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ways.
    F’lar saw the gouts of flame along the barren heights of the Pass, and Mnementh obediently altered his glide for a better view. F’lar had sent half the wing ahead of the main cavalcade. It was good training for them to skim irregular terrain. He had issued small pieces of firestone with instructions to sear any growths as practice. It would do to remind Fax, as well as his troops, of the awesome ability of dragon-kind, a phenomenon the common folk of Pern appeared to have all but forgotten.
    The fiery phosphine emissions as the dragons belched forth gasses showed the pattern well flown. R’gul could argue against the necessity of firestone drills, he could cite such incidents as that which had exiled Lytol, but F’lar kept the tradition—and so did every man who flew with him, or they left the wing. None failed him.
    F’lar knew that the men reveled as much as he did in the fierce joy of riding a flaming dragon; the fumes of phosphine were exhilarating in their own way, and the feeling of power that surged through the man who controlled the might and majesty of a dragon had no parallel in human experience. Dragon-riders were forever men apart once First Impression had been made. And to ride a fighting dragon, blue, green, brown, or bronze, was worth the risks, the unending alertness, the isolation from the rest of mankind.
    Mnementh dipped his wings obliquely to slide through the narrow cleft of the Pass that led from Crom to Ruatha. No sooner had they emerged from the cut than the difference between the two Holds was patent.
    F’lar was stunned. Through the last four Holds he had been sure that the end of the Search lay within Ruatha.
    There had been that little brunette whose father was a clothman in Nabol, but . . . And a tall, willowy girl with enormous eyes, the daughter of a minor Warder in Crom, yet . . . These were possibilities, and had F’lar been S’lel or K’net or D’nol, he might have taken the two in as potential mates, although not likely Weyrwomen.
    But throughout he had reassured himself that the real choice would be found to the south. Now he gazed on the ruin that was Ruatha, his hopes dispersed. Below him, he saw Fax’s banner dip in the sequence that requested his presence.
    Mastering the crushing disappointment he felt, he directed Mnementh to descend. Fax, roughly controlling the terrified plunging of his earthbound mount, waved down into the abandoned-looking valley.
    “Behold great Ruatha of which you had such hopes,” he enjoined sarcastically.
    F’lar smiled coolly back, wondering how Fax had divined that. Had F’lar been so transparent when he had suggested Searching the other Holds? Or was it a lucky guess on Fax’s part?
    “One sees at a glance why goods from the High Reaches are now preferred,” F’lar made himself reply. Mnementh rumbled, and F’lar called him sharply to order. The bronze one had developed a distaste bordering on hatred for Fax. Such antipathy in a dragon was most unusual and of no small concern to F’lar. Not that he would have in the least regretted Fax’s demise, but not at Mnementh’s breath.
    “Little good comes from Ruatha,” Fax said in a voice that was close to a snarl. He jerked sharply at the bridle of his beast, and fresh blood colored the foam on its muzzle. The creature threw its head backward to ease the painful bar in its mouth, and Fax savagely smote it a blow between the ears. The blow, F’lar observed, was not intended for the poor, protesting beast but for the sight of unproductive Ruatha “I am the overlord. My proclamation went unchallenged by any of the Blood. I am in my rights. Ruatha must pay its tribute to its legal overlord. . . .”
    “And hunger the rest of the year,” F’lar remarked dryly, gazing out over the wide valley. Few of its fields were plowed. Its pastures supported meager herds. Even its orchards looked stunted. Blossoms that had been so profuse on trees in Crom, the next valley over, were