Then—then they lunged for one another with a ferocity indistinguishable from rage.
The lunge ended in a tangle of locked claws and a plunge to earth that must have terrified Seftu's rider out of a dozen years of life. How he stayed in the saddle, Vetch could not even begin to guess.
Caught together, neither willing to let go, paralyzed by the rapture of mating, they spun around a common center, whirling, wings held half outspread at a peculiar angle. They plunged, on and on, down to the unforgiving earth, while Vetch and everyone else in the court held their breath. And just behind them plunged a blue-green streak that was Kashet, paralleling their fall.
At the very last moment, just before the impact, they broke their hold on each other.
Their wings snapped open completely at the same moment, and the vertical plunge suddenly became horizontal as they tumbled from the fall into a ground-brushing flight, and streaked off in opposite directions, parallel to the ground.
Vetch wasn't interested in what happened to Seftu; presumably his Jouster would get him back under control and bring him in without help. He had eyes only for Ari and Kashet, who had followed the entwined dragons down in their deadly plunge, and now deftly herded Coresan away from the eastern hills across the river, above the King's Valley where all the Great Kings had their tombs—where she wanted to go—and towards the compound. And she didn't want to go there; she kept snaking her head back and trying to snap at them. But Ari and Kashet were more clever than she.
They managed to keep their "superior" position in the air, staying above her all the time. Kashet didn't even have to do more than threaten; a dragon's one vulnerability was his wings, and Kashet could slash Coresan's with his claws very easily from where he was. Coresan didn't dare chance it, and was herded where Ari wanted to go as Kashet feinted strikes at her wings.
At that point, a dragon landed in the court; it was Seftu, and his rider looked as if he must have been near to soiling himself with fear. Vetch ignored Seftu and the Jouster; some other dragon boys did run to help the man lead a reluctant Seftu away, but Vetch's charges were still in the sky, and he was not going to leave the court until they were safely down.
Haraket had arrived without him noticing, and stood just behind Vetch. He grunted when he saw Seftu land. "The priests lifted the bone; the fool will be well enough, idiot that he is," Haraket to said to no one in particular, though Vetch knew his words were meant for Ari's ears, via Vetch. "A few weeks, and he'll be healed up, though if he hadn't been seen right away—well, he'd not have had a chance."
Coresan was coming back now, in the direction of the compound. Once she was turned, they started forcing her down. By getting and staying above her, they forced her to fly lower and lower, and slower and slower as well, until she couldn't stay in the air any longer. And at that very moment, they were above the landing court, and her training took over and she came in to ground.
The moment Coresan touched the earth, Haraket was there with two of the strongest slaves in the compound and three leading chains. Vetch started to help them, but Haraket waved him off.
"Keep off, boy! This is not work for you!" he shouted, and then turned his attention back to the angry dragon. He needed to; that tail was whipping back and forth with deadly force until a third slave came up and flung himself bodily on it, pinning it to the earth. She hissed and tossed her head—but she was also tired, and probably hungry, and unlike a wild dragon, did not think of humans as food but as those who brought food. Haraket and one of the other slaves plunged under her snapping jaws and grabbed her harness and hung on it until she stopped tossing her head and lunging. She didn't surrender, then, but she did stop fighting. With Ari and Kashet hovering above to keep her from taking off again, Haraket hooked his chain into the ring on the front of her harness and the two slaves hooked theirs into the foot loops on either side of the saddle. Then, last of all, Haraket whipped a choke collar around her neck, and that was that.
Serve your dragon. Serve your Jouster.
Vetch wanted to watch. But his time was not his own at the moment. As soon as Kashet came in, he and Ari would need taking care of. Vetch sprinted for the gate nearest Kashet's pen.
When Ari and Kashet landed, they'd need—and deserve—careful attention, and he was going to be the one to give it to them.
At the exact moment he began to run, Coresan resigned herself, and with a final hiss, allowed herself to be led away. The third slave freed her tail at Haraket's signal. Together Haraket and his two helpers led the dragon to her pen, while Ari and Kashet rose again, to hover a little higher for a moment while they picked a good landing spot. Then they landed, nearest to the gate that led to Kashet's enclosure.
By that time Vetch's last glimpse of them was as he sprinted through the gate in the wall, going for Kashet's pen himself. Seftu's dragon boy was in the corridor, laden with food and drink; Vetch snatched what he wanted from the provender over the other boy's vehement protests, which he ignored. After all, the novice rider didn't deserve it; wasn't he half responsible for the near disaster? Seftu's Jouster could bloody well wait for his wine. If Vetch were to have a choice, he'd get stale river water, thick with flood-time mud, and be grateful for that much.
When Ari and Kashet stumbled into Kashet's pen, Vetch was there ahead of them, waiting with a skin flask of palm wine for Ari and a bucket of water for Kashet. But Ari waved off the wine and took the bucket of water instead, drinking as he had that day that Vetch had first seen him, and pouring the rest over his head and shoulders. Kashet went straight to his trough, which, as always, was also full of clean water, and drank as deeply as his Jouster; Vetch was unharnessing him as soon as he reached the trough and stopped moving forward. The dragon not only felt as hot as a furnace, he smelted hot, and Ari smelled like his dragon. Both of them looked utterly spent; the kohl around Ari's eyes was smeared, making his eyes look like holes burned in his face, and Kashet's eyes were dull with fatigue.
Ari shook his head like a dog, sending droplets of water flying in the bright sunlight. Vetch cast a glance at him as his own fingers unfastened buckles and pulled away harness; he looked terrible.
Weary and ill, and not at all as triumphant as Vetch thought he should be—
"Etat save me from ever having to do that again," he said, and sat down, right on the edge of the sand pit, head and shoulders sagging.
Vetch was torn between going to him and continuing to get the harness off of Kashet; he compromised by unbuckling the last strap and letting the saddle drop to the side, then going to Ari.
"Sir?" he ventured, not daring to touch the Jouster.
"I'll have that wine now, boy," came the muffled reply.
Vetch put the skin in his hand; he fully expected Ari to drain it, but the Jouster again surprised him, taking only a single mouthful before handing it back.
"That's better." He raised his head. "How is Reaten?"
That was Coresan's Jouster; Vetch recalled it as soon as Ari spoke the name. And he had news, startled out of Seftu's dragon boy. "He has a cracked skull, and it would have been very, very bad if he hadn't been seen to right away, but the priest is certain that he will be all right eventually," Vetch told him. "The trepanning priest is lifting the bone right now; he should be all right once the incision heals."