Sanctuary

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.”

“But we can’t take the dragons down there,” Aket-ten observed. “It will be too cold for them.”

He nodded. “We’ll move them in there—the winter quarters.” He pointed at the end building of their court, which might have been a stable, or something of the sort. They’d decided that would be the winter “cave” once things got too cold. Heklatis had not yet worked out how the Ghed priests transferred heat into the Tian dragon pens, although he was certain that between them, he and Ari could puzzle the magic out. At least the dragons would actually fit into this building, and it could probably be heated conventionally.

“I don’t want to leave Re-eth-ke,” she replied after a moment.

“I don’t think any of us plan on leaving our dragons,” he said truthfully. “They’ll probably be all right, but you never know. So it won’t be as comfortable as being down by the river, and we might have our hands full if they get restive or frightened.”

“I can think of too many bad things that could happen if we leave them alone,” she told him.

At just that moment, the rest of the wing started to straggle in. Pe-atep and scarlet-and-sand Deoth were the first of the lot, with Deoth looking more nervous than usual. “I think he senses something,” Pe-atep called in his booming voice as Deoth landed on the sand, and immediately went to a sheltered corner. Kiron nodded; having been a keeper of hunting cats, even lions, before becoming a Jouster, tall Pe-atep was perhaps the most sensitive of any of them to his dragon’s moods except, perhaps, the former falcon trainer Kalen.

“Kaleth’s prediction is holding true, then.” Kiron did not even bother to voice the question of whether the scarlet-and-sand dragon was picking up his nerves from his rider. Pe-atep was not only more sensitive to his dragon’s moods, he was outstanding at dealing with them. He knew better than anyone in the wing except perhaps Kalen how to keep his own nerves from being communicated to his dragon.

“I think he knows it’s something he’s never seen, too,” Pe-atep dismounted, but didn’t bother to take off Deoth’s burdens. The dragon craned his neck around, showing the sand-colored throat. “I’m going to take him straight into the shelter; no point in letting his nerves get any more worked up.”

“I’ll come with you,” Aket-ten said instantly. “It’ll leave more room in the court for the others, and Re-eth- ke’s starting to fidget, too.”

“So’re Wastet and Apetma,” Orest called down from above.

Ari leaned over the edge. “The only two dragons that aren’t fussing are Kashet and Avatre—and they’ve both lived in the desert. I expect all of your Altan-born dragons that have never seen a real sandstorm, much less a midnight kamiseen, are going to be restless and on edge; they sense something coming,