Free Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey Page A

claws scraping on the rock above her. She must have quite an audience by now. When she didn’t need one!
    Cautiously she looked up, met the fascinated whirling of ten pairs of eyes.
    ‘Look, a bargain! One long song and then let me up the cliffs? Is that agreed?’
    Fire lizard eyes whirled.
    Menolly took it that the bargain was made and sang. Her voice started a flutter of surprised and excited chirpings, and she wondered if by any possible freak they actually understood that she was singing about grateful holds honoring dragonriders. By the last verse she eased out into the open, awed by the sight of a queen fire lizard and nine bronzes entranced by her performance.
    ‘Can I go now?’ she asked and put one hand on the ledge.
    The queen dived for her hand, and Menolly snatched it back.
    ‘I thought we’d struck a bargain.’
    The queen chirped piteously, and Menolly realized that there had been no menace in the queen’s action. She simply wasn’t allowed to climb.
    ‘You don’t want me to go?’ Menolly asked.
    The queen’s eyes seemed to glow more brightly.
    ‘But I have to go. If I stay, the water will come up and drown me.’ And Menolly accompanied her words with explanatory gestures.
    Suddenly the queen let out a shrill cry, seemed to hold herself midair for a moment and then, her bronzes in close pursuit, she glided down the sandy beach to her clutch. She hovered over the eggs, making the most urgent and excited sounds.
    If the tide was coming in fast enough to endanger Menolly, it was also frighteningly close to swamping the nest. The little bronzes began to take up the queen’s plaint and several, greatly daring, flew about Menolly’s head and then circled back to the clutch.
    ‘I can come there now? You won’t attack me?’ Menolly took a few steps forward.
    The tone of the cries changed, and Menolly quickened her step. As she reached the nest, the little queen secured one egg from the clutch. With a great laboring of her wings, she bore it upward. That the effort was great was obvious. The bronzes hovered anxiously, squeaking their concern but, being much smaller, they were unable to assist the queen.
    Now Menolly saw that the base of the cliff at this point was littered with broken shells and the pitiful bodies of tiny fire lizards, their wings half-extended and glistening with egg fluid. The little queen now had raised the egg to a ledge, which Menolly had not previously noticed, about a half-dragon length up the cliff-face. Menolly could see the little queen deposit the egg on the ledge and roll it with her forelegs towards what must be a hole in the cliff. It was a long moment before the queen reappeared again. Then she dove towards the sea, hovering over the foamy crest of a wave that rolled in precariously close to the endangered clutch. With a blurred movement, the queen was hovering in front of Menolly and scolding like an old aunt.
    Although Menolly couldn’t help grinning at the thought, she was filled with a sense of pity and admiration for the courage of the little queen, single-handedly trying to rescue her clutch. If the dead fire lizards were that fully formed, the clutch was near to hatching. No wonder the queen could barely move the eggs.
    ‘You want me to help you move the eggs, right? Well, we’ll see what I can do!’
    Ready to jump back if she had mistaken the little queen’s imperious command, Menolly very carefully picked up an egg. It was warm to the touch and hard. Dragon eggs, she knew, were soft when first laid but hardened slowly on the hot sands of the Hatching Grounds in the Weyrs. These definitely must be close to hatching.
    Closing the fingers of her damaged hand carefully around the egg, Menolly searched for and found foot and hand holds, and reached the queen’s ledge. She carefully deposited the egg. The little queen appeared, one front talon resting proprietarily on the egg, and then she leaned forward, towards Menolly’s face, so close that the fantastic