Tai staggered to F'lessan, to help him to reach Golanth, staggered again as her eyes were blurred. Or was it because her legs buckled under her?

That was when she saw the predators launching themselves-all four at full stretch-from the terrace on which she and F'lessan had been sleeping. They must have crept around behind, concealed in the thick vegetation. Zaranth lifted her torso at precisely the right moment-as if she'd seen them from one facet of her red whirling eyes-and reacted. Three crashed into her body and were deflected away. The fourth was still in midair: it would land right on Golanth's shoulders, by the last neck ridge, where there was nothing to protect the dragon's spine. If jaws or talons connected, a single tear could end Golanth's life.

NO! NO! Later Tai would wonder why her throat was raw. She knew she pointed, unable to do more than that, aghast at what would happen if that predator made it to Golanth's back. The bronze dragon would die! F'lessan would die! She would die! "NO! NO! NO!" She'd lose them both! A blur of gold across bronze.

TIME IT!cried Golanth.

That shriek seemed to course along her bones, in her blood until her body trembled violently, and her head seemed ready to burst. Certainly her heart did. A huge blur of gold again rippled across bronze. She had one second to see its claws hooking briefly into Golanth's withers, tearing strips away. Then the feline burst into pieces, gore, entrails, shards of bone and pieces of hide splattering as far away as she stood, across F'lessan's inert, bloodied body. She saw Golanth staggering. Golanth dying? F'lessan would surely wish to die, too!

She dropped to her knees, bereft with the realization, staring at the green ichor staining Golanth's body. He was still swaying with the impact, his left eye oozing a green mixed with red beast blood. Yet he wasn't falling. Did a dragon fall down dead? Too shocked in that moment to go between!Somehow the predator had missed the vital spot. Golanth's head was hanging, canting to the left to favor the damaged eye. Could she cushion his fall? She couldn't even get her knees to work.

Then there were only dragons hovering! Bewildered she gazed up at the wrathful semicircle hovering, wing tip to tip, just above the uppermost terrace: huge golden Ramoth, Arwith, Mnementh, Monarth, Gadareth, Hem, Path, Ruth, and other dragons she did not recognize. She stared at Zaranth, stretched high on her hindquarters, wings spread glistening with smears of ichor-Tai felt the pain in her green's mind. As one, the dragons stretched their heads and bugled in fierce triumph at something she did not understand.

They live!A chorus assured her with such conviction that the devastated Tai collapsed, wondering and grieving at that response, crawling toward F'lessan before she lost consciousness.

She drifted in and out, aware of men and women, conversing in urgent whispers, of the coolness of numbweed easing the pain in her legs and other parts of her that had just started to be sore.

"No, leave himhere until he's been seen by Oldive as well as Wyzall."

"Then the green won't leave. But we should move her rider."

"It's not far to a proper bed in Honshu after all."

"How many dragons will we need to shift him? He cannot be dumped on bare rock, you know!"

"Do we need all these people here?" Tai recognized the Benden Weyrwoman's caustic tones. "At least the dragons have the good sense to stay out of the way until they're needed."

When they lifted her, to bandage her clawed legs, pain roused her.

"No, no, Tai, don't thrash about. An artery must be repaired."

She thought it was Sharra who spoke.

"Golanth's dead! F'lessan?"

"No, no, they live."

"HOW?"

"They do live. Zaranth, tell her!"

They live,said her green in a whispery voice. They live! You live! We live!

She felt a prick in her arm and lost consciousness again.

When she woke, the chant-they live! they live!-was still in her head and she wanted so to believe it. And yes, there was Zaranth's mind, as close to hers as skin.

They live.The green sounded so very tired.

Rest, Zaranth. You can rest now, too.

Yes, Zaranth,another voice said. You may rest now, too.

A cool cloth gently bathed Tai's face and someone was holding her hand.

"Now, listen to me, Tai." The green rider was astonished to see it was Benden's Weyrwoman who sat beside her bed, holding her hand. "F'lessan has been badly wounded. Oldive, Crivellan, Keita, and two of his best surgeons have put him rather neatly back together. Golanth is actually…" Lessa's hands tightened briefly on Tai's fingers and she gave a sort of hiccup before she continued, "worse off. He'll need more repair work when he's stronger. He willlive! Oldive and our best Healers have promised that much."

A memory of the bronze dragon, scored and oozing with thick green ichor, hunks torn out of tail and leg, his faceted eye blanked, weeping ichor, and that final leap to his most vulnerable spot flashed through Tai's mind.

"But he will never be the same," Tai said, her voice breaking.

Lessa tightened her hold. "Who could be the same after that mauling? But he'll fly again. With F'lessan."

Tai struggled up on one elbow to look directly into the gray eyes that were so like F'lessan's. "You wouldn't lie to me?" She was startled to see the fullness of tears in Lessa's eyes; the Weyrwoman irritably blinked them away. "No, green rider, I would not lie to you. Nor would that incredible dragon of yours. Nor will Ramoth or any other dragon on Pern. F'lessan and Golanth will require a great deal of care but Master Oldive is confident that they are physically strong enough to overcome their injuries."

There was something in Lessa's voice that fueled the fear in Tai. She tried to swing her legs to the side of the bed-she had to seeF'lessan-but her legs wouldn't work and she relived that hideous moment when she couldn't get free of the blanket to help F'lessan.

She was pushed back, flat against the pillows. "You've wounds of your own that must heal before you go bouncing out of bed."

That was Sharra's voice.

What were they all doing here? Where was she?

You are in Honshu,and this time it was Ruth speaking to her. Where else would you be?

"And you said she was a biddable girl," Lessa said with characteristic testiness. She gripped Tai's face in both hands and forced her to meet her eyes. "F'lessan's in a fellis sleep. Zaranth, by the way, won't leave Golanth's side. It's as well. She wouldn't fit in this room or she might be tempted to leave her weyrmate."

"Where are they then?" Tai demanded. Honshu's main Hall would not be big enough for two dragons.

"The terrace," Lessa replied calmly. "There's no rain in this season, you know," She turned to one side for a glass. "Sharra will lift you so you can drink this."

"What is it?" Tai asked, suspicious. She didn't want to be put back to sleep. She wanted to check her brave Zaranth, to see F'lessan and Golanth no matter how badly wounded they were.

"Tell me, my dear green rider, how will you be able to care for F'lessan and Golanth if you jeopardize your own recovery?"

It was the phrase "my dear green rider" and the very kind tone in which Lessa spoke that so stunned Tai that she drank down the potion without further struggle.

"I think she did believe me," Tai heard Lessa murmuring as she felt the fellis juice easing the rawness of her throat, radiating through her body and mind.

"I knew she'd believe you"Sharra answered and that was all she heard before she fell into a deep sleep that was therapeutic.

Lessa had told Tai the truth about the other three injured in the felines' attack, but not the whole truth. F'lessan and Golanth were critically injured: the survival of one depended on the other. The experienced Weyrhealer Wyzall had been entirely honest about Golanth's ghastly wounds: the eye, with so many facets pierced by claws, might never function. He'd had fair results with a gel, which healed thread-char in dragon eyes, and he had used this heavily on Golanth's eye, more to provide surface relief than with any real hope of tissue repair or regeneration. He had repaired the wing joint as well as he could and, of course, the sail membrane would, in time, regenerate most, if not all, the torn tissue. There was the possibility that the joint, with judicious exercise and manipulation, might regain partial flexion but "normal" flight was unlikely.