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 Aha…
"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!" Baken 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 got
ten 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.
In stark contrast to the wild dragonet, Avatre was overjoyed to see him, and it occurred to him that he had better find something for her to do when he wasn't around. She was old enough now that she could get bored if he wasn't there to play with. He needed to find dragonet toys. Perhaps she'd enjoy gnawing on a bone, like a dog?
The butchery was deserted, the butchers already at the meeting place, which gave him a free hand there. So when he got her meal of the usual small pieces, he also took possession of a huge leg bone from an ox and brought it with him. It had been stripped clean by the butchers already, which made it ideal for his purposes; there wasn't any meat on it to putrefy and make her ill. Once she was stuffed, he left the bone beside her, and she was already tentatively biting at it out of curiosity as he left.
He was one of the last to reach the landing court, and as he entered the gate, all he could see were the backs and heads of people in front of him. As short as he was, he hadn't a prayer of actually seeing anything but the backs of heads. He looked around for something to stand on, and decided that his best bet was to climb up on the base of the pillars carved at either side of the gate itself. The sandstone was smoothed as well as sandstone could be, but he was used to climbing, and swarmed up it like a monkey. It didn't take long to get himself up there on the top of the pedestal that supported the pillar, and once in place, balancing on the tiny ledge where the square base ended and the round pillar began, he gaped in astonishment at the sheer number of people gathered within those four, high walls. He'd had no idea that there were that many people housed within the compound!
Obviously, the Commander of Dragons knew, though, which was why he had set the meeting here, for there wouldn't have been any place else able to hold all of them all at once, not even the Jousters' Hall where Vetch had been freed from Khefti.
The sun shone down on a sea of heads—heads in simple, striped headcloths, shaved heads, heads with the hair cut short and precise, and here and there, the shaggy, long-haired head of a serf. The colors of the wall paintings blazed in the sun, and there was a murmur of voices, a hum that filled the space between the walls.
At the far side of the court, a simple, head-high platform had been set up. Standing up there were the Commander of Dragons and several priests in formal attire—the sort of robes and jewels and regalia they had worn when they had led spell-casting processions around the compound after the first storm. Other than the wall paintings, they supplied the only spots of color in the courtyard, for the garb of nearly everyone from the compound itself was uniformly made of sun-bleached linen. Very few wore ornaments other than the hawk-eye talisman either.
The Commander stood with his hands on his hips with the bright sun shining full down on him, surveying the crowd below him, looking remarkably casual and completely at ease. Once again, he was dressed simply, with none of the showy jewels usually sported by the nobility, and only the Haras pectoral spreading jeweled wings at his bare throat, and the royal vulture at the front of his blue, close-fitting war helmet, marked him as any higher rank than a senior Jouster. Seeing him so very calm evidently was having an effect on the inhabitants of the compound; some of the tension was out of the air, and the murmurous sound of many conversations did not have that frantic edge to it that Vetch had expected.
Finally, the Commander held both hands up peremptorily for silence, and he got it, as the crowd hushed.
"Hear the words of the priests of the gods of Tia," the Commander said, his words ringing out, strong and deep, into the quiet. "The gods of Tia are stronger than the gods of Alta; her priests are wiser and more powerful, and in no way can the Altan magicians hope to prevail over those of this land. The gods of our land will prevail."
"Which only means the shave-skulls haven't figured out what the sea witches are doing, nor how to prevent it," someone muttered below Vetch, and his neighbors nodded in agreement.
Vetch had to agree with that; if the priests had successfully countered the sea witches' magic, they'd have boasted about it here and now. If they'd been able to find Seers who could get past the protections that hedged in Altan places of power, they'd have trumpeted their findings. This was all empty air.
But the Commander wasn't finished. "The priests of our land are wise, learned, and powerful," he continued, and Vetch thought he heard just a tinge of irony in the man's voice, "But no man goes hunting with only duck arrows in his quiver, when he does not know what other quarry he might encounter. The Great King, may he live a thousand years, also sent eyes and ears that walk upon two bare feet into the land of the Altans, and this is what he found—
Vetch found himself leaning forward and holding his breath, and he was not the only one.
"The sea witches have a new magic, but as it is Wind and Water magic, it is subject to the season and the conditions of the season," the Commander told them, making sure each word was plain and unambiguous. "As the season progresses from Growing to Dry, there will be less water in the air, less-favorable winds. The storms will come farther and farther apart, and lose strength as the days pass and the Dry comes upon us, until at last, they will fade to a memory and we need cope only with the Dry, as ever. Perhaps the Dry holds terror for the enemy of the North, but we know it as an old neighbor. And our priests strive to see that we can learn to turn it against them, as they have sent their sea-born storms against us."
A collective sigh of relief arose from the crowd; if, like Vetch, some of the other Altan serfs felt disappointment, they were careful not to show it.
Now there were some murmurs beginning, and in a moment, they would probably be in full roar of conversation. Once again, the Commander raised his arms for silence.
"This is not to say that the sea witches may not find ways of raising storms in the Dry," he cautioned. "I do not need to do more than mention the Midnight kamiseen, I think…"
His words had a chilling effect upon the crowd. The Midnight kamiseen was so named, not that it arrived in the dark of the night, but because it threw so much sand in the air, with such terrible winds, that it blotted out the sun. When such a storm blew up, it was as dark as midnight at midday. There was little hope for anyone caught without shelter in such a sandstorm, for it was literally impossible to breathe. One could actually drown in sand.
"Nevertheless, this is a magic of Wind only!" the Commander added. "And the sea witches' power has ever been that of Water, not Wind alone. Haras of the all-seeing eye is the guardian of the winds of Tia, and of the Jousters, too, and you can rest assured that His hand is over the Jousters and their dragons, and all those who serve them! And since it is a creature of Haras, the priests of Haras intend to learn to turn it northward, and give the witches a taste of true power!"
Small comfort, that, to those gathered below Vetch. Still, it did not do to say so aloud. The priests might hear—and withhold their protection from the grumblers.
It was always a chancy thing, to arouse the enmity of the priests. They might choose to ignore you, or they might not.
Vetch knew, however, as did every other Altan-born serf, that the sea witches' power was so integrally tied in with water that it was highly unlikely they could call up a Midnight kamiseen. Still—if the storms that had been brought had kept the dragons close to home, perhaps the threat of powerful sandstorms would do the same.
"The Great King," the Commander continued, "has mighty plans for us, my Jousters. I may not tell you what they are, but I am certain you may guess that as your numbers increase, you
become a still more powerful weapon in his quiver. So I will leave you with that. Trust in the gods and their priests, and dream of the Gold of Honor!"
That was enough to evoke a cheer from the assemblage—all but Vetch, who was covering the fact that he was not cheering by climbing down from his perch. He knew, as did everyone else here, what those "plans" were. The truce, which was being eroded at every possible opportunity by both sides, would fill. And once again, Tia would hammer northward, with the Jousters at the forefront of the challenge.
But if the gods are with me, by then I will be gone…
Eventually, as the storms weakened and took longer and longer to appear, he pulled back the awning over Avatre's pen. That gave Kashet a good look at her, and she at him, and within a day Kashet got bored with his neighbor and stopped spending so much time peering at her. His one regret was that he didn't dare ask Ari for advice. If only he could have! But he could take no chance that anyone might learn of Avatre, and of all of the people in the compound, he had the most to fear from Ari. Avatre was in the pen next to Kashet's, Ari knew very well that he had not been assigned a dragonet to care for, and—Ari was Tian. There was always that. So Vetch had to blunder through on his own, with common sense, what he learned from Baken, and what he overheard from the trainers.
Joust dj-1 Page 33