Weyrlings - 2. Flamethrowers and Firestone

‘So, now you’ve taken it apart and cleaned everything - plus checked for any corrosion - what do we do next?’ S’brin was evidently enjoying his stint as instructor during this practical session in flamethrower maintenance. He’d been taking them apart since he was around twelve Turns old, so he had been the obvious choice to lead the lesson. The Weyrlingmaster tried to give each of his charges a chance to shine and since S’brin hadn’t been in any trouble for a good sevenday, he’d decided that today was his turn.

None of the weyrlings offered an opinion, so D’gar eventually spoke up. ‘We put it back together again?’

S’brin seemed relieved. ‘Exactly. Now, gather round and watch carefully. These aren’t toys. If you make a mistake, someone could die.’

‘We aren’t going to be putting these together often, are we?’ J’rud sounded concerned.

N’teren spoke up. ’Not generally, no. That’s a maintenance job. But you never know when there might be a need to sort one out in an emergency. If you’re on ground crew duty, for example.’ He nodded to S’brin. ‘Carry on, lad, you’re doing a good job.’

S’brin looked pleased. He was more often told off than praised these days, D’gar knew all too well. It wasn’t entirely his fault. Sometimes he just brushed people up the wrong way. That was why he’d always enjoyed maintenance. ‘I’m fine with fixing things,’ he’d said, often enough. ‘It’s people who are difficult to deal with.’ Still, he’d had no more midden duty lately.

‘Right, so if you’ve all been paying attention, you’ll notice that I’ve laid out all the parts in a specific order on this bench. There’s a reason for that. Can anyone tell me?’

‘Er, to make sure you don’t lose any pieces,’ G’tash suggested.

‘That’s one. But there’s another, more important reason.’

D’gar knew. He’d seen S’brin service flamethrowers lots of times, but he didn’t want to seem like a know-it-all by answering all the questions so he kept his mouth shut and watched weyrwoman Valli limping down the steps from Kadoth’s weyr. Had she injured herself, he wondered? Although in her sixties, she was usually fairly sprightly.

‘Anyone?’ S’brin was saying. He glanced at D’gar, as if willing him to help out.

‘Er, so you put it all back together the same way?’ He tried to make it sound as if he wasn’t sure.

‘That’s right. It’s the same when you take anything apart. Make sure you lay the pieces down in the correct order and you’ll be less likely to make a mistake when you reassemble it or leave anything important out.’

Most of the audience nodded at that, seeing the sense.

S’brin was warming to his subject. ‘Now, a flamethrower’s not an overly complicated piece of kit and doesn’t have a lot of parts, but some other mechanisms are far more complex. That’s when it pays to be methodical.’

T’mudra sighed heavily. ‘We didn’t all take maintenance as our specialty,’ he said, looking bored.

He must be one of those who looked down their nose at practical skills, D’gar thought, although the same folk were always quick enough to call on maintenance when something didn’t work properly.

S’brin looked annoyed. ‘Yeah, well, some folk don’t have the brains for it.’

‘Brains?’ T’mudra smirked. ‘Doesn’t take much intelligence to put a few bits of metal together.’

‘Now then, lads, that’s enough.’ The Weyrlingmaster stepped in before it got out of hand. ‘Carry on, Sbrin.’

S’brin glared at T’mudra. D’gar hoped the interruption hadn’t put him off too much. He caught S’brin’s eye and gave him an encouraging smile. i”m interested, he thought hard, as if he was talking to Herebeth. I’m listening.

‘So, reassembly.’ He picked up where he’d left off. ‘Let’s start with the wand. Not too many pieces in that.’ He picked up the two main components, then gave D’gar a cheeky grin. ‘Important point here. Whenever you’re fitting parts together, the first thing you need to make sure is that they’re well lubricated.’ He smoothed some oil onto one part with a suggestive motion, being sure to look straight at D’gar while he was doing it.

D’gar felt his face start to flush. Trust S’brin. The Weyrlingmaster sighed as one or two others in the class caught the drift and started to snigger.

‘Then you need to fit them together. If you’ve got it lined up just right it should slide straight in.’

There were more sniggers. D’gar noticed that T’mudra looked disgusted. Snotty so-and-so.

S’brin breezed on regardless. ‘Main thing is to be gentle. It’s never a good idea to force it.’

D’gar daren’t look at him anymore. To distract himself, he focussed on Valli, who was making her way towards their group. Her limp was slightly less pronounced now that she’d walked a little way. Maybe it was just a touch of the joint ache many of the older weyrfolk suffered from in the damp weather? Spring was on the way and when the sun shone it felt pleasantly warm, but the nights were still chilly.

Meanwhile, S’brin continued with his demonstration and the innuendo. Valli joined them at some point and her snorts of laughter were louder than the weyrlings’. When he’d finally finished and had a fully reassembled flamethrower, she applauded. ‘Bravo. Excellent performance, young man. Maybe you could service mine someday. Flamethrower, that is.’

It was S’brin’s turn to look embarrassed as Valli turned to the Weyrlingmaster. ‘Could I borrow a couple of your lads to help me with Kadoth? She fancies a good scrubbing and oiling but I’m afraid I’m not up to the task on my own these days.’

‘Of course, weyrwoman.’ He scanned the class briefly before making his decision. ‘As S’brin has proved so entertaining, I’m sure you’d appreciate his company for a while longer. And you can take D’gar as well. Those two are inseparable.’

The other weyrlings looked somewhat relieved. Although the weather was beginning to warm up, the lake was still cold enough that bathing dragons wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.

‘Tough on you,’ T’mudra muttered to D’gar. ‘But if you keep hanging around with him, what do you expect.’

D’gar ignored him and went to stand next to Valli. After S’brin had put his tools back in his bag, he joined them.

‘We might as well do this the easy way and save my old legs.’ Valli’s eyes unfocussed as she spoke to Kadoth. In a few moments, the gold dragon launched herself from the ledge, coming to rest close by. ‘Kadoth doesn’t mind giving you a lift to the lake as well, if you like.’

D’gar glanced at S’brin. It was almost worthwhile getting wet and cold to ride a gold dragon. It would make the other weyrlings really envious.

‘If that’s all right,’ D’gar said, cautiously.

‘If it wasn’t, I’d not have said. Anyway, I have an ulterior motive. You boys can help me get on board.’

Kadoth lowered herself to the ground as far as she could, enabling S’brin to mount up. He took Valli’s hand while D’gar gave her a leg up, then scrambled up himself. It felt as if they were a very long way off the ground.

‘Hang on,’ Valli said. ‘We’re about to take off.’

Even at her age, Kadoth was still a powerful dragon. She sprang into the air and beat her huge wings a few times. In moments, the ground receded. D’gar looked down to see the small group of weyrlings regarding them with awe and open mouths. He waved. S’brin made a rude sign.Valli cuffed him gently. ‘None of that while you’re on my dragon, lad.’

They reached the lake in no time at all. Kadoth set down gently on the level ground, next to the sandy beach leading into the water.

‘You get down first,’ Valli told S’brin. ‘Then you can catch me. My knee’s really playing up today.’

‘What did you do?’ D’gar asked.

‘Got old,’ she replied. ‘I woke up this morning and it hurt really badly. No reason. You wait, one day you’ll find out for yourself what it’s like.’

Once they were all off, Valli removed the simple neck strap and Kadoth proceeded to wade out until the water was deep enough for her to immerse her entire body. She swam a little way before surfacing, scattering water droplets that reflected both the sunlight and her own golden hide. ‘There’s my beauty,’ Valli said happily as she rummaged in her bag for a couple of brushes. ‘Here you go. She says her neck ridges are particularly itchy and her left shoulder as well, just in front of the wing joint.’

S’brin, never one to be shy, started stripping off. D’gar was slightly more reluctant, not because of S’brin, who had, after all, seen him naked many a time, but because Valli had settled herself down on a rock and was also watching. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said. ‘You get to my age and there isn’t much I’ve not seen before. Think yourself lucky to have youth on your side. I’m at the time of life when I look better with all my clothes on.’

S’brin ran out into the water. D’gar had long since discovered he didn’t seem to feel the cold. He followed, slightly more cautiously and by the time they’d scrubbed Kadoth to her satisfaction and Valli’s instructions he’d warmed up considerably.

Evidently the Weyrlingmaster had decided it would be a good idea for all the youngsters to have a bath today, for just as they finished D’gar noticed the hatchlings making their way over, stumbling, hopping and flapping wings. Herebeth and Zemianth chirped happily to see their riders and very soon the placid waters were being churned up by twelve small dragons. Kadoth raised her own massive wings above the water as they circled around her, showering them all. Valli beamed in delight to watch their antics.

‘Is that pale green beauty yours?’ she asked S’brin.

‘That’s right. My Zemianth.’

‘Just look at her and Kadoth together. She’s like a miniature of her mother.’

D’gar thought she was just being kind. He couldn’t really spot any resemblance between the lithe golden dragon and the gawky little green, but then he could never see it when people held up babies and said things like, ‘She’s got her mother’s nose.’

S’brin lapped up the praise and started telling Valli all the clever things Zemianth had done so far in her short life.

I could do with some scrubbing as well, Herebeth reminded him. I have an itchy patch at the base of my tail I can’t reach.

All right then. He splashed out into the deeper water to begin the process all over again. At least there wasn’t so much of Herebeth to scrub.

As the spring wore on, the young dragons continued to grow. They were now able to chew much larger pieces of meat. Herebeth enjoyed crunching bones, while Zemianth favoured slurping the entrails of a slaughtered beast. The better weather meant the classes were often held outside and while the riders were being grilled on various subjects, their dragons enjoyed sunning themselves or flapping their wings to strengthen the muscles. Soon they began to take short flights on their own. They were often watched by mature dragons, who seemed to find the younger ones fascinating. Kadoth in particular liked to rest on the landing field to let the hatchlings climb all over her and sometimes use her back as a launch pad.

D’gar noticed that Valli’s limp was even more pronounced. Whatever the problem was, it hadn’t improved with the warmer weather. It didn’t stop her joining the Queens’ Wing for each Threadfall, though.

‘I’ve only ever missed Fall when Kadoth’s guarding her clutch or when we’ve been scored, so I don’t intend to miss one now,’ she said firmly. ‘And my knee only hurts when I walk. Doesn’t stop me riding.’ There was no upper age limit for riding Fall; a rider or dragon would only be forced to retire from the Wings if their Wingleader thought they were a danger to themselves or others. In Valli’s case, no one but the Weyrwoman or Weyrleader could order her to stop.

Fighting Thread was still a long way off for Kadoth’s clutch. The weyrlings spent each Fall in the firestone dump, handing out the graded sacks to riders from Suderoth’s clutch, who had now mastered flying between and had therefore progressed to delivering supplies to the airborne Wings.

The first hour or so of any Fall wasn’t too busy; dragons chewed sufficient firestone before leaving the Weyr and carried a couple of spare sacks with them to maintain their flame while in the air. Depending on the conditions and the quantity of Thread that fell, at some point they would begin calling for replacement sacks.

A dragon would land and the rider shout out his request. ‘Two bronze, two brown and a blue.’ Sacks were passed along a chain to the dragon and secured to the fighting straps then empties thrown down before the pair took off again, blinking between once they’d reached a safe height.

D’gar’s usual job was to check the empty sacks for damage and pass them along for re-filling. Sometimes bits of frozen Thread would slide off a bag, having eaten a hole before it died in the cold of between. It smelled foul, like something metallic mixed with rotting vegetables. He had to wear gloves, just in case of any live Thread getting through and they soon stank as well.

By the end of Fall, everyone would be filthy with firestone dust and char, glad to get into the communal baths to soak tired muscles. They’d watch the Wings coming back, noting the gaps in formation where injured men or dragons had returned to the Weyr early. In some cases, they didn’t return at all.

Early in the summer, there was a Fall over the southern part of Fort Hold. The weyrlings were on their way towards the baths when the Queens’ Wing came in to land. Much as they were used to Wings taking off and landing, the sight of the massive golden dragons, flanked by several other colours who were not yet fit enough to return to their normal fighting Wings, was always impressive. Suderoth was the largest of them all; an orange-gold colour, like the sun when it was slipping down the western sky towards the horizon. Loranth was a lighter, more yellow-gold, with a slightly shorter wingspan and wider body. Kadoth was the palest gold of all, with glints of silver in her hide, like bright winter sunshine peeking through cloud cover. Her joints showed the slightly greenish tinge of old age, but she was still a fine-looking dragon. The quickest in the air, too, from what D’gar had heard.

As they watched, Valli beckoned them over. ‘You couldn’t give me a hand down, lads?’

D’gar took her flamethrower while S’brin helped her to dismount, setting her down carefully and supporting her when the bad knee almost gave way.

‘Kadoth says if you could get her straps off, she’d like to swim.’

‘Sure.’ D’gar climbed up and set to work, while S’brin helped her to limp into her weyr. It would probably have been easier to carry her, but he guessed she wasn’t willing to give in to that indignity. He followed them up, bringing her fighting straps, while Kadoth set off towards the lake.

Valli almost fell into her armchair, shutting her eyes. Her face looked thin and drawn.

‘Could you fetch me some wine, please. And put a drop of fellis in it. It’s in that green bottle on the desk.’

D’gar complied, being very careful with the dose of fellis. It was strong stuff. He’d only ever been given it once, when he broke his arm as a child. He hadn’t liked the way it made his head feel, as if he’d been spinning round until he was dizzy, although the relief from pain had been welcome. ‘There you go.’

She drank it down all in one and made a face. ‘So bitter, that stuff. Still, it does the job. I’ll just sit here for a while, I think.’

‘Does Kadoth need anything else?’ S’brin asked.

Valli’s eyes went unfocused for a moment as she talked to Kadoth. ‘She’s fine, she says. Thanks, lads. I’ll be all right now.’

They left the weyr to join the others. ‘She’s lost weight,’ S’brin said. ‘Not that she weighed much to start with. But she’s definitely lighter than when I helped her up on Kadoth before and that was only a couple of sevendays ago.’

‘It’s probably old age.’

‘Maybe. Just think, we’ll be like that one day; having to get the weyrlings to help us off our dragons and moaning about all of our aches and pains.’ The retired riders usually sat around one of the inner hearths in comfortable chairs, telling stories to the weyrbrats, minding young children and helping out with light tasks. The oldest of them was ninety-two. He’d ridden Fall until he was past seventy and told some gruesome tales.

D’gar couldn’t conceive of being so old. Even Valli, at sixty, seemed ancient. She’d have been born before the Pass began, he realised, trying to work out if she could have ridden in the first Fall. Probably not. Weyrwomen tended to Impress at a slightly later age. She’d have most likely been somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five when Kadoth hatched. He made a mental note to ask her. ‘I wonder if she’s seen the healers about that knee?’ he mused.

‘Must have done. They’d have given her the fellis. Come to think of it, that’ll be why she’s lighter. If you take that stuff regularly you lose your appetite. Same thing happened to my gran.’

The baths were crowded. Weyrlings were always the last to get in. While waiting, D’gar and S’brin amused themselves by eyeing up the wingriders and giving them points for attractiveness. A lot of flirting went on in the baths and changing areas, particularly after Threadfall, when everyone was in high spirits at having survived another one.

‘Look at V’chal,’ S’brin nudged D’gar. ‘He’s definitely making a move on B’naj.’

‘Lilith's close to rising, isn’t she?’ A female dragon’s emotional state often affected her rider, too, although V’chal was one of those who didn’t really need the extra encouragement.

‘In the next sevenday or so. He’s probably hoping Seventh will catch Lilith.’

‘Does that really work?’ While it was ultimately up to the dragons to decide the outcome of a mating flight, a green might favour a particular male and if the riders liked each other as well, it was sometimes enough to influence the result.

‘Often enough. Look at K’san and Gr’thol. They’ve been weyrmates for Turns and Norarth nearly always catches Famenth.’

‘Do you think it’ll work for us?’

‘I’m sure. Herebeth and Zemianth already like each other. And we definitely do.’

If only it was that simple. Before they’d Impressed it had been easy enough to believe it might all work out, but there was so much he just hadn’t realised back then. Green dragons tended to mature earlier than the males of the same clutch. They’d rise for the first time at anywhere between ten and eighteen months old. He knew now that it was unlikely Herebeth would show any interest in chasing greens before he was around two Turns old. Zemianth might have risen two or three times by then. Might decide she liked a particular dragon and wanted him to mate with her every time. And even though it was ‘only a mating flight’, what if S’brin found he liked that dragon’s rider better than D’gar?