“Why don’t you both check on him while I take a quick look at his dragon and then we’ll switch?” Terin suggested diplomatically.

Fiona exchanged looks with the Weyr Healer; the compromise seemed acceptable to both of them.

W’jer was one of K’rall’s wing. His right thigh had been seared through to the bone by the same Thread that had lacerated his brown Janorth through to the bones of his neck.

“Good morning, W’jer,” Fiona called as they entered. “How are you this day?”

W’jer’s face was grizzled, weathered from Turns of flying high and squinting into the distance. His hair was disheveled and wavy, his lips drawn in a thin tight line as he fought with the pain of his injury.

“Well enough, weyrwoman,” W’jer replied, nodding to Tintoval and Terin as he spotted them behind her. He sat up in his bed, seeming a bit put back by such an invasion of younger women, and gestured to his injury. “We slept some, last night.”

Tintoval moved around Fiona and gestured for permission to examine his wounds. W’jer nodded and only twitched his lips when she began to unwrap the bandage. Tintoval hissed as the wound was uncovered.

Fiona peered around her and, without changing her expression, pulled a bottle out of the sack she had slung over her shoulder, found some clean gauze, and passed it to the healer. “Sometimes the Thread leaves an infection.”

“I’m going to have to clean out the wound,” Tintoval apologized to the rider as she took the proferred bottle. “This will sting.”

“No worse than Thread, I’m sure,” W’jer said gamely. He set his jaw tight as Tintoval gently poured the peroxide solution over his leg and it foamed as it ate away the infection.

Fiona, with a tight smile of sympathy, reached into her sack again and pulled out a small jar of salve that she passed wordlessly to Tintoval before stepping around her to the service hatch. She quickly scrawled an order for fellis juice and numbweed and sent the tray rushing on its way down to the Kitchen Cavern.

“Numbweed and fellis juice are on their way,” she reported to Tintoval as the healer finished her inspection of the cleaned wound and started applying the healing salve. Tintoval nodded silently. Fiona felt the woman’s stern self-control and laid a hand on her shoulder assuringly.

“You’re doing fine, W’jer,” Fiona said to the brown rider who had noted their exchange with growing alarm. “You’ll be up and about in three sevendays or sooner.”

“And Janorth?”

Fiona turned to look through to the brown dragon’s weyr, caught sight of Terin motioning to her urgently, and said lightly, “Let me go check.”

As soon as Fiona was close enough to speak to in a voice that wouldn’t carry, Terin told her, “He slept badly last night and tore off his bandages.”