Vetch ran for his master, and the rest of the onlookers surged forward behind him and overtook him, enveloping him, swallowing him up.Ari didn't so much as glance at any of them; his attention was on the servants—Jousters' servants, who must have been out of Vetch's sight behind the crowd of dragons and riders—who had reacted faster than anyone but Vetch. They were already at Kashet's side, and were taking the unconscious Jouster from Kashet's saddle. He slid down limply into their arms, but as far as Vetch could tell, he was still alive and breathing.
The crowd erupted in cheers and surged against the ring of servants, trying to get closer to the dragon and Jouster. They surrounded Kashet and Ari in a circle of enthusiastic—even hysterical—joy, shouting at the tops of their lungs. Kashet, normally the most placid of creatures, reared back, eyes widening with alarm, nostrils dilating in distaste.
Vetch was caught up in the crush, between the servants trying to take the Jouster away, and all of the well-wishers. But somehow Ari saw him, and roared order to let him through, pointing and waving imperiously with one hand.
The order had no effect at first, and Vetch jabbed with his elbows at those he dared to, and tried desperately to push past those he dared not offend. After a moment of confusion in which he tried to no avail to get through the spectators—some of them wealthy, powerful, dangerous—they realized who Ari was shouting for and parted for him. Kohl-rimmed eyes both knowing and haughty stared at him as he shoved past; once his hand brushed against a garment of linen so fine that the rough skin of his hand snagged it. He just barely noticed; he shook free, and shoved his way to Kashet's side.
"Haraket sent me. Haraket says—" Vetch panted, staring up at his Jouster with mingled awe and disbelief, and trying mightily to remember his message. "Haraket says—
"Never mind what Haraket says—this isn't over yet." Ari looked up with a scowl, and Vetch followed his gaze.
The two dragons were whirling together now, in the mating dance that Vetch had instinctively recognized, and Seftu's rider, a tiny dot at this distance, was clinging on for dear life. Another high, thin wail of pure fear drifted down from above. Vetch was not surprised. Not only was the novice Jouster no longer in control of his dragon, he was going to be lucky to stay in the saddle. And he was very, very lucky that his dragon was the male. If he'd been riding the female, and a male dragon found an inconvenient little human in his way—
A single snap, and the inconvenience would be gone.
"Idiots!" Ari snarled. "If they paid ha If as much attention to their dragons as they did to the vintage of the date wine they drank last night, they'd have known this was coming on and ordered extra tola. Vetch!"
Vetch snapped to attention.
"Run and tell Haraket what just happened. Tell him that Kashet and I will bring Coresan in when the mating's over; she'll be tractable then, and there's no point in losing a dragon because her Jouster was an imbecile. Seftu's rider will have to bring his male in by himself, unless Haraket wants to send a couple of others up to herd him in when he's done."
"Yes, sir!" Vetch said, instantly, and started to turn to run.
But Ari held up his hand; he wasn't finished, and Vetch froze. "Tell him that I think her Jouster got the kind of crack to the head that breaks the skull, so Haraket had better send to the Temple of Teth for a trepanning priest at least, to lift the bone, and perhaps one with Healing magic, just in case. You go run ahead now— He raised his voice as Vetch whirled and broke into a mad dash for the compound. His voice rang out behind Vetch, as he commanded the servants over the babbling of the crowd. "You lot! Stretch him on that bench—carefully, now—and carry him on the bench to the compound and Overseer Haraket!"
Vetch couldn't do anything about the injured Jouster—and in any case, now that he wasn't going to have to watch him die horribly, he didn't really care what happened to the man—but he did care about Ari, and what Ari proposed to do. He couldn't imagine trying to come between two mating dragons. It was dangerous enough bringing a bull to a cow, or a stallion to a mare!
But—no, Ari wasn't going to come between them, he proposed to bring Coresan in once the mating was over. It was just as well that he was going to leave Seftu to Seftu's own Jouster, and serve the man right if he had to ride the dragon until Seftu was exhausted, or at least until near nightfall, when Seftu would want his dinner and his own comfortable sand wallow for the night.
So would Ari, when all of this was over. And Haraket had to know exactly what had happened, right now.
So he ran, ran as hard as ever he could, pelting down the training field, through the huge sandstone gates, and into the corridor beyond. His bare feet pounded along the ground in time with his pounding heart as he searched for Haraket.
But he didn't have to search long. Haraket had already seen the dragons in the sky and knew that there was a mating going on, even if he had not seen the accident, nor the aftermath. He had certainly seen that one of the dragons was riderless, and was on the way, expecting the worst.
Vetch literally ran into him, and bounced off Haraket's stomach, landing on his backside in the middle of the corridor.
"Coresan's Jouster is hurt!" he blurted, looking up at the surprised Overseer. "They were trying to mate, I mean the dragons, and he got hit! He got a lance to the back of his head and fell off, but Ari caught him! Ari brought him down, he's at the practice ground, and Ari says to tell you he's going to bring Coresan in— the servants are bringing the Jouster—Ari says get priests—
Haraket had wits like a striking cobra, somehow he made sense of what Vetch was babbling. "Hah. You—" he snapped, pointing a finger to one of the two men with him. "To the Temple of Teth. I want a Healing-Priest and a trepanner. You to ready Jouster Ari's quarters, wine and food, for by the gods, he'll want them when he comes back in. And a massage slave. And a hot bath. Move!"
They moved, all right; they turned and ran off in opposite directions, running just as fast as Vetch had. So did Haraket, leaving Vetch gaping at them from the dust of the corridor.
After a moment he scrambled to his feet, realizing that his initial errand was discharged.
Serve your Jouster. Serve your dragon.
He had to know what they were doing, first.
Will they be all right? Will Seftu or Coresan try to attack them? The thought put a shiver up his back. Surely not. Ari knew dragons as no one else in the compound did. Surely he would never do something that would cause the mating dragons to turn on him and Kashet.
He ran on, his side beginning to ache now, to the landing court where he could see the dragons in the sky clearly, without the interference of walls. They were still wheeling and whirling around each other in a complicated ritual that was the equal of anything a bird could do. They soared and plunged, they twined around each other and broke apart.
Mostly, Seftu chased Coresan, and she evaded him only enough to make it clear she was going to see just what he was made of before she let him mate with her. Then, finally, after a series of three heart-stopping lunges, as Seftu herded the scarlet female higher and higher in the sky, they began an ever-tightening spiral that took them still higher, up into the cloud-studded sky, until they were scarcely larger than ants.