WHEN MANKIND FIRST discovered Pern, third planet of the sun Rukbat in the Sagittarian Sector, they paid little attention to the eccentric orbit of the Red Star, another satellite in the system.

Settling the new planet, adjusting to its differences, the colonists spread out across the southern, more hospitable continent. Then disaster struck in the form of a rain of mycorrhizoid organisms, which voraciously devoured all but stone, metal, and water. The initial losses were staggering. But fortunately for the young colony, “Thread,” as the settlers called the devastating showers, was not entirely invincible: Both water and fire would destroy the menace on contact.

Using their old-world ingenuity and genetic engineering, the settlers altered an indigenous life form that resembled the dragons of legend. Bonded with a human at birth, these enormous creatures became Pern’s most effective weapon against Thread. Able to chew and digest a phosphine-bearing rock, the dragons could literally breathe fire and sear the airborne Thread before it could reach the ground. Able not only to fly but to teleport, as well, the dragons could maneuver quickly to avoid injury during their battles with Thread. And their telepathic communication enabled them to work with their riders and with each other to form extremely efficient fighting units.

Being a dragonrider required special talents and complete dedication. Thus the dragonriders became a separate group—set apart from those who held the land against the depredations of Thread, or those whose craft skills produced other necessities of life in their crafthalls.

Over the centuries, the settlers forgot their origins in their struggle to survive against Thread, which fell across the land whenever the Red Star’s eccentric orbit coincided with Pern’s.

There were long intervals, too, when no Thread ravaged the land, when the dragonriders in their Weyrs kept faith with their mighty friends until they would be needed once more to protect the people they were pledged to serve.

One such long interval is coming to a close at the opening of our story; though with a decade to go before another Pass of the Red Star, few are yet aware of its ominous approach. Indeed, few believe Thread will ever fall again. And in the false comfort of that belief, people have grown complacent. With that complacency, discord has arisen in Hold and Hall, setting in motion a chain of events that results in renegades on Pern!

IN THE NORTHWESTERN province of High Reaches, an ambitious man has just begun a campaign of territorial acquisition that will make him the single most powerful Lord Holder on all of Pern. His name is Fax—and he will become legend.

Meanwhile, in the hills of Lemos Hold, in the eastern mountains of Pern…

“He’s here again,” the woman said, peering out the dust-grimed window slit when she heard the clatter of hooves on the cobbles in front of the cothold. “I tol’ ya he’d come back. You’re for it now.” There was a certain note of sly anticipation in her voice.

The slovenly man at the table glanced contemptuously in her direction. His belly was full, though he had grumbled with every mouthful that porridge was no dish to serve a grown man, and he had just decided to do a little fishing.

The metal door of the hold was vigorously pushed in, and before the cotholder could get to his feet, the room was full of determined men, shortswords prominently at their belts. Uttering little shrieks of dismay, the woman flattened herself in the corner of the inner wall, oblivious to the clatter of pans and cups that spilled from the hanging cabinet.

“Felleck, you’re out!” Lord Gedenase said in a cold, harsh voice. He stood, fists on his belt, his dark leather riding cloak fanned by his arms, making him appear much larger than life.

“Out? Out, Lord Gedenase?” Felleck stammered, staggering to his feet. “I was just going out, Lord, to fish for our evening meal—” His voice changed to a plaintive whine. “For we’ve naught to eat but boiled grains.”

“Your hunger no longer concerns me,” Lord Gedenase replied, swiveling to examine the filthy room with its rickety furnishings. His nostrils flared briefly in disgust at the musty smell of accumulated damp and dirt. “Four times you have failed to tithe, despite generous help from my steward to replace your moldy seed grain, your broken, misused tools, and even a draft animal when yours developed foot rot. Now, out! Gather your belongings and get out!”

Felleck was stunned. “Out?”

“Out?” the woman’s voice quavered.

“Out!” Lord Gedenase stepped aside and gestured sternly toward the door. “You have exactly one half hour in which to gather your possessions”—the Lord Holder’s eyebrows twitched with scorn as he glanced about the sordid dwelling– “and leave!”

“But—but—where will we go?” the woman cried despairingly, but she was already gathering up pots and pans.

“Wherever you wish,” the Lord Holder said. Turning on one heel, he strode out of the place, kicking aside a pot lid. He motioned to the steward to oversee the eviction, mounted his runnerbeast, and rode off.

“But we have always been beholden to Lemos,” Felleck said, sniveling and twisting his face into a piteous expression.

“Every hold supports itself and tithes to the Lord Holder,” the steward said impassively, folding his arms. “Yours doesn’t! Twenty-five minutes left!”

Sobbing loudly, the woman dropped her apron-load of pots and covered her ears to block out the implacable verdict. Felleck cuffed her, snarling in bitter rage. “Get the packsack, you stupid pig. Go roll up the bedding. Get moving!”

The eviction was accomplished on time, and Felleck and his woman were driven, staggering under their burdens, down the narrow track, away from their cothold. Felleck turned back once, before the bend hid his former home from sight. He saw the wagon then, drawn up near his empty beasthold; saw a woman holding a babe, an older child beside her on the seat; saw the neatly packed belongings, the sturdy burden beasts yoked to the trace, the milk animal tied to the wagon gate, and he cursed fluidly and fiercely as he pushed the stumbling woman before him.

Under his breath he vowed vengeance on Lord Gedenase—and on all at Lemos Hold—for his humiliation. They would be sorry, they would! He would make every man jack of them sorry!

Fax’s lightning campaign has been successful: He has made himself Lord Holder of High Reaches, Crom, Nabol, Keogh, Balen, Riverbend, and Ruatha, having gained possession by dint of marriage or murder or the ferocity of his marauders. Tillek, Fort, and Boll have called in every ablebodied man, armed them, and drilled them in defensive skills. Beacon fires have been placed on hilltops, and fleet-mounted messengers recruited to bring word of any incursion into their borders. But news of those calamitous events has seeped slowly to the more isolated holdings…

Dowell always knew when visitors were on their way up the wagon track to his mountainhold: shod hooves echoed as noisy clatters from the next valley down.

“A messenger comes, Barla,” he called to his wife as he laid down the plane with which he had been smoothing a fine piece of fellis wood, destined to be part of a ladder-back chair he was making for Lord Kale at Ruatha Hold. He frowned as his ears told him that more than one rider was on the way—and at speed. Then he shrugged, for guests were infrequent, and Barla loved visitors. Though she never complained, he often thought he had been unfair to take her so far up the mountains during spring and summer.