The older Jousters had swiftly worked out for themselves that they needed to learn such things, and quickly, too. Now that the Magi-sent storms had ended with the onset of the Dry season, and the kamiseen winds had begun to blow, the Jousters of Tia were back in the air and in support of troops who were angry that they had been lately driven back.
Still, on the ground, the Altans could match them man for man, and for now they were holding the land that they had regained.
And with the help of the new tactics that Kiron was working out, the Altan Jousters were succeeding in avoiding the Tians, forcing them to work much harder to go after them, and keeping them from attacking Altan commanders.
Kiron could well imagine the level of frustration that must have been building in the Tian Jousters. Always, always, the Altans had stayed and fought, man to man, dragon to dragon—and of course, since the desert dragons outweighed the swamp dragons, most of the time the victory in a conventional Joust went to the Tian and he was then free to wreak whatever havoc he cared to on the troops below. If the Altan was lucky, he was just driven off. If he wasn’t, someone would be building a funerary shrine for him by nightfall, as his dragon flew off without him, freeing itself of harness and saddle, and reverting to the wild.
Now, though, the Altans weren’t staying and fighting; in fact, there was precious little Jousting going on at all. The Tians found their dragons—and themselves—stung with clay pellets. Or they found their opponents luring them into tail chases that they could not possibly win, which left them far from the scene of battle and too exhausted to accomplish anything when they got back. And when the slingers switched from clay pellets to lead, their hits on either Tian Jousters or Tian commanders on the ground could be devastating.
Now, Kiron knew the Tians, and knew what their ultimate answer would be to the change in situation: put more Jousters in the air so that one could pursue and one attack ground troops. Because they still outnumbered their Altan counterparts, and once every Altan Jouster was fully engaged, whether in combat or in a tail chase, there would still be Tian Jousters to conduct their devastating campaigns on the troops below.
But they hadn’t yet done that and, for now, the lines were holding steady at the regained border.
As a consequence, Lord Khumun’s star was rising. According to Kaleth, he was getting more of a hearing in Council meetings with the Great Ones, although he was being very cautious about what he said. This was enormously satisfying for Kaleth and Toreth, who could have discussed every little nuance and rumor and political implication for hours if the others hadn’t been patently bored with all the political dancing.
But there was one thing that was important; the more power that Lord Khumun had, the safer Aket-ten would be. He had made it very clear that Aket-ten’s presence was very important to the Jousters’ Compound, and even if the Magi took every Fledgling of even mediocre ability and drained them all to the point where their power was not returning, at the moment, they could not touch Aket-ten.
Two of the ribbon chases ended simultaneously; the other two looked as if they would go on until all four dragonets were tired. Kiron put his fingers into the corners of his mouth and whistled shrilly.
In answer, the “combatants” broke off and returned to the ground, leaving the sky free for the older Jousters.
“Kiron!” called Toreth, as they all led their dragonets toward the compound. Kiron left the crowd of spectators and joined them.
“Good matches,” he said, approvingly. Toreth nodded his head.
“They’re getting stronger. I think we need more practice time,” the prince said. “And I know how you feel about practicing over a net—but what about practicing over water?”
“Not the canals, surely,” Kiron replied with skepticism. He couldn’t imagine using the canals instead of a net. Their movements would be even more restricted than over the net.
“No—I thought the ocean,” the prince replied, looking eager to try the experiment.
But Kiron shook his head. He hadn’t yet actually seen the ocean and the port of Alta City, but he was not exactly eager to do so either. Water, stretching as far as the eye could see? All right, he knew how to swim—but not that well. And neither did the others, he suspected. “If someone goes off, there’s no easy rescue,” he pointed out. “It’s one thing to go off the back of your dragon to rescue someone when you know the water’s no deeper than your neck, but it’s quite another to go plunging into water deeper than you can even imagine. And what about waves? I’ve heard there are waves big enough to swamp huge boats! What would happen if one of those hit you?”
The prince’s face fell.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” Kiron continued, making up his mind about something else. “I think we can find some empty property somewhere, and set up a place with straw men for more targeting practice.”
Toreth’s face brightened again. “As far away from here as possible,” he suggested.
“Oh?” asked Gan, coming up to join them, his dragonet whuffling at his hair. “Why? Not that I mind; I have quite enough admirers as it is, and I weary of women flinging themselves at me.” He fanned his face with a languid hand, and got the laugh he was looking for.
“Because I want them—” Toreth jerked his chin at the Jousters practicing in the sky above them “—to get the attention. Not us. I want them to be the heroes all the time. Let them come watch us if they want, and try some of what we do if they can, but I don’t think they should have to share the attention and the glory with a wing of boys who’ve never flown in battle. It’s not fair, and it’s not right.”
Orest tossed his head to get his hair back over his shoulders. “Rumblings of discontent?” he suggested.
“Not yet,” said Toreth. “I want to prevent them.”
Pe-atep nodded. “They’re good men, and right now, they’re grateful to you for coming up with ways to counter the Tians, but I’ve already heard some jokes about us being the ‘pretty ones’ that everyone wants to watch. Once the jokes start, there’s the possibility the joking will be covering resentment.” Pe-atep tended to spend more time around the senior Jousters than anyone other than Kalen, since his experience with training lions and cheetahs for hunting made him very useful in training the wild-caught dragons.
Kalen seconded that. “I’ve heard the same.” The falconer shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, I always say. We make it clear that we don’t care about having an audience, that we’re serious about our training, they’ll be more inclined to take us seriously, too.”
He was right. Kiron wouldn’t have thought of any of that for himself, but Toreth was right, and so were Kalen and Pe-atep. At the moment, the wing had the respect of the older Jousters, but if fighting men thought that a group of boys just coming into their beards was trying to “steal” what they had actually fought to gain, there would be resentment and anger. Kiron nodded. “Frankly, I think we ought to concentrate on targeting anyway. It makes no sense for us to even think about traditional Jousting until our dragons are bigger. I think we will be able to fight soon, but it will have to be our way.”