Alta

by Mercedes Lackey

  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 wh
ile, 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—