“Mnementh, take me back to the beginning of this Fall. That’d make six hours back. The sun would be at zenith.”

Mnementh didn’t grumble but his thoughts were plain: F’lar was tired, F’lar ought to go back to Benden and rest, talk to Lessa. Jumping between time was hard on a rider.

Cold between enveloped them, and F’lar hastily closed the tunic he’d opened, but not before the cold seemed to eat into his chest bone. He shivered, with more than physical chill, as they burst out over the steamy swamp again. It took more than a few minutes under that blazing sun to counteract the merciless cold. Mnementh glided briefly northward and then hovered, facing due south.

They didn’t have long to wait. High above, the ominous grayness that presaged Threadfall darkened the sky. As often as he had watched it, F’lar never rid himself of fear. And it was harder still to watch that distant grayness begin to separate into sheets and patches of silvery Thread. To watch and to permit it to fall unchecked on the swamp below. To watch as it pierced leaf and green, hissing as it penetrated the mud. Even Mnementh stirred restlessly, his wings trembling as he fought every instinct to dive, flaming, at the ancient menace. Yet he, too, watched as the leading Edge advanced southward, across the swamp, a gray rain of destruction.

Without needing a command, Mnementh landed just short of the Edge. And F’lar, fighting an inward revulsion so strong that he was sure he’d vomit, turned back the nearest hummock, smoking with Thread penetration. Grubs, feverishly active, populated the concourse of the roots. As he held the hummock up, bloated grubs dropped to the ground and frantically burrowed into the earth. He dropped that clump, uprooted the nearest bush, baring the gray, twisted rootball. It also teemed with grub life that burrowed away from the sudden exposure to air and light. The leaves of the bush were still smoldering from Thread puncture.

Not quite certain why, F’lar knelt, pulled up another hummock and scooped up a clump of squirming grubs into the fingers of his riding glove. He twisted it tightly shut and secured it under his belt.

Then he mounted Mnementh and gave him the coordinates of the Masterherdsman’s Crafthall in Keroon, where the foothills that rose eventually to the massive heights of Benden range gently merged with the wide plains of Keroon Hold.

—

Masterherdsman Sograny, a tall, bald, leathery man so spare of flesh that his bones seemed held in position by his laced vest, tight hide pants and heavy boots, showed no pleasure in an unexpected visit from Benden’s Weyrleader.