But he couldn't hold the tears back for very long; finally they started, and he wept silently, anger and grief that he had held in for so very long, mingling together with joy and relief in those tears, and nothing left to hold them back.
How long he cried, he couldn't have told. He cried until his eyes were sore, his nose clogged, his belly sore from sobbing. He cried until his throat was raw and scratchy, crying for all he'd lost, and all he could lose now, crying that his mother and father weren't here to see him, in his first moment of triumph since the Tians came.
It couldn't have been long, or he'd have heard Kashet hissing for his supper. Certainly it wasn't as long as it felt.
But finally, even he ran out of tears. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, careful not to get sand in them, and sniffed.
He felt odd. Felt as if he had cried something out of himself, and now there was just a hollow where it had been.
"Can you see me, father?" he whispered into the rain, into the vast space between himself and the Summer Country. "Can you see what I've done? Isn't this baby a beauty, the most wonderful thing you've ever seen?"
The dragonet stirred a little in sleep, and hissed softly.
Carefully, so as not to wake it, he began to stroke the head and ears, and as he petted the delicate skin of the brows, he knew that his dragonet was a female, for it did not have the bumps beneath the skin that would eventually form into a pair of skin-covered "horns" that marked the males.
"What shall I call you, baby?" he murmured to it. This wasn't a question he took lightly. Words had power, and names were the most powerful of all words. Words where what the gods used to shape the world, and whatever he named this little dragonet would shape her.
Then it came to him; from her colors, shading from yellow on her belly, through the scarlet of her body, to a deep plum along her spine and at the end of her tail while her ears and muzzle went to that brazen-gold. Like the colors of a sunrise—
"Avatre," he murmured. "Fire of the dawn. I name you for that."
She stirred in her sleep and pushed her forehead against his stomach, as though in approval. Avatre it was.
"Avatre," he sighed with content, and with rain drumming on the canvas above them, caressed the head that rested so trustingly in his lap.
Now for the next hurdles. Keeping her presence secret—and keeping her…
But for now—now it was enough to cradle her, and listen to her breathing, softly, in the rain.
He had to feed Kashet again, eventually, of course. But the rain was still coming down, and he knew that not even Ari would come out of his quarters in this out-of-season downpour. So tonight, well, tonight he would not be sleeping in Kashet's pen.
He eased the baby's head off his lap and she woke and looked at him, then yawned, her tongue waggling comically before she shut her mouth. She stared at him for a moment, then made a small noise that he had no difficulty in interpreting as a demand.
He had to chuckle at that. Fortunately, there was enough left in his barrow to line her belly, if not fill it; enough to hold her while he went to fetch more food for her and for Kashet. Then it was the same routine again, except that already she was getting the idea that biting down on the hand that was feeding her was not going to get the meat pieces to arrive any sooner, and in fact caused a delay in delivery as the owner of the hand made funny sounds and waggled the hand in the air. This was entertaining, perhaps, but did nothing for a hungry belly. So she quickly learned to be gentle, and learned that when she sucked at the hand instead of clamping down on it, sometimes it would bring a cargo of delicious wet stuff that lubricated the throat and tongue and tasted sublime.
The "wet stuff," of course, consisted of bits of the livers, hearts, and lungs; prime treats for every dragon because of their rich blood-content, but difficult to maneuver once they were cut up unless the dragonet was cooperating. Avatre was a fast learner, even fresh out of the egg as she was, and when he was done he hardly needed to wash his hands, for she had wrapped her tongue around them and sucked on them until every bit of blood and juice she could get had gone down that voracious little throat.
She fell asleep again immediately, and now that her wings were dry, he tucked them in against her body and heaped sand around her to keep her warm and supported. Then he took his barrow back to the butchery.
But just as he was leaving the butchery, he overheard something that made him pause for a moment.
—witchery!" one of the butchers was saying, darkly. "Altan witchery! The Haras priest Urkat-re told me himself; he and the other Haras priests had all they could do to hold the storm back enough that the dragons could land without killing themselves and their Jousters!"
"I don't much like the sound of that," one of the others murmured uneasily. "The sea witches have never been able to reach so far before…"
"Because they never tried to do so on the wings of a storm before."
Vetch jumped; that was Haraket's voice!
"Overseer, have you heard anything more than that?" asked the first butcher humbly.
"No. You seem to have gotten all the tidings there are to hear, Thoteret. But I don't doubt you, nor do 1 think what you've said is mere idle speculation. I have never seen a storm like that in growing season, and since the Altan sea witches' powers are of the wind and water, it stands to reason that they called it up, all out of season." Haraket seemed very sure of himself, and Vetch saw no reason to doubt him. "It makes every sense, too, when you think what their strategy must be. They have fewer dragons and less-experienced Jousters than we; they can no longer meet us man-to-man. So they must get us out of the sky and thin our numbers somehow. What better way than to smash our dragons to earth with an unnatural storm?"
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 obtuse-ness. "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, helpi
ng 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.
Chapter 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 activities 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 dr
agons 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.
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