Alta

time. The cacophony started again. Lord Khumun held up his hand, and it died.

But it was Kiron who spoke first. “My Lords,” he said, enunciating each word with such care that he was sure even the most stupid of them would understand that he meant something far more than he was saying. “I do believe that my wing and I can help you with some new strategy. Will you rouse your mounts and come with me to our practice field? Lord Khumun, I can take you, Heklatis, you should go with Aket-ten, and my Lord Ah-sheptah, I believe you ought to ride behind Huras, rather than flying just now. Will you come?”

They stared at him for a moment, as if he was a baboon that had somehow produced human speech. Then Lord Khumun said, “Jousters, I think this is a very good idea. We need to practice where no one will interfere with us—”

There were still looks of total bewilderment, but no one demurred. In fact, after the first few began taking hesitant steps toward their dragon pens, the rest followed. Kiron and Heklatis helped the injured Jouster to his feet, and made their way to the boys’ pens. Fortunately, he met them in the corridor just as they were about to go elsewhere.

“Get the dragons harnessed and up,” he ordered shortly, to their astonishment. “We need to go to the practice field. Aket-ten, you have Heklatis, Huras, you take this man. Fast! I want to get there and back before anyone notices!”

The wing understood, at any rate. And to his immense satisfaction, although they were the last to know, they were all the first into the air, even Huras, with the injured Jouster.

They led the way to their field, and landed there. The dragons had all just been fed (and drugged) and were sleepy—and while they were irritated at being forced to fly, they were inclined to lie right down on the warm grass in the sun and bask rather than quarrel or wander. Simply staking their reins down kept them in one place. The Jousters all gathered around Kiron and Lord Khumun, who both looked to Heklatis.

“Give me a moment,” the Healer muttered. He closed his eyes, and began to chant under his breath, and shortly he was sweating as if he was trying to shove a heavy stone up a ramp all by himself. He grew paler, too— and just when he began to sway a little with exhaustion, he stopped, opened his eyes—and sat down hard in the grass.

“They won’t find us, not for a while,” he said heavily. “And if they try to scry, what they’ll see is all of you practicing up there—” he pointed at the sky above.

“He’s a Magus, as well as a Healer,” Kiron explained to the baffled faces. “And—that’s where our story begins, I suppose.”

He explained everything; Toreth’s original plan, and why he had decided to make the Jousters into a force to make the Tians forge a real peace, their long discussions, the change in the plan after Toreth’s murder by the Magi, Kaleth’s visions—and finally, what they had done to the tala. “In a few days, you’ll be using the new stuff,” he told them. “And so will they. Once the dragons aren’t drugged anymore, we thought they would probably obey for a while out of habit, but we planned to go along on one last flight and—goad the Tian dragons into rage, so they’d throw their riders and escape. We were going to warn you so that you could ride your dragons down to the ground and turn them loose.”

Silence. Kiron began to sweat. Told out like this, to senior Jousters—it didn’t seem like such a good plan anymore.

“The Magi are trying to kill us anyway,” growled the injured man. “Isn’t that obvious? It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”

After a moment, there was some muttering of agreement. “But why?” asked someone else in a bewildered voice. “That’s what I don’t understand!”

All eyes went back to Kiron, who was still in a cold sweat. “I don’t know,” he said finally, “but at practice today, I started to wonder something. What if they wanted to replace all of you with their own men? I mean— Heklatis thinks that the Eye can’t be used on cloudy days or at night, and it’s not really good enough to get one person—but a dragon and rider are. What if he wanted to replace all of you with men who would—follow orders, and if those orders were to use your dragons on Altans, would do it without question?”

Silence again, but this time, utterly stunned. The injured man sat down with a thud.

“Blessed gods,” said one.

Heklatis looked as if he had swallowed a sea urchin. “The theory fits,” he said, with so much barely- suppressed rage in his voice that those nearest him took a step back. “And what a fine way to besiege a place and prevent anyone who might help from coming near it! Such as—the Temple of All Gods?”

A gasp met his words, but no one disagreed with him. That this violated everything every Altan believed in was so obvious that it didn’t need saying.

It was Lord Khumun who broke that third silence, by turning to Kiron, removing his sash of office, and offering it to Kiron. “It is your plan, young Lord Kiron,” he said, simply. “Lead us.”

Kiron stared at the sash, then into Lord Khumun’s face. All he could feel was panic; all he could think of was, I don’t want to be a leader!

But his hands took the sash by themselves, his mouth opened, and words came out.

“I think that this will work—”

Above the wing, nothing but sky. Below the wing—so far below that they looked like fancifully colored little songbirds—were the dragons of Alta.

“You have ordered all the Jousters into the sky, my Lord Magus. We are not the best, but we are ready.”

For the past two days, the dragons had been restive as the old tala wore out of their systems. By now, the larger dragons of Tia must be getting very touchy indeed. Their dragon boys would be giving them higher doses of the false tala. It would hold for a while, but not long. Certainly not long enough to get them through what Kiron’s wing was about to inflict on them.

The Magus stared at him, then smiled. He looked exactly like a crocodile. “Well done, Jouster Kiron. I will commend your loyalty and zeal to serve to the Great Ones.”

Somewhere out there in the desert, he hoped, Kaleth was waiting.

Whether they would all survive to reach him was another story. These were not fellow wingmates that they were about to harass. These were full-grown desert dragons, all wild-caught, and now, all of very uncertain temper.

Except, of course, for a single tame dragon that Kiron especially did not want to face.

What would the Magi think, when none of the Jousters returned, and they found a compound peopled only by slaves and servants? He hoped they would think that all of them had died, and that Lord Khumun and Heklatis had deserted, rather than be held responsible for such a massive failure. He really, truly hoped that the Magi would send out trappers to take wild dragons and try the false tala on them. That would be—festive.

Somewhere, down there, was a covered ox cart carrying an old peasant man and a quarrelsome old woman, heading east. Hidden in the cart, beneath a false bottom, were a dozen images of Akkadian gods and goddesses— and one statue of a comely woman that was not a goddess—along with all the wealth that Lord Khumun and Heklatis could put together. Heklatis had looked disturbingly comfortable in that linen gown and woman’s wig. But the statues ensured that the Magi might look for them, but they would not find them.

They had all worn Jousting armor and carried lances. The moment that they passed over the Seventh Canal, the armor and lances had come falling out of the sky like a strange rain.

No one was going to be encumbered today. No one was fighting today. The senior Jousters were going to let the Tians chase them until their own dragons got too restive—then they were going to take them down behind the Altan lines and let them go. That was the plan, anyway.

No more need for Jousting armor. There would be no more Jousters. There might be dragon riders, but there would be no more Jousters.

Down there, so far below that they looked like ants, were the Tian and Altan armies—and there—coming up from the south, were the Tian Jousters.

Up here it all seemed so very simple, and Kiron’s mind felt strangely detached. Was this how the gods saw things, as tiny figures at a distance? It was impossible to tell individual warriors on the ground, and even the dragons were little more than scraps of color, swirling around each other, as if moved by the wind. If so, no wonder the gods failed to answer prayers. You couldn’t see blood from up here; you couldn’t see death, or suffering.