Mercedes Lackey - Alta

This was his wing; as different as it was possible for individuals to be, yet as they shared food and work, they began to forge a friendship among themselves that defied both stereotype and description.

As the eight sat together over supper, nearly a full moon into their “trial” period, Kiron approached their table carrying a jar. They all looked up immediately at the sound of his now familiar step, even Menet-ka. He put the jar down in the middle of the table.

“That doesn’t look like beer or wine to me,” said Gan lazily. “So what is it doing on our table, estimable wing leader?”

“You are each going to draw two of the pebbles from that jar to determine what your colors are going to be,” Kiron explained. “We’re going to need a way to tell each other apart in the air; the regular Jousters don’t do this, but they also don’t fight as a group because they daren’t get their dragons too close to one another. We are going to be very different; but we’ll have to know who is who in order to play to everyone’s individual strengths. So you’ll all wear your colors on your armor and harness, and we’ll probably fly streamers or something.”

“And your colors?” asked Orest.

“I pulled rank on you and chose black and scarlet,” he admitted, with a grin. “Because they go well with Avatre’s colors. You’ll get whatever you get—though, if you really hate the combination you choose, you can swap among yourselves.”

“I suspect I’ll be forced to,” moaned Oset-re. “I would rather die than be seen in colors that clashed with my dragon.”

The rest snickered, and Kiron laughed out loud. “In that case, draw first,” he suggested. “That way you’ll have the best odds for the best choices.”

He didn’t have to ask Oset-re twice; the handsome lad stood up and plunged his hand into the jar up to the elbow. And when he opened his closed fist, he heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief as the painted pebbles in his hand were revealed.

“Black and white!” he said, sitting down. “What a relief! Black and white go with everything; I can’t even imagine a swamp dragon that those colors would clash with. Well, I won’t have to kill myself after all.”

Orest was next to take the plunge into the jar, and emerged with blue and scarlet. “Well, you’ll certainly be able to see me,” was his only comment.

Toreth came up with yellow and white; Gan got green and brown. Pe-atep’s pick was black and yellow, and his friend Kalen ended up as yellow and brown. Huras got blue and black, and Menet-ka, who predictably chose last, did not seem unhappy with his green and white.

“So, why are we taking colors right now?” asked Gan. “Why not wait to see what color dragons hatch out?”

Kiron grinned; he couldn’t help it. He had some very good news for them. “Partly because of the training games I’m going to be giving you,” he said, “but mostly because Lord Khumun told me today that both females have mated with three different males, which ought to pretty much guarantee that all four eggs each lays will be fertile.”

Heads at the other tables turned as all eight of the wing broke into a cheer—even Menet-ka. “When are they coming back?” Orest asked excitedly.

“Their Jousters are flying the ladies back tomorrow,” Kiron told them, now allowing his grin to show. “They’ll be sequestered in their pens and stuffed full of as much as they’ll eat to nourish the eggs to come. Three males were also trapped, so there will be three new Jousters training with them, which will allow us to try falcon training right from the start instead of having a dragon that needs to unlearn a lot of bad habits. You’ll be observing that, by the way; no point in missing the opportunity. So, the reason you’ve gotten your colors now is because you’re going to draw lots for who gets the eggs in what order.”

He took the pebbles from each boy, and put them back in the jar. This was going to be a complicated system, but it guaranteed random chance. “Everyone take a pebble. If you don’t get one of your colors, put it back but don’t take a new one until the next round.”

Only Menet-ka got one of his colors the first time; on the second round, Gan and Orest got one of theirs, and on the third, Menet-ka made the first combination. So Menet-ka, who always hung back, was going to get the first egg. It seemed to Kiron there was a certain justice in that.

The jar went around enough times for everyone to be impatient before it was over. Orest’s egg came in the middle, and it was Pe-atep who would get the last of the eggs. Although everyone except Menet-ka moaned about the wait, no one really seemed unhappy. And Kiron was very proud of them all when Menet-ka offered to trade his place with any of the rest of them and no one took him up on the offer.

“You’re as ready as any of us, and more ready than I am,” said Orest stoutly, even though Kiron knew he was afire to have that egg in his possession.

“So, let’s go look at the pens, and get your colors up outside them,” Kiron urged; eager to put their imprint on what would be the centers of their worlds for the next several moons, they filed after him, going out into the torch-lit, open-topped corridors to a newly built section of pens.

Here were ten of the sand-pit pens (one would stay empty for now), all along the same corridor, five on either side. Avatre’s was the first, and already had a block of four squares of red and black inside a lozenge-outline painted on the wall outside it. A servant with brushes and paints waited for them at the entrance to Avatre’s pen.

They got pens in the order in which they would get their eggs; this meant that a hatching dragon would only have noise on one wall, keeping disturbances as minimal as possible. Kiron was not sure what Lord Khumun had done, but despite initial objections, the Magi had agreed to create spells that moved the heat from some of the hot springs that created water too hot and too sulfurous to use into the sands of the pens. While the adult dragons could cope with the shifting levels of heat in sand pits warmed by ovens or other means, hatching eggs needed a constant temperature. Kiron hoped he had gotten that temperature absolutely right, but the only way to tell would be if the eggs all hatched.

From the beginning, these pens had been set up with living quarters as part of them; there would be no makeshift pallets for the boys of Kiron’s wing. Eventually, of course, the dragons would be old enough to be able to sleep alone, as Kashet did, but until then, they would need their boys—their “mothers”—with them. Especially at night.

When Lord Khumun wanted something done, apparently it got done; here were thick-walled pens, (with walls, not of mud brick, but of stone) with roofed living quarters, running water (every two pens shared a room for bathing where, presumably, the boys would also get water for their dragons), heated sands, and a better canvas roof arrangement for the rainy season than the Tian Jousters had. And it had all been constructed within a moon or so.

The boys were impressed, and well they should be, for this was nothing short of amazing. The only time Kiron had heard of construction going up faster was when a Royal Tomb was being built.

“After the eggs are hatched, we will begin constructing more pens for the next lot of volunteers,” Lord Khumun had said to Kiron, “But I do not want to chance anything that might disturb the eggs.”

“Well,” Kiron said to his new wing. “Will this do?”

“I should like to move in now, if I might,” said Toreth. He looked around at the others, who nodded agreement.

“I don’t have any objections,” Kiron told them, though secretly, he was pleased. The boys were all living at their homes now; he wanted them at the compound as soon as he could get them here. The sooner they settled into their new way of life, the better, but they could hardly have gone in with the existing dragon boys. For one thing, there wasn’t really room, and for another, there was bound to be tension there before long. The dragon boys were freeborn, as in Tia, but they were mostly from extremely poor families, and there was not a single one of the new wing that wasn’t at least from the caste of craftsmen. And as for Toreth—