Alta

Kiron touched his brow, his lips, and his heart in thanks and farewell. He gave Avatre the signal and, with a tremendous shove of her legs, she launched for the sky.

When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that the Mouth had already turned the camel and was heading back in the direction of the clan’s encampment. Which was just as well, since he had no intention of following the advice about not hunting to the letter. While he and Avatre were still in the desert, they still had hunting-rights, and he was not going to assume that once they crossed into that belt of green, they would immediately find a place where he could obtain the tremendous amount of meat that she needed to sustain her.

So long as he kept that green in sight, they had a goal. They had already come so far north before turning back toward Altan lands that any interception by Tian Jousters on patrol was next to impossible. So while they would probably camp tonight inside that belt of green, before they reached it, he would be certain that Avatre had eaten her fill.

When they found an exceptionally strong thermal, he sent her up as high as she could go, remembering how the first time he had been carried a-dragonback he had sworn he would never, ever set foot off the ground again. It had been an utterly terrifying experience for one who had never been any farther from the ground than the flat roof of his father’s farm-house. To have that experience while lying face-down over Ari’s saddle, when he had never seen either a Jouster or a dragon up close before, had only made it worse.

And to tell the truth, the first few flights with Avatre had been almost as frightening. But he had known very well that he should not and could not walk across the desert, so he had gritted his teeth and tried to guide her, and somehow, they had learned to fly together.

Only on the latter half of the journey had they actually learned to hunt together, however. Their first few efforts, singly and together, had been less than stellar, and for a while, he had relied on the Bedu more than he had liked.

Now, though—he was actually rather proud of their ability to feed themselves. They had even worked out more than one technique, and Avatre had learned how to dive, rake with her claws, strike, and hover on commands that could be either physical or verbal. She had even learned to tow or carry something on the other end of a rope; a hard lesson to master, when her natural instinct was to either fight it or give in and flop down at the end of the tether.

This sort of desert—on the very edge of the fertile lands—had a lot more in the way of game than it might appear. There were wild camels, asses, and goats, animals that had escaped from the Bedu; there were also herds of gazelle (Avatre’s favorite) and smaller game.

And lions. And Kiron (he must think of himself as Kiron!) had learned that he could often rely on the lions to show him where the other game was.

So when, as they circled up the thermal, he saw a pride of lions trotting purposefully toward the north, far below them, he raised his eyes and looked for the cloud of dust that might be telling them where the game was.

Avatre had learned the same signs, and her eyes were keener than his. Before he had seen the telltale plume of slightly thicker dust carried on the kamiseen wind, she had made her turn out of the thermal and was gliding down in a new direction, north and a bit west, bringing them closer to the green horizon.

It took two more thermals, and they had left the lions far behind, when the herd of wild asses came into view, grazing slowly on the scrubby vegetation that hardly anything else could stomach. They must never have been hunted by a dragon, for they did not even seem to notice them in the sky above. Too bad for them, then.

He got out his sling, and readied a stone. One thing that had certainly made hunting easier was that the farther he and Avatre got from Tia and the wild dragons that lived and bred in the mountain valleys beyond the river, the easier it was to find unwary game. Yesterday had been unusual in that they had found two herds in the same day, but when the grazers weren’t spooked by the dragon above them, it was almost too easy to take at least one of them down, now that his skill with the sling had improved.

He picked his target carefully; wild asses were smart and tenacious and the last thing he wanted was to take a jenny with a foal at her side. The herd generally fought harder for one of those.

He gave Avatre the signal, and she began a long, slow glide at very near landing speed that would take them directly over the herd. His chosen target actually looked up, ears swiveling toward them curiously as they neared, making a perfect target.

He let fly.

The stone struck the young jack directly in the middle of the forehead; stunned, it stumbled and went down.