Joust Read online

  Vetch nodded to himself; it made perfect sense. Doubtless the sea witches who had conjured the tempest were even now lying spent within the walls of their temples, and would not be able to move from their couches for days or weeks—but the damage had been done.

  “And the damage has been done,” Haraket said, in an uncanny echo of Vetch’s own thoughts. “No one was killed, thanks only to the grace of Haras and the skill of our priests, but there are torn wing webs and sprained muscles in dragons all over the compound. A dozen will not fly without days of rest, and by then, the witches will be ready to send another storm against us.”

  “They will?” gasped a butcher.

  “Of course they will! It is by far the most effective weapon they have now!” Haraket said, with scorn for the man’s obtuseness. “They will hardly abandon it! And I fear we will now have to cease our scouting forays over their land; if a dragon is driven to earth over their territory—”

  He did not need to elaborate. Even Vetch knew what would become of a Tian Jouster caught by Altan foot soldiers on the ground.

  He moved off silently, using the door to the barrow storage room to make his exit. At the moment, he had rather that Haraket did not know what he had overheard.

  He couldn’t but help feel some elation; among other things, if Haraket was right, Ari stood at far less risk of being hurt or killed now in the course of his duties. Kashet was bigger and stronger than any other dragon in the compound, now, and he had always been a better and more skilled flyer; it would take more than a witch-conjured storm to hurt him. And if the Altans were going to use storms against dragons, they must have pulled their own Jousters back so as to avoid harming them accidentally. Which meant that Ari would not be facing anyone in a Joust until the Dry came, and not even the most powerful of witches could conjure up a storm.

  He trotted back to his pens with the rain drumming on his wet hair; he checked on Avatre, but saw she was sleeping as soundly as a dragon could—which was very soundly indeed. So just in case Ari turned up, he curled up on his pallet in the unseasonable gloom.

  He would have a lot of chores to catch up on tomorrow. But he didn’t think anyone would complain or take him to task for them. He’d been all over that courtyard, and he could always claim he’d sprained something, helping bring the dragons in, and had taken to Kashet’s sands to bake the aches out. . . .

  Huh. Maybe he’d better lend verisimilitude to that claim by moving his pallet there now.

  It didn’t take a moment, even in the twilight gloom and the rain, he was so used to doing so after the rainy season. And he was glad that he had, when not long after, he heard Ari’s step outside the pen.

  “Vetch?” the Jouster called into the dimness of the pen.

  “Here!” he called back. Kashet didn’t even stir. “I sprained my shoulder getting chains onto some of those dragons.”

  “I thought you might have—one of them marked you, too. Do you need something for the scratches?” Ari made a dash across the open, rain-filled space and got in under the shelter of Kashet’s awning.

  “It was Coresan, and she pulled her blow when she saw it was me,” he replied, feeling oddly touched that Ari had noticed in the midst of all the chaos. “I’ve gotten worse from thorns, or the stuff Khefti made me sleep on.”

  Ari sighed, and sat down on the edge of the wallow. “Just bake out the sprain, then. You won’t be the only one tending injury. There are sprains and even a dislocated shoulder or two all over the compound, and that’s just among the Jousters; I expect anyone in the landing court is probably nursing some sort of hurt, and the dragons themselves may have gotten sprains when they landed. We won’t field but half the dragons tomorrow, nor the day after. It appears that your countrymen have found an effective weapon to ground us.”

  His heart leaped at that. So it was definitely true, then! Haraket had been right! But he didn’t say anything, and Ari didn’t seem to expect a comment.

  “Well, I won’t complain,” Ari continued. “There won’t be any double patrols to fly, when we daren’t take any dragons over Altan lands. Just the simple runs over our own land, until the Great King decides to break the truce and send the armies out again.”

  Vetch’s heart dropped as fast as it had risen. Ari had said “when,” not “if”—

  “But since the King has not chosen to favor me with his plans for conquest,” Ari continued, still sounding oddly cheerful, “I am not going to concern myself over that until the day dawns. Nor should you. Instead, I am for my honest bed; there is no point in doing anything but follow Kashet’s example and catch up on rest. Good night, Vetch.”

  “Good night, Jouster,” he called off after the retreating form that sprinted out through the door, in the rain.

  And he waited just long enough to be certain that Ari was not going to return, before gathering up a blanket and abandoning Kashet to sleep alone.

  For tonight—and for every night that he could manage it—he would be sleeping beside his dragon.

  She stirred ever so slightly as he laid his blanket down on the sand beside her, and fitted his body around hers. And she nestled her head in next to his outstretched arm with a movement that brought a smile to his lips and a lump to his throat.

  Help me, he whispered to the Altan gods—who, it seemed, could reach into this Tian stronghold, after all. Help me, keep her secret, keep her safe. . . .

  And the prayer murmured on into his dreams, a prayer that surely, surely, they must answer.

  THIRTEEN

  VETCH was helplessly, hopelessly, in love. He had never felt like this before, and yet the emotion was one he recognized immediately. There was nothing he would not have done, would not have sacrificed for his beloved. His heart was lost to him, and he didn’t care.

  Of course, if all of the love songs he’d heard wafting out of the Jousters’ quarters during feasts and festivals were true, that was pretty much how he should feel.

  From the moment that Avatre curled her body to fit the curve of his, he was in love. And it didn’t matter, at all, that at the moment probably all he was to her was to be the bringer-of-food and the one who made sure her itches were soothed and her messes cleaned away. He loved her with a passion the like of which he had never felt before, a passion that shook him to his bones. It frightened him, if he stopped to think about it. He had never had so much to lose before. If he lost Avatre—

  He wouldn’t think about that, couldn’t waste the time that would be lost if he thought about it and froze in an agony of fear and indecision. He had to concentrate on how to keep her, not on what would happen if he lost her.

  He’d had some small inkling of how deeply he had fallen that night, when he went to sleep curled protectively around her, with his last thoughts before slumber being a prayer for her safety. It really came home to him when he woke in the first light of dawning, still curved around her, and looked at the oddly endearing creature that had been entrusted by the gods to his care, and his first thought was a prayer for her safety. Her hot little body was the exact temperature of the sand under both of them, and as she breathed in and out, he felt himself changing the pattern of his breathing to match hers.

  Then, when she woke, just a little, and blinked at him trustingly before going back to sleep again, he knew that he was forever lost to her.

  Was this how Ari had felt, when he first looked into Kashet’s eyes?

  Rain still pattered lightly on the canvas overhead; it was very peaceful and comfortable, and he wanted to go back to sleep—but he didn’t dare. He would have so much work today, it didn’t bear thinking about, except that he would have to think about it very hard indeed, and right now, in order to plan things properly. Every moment, between dawn and dusk, would have to be planned and accounted for, if he was to get his work done and give her the kind of attention she required.

  Both Avatre and Kashet would need feeding as soon as it got light enough for them to wake properly, so he would have to manage to crowd both activit
ies into the same amount of time he normally took for Kashet. Now, even if she was awake, he couldn’t feed Avatre now; no one would be at the butchery yet, and neither Kashet nor Avatre would want their breakfast until they were thoroughly awake and their appetites were roused. But there were other things he could do now in order to get them out of the way. For instance, he could slip over to the leather room, light a lamp, and get his quota for yesterday and today done early. Then he could get the food for both dragon and dragonet, feed Avatre first, then Kashet—and if the rain cleared enough that Ari showed up for a morning patrol, Vetch would be where he belonged, in Kashet’s pen. Then he’d have to clean Kashet’s pen in half the time he usually took, possibly feed Avatre again and certainly clean her messes up, and be ready for when Kashet and Ari came back . . . oh, and at some point during all that, he should get himself bathed and fed, somehow. He should—but he knew very well that if anyone went short, it wouldn’t be his charges.

  I can bathe in the water from Kashet’s trough. I can eat something on the run.

  He eased himself away from Avatre, heaped some hot sand up where he had been in order to support her, and went off to get a clean kilt and get to work. He was glad enough of the lamps in their sheltered niches along the corridors; someone must have come along and substituted the rainy-season lamps for the torches that had been placed there after the rains were supposedly over. Though the sky overhead was getting lighter, it was dark down between the walls. It was strange to be the only one in the leather room; it was quite peaceful, actually, and he found that when he wasn’t distracted by the gossip of the other boys, he actually got things done a little faster. By the time he put the last of his pieces in the “finished” piles, though it was still raining and overcast, he could tell that it was late enough that he would be able to get meat for his charges. He wasn’t the first at the butchery, but he was certainly among the earliest, and as he stood in line in the gloom of that overcast morning, listening to the rain fall in the corridor outside, he paid close attention while the butchers and the other boys talked. Now, more than ever, he needed to know what was going on and being said in the rest of the compound. What were the Jousters going to do in this out-of-season rain? And if there was talk of Altan witchery, would anyone connect it with him?

  Their conversations, punctuated by the chack of the cleavers on the chopping blocks, revealed just how much damage had been done to dragons and riders in that frantic dash for home yesterday afternoon. That no one had been killed or even seriously hurt was deemed a miracle, but there were sprains, pulled muscles, and strains a-plenty, and as Ari had told him, even a couple of dislocated shoulders among the Jousters. He got his meat without any comment from anyone about what he was taking—they were all too busy recounting the near-misses and providential escapes, and speculating on what might come next. It was at that point that Vetch decided he ought to leave. He felt the long hair that marked him as an Altan serf brushing against his back with a shiver. . . .

  He quickly took his burden out, shoving it along in front of himself as fast as he could manage without spilling it. In fact, some of that damage to the dragons was proving out rather audibly, as the dragons of the compound awoke for the day. As he wheeled his barrow back to Avatre’s pen, he could hear the injured dragons as they hissed and whined in pain when they tried to move. From what the other boys said, there were plenty of riders who were just as damaged, including several who would probably choose to see a Healing-Priest. In the course of that mad dash, dragons had been tossed around in the air like so many dead leaves, and some Jousters had held to their seats only at the cost of injury. And here he was divided in his emotions; he was immensely pleased that finally Alta had struck a blow against Tia, but these dragons were not to blame for what was going on, and he knew many of them personally. He hated to see them hurt.

  At least their injuries were only temporary. And Ari and Kashet had come home fine. He soothed his conscience by telling himself that if Alta had sent a storm with more lightning, or could have directed it, there would be a lot worse than sprains and strains.

  He fed Avatre quickly; she was more than pleased to cooperate in that regard, swallowing as fast as he popped pieces into her mouth, until the skin was tight enough over her belly to drum on. Then she gave an enormous yawn, blinked, and plopped herself down into the sand to sleep.

  By then, the rain had faded to nothing, but he left the canopy over the pen anyway. It wouldn’t hurt anything, no one would particularly care, and it would keep anyone flying over the compound from seeing her.

  Kashet was not only no worse for wear, he was happy to see Vetch, feeling playful—and in good temper and appetite. He buried his muzzle in the barrow, and Vetch went to get his harness. Sure enough, Ari did appear, just as Kashet was finishing, his flying helmet dangling from one hand.

  “No more than half of the Jousters are going out on morning patrol,” Ari said. And at Vetch’s worried look, he added, with a little nod, “Don’t be too concerned. It’s going to be a short one. We’re just checking to see that no troops moved in or sabotage was done under cover of the storm.”

  By then, Vetch had finished the harnessing, but rather than have Vetch pull the canopy back so they could take off from the pen, Ari motioned to him to leave it alone, and led Kashet out to the landing court.

  Is he thinking there is going to be more rain? He might well be, actually. But if the patrol is going to be short—

  Then he’d better get busy if he was going to clean up after Kashet and Avatre, feed the dragonet again, and take care of his other chores.

  He ran for breakfast, bolted it down, ran back to the pens, glad for all the good feeding he’d been getting, for he was much stronger now, even if he wasn’t much taller. He cleaned the pens, filled the barrow, ran with it to the place where the droppings were left. He checked on Avatre, and he woke her to stuff her again, though her belly clearly wasn’t empty. Still, his mother always said that a baby could always eat, and she was no exception to that truism. Then he cleaned her pen and ran the barrow out again, hiding the much smaller droppings among the rest, adding them to the running tally so that no one would wonder why there were more than had been accounted for. Then he was back in Kashet’s pen, and just in time, for even as he checked to make certain that he hadn’t forgotten anything, he heard the dragons coming back in, wings flapping heavily in the still air.

  They were very early. It was a good thing he’d gone everywhere at the run. . . .

  When Ari brought Kashet in, the latter was almost as fresh as when he’d gone out. “Leave the canopies on,” Ari said, as the dragon ducked his head to come in under the canvas. “We’re in for a rather wet season of growing, I’m afraid—not that I think it’s going to harm anything.”

  “It won’t,” Vetch replied, out of his own experience. “It’ll just save farmers needing to open the irrigation ditches as often. At least, it won’t as long as it’s just rain.”

  “Let’s hope, then, that the sea witches can’t conjure hail out of the clouds, then,” Ari said soberly. “You should be ready for us to come back early this afternoon, too. Until we’re ordered otherwise by the Commander of Dragons, the senior Jousters have decided that no patrol is going to go outside of the borders established by the last truce.”

  Yes, and wasn’t that the point of the last truce, that you weren’t to fly outside the boundaries? Vetch asked in his mind, and some of that anger he’d managed to keep bottled up stirred restlessly again. Maybe if you’d stayed inside them, this wouldn’t have happened? Maybe if you didn’t keep pushing past those boundaries, taking what isn’t yours?

  He shoved the anger back down, and just nodded. It wasn’t Ari’s fault, and Ari was troubled, more than troubled, by the greedy land grabs among those who wanted the borders pushed back still further. “So, short patrols, then?” he asked instead, lifting the saddle onto its rack.

  “Just over our own lands, looking for trouble,” Ari replied, with a twitch to
the corner of his mouth. Vetch cast a sharp glance at him, and it occurred to him that Ari didn’t seem to be at all displeased about that.

  But of course, he wouldn’t say so, not where he could be overheard.

  And he had to always remember, always, that no matter what, no matter how kind Ari was to him or what the Jouster confided to him, he was still an Altan serf, and Ari was a Tian Jouster. mAnd if he wanted to keep Avatre, he must never forget that.

  As Vetch labored mightily to get all of his work done and keep Avatre’s belly full that day, the compound itself was full of activity, a great deal of it rather disorganized and smacking of controlled panic.

  He was getting a hasty bath just before lunch when he heard chanting approaching the bathing room, and just as he started to leave, he had to duck back inside to avoid colliding with a procession of what must have been fully half the priests of the Great Temple of Haras on Temple Road. Chanting and setting spells of protection, accompanied by little priestesses with sistrums and boys with drums, it appeared that they were determined to cover every corridor of the compound, and in the process, get in everyone’s way. Every priest wore a striped headcloth with the mask of Haras gleaming from the front, and a falcon pectoral in gold with a matching belt across his snowy white robe. The priestesses all were in filmy gowns of mist linen with wide collars of gold, carnelian, and lapis beads and gold cords around their waists, their wigs done in hundreds of tiny braids, each one ending in a bead, and a latas flower centered just over each one’s brow with the stem trailing down her back. Behind them came six slaves bearing feather fans on long poles, though what they were supposed to do in the chill, and the damp, Vetch had no idea.

  They weren’t the only ones either. Racing from cleaning Ari’s rooms, Vetch ran into a procession of the priests of Siris and Iris, who, not to be outdone, arrived to replicate the first effort! The same sort of procession, with music and magical chanting, only the costumes differed. The priestesses of Iris wore the horns of the moon on their brows, and their gowns were tight sheaths of red linen that ended just below their breasts, with wide bands of embroidered and beaded material that served as straps running over their breasts and shoulders, while the priests wore helmets much like the Great King’s war crown and intricately wrapped kilts with heavy, beaded belts.