Aerie Read Free Page A

to amaze him how the dragons could stretch themselves out and make themselves thin to fit through places one would never dream of seeing them go. She didn’t even scrape her harness on the door, though in time he would probably have to saddle her outside to prevent that from happening. No one really knew how long a dragon could live, nor when they stopped growing. The best guesses were “about as long as a man” and “until they die.”
    Ari’s Kashet, for instance, was still larger than any of the Altan-born dragons, and fitting him into one of the new pens here would have been a challenge. Fortunately, that was not an issue. For now, Kashet and Ari were dividing their time between Mefis, where the old quarters for the Jousters were, and the new city that did not yet have a name, with side trips to Sanctuary. Quarters for Kashet, and for The-on, Great Queen Nofret’s dragon, had been the first things finished on the new palace. The Great King and Queen were still sleeping in tents when Kashet and The-on were luxuriating in their wallows.
    Those pens were built to the old plan, open to the sky, sheltered from the rains by canvas awnings that could be pulled across the top, with huge doorways. The pens were big enough that Kashet and The-on could triple in size—which wasn’t likely—without running out of room.
    Kiron didn’t even need to command Avatre to let him mount now; she crouched down and extended a leg as a stepping place as soon as she was out in the open. She kept glancing up with one eye at the sky overhead; clearly she wanted to be gone and hunting.
    Well, so did he. Morning and evening hunts were about the most amount of time he got to spend with her now, and it displeased him not at all that the hunts for the next several days or even weeks were going to be longer. And it actually would not have been all that bad if what he was doing was merely physical labor. No, he was spending most of his time acting as de facto leader for all the Jousters . . . except that, of course, there were those who were objecting to that on the grounds of his youth. Which he wouldn’t have minded in the least, if only they had put forward some reasonable person to take over in his place.
    But Baken didn’t want the position, and neither did Haraket. The only people who did weren’t Jousters, and Kiron had had a bellyful of being ruled over by people who knew nothing about dragons, Jousters, or the unique bond the human-raised dragons shared with their Jousters.
    Well, for right now, he wasn’t going to think about it. He was going to hunt with Avatre, and that was absolutely all he was going to concentrate on.
    He felt her muscles tense under him, but she was on her best behavior, waiting until he checked the quiver at his knee for broad-headed hunting arrows, made sure of the tension on his bow, and that the straps holding him into the saddle were sound and cinched down tight. In the old days his dragon boy would have done all that. He didn’t particularly want a dragon boy actually. Where would he put one? In his own home? He liked having the privacy. He liked being able to be with Aket-ten, knowing that no one would bother them.
    Satisfied that everything was in order, he gave Avatre the wordless order with hands and legs, and she launched herself up with a leap and a tremendous downbeat of her wings.
    He was so used to the bounding surge of her flight that he didn’t even think about it now, he just automatically shifted his weight with her movement. But he never lost the thrill of flight, of watching the earth below, of soaring among the falcons and vultures. He loved feeling Avatre shifting the planes of her wings as she spiraled up a thermal, then glided down to the next. He loved the heady rush of speed when she folded her wings and dove into an attack.
    Ah, but he also missed the thrill of combat. . . . He would never admit that to Aket-ten, but it was true. He had enjoyed every aspect of combat. He knew,