Dragonflight Read Online Free Page A

curtained from the main hall. Their guide turned to them, his face visible in the wallglows. There was that air about that marked him indefinably as a dragonman. But his face was lined deeply, one side seamed with old burn marks. His eyes, sick with a hungry yearning, dominated his face. He blinked constantly.
    “I am now Lytol,” he said in harsh voice.
    F’lar nodded acknowledgment.
    “You would be F’lar,” Lytol said, “and you F’nor. You both have the look of your sire.”
    F’lar nodded again.
    Lytol swallowed convulsively, the muscles in his face twitching as the presence of dragonmen revived his awareness of exile. He essayed a smile.
    “Dragons in the sky! The news spread faster than Threads.”
    “Nemorth has laid a female.”
    “And Jora dead?” Lytol asked concernedly, his face cleared of its nervous movement for a second. “Hath flew her?”
    F’lar nodded.
    Lytol grimaced bitterly. “R’gul again, huh?” He stared off in the middle distance, his eyelids quiet but the muscles along his jaw taking up the constant movement. “You have the High Reaches? All of them?” Lytol asked, turning back to the dragonman, a slight emphasis on “all.”
    F’lar gave an affirmative nod again.
    “You’ve seen the women.” Lytol’s disgust showed through the words. It was a statement, not a question, for he hurried on. “Well, there are no better in all the High Reaches.” His tone expressed utmost disdain. He eased himself down to the heavy table that half-filled one corner of the small room. His hands were clenched so tightly around the wide belt that secured the loose tunic to his body that the heavy leather was doubled.
    “You would almost expect the opposite, wouldn’t you?” Lytol continued. He was talking too much and too fast. It would have been insultingly rude in another, lesser man. It was the terrible loneliness of the man’s exile from the Weyr that drove him to garrulity. Lytol skimmed the surfaces with hurried questions he himself answered, rather than dip once into matters too tender to be touched—such as his insatiable need for those of his kind. Yet he was giving the dragonmen exactly the information they needed. “But Fax likes his women comfortably fleshed and docile,” Lytol rattled on. “Even the Lady Gemma has learned. It’d be different if he didn’t need her family’s support. Ah, it would be different indeed. So he keeps her pregnant, hoping to kill her in childbed one day. And he will. He will.”
    Lytol’s laughter grated unpleasantly.
    “When Fax came to power, any man with wit sent his daughters down from the High Reaches or drew a brand across their faces.” He paused, his countenance dark and bitter memory, his eyes slits of hatred. “I was a fool and thought my position gave me immunity.”
    Lytol drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, turning full to the two dragonmen. His expression was vindictive, his voice low and tense.
    “Kill that tyrant, dragonmen, for the sake and safety of Pern. Of the Weyr. Of the queen. He only bides his time. He spreads discontent among the other Lords. He—” Lytol’s laughter had an hysterical edge to it now. “He fancies himself as good as dragonmen.”
    “There are no candidates then in this Hold?” F’lar said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the man’s preoccupation with his curious theory.
    Lytol stared at the bronze rider. “Did I not say it? The best either died under Fax or were sent away. What remains is nothing, nothing. Weak-minded, ignorant, foolish, vapid. You had that with Jora. She—” His jaw snapped shut over his next words. He shook his head, scrubbing his face to ease his anguish and despair.
    “In the other Holds?”
    Lytol shook his head, frowning darkly. “The same. Either dead or fled.”
    “What of Ruath Hold?”
    Lytol stopped shaking his head and looked sharply at F’lar, his lips curling in a cunning smile. He laughed mirthlessly.
    “You think to find a Torene or a Moreta