Mercedes Lackey - Sanctuary

Below them, Sanctuary dwindled to a child’s play village made of sand, in the midst of a sea of sand, with the other dragons scattering in all directions, the only spots of color against the pale sweeps of the dunes. He sometimes wondered how the dragons felt about this new life; were they angry because food no longer was delivered to them? Or did they prefer to make kills on their own? He didn’t detect any new grumpiness in Avatre’s mood; the contrary, actually. He thought that she liked hunting, and he knew for certain that this dry, hot desert suited her. Even at sun’s zenith, when the dragons moved out of the direct rays, they didn’t stay out of the heat for too very long.

Avatre knew “her” territory now, and headed for it without prompting. He squinted against the light of the rising sun, and sighted in on their goal, the far-off hills and wadis where the wild ass herd roamed. It was cold up here in the morning, but he shrugged off the chill; already the sun on his skin was warming him, and before very long he knew that it would stop being pleasant and start being uncomfortable, and he would be glad of the coolness of the upper air. By the time they headed back, he would be wishing for just a breath of the chill of early morning.

He kept an eye on the ground beneath them, because it was always possible—not likely, but possible—that he would spot something worth chasing even before they got to the wadis.

Besides, every flight was different. You never knew what you were going to see. A desert horned lark singing his heart out as he soared into the blue bowl of the heavens, a viper sinuously leaving “s” marks in the sand of a dune below—or a wild dragon. There were more of those about than he would have thought. He wondered how many of them had been Tian Jousting dragons. Once Heklatis had discovered the way to neutralize tala and render it ineffective at drugging dragons into submission, there was no way, short of love alone, that a dragon could be induced to remain with a Jouster. And the dragons that had escaped from Tian Jousters would probably not have gone back to their old territories. They would have been wary even if they had been inclined to fly all that way back; after all, that was where they had been captured as fledglings.

Avatre reached a height she found comfortable—somehow, he had not been able yet to understand how—dragons could “read” the invisible currents of the sky—and knew by that where their flight would come with the least effort. She settled into the longer, slower wingbeats that moved her forward rather than upward, and he leaned down over her shoulder to make himself less of a drag on her progress.

The sands seemed empty of life this morning, but with Kaleth’s prediction of a sandstorm, it could be that the wildlife sensed its approach, and had taken to shelter early.

Only when they reached the wadis, and the landscape beneath them turned from undulating waves to the hard earth and rock, cut by the occasional dry wash, and punctuated with wind-eroded mastabas, did he start to see signs of life. Birds flitted from one bit of scrub to another; he saw a desert hare loping away as fast as its legs could take it, and finally, in the distance—the only cloud he’d seen today, a cloud of dust.

The sort of dust raised by a herd or a group of animals.

Avatre spotted it at the same time that he did, and reacted to it sooner, changing her course and heading as straight as the flight of an arrow for the sign of game on the horizon. If Aket-ten was right, the dragons understood a fair amount of what she tried to tell them, and Avatre would know that something bad was coming and there would be no afternoon hunt.

Or, if her instincts were as good as those of the wild animals, she would feel the urge to get under cover warring with her hunger, and that should also add to her eagerness. Now, as long as she didn’t get too eager. . . .

He noticed after a moment that she was angling slightly upward again, which meant she was going to try for an attack from high above, which would add to her speed. Good for a quick kill, but not so good for him! He would have to get his stone off at the last moment, and wouldn’t be able to make another cast. Then, if he missed, and she missed, and the herd stood at bay or got into a wadi, there might not be a second chance.

He freed one hand from the saddle, felt for the biggest stone in his ammunition pouch, and, with his eyes still on the approaching dust cloud, slipped it one-handed into the sling in his lap. He wouldn’t drop the sling into the ready position until he was almost onto the target, otherwise he risked losing the stone before he could throw it.

Avatre’s eyes were better than his; he felt her putting more effort into her wingbeats. She must have seen the animals in the dust cloud. Beneath his legs and the hand on her shoulder, her skin was hot as a kiln, a sign that she was excited. Even if she could not yet see the prey, she knew where it was.

The amount of dust being kicked up increased; the herd was in a canter now. They must have been seen. The creatures of this part of the desert had not known an aerial predator before the dragons came, but they surely knew one when they saw it now.

A pity, that. No more easy hunts.

Three hard wingbeats that bucked Kiron back against the cantle of the saddle, and they were directly above of the herd. He looked down on the brown backs, through a haze of dust as they ran, weaving back and forth to elude the shape above them. He smelled them; hot dust, animal sweat, even as far above them as Avatre was. Three wingbeats more, and they were pulling ahead of the lead ass. And that was when Avatre stalled, giving him just enough warning to brace himself, and did a wingover, plunging down toward the herd of asses with wings folded and Kiron pressed tightly against her neck.

She plummeted for a point well ahead and to one side of them of them, and did a quick turn, still halfway above them and still diving, to face them without losing any significant speed. With frantic brays, the ass herd broke right down the middle as she pulled up out of her dive with a snap of opening wings and raced straight at them, head outstretched. Roughly half went left, the other half right, but as there always is, there was one individual who couldn’t make up her mind to go in either direction. Kiron pulled the sling out of his lap in a practiced movement as Avatre made straight for the indecisive one, whirled it, and let the stone fly as Avatre pulled up, skimming just above the tops of the mare’s ears.

The stone struck her full in the forehead, and she went down. Kiron crouched down in the saddle again and held on for dear life.

As the straps holding him in cut into his flesh, Avatre did a second wingover and plunged back down, all four sets of talons extended. Even as the ass was trying to struggle to its feet, Avatre struck it from above and behind, killing it instantly with a jolt that sent Kiron into the pommel of the saddle again.

The rush of wind stopped; dust began to settle around them. The only sounds were of Avatre settling herself and the hoofbeats and braying of the retreating asses.

She mantled her sunrise-colored wings over her prey and began tearing into it before the dust had even settled. The rest of the herd, sensing that the chosen victim had fallen, stopped dead and turned their heads to look. The air was full of the smell of hot sweat, dust, and blood.

Sometimes Kiron felt sorry for the prey, but today had been a quick, clean kill. And he was used to seeing Avatre killing and eating now; it was with no sense of revulsion that he slid down out of her saddle and left her to her feeding. No, his thought was just to make sure that the mare they’d taken down hadn’t had a foal at heel. Such indecisiveness sometimes meant the prey was guarding a little one.