'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.'
