Alta

“I’ve flown Vash before,” he replied—an untruth, but the Magi wouldn’t know that. “She’s a lazy pig, but not so bad other than that; if you can get her up in the sky, I can control her. All right, we can try first thing in the morning. But if you aren’t ready to go when I am, you can forget it; I’ll tell Letoth’s boy, and Vash’s, too, you aren’t to go up alone.”

She made a rude face at him, which he ignored. “I’ll be up before you are,” she said, with just a touch of sharpness in her tone. “You just go get us permission to borrow them.”

If anyone was listening, they heard only that we’re going to try flying dragons in the storm. That can’t possibly be of any interest. With that set up, he left her to ready Re-eth-ke’s pen for the rains on her own, and went off to report to Lord Khumun, to get permission for the borrowing from the two senior Jousters—and, as he had threatened, to tell Letoth and Vash’s dragon boys that they were not to allow Aket-ten to take a dragon out in the storm by herself. Aket-ten, for all of her bravado, would not dare to borrow a dragon without permission, for the senior Jousters might well take it into their heads to reward such impertinence with a thrashing. And it would not matter to them whose daughter she was; they had thrashed boys of higher rank than she was. They were technically her father’s equal in rank.

And they also knew that Lord Ya-tiren would punish his daughter himself for taking a dragon without permission. And so did Aket-ten. Indulged she might be, but she was not spoiled. Kiron had the distinct impression that Lord Ya-tiren had raised all of his children with a very clear set of rules, and the knowledge of what happened when you broke those rules.

She knew, of course, that she would get short shrift herself from the senior Jousters if she asked them—which was why she had told him to get the permission. They were still of the mindset that a girl of any rank was best employed in housekeeping and child rearing—or, if she happened to be a Winged One or a priestess or Healer, properly doing her job in the appropriate temple. Girls did not belong in the Jousters’ Compound, except as servants and entertainers. She had pushed the line by being a Healer for the dragons, but although that pushed the line, she had not quite crossed it.

But this business of flying a dragon had them looking at her narrowly. While they were grateful that she had stopped Re-eth-ke’s keening, and they grudgingly accepted that she had to fly the dragonet to keep it healthy and exercised, they were one and all adamant that a girl had no business thinking of herself as a Jouster. And only the carefully fostered illusion that Kiron and Heklatis were “in control of her” kept her from being snubbed, or worse.

So, it was Kiron, wingleader of his own wing, respected trainer and the boy who had worked out ways of making the smaller, lighter dragons able to challenge the larger desert dragons, who approached to ask permission to borrow Vash and Letoth. Kiron, the senior Jousters felt, had earned their respect. He was, if not quite one of them, certainly their equal.

“It would be damned useful to find out if we can get anything to fly in the worst of the muck,” said Vash’s rider thoughtfully, when Kiron approached him. “We might have an emergency where a dragon would be the fastest messenger, or need to fly a hit-and-run attack.”

Letoth’s Jouster said much the same, and added, “If you can get above the clouds, I’d bet you can teach that old sow it’s not so bad up there. You’ll have to go pretty high, though, and the winds will probably be fierce. She won’t mind, not while she’s working, but you might want to wrap up.”

“I’d thought about that,” Kiron replied, grateful beyond words that the Jouster had already outlined exactly what he planned to do. It made him feel better that someone with far more experience was warning him about things he’d thought of. Should anyone ask, in fact, he could say that he’d gotten advice from both senior Jousters. “I had one of the slaves copy the wool leg coverings and shirts that those amber-trading barbarians wear, and I got some sheepskins to wrap up in, too.”

The Jouster shuddered with the look of someone who did not care to find himself wrapped up in wool at all. “Better you than me, boy. Deflea yourself after, the gods only know where those sheepskins have been, or what they’ve collected.”

Kiron laughed, and promised, and went off to Lord Khumun to report what he and Aket-ten were going to do. And Lord Khumun gave him a look that asked, Is this expedition concerning something I don’t want to know about?

Kiron gave a terse little nod, and went on with his explanation of what he and Aket-ten were going to wear to keep from turning blue with cold.