As they drew nearer, he could see people up there, too, and after all that devastation below, his heart rose a little to see that the plan they had made in faith was being carried out in fact.
Now it all depended on the dragons; if they would remember and stick to the drill, even though the drill had taken place amid calm, and without all the screaming, the fires, and the upset from the shake.
They had paced out the dimensions of the temple, they had plotted it and the grounds around it on the earth in a pattern of stones. And now, as Kiron watched, Re-eth-ke banked slightly to take herself and Aket-ten down to that lighted rooftop—not nearly as well-lit as Aunt Re’s training ground, but it would have to do, because it was all they had. And as Re-eth-ke banked, he took Avatre to one corner of that rough square they had paced out, marked by a clump of date palms, a square whose dimensions were large enough that eight or nine dragons could fly the perimeter in the darkness and not be afraid of collisions
By the numbers— he reminded himself, and began to count under his breath.
By the numbers—because they would not necessarily be able to see when each of them landed and took off again.
The first count of thirty took him to the second corner of the square; he risked a glance at the rooftop as Avatre made a sharp left-hand bank, and thought he saw Re-eth-ke was safely down. The next count took him to the third corner, and he searched the sky at his own height for the dark-winged shadows of the others.
Yes! One, two—he counted up to eight, and let out a strangled cheer, that would surely be lost in the noise below. They had all followed from Aunt Re’s estate! It was working!
One more count of thirty, and a glance at the roof showed it empty of anything but people; Avatre made her turn as neatly as if they were practicing over Sanctuary, a long, shallow glide down over the square of torches, a thunder of wings and a wind that made the flames stream sideways as she came in to a halt, the moment of fumbling hesitation beneath him as she felt for a secure talonhold, and then—
Then she was down.
She barely had time to pull in her wings, and he didn’t get time to draw a breath before someone with a pale blur of a face wrapped in a dark cloak shoved two smaller objects wrapped in equally dark cloth at him.
Children; Nestlings, probably, not even old enough to be Fledglings, and their inert limpness made him go stiff with rage. But he wasted no time on speech; he couldn’t hold them and fly, so he belted them to himself before and behind the saddle with the straps they handed up to him silently. Below this place, weeping and cries of pain; here, only silence, as if he was being served by shadows and ghosts. And once they were secure, he gave Avatre the signal, and they were away.
Avatre seemed to have picked up on some of his emotion, however, for he could feel a new energy in her flight as they sped away into the darkness, deliberately going higher to take them above the flying square of dragons. As they neared Aunt Re’s estate, he thought he caught sight of Aket-ten and Re-eth-ke coming back, and once again he gave a little exclamation of triumph; this was the second sticking point—having come back to the safe haven, could the dragons be persuaded into the air again? Re-eth-ke, at least, could be.
They landed, and eager hands reached for the children, swarming over Avatre like cleaner birds over a river horse. She seemed to have grasped the serious nature of what they were doing now; she stood as patiently as anyone could have wished while strangers crowded her and treated her like nothing more than a living cart while getting the children unstrapped. Then, at last, they were free again, and Avatre took to the sky without a moment of hesitation.
As they made height, he definitely caught sight of Kashet coming in, though he could not tell what kind of burden he and Ari carried. And then he passed the others, one at a time, really knowing who they were only by their order; Wastet and Orest, Deoth and Pe-atep, Apetma and Oset-re, Khaleph and Gan, Bethlan and Menet-ka, and last of all, the steadiest and strongest of the lot after Kashet and Avatre, big Tathulan and Huras.
Now—if they would all make the second trip, and not refuse—and if no one saw them, or realized what they were seeing if they did—
Only when he had formed up the second square did he know for certain that the plan was working in its entirety, and Avatre seemed to have been set afire by the urgency of what they were doing. She came in with the speed and snap she had when she was making a kill when hungry; she stood like a rock as the next to be rescued was helped onto her back. This time, though it was another pair of children, these must have been Fledglings, and they were able to cling to him and not be bound to him like inert bundles, though they were secured with straps. Avatre was in the air almost before the last of the Winged Ones was out of the way, and the two children gasped as she rowed for height.
Halfway to Aunt Re’s the one behind him tugged at his tunic. “Jouster?” came a thin, pathetic little whisper. “Are you taking us away from the Magi?”
“Far away,” he called back, over the steady, strong flapping of Avatre’s wings. “Far, far away, where the sand of the desert will hide you, and the swords of the Bedu will guard you, and they will never, ever find you again.”
Both children burst into tears of pure release, reaching for one another’s hands on either side of him, and it was all he could do to keep from joining them. Instead, he pointed out the white egrets in the tops of the trees they flew over, a pair of fighting river horses, the reflection of the moon on the river, the pattern of the stars—anything except the places where people were still trying to save themselves and their property below. His distraction must have been effective; they listened and watched, and most importantly, stopped crying.
They began again as soon as he handed them over to Aunt Re’s people, but at that point they were no longer his concern, and he had to concentrate on the next trip.
And the next.
And the next.
Avatre had never flown so strongly, but by the fourth trip, they had lost Deoth to exhaustion—not to unwillingness, because he tried to take off, but Pe-atep was too wise to let him. Apetma simply dropped, so tired she simply couldn’t rise. By the fifth, Se-atmen, Wastet, and Bethlan were out, too, and on the sixth, poor Khaleph and Tathulan were so tired their wings were trembling. That left only Kiron and Avatre, Ari and Kashet, and Aket-ten and Re-eth-ke for the seventh and final trip of the night. Kashet had carried double every time; probably Aket-ten’s lighter weight was what had made it possible for Re-eth-ke to carry on to the end. But she was lagging on that final leg, and as they actually flew into the gray of predawn, halfway back to Aunt Re’s compound, Kashet and Avatre caught up with her. Ari and Kiron exchanged a glance, and Kashet pulled into the lead, allowing Re-eth-ke and Avatre to fall back into the wake-position off his left and right wings. It was easier flying there; he could see Re-eth-ke’s breathing ease a little.
With plenty of light to see by, they all landed together, too, letting down their exhausted passengers into the hands of equally exhausted servants, who bustled them off before the Jousters were even out of their saddles. The rest of the dragons and their riders were already dead asleep, and from the look of them, not even another earthshake would wake them.
But Kiron found himself being helped in unsaddling Avatre by a handsome, muscular young man with the powerful upper torso of a charioteer, who had also come wheeling up a heaped-high barrow of meat that Avatre began wolfing down without waiting to be unharnessed.
“You’ve gotten out eighteen Nestlings,” he said without preamble, raising his voice enough so that Ari and Aket-ten could hear. “That was the first trip. You got out twice that many Fledglings on the second and third trips, another six Fledglings and three Winged Ones on the fourth, six Winged Ones on the fifth trip, five on the sixth, and three on the seventh trip, which is three more trips than anyone ever thought you’d make in their wildest dreams.”