The sands seemed empty of life this morning, but with Kaleth’s prediction of a sandstorm, it could be that the wildlife sensed its approach, and had taken to shelter early.
Only when they reached the wadis, and the landscape beneath them turned from undulating waves to the hard earth and rock, cut by the occasional dry wash, and punctuated with wind-eroded mastabas, did he start to see signs of life. Birds flitted from one bit of scrub to another; he saw a desert hare loping away as fast as its legs could take it, and finally, in the distance—the only cloud he’d seen today, a cloud of dust.
The sort of dust raised by a herd or a group of animals.
Avatre spotted it at the same time that he did, and reacted to it sooner, changing her course and heading as straight as the flight of an arrow for the sign of game on the horizon. If Aket-ten was right, the dragons understood a fair amount of what she tried to tell them, and Avatre would know that something bad was coming and there would be no afternoon hunt.
Or, if her instincts were as good as those of the wild animals, she would feel the urge to get under cover warring with her hunger, and that should also add to her eagerness. Now, as long as she didn’t get
too
eager. . . .
He noticed after a moment that she was angling slightly upward again, which meant she was going to try for an attack from high above, which would add to her speed. Good for a quick kill, but not so good for him! He would have to get his stone off at the last moment, and wouldn’t be able to make another cast. Then, if he missed, and she missed, and the herd stood at bay or got into a wadi, there might not be a second chance.
He freed one hand from the saddle, felt for the biggest stone in his ammunition pouch, and, with his eyes still on the approaching dust cloud, slipped it one-handed into the sling in his lap. He wouldn’t drop the sling into the ready position until he was almost onto the target, otherwise he risked losing the stone before he could throw it.
Avatre’s eyes were better than his; he felt her putting more effort into her wingbeats. She must have seen the animals in the dust cloud. Beneath his legs and the hand on her shoulder, her skin was hot as a kiln, a sign that she was excited. Even if she could not yet see the prey, she knew where it was.
The amount of dust being kicked up increased; the herd was in a canter now. They must have been seen. The creatures of this part of the desert had not known an aerial predator before the dragons came, but they surely knew one when they saw it now.
A pity, that. No more easy hunts.
Three hard wingbeats that bucked Kiron back against the cantle of the saddle, and they were directly above of the herd. He looked down on the brown backs, through a haze of dust as they ran, weaving back and forth to elude the shape above them. He smelled them; hot dust, animal sweat, even as far above them as Avatre was. Three wingbeats more, and they were pulling ahead of the lead ass. And that was when Avatre stalled, giving him just enough warning to brace himself, and did a wingover, plunging down toward the herd of asses with wings folded and Kiron pressed tightly against her neck.
She plummeted for a point well ahead and to one side of them of them, and did a quick turn, still halfway above them and still diving, to face them without losing any significant speed. With frantic brays, the ass herd broke right down the middle as she pulled up out of her dive with a snap of opening wings and raced straight at them, head outstretched. Roughly half went left, the other half right, but as there always is, there was one individual who couldn’t make up her mind to go in either direction. Kiron pulled the sling out of his lap in a practiced movement as Avatre made straight for the indecisive one, whirled it, and let the stone fly as Avatre pulled up, skimming just above the tops of the mare’s ears.
The stone struck her full in the forehead, and she went down. Kiron crouched down in the saddle again and held on for dear life.
As the straps holding him in cut into his flesh, Avatre did a second wingover and plunged back down, all four sets of talons extended. Even as the ass was trying to struggle to its feet, Avatre struck it from above and behind, killing it instantly with a jolt that sent Kiron into the pommel of the saddle again.
The rush of wind stopped; dust began to settle around them. The only sounds were of Avatre settling herself and the hoofbeats and braying of the retreating asses.
She mantled her sunrise-colored wings over her prey and began tearing into it before the dust had even settled. The rest of the herd, sensing that the chosen victim had fallen, stopped dead and turned their heads to look. The air was full of the smell of hot sweat, dust, and blood.
Sometimes Kiron felt sorry for the prey, but today had been a quick, clean kill. And he was used to seeing Avatre killing and eating now; it was with no sense of revulsion that he slid down out of her saddle and left her to her feeding. No, his thought was just to make sure that the mare they’d taken down hadn’t had a foal at heel. Such indecisiveness sometimes meant the prey was guarding a little one.
There was no sign of a loose or abandoned foal in the herd. In a way, that was a pity; he would have caught it and brought it back alive, to be tamed and added to the Sanctuary animals. So far, all they had was a few donkeys, goats, and camels. Granted, keeping them fed was a chore. Sand did not make good pasturage for anything.
Still, the original inhabitants must have managed in some way. They just needed to find out how. And there was no doubt that having working animals made life easier for the humans. If they had enough asses or donkeys for instance, they could operate a water wheel to bring water to the surface to irrigate small gardens.
Another day, perhaps. As the ass herd formed up again and sped off to the shelter of the wadis, Kiron eyed the sun. The sun-disk of Re-Haket had not yet approached the point that marked “danger,” but it was time to get on with his part of the work.
With the edge taken off Avatre’s hunger, it was possible to approach her and work side by side with her on her kill without her bristling or even snapping at him. She might love him past all understanding, and he, her in return, but love does not trump a growling stomach for a dragon. She’d already cleaned out the viscera, which was actually helpful, as it made the butchering go easier and a lot cleaner.
He butchered the hindquarters for packing up, while she tore into the front. By this time she had eaten the head, so it wasn’t so bad . . . there was nothing quite as unnerving as watching a dragon take apart a skull, unless it was to have the reproachful (albeit dead) gaze of the prey seemingly focused on you. That was one problem the butchers at the Jousters’ Courts of both Alta and Tia had never been forced to deal with.
He had sacks that he tried to make of equal weight when she had finally eaten her fill. He wasn’t going to leave anything behind; this was a little more than Avatre would eat right now, since her growth had stalled out and she wouldn’t be flying this afternoon, but one of the others might not be as lucky in the hunt as he and Avatre had been. As it was, with the burden of four bags of animal parts and himself, when Avatre lumbered into the air again, it was a good thing that the sands had heated up enough to give them some thermal lift. She labored hard the entire way home, and by the time they reached the city, she was as tired as if she had flown a full patrol with a fight at the end of it.
The flight back to Sanctuary was unexceptional; Avatre was soon back in the pen, ready for a buffing and oiling, waiting patiently for Kiron to haul the sacks of meat into temporary storage. They were the first back, despite having taken the longest flight out (or so he guessed), but he had just begun scouring Avatre’s ruby-scaled hide with sand when Ari and Kashet came in to land on the rooftop above. Kashet’s landing was, as ever, a thing of precision. There was no better flier than Ari’s big blue.
“How went the hunt?” he called up, since he couldn’t see anything of Kashet but the dragon’s head from his vantage point below.
“Three gazelles. Kashet had one, and I brought the other two back, one for Kashet later and one in case someone didn’t do so well,” Ari replied, and grunted with the effort of taking sacks from his dragon. “You won’t hear me say this often, but days like this make me wish for the old times in the Jousters’ Compound and the butchery. I don’t mind not having a dragon boy, but being my own servant and my own hunter to boot is a bit of a hardship.”
Kiron grimaced. Not that he didn’t sympathize in principle, but he’d never really gotten used to servants—having been a serf and as such, less than a slave, most of his life. For him, life in Sanctuary just meant going back to old patterns of hard work.
For Ari and some of the others, however, it was a new and unpleasant experience. But there were no serfs, no slaves, and precious few servants here. There just weren’t enough people to spare for anyone to devote his time to waiting on someone else. The only servants that Kiron knew of were the two that served Kaleth and the other escaped Healers and priests, and they were more in the nature of being acolytes than servants.
In fact, the very nature of the city meant that there were several classes that were entirely missing. No serfs, no slaves, no servants—and no farmers. All foodstuffs had to be brought in from across the desert or hunted on dragonback.
Avatre squirmed and twisted to help him reach every inch of her hide, and grunted with pleasure when he got a particularly itchy spot. While he was working, Orest and Wastet came in with a flash of ruby and sapphire, followed by Aket-ten and Re-eth-ke, like a silver-edged shadow. Both were laden, so that was four in with good kills. Aket-ten and Re-eth-ke joined him in the sand pit, while Orest stayed up on the roof with Ari. A moment later, Oset-re and copper-colored Apetma landed next to them.
“Orest.” Aket-ten shook her head and made a faint sound of disapproval.
“What about him?” Kiron replied, rubbing oil into Avatre’s wing webs.
“Hadn’t you noticed? You’re no longer Orest’s hero. Ari is.” She shook her head again. “Not that he’d ever disobey you, but he’s transferred all that hero worship he used to have for you over to Ari.”
Kiron thought about that for a moment. “Huh!” he said. “I think you’re right!” He pondered the altered state of things for a little more. “Well, good.”
“ ‘Well, good’?” Aket-ten replied incredulously. “Is that all?”
“Actually, it’s
very
good.” The more he thought about it, the better he liked it. He had to be wingleader for right now, but with more people, and more dragons, eventually Orest would be a wingleader in his own right. There was only just so much of a leadership role that Kiron was comfortable with. Let Ari be the Commander of Dragons; he was suited to such things.
“
Very
good.” Aket-ten threw up her hands in exasperation. “I would have thought you might feel strongly about losing Orest’s allegiance.”
“I’m still his wingleader. He’s still my friend, and besides, Ari’s older and a lot better leader than I am.” He looked under Avatre’s neck at her. “Aket-ten, let’s not bring the game of nation and politics from Alta to Sanctuary. It’s a good thing that the others are looking to Ari for guidance. He has more experience with a hand-raised dragon than anyone, he’s older and a better fighter than I am, and he’s a good man. So what if he’s Tian? If the Magi really are moving into Tia, I bet we’ll start getting more Tians here in Sanctuary before long. You’ll just have to learn to live with them, Aket-ten.”
She hunched her shoulders; he couldn’t see her face, but he imagined from her posture that she was frowning. “All my life, they’ve been the enemy,” she said. “And
everyone
knew about the rider of the big blue dragon that was so devastating to our side. Now everybody seems to be fussing over Ari as if he’d never killed any of our people!”
“Probably fewer than you think,” Kiron said slowly, thinking about all those times that Ari had returned from a patrol to brood unhappily all alone. “And he regrets every single one. You know how people exaggerate; I doubt he’s done a quarter as much as rumor would have it.” Her shoulders were still hunched stubbornly, and he gave up. “Look, if you can’t be nice to him, just don’t be rude.”
“I am never rude,” came the untruthful reply, but he had the feeling that was all he was going to get out of it.
Why is it that my friends just can’t all get along?
He supposed he could thank the Magi for that as well.
Possibly she was irritated because it wasn’t just Orest that was accepting Ari without question—it was most of the others in the wing, and Nofret and Marit and Kaleth.
You’d think that if Kaleth has no issues. . . .
Well, perhaps she was feeling neglected.
Certainly, ever since they’d come here, it had been nothing but nonstop work for everyone. And Aket-ten was another of those who was not at all used to doing her own work.
“When the storm comes and shuts us all in, do you want to try and teach me to play hounds and hares again?” he asked.
She turned around, looking rather surprised. “Yes!” she said. “I would! It’ll probably be too dark for mending.”
“It will be very dark,” was all Kiron could say. “I only went through one midnight
kamiseen
in Tia and the ones in the desert proper are supposed to be a lot worse. I think most people are planning on going all the way down to the river cave for as long as the storm lasts.”