They led the way to their field, and landed there. The dragons had all just been fed (and drugged) and were sleepy—and while they were irritated at being forced to fly, they were inclined to lie right down on the warm grass in the sun and bask rather than quarrel or wander. Simply staking their reins down kept them in one place. The Jousters all gathered around Kiron and Lord Khumun, who both looked to Heklatis.
“Give me a moment,” the Healer muttered. He closed his eyes, and began to chant under his breath, and shortly he was sweating as if he was trying to shove a heavy stone up a ramp all by himself. He grew paler, too—and just when he began to sway a little with exhaustion, he stopped, opened his eyes—and sat down hard in the grass.
“They won’t find us, not for a while,” he said heavily. “And if they try to scry, what they’ll see is all of you practicing up there—” he pointed at the sky above.
“He’s a Magus, as well as a Healer,” Kiron explained to the baffled faces. “And—that’s where our story begins, I suppose.”
He explained everything; Toreth’s original plan, and why he had decided to make the Jousters into a force to make the Tians forge a real peace, their long discussions, the change in the plan after Toreth’s murder by the Magi, Kaleth’s visions—and finally, what they had done to the tala. “In a few days, you’ll be using the new stuff,” he told them. “And so will they. Once the dragons aren’t drugged anymore, we thought they would probably obey for a while out of habit, but we planned to go along on one last flight and—goad the Tian dragons into rage, so they’d throw their riders and escape. We were going to warn you so that you could ride your dragons down to the ground and turn them loose.”
Silence. Kiron began to sweat. Told out like this, to senior Jousters—it didn’t seem like such a good plan anymore.
“The Magi are trying to kill us anyway,” growled the injured man. “Isn’t that obvious? It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”
After a moment, there was some muttering of agreement. “But why?” asked someone else in a bewildered voice. “That’s what I don’t understand!”
All eyes went back to Kiron, who was still in a cold sweat. “I don’t know,” he said finally, “but at practice today, I started to wonder something. What if they wanted to replace all of you with their own men? I mean—Heklatis thinks that the Eye can’t be used on cloudy days or at night, and it’s not really good enough to get one person—but a dragon and rider are. What if he wanted to replace all of you with men who would—follow orders, and if those orders were to use your dragons on Altans, would do it without question?”
Silence again, but this time, utterly stunned. The injured man sat down with a thud.
“Blessed gods,” said one.
Heklatis looked as if he had swallowed a sea urchin. “The theory fits,” he said, with so much barely-suppressed rage in his voice that those nearest him took a step back. “And what a fine way to besiege a place and prevent anyone who might help from coming near it! Such as—the Temple of All Gods?”
A gasp met his words, but no one disagreed with him. That this violated everything every Altan believed in was so obvious that it didn’t need saying.
It was Lord Khumun who broke that third silence, by turning to Kiron, removing his sash of office, and offering it to Kiron. “It is your plan, young Lord Kiron,” he said, simply. “Lead us.”
Kiron stared at the sash, then into Lord Khumun’s face. All he could feel was panic; all he could think of was, I don’t want to be a leader!
But his hands took the sash by themselves, his mouth opened, and words came out.
“I think that this will work—”
Above the wing, nothing but sky. Below the wing—so far below that they looked like fancifully colored little songbirds—were the dragons of Alta.
“You have ordered all the Jousters into the sky, my Lord Magus. We are not the best, but we are ready.”
For the past two days, the dragons had been restive as the old tala wore out of their systems. By now, the larger dragons of Tia must be getting very touchy indeed. Their dragon boys would be giving them higher doses of the false tala.