Joust Read online

  This time, he did not even need to think for a moment about his answer. “When do you need me?” he asked.

  The blue dragonet that Vetch and Baken now faced—the very first one brought to the compound—was an entirely different creature from the hissing, snarling thing that had been brought in a mere handful of days ago. Vetch would not have believed it, if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

  Mind, it was no Avatre, much less a Kashet, but although it eyed both of them with an expression both alert and wary, it was not prepared to rip off their limbs and eat them. Instead, it accepted their presence and eventually was relatively relaxed as first Baken, then Vetch handled it. This one was a solid, sky-blue from nose to tail, the same color, deepening on the extremities, rather than shading into a different color altogether. Sky-blue, latas-blue, he was a wonderful beast to look upon.

  “I’ve got him used to saddle, harness, and guide straps,” the young man said, as he buckled those accouterments in place. “I’ve even got him used to bearing weight on his back. But that was a sack of grain, and a sack of grain is not a human—and a stranger, at that.”

  Now Vetch understood entirely what Baken had meant last night by “brave, agile, and small.” He would need to be brave, because this dragonet didn’t know him and might turn on him if he tried to mount. He needed to be agile to get out of the way if it did. And he needed to be small, because, big as this blue dragonet was, it couldn’t bear the weight of a man yet, or probably even one of the larger dragon boys. Their growing spines were surprisingly fragile, and could not bear too much stress.

  The dragonet’s harness had been fastened to four ropes that were in turn fastened to four rings in the pen wall. Vetch wasn’t sure what those were for—

  Well, he was about to find out. He’d made friends with the dragonet as Baken had shown him. Now he was about to shock it. As Baken stood back from his handiwork, Vetch strode across the sand with confidence and calm, both of which were going to be very important to keep the youngster from feeling uneasy as he approached. He greeted the dragon as Baken had shown him, as an adult greeted a subadult, with a breathy trill and a head bump, then without a pause, he vaulted up into the saddle.

  He had to vault—this dragonet hadn’t learned “down” and “up” yet, and he stood about as tall as one of the great god bulls. Baken had taught him the maneuver this morning, practicing on a saddle strapped to a beam supported on legs, mounted at about the right height out in the landing court. Both hands on the saddle, a jump, and a twist as he shoved his own weight up with his arms—

  —and he was in place, balanced on the thin pad of leather, for the first time, with a dragon underneath him and him in the saddle instead of face-down over it.

  Then, with another quick movement, he wedged his legs under and around the leg-hold straps, and grabbed the front of the saddle with both hands. There were no guide straps yet to hang onto; Baken deemed this confusing and disorienting enough for the poor young thing.

  The dragonet went rigid with shock. Vetch felt its muscles tensing under his legs, and braced himself for its inevitable reaction.

  It was as well that he did, for it tried at that moment to take off.

  Thanks to the ropes, and the fact that it really wasn’t old enough to fledge yet, it succeeded only in crow-hopping upward a few feet, flapping its wings clumsily. But that was unnerving enough—clearly another reason why Baken wanted someone brave!—and Vetch was very, very glad of the restraining ropes! It bounced about at the end of the ropes, bucking very much like the family’s little donkey when startled, and Vetch clung on with grim determination and teeth rattling in his head. He couldn’t even think, really—his very thoughts were bounced out of him! The straps cut into his legs with every bounce, and the saddle felt as if it was going to pop off at any moment.

  But it couldn’t keep such fighting up forever, though, and the moment it stopped, in a flash, Baken was at the dragonet’s head, soothing it, comforting it, telling it what a wonderful beast it was. It didn’t want to be soothed, but gentle hands, a soft voice, and a liberal allocation of tasty tidbits made it stand still, though it trembled like a leaf, and kept rolling its eye and twisting its head to look at him.

  “Now, then, handsome one—” Vetch murmured, when he was sure it wasn’t going to go off again under him, and added one hand—one—to Baken’s caresses. Baken gave him an approving look. “Now, then, you’ll be used to this soon enough. It will all be fine—”

  He murmured other such nonsense, reaching places to rub that Baken couldn’t from his stand on the ground at the dragonet’s shoulder. And, slowly, the dragonet relaxed.

  “You see?” Vetch murmured to him. “I’m not some strange monster on your back. I’m not up here to hurt you—I’m not a lion, come to break your neck and eat you! I’m just Vetch, you know me now, don’t you?”

  “Slide down now, Vetch,” Baken murmured after some small time, while the dragonet was engaged in getting his eye ridges rubbed. “Then get back on him again.”

  Vetch unwrapped his legs, threw the right over the dragonet’s neck, and slid down even faster than he’d vaulted up. The dragonet reacted to his absence with a start of surprise, but didn’t hop about this time.

  And before it could get too used to him being gone, Vetch jumped back into the saddle again.

  This time, it only hopped once, and when it stopped, it wasn’t shaking. Now it only looked indignant, and that was a great improvement over terrified.

  They played this game four more times, until Baken decreed that the dragonet’s developing spine had gotten enough stress for the day. He unharnessed and freed the youngster of everything but the single chain holding him around his neck, rewarded and praised him a little more, then both of them left the pen.

  Once outside, Baken slapped Vetch on the back with a hearty grin. “By the gods, it works! I thought it might, but I wasn’t sure. I’d like you here just before feeding, twice a day, so he’s good and hungry, and he’ll work for his tidbits; we’ll play this little game on him until he takes you as easily as Kashet takes Ari, and until we’ve taught him ‘up’ and ‘down,’ and how you’ll use both to mount, and we’ve taught him the use of the guide straps. Then, when he can actually get off the ground with you on his back, I’ll get one of the heavier boys to help me, and work my way up until he can carry a very light man.”

  Hmm. Like you, Baken?

  Well, why not? If Baken wanted to add himself to the roster of trainers, why not?

  Vetch nodded, seeing the good sense in the planning. Trainers did something like this, only they started much, much later, when the dragonet could carry a man, and they didn’t precede it with the gentling process. They just tied the dragonet down, threw a saddle on him, and jumped on, letting the dragonet wear itself out on the ropes and “breaking” it to saddle.

  Small wonder that dragons did not love their riders. . . .

  And now, thanks to Baken, Vetch knew how to train Avatre without having to ask Ari. Exactly how to train her. Only he would be starting very early indeed, with nothing more than a few straps to get her used to things being bound around her body.

  And when she flew—it would not be with ropes holding her to the earth.

  Gods willing. Gods willing. . . .

  FIFTEEN

  THE expected sea-witch-sent storm did not come that day, nor the next. The tension built once again; fear and anxiety becoming as much or more of a weapon wielded against the Tians than the storm itself. Finally, another one—again, with a great deal of wind and lightning, but with less rain than the last—struck on the sixth day after the last storm had ended. And the next storm arrived seven days after that.

  Were the sea witches getting weary of their sport? Or were they only toying with the Jousters, hoping to set them off-guard? Vetch dreaded both, and yet at the same time, hoped this was so. That Alta at last had the strength to fight back! The sea witches had not been as numerous or as strong as the magicians of Tia with
in living memory. Had something happened to change this? Had they learned new magics, had their numbers increased? Or had the priests of Alta also found a way to add their magic to that of the sea witches, as the priests of every Tian god could join their forces into a massive whole?

  Or was this only a brief, hectic flare of power before the end, like the dying of a fire? Something that could not be repeated?

  Were the sea witches’ powers once again on the wane? This was what Vetch dreaded.

  The rumors spread throughout the compound, causing at least as much unease as the storms themselves. The priests said nothing, perhaps fearing that if they took credit for the weakening of the storms, the witches would turn their words to ashes in their mouths and prove their boasts to be lies.

  The Jousters were reluctant to go farther afield despite the changing conditions, and it seemed that the Commander of Dragons agreed with them, for he issued no new orders. But further rumors told of convocations of the priests in every temple on Temple Row and throughout, not only the city, but all of Tia, as magicians and Seers attempted to pierce the veils of magic concealing the seats of Altan power, and discover what their counterparts in Alta were planning. Evidently, however, no matter what the strength of the sea witch power was, the protections still held; there were no revelations coming from the Seers of Tia.

  And in the end, it was that most necessary of creatures that brought the real news—

  —a spy.

  It was Haraket that spread the word of a massive, compoundwide meeting to the dragon boys, at morning feeding, as each of them collected the meat for their dragons. “Everyone to the landing-court at noon,” he repeated, over and over. “No exceptions. The Commander wishes to address us.” And of course, that only created more rumors rather than stilling the existing ones.

  If some of the others had time enough to buzz and whisper over the rumors, Vetch did not. The only time he might have said anything was to Baken—and Baken was not inclined to talk about anything other than the progress of the blue dragonet.

  “So much smarter than a horse—” he was muttering cheerfully as Vetch arrived to help him, only to find him harnessing the youngster. He looked up when Vetch arrived with a satisfied smile on his face. “Vetch, you have no idea. The best qualities of a falcon, with the intelligence of a fine hound, and you can tame him like a wild horse—look at him! Mere days since he was brought in, and look at him!”

  Indeed, the dragonet regarded both of them with aloof tolerance, standing calmly, and registering displeasure with a hiss only when he didn’t care for something that one or another of them did. Sometimes, it was when Vetch moved a little too quickly, once, when Baken accidentally pinched a fold of skin while harnessing him. “I might gentle a wild horse that fast, but I wouldn’t lay money on it,” Baken continued, “And a horse is not a hunter, it is a social animal that craves its herd around it. It is harder to tame a creature that takes prey; by their nature they are competitive and wary. It is also harder to tame one that, in the wild, is not part of a herd.”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to if he’d ever eaten man,” Vetch reminded him. “You got a chance at him while he was still impressionable. He thinks we are mightier than he—if he’d ever eaten man flesh, he’d still be thinking of us as dinner.”

  Baken nodded, knowing, as Vetch knew, that anything as small as a man was generally killed and carried whole to the nest by the mother dragon, so the young dragonets got a good idea what their prey should look like.

  “All the more reason to start taking youngsters earlier than first flight. What’s happened here with him, by the accident of the Jousters going out and robbing nests far earlier than they’ve ever done before, is to repeat what we falconers usually do with eyas falcons,” Baken replied. “We take them old enough to know that they are falcons, but young enough to tame quickly.”

  “Well—yes, it’s true that’s successful. But it was at the cost of eight Jousters so far,” Vetch reminded him. “Mother dragons aren’t like falcons. When they defend their nests, it’s the humans that lose the fight.”

  Baken snorted. “And there are two would-be Jousters eager to replace every one stupid one that tries to haul off a dragonet with the mother too near,” he replied. “It is easy to replace Jousters. It’s a lot harder to replace a dragon, especially a properly-tamed one. Better that they get themselves killed off now, than that they get themselves killed in a joust or accident and lose a trained dragon.”

  It was clear that his opinion of the Jousters hadn’t changed. Well, Vetch shared it. As far as he was concerned none of the fools who’d become dragonet dinner was much of a loss.

  Besides, every one that goes down a dragon’s throat is one less to attack Alta . . . .

  “There!” Baken said in triumph, and stood a little away. “Last strap. Now—today, we’ll teach him ‘up’ and ‘down.’ ” He laughed. “This isn’t my training, though. I asked the other trainers how they do it. But I need you, Vetch, because this is a two-man job.”

  He passed the end of a jousting lance to Vetch, holding onto the other end himself. “Now, we fit this right into the crook of the elbow on his front legs. When I say the command, push down and in on his lower legs. They’ll collapse, especially since he won’t be ready for this, and he’ll go down. When he does, get the lance away so it doesn’t hurt him or stop him from going all the way down, and shove down on his shoulders.”

  That was clear enough, and clever, too. Vetch nodded. Together they pushed the lance in on the dragonet’s forelegs. “Down!” Baken ordered, and they both pushed the blue dragonet’s legs with the lance shaft. Now, if they had tried to force him down, starting with a shove on his shoulders instead of with the lance, he would have fought them—and he’d have won. Young as he was, he was still stronger than they were. But this caught him off-guard, like a man tackled from behind at the knees. With a snort of surprise, the dragonet felt his own legs giving way underneath him, and he was too startled to fight. He went down—and to Vetch’s pleasure, he also folded his rear legs under him as well. It was accidental, but this would set the mark for what “down” meant.

  “Good boy!” Baket crowed, rewarded the young beast with a tidbit immediately. “Very good boy!” He caught the slight movement of the dragonet as it prepared to scramble back up to it’s feet, and shouted “Up!” just as it made up its mind to get up. More praise, another tidbit, and the dragonet’s eyes were suddenly very bright. Was it too much to say, there was speculation in them? He’d been taught here that there were things he would have to do that he didn’t necessarily think of for himself. Did he now realize that here were two of those things that he actually needed to learn?

  Again, Baken signaled to Vetch to use the stick. “Down.”

  “Up.” “Down.” “Up.”

  Dragons didn’t have very expressive faces, but Vetch had learned to read subtle signs in the skin around their eyes, and the set of their heads. The dragonet was definitely thinking, and thinking hard.

  But this would be the first time that it had been asked to learn that those strange sounds coming from its captors meant that it was supposed to do something. That was a difficult concept for an animal to learn, for in the wild, they certainly didn’t issue commands to each other . . . .

  It was too much to hope that the youngster would learn “down” and “up” in a single session, but he did understand the physical part of the command by the time they finished with him for that session. The moment he felt pressure on the lance shaft, he went down, and when the pressure went away, he came up.

  “That’s good progress for a morning,” Baken said in satisfaction, when the dragonet started to show signs of waning interest and irritation. “I’ll see you before afternoon feeding.”

  “Have you named him yet?” Vetch asked, curiously, for Baken had never yet referred to the dragonet by anything other than “the youngster,” or some other generic name.

  “No,” Baken replied instantly. “And I
won’t, until he first flies free and comes back. I never name a falcon that hasn’t made a free flight.”

  Well, Vetch could understand that, because that moment of free flight was the risky one, when the falcon or dragonet realized that he was free and he could fly off, never to be seen again. Names had power.

  But a name can pull something back to you again. He’d felt that instinctively when he named Avatre; he had bound her to him with a name—or so he hoped. Well, maybe that was on purpose, too. Maybe Baken was unwilling to use anything to pull a falcon—or dragonet—back to him, other than training and whatever affection was possible from a falcon.

  He’ll find, if he can win it, there’s a lot more coming from a dragonet . . . .

  “Did you ever try to tame flappers?” he asked curiously, referring to the winged lizards of the desert that looked so much like miniature versions of dragons.

  Baken laughed. “What boy hasn’t?” he replied. “But boy or man, there is no taming those wretched beasts! All you ever get for your pains are lacerated fingers and a view of it vanishing into the sky the moment the cage door is open. I suppose, if you could actually find a nest, you might be able to get one to fix on you the way a baby chicken can, if you hatch it yourself—but I wouldn’t even bet on that. There’s no room for anything in those heads but killing and meanness.”

  Vetch had to laugh, for although he had never had the leisure to try and catch and tame a flapper, every one of Khefti’s apprentices had tried, and every one of them had gotten the same result—fingers slashed to the bone, and eventually, an empty cage, since the little beasts could never be kept confined for long. He’d never seen anything for the ferocity of a flapper; it was a good thing that they were uncommon, shunned humans, and lived only where people didn’t, or no domestic fowl would be safe.

  “Don’t forget the meeting,” Vetch reminded Baken, who grimaced, but nodded. Vetch glanced up at the sun; it was near enough to noon that he decided to make a quick run of food to Avatre, then sprint for the landing court.