Alta

TWENTY

IT didn’t look like anything at all, really; just a faint, grayish haze on the surface of the three ripe tala berries in Kiron’s hand. It could have been dust, except that dust didn’t rub off. It could have been almost anything, or nothing at all, just an odd color on the hard little berries. Kiron handed them back to Heklatis, who took them with a smile and a raised eyebrow. “The harvest looks good this year,” he said.
“Yes,” Heklatis replied blandly. “They’re all like that, plump and well-colored. From here to the southern border of Tia, or so I’m told by the few who venture there. Whatever else, the rains were good for the tala.”
Lord Khumun nodded gravely. “So a week to dry, and then we can use them, which is just as well, since I think we have scarcely a week in stockpile.” He knew, of course. He had frowned at the odd color of the berries, had looked up at Heklatis who had nodded, then both of them smiled, just a little. Kiron contained his glee with an effort, for he knew that the Tians had no more tala stockpiled than the Altans did. The Altan agents had not been able to steal any tala, but they had done the next best thing; during the rains, they had made holes in the roofs of the storage rooms where it was kept, to deny it to the enemy. The rain and the rot that followed spoiled it, or most of it. Only the tala actually stored at the Jousters’ Compound had been spared.
Lord Khumun’s smile was a weary one; once the rains had ended, his lot had been fraught with difficulty, for the Magus placed in governance over all of them had flexed his muscles and ordered impossible things. A return to traditional Jousting; that had been the first thing, of course—well, he could order all he wanted, but the Magi could not compel obedience on the battlefield, at least, not yet, and the Jousters had bowed their heads and continued with Kiron’s tactics. But besides that, he had ordered all of them into the sky, twice a day, every day, with no rest and little recovery for the injured, and that was taking a toll on them. As tired as they had been during the rains, they were bone-weary now. Lord Khumun’s sad smile told Kiron that he would be glad to see an end to the situation at last, even though it meant there would be no more Jousters and he would have no more command.
Kiron could not imagine what the Magi were thinking of. Were they trying to be rid of the Jousters themselves? It seemed unlikely—
Or were they only trying to get rid of the old Jousters, seeking to replace them with young men of their choosing?
Kiron decided to ask Heklatis about that, this evening. Right now, he had a practice session to run.
They had gone back to using that distant practice field the day that the rains started to taper off, even though the senior Jousters were so much in the air that they didn’t have time, much less the need, to practice. Kiron didn’t want an audience where the Magi could see that they had gathered one. He did not want attention drawn to his wing.
They did have an audience, though, for their new exercises, which were quite exciting, even though there wasn’t a single person out there other than the wing and Heklatis who knew what they were for.
He got back to the pen in time to find his dragon boy cinching the last strap down on Avatre; he checked them all, as he always did, and smiled. “Good job,” he said. “As always.”
The lad grinned, as he gave Avatre the command to kneel. No more vaulting into the saddle from the ground for him anymore; Avatre had gotten too big for that. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind now that tala slowed the dragons’ growth as well as dulling their minds and instincts. Avatre was much bigger than her mother had been, and might even be a hair bigger than Kashet when he last saw Ari’s dragon, and she still had another two to four years of growth ahead of her. She was bigger than every other adult desert dragon in the compound.
He gave her the signal to fly, and she leaped straight up from the pen, just as Kashet always had. He took her up over the compound and waited, circling on a thermal, while the rest finished their harnessing and joined him. They lined up in a V-shaped formation, with Avatre at the point, and headed for the practice grounds.
He was the target, since Avatre was the oldest and most experienced flyer. By now she could perform everything he remembered Kashet doing, which meant that she could outperform most, if not all, of the Tian dragons. The exercises they were all running now—which would be crucial very soon—were harassing maneuvers. Kiron had gone to the swamps and watched as the swamp dragons challenged each other and drove each other out of hunting territories. Then he had come home and taught the harassment techniques to the wing. Avatre hated this; what the others were doing spoke to her deepest instincts, and she wanted, badly, to turn on them. That she didn’t bespoke her deep bond of trust with Kiron; he only wished he could reward her patience as it deserved.
Tala-drugged dragons would respond with irritation, but would continue to obey their riders. Undrugged dragons, or those for whom the tala was wearing off, would try to chase the interlopers out of their territory until they realized that the dragon was immature—he’d seen that, too, in the swamp. Then they would realize that there was a sky full of better targets and potential mates, and there were wretched little hairless baboons on their backs that should be gotten rid of before the proper business of draconic life could be taken up.
And that would be the end of the Jousters.
There was still one matter that he had not come up with a plan for—warning the Altan Jousters of what was to come. He wanted to do that; it didn’t seem at all fair not to. But there might be one or more among them who would tell the Magus, and he did not know what would happen then. . . .
But that was a week or more away, and he still had time to think of a plan, or so he hoped.
They arrived at the practice field, which was just on the inside of the Seventh Canal. On the other side were the great estates and small, unprotected villages. He was not particularly surprised to see that there was a crowd gathered to watch. At least, this was so far out that it was unlikely there were any Magi here to note that they were not practicing traditional Jousting. He set Avatre up; the others went higher; each of them would take it in turn to harass her. She hissed; she knew what was coming, and she hated it.
The wild-caught dragons would hate it even more. And when the battle was over, and all the dragons scattered, Kiron’s wing would fly due west until—well, probably until they picked up a guide at the edge of the desert. Kashet had found them once; presumably he would find them again. It was a more tenuous plan than Kiron liked, but it was a lot less fragile than it had been before Marit and Nofret had been forced to flee.
The search for them had begun—discreetly—two weeks after their actual escape, but it had not been kept quiet for long. Too many people knew, and more people were involved all the time as the search spread outward. Nothing had been found; their choice of collaborators had been perfect. Not that this had stopped the Magi’s plan; the “twin” Magi had simply been rebetrothed to another set of girl twins—only this was a pair of toddlers. The marriage would not be able to take place for another decade at best, though this was nothing more than a postponement.
Given their recent record, it was entirely possible that the spouses of some other set of royal female twins—including the current Heirs-apparent—might come to an unfortunate end. People would talk, but if nothing could be proved. . . .
Huras and his dragon came down first. Kiron ducked, as they few by close enough that Tathulan’s talons brushed his back. Avatre snapped; he didn’t bother to stop her reflexive action, because their enemies would do the same, and he wanted the youngsters to learn to avoid the deadly jaws. Tathulan dodged neatly out of the way with a squeal, and Huras side-slipped her out of the way.
It was all horribly depressing, and it made Kiron want to throw himself into a canal and drown sometimes. Only the promise of Kaleth’s visions kept him going, these days, for if things in the compound were bad, things in the city were worse.
It seemed as if every time he looked, someone else had been taken up for treason. The Temple of the Twins was actually closed; supposedly, because the Winged Ones were so important to Alta, they were husbanding their strength so that they could answer the Great Ones’ needs on the instant. Kiron knew the truth, though, and it was exactly as he and Aket-ten had feared.
The Magi had exhausted the Fledglings completely, leaving many of them without power anymore, and even some feebleminded or comatose. The Winged Ones, older and stronger and better trained, had resisted being burned out in that way, and now that the rains were over, they might be left alone to recover. But with no new Fledglings left to train to replace those who had failed—and another season of rains ahead—there was no telling what was going to happen. Certainly the people of Alta were now vulnerable to earthshakes in a way that they had not been for generations. And already there had been mutterings about “testing” the Healers to see if they could “aid” the Magi as well as the Winged Ones could.
Heklatis said that there was rebellion among the Healers, though; so much so that no Magi would be allowed to get near the Temple of All Gods, much less inside it. And if anyone tried—well, they would have to bring a force big enough to overpower all the Healers and all their servants, and there were weapons being improvised that would probably break any spells of coercion such as were apparently used on the Winged Ones. Heklatis said such things required the Magi’s concentration; they’d be hard put to concentrate after getting facefuls of vinegar or lemon juice—or having leeches drop from the ceiling on them. If the Healers felt savage—
You shouldn’t anger someone who knows as much about pain as a Healer does.
Re-eth-ke and Menet-ka’s Bethlan came in together, one on either side of him, moving fast. Fast enough to knock Avatre down a few feet with the turbulence of their passing. Avatre was too busy trying to recover to notice that Orest’s blue Wastet was right behind them; he came in low enough to snatch one of the tear-away streamers from Avatre’s saddle with his foreclaws. Avatre was enraged, and gave chase; Kiron was thrilled. They could get an entire wing aroused with a single pass with moves like that!
And just as Avatre started to gain on the fleeing dragonets, they parted, going left, right, and straight up—and there, coming straight at them, was Oset-re and Apetma. Avatre yelped, and folded her wings to drop. Apetma passed right through the spot where she had been.
Poor Avatre had had enough. She went all the way to the ground, and Kiron had to spend a goodly amount of time soothing her hurt feelings while the others chased after each other to catch streamers in a general melee. She might have a ruffled temper, but he was extremely satisfied. The tala could run out tomorrow, and they would be ready.
Except for telling their own Jousters what was about to happen.
He still had no answer for that question.
When they got back to the compound, they all landed in the landing courtyard; not even Avatre was quite skilled enough yet to land in her own pen. Once down, he made sure to spend some time walking Avatre around to all the other dragons before they all went back to their pens, to make certain they were all friends again. Aket-ten went with him, “talking” to Avatre about it, and to the others as well.
“Does it do any good?” he asked her anxiously as they walked Avatre and Re-eth-ke back together. “Do they understand?”
“Actually, I think so, more each time we do this.
Avatre understands that this is part of training, and I think she understands that the others are harassing her because their riders are asking them to, not because this was their idea.” She smiled slightly. “I was going to say, ‘not because they want to,’ but I’m afraid they get a great deal of gleeful pleasure out of harassing her and getting away with it. But it’s like good-natured children being given permission to be naughty, not real aggression.”
“Good,” he said, with a sigh of relief. “The last thing we need is to have them start attacking each other right now.”
They parted then, with Aket-ten taking Re-eth-ke on back to her pen, and Kiron turning into Avatre’s. He and his dragon boy got her unharnessed and fed; once she had settled, he went to see Heklatis.
He found the Healer with one of the senior Jousters, splinting a broken arm. Kiron was shocked; a broken arm was not the only injury the man had sustained. His face was a mass of bruises, and so was the half of his body that had the broken arm.
“What happened?” he blurted.
The man grunted. “Strap saved my life. Tian had a lance with a wood core and a stone tip inside the papyrus. If I hadn’t been belted into the saddle, I’d be dead.” It was a little hard to understand him; his lips and jaw were so swollen that his words were slurred and muffled.
“They were following orders,” Heklatis said neutrally. “They were Jousting. However, no one told them that the Tians had new lances.”
“Bigger dragons to start with, and lances like that—we’ve not got a chance,” the Jouster growled. He might have said more, but at that moment, Lord Khumun, and what seemed like all of the senior Jousters in the compound descended on Heklatis’ quarters like a storm. All of them were shouting, or at least talking, at once, and all of them were angry. Heklatis shook his head at them; Kiron couldn’t make out more than a word or two either. Finally Lord Khumun held up a hand for silence.
Miraculously, he got it.
“What is this all about?” Heklatis asked, aghast.
“The Magus just gave orders that every senior Jouster is to fly every flight, no matter what!” shouted someone from the back. “He included everyone on the injured list by name! Even you, Ah-sheptah!”
“What?” The injured man and Heklatis spoke—or rather bellowed—at the same time. The cacophony started again. Lord Khumun held up his hand, and it died.
But it was Kiron who spoke first. “My Lords,” he said, enunciating each word with such care that he was sure even the most stupid of them would understand that he meant something far more than he was saying. “I do believe that my wing and I can help you with some new strategy. Will you rouse your mounts and come with me to our practice field? Lord Khumun, I can take you, Heklatis, you should go with Aket-ten, and my Lord Ah-sheptah, I believe you ought to ride behind Huras, rather than flying just now. Will you come?”
They stared at him for a moment, as if he was a baboon that had somehow produced human speech. Then Lord Khumun said, “Jousters, I think this is a very good idea. We need to practice where no one will interfere with us—”
There were still looks of total bewilderment, but no one demurred. In fact, after the first few began taking hesitant steps toward their dragon pens, the rest followed. Kiron and Heklatis helped the injured Jouster to his feet, and made their way to the boys’ pens. Fortunately, he met them in the corridor just as they were about to go elsewhere.
“Get the dragons harnessed and up,” he ordered shortly, to their astonishment. “We need to go to the practice field. Aket-ten, you have Heklatis, Huras, you take this man. Fast! I want to get there and back before anyone notices!”
The wing understood, at any rate. And to his immense satisfaction, although they were the last to know, they were all the first into the air, even Huras, with the injured Jouster.
They led the way to their field, and landed there. The dragons had all just been fed (and drugged) and were sleepy—and while they were irritated at being forced to fly, they were inclined to lie right down on the warm grass in the sun and bask rather than quarrel or wander. Simply staking their reins down kept them in one place. The Jousters all gathered around Kiron and Lord Khumun, who both looked to Heklatis.
“Give me a moment,” the Healer muttered. He closed his eyes, and began to chant under his breath, and shortly he was sweating as if he was trying to shove a heavy stone up a ramp all by himself. He grew paler, too—and just when he began to sway a little with exhaustion, he stopped, opened his eyes—and sat down hard in the grass.
“They won’t find us, not for a while,” he said heavily. “And if they try to scry, what they’ll see is all of you practicing up there—” he pointed at the sky above.
“He’s a Magus, as well as a Healer,” Kiron explained to the baffled faces. “And—that’s where our story begins, I suppose.”
He explained everything; Toreth’s original plan, and why he had decided to make the Jousters into a force to make the Tians forge a real peace, their long discussions, the change in the plan after Toreth’s murder by the Magi, Kaleth’s visions—and finally, what they had done to the tala. “In a few days, you’ll be using the new stuff,” he told them. “And so will they. Once the dragons aren’t drugged anymore, we thought they would probably obey for a while out of habit, but we planned to go along on one last flight and—goad the Tian dragons into rage, so they’d throw their riders and escape. We were going to warn you so that you could ride your dragons down to the ground and turn them loose.”
Silence. Kiron began to sweat. Told out like this, to senior Jousters—it didn’t seem like such a good plan anymore.
“The Magi are trying to kill us anyway,” growled the injured man. “Isn’t that obvious? It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”
After a moment, there was some muttering of agreement. “But why?” asked someone else in a bewildered voice. “That’s what I don’t understand!”
All eyes went back to Kiron, who was still in a cold sweat. “I don’t know,” he said finally, “but at practice today, I started to wonder something. What if they wanted to replace all of you with their own men? I mean—Heklatis thinks that the Eye can’t be used on cloudy days or at night, and it’s not really good enough to get one person—but a dragon and rider are. What if he wanted to replace all of you with men who would—follow orders, and if those orders were to use your dragons on Altans, would do it without question?”
Silence again, but this time, utterly stunned. The injured man sat down with a thud.
“Blessed gods,” said one.
Heklatis looked as if he had swallowed a sea urchin. “The theory fits,” he said, with so much barely-suppressed rage in his voice that those nearest him took a step back. “And what a fine way to besiege a place and prevent anyone who might help from coming near it! Such as—the Temple of All Gods?”
A gasp met his words, but no one disagreed with him. That this violated everything every Altan believed in was so obvious that it didn’t need saying.
It was Lord Khumun who broke that third silence, by turning to Kiron, removing his sash of office, and offering it to Kiron. “It is your plan, young Lord Kiron,” he said, simply. “Lead us.”
Kiron stared at the sash, then into Lord Khumun’s face. All he could feel was panic; all he could think of was, I don’t want to be a leader!
But his hands took the sash by themselves, his mouth opened, and words came out.
“I think that this will work—”

Above the wing, nothing but sky. Below the wing—so far below that they looked like fancifully colored little songbirds—were the dragons of Alta.
“You have ordered all the Jousters into the sky, my Lord Magus. We are not the best, but we are ready.”
For the past two days, the dragons had been restive as the old tala wore out of their systems. By now, the larger dragons of Tia must be getting very touchy indeed. Their dragon boys would be giving them higher doses of the false tala. It would hold for a while, but not long. Certainly not long enough to get them through what Kiron’s wing was about to inflict on them.
The Magus stared at him, then smiled. He looked exactly like a crocodile. “Well done, Jouster Kiron. I will commend your loyalty and zeal to serve to the Great Ones.”
Somewhere out there in the desert, he hoped, Kaleth was waiting.
Whether they would all survive to reach him was another story. These were not fellow wingmates that they were about to harass. These were full-grown desert dragons, all wild-caught, and now, all of very uncertain temper.
Except, of course, for a single tame dragon that Kiron especially did not want to face.
What would the Magi think, when none of the Jousters returned, and they found a compound peopled only by slaves and servants? He hoped they would think that all of them had died, and that Lord Khumun and Heklatis had deserted, rather than be held responsible for such a massive failure. He really, truly hoped that the Magi would send out trappers to take wild dragons and try the false tala on them. That would be—festive.
Somewhere, down there, was a covered ox cart carrying an old peasant man and a quarrelsome old woman, heading east. Hidden in the cart, beneath a false bottom, were a dozen images of Akkadian gods and goddesses—and one statue of a comely woman that was not a goddess—along with all the wealth that Lord Khumun and Heklatis could put together. Heklatis had looked disturbingly comfortable in that linen gown and woman’s wig. But the statues ensured that the Magi might look for them, but they would not find them.
They had all worn Jousting armor and carried lances. The moment that they passed over the Seventh Canal, the armor and lances had come falling out of the sky like a strange rain.
No one was going to be encumbered today. No one was fighting today. The senior Jousters were going to let the Tians chase them until their own dragons got too restive—then they were going to take them down behind the Altan lines and let them go. That was the plan, anyway.
No more need for Jousting armor. There would be no more Jousters. There might be dragon riders, but there would be no more Jousters.
Down there, so far below that they looked like ants, were the Tian and Altan armies—and there—coming up from the south, were the Tian Jousters.
Up here it all seemed so very simple, and Kiron’s mind felt strangely detached. Was this how the gods saw things, as tiny figures at a distance? It was impossible to tell individual warriors on the ground, and even the dragons were little more than scraps of color, swirling around each other, as if moved by the wind. If so, no wonder the gods failed to answer prayers. You couldn’t see blood from up here; you couldn’t see death, or suffering.
But I’m not a god, Kiron thought, taking in a sudden deep breath of air as the first of the little bits of color broke off and headed for the ground. And I may not see it, but I know it’s there. It’s time to do what I can to stop it.
He gave Avatre the signal to dive.
He didn’t have to see his wing following his lead; he felt it. He didn’t want Aket-ten to be here, but—but he needed every dragon, and little Re-eth-ke was the smartest, the swiftest, the most agile of them all. And besides, he couldn’t have kept Aket-ten away short of knocking her out, stuffing her in a bag, and putting her in Lord Khumun’s cart.
And he knew very well what would happen to him then, if he made it to Sanctuary . . . Aket-ten would finish what the Tian Jousters started.
He picked out a dragon, a big one, a blue-and-green, chasing an Altan brown swamp dragon. He gave Avatre the signal for a raking attack without the claws.
The Tian never even knew he was coming; all he knew was that suddenly something big and red came up from behind, moving twice as fast as he was, and nearly knocked him out of his saddle with the buffeting wake of its passage.
And his dragon, already giving him trouble, went mad.
Kiron glanced back over his shoulder. The Tian had broken off the original chase and was now after him. There was another pair of Tians ahead of him, with just barely enough room between them to fit a third—he decided on the instant to fill that gap, and kept Avatre going straight ahead while she still had the momentum of her dive.
She blew through the two of them; he glanced back. The purple blundered into the gold-and-green, then the blue crashed into both of them. Angry screeches, the first he had ever heard from a dragon, followed him as he sent Avatre into a wingover and headed her back up for more height. She rowed her wings in the air, all business, ignoring the chaos she had left behind.
He looked down. There were dull-colored dragons and a few bright ones flying free, now. The dull ones were streaking back for the marshes of Alta, tearing bits of their harness off as they went. The bright ones seemed confused.
He spotted another good target; a pair of Tian dragons going for the grounded Altan Jousters, although their Jousters seemed to be having some difficulty in getting them to go where they wanted. This time he didn’t even have to give Avatre a signal; she seemed to sense where he was looking, as she had when they hunted in the desert together, and plunged downward toward the new target.
This time she chose her own attack; the fisted one. Kiron felt the thump as she hit something, though whether it was the dragon or the Jouster, he could not have told for sure. She bounced back up; the dragon she hit blundered into the second, and that was two more Tians out of the melee.
As she clawed for height again, he took a look below. Now the Tian dragons in pursuit were chasing his wingmates, and even as he watched, he saw two of them break off, writhing and bucking in the air, deciding suddenly that the irritating nuisances on their backs were worse than the irritating nuisances that were harassing them.
Avatre paused at the top of her climb—
And suddenly Kiron’s vision was filled with a blue-and-gold dragon.
Bleak eyes stared through him from within the slits of a Jousting helmet.
“I told you not to get on the other side of a Joust from me!” Ari shouted, his voice hollow, his words filled with anger and pain. And he struck for Kiron with his lance.
But Avatre was faster, and she had been learning evasive moves from the moment Kiron entered the Altan compound.
She did a wingover, and Ari’s lance swished through empty air. She turned the wingover into a dive, heading for the ground this time. Kiron did not have to look behind to know that Kashet was in hot pursuit.
This was a mistake; Kashet was as good at ground-scorching dives as Avatre, and he had more practice. He touched Avatre with a signal; she responded instantly, flipping over in a side-slip tumble that put them upside-down for an instant.
Kashet shot past. Kiron sent Avatre up, and back in the opposite direction. It happened to be east.
Time to run.
He gave her the signal she wanted.
For the second time in her life, Kashet pursued Avatre into the desert. This time the odds were better; she was stronger, bigger, and faster, with infinitely more endurance. He hadn’t known that Ari was trying to help them the first time, he’d thought that the Jouster, his Master, was trying to catch them to bring them back to a mutual captivity.
Now he didn’t know what Ari wanted, but he knew what Ari’s devotion to duty would make him try to do, and he didn’t want to find out if friendship would win over duty.
He leaned down over Avatre’s neck, making himself as small as possible—and then gave her an entirely different signal.
He dropped the reins. She was the best judge of what to do now; he would live or die by her instinct and ability.
She responded at first only by deepening her wingbeats and making her climb a little steeper. Then she turned her head, just a trifle—looked back over her own shoulder—and did a wingover to the left.
Once again, Kashet shot past. This time, though, he fanned his wings furiously to brake—and she shot past him as she turned her wingover into a shallow dive and continued on eastward. She had tricked him into dumping his speed!
Kiron’s heart leaped. Kashet had never fought a dragon that was his equal before, but Avatre had been training with eight other tame dragons. So he might have more Jousting experience, but she knew how to trick another dragon.
Kiron longed to look back, but resisted the temptation. The battlefield was far behind them, but they were still not over the desert yet. Avatre turned her dive into a climb, and glanced back.
And ducked, spilling the wind from her wings. Kashet shot by overhead.
This isn’t good—he’s got more speed now and more height than we do—
And two more dragons shot past, a blue-black and silver-blue blur, and a purple-blue-scarlet beauty; Tathulan, who was nearly the size of Kashet, and Re-eth-ke. The largest and the smartest!
Kashet was in the middle of a wingover when Tathulan bulled past, using her own wake to send Kashet into a tumble. But the tumble sent Kashet where he wanted to go, straight into Avatre and the great blue locked claws with her and they began to plummet toward the earth in an obscene echo of a mating fall.
Kiron screamed in terror, seeing his death rushing toward him—
A blue-black-and-silver thunderbolt struck both of them. Re-eth-ke had rammed them with chest and fisted foreclaws. Kiron caught sight of Aket-ten’s ashen face for a moment, then Re-eth-ke flapped away. But the blow had startled Kashet so that he let go, and Avatre wrenched free.
She snapped her wings open; with a jar that shook him to his teeth, she backwinged for a moment, then got control again and lumbered upward.
Another indigo dragon scorched past her; Bethlan, cutting between Avatre and Kashet. Another—this time a red-and-sand streak that was Deoth. Kashet wasn’t going to be distracted; Kiron could almost feel Kashet’s hot breath on the back of his neck. He was going to close again—
Avatre ducked, and tumbled—and Apetma, Se-atmen and Wastet slammed into Kashet from three sides in a copper, brown, and brilliant blue pinwheel.
Kiron had often heard from old fighters that, at a moment of extreme crisis, time seems to slow. He had never believed that until this moment, when he saw Ari’s body jounce upward in his saddle—saw the restraining strap snap with a sound like a whip crack, and watched Ari tumble down over Kashet’s shoulder with the same graceful, languid motion as a petal dropping from a flower—
His mouth opened. He thought he shouted. He knew he gave Avatre a signal she knew better than any other.
She fought out of her tumble; stretched out her neck. Made one desperate wingbeat. A second. And on the third, got under Ari’s falling body with that expert flip of her head and neck that tossed him, sliding down the neck to lodge against the saddle—
But not quite right.
Ari slipped, and slid off her right shoulder.
Kiron screamed again, and grabbed for Ari’s arm as he fell for the second time. He caught it, and was slammed against Avatre’s neck by the sudden weight. She struggled for control; he howled with anguish as his arm seemed to flame with pain. He felt his fingers slipping, looked down into Ari’s eyes, and saw bleak despair and resignation.
Slowly, agonizingly, Kiron’s grip slipped as Avatre lumbered sideways, pulled over by the weight. She didn’t know what to do, and he couldn’t tell her to land without letting go of Ari—
The fingers slid—down the forearm.
Wrist.
Gone.
Just as Re-eth-ke slid right underneath.
Ari landed across Re-eth-ke’s shoulders. Astride.
He screamed in pain. Kiron didn’t blame him. But at least while he was racked with pain, he wasn’t fighting anyone; Aket-ten wrapped her arms around him and sent Re-eth-ke to the ground; Re-eth-ke was perfectly happy to go.
The rest followed her down; panting and weak with reaction, Kiron let Avatre drift in a slow spiral behind them. He didn’t even think about Kashet—
Until they landed beside Re-eth-ke, and Aket-ten, who had Ari on the ground beside her, and the great blue-and-gold dragon powered out of the sky like a lightning bolt, heading straight for them.
This time it was Avatre who interposed herself between Kashet and his prey, while Kiron howled, his voice cracking, “Kashet! NO!”
And Kashet—stopped.
A strange look came into the blue dragon’s eyes, and his nostrils dilated as he sniffed in Kiron’s direction. “Kashet,” he said hoarsely, “You know me. We didn’t mean to hurt him. We’ll make him better.”
The dragon sniffed again, and made a gurgling whine in the back of his throat. Kiron slid down off Avatre’s shoulder; his knees were wobbly, but they held him. He stepped toward Kashet, holding out his hand. “Kashet,” he said as calmly as he could, “Remember? Remember Vetch?”
Kashet lowered his head down and sniffed his palm—
—and sighed.
Then folded his legs underneath himself with a groan, and dropped down into the sand.
Sand?
Kiron looked around. They had reached the edge of the desert, and he hadn’t even noticed.
He patted Avatre, who walked over to Kashet and sniffed him with deep suspicion, then stood guard over him. He trudged over to where the others were gathered around Ari—well, all but Aket-ten. She was leaning against Re-eth-ke, just out of sight of the others, leaning against her dragon’s shoulder. She looked white as fine linen, and he didn’t feel much better.
He knelt down next to Ari, who was clearly in pain.
“Let me, young Kiron.”
The hand on his shoulder was attached to an arm clothed in Bedu blue; a moment later, the hand had gone to Ari’s forehead, and the Bedu was whispering a few unfamiliar words. The agony left Ari’s face, but now the pain there was of a very different sort. He looked straight into Kiron’s eyes.
“Why didn’t you let me die?” he asked bitterly.
“And years ago, why didn’t you let me?” Kiron replied without thinking.
“Because there has been enough of death on both sides, fools,” the Mouth of the Bedu said roughly. “And enough of wallowing in self-pity. Get up, Jouster, who is a Jouster no more.” And he grasped Ari’s wrist, and hauled him to his feet, turning him so that he faced into the west.
Dozens of brightly colored dots were speeding overhead, coming toward them. One shot past directly overhead, and a little later a bit of harness fell out of the sky to hit Gan in the head.
“Ow!” Gan shouted, indignantly, and shook his fist at the retreating dragon. “We freed you, ungrateful wretch! Ingrate!”
“There are no more Jousters, Ari, rider of Kashet,” said the Bedu. “Neither Tian, nor Altan. There never will be again. You are freed of your oaths.”
Ari—blinked. His lips twitched. “You, who speak for your gods, claim that?”
“No,” said Kaleth, pushing his way between Oset-re and Pe-atep. “I, who speak for the gods of both Tia and Alta, say that.”
This was not a Kaleth that Kiron had ever seen before. Leaner, browner, full of fire and energy, and with a look to his eyes as if he had seen all there was of pleasure and pain and had come to accept both as part of a greater whole. Now it was Kiron’s turn to blink.
And all he could think was, If only Toreth were here to see this. He would be so happy—and so proud. For Kaleth, who had always stood in his brother’s shadow, had come into his own.
Kaleth had something else new—around his neck was the hawk pectoral of a Priest of Haras, and on both shoulders were tattoos of the symbol of the Winged Ones.
“Priest?” said Ari falteringly.
“And Winged One of Alta,” replied Kaleth. He took Ari’s upper arm in a firm grasp. “And as both, I say to you—you are freed of your oaths, which had come to strangle you. There are no more Jousters. The dragons will answer to no bond save love. And so, you have no duty to return to. I give you the wings of the hawk, to choose your fate. You may go anywhere you choose, and leave behind everything that has caused you such pain as made you ask ‘Why did you not let me die?’ ”
“Or?” asked Ari, looking into Kaleth’s eyes.
“Or—you may accept that pain, accept the burden of responsibility once again, and help us to do somewhat that may—may—bring a cure to the disease that rots both Tia and Alta.” Kaleth’s gaze was steady. “I promise nothing. The future is in flux, and my visions are not clear. But this I do pledge; those who join us in Sanctuary are vowed with one heart to the goal of ending this wretched war and casting down those who fatten upon it. We have hands, we have plans, and we will try.”
Ari closed his eyes, and Kiron held his breath. He felt as if he balanced on the edge of a knife blade. He didn’t know why it was so important to have Ari with them—other than to himself, that is—but he sensed that it was.
And so did Kaleth. But Kaleth was giving him the choice, to stay or to go, of his own will.
Ari opened his eyes, and looked straight at Kiron—then past Kiron, to where Avatre guarded an exhausted Kashet.
And he smiled.
“Take me to this Sanctuary of yours,” he said. “I should like to try.”