Perhaps they didn't make any louder sound; perhaps they couldn't.
They came to an intersection, and the bald man turned the corner to lead him down another corridor, then another—and just as Vetch thought he was totally lost, turned a final corner that brought them inside another courtyard. He stumbled forward on momentum and blundered into a huge pit that formed the center of the courtyard, a pit that was knee-deep in soft, hot sand. He floundered in the stuff, helplessly, and the man reached out a long arm and hauled him back onto the hard verge. Again, the whip cuts on his back reminded him they were there.
"Stay on the walkway around the edge, boy," the man said, but not unkindly. "That sand will burn you, else, until you're used to it. You'll need to toughen your skin to it."
He'd already found that out; the sand radiated heat upward, as hot as the sun overhead, hotter than the kamiseen. His legs stung a little, though he wouldn't have called it a burn, exactly. His feet were too callused to feel much, even heat, from so brief an encounter.
"Put the saddle over there," Haraket continued, pointing to a wooden rack mounted on the wall nearest Vetch. "Untangle the straps and drape them over the rack to dry—dragons don't sweat, but Jousters do. Kashet doesn't need to be chained the way the others do, so you leave him free."
The dragon, ignoring both of them, plunged past them into the center of the room to wallow into the hot sand. Vetch heaved the saddle up onto the rack as he'd been told to do. Under Haraket's watchful eye, he arranged the saddle straps over the bars of the rack, untangling them as he did so. Something told him that the straps shouldn't touch the ground, so he took care that they did not do so. The kamiseen did not venture down here, for a wonder, though he could hear it whining above the walls. Not that it was cooler here; not with those hot sands contributing to the fire of the sun overhead.
When he turned to face his instructor, he thought that the man was not displeased. He looked up into Haraket's face, and waited for more instruction. It was not long in coming.
"The first thing you need to get into your mind is this: Kashet and his Jouster will be your sole concern from morning to night," Haraket told him, crossing his muscular arms over his chest, and looking down at him, examining, weighing, assessing. "A dragon boy not only tends to his dragon, he tends to the Jouster that rides him. No one can give you orders but your Jouster and me, unless Ari or I tell you otherwise."
Vetch bobbed his head. "Yes, Overseer," he replied.
Haraket grunted. "Here is the next thing; your Jouster can probably find plenty of other servants if he needs them, but you are the only one who is to tend to his dragon. If you have to choose between tending the dragon or the Jouster, there is no choice for you: tend the dragon."
Vetch blinked, but again nodded obediently.
"Now, the first thing you must do, this very moment, is to feed Kashet so that he knows you. Only a dragon boy, or at need, the Overseer or the Jouster will feed a dragon. They are too valuable to let anyone else meddle with them—" Haraket hesitated, then added, "—and other than Kashet, a dragon sharp-set with hunger might—savage—anyone he didn't know who came to feed him. They're wild beasts, very large and very powerful. Don't ever forget that, not for a moment."
Other than Kashet… Well, that was some comfort. But the thought still made Vetch gulp nervously. And the way that Haraket had hesitated over his choice of words made him wonder if the man had substituted "savage" for "devour."
Not a comfortable thought at all. What had he fallen into?
"But you'll never need worry about Kashet." That was said with a certainty that quelled a little of Vetch's unease. "Now, come with me. The only way to learn how to feed him is to do so."
Haraket turned and went out the doorway, and Vetch followed. Shortly the man was leading him at a trot down the corridors; Vetch was hard-put to keep up with the Overseer's long legs. But those words worried him. Only the Jouster or the Overseer or the dragon boy feed a dragon. So now, he was probably going to be in competition with another boy—who, from the sound of it, would be freeborn—to take care of Ari and his dragon. That could spell nothing but trouble.
"Sir?" he panted, literally the first question he had asked of anyone since the Jouster arrived at the cistern. He had to cough to clear his dry throat, for he still had gotten nothing to drink. "Sir, who is Kashet's dragon boy?"
The Overseer looked down at him, his lips tightening; Vetch flinched. He couldn't imagine how a simple question had made the Overseer so annoyed. "Imbecile," Haraket muttered, and answered more loudly, "You are Kashet's boy. Haven't you been listening to me?"
He almost dared to hope. Was it possible? Did this mean that Kashet's care was going to depend entirely on him? And if so—
—surely not. Surely, there was someone else, a rival, who would be very angry when he saw that Vetch was a serf. And it could be worse than that, much worse, given what the Jouster had said about "boys getting airs." Perhaps he had selected Vetch in order to humiliate this other boy—who would, of course, take out his humiliation on Vetch whenever the masters' backs were turned. When Khefti beat his apprentices, the apprentices pulled evil tricks on Vetch, it followed as surely as the sun rose. And that was without Vetch being a rival!
"Sir—I meant—who is Kashet's other dragon boy?" In his heart was the dread he would have to face a rival who would share his duties and, without a doubt, attempt to make sure that everything that went right reflected to his credit, and all the blame for whatever went wrong landed on Vetch. Some of that must have shown in his expression, as the Overseer's face cleared, and he grunted.
"There is no other dragon boy for Kashet. Jouster Ari and I have been caring for him of late." He grunted again, this time with a distinct tone of disdain. "Jouster Ari's previous boy elected to accept a position in the King's army without notice, and left us cursed shorthanded."
Now all that business about serfs and free boys made sense…
Soldiers had higher status than mere servants… and certainly fewer menial duties. So that's what he meant by "getting airs. …" It would make sense that the Jouster would now prefer to find a boy who had no choice, who could not go elsewhere, except, perhaps, back to Khefti. Which of course, was no choice at all.
"Here—down this way is where the servants from all of the temples bring the sacrifices," Haraket said, making another abrupt turn. This was an alley that looked like a street in the village in a way, though the walls were much taller than any village structures, and the unbroken stretches of wall argued for something the size of a major temple! But the walls along this stretch had doorways and clerestory windows, so it seemed that here the walls were part of huge buildings.
Haraket stopped in front of a real, closed door rather than an open archway or simple gap in the walls. He opened it, and with his hand on Vetch's shoulders, shoved him through.
On the other side—
Vetch almost broke and ran at the vision of carnage that met his eyes.
The air was full of the metallic scent of blood, so thick he could practically taste it, and everywhere he looked there were dead animals… hundreds of dead animals. Working here were butchers, a dozen of them, naked to the waist, smeared in drying blood, dismembering the corpses and throwing the pieces into bins or barrows beside them.