Mercedes Lackey - Sanctuary

There was no sign of a loose or abandoned foal in the herd. In a way, that was a pity; he would have caught it and brought it back alive, to be tamed and added to the Sanctuary animals. So far, all they had was a few donkeys, goats, and camels. Granted, keeping them fed was a chore. Sand did not make good pasturage for anything.

Still, the original inhabitants must have managed in some way. They just needed to find out how. And there was no doubt that having working animals made life easier for the humans. If they had enough asses or donkeys for instance, they could operate a water wheel to bring water to the surface to irrigate small gardens.

Another day, perhaps. As the ass herd formed up again and sped off to the shelter of the wadis, Kiron eyed the sun. The sun-disk of Re-Haket had not yet approached the point that marked “danger,” but it was time to get on with his part of the work.

With the edge taken off Avatre’s hunger, it was possible to approach her and work side by side with her on her kill without her bristling or even snapping at him. She might love him past all understanding, and he, her in return, but love does not trump a growling stomach for a dragon. She’d already cleaned out the viscera, which was actually helpful, as it made the butchering go easier and a lot cleaner.

He butchered the hindquarters for packing up, while she tore into the front. By this time she had eaten the head, so it wasn’t so bad . . . there was nothing quite as unnerving as watching a dragon take apart a skull, unless it was to have the reproachful (albeit dead) gaze of the prey seemingly focused on you. That was one problem the butchers at the Jousters’ Courts of both Alta and Tia had never been forced to deal with.

He had sacks that he tried to make of equal weight when she had finally eaten her fill. He wasn’t going to leave anything behind; this was a little more than Avatre would eat right now, since her growth had stalled out and she wouldn’t be flying this afternoon, but one of the others might not be as lucky in the hunt as he and Avatre had been. As it was, with the burden of four bags of animal parts and himself, when Avatre lumbered into the air again, it was a good thing that the sands had heated up enough to give them some thermal lift. She labored hard the entire way home, and by the time they reached the city, she was as tired as if she had flown a full patrol with a fight at the end of it.

The flight back to Sanctuary was unexceptional; Avatre was soon back in the pen, ready for a buffing and oiling, waiting patiently for Kiron to haul the sacks of meat into temporary storage. They were the first back, despite having taken the longest flight out (or so he guessed), but he had just begun scouring Avatre’s ruby-scaled hide with sand when Ari and Kashet came in to land on the rooftop above. Kashet’s landing was, as ever, a thing of precision. There was no better flier than Ari’s big blue.

“How went the hunt?” he called up, since he couldn’t see anything of Kashet but the dragon’s head from his vantage point below.

“Three gazelles. Kashet had one, and I brought the other two back, one for Kashet later and one in case someone didn’t do so well,” Ari replied, and grunted with the effort of taking sacks from his dragon. “You won’t hear me say this often, but days like this make me wish for the old times in the Jousters’ Compound and the butchery. I don’t mind not having a dragon boy, but being my own servant and my own hunter to boot is a bit of a hardship.”

Kiron grimaced. Not that he didn’t sympathize in principle, but he’d never really gotten used to servants—having been a serf and as such, less than a slave, most of his life. For him, life in Sanctuary just meant going back to old patterns of hard work.

For Ari and some of the others, however, it was a new and unpleasant experience. But there were no serfs, no slaves, and precious few servants here. There just weren’t enough people to spare for anyone to devote his time to waiting on someone else. The only servants that Kiron knew of were the two that served Kaleth and the other escaped Healers and priests, and they were more in the nature of being acolytes than servants.

In fact, the very nature of the city meant that there were several classes that were entirely missing. No serfs, no slaves, no servants—and no farmers. All foodstuffs had to be brought in from across the desert or hunted on dragonback.

Avatre squirmed and twisted to help him reach every inch of her hide, and grunted with pleasure when he got a particularly itchy spot. While he was working, Orest and Wastet came in with a flash of ruby and sapphire, followed by Aket-ten and Re-eth-ke, like a silver-edged shadow. Both were laden, so that was four in with good kills. Aket-ten and Re-eth-ke joined him in the sand pit, while Orest stayed up on the roof with Ari. A moment later, Oset-re and copper-colored Apetma landed next to them.

“Orest.” Aket-ten shook her head and made a faint sound of disapproval.

“What about him?” Kiron replied, rubbing oil into Avatre’s wing webs.

“Hadn’t you noticed? You’re no longer Orest’s hero. Ari is.” She shook her head again. “Not that he’d ever disobey you, but he’s transferred all that hero worship he used to have for you over to Ari.”

Kiron thought about that for a moment. “Huh!” he said. “I think you’re right!” He pondered the altered state of things for a little more. “Well, good.”

“ ‘Well, good’?” Aket-ten replied incredulously. “Is that all?”

“Actually, it’s very good.” The more he thought about it, the better he liked it. He had to be wingleader for right now, but with more people, and more dragons, eventually Orest would be a wingleader in his own right. There was only just so much of a leadership role that Kiron was comfortable with. Let Ari be the Commander of Dragons; he was suited to such things.

“ Very good.” Aket-ten threw up her hands in exasperation. “I would have thought you might feel strongly about losing Orest’s allegiance.”

“I’m still his wingleader. He’s still my friend, and besides, Ari’s older and a lot better leader than I am.” He looked under Avatre’s neck at her. “Aket-ten, let’s not bring the game of nation and politics from Alta to Sanctuary. It’s a good thing that the others are looking to Ari for guidance. He has more experience with a hand-raised dragon than anyone, he’s older and a better fighter than I am, and he’s a good man. So what if he’s Tian? If the Magi really are moving into Tia, I bet we’ll start getting more Tians here in Sanctuary before long. You’ll just have to learn to live with them, Aket-ten.”

She hunched her shoulders; he couldn’t see her face, but he imagined from her posture that she was frowning. “All my life, they’ve been the enemy,” she said. “And everyone knew about the rider of the big blue dragon that was so devastating to our side. Now everybody seems to be fussing over Ari as if he’d never killed any of our people!”

“Probably fewer than you think,” Kiron said slowly, thinking about all those times that Ari had returned from a patrol to brood unhappily all alone. “And he regrets every single one. You know how people exaggerate; I doubt he’s done a quarter as much as rumor would have it.” Her shoulders were still hunched stubbornly, and he gave up. “Look, if you can’t be nice to him, just don’t be rude.”

“I am never rude,” came the untruthful reply, but he had the feeling that was all he was going to get out of it.

Why is it that my friends just can’t all get along?

He supposed he could thank the Magi for that as well.

Possibly she was irritated because it wasn’t just Orest that was accepting Ari without question—it was most of the others in the wing, and Nofret and Marit and Kaleth.