He waded out into the hot sand, which felt exceptionally good on his chilled skin, and carefully dug around one side of the egg until he had uncovered enough to enable him to give it a half turn. Then he covered it back up again, except for a very small area at the very top, the merest curve of shell.

Then he sprinted back to Kashet's pen, and his pallet. Kashet had not moved a muscle, and until Kashet woke, there was no reason for him to get up either.

In fact, he managed to doze a little, before the rustling sound of sand moving against dragon scales warned him that he had better start his working day.

He was actually feeding Coresan four times daily now, giving her a final meal just before she went to sleep for the night. This meant that she would sleep longer in the morning than Kashet, and he could feed his primary charge first, get him saddled and ready for Ari by the time most of the other dragon boys were still queuing up for meat. This meant that when he came around with a barrow for Coresan, most of them were gone already.

When he reached her pen, she was scratching in an absent-minded way at the sand in the corner where her egg had been, but the moment that he appeared with her breakfast, she lost interest in that corner in favor of food. He went about the usual routine as though she had never laid an egg, and after another cursory search for it when she'd eaten, Coresan soon settled. She didn't so much give up, as lose interest in looking for it. A good sign, Vetch thought.

In fact, at noon she wolfed down meat until Vetch thought she was going to pop, then stretched herself out in the sun for a long doze, quite as if the egg had never existed.

Kashet came in that afternoon looking marginally better, and so did Ari, who took a look around the pen as Vetch divested the dragon of his saddle and harness. 'I was afraid, doing double duty as you are, that all the work was going to be too much for you, Vetch,' the Jouster said, with just the faintest overtones of surprise. 'But I swear, if anything Kashet's pen is cleaner and neater than it was before. Are there two of you? Have you spawned a twin brother you haven't told me about?'

Vetch smiled to himself. 'I'm used to doing more than my share,' he said boldly. 'It gets put on me, often as not. And don't think it's your fault, because it isn't! But so are you and Kashet, used to doing more than your share. And you don't have anyone to take the boring part of your work off your hands; at least I got that much advantage.'

'Huh. You've certainly hit that target in the heart ring,' Ari replied, with a raised eyebrow. 'I suppose, though, it's always been true that those of us who are outsiders have to work twice as hard just to prove ourselves the equals of those on the inside. How's Coresan?'

'Fat and lazy, and getting fatter,' he replied truthfully. 'I figure, the fatter I get her, the less trouble she'll be, because she'll be too lazy to make trouble.'

'The fat part is probably the eggs she's about to lay,' Ari corrected. 'And the lazy part because she's preoccupied with nesting and saving her energy for the eggs she'll lay. Has she been digging in her wallow?'

'All the time,' Vetch said instantly, glad that now he needn't conceal anything in Coresan's pen. 'One corner in particular, the one that gets sun all day.'

Ari nodded. 'Then she's about to lay. Good! Otherwise, is she behaving for you?'

'Better every day, by a little,' Vetch said, feeling very proud of himself. 'And I've been saving back the best meat from her meals to tidbit her with when she behaves herself.'

'Then, once she's finished laying, I don't think it would be out of the question to reinforce that by making her meals of the shanks and inferior meat, and save the things she likes for tidbits only,' Ari replied, squinting thoughtfully. 'You don't want to starve her, but if you make it clear that she gets the finer things only when she's on good behavior, she'll come completely around. She was trained properly originally—well, as 'properly' as you can, when you're starting out to break a dragon, rather than really tame it.'

'She'll never be a Kashet,' Vetch stated, as he removed the last of the dragon's harness, and the great beast gave himself a shake and stepped down into his wallow.

Ari laughed. 'No. You're right there. I'm afraid there will never be another Kashet.'

And with that, the Jouster gave Vetch a wink, and left.

Vetch hid his smile. There would never be another Kashet? Well, that remained to be seen.

Perhaps for once Ari will be wrong, so long as the gods are with me.

And two days later, Coresan's second egg appeared in the same corner as the first, though this time Vetch found it in the afternoon rather than the morning. Actually, the appearance of the egg surprised him; he would have thought that it would be more of an effort for her to lay such enormous objects.

With great relief, Vetch went straight to Haraket and reported it. Finally he was not going to have to worry about evading Haraket's questions. Nor would he have to worry that the Overseer might begin to wonder why there weren't any eggs. Mind, Haraket hadn't shown any evidence of suspicion, but—well, Haraket wouldn't necessarily

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