Alta

But I’m not a god, Kiron thought, taking in a sudden deep breath of air as the first of the little bits of color broke off and headed for the ground. And I may not see it, but I know it’s there. It’s time to do what I can to stop it.

He gave Avatre the signal to dive.

He didn’t have to see his wing following his lead; he felt it. He didn’t want Aket-ten to be here, but—but he needed every dragon, and little Re-eth-ke was the smartest, the swiftest, the most agile of them all. And besides, he couldn’t have kept Aket-ten away short of knocking her out, stuffing her in a bag, and putting her in Lord Khumun’s cart.

And he knew very well what would happen to him then, if he made it to Sanctuary . . . Aket-ten would finish what the Tian Jousters started.

He picked out a dragon, a big one, a blue-and-green, chasing an Altan brown swamp dragon. He gave Avatre the signal for a raking attack without the claws.

The Tian never even knew he was coming; all he knew was that suddenly something big and red came up from behind, moving twice as fast as he was, and nearly knocked him out of his saddle with the buffeting wake of its passage.

And his dragon, already giving him trouble, went mad.

Kiron glanced back over his shoulder. The Tian had broken off the original chase and was now after him. There was another pair of Tians ahead of him, with just barely enough room between them to fit a third—he decided on the instant to fill that gap, and kept Avatre going straight ahead while she still had the momentum of her dive.

She blew through the two of them; he glanced back. The purple blundered into the gold-and-green, then the blue crashed into both of them. Angry screeches, the first he had ever heard from a dragon, followed him as he sent Avatre into a wingover and headed her back up for more height. She rowed her wings in the air, all business, ignoring the chaos she had left behind.

He looked down. There were dull-colored dragons and a few bright ones flying free, now. The dull ones were streaking back for the marshes of Alta, tearing bits of their harness off as they went. The bright ones seemed confused.

He spotted another good target; a pair of Tian dragons going for the grounded Altan Jousters, although their Jousters seemed to be having some difficulty in getting them to go where they wanted. This time he didn’t even have to give Avatre a signal; she seemed to sense where he was looking, as she had when they hunted in the desert together, and plunged downward toward the new target.

This time she chose her own attack; the fisted one. Kiron felt the thump as she hit something, though whether it was the dragon or the Jouster, he could not have told for sure. She bounced back up; the dragon she hit blundered into the second, and that was two more Tians out of the melee.

As she clawed for height again, he took a look below. Now the Tian dragons in pursuit were chasing his wingmates, and even as he watched, he saw two of them break off, writhing and bucking in the air, deciding suddenly that the irritating nuisances on their backs were worse than the irritating nuisances that were harassing them.

Avatre paused at the top of her climb—

And suddenly Kiron’s vision was filled with a blue-and-gold dragon.

Bleak eyes stared through him from within the slits of a Jousting helmet.

“I told you not to get on the other side of a Joust from me!” Ari shouted, his voice hollow, his words filled with anger and pain. And he struck for Kiron with his lance.

But Avatre was faster, and she had been learning evasive moves from the moment Kiron entered the Altan compound.

She did a wingover, and Ari’s lance swished through empty air. She turned the wingover into a dive, heading for the ground this time. Kiron did not have to look behind to know that Kashet was in hot pursuit.

This was a mistake; Kashet was as good at ground-scorching dives as Avatre, and he had more practice. He touched Avatre with a signal; she responded instantly, flipping over in a side-slip tumble that put them upside-down for an instant.

Kashet shot past. Kiron sent Avatre up, and back in the opposite direction. It happened to be east.

Time to run.

He gave her the signal she wanted.

For the second time in her life, Kashet pursued Avatre into the desert. This time the odds were better; she was stronger, bigger, and faster, with infinitely more endurance. He hadn’t known that Ari was trying to help them the first time, he’d thought that the Jouster, his Master, was trying to catch them to bring them back to a mutual captivity.

Now he didn’t know what Ari wanted, but he knew what Ari’s devotion to duty would make him try to do, and he didn’t want to find out if friendship would win over duty.

He leaned down over Avatre’s neck, making himself as small as possible—and then gave her an entirely different signal.

He dropped the reins. She was the best judge of what to do now; he would live or die by her instinct and ability.

She responded at first only by deepening her wingbeats and making her climb a little steeper. Then she turned her head, just a trifle—looked back over her own shoulder—and did a wingover to the left.

Once again, Kashet shot past. This time, though, he fanned his wings furiously to brake—and she shot past him as she turned her wingover into a shallow dive and continued on eastward. She had tricked him into dumping his speed!

Kiron’s heart leaped. Kashet had never fought a dragon that was his equal before, but Avatre had been training with eight other tame dragons. So he might have more Jousting experience, but she knew how to trick another dragon.

Kiron longed to look back, but resisted the temptation. The battlefield was far behind them, but they were still not over the desert yet. Avatre turned her dive into a climb, and glanced back.

And ducked, spilling the wind from her wings. Kashet shot by overhead.

This isn’t good—he’s got more speed now and more height than we do—

And two more dragons shot past, a blue-black and silver-blue blur, and a purple-blue-scarlet beauty; Tathulan, who was nearly the size of Kashet, and Re-eth-ke. The largest and the smartest!

Kashet was in the middle of a wingover when Tathulan bulled past, using her own wake to send Kashet into a tumble. But the tumble sent Kashet where he wanted to go, straight into Avatre and the great blue locked claws with her and they began to plummet toward the earth in an obscene echo of a mating fall.

Kiron screamed in terror, seeing his death rushing toward him—

A blue-black-and-silver thunderbolt struck both of them. Re-eth-ke had rammed them with chest and fisted foreclaws. Kiron caught sight of Aket-ten’s ashen face for a moment, then Re-eth-ke flapped away. But the blow had startled Kashet so that he let go, and Avatre wrenched free.

She snapped her wings open; with a jar that shook him to his teeth, she backwinged for a moment, then got control again and lumbered upward.

Another indigo dragon scorched past her; Bethlan, cutting between Avatre and Kashet. Another—this time a red-and-sand streak that was Deoth. Kashet wasn’t going to be distracted; Kiron could almost feel Kashet’s hot breath on the back of his neck. He was going to close again—

Avatre ducked, and tumbled—and Apetma, Se-atmen and Wastet slammed into Kashet from three sides in a copper, brown, and brilliant blue pinwheel.

Kiron had often heard from old fighters that, at a moment of extreme crisis, time seems to slow. He had never believed that until this moment, when he saw Ari’s body jounce upward in his saddle—saw the restraining strap snap with a sound like a whip crack, and watched Ari tumble down over Kashet’s shoulder with the same graceful, languid motion as a petal dropping from a flower—

His mouth opened. He thought he shouted. He knew he gave Avatre a signal she knew better than any other.