Free Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey Page B

I see. You’re afraid!”
    “I am Lessa, daughter of the Lord of Ruath,” she countered, stung to responding by the Blood insult. She drew herself erect, her eyes flashing, her chin high. “I am afraid of nothing!”
    F’lar contented himself with a slight smile.
    Mnementh, however, threw up his head and stretched out his sinuous neck to its whole length. His full-throated peal rang out down the valley. The bronze communicated his awareness to F’lar that Lessa had accepted the challenge. The other dragons answered back, their warbles shriller than Mnementh’s male bellow. The watch-wher which had cowered at the end of its chain lifted its voice in a thin, unnerving screech until the Hold emptied of its startled occupants.
    “F’nor,” the bronze rider called, waving his wing-leader to him. “Leave half the flight to guard the Hold. Some nearby Lord might think to emulate Fax’s example, Send one rider to the High Reaches with the glad news. You go directly to the clothmen’s Hall and speak to L’to . . . Lytol.” F’lar grinned. “I think he would make an exemplary Warder and Lord Surrogate for this Hold in the name of the Weyr and the baby Lord.”
    The brown rider’s face expressed enthusiasm for his mission as he began to comprehend his leader’s intentions. With Fax dead and Ruatha under the protection of dragonmen, particularly that same one who had dispatched Fax, the Hold would be safe and flourish under wise management.
    “She caused Ruatha’s deterioration?” he asked his leader.
    “And nearly ours with her machinations,” F’lar replied, but having found the admirable object of his Search, he could now be magnanimous. “Suppress your exultation, brother,” he advised quickly as he took note of F’nor’s expression. “The new queen must also be Impressed.”
    “I’ll settle arrangements here. Lytol is an excellent choice,” F’nor said, although he knew that F’lar needed no one’s approval.
    “Who is this Lytol?” demanded Lessa pointedly. She had twisted the mass of filthy hair back from her face. In the moonlight the dirt was less noticeable. F’lar caught F’nor looking at her with an all too easily read expression. He signaled F’nor with a peremptory gesture to carry out his orders without delay.
    “Lytol is a dragonless man,” F’lar told the girl, “no friend to Fax. He will ward the Hold well, and it will prosper.” He added persuasively with a quelling stare full on her, “Won’t it?”
    She regarded him somberly, without answering, until he chuckled softly at her discomfiture.
    “We’ll return to the Weyr,” he announced, proffering a hand to guide her to Mnementh’s side.
    The bronze one had extended his head toward the watch-wher, who now lay panting on the ground, its chain limp in the dust.
    “Oh,” Lessa sighed, and dropped beside the grotesque beast. It raised its head slowly, crying piteously.
    “Mnementh says it is very old and soon will sleep itself to death.”
    Lessa cradled the repulsive head in her arms, stroking the eye ridges, scratching behind its ears.
    “Come, Lessa of Pern,” F’lar said, impatient to be up and away.
    She rose slowly but obediently. “It saved me. It knew me.”
    “It knows it did well,” F’lar assured her brusquely, wondering at such an uncharacteristic show of sentiment in her.
    He took her hand again, to help her to her feet and lead her back to Mnementh.
    In one split second he was knocked off his feet, sprawling across the stones and trying to roll to his feet again, to face his adversary. The force of the initial blow, however, had dazed him, and he lay sprawled on his back, startled to see the watch-wher, its scaly body launched—straight at him.
    Simultaneously he heard Lessa’s startled exclamation and Mnementh’s roar. The bronze’s great head was swinging around to knock the watch-wher aside, away from the dragonman. But just as the watch-wher’s body was fully extended in its leap, Lessa