as the last dragon had returned to the bowl, and the riders returned to the barracks a little weary but very happy. B'lee and D'min, and all other green and blue riders, were still rather smug over the fact that their dragons were definitely more mature and graceful than the larger bronzes and browns. They had suffered some jibes from the bronze and brown riders in the past Turn over the merits of size and strength, and it was a guilty pleasure to be able to prove that size wasn't everything when it came to dragons.
They were still buzzing with the headiness of the flight the next morning, when they heard the high-pitched whining sound that heralded clutching. Holth, who had been flown by Clinnith just before the Spring Equinox, had gone to the Hatching Ground.
D'min was almost bouncing up and down on his bunk when he heard the dragons. "Do you hear that?" he asked B'lee. "It means we'll be out of here soon."
"Are you so sure? The eastern cavern's still empty - they could fit another class in there."
"Yes, but they don't like to mix classes if they can avoid it. They'll have us up in weyrs before the hatching, just you see!"
There was no immediate change to their classes, though, and B'lee wondered if D'min could have been mistaken. They flew the next day to the south ridge, without any accidents, and two days after that they celebrated the dragons' first Turn with a flight over the top of the weyr under the watchful eye of Leri, the Weyrwoman. She seemed pleased with them, and authorised an issue of wine at their evening meal.
Then D'min was proved right. The very next day, they started to practise ledge landings, using one of the highest weyrs to allow the dragons room to manoeuvre should they fail to get a purchase. The ledges were deceptively small for a dragon, and it took some practise to be able to land with the right amount of momentum to be able to move forward and furl the wings at the same time. In spite of repeated demonstrations by F'neldril's Mnanth and R'lan's Belleth, more than one dragon fell back and had to extend his wings in a hurry to prevent them falling to the bowl.
B'lee winced as Breth fell off the ledge, spread his wings in panic and snapped the left distal spar bone of the wing against the rock. The dragon howled and landed back in the bowl with a clumsy thud that had both B'lee and D'min groaning in sympathy. F'neldril examined the wingtip and told H'rellan to take him back to the barracks for Moreta to see. The two of them walked back dejectedly, H'rellan almost in tears at the injury to his beloved bronze dragon.
Aurieth, of course, landed perfectly on the first attempt, and B'lee was uncharitable enough to wonder if she'd had some practise delivering D'min up to whatever rider was his interest of the moment.
No, she says this is her first weyr landing, corrected Margroth.
Shards! You didn't tell her what I was thinking, did you?
No, I told her she did it as well as Mnanth.
Both Aurieth and D'min were visibly preening as they returned to the bowl, and B'lee hoped that he wouldn't disgrace himself when it was his turn.
He needn't have worried. Margroth landed well onto the ledge - perhaps not quite as elegantly as Aurieth, but safely, and much more smoothly than most of the others. He furled his wings and took a few steps into the cavern. It was a good size for a large blue or small brown dragon, and he rumbled his approval as he turned around and went back out to the ledge. He took off with a mighty leap, and coasted down to the bowl with barely a twitch of his wings. He landed so smoothly that there was hardly a mote of dust raised from the ground.
Show off, muttered B'lee, but with a smile.
Aurieth is not the only one who can fly well, answered Margroth, smugly.
B'lee glanced at D'min, and was pleased to see an admiring look on his friend's face as he watched the blue dragon land.
Margroth gave a happy rumble, and B'lee asked, So what did she say to you?
She said that I fly well and she would not be ashamed to be seen with me.
The little minx!
She is young and foolish.
She's the same age as you are, and hardly foolish.
Pre-occupied with unimportant things, then, conceded Margroth.
That I'll grant you.
They waited out the rest of the class somewhat impatiently, and returned to the barracks in high spirits. B'lee looked around at the cavern that had been his home for the last Turn and thought Not long now! He couldn't wait to leave. It wasn’t that he didn't get on with his class, but most of them were Turns younger than he was, and were still playing boys' games. He wanted some time to himself.
D'min, too, was humming with suppressed excitement. He couldn't wait to get out of the barracks either, but for slightly different reasons. After being strictly forbidden to leave the barracks after glow-dim, he had found it difficult to arrange his liaisons with various riders to fit in with both his classes and their schedules. He had complained bitterly and repeatedly in low tones to S'gan and B'lee about his frustrations, but neither of them were sympathetic - S'gan because he had managed to work out his own liaisons without getting anyone into trouble in the first place, and B'lee because he wasn't having any success with the Weyr girls and didn't see why D'min should be having all the fun.
The next day the dragons fed and bathed, and they had cavern-based lessons in the afternoon. The day after that they practised ledge landings all around the Weyr until R'lan was happy that they could all land safely at any ledge.
Then came the news they had all been waiting for. They were going to move out of the barracks and into their very own weyrs in time for the cavern to be cleared out for the new Candidates. Breth was held back, of course, as he was not permitted to fly at all until his wing had healed, but since H'rellan was the youngest rider anyway, it wasn't too bad an outcome for him anyway. He would have the opportunity to be the most advanced instead of the most backward, and S'gan and D'min decided between them that it would do wonders for his self-esteem. B'lee couldn’t help smiling at the sight of two boys of 16 and 17 seriously debating the welfare of a 14-year-old, as if they were old Uncles by the fire.
To B'lee's delight, he, D'min and S'gan were allocated three of a group of four adjacent weyrs on the south-eastern aspect of the bowl. They were high up and quite isolated, and not as efficiently warmed as the lower weyrs, but to young men already sick and tired of the close confines and supervision of the weyrling barracks, the isolation was doubly attractive and more than made up for the effort that would be required to climb up to them. The weyrs were large enough that all three dragons could squeeze into one (though that wouldn't always be the case, D'min pointed out), and there was a narrow corridor linking their compartments and a couple of others at the rear and leading to a rather precarious ladder shaft that B'lee hoped he wouldn't have to use very often. It was at least a dragon-length down to the nearest main corridor, and then there were about two hundred steps that took them down in stages to the lower caverns. It was no wonder they put the youngest and healthiest riders up in the heights.
The furniture was basic but comfortable. There was a cot with sleeping furs (each cot wide enough for two, B'lee noted), a small table, a couple of chairs and a chest for clothes and personal belongings. The walls had some tapestries, a little faded and in need of a good shaking out, but otherwise serviceable, and a thick curtain that separated the dragon's weyr from the rider's sleeping chamber. It was enough for the time being, and B'lee thought that with a little effort and some judicious bartering he could make the human part of the weyr very homely and comfortable.
B'lee didn't even mind the prospect of the weyrs being cold in winter. He'd experienced worse at High Reaches, when Cromcoal and timber for burning had proved scarce some years. They'd need thick sleeping furs, of course, and he'd beg his mother for a fisherman's jersey (or knit one himself) but he had every confidence that he'd be more comfortable up here than down in the barracks.
D'min was a little more critical of the fittings, saying that there was much better furniture around if you knew where to look, but he, too, was happy with the weyrs and happy to be with his friends.
"I really thought they'd put me in one of the lower weyrs to keep an eye on me," he confessed. "Nesso was threatening to put me next to the queens' weyrs." He shuddered. "I do not want to be anywhere close to gold or bronze riders. Here," he gestured, expansively, "here is great. We're just far enough away that we can make some noise and not get into trouble, and those stairs will keep Tamina away."
"You know she'll find a way."
"Yeah, probably, but she'll have to climb about fifty thousand stairs, or else beg a ride from a dragon, and I know she doesn't like flying. So we're pretty safe."
"Let's hope you're right."
"You'll see." He smiled. "Now, the first thing we need to do is visit Nesso - or, better, Marta, and get some more sleeping furs and tapestries. These ones are all very well, but we'll need something a bit more colourful if we're going to invite our friends here."
"Are we going to invite friends?"
"Of course we are. As soon as we've redecorated, we're going to have B'ret and F'ril up here so that I can win back those marks they took off me a couple of sevendays ago."
S'gan and B'lee looked at each other, half-amused and half-horrified. D'min hadn't got any better at dragon poker, but still insisted on playing. Frankly, B'lee was surprised that he had any marks left at all.
* * *
It felt strange to have a room all to himself. B'lee, like most young people, had never had much privacy in his life: he'd shared a bed with his brothers at High Reaches; and had lived in apprentice dormitories at the Harperhall before coming to the Weyr. A year in the Weyrling Barracks hadn't seemed all that different from the dormitories, but this ... this was going to take some getting used to.
He was very glad that his friends D'min and S'gan were close by. It wasn't that he was scared, precisely, but to be so far away from everyone was a little disconcerting. What if he fell ill? What if he were injured? What if Margroth were injured and couldn't carry him down to the bowl? At least he was lucky that he was in Fort Weyr, which had stairs connecting the upper weyrs to the lower caverns, through access tunnels carved by the ancients. D'min had told him that none of the other Weyrs had that, and for them the only way up to a dragon's weyr was on dragonback.
On the positive side, though, privacy had its advantages, and each of the weyrlings reacted to it in different ways.
B'lee's first action was to get out his gitar and set it on the table for easy access. He loved to play, but had had little opportunity in the past Turn - there was always someone trying to sleep in the barracks, so noise was discouraged, and he'd been too tired to play in the main hall in the evenings with the harpers. The gitar had perforce lain almost untouched for many months. Now, in his weyr, he would be able to strum and sing to himself softly at any time without disturbing anyone, and could even do the finger exercises that were so important but which had caused much disruption and unpleasantness in the barracks. He also planned to beg some time at Harper Willan's sandtable in order to work on a couple of tunes that had been running around in his head for the last couple of months.
S'gan decided that he was going to set himself up with goods for barter. He had shown a marked aptitude for leatherwork during their training, and the riding straps he had made for Lath were already the envy of the Weyrling Barracks. B'lee, whose straps had barely passed R'lan's inspection, had agreed to trade a set of riding straps for a knitted blanket S'gan wanted - he'd seen one used to wrap an old uncle on a visit to Ruatha once, and he'd wanted one ever since. Since B'lee had learned to knit as a child at High Reaches Hold, and knew how to do the distinctive High Reaches "fisherman's rib" pattern, he was happy to put his skills to good use. He had already completed several squares before they left the barracks, using scraps of wool begged from the weaving room, and promised to finish the blanket before the solstice.
As for D'min ... well, B'lee told himself that he should have expected it. D'min had chafed under the restrictions of the Weyrling Barracks, especially after F'neldril's direct order not to leave during the night, and now that he had his own weyr it was inevitable that he would start bringing his bed-partners there. B'lee told himself that it was none of his business, but he did wish that D'min wasn't quite so loud. Though he did sound as if he thoroughly enjoyed whatever he was doing.
B'lee sighed. At least D'min was getting some action. In spite of his newly-elevated status, B'lee was still having difficulty in attracting any serious attention from the girls in the Weyr. They laughed and joked with him, and several had indulged him with a kiss in the shadows, or a dance at a gather, but so far only a couple of them had given any indication that they would welcome any further advances, and the only time he'd ventured to take matters into his own hands the girl had wriggled out of his arms with a high-pitched giggle and run away. It had not been very encouraging. He'd had a few pleasant tumbles with Surina, one of the more notorious lower caverns girls, but she wasn't his type. He hadn't really seen any girl at the weyr who was his type - though if pressed, he wasn't sure he knew what his type was. He just knew that he'd know it if he saw it.
To make matters worse, he had had to make it quite clear to several green and blue riders that he wasn't interested in exploring homosexual activities. It appeared that his looks and his voice made him very attractive to them, and he'd been invited to more than one weyr for the evening, only to find himself being regarded as Margroth looked as a plump herdbeast. Eventually he got to the stage of vetting all social invitations through D'min, who, of course, knew the proclivities of every rider in the Weyr. D'min laughed and told him that he really ought to enlarge his experience, but he never hesitated to tell B'lee the proper orientation of each rider, as well as whether or not he was safe to be with. B'lee was grateful for the advice and never failed to thank him, especially when it served to avert a potentially disastrous encounter.
* * *
The Hatching of Holth's latest clutch took place two days after the Summer Solstice, and the weyrlings were on hand to help prepare the Candidates and make sure that they all ate afterwards. Thread fell that day, almost directly over the Weyr, and B'lee learned one of the most important reasons why Candidates were brought in several days prior to the Hatching - if they'd been left until the day itself, there wouldn't have been any Candidates for the eggs, since you couldn't expect dragons to drop into the bowl during Threadfall.
As it was, all but one hatched and impressed. The failure was a small egg, oddly mottled, and D'min explained that it happened sometimes, especially as a queen got older. Healer Berchar took the egg in order to examine the contents, and told the Weyrleader later that the dragonet had apparently died a few Sevendays before the Hatching, possibly even before clutching. How the news got from the weyrleader to D'min, B'lee never did find out, but it was certainly D'min who told him. He felt sad for the lost dragonet, but accepted that some young of every species failed to develop.
It had been a little strange to watch the Impression as a spectator. Most of the candidates this time were from the Weyr - either Weyrbred or remaining from Search the previous Turn. B'lee recognised Goneril, one of the older weyrbrats, impressing a brown, and was happy for him. Most of the others he knew vaguely bu sight but couldn't put a name to.
There was one distinct advantage to the unlucky juxtaposition of Threadfall and Hatching - the usual Hatching treats (sweet cakes and carafes of wine) were shared among fewer people, so even the weyrlings got half a goblet of wine and a cake each. As usual, D'min managed to acquire an extra wineskin (only half-full, but better than nothing) and shared it with B'lee and S'gan up in their weyrs. They relaxed against the sleeping furs in S'gan's weyr and B'lee played his gitar for them, revelling in the knowledge that no one would disturb them.
"You really have a lovely voice," D'min said, as B'lee finished another song.
"Thank you."
"Sing me another. A sad song."
"You want a sad song?"
"A song of lost love and bitter regret," said D'min, cradling the goblet in his hands, his eyes fixed on the floor.
B'lee shrugged and sang the only song he knew that met D'min's requirements - a ballad about a beautiful but proud Holder's daughter who spurned the advances of a young man, only to learn later that he had been lost to Thread. It was a haunting tune, in a minor key, and as he finished, he saw tears running down D'min's cheeks. He wondered if they were due solely to the song, or whether there was something else on D'min's mind. He fished out a handkerchief and sat down on the bed, placing an arm around his friend's shoulders and gently wiping the tears away.
"Are you all right?" he asked in a low voice, not wanting to wake S'gan, who had fallen asleep.
D'min nodded briskly, but refused to meet his gaze. "I’ll be fine," he said. "Thank you for the song. It was beautiful." He got up and grabbed the empty wineskin. "I think we'd better get back to our own weyrs."
B'lee followed him out, still puzzled by D'min's reaction.