Aerie

Well . . . on the one hand, goats did like to herd up. And if a lion did figure out it had to go up to find them, having several more goats up there would mean that the lion would have more than one target.

But on the other hand . . . having more goats up there meant more noise and more chance that a lion would figure out it had to go up.

I think, if I were that goat, I would go find my own roof.

“Hmm,” Pe-atep whispered, and scratched his head. “I had rather not go up there, try to take one, and frighten them. Being in the middle of a herd of frightened, kicking goats in the dark—”

Ugh, Pe-atep was right about that. Goats could do a great deal of damage with those sharp little hooves. Not to mention the horns.

“The first thing to do is see what things look like up there,” Kiron replied, after a moment. “It’s not as if they’re going to charge us or anything. The worst that will happen if they see us is that they’ll startle and try to run.”

“Huh. That might not be bad. If they jump off the roof—”

There was a thought. Surely there would be one out of the lot that would land wrong. “Keep that in mind. It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”

The two of them circled the building until they found the narrow, precarious stair that led up the outside to the roof. Feeling his way along the wall and taking great care not to trip, Kiron climbed up first and cautiously poked his head up over the low wall that rimmed the top.

There were about six goats there, most of them standing packed closely together with their heads hanging. Their even breathing told Kiron that five of the six felt secure enough here to doze. But one of them, a piebald, pricked its ears up at Kiron and craned its head forward, sniffing. It didn’t seem alarmed. In fact, after a moment, it took a step toward him, and then another.

Feeling a little like a traitor for getting it to trust him, Kiron made a tsking noise at it, as Pe-atep moved up beside him and went into a crouch. Switching its tail, the goat ambled over, looking as if it expected a treat.

It must have been somebody’s pet. Kiron tried not to think of the child that had probably made it into a pet . . . a child that without a doubt must have other things to worry about now than its pet goat. Assuming it was even in a condition to worry about anything.

Still, this was rather like—like Aket-ten using her Gift to lure a goat to doom. It made him a bit queasy.

He tried to remind himself that the poor goat was just as doomed. If not at their hands, a wild beast would surely get it before long. A goat that was a pet did not have many survival skills.

Kiron moved down the steps backward, still making little calling sounds. When the goat was about halfway down the steps, Pe-atep pounced, long knife in hand. And suddenly, this was a lot like helping Avatre make her first kills. He moved in to help.

It was over very quickly, without much in the way of noise or struggle to alarm the other goats of the herd.

“Should we try to frighten them?” he whispered. “See if we can get a second one?”

Pe-atep cleaned his knife and sheathed it, then paused to consider. “No,” he said finally. “We have enough to eat with this one, and without a cold room . . . no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Besides, tomorrow we can start finding everything there is to eat left in this place, and we can make sure the dragons hunt for all of us. We won’t starve.”

Kiron nodded. With Pe-atep taking the front legs and Kiron the hind, they carried their prize back in the direction of the temple.

As soon as they rounded the corner, it was very clear that the priest had been very hard at work in their absence. The customary two torches burned on either side of the door, and light streamed out onto the street from that door. It was a welcome sight, and mitigated, a little, the undeniably disturbing effect of the otherwise silent and empty town. It was a sign of light and life.

Them-noh-thet himself greeted them by hurrying out from the back of the temple when their footsteps sounded on the stone. “Ah, good,” he said with relief. “I admit to you, this place is disturbing me.”

“It’s just too empty,” Pe-atep replied fervently.

“I am glad you were able to get this temple looking more lived in.”

The priest shrugged. “As much as a temple can. The rear part is better, the part where the priests and acolytes live. I have a fire going in the kitchen, and I have cleaned it up somewhat so we can work. I also found foodstuffs in storage jars, and herbs. We will not be eating half-raw, half-burned goat like barbarians; I have pickled onions and dates, and honey, and some other things, things the vermin and animals didn’t scent. Come, follow me.”

The temple kitchen was, as such things went, rather spacious. Open to the air, of course, though sheltered by a roof in case of rain. There were many storage jars in a room off to one side, a wide counter to prepare food on, a mortar for grinding grain into flour, troughs for kneading dough, two ovens for bread, flat stones one could build a fire on to heat for cooking, and three fire pits where things could be stewed in pots. And it looked as if they weren’t going to be starving any time soon. One waist-high storage jar alone held enough lentils to feed them all for a week, and there were several dozen such in that storeroom. Kiron was not unaccustomed to kitchen chores, but he had to admit to relief when Huras and Oset-re returned bearing the fruits of their own rummaging. He gladly stepped aside to let the son of a baker take over directing the rest of them. Huras was a big man, with correspondingly large hands, which performed startlingly deft work with the knives and other implements that Them-noh-thet had found. Once they had water from the well, the question of what they would eat in the morning was easily solved; lentil stew, which would use the scraps of goat that were left when they finished eating tonight.

The result was a surprisingly good meal, which they elected to eat right there in the kitchen area. It was, however, eaten in grim silence and with many glances over the shoulder toward the small open court behind the kitchen. The silence was intimidating, though at least here, they could pretend they were in the kitchen of a country house and not in the middle of a town.

At last Them-noh-thet cleared his throat awkwardly. “I intend to try to reach my fellow priests in Sanctuary tomorrow,” he said, “as well as attempt more magics that might tell us what has happened here. I think that we cannot return until we investigate this situation more—”

He looked at Kiron as if he expected Kiron to object, but the Jouster only nodded.

“As long as we have hunting for the dragons and food and water for ourselves, I don’t see any other course,” he agreed. “An entire town just walked off into the wilderness; we don’t know where they are, why they left, or who did this to them. We have to find out whatever we can, here.”

The other three nodded in agreement, and the priest looked relieved. “I don’t think we should sleep without a watch being set, though,” Kiron continued, “And I think we really ought to sleep with the dragons. It offers that much more safety.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, I—all right, this may sound strange, but I think we ought to sleep tethered to a dragon’s leg. That way, if something comes along and makes us want to go wandering in the desert, hopefully our dragons will wake us out of it.”

Huras scratched his head, looking relieved. “That’s a good idea. And I don’t think it sounds strange at all. Tathulan is very good about telling when there’s something wrong with me.”

“I think they’re all good at that,” Kiron agreed.

The priest looked from one to another of them, and finally asked, very quietly, “Would you mind if I joined you?”

It was not a restful night. But then, no one really expected it to be. Only the dragons slept soundly, and didn’t really seem to notice when their riders took heavy cords and tied themselves to a front foot. Then again, they’d had a hard several days getting here, and they were probably exhausted.

The Jousters should have been exhausted, too, but Kiron could tell that the others were sleeping fitfully if at all. Even Huras, who normally slept through everything, was tossing and turning. He took his turn at night watch, then settled down with Avatre again, and finally some time before dawn, did drop into an uneasy slumber.

It was a relief to do something normal and take the dragons out to hunt. They let all four of them kill and eat as much as they could; it would be no bad thing for them to doze most of the day and recover their strength.

They left the priest stripped down to his kilt, busily laying out all manner of things in the sanctuary of the temple. He looked up as Kiron passed. “It is a very good thing,” he said in measured tones, “both that all Temples