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Chapters (55)
  1. Title Page
  2. Map
  3. Prologue
  4. VOLUME I: DRAGONFLIGHT
  5. Dedicatory Note
  6. PART I Weyr Search
  7. PART II Dragonflight
  8. PART III Dust Fall
  9. PART IV The Cold Between
  10. VOLUME II: DRAGONQUEST
  11. Dedication
  12. I Morning at Mastercrafthall, Fort Hold / Several Afternoons Later at Benden Weyr / Midmorning (Telgar Time) at Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
  13. II Evening (Fort Weyr Time). Meeting of the Weyrleaders at Fort Weyr
  14. III Morning over Lemos Hold
  15. IV Midday at Southern Weyr
  16. V Midmorning at Ruatha Hold / Early Evening at Benden Weyr
  17. VI Midmorning at Southern Weyr / Early Morning at Nabol Hold: Next Day
  18. VII Midmorning at Benden Weyr / Early Morning at the Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
  19. VIII Midmorning at Southern Weyr
  20. IX Afternoon at Southern Weyr: Same Day
  21. X Early Morning in Harpercrafthall at Fort Hold / Afternoon at Telgar Hold
  22. XI Early Morning at Benden Weyr
  23. XII Morning at Benden Weyr / Predawn at High Reaches Weyr
  24. XIII Night at Fort Weyr: Six Days Later
  25. XIV Early Morning at Ruatha Hold / Midday at Benden Weyr
  26. XV Evening at Benden Weyr: Impression Banquet
  27. XVI Evening at Benden Weyr / Later Evening at Fort Weyr
  28. VOLUME III: THE WHITE DRAGON
  29. Dedication
  30. I At Ruatha Hold, Present Pass, 12th Turn
  31. II Benden Weyr, Present Pass, 13th Turn
  32. III Morning at Ruatha Hold, and Smithcrafthall at Telgar Hold, Present Pass, 15.5.9
  33. IV Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, and Various Points Between, 15.5.10-15.5.16
  34. V Morning in Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold, Afternoon in Benden Weyr, Late Afternoon in Harpercraft Hall, 15.5.26
  35. VI Ruatha Hold and Southern Hold, 15.5.27-15.6.2
  36. VII Morning at Ruatha Hold, 15.6.2
  37. VIII Ruatha Hold, Fort Weyr, Fidello’s Hold, 15.6.3-15.6.17
  38. IX Early Summer, Harpercraft Hall and Ruatha Hold, 15.7.3
  39. X From Harpercraft Hall to the Southern Continent, Evening at Benden Weyr, 15.7.4
  40. XI Late Morning at Benden Weyr, Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midday at Fidello’s Hold, 15.7.5
  41. XII Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, Threadfall, 15.7.6
  42. XIII A Cove in the Southern Continent, 15.7.7-15.8.7
  43. XIV Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midmorning at Ista Weyr, Midafternoon at Jaxom’s Cove, 15.8.28
  44. XV Evening at Jaxom’s Cove and Late Evening at Ista Weyr, 15.8.28
  45. XVI At the Cove Hold, 15.8.28-15.9.7
  46. XVII Fort Hold, Benden Weyr, at Cove Hold, and at Sea aboard the Dawn Sister, 15.10.1-15.10.2
  47. XVIII At the Cove Hold the Day of Master Robinton’s Arrival, 15.10.14
  48. XIX Morning at the Cove Hold, Star-gazing in Late Evening, Next Morning, Discovery at the Mountain, 15.10.15-15.10.16
  49. XX At the Mountain and at Ruatha Hold, 15.10.18-15.10.20
  50. XXI Next Day at the Mountain, Cove Hold, and the Southern Hatching Ground, 15.10.21
  51. Afterword
  52. Dragondex
  53. Other Books by Anne McCaffrey
  54. To learn more about other great titles from Ballantine Books . . .
  55. Copyright

“Lord Jaxom, there’s been a Hatching. The queen egg Hatched, it did. You were sent to come but no one could find you.”

“I had other business. Fetch me some numbweed!”

“Numbweed?” The drudge’s eyes widened farther with concern.

“Numbweed! I’m sunburned.”

Rather pleased with his resourcefulness considering he was shivering in wet clothes, Jaxom saw Ruth comfortably situated in his weyr, his injured leg propped up.

It hurt Jaxom to get the tunic over his shoulder because Thread had scored right down the muscle, caught him at the wrist and continued to cut a long furrow down his thigh.

A timid scratching on the door to the main Hold announced the incredibly speedy return of the drudge. Jaxom opened the door wide enough to get the jug of numbweed, and still keep his Threadscores from the curious eyes.

“Thanks, and I’ll want something hot to eat, too. Soup, klah, whatever’s on the fire.”

Jaxom closed the door, scooped up a bathing sheet which he knotted about his middle as he made his way to Ruth. He slathered a fistful of the numbweed on his dragon’s leg and grinned at the sigh of intense relief that Ruth gave as the salve took immediate effect.

Jaxom gratefully echoed the sentiments as he smeared his own wounds. Blessed, blessed numbweed. Never again would he begrudge his labor in gathering the plaquey, thorny greenery from which this incredible balm was stewed. He peered into his looking glass as he daubed his face cut. It’d leave a finger-long scar. No getting around that. Now if he could get around Lytol’s wrath...

“Jaxom!”

Lytol strode into the room after the most perfunctory knock at the door. “You’ve missed the Hatching at Benden Weyr and—” At the sight of Jaxom, Lytol stopped so quickly in midstride that he rocked back on his heels. Clad only in a bathing sheet, the marks on Jaxom’s shoulder and face were quite visible.

“The egg Hatched all right then? Good,” Jaxom responded, picking up his tunic with a nonchalance he wasn’t feeling. “I...” then he stopped, as much because his voice would be muffled in the fabric of his tunic as because he had been about to explain with his customary candor his bizarre night’s work. He balked at the task. Ruth perhaps was right—they had only done what they had to. It was sort of his and Ruth’s private affair. You might even say his actions reflected his unconscious wish to atone for violating Ramoth’s Hatching Ground as a boy. He pulled the shirt over his head, wincing as it caught the numbweed on his cheek. “I heard at Benden,” he said then, “that they were worried whether it would Hatch after all the coming and going between.”

Lytol approached Jaxom slowly, his eyes on the young man’s face, begging the question.