Aerie

Yet there he was, and there they were. And he had been set the task of teaching a new lot of Altan Jousters how to have truly tame dragons, that obeyed out of training and love, instead of drugs and training.

Then there were the others, that he had not until that moment met. Ganek-at-kal-te-ronet, known to his friends as simply Gan, the oldest of the lot, handsome to a fault, with a languid air of laziness and a passion for women, with the highest bloodline of all of them but one. Menet-ka, also nobly born, though of a minor house, shy, but like the others, wearing garments and jewels, eye paint and hairstyle that proclaimed him to be far above the common touch. Oset-re, almost as nobly born as Gan, almost as handsome, with a superficial vanity that had swiftly fallen before his desire to partner a tame dragon.

Kiron preferred not to think about the one who was no longer with them. Prince Toreth, who had stood between the Magi and the power of the Altan throne, and thus, had died at their hands. . . .

Now, though . . . now, there was no telling which of them was common-born and which noble. They all looked alike. There was no eye paint, no one wore his hair in the elaborate braids of nobles. All were clad alike in the wrapped Jouster’s kilt; all were equally tanned and hardened by work. All had the hands of warriors, and some scars, too. Except for some superficial differences of face shape and size, they could have been brothers. Paler than Tians, but like Tians, black of hair and brown of eye, what marked them most was the look they all wore, what Heklatis called “the look of eagles.” Even Aket-ten had that look about her, now that he came to think about it.

They were no longer what they had been. Now they were men.

And one woman . . . no, two. Because Kaleth had crossed the threshold into adulthood before any of them, and with him, Marit, his lady, and her twin sister Nofret.

It was Menet-ka who understood at once what Kiron meant. He nodded. “We have,” he said gravely. “Now I think it is time we truly showed that.”

Orest made a face. “Alas! We must be responsible? ” he said in mock mourning. “And here I had hoped that when the wars were over, I could live my life as an idle ne’er-do-well! Ah, well. Fate has other plans for me, I suppose.”

The others laughed. With the Altan capital in ruins, even had Orest been dragonless, he would scarcely have been permitted to be an idler. For that matter, it was vanishingly unlikely that his father would have permitted him to enjoy such a path even if Kiron had never come to Alta. And he, and everyone else, very well knew it.

“So!” Orest continued, with relish. “Tactics! How will a Jouster, or a wing of Jousters, best deal with bandits?”

Kiron smoothed out a patch of sand and laid pebbles in a line on it. “Caravans always travel in single file; this makes them vulnerable to attack from one or both sides. What this means for the bandits is that they must find a place where they can wait concealed.” He heaped up sand on either side of the line of rocks, and placed more rocks behind them. “Since there are only so many places along the caravan routes where they can do this, we need not spread ourselves overly thin, nor play watchdog for the caravans as they traverse their entire routes.”

The others nodded, but it was Huras who said slowly, “For now.”

“For now,” agreed Oset-re. “Without a doubt, once the bandits realize what we are doing, they will change their tactics. But I think we can adapt. Let us concentrate on ‘for now,’ and worry about the change when they make it.”

“Against a small group, the old fighting style against ground fighters worked very well,” Kiron continued. “The horses were frightened into bolting, and none of them had the presence of mind to shoot at me. Of course, this, too, will not hold for long. So what I think we must do is this. We will begin by running patrols in pairs. For now, having two targets will keep the bandits confused enough. We will determine where the places of cover are along the caravan routes and keep them under watch.”

“We will be limited to flying no more than half a day from Aerie,” Kalen pointed out.

Again, Kiron nodded.

“For now,” he repeated. “This will change. Perhaps the merchants will suggest ways in which we can feed our dragons along the routes besides hunting. Perhaps the Great King will establish outposts of Aerie. But, for now, this will do. We will be giving the caravans some protection. And those who are now questioning the need for us will shortly be the ones insisting on such things. So. We have much territory to cover, and not so many of us. I would hear your words, wingleaders. Who shall we set to what patrolling, and still remain able to feed our dragons with hunting?”

Two days later, much as Kiron had expected, Aket-ten swooped down out of the sky on Re-eth-ke, just as he was harnessing Avatre to go out to hunt. Re-eth-ke backwinged smartly, throwing up an enormous cloud of sand, a piece of rudeness on Aket-ten’s part that Kiron found less than appealing. She flung her leg over the saddle and slid down Re-eth-ke’s blue-black flank as he dusted himself off, her face a study in anger and admiration mingled.

“Great King Ari and Great Queen Nofret send their greetings to Kiron, and compliment him on the successes against the bandits that have been raiding caravans,” she said, with an attempt, not very successful, at icy formality. “They command you to continue in these ventures, while their advisers study the results. And I would like to know—” she continued, her eyes flashing, “—why no one told me that there was going to be fighting!”

“Because you were with the Great King and Queen,” Kiron replied mildly. “I only just launched the first strike by accident two days ago. We are still working out what pairings are best, and what we will do when two dragons are no longer enough. And do not think to add yourself to the roster. Not until the Great King and Queen release you from messenger duty, at any rate. I cannot countermand their orders, and you will flout them at your peril.”

Aket-ten looked quite ready to bite something. “Any dragon past fledging could run messages!” she protested.

“But not just any Jouster has the full trust of the Great King and Queen,” he pointed out with inexorable logic.

He didn’t expect that to mollify her, and he was right. She actually growled.

But at least this had put all complaints about the lack of female Jousters right out of her head for now.

Aket-ten surveyed her handiwork and smiled.

So Kiron thought he was going to be clever about her plan for more female Jousters, did he? “Allow” it as long as they got their own dragons? He had clearly forgotten who he was dealing with. She loved Kiron, no doubt, but sometimes he drove her mad. He should have known by now that when Aket-ten made up her mind about something, she found a way to get it done.

It didn’t hurt in the least that she was serving duty as a courier between Mefis, Sanctuary, and Aerie. And there in Mefis were all those dragon pens, lying empty. . . .

And in the hills beyond the Great Mother River, all those former Jousting dragons, some of whom, at least, retained some good memories of their service to humans, none of whom were the least bit experienced in hatching eggs and raising youngsters.

It had all been a matter of patience, really. Patience, and having Great Queen Nofret’s ear. Nofret would immediately see the value of having female Jousters as well as male; for one thing, dragon courier service was proving extremely valuable to the Great King and Queen, and they certainly could use more than just Aket-ten to serve as messengers. For another, just because Jousters were very good at fighting, that didn’t mean that fighting was all they could do. Men were so single-minded! Kiron assumed that because she’d fought alongside the rest of them, that was what she wanted to do, too! She had never liked the fighting. Never. The acrobatics, the training, all of that, yes, but never the fighting. But girls could scout the borders of the Two Kingdoms without ever engaging an enemy, making the regular patrols that Tian and Altan Jousters always had, and that could free the fighting dragons to be ready to spring into action if a threat did appear! Girls could give Great King Ari regular reports about conditions within the Two Kingdoms, too, if that ever become necessary. In flood season, they could fly rescues as Kiron’s own wing had when the capital of Alta fell. They could ferry a single passenger, say a Healing-Priest, to places where he was needed—much, much faster than the fastest chariot could bring him. From the air, they could learn how to recognize blight in crops and map out the exact area that would have to be burned in order to save the rest of the crops.

And that was only what she could think of without working too hard. She was certain she could think of more things, and all of them would be tasks the men would—face it—scorn to perform. Or, well, at least the hotheaded young men, and the hidebound old ones. Probably Kiron and most of his wing would see the need. But they’d be glad to have girls around to do the jobs, so they wouldn’t have to.

Once she had girl Jousters, anyway. At the moment, she only had one . . . or rather, she had one girl and one