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cannot tell you what to expect other than the advice I have already given you. It may be that you go only from one hazard to another.”
    “But I will be free,” he said softly, with one hand on Avatre’s neck. “And so will she. Perhaps we need remain only long enough for her to grow to her full strength and size, and if things are not as I had hoped—well, it will be easier for us to escape again, should it come to that.”
    The Mouth’s head bowed slightly. “This is so.” The other stared with Vetch to that distant haze of green. “Then, I can only say, your gods go with you.”
    Kiron touched his brow, his lips, and his heart in thanks and farewell. He gave Avatre the signal and, with a tremendous shove of her legs, she launched for the sky.
    When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that the Mouth had already turned the camel and was heading back in the direction of the clan’s encampment. Which was just as well, since he had no intention of following the advice about not hunting to the letter. While he and Avatre were still in the desert, they still had hunting-rights, and he was not going to assume that once they crossed into that belt of green, they would immediately find a place where he could obtain the tremendous amount of meat that she needed to sustain her.
    So long as he kept that green in sight, they had a goal. They had already come so far north before turning back toward Altan lands that any interception by Tian Jousters on patrol was next to impossible. So while they would probably camp tonight inside that belt of green, before they reached it, he would be certain that Avatre had eaten her fill.
    When they found an exceptionally strong thermal, he sent her up as high as she could go, remembering how the first time he had been carried a-dragonback he had sworn he would never, ever set foot off the ground again. It had been an utterly terrifying experience for one who had never been any farther from the ground than the flat roof of his father’s farm-house. To have that experience while lying face-down over Ari’s saddle, when he had never seen either a Jouster or a dragon up close before, had only made it worse.
    And to tell the truth, the first few flights with Avatre had been almost as frightening. But he had known very well that he should not and could not walk across the desert, so he had gritted his teeth and tried to guide her, and somehow, they had learned to fly together.
    Only on the latter half of the journey had they actually learned to hunt together, however. Their first few efforts, singly and together, had been less than stellar, and for a while, he had relied on the Bedu more than he had liked.
    Now, though—he was actually rather proud of their ability to feed themselves. They had even worked out more than one technique, and Avatre had learned how to dive, rake with her claws, strike, and hover on commands that could be either physical or verbal. She had even learned to tow or carry something on the other end of a rope; a hard lesson to master, when her natural instinct was to either fight it or give in and flop down at the end of the tether.
    This sort of desert—on the very edge of the fertile lands—had a lot more in the way of game than it might appear. There were wild camels, asses, and goats, animals that had escaped from the Bedu; there were also herds of gazelle (Avatre’s favorite) and smaller game.
    And lions. And Kiron (he must think of himself as Kiron!) had learned that he could often rely on the lions to show him where the other game was.
    So when, as they circled up the thermal, he saw a pride of lions trotting purposefully toward the north, far below them, he raised his eyes and looked for the cloud of dust that might be telling them where the game was.
    Avatre had learned the same signs, and her eyes were keener than his. Before he had seen the telltale plume of slightly thicker dust carried on the kamiseen wind, she had made her turn out of the thermal and