Still, it would be a good idea to take extra care from here on in. Ari saw more than most, and was disconcertingly good at putting facts together into a whole. Vetch filed that in the back of his mind, for caution was now certainly the order of the day.
But as time went on, the Dry progressed, and the days got hotter and hotter, Ari said nothing. Vetch elected not to return to sleeping in Kashet's pen, and Ari said nothing about that either. The fact was, Ari wasn't talking about much of anything, not to him, not to Haraket—but he was doing something. What, Vetch couldn't guess, but he was spending every waking moment when he was not in the air or with Kashet off somewhere.
That was all to the good. It was keeping the one person who was likeliest to guess just what the "little scarlet in the next pen" was far away from the scene.
He was increasingly afraid of leaving Avatre alone, lest she make that first flight in his absence. He rushed through the chores that took him away from the pens. Heart in mouth, he listened all the time for some sign she had been discovered to be something other than one of the "official" dragonets, or worse, that she had made her flight without him.
And yet, though that would be "worse" for him, it was not necessarily so for her. At least she would be free, even if he were not.
He was so close to his goal, and yet, at any moment, the prize could be snatched away from him.
And for the first time since his father had been killed, he prayed, not only to the Altan gods, but to any god that would listen, that she not be discovered and taken from him—or that, if she was discovered, at least let it be that she escaped into the free skies—
Even if he could not.
And perhaps the gods, aloof in the Land Beyond the Horizon, actually listened to him.
Because the moment of discovery—and the moment of first flight—both came at the same moment, and it was when he was with her.
He was, in fact, sitting on her back—in a purloined saddle. That saddle was one of the small ones in the compound, made precisely for dragonets, and one that he had been eying for days, waiting for the dragonet who was using it to outgrow it. He had his legs braced in the harness, his hand locked into the hand brace at the top of the saddle, the guide straps, which she had learned to obey beautifully, tied to the brace, while she made little bounds up and down the sands of her pen, flapping her wings enthusiastically the whole time. He had come to enjoy these wild rides, even though he'd been terrified at first, for unlike the dragonets that he had ridden for Baken, she was not tethered. He remembered, all too well, his very first ride a-dragonback, face-down over the front of Ari's saddle. He'd sworn then that he would never, ever ride on a dragon again, but that had been before Avatre. Now—well, he was guiding the dragon, the exhilaration had overcome the terror and now he was able to join in the sense of fun she had in these exercises.
He thought that she was building up to that burst that would take her truly up into the air, but he wasn't actually expecting anything other than her first hover. She was right in the middle of her pen, about to make a really big bound; he thought that this might be the moment when she really went airborne with him, rather than just jumping about with wing-assistance, and he was braced for it—
When a wild shout from the doorway of the pen startled them both.
"Hoi!" shouted one of the older dragon boys, staring at them. He knew Vetch, he knew very well that Vetch wasn't assigned to a dragonet, and he knew that Vetch should not have been sitting in the saddle on an untethered dragonet's back. He didn't know what Vetch was up to, but one thing he did know. It wasn't what Vetch was supposed to be doing.
"Haraket!" he shouted. "Haraket! Come quick!"
Vetch didn't even think what to do; he just reacted, by punching Avatre in the shoulders with his heels. She, already startled and alarmed by the shout, and even more so by a strange human in her pen, a thing she had never seen before, also just reacted—by leaping, not jumping; leaping for the sky, eyes focused up, neck outstretched, and wings working purposefully. She was frightened now, truly frightened, and she wanted away before any more people shouted at her and jammed their heels into her! One wing flap. Two.
She was off the ground, with him still on her back. Not a hover, this; no, it was the first wing beats of real flight.
"Dragonets are often startled into their first flights," he heard Ari's voice in memory. "They get very nervy about the time they're about to take that big leap. Maybe it's the gods' way of making sure they get off the ground that first time, because if nothing startled them into flying, they'd be too afraid to try. …"
She was making good, strong wing beats now, not flaps. And she wasn't just fleeing, she was climbing, with determination. She wasn't afraid to fly, not Avatre! She surged upward in that way he recalled from riding Kashet, a jerky, lunging motion, throwing him back each time she made another wing beat, until he bent over the saddle, crouching, to get himself in balance with what she was doing. He was just the rider now; Avatre was the one in control. All he could do was to hold on and try not to hamper her.
She was above the walls. Then higher than the walls—
There was more shouting down below; he clutched at the harness in sudden fear—
He heard Haraket's voice; he heard the voices of other men, loud, excited, angry, down below and behind him; he looked back and saw a crowd of men in Avatre's pen, Haraket at their center, gesturing and shouting—but not at him.
That sent a chill down his back.
They weren't calling his name.
Instead of ordering him back, demanding he return then and there, as they would have been if they thought this flight was purely accidental, they were shouting at each other, issuing confusing and probably contradictory orders. But none of those orders was shouted at him.
That was when he knew he was in deep trouble.
They knew what this was about; they knew—knew he'd "stolen" a dragonet, though they didn't yet know it wasn't one of the new ones. They knew that this wasn't just the result of a wager or a boyish prank.
They understood that he was going to try to escape, that he intended to fly off on Avatre in order to do so.
And they weren't going to let him get away. He wasn't a dragon boy now; he was an Altan enemy, stealing a precious dragonet.
Avatre craned her neck around and looked down at the waving, yelling humans below her as she beat her wings down in a stroke more powerful than the last had been. Then she glanced back at him, her eyes pinning with alarm; she seemed to understand the fear in him, and redoubled her efforts, which were showing more skill with every passing second. For the first time, Vetch was glad, glad that he was such a skinny weed. He was lighter than the sandbags he'd been training her with, and she was having no trouble carrying him. He felt her deep, easy breathing under his legs; he felt powerful muscles under his hands driving her upward. The compound spun away under him; she caught sight of the hills in the east, and they must have awakened some deep instinct in her, for she drove for them.
Now she was over the city, wings pumping furiously as she continued to seek for height and the winds above. The kamiseen would aid her in this direction; it drove for those same eastern hills, giving her speed she could never have reached on her own. He clung on to her back more by instinct than skill, crouching down over her neck, trying to move with her. He told himself not to look down.
He couldn't help it, though; as she leveled out and stretched her wings in a gliding stroke, he looked down and saw only the broad, flat, gray-green expanse of the Great Mother River below, a boat like a child's toy being towed against the current, going upriver, pulled by a team of oxen seemingly as small as the ones in his father's funerary shrine.
The shrine—
Too late to think of that, too late to consider all the things that he'd hoped to take with him. If they escaped, he would have to survive and keep them both alive with what he had with him.
If they escaped.
They had to.
Then t
hey were over the fields, once green, now brown in the dry, with here and there a small square of dusty green still being irrigated by hand to provide some special crop. Vegetables, or perhaps even tola.
Tala—for dragons.
The only way anyone would be able to catch him would be on a dragon.
How many Jousters had been in the compound? How many could get their dragons saddled and into the air quickly? How many were just back from a patrol, or about to leave on one? Ari wasn't back yet, but he'd been due out of the north at any moment. There were others who had surely beaten him back in; Ari was generally the first to leave and the last to return.
That alone might save him; this was the end of a patrol, not the beginning, and dragons were coming in tired and hungry. It might be hard to get them into the air, and they'd be irritated, sluggish, and reluctant to obey.
But he had to look back over his shoulder and saw behind him what he'd feared to see—the bright vees of color against the hard blue of the sky—dragons and Jousters in pursuit. Tiny in the distance, but there were several of them who'd managed to get their mounts airborne; experienced fliers, experienced riders.
If they caught him—they would never let him keep Avatre. They'd never let him near another dragon again, probably, even if my some miracle he convinced them that this had all been an accident…
If he claimed that, could he make them believe him? But then, how would he explain purloining the egg and hatching her? That he was raising her for Ari, as a surprise?
Would anyone believe a tale that tall?
Even if they did, how could that make any difference? They'd still take Avatre from him!
Nothing mattered against the enormity of losing Avatre.
He would rather die than give her up. She was everything to him now; without her, it wouldn't matter what they did to him.
He made up his mind at that moment that if they caught him, if they started to force them down, he would jump. Better dead than lose the only thing he loved, the only family he had now. The harness and saddle were not of such tough stuff that she could not eventually get them off; without tending, the leather would quickly dry out and become brittle in the sun. Within weeks, at most, the last pieces would fall off her.
He would never let them take her. He would rather die and set her free.
Sobs welled up in his throat, he choked them down. His heart felt as tight as if there were copper bands around it, and he prayed wordlessly. Surely the gods had not brought him this far only to snatch everything away from him!
He looked back again; there were three dragons in pursuit of him now, for all the rest had dropped out of the race. But these three were obeying their Jousters, and he thought they looked a little nearer, though not near enough to tell who they were. Just the colors; a scarlet, a green, and a blue.
He looked down; they were over the desert, which undulated beneath them in waves of pale sand, broken by rocky outcrops.
The breath of the desert, hot, dusty, and so arid it parched his lips, wafted up to them. He bent over Avatre's neck, and shouted encouragement to her.
He'd had no idea where to go, but she, guided by instinct alone, was heading for the same hills that her mother had sought at the end of the mating flight. Those hills were riddled with caves and rich with game—and they marked the boundary of the lands that could truly be called "Tian." Out there, although Tia claimed the earth, it really belonged to the dragons and the wild, wandering tribesmen of the Baydu, the Blue People, the Veiled Ones who called no man "king." If they could reach the hills, they could hide there. They could stay under cover until the hunters had given up.
But the hills were a long way away, and there were three trained dragons in pursuit. He crouched lower over Avatre's neck, and willed his own strength into her. His long hair whipped into his face; he ignored it, and tried to wish himself lighter than he already was.
When they were halfway between the hills and the Great Mother River, he looked back again. Avatre was still flying strongly, showing no signs of tiring. And now there were only two dragons following. One, the scarlet, had dropped down and was gliding behind the other two, making a long, slow turn to return to the compound.
His heart leaped. One gone—could they outdistance the other two?
"Go, my love, my beauty!" he shouted at Avatre's head. "Go! We are small and light as down; ride the wind, my heart! Take us to freedom!"
He thought she responded to his encouragement with a little more power.
One gone—two to go.
But they were two Jousters, and he was only a dragon boy on First Flight. They had strength and experience on their side; all he had was hope and heart, and the valor of a very young dragonet.
He looked down again; the sand was interrupted by more and larger outcroppings of rock. They were getting closer to the hills. He redoubled his prayers.
With every wing beat, they drew nearer to escape. When they reached the hills, he looked back again.
One of the two remaining dragons had turned back!
But the third was still in hot pursuit, and was closing the gap between them.
And now he could see, with pitiless clarity, that the third was Kashet.
His heart felt as if it was being squeezed, and for a moment, he was blinded by tears. But he leaned over her neck again and begged Avatre to fly faster, harder—
She heard him, and he felt her trying to do as he asked. They topped the first set of hills—
But below them he saw the ground of the second rising to meet them, closer than it should have been—
She was losing relative height and real height as well. He felt her muscles beginning to tremble, and knew then that she was running out of strength and endurance.
And a shadow passed over them, between them and the sun, the superior position for a Jouster to force another dragon to earth.
He knew without looking up that it was Kashet.
It was over.
Ari had caught them, and he would force them down, take them both captive. The teams of trainers and soldiers that Haraket had surely sent after them would come and take them back, bound and chained.
They would take Avatre away from him, if he allowed that to happen. Avatre was at the end of her strength, and there was nothing more that she could give him.
It was time to give her a gift—her freedom.
And with a sob, he pulled his legs free of the harness, he leaned down over her neck.
"Good-bye, beloved, my light, my love," he murmured to her. He squeezed his eyes tight; he couldn't look at the ground. But this was the only way. Better this, better lose life, than lose everything that made life worth having.
Let me wander as a hungry ghost. Better that, than a slave without her.
He took a long, last, deep breath.
Then he deliberately overbalanced, and let go.
It was horrible.
He screamed in utter terror as he fell, tumbling over and over in a macabre parody of an acrobat. The screaming just burst out of his mouth without any thought. He waited for the scream and the horror to end in a terrible blow, and blackness.
Something hard struck him in the stomach instead, knocking what was left of his breath out of him and ending his scream in a gasp. He slid face-down along something hard and smooth and hot—then impacted a second time, and felt a strong arm grab him around his waist.
And he screamed again, this time in thwarted rage and heartbreak, as he realized that Ari and Kashet had plucked him out of the sky, as they had saved Reaten. Only he didn't want to be saved, and they had rescued him only to haul him back to a wretched existence not worth the living!
He screamed and tried to fight, but he was lying in a difficult position, he could only strike at Kashet. Ari was three times his size and double his strength, and was not about to let him land a blow. He cursed the Jouster in every way he could think of, tears blinding him, as he changed his tactics and tried to squirm out of Ari's grip to resume the plunge t
o death that they had interrupted.
That was just about as successful as trying to fight them.
He felt Kashet sideslipping and losing height quickly; his stomach lurched with the renewed sense of falling, but he knew that this "fall" would not end in blessed blackness, but in captivity, and he howled his anguish.
Avatre cried out above him—he'd never heard her cry before, it sounded like a hawk—and she followed them down, floundering wearily through the air, as Ari and Kashet brought him down to the earth. As they spiraled down into a little valley, he just gave up and went limp. He was crying, uncontrollably, sobbing with rage and thwarted hope, and the death of everything he had hoped for. He couldn't see, blinded by the tears as they landed, as Ari slid off first, then pulled him down to the ground—
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