Alta

by Mercedes Lackey

  Since this was a combat maneuver, they would aim straight for the target, and at the last possible moment, the rider would launch a javelin at it. What with being thrown from the back of a speeding dragon, when the javelins hit, they usually went all the way through the straw targets, out the other side, and buried themselves a good hand-length into the dirt. How often they did hit depended on the skill of the rider. Orest was the most accurate of the boys, hitting his targets well over three quarters of the time, Huras the least, a little better than three out of ten. Kiron himself was somewhere in the middle, and as a consequence, preferred to use the weapon he was most familiar with, the sling. Using a lead pellet instead of a clay one, he was usually able to knock the target’s “head” clean off with an accuracy comparable to Orest with a javelin.

  This was very popular with the spectators on the ground, who actually got to see something besides pretty patterns in the sky. It was heartening for them, too; it was one thing to hear about distant victories, it was quite another to see your fighters actually doing something that looked effective and aggressive.

  Even the older Jousters had gotten inspired by the successes of the youngsters to try as much of what was being done in fledgling practice as they could command their own dragons to cooperate with. And there, unfortunately, Aket-ten could do only so much. While she could dominate every fighting dragon in the compound now, that only meant that they would obey her, not their own riders. And in order to be alert enough to respond the complicated commands, they would have to be on half rations of tala, which made them arguably dangerous. Still there were a handful of the older Jousters experimenting with slings, though not one of them had managed to get his mount to tolerate a javelin whizzing past its head. They usually turned and snapped it out of the air, and no one wanted to discourage that behavior, since it meant that the dragons were also catching arrows that had been sent in the Jouster’s direction.

  The older Jousters had swiftly worked out for themselves that they needed to learn such things, and quickly, too. Now that the Magi-sent storms had ended with the onset of the Dry season, and the kamiseen winds had begun to blow, the Jousters of Tia were back in the air and in support of troops who were angry that they had been lately driven back.

  Still, on the ground, the Altans could match them man for man, and for now they were holding the land that they had regained.

  And with the help of the new tactics that Kiron was working out, the Altan Jousters were succeeding in avoiding the Tians, forcing them to work much harder to go after them, and keeping them from attacking Altan commanders.

  Kiron could well imagine the level of frustration that must have been building in the Tian Jousters. Always, always, the Altans had stayed and fought, man to man, dragon to dragon—and of course, since the desert dragons outweighed the swamp dragons, most of the time the victory in a conventional Joust went to the Tian and he was then free to wreak whatever havoc he cared to on the troops below. If the Altan was lucky, he was just driven off. If he wasn’t, someone would be building a funerary shrine for him by nightfall, as his dragon flew off without him, freeing itself of harness and saddle, and reverting to the wild.

  Now, though, the Altans weren’t staying and fighting; in fact, there was precious little Jousting going on at all. The Tians found their dragons—and themselves—stung with clay pellets. Or they found their opponents luring them into tail chases that they could not possibly win, which left them far from the scene of battle and too exhausted to accomplish anything when they got back. And when the slingers switched from clay pellets to lead, their hits on either Tian Jousters or Tian commanders on the ground could be devastating.

  Now, Kiron knew the Tians, and knew what their ultimate answer would be to the change in situation: put more Jousters in the air so that one could pursue and one attack ground troops. Because they still outnumbered their Altan counterparts, and once every Altan Jouster was fully engaged, whether in combat or in a tail chase, there would still be Tian Jousters to conduct their devastating campaigns on the troops below.

  But they hadn’t yet done that and, for now, the lines were holding steady at the regained border.

  As a consequence, Lord Khumun’s star was rising. According to Kaleth, he was getting more of a hearing in Council meetings with the Great Ones, although he was being very cautious about what he said. This was enormously satisfying for Kaleth and Toreth, who could have discussed every little nuance and rumor and political implication for hours if the others hadn’t been patently bored with all the political dancing.

  But there was one thing that was important; the more power that Lord Khumun had, the safer Aket-ten would be. He had made it very clear that Aket-ten’s presence was very important to the Jousters’ Compound, and even if the Magi took every Fledgling of even mediocre ability and drained them all to the point where their power was not returning, at the moment, they could not touch Aket-ten.

  Two of the ribbon chases ended simultaneously; the other two looked as if they would go on until all four dragonets were tired. Kiron put his fingers into the corners of his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  In answer, the “combatants” broke off and returned to the ground, leaving the sky free for the older Jousters.

  “Kiron!” called Toreth, as they all led their dragonets toward the compound. Kiron left the crowd of spectators and joined them.

  “Good matches,” he said, approvingly. Toreth nodded his head.

  “They’re getting stronger. I think we need more practice time,” the prince said. “And I know how you feel about practicing over a net—but what about practicing over water?”

  “Not the canals, surely,” Kiron replied with skepticism. He couldn’t imagine using the canals instead of a net. Their movements would be even more restricted than over the net.

  “No—I thought the ocean,” the prince replied, looking eager to try the experiment.

  But Kiron shook his head. He hadn’t yet actually seen the ocean and the port of Alta City, but he was not exactly eager to do so either. Water, stretching as far as the eye could see? All right, he knew how to swim—but not that well. And neither did the others, he suspected. “If someone goes off, there’s no easy rescue,” he pointed out. “It’s one thing to go off the back of your dragon to rescue someone when you know the water’s no deeper than your neck, but it’s quite another to go plunging into water deeper than you can even imagine. And what about waves? I’ve heard there are waves big enough to swamp huge boats! What would happen if one of those hit you?”

  The prince’s face fell.

  “I’ll tell you what, though,” Kiron continued, making up his mind about something else. “I think we can find some empty property somewhere, and set up a place with straw men for more targeting practice.”

  Toreth’s face brightened again. “As far away from here as possible,” he suggested.

  “Oh?” asked Gan, coming up to join them, his dragonet whuffling at his hair. “Why? Not that I mind; I have quite enough admirers as it is, and I weary of women flinging themselves at me.” He fanned his face with a languid hand, and got the laugh he was looking for.

  “Because I want them—” Toreth jerked his chin at the Jousters practicing in the sky above them “—to get the attention. Not us. I want them to be the heroes all the time. Let them come watch us if they want, and try some of what we do if they can, but I don’t think they should have to share the attention and the glory with a wing of boys who’ve never flown in battle. It’s not fair, and it’s not right.”

  Orest tossed his head to get his hair back over his shoulders. “Rumblings of discontent?” he suggested.

  “Not yet,” said Toreth. “I want to prevent them.”

  Pe-atep nodded. “They’re good men, and right now, they’re grateful to you for coming up with ways to counter the Tians, but I’ve already heard some jokes about us being the ‘pretty ones’ that everyone wants to watch. Once the jokes start, there’s the possibility the joking will be cover
ing resentment.” Pe-atep tended to spend more time around the senior Jousters than anyone other than Kalen, since his experience with training lions and cheetahs for hunting made him very useful in training the wild-caught dragons.

  Kalen seconded that. “I’ve heard the same.” The falconer shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, I always say. We make it clear that we don’t care about having an audience, that we’re serious about our training, they’ll be more inclined to take us seriously, too.”

  He was right. Kiron wouldn’t have thought of any of that for himself, but Toreth was right, and so were Kalen and Pe-atep. At the moment, the wing had the respect of the older Jousters, but if fighting men thought that a group of boys just coming into their beards was trying to “steal” what they had actually fought to gain, there would be resentment and anger. Kiron nodded. “Frankly, I think we ought to concentrate on targeting anyway. It makes no sense for us to even think about traditional Jousting until our dragons are bigger. I think we will be able to fight soon, but it will have to be our way.”

  “One day,” Orest said, looking at him comically, “you will say something that is less than practical and sensible, something that is driven by no forethought and nothing but passion, and I will probably collapse with shock.”

  The bottom dropped out of the world. The universe jolted. Kiron sat straight up in bed with a yell of fear.

  His mind was blank, but his gut was a-roil, and inside he was nothing but a chaos storm of sheer terror. He was so terrified, in fact, that for one mind-numbing moment, he didn’t realize that every dragon in the compound was keening with a fear that at least equaled his.

  Including Avatre.

  And the ground was moving, in rolling waves.

  How could that be? The ground was moving!

  But it didn’t matter that the ground was shaking—and it didn’t matter that he was frightened out of his wits. Hearing Avatre cry out for him shook him back into his wits, and he fell off his cot and flung himself at the door. Avatre needed him! That was more important than anything else, including his own terror.

  It was exactly like trying to move in a nightmare.

  The shaking floor seemed to pitch itself out from under his feet, and he tumbled over sideways in the thick, hot darkness, bruising himself all over when the floor he’d thought was farther away hit him. The groaning of the stones around him made him sure he was going to be buried at any moment, and when he fell, he hit his elbow wrong, startling another yelp out of him. But Avatre needed him, and he crawled across the floor on hands and knees, felt his way past the door. The ground heaved again, and he was tossed into the sand of her pit. There was dust everywhere—where was it coming from? He couldn’t see it, of course, but he could feel it in his eyes, taste it in the oven-heat of the air. And the sand seemed unnaturally slick, and it kept trying to suck him down—fortunately, he knew it was no more than waist-deep, but the way it kept pulling at his limbs was as terrifying as everything else, as if it was alive and wanted to devour him. Following Avatre’s cries, he got to her side, where he got both his arms around her neck and hung on for dear life, closing his eyes and trying to soothe her when he himself was certain that the end of the world had come.

  And then—it was over. Just like that. A strange silence filled the humid darkness, where a moment before there had been nothing but the cries of frightened humans and dragons, and the roaring of the earth.

  “By the Great Ram’s horns!” said a shaking voice just on the other side of the wall, “That was a nasty one! Bethlan’s fine—is everyone all right?”

  It was Menet-ka. So at least one of his wing was fine.

  The dragon keening began again, starting with one of the babies—not Bethlan, it was farther away than that. A ragged chorus answered him. Kiron tried to speak but found he couldn’t. His throat seemed paralyzed. All of his fear seemed to have filled his throat and choked it.

  “Kiron?” Menet-ka called, then, more urgently, “Kiron?”

  “Kiron!” Toreth shouted. “Wingleader! Are you all right?”

  It’s over. It’s over, he told himself. He uttered a strangled croak, coughed, and managed, “Here—here—”

  Then he got a little better control of himself. He was the wingleader—the trainer—as he cradled Avatre’s head against his chest, he managed to suck enough air into his lungs—air still strangely full of dust—to call out, “Dragons all right? No one hurt? No one trapped?”

  This time the ragged chorus answered him instead of Toreth, all in the affirmative. He tried to think of what they should do next—except that there was nothing they could do, because they must all be as disoriented as he was. “All right,” he said. “Don’t move. Not until there’s light and we can see—” because all of the lanterns were gone, smashed, he supposed, and without the moon it was as dark as a cave. “Don’t crawl around; there’s no telling what’s fallen over and what’s broken, and if you slash yourself open on a broken jar, nobody’s going to be able to come to help you.”

  The keening from the Nursery eased, then stopped, as the boys got their dragonets quieted. Outside the Nursery, dragons were still complaining; he could only hope that darkness and tala would keep them calmer than they might have been were they not drugged.

  “Well,” said Toreth’s voice, sounding far more philosophical than he was feeling, “I suppose you’re right. The sand is soft enough.”

  The others agreed. “I’m going back to sleep,” said Huras, his voice sounding muffled in the distance. “It’s not as if I haven’t slept in the pit before this.”

  He heard nothing more than whines and murmurs then, as the rest of them soothed their dragonets. He stroke Avatre’s snout, and wondered—though it was hard describe a thought so fearful as his as mere “wondering”—just what had happened. Had it been some evil spirit that had attacked them? Was it the anger of a god? How could the ground move like that? Had it only been the Jouster’s Compound, or had the whole city been rattled like this? If so—he’d heard the stones groaning, how could any building stand under something like that? The soldiery here on Third Ring were probably all right; they lived most of the time in tents anyway. But what about the temples? What about the manors and palaces?

  What about all the mud-brick buildings on Fourth and Fifth rings? The mud-brick farmhouses on Sixth and beyond? He began feeling sick; mud brick was only stacked with more mud between in lieu of mortar. It surely couldn’t have held. And at night, in the dark—if he’d had trouble getting out of a single room, how hard would it be to get out of a house?

  Avatre whimpered and shook, and he held her, talking soothingly until she stopped shaking, then stopped whimpering, then, impossibly, fell asleep again. And he felt the heat of the sand soaking into him, so at least whatever had happened hadn’t broken the magic on the sand pit. Her head was in his lap, but she was big enough now that he could lean over sideways and rest against her chest and just shut his gritty eyes for a moment and let the heat soothe his bruises.

  He woke for the second time with a yell—

  And blinked in the soft, monochrome light of predawn at Aket-ten, who was crouched in the sand beside him, one hand on his shoulder. It hadn’t been the earth moving that had awakened him this time, it had been her, shaking him.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Nothing worse than bruises?” She looked disheveled; hadn’t bothered with even eye makeup, and looked as if she had just thrown on the first shift that came to her hand.

  “I’m fine,” he managed, willing his heart to stop racing. “What—was that?” He didn’t specify what “that” was, but he didn’t exactly have to.

  “Earthshake,” she said matter-of-factly. “We get them all the time, though usually not as bad as the one last night. But, of course—you were born and raised far enough down the Great Mother River that even when your family was still part of Alta, you never felt them, did you? Some people claim it is the anger of Seft that does it, but the Winged Ones know it isn’t.” She hesita
ted a moment. “Or at least, if it is, no Winged One has ever seen the actual hand of the God doing it. Besides that, we’ve always been able to warn people well in advance of when one was going to happen, so if it was the anger of a God, you’d think He would have stopped us from telling people.”

  “What went wrong this time?” he asked thickly. His eyes were still sore from all of the grit, and he rubbed at his gluey lashes to try and unstick them. “Why wasn’t there a warning?”

  It was light enough that he could see her frown. “I don’t know, not for certain,” she replied flatly. “But I can guess. The Fledglings weren’t enough to satisfy the need for whatever it is that the Magi were draining from them, or maybe they’ve started to drain some of them so dry that their powers really are gone for good, and the Magi have started to come for the Winged Ones themselves. That’s the only reason I can think of why the ones with the Fore-Visions didn’t see this earthshake and warn everyone it was coming. They should have. They’ve always known when a shake was coming, even a little one that barely rattles the pots, and they’ve always sent out warnings.”

  Maybe later he would be as angry as she clearly was; now all he could think of was the welfare of the rest of the compound. “Is anyone in the compound hurt? Are the rest of the dragons all right?” He couldn’t hear any more whimpering or keening; in fact, all he heard was the usual groans and complaints of dragons who hated to be roused in the morning.

  “A few people were hurt by falling stone, all but one of them servants,” she said, “but not badly. This compound is built to handle shakes. The dragons are all fine. One of the pools cracked and drained, and the poor dragon in it spent a miserable and cold night so far as he was concerned, but there are spare pens, and we’ve already moved the dragon there. It’ll be worse in the city,” she added with resignation. “There will be people killed, I’m sure, several hundred, if not several thousand. And a lot more will be hurt and probably half of those will die, too, eventually.”