way the wind blows. . . .” Huras nodded. “Clever little Aket-ten! Do you suppose she figured that out?”
“Yes she did, and all by herself, thank you very much,” said Aket-ten tartly from the doorway. “It will be up to you layabouts to work out how to train yourselves, so we can prove to every doubter in Alta that the tame dragons are superior, and that we can train Jousters to go with the tame dragons.”
She strolled into the kitchen courtyard and took her usual place at their table. “There are some things you’ll just have to do for yourselves,” she continued, with deceptive sweetness. “Now that I’ve done the hard part.”
“The hard part?” Orest said, and Kiron winced to himself, seeing exactly how Aket-ten’s brother had set himself up for a clever retort on her part. And there was nothing he could do about it because—
“Of course,” she replied, with a disarming smile. “I’ve done all the thinking.”
—too late. Kiron sighed and intervened. “She’s just teasing you, Orest.”
But the explosion he had expected didn’t come. Orest just shrugged. “I’m not much good at thinking,” he said with complete candor. “She can do all the thinking for both of us, if she wants. I like the swam-pie idea, though. Be one in their eye if just as they think they have us outnumbered, we show up with a two-to-one advantage and dragons that can fly rings around theirs.”
“That it would,” said Toreth smoothly, as Aket-ten gaped at her brother. “So, Aket-ten, tell us more about how you approached this dragon today—”
By the gods, he thought, listening to the boys question her closely. Aket-ten isn’t the only one growing up. So is her brother.
Indeed; they were all growing up. And none too soon. Because by the end of the Dry season, if his own calculations were correct, they were all going to face the enemy in the field for the first time. And the advantage, numerically at least, was still with the enemy.
If they weren’t grown up by then, it would be too late.
The dragonets were being fitted for their first saddles and harnesses, using Avatre’s outgrown harness as a model. And for once, there were servants here in the dragonet pens who didn’t have to be persuaded that the babies were tame.
The old harness maker and his assistant swarmed all over Wastet like a pair of cleaner birds on a river horse. Wastet regarded them with bright curiosity, while Orest stood by.
“And your colors are blue and scarlet, young lord?” asked the assistant, taking notes on a potsherd. “May I ask why you have colors at all?”
“To differentiate us, not only from our fellow Altan Jousters, but more importantly, from the Tian ones,” Kiron replied for Orest. “We don’t want someone from our own side seeing a desert dragon and thinking it’s ridden by a Tian.”
“And we want to be able to keep track of the others in our wing,” Orest added. “So we can do things that we’ve practiced together.”
“But why different colors for each of you?” the assistant persisted. “I should think you could make out who is who by the colors of your dragons. No one is going to mistake this beetle-colored beauty for any of the others.”
“First of all, we didn’t know they would all hatch out different colors,” Kiron replied. “Second, from a distance they can still be confused—take Avatre, she’s scarlet and gold, which is awfully close to Pe-atep’s Deoth, who’s red and sand colored. Or Kalen’s Se-atmen, brown and gold, who could be taken for Oset-re’s copper-red Apetma. And third, we’re only the first wing of tame desert dragons. There are two female desert dragons that can provide us with more eggs every two years. Eventually there are going to be Jousters with the same color dragons; we need ways to tell them apart in the air, and we might as well start now and get our eyes used to looking for the combination of dragon colors and rider and harness colors.”
“Ah,” the assistant said, contented now. “You see, I like to know why one is asked to do something unusual—”
“And thus, you are too damned curious and prying, you young whelp,” the old man growled. “If you worked as well as you jabbered, we’d have the harnesses done by now.”
“Yes, master,” the assistant said, sounding not at all subservient. He turned back to Kiron. “And you are wanting streamers that can be easily torn away in the same colors as well?”