Forgive me, Orlith! she cried, waving at her queen.

What is to forgive?

"Get going!" Leri bellowed.

Holth sprang, moving almost as heavily as egg-bloated Orlith. Moreta experienced confusion, linked for so many Turns to one dragon mind. How on earth was she going to understand Holth, when suddenly she did. Holth was there, with her, and Moreta could sense Orlith hovering protective. Jealously? No, she sensed nothing negative in her own dragon's mind other than a concern that Moreta could not deal with her friend Holth. Holth was by then airborne, and the first intimate connection Moreta had with the old queen was of her weariness and her compulsion to help Tamianth.

Slow and easy does it, Moreta said to Holth with all the encouragement and understanding she could muster.

The watchdragon saluted them, wishing Holth and Leri well. As the watchdragon was a green weyrling, mistaking Holth's rider could be forgiven but it stuck in Moreta's mind as Holth gallantly plowed upward in the blustery wind.

Moreta envisioned the distinctive ridge of the High Reaches Weyr, a jagged comb with seven unequal spires.

I know where we must go. Trust in me, the old dragon said. I do, Holth, Moreta replied, aware that Holth's experience was far greater than Orlith's for all the younger queen's vigor. Take us to the High Reaches.

In place of her usual between litany, Moreta tried to analyze the difference between the two queen dragons. Holth's mind-voice was old and tired, but it was firm, rich, and deep, many layers denser than Orlith's. Perhaps, when Orlith had reached the fine age Holth enjoyed, she, too, would have the depth of Holth's responsiveness.

Then they were in the warmer air over the High reaches, and Holth was skimming the jagged spindles and swooping in a deep lefthand bank so that Moreta had an unobstructed view of the ground and the injured dragons there. Moreta blinked at the small clusters attending the wounded. Tamianth rated the most assistance. As Holth descended, Moreta could see that Tamianth had lost the trailing edge of all three wingsails. And she was badly scored down her left side.

How did that happen? Moreta was appalled.

Cross-over and too much to do. She wanted to help the wings, Holth said, and an echoing sadness welled in Moreta as Holth implanted the incident in her mind. Tamianth had risen at an angle so that Falga could bring the flamethrower into action but they had blundered into an updraft before they could correct. A great gout of Thread had fallen across her wing and into her shoulder. And across Falga's leg.

Holth could not turn on a wingtip as Orlith could, but the old queen gauged her descent to a finger and glided to a halt a winglength from the injured Tamianth.

Can you help me ease her pain, Holth? Moreta asked as she slid in frantic haste from the dragon's back. Tamianth's howls had to be muted.

Orlith is with us, Holth said with great dignity, her eyes churning a brilliant sparkling yellow.

Falga lay to one side on a stretcher, her face turned toward her queen, but she was barely conscious. Two healers were swathing her leg in bandages soaked in numbweed.

Tamianth, Moreta said, hurrying to the dragon's injured side, hoping the dragon might hear her and would listen. I am Moreta to heal you!

Tamianth was thrashing her head and forearms from side to side, movement that hampered the efforts of the weyrfolk trying to apply numbweed to the wingbones. Moreta noticed in a quick glance that they had managed to salve the deep body score from which ichor flowed; the wing was causing Tamianth's agony.

"Hold her!" Moreta roared at the top of her voice and her mind.

The other injured dragons and the watchdragon bugled in response. Holth reared onto her hindquarters, trumpeting, her wings extended. From the weyrs emerged High Reaches dragons whose riders were too sick to fly Fall. And suddenly Tamianth was locked by the combined wills of the dragons around her.

"Come on!" Moreta exhorted the weyrfolk who were gawking in astonishment. "Get the numbweed on. Now!"

She grabbed a paddle and a pot from the ground and, as she worked rapidly, she assessed the extent of the injury. It was somewhat similar to Dilenth's. Though he had lost leading edge and sustained damage to bone and finger joints. Tamianth had lost more sail. She would be a long time out of the air.

"Is there anything we can do to help the dragon?" A bright-eyed little man with a broad jaw and a broad nose appeared at her elbow. Another man, not much bigger, frowning anxiously in what seemed a permanent grimace, stood just beyond him. Both wore Healer purple and the shoulder knots of journeymen. Moreta glanced quickly at Falga's stretcher. "She is unconscious and her wound dressed. That's all we can do for her right now. I will need oil, reeds, thin gauze, needle, treated thread-"

"I'm not of this Weyr," the bright-eyed man said and turned to the bigger one who nodded acknowledgment to Moreta and ran off to the low stone building that was High Reaches' main living quarters. "My name is Pressen, Weyrwoman."

"Keep applying numbweed, Pressen. All down the bones. I want them thickly coated, especially the joints. Just as you'd do any Threadscore on a human. And keep it thick on the body wound, too. I don't want her losing so much ichor."

An old woman stumbled up with a bucket of redwort, shouting at three children behind her to bring the oil and not dawdle. Two riders, each with bandaged scores, approached Moreta; their dragons, a blue and a brown-both scored-settled to the rocky ground, their eyes, spinning with distress, on Tamianth.

Moreta suddenly had more help than she could use effectively so she sent the riders to help the other healer find her requirements and the children to get a table for her to stand on. The old woman informed her that the Weyr's healers had died and the two new ones knew absolutely nothing about dragons but were willing. She used to help but her hands had "a trembling."

Moreta sent her off to find the gauze-that was her most urgent need. In the time it took Moreta to complete her preparations to repair the wing, Tamianth's crushing pain had been reduced to a throbbing ache, according to Holth-Orlith. Tamianth's wing was considerably larger than Dilenth's and the sail fragments fewer. The two riders were of great assistance in sorting the pieces onto the gauze. "I never would have thought of gauze," Pressen had murmured, fascinated at the reconstruction. He was able to assist her in the finer stitching, for his small hands were extremely deft. Nattal, the ancient High Reaches headwoman, forced Moreta to take time for a cup of soup, claiming that she knew the Fort Weyrwoman was only just recovered from the plague and it would give the High Reaches a bad name if Moreta collapsed on them, and then what would happen to Tamianth? It was soon obvious to Moreta that the soup contained a stimulating ingredient, for when she resumed her delicate repair it was with improved concentration and precision. Nonetheless, Moreta was trembling with fatigue by the time she finished.

We must return, Holth said in an inarguable tone.

Moreta was more than willing, but oddly disturbed by some nonspecific anxiety. She looked toward Falga, who was either unconscious or sleeping under the furs of the stretcher. Troubled, Moreta looked over the rocky Bowl, at the other injured dragons.

"You look very pale, Moreta," Pressen said, lightly touching her arm with his red-stained hand. "I'm sure we can handle any other injuries. It was just that-the whole wing! Your work was an inspiration. "

"Thank you. Just keep the bones saturated with numbweed. Once the joints have started to produce ichor, that will coat the wounds and the healing process will begin."

"I had never really considered that dragons get injured by Thread," Pressen said, his expression respectful as he flicked his eyes to the dragons on the ledges and the seven pinnacles.