Besides, if Galelin couldn’t see the dual nature of the tooth, what made her think Prince Aymon would be able to see it? Perhaps Muzad could. He was a dragoneer. Could her father?
Trysten sighed knowing what her father would say about it. He would say it was best to deal with one thing at a time, and at the moment, the most important thing was regaining her weyr. As usual, he would be right.
She turned for the cottage. She would sleep so that she was fresh for training recruits the following morning.
Chapter 20
The clang of the dawn bell from the top of the weyr reverberated through Trysten as she stood with her spine against the bunkhouse, watching the high, striated clouds tinged with pink float to the east.
“Trysten?”
Kaylar and Alea stepped around the corner. To Trysten’s surprise, Kaylar wasn’t wearing her handmade hordesman uniform, but instead wore a simple sweater of a muted color. Alea wore one, too, but the way it hung on her frame suggested that it belonged to Kaylar as well.
“Did you talk to Darin and Deslan?”
“Here,” one of them said as they stepped around the opposite corner.
Trysten grinned. “Thank you all for coming.” She pushed herself off the wall. “None of you have to do this. I won’t think less of you, and you will still be welcomed to continue your training at a later date.”
Kaylar snorted. “Not if he gets his way.” She nodded at the weyr.
Trysten glanced to the brothers. They moved a fraction of an inch closer to each other, but otherwise, waited quietly.
“All right, then.” Trysten turned and knocked on the back door of the bunkhouse. A few seconds later, the door opened, and Paege peered out at them.
“Trysten,” he said. His gaze dropped away in chagrin. “I would have come to see you last night, but Prince Aymon won’t allow us to leave. He was up in your den all day yesterday talking to hordesmen. He just took Vanon up there. He’s been talking to us for an hour or more at a time.”
“What is he asking about?”
“He talked to me first and kept me the longest. Asked a lot of questions about the battle last week, and how you became Dragoneer. He also asked me a lot of questions about Elevera.”
Trysten’s back stiffened. “What kind of questions?”
Paege glanced around at Kaylar, Alea, and the twins, as if seeing them for the first time. “He asked about her lineage. How well she performed, if I had ever ridden her, what my impressions were, what her diet was, if Galelin ever fed her.” His gaze dropped away again. “He asked about my attempt to bond with her.”
Heat flushed through Trysten. What in the wilds was that man up to?
“Look,” Trysten said. She laid her hand upon the door and pushed it open a few inches. “I want to continue the training of the new recruits.”
Paege’s eyes snapped open wide. “What?”
“I’m still the Dragoneer, no matter what Prince Aymon says. As long as Elevera is in this weyr, I’m Dragoneer, and I say that we need to train new recruits. It is the fighting season.”
Paege glanced over his shoulder briefly, then looked back to Trysten. “Prince Aymon is up in your den. His men are in their tents in the yard. He’ll be busy with Vanon for an hour or more if he asks him all the same questions he’s asked the rest of us. But if you’d rather, we’ll pass the tack out to you, and you can show them how to care for it elsewhere.”
“We’re riding,” Trysten said.
Paege stared at Trysten for a second. A grin teased at the edges of his lips, and then faded away. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Step aside. That’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Paege stepped aside and pulled the door open wide behind him. Trysten entered the bunkhouse. All of the men stood and stared as she stepped inside with the recruits trailing behind her.
“I’m not asking for secrecy,” Trysten said. “I have no intention of hiding my presence here, but if you wish to tell the Prince that you didn’t see me, I will not say different.”
The men nodded their understanding. Trysten led the recruits down the aisle through the bunks, out through the dining hall, and into the weyr proper. The dragons turned their heads to her.
Borsal stepped out of one of the stalls. He folded his arms over his chest. “I thought you were nearby. I could tell by the way the dragons were behaving.”
“I’m still the Dragoneer,” Trysten said. “It’s my bond with the alpha that makes me Dragoneer.”
Borsal glanced over his shoulder at the den, then looked back to Trysten. “You’ll get no argument from me, but it is Prince Aymon and his men you have to contend with.”
Trysten nodded. “And so I plan to. I’m taking several dragons out. I’m training new recruits.”
Borsal lifted his brow in surprise. “You’re taking dragons out?”
“We can’t very well fly them in here, can we?”
“You’re likely wrecking their future,” Borsal said with a nod to Darin and Deslan.
Kaylar took a step forward. “We don’t want to fly if we can’t fly with Trysten.”
Trysten held a hand out toward Kaylar, but said to Borsal, “The Prince cannot change with words what bonds me to Elevera, and Elevera to me. As long as she occupies the stall of the alpha, I am the Dragoneer. It is my responsibility to see that the empty saddles are filled with capable riders, so I am training these recruits. If you don’t want to get in trouble with Prince Aymon, then I suggest that you spent the last few moments, and a few more, out in the yard seeing to the weyr’s livestock.”
Borsal held Trysten’s gaze a few seconds and then nodded once. He glanced up at the den, then moved on quick, light feet out to the yard.
Kaylar moved up beside Trysten. “Are you sure about this?”
Trysten looked up at the den. “Positive. Come on.”
She took them into Elevera’s stall and showed them how to remove the tack from the trunk at the back of the stall, how to put it in place and secure it to the dragon. Once finished, she took them to several dragons at the end of the aisle. They were older females who were more docile than the others. There, each recruit performed a demonstration of saddling a dragon.
Finally, after Trysten brought Elevera down to the end of the weyr, she explained that dragons are intelligent beings. They do most of the flying by themselves. It was the rider’s job to communicate to the dragon where she wanted to go and when.
She ran through the motions to guide the dragons once again and demonstrated how to signal the dragon to crouch or kneel. Then she placed a foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up into the saddle.
The others followed, with Darin taking a few extra seconds to gather up the courage. Finally, once they were all seated and ready to go, Trysten reviewed how to launch from a stand-still, and then gave the hand signal for the horde to form a V behind her.
She grasped the forward lip of the saddle, gave a slight kick with her heels, and then Elevera was out of the weyr and racing up to the sky. She looked back as Kaylar emerged on the back of an orange dragon. Kaylar let out a whoop just as the Prince’s hordesmen began to peer out of their tents in response to the sound of dragon wings scooping the wind.
Shouts erupted. Alea followed Kaylar. Deslan was right behind.
Trysten’s jaw tightened as the royal hordesmen raced for the weyr.
Finally, Darin’s gray dragon appeared, looked about as if a little confused, and then leaped into the air ahead of the shouting, hand-waving royal hordesmen. The gray dragon swooped low over the village, then gained altitude as she cleared the last of the cottages.
A breath Trysten didn’t know she was holding escaped her lips. Her shoulders eased a bit as she turned her attention forward and leveled off Elevera’s ascent. She would have Prince Aymon’s attention now.
Trysten patted Elevera’s neck. “That’s it, girl.” The dragon let out a low, rolling rumble that Trysten felt more than heard. She smiled and glanced over her s
houlder. The others were catching up, moving slowly into formation.
As she turned forward again, an urge teased at her to take off, fly wild, away from Prince Aymon and the Western Horde and all of the fighting season business and just soar away with Elevera.
The alpha dragon began to drift a bit, and Trysten snapped out of her momentary reverie. She nudged a heel against the dragon’s side and brought her back into line. Behind her, the recruits sailed in a V formation, wings beating in the unison of a horde accompanied by its dragoneer.
Trysten lifted an arm and held it upright and steady to let the recruits know that she wanted everyone’s attention, and she was about to give an order. She then whirled her arm around once to indicate the whole horde, then pointed north.
Trysten turned her head to watch the formation do the same. The other dragons stiffened their wings and began to bank, except for Lorga. Rather than turning with the horde, the gray dragon with Darin on her back veered in the opposite direction.
Trysten grinned. It was an easy mistake, one that she had seen many recruits make when she watched her father train new hordesmen. The grin dropped away, however, as she watched Darin crouch down and wrap his arms around the dragon’s neck. No!
Lorga responded to Darin’s inadvertent command and put on a burst of speed. The beating of her wings increased as she held her heading toward the southwest.
“Darin!” Trysten shouted although it was doubtful he could hear her.
The boy glanced in her direction, but because of the distance, she could not tell if there was comprehension on his face. He held tight, his arms clutching the dragon’s neck, spurring it on faster and faster.
“Oh, fish and birds!” Trysten spat. She signaled for the horde to form a holding pattern, and then she spurred Elevera around in pursuit.
It didn’t take long for Elevera to cover the distance between herself and the older dragon. As she came up beside Lorga, Trysten shouted at Darin, who still clutched the dragon’s neck as he stared off to the plains along his right.
The boy turned his face toward Trysten. His eyes were wide, face pale beneath the wind that whipped his hair down over his brow.
“Darin!” Trysten shouted. “Sit up!”
Darin shook his head.
“You’re telling her to go faster. Remember? You have to sit up! Lorga thinks you want her to go faster.”
Darin shook his head again.
Trysten inhaled sharply as she considered what to do. As a Dragon Lord, she could order the dragon to turn around, or as alpha, Elevera could make a display that would order Lorga to ground. Even if they did nothing, at some point, Lorga would tire and eventually go to ground herself, but they would be far away, at night, with an exhausted dragon.
It would be better if Darin were the agent responsible for ending this. If he could see that his actions guided the dragon, and he brought her out of this flight himself, he’d feel more comfortable and confident than if Trysten or Elevera rescued him. It would be best to talk him down.
“Darin! Listen to me. You can stop this. Do exactly as I say.”
Darin merely stared at her. Squints writhed over his face now and then as his hair blew into his eyes. Still, he wouldn’t let go, not even to brush his hair from his face.
“You are strapped to the saddle,” Trysten called across the gulf between them. “I watched you tie the straps. You did a good job. Those straps are tight. You are not going to fall. Now, I want you to ease your hands back along Lorga’s neck. I need you to grasp the edge of the saddle, understand?”
Trysten gripped the lip of her own saddle and gave it a slight jostle. To her relief, Elevera knew it was for display, and not a command, and kept her pace steady.
“Do that now,” Trysten added.
Darin’s arms loosened a bit. They traveled an inch, then two along the scales of the dragon’s neck, toward her shoulders, and then froze.
“Keep going!”
Darin shook his head. “I can’t!”
“You almost had it!” Trysten countered. “You can do it! Just keep sliding your arms back an inch at a time!”
Darin closed his eyes. She could see that he was concentrating hard, but still, his arms didn’t budge.
Trysten glanced behind herself. The village and other recruits were quickly being left in the distance. Abandoning her recruits in a holding pattern was not a good thing. The situation needed to be resolved quickly and in a productive manner. Perhaps using her powers would be the best option after all.
“Darin! I’m going to pull ahead and make Lorga slow down a bit. When she slows down, I need you to sit up. I need you to let go of her neck and grab the lip of the saddle. I’m going to start now, all right?”
“I can’t!” Darin screamed. Panic edged his voice. Things would only get worse if she didn’t resolve this situation soon.
With a flick of her heels, Trysten sent Elevera surging forward. She grasped the sides of Elevera’s own neck and leaned forward until the gold dragon was more than a tail-length ahead of the gray. With another flick of the heel and a palm gliding up toward the back of the neck, she coaxed Elevera to drift sideways a bit, to put herself in the flight path of the other dragon.
Trysten looked back at Lorga’s great, gray eyes. Her gaze was unusual, unfocused, or rather focused on something far ahead of her. She was racing, throwing all that she had into flying forward. She seemed to be unaware of the rider on her back.
Answering a silent command from Trysten, Elevera began to wave her tail in a serpentine fashion before the speeding gray beast. The motion caught the dragon’s attention. Lorga looked up and her eyes caught Trysten’s gaze.
“Follow,” Trysten whispered, her command lost on the wind, but she felt it register in Lorga. The dragon regained her focus and concentrated on Trysten. Her wing beats began to match Elevera’s even though it meant that the older, smaller dragon began to fall back some.
With a set of deft movements of hands and feet, Trysten ordered Elevera to turn around in a wide, slow arc. To her immense relief, Lorga followed with a parting glance off to the southwest.
Darin remained clutched to the dragon’s neck, but his command had been usurped by Trysten’s authority. Lorga followed them back to the village where Trysten gave the signal for the others to follow and land in the yard.
Chapter 21
As they approached the weyr, the Prince and the royal hordesmen ran into the yard and formed a half-circle near their tents and their own dragons. Villagers, who had gathered in the yard to watch the drama, clapped and cheered and cleared out of the way as Trysten approached.
Before Elevera’s talons hit the ground, Trysten ripped her restraints free. As soon as the dragon landed, she slid from her saddle and ran back toward Darin and Lorga. The dragon immediately hung her head. Her sides heaved. Darin finally lifted his head away from the dragon’s back as the rest of the recruits touched down as well.
“Are you all right?” Trysten called as she reached Darin. “What happened?”
The young man, pale and stricken, pushed himself up to a sitting position. His eyes flicked back to the royal hordesmen charging toward them, Prince Aymon close behind. Darin swallowed hard. His hands trembled as he clutched the lip of the saddle.
“Get him off of there!” Prince Aymon called out.
Trysten whirled around and planted her hands upon her hips, but it was not to her that he had been speaking. One of the guards started to go around Trysten. She stepped into his path.
“This is my dragon, and he is my recruit.”
“By all that is wild and split, what were you trying to do?” Prince Aymon demanded.
“These are my dragons. I am bonded to the alpha. These are my recruits, and I am training them to fly.”
The Prince snorted. “You will excuse me if I find it difficult to believe that you were training anybody. You were completely out of control, as well as completely out of line.”
“I don’t know how it’s done in th
e mother city,” Trysten said, “but out here, young recruits make mistakes from time to time.”
“Indeed, but in the mother city, unlike this village, people follow orders. You were banned from flight. You are not to be on the back of any dragon, whether you are bonded to it or not.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Darin said from the back of Lorga. “I… I panicked. It wasn’t—”
“Silence!” Prince Aymon snapped at Darin. “You will be dealt with—”
Trysten stepped forward, toward the Prince. One of his hordesmen grabbed her by the arm.
“He is my recruit, Aymon. You will not speak to him like that. If you have a problem with him, you bring it to me.” With her free hand, she mashed her index finger into her chest.
Prince Aymon cocked an eyebrow. “Your recruit? You are not Dragoneer. I will address him as a subject of King Cadwaller as I see fit.”
“You cannot decide who is Dragoneer here! That is not your decision.” Trysten tried to free her arm from the hordesman’s grasp, but could not. “It is the alpha who decides, not you. No matter what you say, you cannot change that. I am the Dragoneer of Aerona weyr. Elevera has decided. The authority of dragons in this matter is greater than the authority of the King himself.”
Whispers and chatter broke out around them, and in an uncharacteristic move, Prince Aymon glanced around. Likewise, Trysten noticed for the first time that the village had gathered around them, forming a large circle of onlookers.
The Prince turned his attention back to Trysten and drew himself up to his full height, lifting his chin slightly to look down his nose. “The wisdom of dragons may not be subject to the laws of kings, but in the King’s realm, his word decides the fate of weyrs. Your horde will be banished from Aerona. You and all of your dragons will be transported to the mother city where you will serve out a sentence for your acts of disobedience and defiance. You, Trysten of Aerona, may consider yourself under arrest. Whether you fly back to the mother city on the back of your dragon or are hauled back in irons makes no difference to me, but I will let you decide.”
The Dragoneer Trilogy Page 40