Joust Read online

  But now—it looked as if his patience wasn’t going to be on trial for much longer.

  “Vetch, this is Fisk,” Haraket said shortly. “He’s a serf; I want him for Coresan’s boy. If you can train him to take Coresan, do it.” And he left, with the two boys staring awkwardly at one another.

  It was Fisk who made the first move, though. “Ah,” he said, ducking his head in unconscious submission. “Could be you’d give me your name?”

  Vetch had to smile, then; he knew in part how Fisk must be feeling, but poor Fisk knew nothing about his would-be mentor, perhaps not even that Vetch was a serf! The hair should tell him, but Fisk might not know that only Altan serfs wore their hair long as a sign of their indentured nature. “Vetch,” he replied. “And I’m a serf, too.” He looked the other boy up and down; could it be that Fisk had been a farmer’s boy, too? “Well, if I’m to teach you about Coresan, what do you know about animals in general?”

  “Ah. Mostly I’ve tended goats,” Fisk ventured, and looked up at Coresan, who looked curiously down at him. “That be a mighty big goat . . .”

  For a heart-stopping moment, Vetch thought the other boy was feeble-minded, but then he saw the slow grin, and realized with relief that Fisk was joking.

  And it soon was apparent that Haraket had chosen well, so far as Coresan was concerned, for Fisk was not afraid of her, and had more experience with intractable creatures than Vetch ever had. For one thing, he was two years older than Vetch—and what was more, Fisk had actually been a goatherd in charge of a large number of animals, and goats could be the most stubborn and evil-minded domestic creatures ever created; he might not be very bright, but he was eminently practical, and he had a good rapport with beasts. Unlike Vetch, he hadn’t had a family to lose, as he was already an orphan when the Tians came, tending the herd of goats for a surly uncle. As a consequence, life in the Jouster’s compound was more than an improvement, it was an improvement without any previous loss attached. He had never really known what it was like to be free or to have a close-knit family, for his father was dead and his mother had been her brother-in-law’s servant. While she loved her son, she had been able to give him nothing but her love while her brother-in-law worked her to death and bid fair to repeat his treatment with her son.

  Now, with only a single, nonwandering creature to be in charge of, good treatment, and much better food, Fisk was convinced he’d fallen into a honey pot. He’d understood exactly what Vetch meant when he described Coresan’s quirks and personality, and he didn’t let her bully him.

  More to the point, to both Vetch’s and Haraket’s delight, Fisk and Coresan took to each other with a great deal of mutual respect and even affection. It was nothing like the bond Vetch had with Kashet, but it was as close to that as any other dragon boy’s, and closer than most.

  That released Vetch from his duties to Coresan, which was a great relief. Coresan needed someone who understood her and cared about her, and Vetch’s heart was given to the creature growing inside his egg and to Kashet. Haraket was overjoyed, and within the week, Vetch overheard him speaking with Ari about finding more goatherd serfs in the future to use as dragon boys.

  As for Vetch—Fisk might not be anyone he could have a deep and meaningful conversation with, but he was friendly, and he was another serf, so at least now he had someone who would share a meal and a joke with him. The cold shoulders of the other dragon boys weren’t so hard to take when there were two to face them instead of one alone.

  Gratefully, he went back to his old chores, which, after all the work of tending Coresan, Kashet and a dragon-in-egg, seemed infinitely lighter. The growing season was well underway, and the increasing heat would surely be the trigger to hatch his egg, and soon he would need all the extra time he could get.

  He certainly completed his round of ordinary chores faster than he had before he’d been doing double-duty with Coresan. Or perhaps it was just that he was putting on muscle and strength himself. He practically flew through his cleaning chores, and as for the others, the old leather worker and the Weapons Overseer had taken to giving him an allotment of work, so that the others wouldn’t shirk theirs, knowing they could load it onto him when he finished the sooner.

  All this came just in time.

  The egg was starting to move.

  TWELVE

  THE egg was starting to move because the devel oping dragon inside was shifting restlessly. It was definitely fertile, and was going to hatch if nothing went wrong with the dragonet, there was no doubt whatsoever about that. Though how long it would be before the egg really hatched now that it was starting to move, well, he didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure that even Ari did. It could be days; it might be weeks. The only thing he could be absolutely sure of was that it would be within the moon.

  The timetable seemed about right as well, given what he’d learned from Ari, though it did not seem possible that so much time had passed so quickly. By his reckoning, it should barely have been time for the Planting Festival.

  But there it was; caught up in the peculiar schedule of the Jousters’ compound and as busy as he was, time was all distorted. Among the Jousters, there were only two real “seasons”—the season of the rains (which included part, but not all, of flood season) when the Jousters and dragons could rest a little, and the season of no-rain, which meant full patrols and everyone working flat-out. The Temple-regulated festivals of the seasons, so important when he’d been working for Khefti-the-Fat, had slipped by him without noticing. Now growing season was well under way, the plants were all sprouting in the fields, and he hadn’t even noticed. If Ari was right, eggs hatched well inside Growing season, giving the richest time of the year, so far as game was concerned, for the critical first weeks of a dragonet’s life. Then, when the little one was old enough not to need feeding so often, came Dry season—and in the heat of Dry, the dragonet could grow and develop without needing to be kept warm by a parent.

  Soon. The egg must surely hatch soon.

  He slipped away every night as soon as it was quiet to turn it and speak softly to the dragonet within the shell, and woke before dawn to turn it again. So far, no one had caught him at his tending—but then, there wasn’t anyone about that early or that late. Not even the most diligent of Jousters rose any earlier than he had to—and who could blame them when they were flying long patrols to prevent Altans from sabotaging the crops in the fields? Burning crops was an easy way to strike back at the hated enemy; you left no traces behind if you were clever, and every field burned was more grain that the enemy would have to purchase with precious gold—which in turn, could not be used to hire and equip soldiers. Altan serfs, and those Altans who still retained possession of their own farms through some miracle, would not burn their own crops—they’d starve if they did, for they would get cold charity from the Tian masters. But that wouldn’t stop Altan insurgents from firing the fields, regardless of who owned them. About the only relief there was from that threat was that Altans, like the Tians, could not be persuaded to go out into the fields at night, when homeless, hungry ghosts were a-prowl. Not even the rebels would take that risk, a very real one, and not the sort of thing that even Haraket dared. Unhomed spirits were very real, and it never seemed to occur to the Tians that their rigor in denying slaughtered Altans the proper rites and funerary shrines only made more angry ghosts to plague their nights. It was dangerous enough to walk the streets of a village, where the protection of the Temples held sway, and the lights and lamps drove the ghosts out. Only a priest or a witch would dare venture into open fields by night, and what priest or witch would trouble to fire a field when their time was better served making magic? But every so often, someone too foolhardy or desperate or sure of his protections went out at night, beyond the protections of the streets, and was found dead in the morning. Usually there wasn’t a mark on him, but his face was generally contorted with pain or horror.

  No, the rebels were bold enough, but not that bold. They did their work between the fir
st hint of dawn and the last light of dusk.

  So the Jousters were in the air whenever possible, reminding those below that the Great King had more than just soldiers to enforce his will, scanning the fields at dawn and dusk for creeping forms that should not be there. That meant more time in the sky, tired dragons and Jousters, and the most profound of silences from sunset to sunrise within the walls of the compound. No time for festivities now—oh, no! Once in a very great while, Vetch would hear music coming over the walls, but it was all quiet music, harp and flute, and never went much past the time that a late dinner would be. Probably some of the more aristocratic Jousters were having music with their dinner.

  So Vetch’s ventures were secure. Not even Ari caught him, even though the Jouster came to the pen nearly every night, for at least a little while. At least now that Neftat was taking up patrols on Coresan, Ari had been able to cut back his territory, which gave him a little time of his own again. He spent most of it with Kashet, and Vetch had to wonder if Ari was as lonely as he was. Certainly he didn’t spend much time with his fellow Jousters.

  Sometimes Vetch wished that he was just a bit older, more Ari’s age. Often, as he listened to Ari talk softly in the darkness, to Kashet and to him, he wondered if he was the closest thing to a friend that Ari had, other than Haraket. Did he ever talk to Haraket like this? Maybe not—there were things he said to Vetch that Vetch didn’t think Haraket would ever accept tamely. Ari could criticize his own leaders and his own people freely with Vetch; Haraket might well feel he had to report such “disloyal” talk.

  Maybe that was why he spent some time every night here. He had to unburden himself to someone, and Vetch was safe.

  And he wished one other thing—a wish that he could never have imagined himself making before he’d come here. He wished, for Ari’s sake, that he was Tian. For if he had not been Altan, and a serf, he could have confided his egg theft to Ari, who would have been delighted, and would surely have helped him when the egg hatched. If he had been Tian, he could have a dragonet openly, and become a Jouster, joining the ranks of the rest.

  He could become Ari’s friend, and not—what he was. Whatever that was, now. Dragon boy, serf, mostly Altan, no longer able to unthinkingly hate his Tian masters—but knowing that nothing would ever induce them to accept him either, with a life that was a strange mixture of the bitter and the sweet, with nothing in between.

  And it occurred to him the same night, as he lay thinking about that wish and staring up at the stars, that the one time when his anger stopped gnawing at him altogether was when Ari was around. With everyone else, except maybe Haraket, there was always that edge, the feeling that underneath it all, if a choice had to be made between him and a Tian, well, he’d come out second-best.

  And even Ari and Haraket, if the choice had to be made publicly, would probably favor the Tian.

  Maybe that wasn’t true, but it was something he didn’t want to have to put to the test.

  It was an unpalatable thought.

  He resolutely shoved it away. He would just have to make certain it never came to that.

  Besides, he had another worry that he ought to be concentrating on. That egg would hatch within days, and that would bring the next hurdle, a successful hatching. He had to be there. He daren’t take any chances. Baby chickens thought that the first thing that they saw was their mother—the same might be true of a dragonet—

  And that was when, once again, it seemed as if the Altan gods had heard him and were answering him with subtle aid.

  The second half of the growing season was always dry—not the Dry of the dry season, when the air sucked every bit of moisture out of everything, but usually there weren’t any kind of heavy rainstorms. Instead, there was just enough rain to keep the crops from dying, and that usually in the early morning or early evening. Storms that were not hard, didn’t do much, and were never very long.

  In fact, they tended to be rather warm and muggy rains, bringing sticky humidity rather than refreshment to the air. And the one thing that it was possible to count on was that they would not be the violent storms that broke at the end of dry season.

  There had been a feeling of a storm coming the day that Vetch was sure the egg was close, very close, to hatching. Vetch was checking it as often as he dared, and as he did, he couldn’t help notice that the air felt heavy and wet. So just to be on the safe side, he pulled the canvas over the empty pens on both sides of Kashet’s pen, including the one that held his egg. After all, if a storm did break, whoever was nearest would start dashing around pulling awnings, and the last thing he wanted them to do was to stumble into that pen. He even freed up the awning over Kashet’s pen to be ready, just in case.

  Then, in the middle of afternoon patrol time, he noticed that the sky on the horizon seemed unusually cloudy out to the north. The clouds themselves were thick and tall, or at least they looked like it from inside the walls of the compound. He congratulated himself on taking the precaution of pulling those canvas coverings early. It looked as if there was going to be a good solid rain rather than a mere sprinkle.

  He thought no more about it, except to wonder if the rain would be bad enough to bring the Jousters back early, so he reckoned that he had better see to it that Kashet’s pen was done as early as possible. Haraket and the other Overseers, even Te-Velethat, trusted him to get his work done in whatever order he happened to do it, and not necessarily on a set schedule anymore. He could always do his quota of leather work later, and if he really needed to clean Ari’s rooms, Ari had no problem these days with having Vetch in to see to it whether or not the Jouster himself was in the suite.

  So Vetch was in the middle of cleaning out Kashet’s pen and he didn’t think anything more about rain, until he heard something that sounded like the rumbling of a thousand chariot wheels, and looked up again sharply, into the north.

  The clouds were boiling up before his very eyes, and with bottoms as black as the soil the floods laid on the fields. As if the hand of a god was shoving them along, they were speeding toward Mefis in a way that boded no good for anything caught in their path.

  What was more, he could see the colorful specks that were the Jousters on their dragons, running along ahead of the storm front. For that storm was powerful enough to send the dragons back on the gust front itself, frantic to get out of the sky before the lightnings and winds caught them, winging ahead of the fury lashing the ground behind them, as fast as their muscles could send them.

  He stood there with his mouth wide open for a bit, then it suddenly came home to him that this was going to be no ordinary storm.

  He wasn’t the only servant to have realized what was happening; a moment later Haraket ran through the compound shouting for the boys to run for the landing court, slaves to cover the pens, and cursing everyone in his path. Dragon boys and every other servant that happened to be free ran for the landing court, for there was no way that most of the dragons were going to be able to land in their pens with that wind behind them. In fact, they’d be lucky to get down without any injuries.

  Vetch was right behind Haraket, and the Overseer thrust chained collars into his hands without regard for who he was or which dragon he served. Well enough; Kashet and Ari wouldn’t need him, but Seftu and Coresan, and perhaps another half-dozen other dragons he’d gotten to know, and which probably would trust him, certainly would.

  The first of the dragons came plunging down into the courtyard just as Haraket, Vetch, and the others got there themselves; already wind, chill as the winds of midwinter, whipped through the open space, sending dragons skewing sideways as they tried to get down to the ground. This wasn’t the wind of the Dry, the kamiseen, that always blew in the same direction—no, this was a nasty wind, a demon wind, that twisted and writhed unpredictably. The landings were chaotic; with the exception of Kashet, the dragons were clearly fighting their Jousters. They wanted, more than anything, to get back to safety on the ground before the storm struck, and if they’d had a ch
oice they would have landed anywhere they thought they could find shelter rather than take the chance on speeding for home. There were near collisions in the air above the landing court, actual collisions on the ground, as hard gusts blew dragons aside and into each others’ paths. If it hadn’t been that their eyes were on the coming storm and not on each other, there might have been fights among the dragons as they competed for the limited landing space; Vetch and two or three of the braver boys dashed in with chains and collars to fasten around their throats. They found themselves scrambling among the fearsome claws, to snap the collars around the first throat that presented itself, then drop the end of the chain in the hands of one of the servants or slaves. Coresan recognized him as he ducked under her nose, and actually pulled back her claws in mid-lash so that they skimmed along his back, barely stinging; he handed off the chain to Fisk, who had been behind him. He helped Seftu’s boy get the leads on Seftu, but they didn’t need them; Seftu was so grateful to be down that he was actually whimpering, and was crouching so low that his belly dragged the ground. The rest of the boys spread out along the walls and shouted to attract the attention of their Jousters, so that the dragons could get separated and steered over to the proper handler, and taken back to their pens.

  The chaos began to sort itself out, so Vetch stayed where he was, knowing Ari and Kashet, knowing that they would come in as they always did, as if the sun god stood high in the sky, untroubled by storms. And sure enough, he saw them, Kashet’s powerful wing beats holding course against the wicked winds, coming in last of them all. He saw then that Kashet, secure and nothing near as nervous as the rest, was going to land in his own pen as always. That was when Vetch abandoned the mess in the landing court and headed for his proper place—

  He got there just as they landed, and it was clear from Ari’s wet hair and the rain streaks on Kashet’s flanks that the rain wasn’t far behind. At that point, no one cared about duty or protocol (not that Ari ever truly did); Ari helped Vetch to strip Kashet of his saddle and harness and pull the canvas canopy over the sand pit just as the first warning drops of the torrent to come splattered into it. Then Ari raced for his own quarters, as splatters turned to downpour.