Novice Dragoneer

11

The day of her training flight arrived. They had, as predicted, a few days of milder, storm-free weather as the winter collected itself after the solstice before truly settling in. The flight cave was a flurry of activity.

The listed boys had gone for their first flights, and there was a great to-do about it. Idlers lined up on the Long Bridge to cheer them on their way in, and the dancers whispered about some of the rude, painful, and embarrassing rituals they’d been put through by the wingmen and apprentices the night before. She found it hard to believe they had walked to their first flight across the Long Bridge with a squab’s egg clenched between their buttocks, but it was a good story. Each went up on an older, experienced dragon, a dragoneer flying with them, exercising his mount and showing them how to read arm signals.

Santeel and Ileth were to go the next day, and there was no to-do anywhere. Ottavia said that there would be no rituals, because so few of her dancers had taken flight training. Though they were free to invent one. Santeel joked that they could brush each other’s hair before the flight, but the joke hung in the air of the Dancers’ Quarter without a single laugh. Ileth’s hair had put on only another finger-width or two. Her body seemed content to wait on the hair while it built dancing muscles.

Ileth suggested, in her halting way, a ritual from up north. In the Freesand, the first time the young men go out, each buys the other their first drink of spirits. They are bought and poured in the morning and remain on the bar all day until they return. In the north, boys were allowed only small beer until they came of age and took up work.

Santeel made a face, but her republican politics perhaps got the better of her. “Well, it will warm us up after being up in the cold air.”

“I have just the thing,” Ottavia said. She returned with a bottle of clear liquid. “Lifewater. And two glasses. Vii, on the shelf there. Get them. Pour each other one, and don’t stint.”

Ileth poured first, it being her suggestion, and then Santeel poured hers. They left the glasses on Ottavia’s little table and went off to change into their flying rigs.

Santeel was scheduled first, but Ileth went up to the flight cave with her because sitting around waiting to go would just make her nervous. In the back of her mind, she was thinking that it would be amusing if Santeel lurched about when the dragon took off, as a couple of the boys did yesterday.

It was wickedly cold in the flight cave, thanks to an unusual and brisk north wind. Ileth flapped her arms, hoping the chill wouldn’t make her stupid. It was easy to get mentally dull when you were cold.

She waited in the back of the cave while Santeel reported them in, and then one of the apprentices staffed to the cave pointed Santeel to a dragon: none other than Auguriscious, the dragon who liked ale after a flight and belched into Duskirk’s face. Ileth watched her tighten her gloves, then climb up into the learner’s saddle after being corrected on the on versus off side (a learner’s saddle had an extra belt to hold you and a tight front tether—actual dragoneers often flew with just a long rear tether so they could hang off the dragon at various angles and employ their crossbows and such, or move down the dragon’s body to saw off a highpoon). Santeel had no dragoneer to fly with her. It disturbed Ileth enough to ask one of the apprentices. She knew him by sight as he was always passing the dancers but not by name. He was on the older side for an apprentice.

“Oh, she’s on Auguriscious, she’ll be fine. He’s gentle as a cloud and they’ve got the learner’s saddle on him. Nothing but the best for a Dun Troot. It’s a joyride, anyway. One is often enough for those Name girls. They get scared. Had one pee herself one time. A dragon’s not a hunting horse, after all.”

Ileth, waiting, suddenly had doubts about her bladder, and rather than worry about the what ifs went off to use the sluice. Galia hadn’t mentioned that in her little talks.

When she returned, having had to get half undressed for the operation, as she was putting her gloves back on, a different flight cave apprentice whom Ileth didn’t know but who had directed Santeel to her dragon pointed her to a waiting green. She was not a large dragon, but broad-backed and muscular. The females were supposed to be faster fliers. The males, weighed down as they were by thicker scale and heavy horn, usually couldn’t keep up.

“Vithleen is impatient to go. Hurry up, apprentice! Are you ill too?”

“No, sir!” Ileth wondered at the last. If Santeel had been ill enough for it to be visible from the ground, it must have been a spectacular event.

She didn’t bother to correct him that she wasn’t an apprentice. Her thoughts were on the dragon. She hurried over to the green and clambered up on the extended leg.

The apprentice double-checked the saddle girth and some other fittings. He gave her a hard slap on the shoulder. “Enjoy!” he called, and hurried off, after one final check of the back tether for her. A lodge-girl from the north didn’t rate a learner’s saddle. There were several hooks and attachments at the front of the saddle, but she couldn’t find the short tether trainees used. All she found were bags and cases.

“At last,” Vithleen said.

Vithleen, anxious to be off and done with it, it seemed, scuttled out of the cave with an odd lizardlike scramble and jumped.

Ileth yelled “Wait!” as she hadn’t found the front tether yet. Vithleen had a wicked sense of humor, for she kept her wings partway closed and plunged through the cold down toward the bay. Once she felt she’d picked up enough speed, she opened her wings and Ileth felt the earth pull at her stomach as the dragon shot up into the sky like an arrow, riding her dive speed and the north wind, leaving Ileth’s stomach somewhere over the bay.

Once Vithleen ceased her acrobatics and fell into a steady flight, Ileth found a safety tether at the front of her saddle, neatly tied under the front horn—it would have been decent of someone to point that out to her—and hung on for her nearly fifteen years of life while she fiddled with the knot. Vithleen liked to fly fast. As soon as Vithleen leveled off, she managed to connect the tether and attached it under the vent in her riding coat to the thick bracing girdle at a metal ring.

With the short safety tether on, she felt better and looked about.

She saw Santeel on her gold doing a lazy circle above the Beehive, using the lighthouse as the circle’s center. (Did the center of a circle have a name? She felt like she should know that.) “V-Vithleen,” she called. No response. “V-Vithleen!” she shouted louder still.

“Yes?”

“Aren’t we . . . forming on . . . that gold?”

“I don’t understand you!” It was easier for Ileth to understand the dragon; the words were carried back by the wind.

“THE GOLD!” she shouted, stabbing her arm toward Auguriscious and Santeel.

“What about him? Nothing to do with us.”

Ileth was already feeling a chill from the wind. She wrapped her scarf around her face and hunkered down. If she got down low enough, like a racer on horseback, the wind wasn’t so bad; the female’s head and fringe channeled it over her.

“Thank you,” Vithleen called, picking up speed. She didn’t look like she should be fast. She was as wide as the males, who were probably twice her weight, but it seemed to Ileth they were going up the coast like an artillerist’s missile. The Serpentine was receding from view. Santeel on her gold was increasingly hard to pick out against the sky.

Still, it was flight, and it was even more glorious her second time, as the weight of the Lodger’s death and funeral wasn’t pressing her heart flat. She could take—what was the word the apprentice in the flight cave had used? She could enjoy.

After what seemed like hours of flight—but the sun didn’t shift much; Ileth was learning that dragon flight seemed to throw off your sense of time—Ileth began to wonder if they were ever turning around. Her legs were achy and the cold and fresh air blasting across had given her an appetite. Vithleen turned west. Ileth saw, looming far off, the range of mountains divided at the Cleft Pass.

“Going up the south side. Looks like there’s weather piled up north,” Vithleen said.

Ileth hardly heard the words. She was lost in the rhythmic beats of the dragon’s wings. Her mind worked over the statement, looked at the mountains, and sure enough, there were some clouds at about their—oh, what was it called—altitude, but they were on the other side of the mountain range.

“Shouldn’t we turn back now?” Ileth shouted, taking down her scarf and leather windshield. The gusting wind at this altitude smacked her face like a slap.

“Why? Weather’s great!”

Well, the dragon was eager to press on. As she’d been often told, their job was to keep the dragons happy.

It took a moment for Ileth to recognize Jamus and Elothia, the mountains on either side of the Cleft. She was used to seeing their north sides. She’d passed between them on her way south from Freesand. She’d just about kill for a big steaming mug of Freesand tea, even a muddy serving of the Captain’s all-dust, no-leaf blend he supplied to the Lodge. The sun seemed to be speeding up as it sank toward the horizon. They would miss dinner at this rate, and her legs were very, very tired. She was glad Vii had helped her make tight the fabric strips under her hose and leather leggings.

“Not fighting the wind anymore,” Vithleen said. “Going’s easier from here. I can catch it on my quarter.” Ileth was glad of it but not quite sure what she meant. A ship could be pushed along by wind from its side, every direction save dead ahead, she knew. It might be the same with dragons.

“Hungry,” Ileth shouted.

“We both are! Just a little bit longer now. I can see the Cleft. How are your eyes?”

Ileth could see the general outlines of the Pass but couldn’t make out the buildings of the way station where travelers could recover from the fatigues of the mountain road.

Vithleen began to lose altitude. Ileth felt sick to her stomach. Something must have gone dreadfully wrong. This couldn’t be a training flight, unless they were trying to break her confidence and teach her a lesson by sending her out for hours. The other possibility was that she’d gotten on the wrong dragon, but the apprentice in charge of the flight cave had directed her to this one.

No, this had to be some kind of prank. It seemed the sort of thing Dath Amrits might organize, both as a test and for the wicked fun of it. That would be just like him, though she was surprised he’d go so far as to deny her a learner’s saddle. She might have been killed. She suspected Caseen would go along with taking her down a peg. Falth was right, they were always testing you. But why her in particular? The boys, despite stories of eggs clenched in their nethers, were up and back between breakfast and the midday meal and still exchanging toasts of spiced winter wine in their honor at dinner! What had she done to deserve hours in the cold?

Despite her fatigue and unease, it was fascinating to see the Cleft from above. It was a sliver of a settled valley with a widening and narrowing river (currently frozen) that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a lake flowing out to the north. At the south end, the highest point of the Pass, there was an old fortification that was mostly just a wall.

A cluster of buildings huddled next to the wall on its north side, and her dragon set down next to the largest of the buildings save the tower, a great barnlike structure.

Some humans in cold-weather coats and heavy fur hats ran out to meet them.

Vithleen circled twice, testing the wind in the confused airs of the Pass, then glided in. She set down lightly, letting her tail absorb most of the landing. Ileth concentrated on remembering to dismount from the correct side.

Men in thick gray felt coats and soft boots came to meet her. “Vithleen! I had a bet you would come yesterday.” One of them went to work on a case tied down at the bottom of her saddle girth.

“Mail delay,” Vithleen said. “We had a courier from the Galantine border expected. They decided it would be better if I took the lot; who knows when the weather will turn foul again.”

“Mail?” Ileth asked.

“I got it. You must be new. The Cleft doesn’t look like much, but ‘if there’s mail you’re in civilization,’” the man quoted to her.

Ileth climbed off with difficulty, but she did remember to use the off side. She looked around.

“It’s behind that wooden wall there,” said her helper, detaching a heavy hooked pouch from a flare behind the saddle. She hadn’t seen them when she mounted and wasn’t able to see them once on the dragon without leaning far enough out for the wind to catch her badly. She promptly followed his directions.

She returned from the rude privy, stiff-legged and with no small amount of soreness in her lower back. Her flight mask was off.

“Why, you’re nothing but a girl,” the man who had taken the mail bags said. He was attaching another one to the off side of the saddle. “Vithleen, you have a new wingman?”

“Apprentice this time, I was told. A promising one,” Vithleen said. “He took ill; I think this girl’s his replacement.”

“What’s your name, girl?” The man had the gray uniform of the Auxiliaries.

“Ileth,” she managed to say, working the knots out of her legs. She resisted the urge to massage her buttocks in front of this man.

“Ileth. Ileth.” He thought for a moment. “Ileth!”

The last repetition of her name sounded ominous.

“Where are you from, Ileth?”

“The-The-The dragoneers of the Serpentine, sir. M-May I have a hot drink?”

“We have dinner in the small house for you,” a man with the felt boots and the flat gray hat of the Auxiliaries said. “I’ll tend to Vithleen here. You might want to give her order to the inn up there first. Building with the big orange door and the moon hanging over it.” He rubbed a salve into the junction of wing and skin at her shoulder.

“A thin gravy with plenty of shredded meat,” Vithleen said, as the man applied the salve to her snout. “Don’t skimp on the salt. Phew, I need it. A honey roll would be welcome, too. They usually have some. Two if they’re small. Oh, Stanthoff, you’re a blessing, whatever are you doing in the Auxiliaries? Why aren’t you at the Serpentine?”

“Oh, you know their lordships there. Got to be able to construe Old Hypatian so you can mix with the quality. I sign my name with my inked thumb, old girl.”

Ileth found the inn, gave the order with some difficulty (“On account, I expect,” the innkeeper said; she nodded dumbly, since there was no other way for her to pay, unless the saddle had some coin secreted in it along with the mail bags), and returned to the barn. Vithleen was stretched out in the center of it on a flood of straw. Ileth found the small house previously mentioned and sat by the fire and ate a stew and bread. They gave her a choice of wine or hot tea. She told them to pour the wine in the hot tea. It was dreadful, she’d never ask for that again, but she needed both. Then she slept. Before she knew it she was being shaken awake.

“Time to be up and in the air, dragoneer,” the one Vithleen had called Stanthoff said.

There was still sunlight in the western sky, but the sun had disappeared behind the mountains.

“Again?” she asked. “Well, I asked for it.”

“What’s that, dragoneer?” Stanthoff asked, following her.

“Just t-t-talking to myself.”

“You know,” he said, “we had one of the North District Governor’s assigns up here last summer, asking about a girl named Ileth. Young, small for her age, a stutterer.”

“Hmmmm,” Ileth said.

“Just making conversation. It’s a name you don’t hear much. Ileth. None of my business, I’m just an Auxiliary man.”

Ileth thought it strange that one of the Governor’s officials would be looking for her. The Captain never mentioned the Governor but to curse his taxes. She didn’t believe any favors were owed between the two.

She didn’t have time to think it through.

Vithleen was out of the barn and pawing about anxiously again, eager to be off. She lowered first her forequarters, then her hindquarters, raising the other end. She stretched her tail out like a great tree trunk and let out a titanic belch that Ileth felt in her boot soles. “Now you can tighten the girth, Stanthoff,” she said to the Auxiliary.

“We’re going up again?” Ileth asked Vithleen.

“We’d better, or we’ll both have to answer for it.”

Ileth let out a little moan. But she got on.

“Express is in the white tube,” Vithleen said. “Front of your saddle, where you can see it. They attached it while you were resting.”

“Express . . . white tube,” she repeated. There was a leather cylinder like a map case on her saddle now. She found the fastening latch and opened it. There was a white cylinder within, big enough for a rolled-up painting.

“Winds help us,” the man who’d handled the bags said, shaking his head.

She relatched the tube. It was in front of her knee where she could see it. At other times, a weapon might go on the fitting.

She mounted with some difficulty and numbly latched herself in.

“Ready?” Vithleen asked, sounding fresh as new snow. Which was blowing up the Pass now, actually.

“Yes, thank you,” Ileth said.

“I have a terrible time with your accent. Don’t understand a word you say. Ready?”

“Yes!” Ileth shouted.

The dragon glanced around to make sure her wings were clear. “Up and off!”

This leg was hard, painful from the start. Ileth clung to the dragon’s back, low, and fell into kind of a trance, where there was nothing but wind and growing darkness.

She was convinced now that this wasn’t a trick, or a joke. She’d gotten on the wrong dragon. Been directed to the wrong dragon, more precisely. They didn’t mess about with the courier pouches. Were it a joke, someone would be not just kicked out of the Serpentine but probably handed over to an assign for a jury. She had no business being involved with the Republic’s correspondence. You could be hung outside a posthouse for robbing or otherwise interfering with the Republic’s mail. She wasn’t robbing the mails. She’d do her level best to help Vithleen get them through, but she dearly, fervently hoped she wouldn’t have to explain that to a jury.

Best not to even think about whether a mix-up like this would mean getting a line drawn through her name in that blue leather ledger of Caseen’s.

The stars were still out and the weather seemed to be holding north of the mountains. They proceeded southwest now. She knew her maps; the most sensible destination from the Cleft in this direction would be Sammerdam. She’d always wanted to go there. She lost herself in the rhythmic wingbeats, finding that if you relaxed into them, your muscles felt better. Almost as good as a massage, if you just let the dragon’s contractions flow through you. She even drowsed.

“Still with me, girl?” came a voice from what felt like a pillow.

She roused herself. Her eyes were full of gunk, and she had trouble blinking. Directly ahead of Vithleen’s nose were spiderwebs of street lighting. Only one city in the Republic had this much public lighting: Sammerdam.

The city of Sammerdam sprawled across a river delta. The only topography provided was that of rooftops and parks. It stood on a horizon inland from the open western ocean, behind a series of sandbars and confused inlets. She knew it was a vast engineering project started by Gant the Third, the Last King-Victor of the Vales, but not completed until decades after his death. It had only grown since then.

Jealous neighbors like the Galantines called it the world’s largest open sewer. But it was, at the moment, the beating commercial heart of the western continent; the Vales sat astride it like a tiny rider atop a vast horse.

“Light,” the dragon called.

“I see them.”

“Blue light. Light it and keep it upright to let them know a courier is coming.”

“Uhhh—I don’t have blue lights.”

“Right,” the dragon said. She spat out a small gob of flame, waited a few wingbeats, then spat another, and another after that at similar intervals. They puffed out long before they reached the ground.

The moon had moved across the sky.

A sprinkling like tiny flowers in a burned field, the lakes and waterways about and running through Sammerdam reflected the moon. Far to the west was a faint smear of light. That had to be the Benthian Ocean. The Captain had never sailed on it, though some of his friends had.

The lights below resolved themselves into hundreds of little glitters, most of them emanating out from a shape that reminded her of a crab for some reason. It had seven legs, though, and two thick, uneven arms reaching around something octagonal and dark.

Vithleen circled down toward the dark thing, tipping her wings so she slipped toward the ground.

Ileth made out a vast plaza. In the center of the plaza, behind them, the giant building loomed. It was the tallest structure she’d ever seen save for the Beehive.

Vithleen set down in a great open plaza made up of what must have been a million cobblestones in front of a whitish building raised up off the cobblestones on a masonry mound, making it look like an old tooth in the lamplight. She had a horrible moment when she didn’t see the map tube with the vital white cylinder, but found it; she must have accidentally nudged it so it lay out of sight over the front lip of the saddle. She checked the catch. All was secure.

A team of six men hurried to take their places around the dragon. One of them held a lantern, lighting up Vithleen. The others were armed with pikehooks, save for one who cradled a long meteor, a weapon that instead of firing an arrowhead or bolt launched a lead bead by way of explosive dust.

Ileth took out the white tube, slid off, and patted the dragon’s neck as if she’d been carrying mail for years.

She’d been half considering confessing her status as a novice, but these huge, formidable-looking men made her cautious.

“The one with the brass buttons,” Vithleen said quietly, gesturing with her snout. “Give the express to him.”

Ileth looked around. A heavyset man with a thick, bristling mustache, a tunic closed by shining great buttons, and an even bigger buckle at his waist, carrying the lantern, looked at her expectantly. He saluted her, felt something amiss in the salute, and tucked back a shock of hair that poked out of his hat. Perhaps he’d been sleeping.

“Express,” she said.

“For—” Brass Buttons asked.

“I was taught that it’s . . . it’s impolite to examine others’ letters,” Ileth said.

Brass Buttons harrumphed, said, “Of course,” and studied the tube. “House Heem Roosvillem, better take it now. I’ll have those,” he said, taking the two heavy satchels. He expertly hooked their straps and hung them over his shoulder.

“Haven’t seen you before,” Brass Buttons said as he shouldered the bags.

She didn’t care how big he was; if he would be rude, she’d be rude right back. She had the honor of the dragoneers of the Serpentine to uphold. “No.”

He waited for an explanation, but when none came forth, he rubbed his mustache.

“As you’re new: there’s a warm bed in the backyard, right in the enclosure. The stove is lit. I’ll wake the old woman and send some soup. Tea is ready right now, or would you prefer an infusion? The escort will water the dragon. They’re used to her.”

She thanked him. She wasn’t sure where she stood, as a dragoneer-courier, with such officials. Vithleen, restless despite the long flight, eagerly moved off toward the back of the white building. She followed the dragon around an iron railing and over more cobblestones. A lonely-looking tree stood in the back in a little patch of garden with a stout block dome-roofed building that would have been one of the finest houses in the Freesand, but it was evidently a dragon stable. It stood with dragon-sized sliding doors open, an inviting orange glow from the stove within.

Vithleen settled down by the stove on a thick mat woven out of what looked like ship’s cable. Ileth looked around. There was no bed near the stove, but some sort of hinged panel was folded against the wall near where the stovepipe rose to the ceiling. She found a latch and opened it, and a shelf with rope webbing came down. It was rugged enough to hold six girls her size. She shrugged off the heavier parts of her flying rig, then warmed her muscles and stretched a little. Ottavia had repeated that it was when your muscles were most exhausted that you needed a quick stretch to keep them from seizing up on you in the night. With that done, she climbed in, putting her feet closer to the fire, grateful to be able to stretch out. It smelled a little greasy, but she was too tired to mind. In an instant she was asleep.

Light. A hand shook her awake.

“Why are you sleeping on the ham rack?” the young man who’d taken the express tube asked. “There’s a little apartment up the outside stair, you know. Bed, sheets, blanket.”

“Didn’t see it,” she yawned.

Vithleen was eating out of a wheelbarrow that looked like it had a detachable pan. Ileth smelled roasted pork.

“Your soup’s on the stove,” the post-assistant said. “Would you like bread? It’s yesterday’s, sorry.”

“Yes,” Ileth said, getting to her feet, sore from her ears to her toes. “Do you have a market nearby that is open yet? I need to bring back something special.”

“The markets of Sammerdam never really close. But yes, it’s a fine morning.”

“Here’s the thing—I left my p-purse behind at the Serpentine . . .”

“Umm—” the assistant said, “I don’t mean to—”

Vithleen looked up from her meal. “Oh, for my egg’s sake, put it to my keeping. Say I asked for it and put it to my account. For her first run, she’s not complained at all. She’s been up there like another parcel bag. Go and run get whatever she wants and if you’re not back by morning bells I’ll wing-whip you.”

Ileth gave him exact instructions and he hurried off with an apologetic bow to the dragon.

“Bureaucrats,” Vithleen huffed, watching him go.

“I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all,” Ileth yawned, wearily sniffing at the soup.

“We got in at the evil hours, so I’m not surprised.”

“I forgot to find you water.”

“There’s some in that lovely ceramic trough against the wall. The boys here filled it fresh.”

She washed up in the dragon trough, then drank—the water tasted a bit odd after her months with the clean mountain water of the Serpentine—and some more of the couriers came out with the inevitable bags, this time four of them.

“Rich city,” Vithleen said. “I vouch they just like the look of the wing stamp. Ohhh, look here, darling, the Heem Twits sent us an invitation by air courier . . . ”

The young assistant returned with her parcel. “Charged to the Serpentine’s account under Vithleen’s courier run,” he confirmed as he handed it to her.

Ileth thanked him, enjoying the fact that the young man was out of breath from his run to do a lodge-girl’s bidding, and stretched again before turning back to the dragon. “Do you need to settle your stomach before I tighten the girth again?” For some reason words came easier when she spoke to dragons. Her speech flowed almost evenly, with just a short halt now and then such as was usual in most people’s conversation. Curious.

“You learn fast.” Vithleen walked out into the courtyard; the building they stood behind shone spotlessly white, formal white with black storm shutters flung open. Some old women swept the cobblestones and the stairs leading up to it, ignoring the dragon and rider. The Guards—Ileth couldn’t tell if it was the same group as last night—leaned about the black iron fence chatting.

Vithleen reared up, hopped about a bit, waved her tail, and then belched again, loudly enough to rattle the rows of small square windows in the dragon stable.

“Your cheering section is out front,” the assistant said. “I think old Vor Gorts went back to bed. Or he’s eating one of his breakfasts and reading the newssheet. Sorry he isn’t seeing you off.”

Ileth was curious about that ritual. She’d heard Santeel complaining about newssheets, sort of a long gossipy letter everyone could get, but had never seen one. She kicked herself for not asking the assistant to pick one up on her errand. It would be fun to know all that happened recently among the important personages of Sammerdam. Quith would treasure it.

They moved around to the front, alerting a few children who’d snuck into the alley to peep to return to the others and let them know the dragon was coming. All sizes and standards of clothing were represented in the mob, here to see a dragon take off. Ileth hoped they weren’t expecting her to throw coppers or something; she didn’t have so much as a fig on her. The excited shouts and talk from the children washed over her like a surf.

“Good crowd for a winter day,” the assistant said.

It hardly seemed like winter here, a bit chill and damp, but then again Sammerdam was chosen partially for its climate.

“Give her room, would you,” Ileth said, making waving motions.

“They’ll back up once I start beating my wings,” Vithleen said. “Mount up.”

Vithleen rustled her wings out and the children scattered. Then she seriously warmed her muscles and Ileth felt the familiar force of the air buffeting back at her. Vithleen gathered herself—

“Out of the way, out of the way,” the assistant said, running ahead of them . . .

And with a leap they were off. Ileth looked back. The assistant had sensibly flung himself to the ground. He appeared to be the only one who needed to pick himself up; she couldn’t see that they’d bowled over any children.

As they rose, Ileth had a good view of the huge, multistory building in the center of the plaza. It was some kind of arena-amphitheater, with two balconies and a stage. The center of it was bigger even than the Beehive’s Rotunda. She’d heard that the people in Sammerdam loved the circus; maybe this was where they exhibited.

Smoke rose everywhere, making its own weather above the rooftops. Streets crossing canals filled with sliverlike boats stretched out in all directions with parks making up blocks of gray, dead winter branches. The delicate network reminded her again of a spiderweb, provided the spider had a few drops of wine before weaving it.

“Where now?” Ileth shouted.

“Asposis—then home.”

“Fates be with us, then.” They’d made a rough sort of diamond through the heart of the Vales.

The excitement of taking off wore away and the muscle ache had returned, with a stiffness layered on top of the pain that made riding difficult. She couldn’t even relax into the dopey trance she’d managed last night. But she kept on. Maybe she could put a balm “on account” at the next stop. Asposis wasn’t terribly far from Sammerdam.

Though the day started out well, it turned into a nightmare. Less than an hour into the flight Ileth had to ask for her to land, and quickly . . .

“First time in Sammerdam?” Vithleen said, sympathetically.

“Yes.”

“The water. First couple times you drink it, it’s a bit—unpleasant. I forgot you were new. Here’s a tip—bring a good flask of white vinegar and mix some in whenever you drink it. Vinegar cleans water just as well as it does wounds. You’ll soon get used to it.”

“Vinegar. I’ll remember that.”

She’d heard that the Republic’s standing armies and Auxiliaries got vinegar rations whenever they were on the march to put in their water. It was also good for washing wounds and making cool compresses.

They put down in a winter field and Ileth took care of what desperately needed taking care of. The rest of their journey was slowed by three more breaks until Ileth clung on, foul and empty.

“You’d best just have tea at Asposis. Maybe some salty boiled broth,” Vithleen suggested. Ileth smiled wanly, though Vithleen couldn’t see it. She was supposed to be taking care of the dragon, not the other way around.

Asposis, tucked in mountains just big enough to be picturesque, wasn’t as big as Sammerdam, but it was stately and the views were splendid from any angle on the ground and doubly so from the air. There were two frowning rocky hills at the south end of the box valley, shaped like two great cats who had settled down to keep an eye on each other, one with a few ruins, and the other a fortress that was known as the “old castle” (though she did not know at the time that the actual “old castle” was the ruins on the smaller rocky hill across the way) according to Shatha, who’d grown up there.

Ileth had learned a good deal about Asposis since coming to the Serpentine; about a third of the dragoneer apprentices and novices called it or the villages around it home. Most swore it was the most beautiful spot in the Vales: a mix of mountain scenery, cultivated gardens, and tended waterways. A curving lake not quite in the center of the valley had the city (though it wasn’t much larger than Vyenn) of Asposis at its southern end. The rest of the lake had many fine homes around it and a finger of land with an old observatory tower, and a wooded area with an impressive castled house where the king had lived until the Republic. Some of his family still lived there, she knew, and were among the most important society in the Vales, but they took no part in politics and only occasionally acted to set the tone for manners. Quith often talked about them and the families close to them, speaking of them collectively as the “old guard.”

Not all was ideal around Asposis, however. She saw untended gardens and houses that had fallen into disrepair, with trees growing right up to the windows.

They only stopped briefly, in the courtyard of the fortress now flying the red-and-white flag of the Republic, and saw nothing of the city itself, beautifully set along the lake and the most famous promenade in the Republic. There were no Auxiliaries here, just men in splendid, spotless uniforms each with a sheathed sword or a Guard’s pike, their arms matched up and held properly. They conducted elaborate marches and countermarches and shifting of columns as Vithleen arrived. She would have liked to stay and examine some of these male specimens up close, clean-shaven save for a carefully groomed mustache or two, for she’d never seen such brilliantly turned-out young men and wouldn’t have minded watching their military evolutions until she was entirely recovered from the fatigues of mail duty, but perhaps it was just as well. She couldn’t imagine how she looked, and she felt sweaty and dirty indeed after the pell-mell activity and digestive illness, without a chance to even change her sheath.

She and the dragon stayed only an hour to rest and refresh themselves before taking off again, this time with two satchels of messages. Ileth felt fatigued by more than the flight.

“The Headwaters, and home!” Vithleen said, by way of encouragement.

They reached the Antonine Falls where the Skylake emptied into the Tonne just as the weather turned on them. They touched down just long enough for them both to take a warm drink while mail satchels were exchanged. She couldn’t see much of the famous river. The Tonne flowed down all the way to the Blue Ocean in the south, and the bit of it that looped through the Galantine lands—Reester, as in “the Reester Question”—and the midriver fortress known as the Scab had been the subject of the suspended war the diplomats were trying to bring to a close.

They hurried to get into the air again, fighting time. The laden clouds that had piled up north of the Cleft had escaped, over or around the mountain barrier at the Cleft, and flooded the south half of the Vales. They were an ominous, flat-bottomed expanse heavy with promised snow.

“We shall have to go low and slow getting home. Thank your egg—sorry, figure of speech—thank your mother we’re at the river. All we have to do is follow it home.”

They took off into snow.

It was slow going, against the wind, and even Vithleen tired on this final lap. Her wings seemed to need to gather themselves between each beat. Or perhaps she just had to put more effort into it with the wind and snow in her face. Both flew with their eyes scrunched up, not seeing much but snow and the lakeshore.

“If it gets much worse we shall land,” Vithleen said. “I have to see the lake. Too many cliffs to risk it.”

“You’re the one who has to cope with it.”

“Again? Your words . . . I’m just not getting them.”

“Your decision!”

She’d seen far worse storms, from the safety of the Lodge, fortunately. The blowing snow confused everything. She wondered how much daylight was left; all she could do was guess at the location of the sun. Ileth kept watching the shoreline, looking for landmarks.

A flat cliff loomed up in their path. Vithleen didn’t seem to be turning; perhaps she wanted to fly close to it so the snow wouldn’t be in her face for a few moments, but—

“Vithleen!”

Ileth yanked her dragon whistle out of her bracing vest and shoved the cold metal end in her mouth.

TWEEEEEEE!

The dragon startled, tipped her wings, and closed the left one a little so it just brushed the cliff with an audible scrape.

“I’m more tired than I thought,” Vithleen said. “I was lost in fatigue.” She rattled her griff hard and shook her head. “I’m glad one of us was paying attention. Good for us we’re close. That’s Heartbreak Cliff.”

They were well over the Skylake, almost home.

She had heard more than one girl in the Manor talk dramatically about leaping off Heartbreak Cliff when discussing their (mostly imaginary) romantic successes and failures, but as far as she knew no one had actually done so; it was just a silly expression. This was the first Ileth had seen of it except as a distant break on the horizon at the south end of the Skylake. Had Vithleen struck it head-on it might have been changed to the Dragonbreak. Ileth’s first viewing had nearly been her last!

Plowed her dragon into Heartbreak Cliff on her first flight, they’d be saying years from now, retelling old stories of lost dragoneers. Imagine the wild stories that would grow up around that! Ileth giggled. The illness and fatigue and the close call must be making her mad . . .

The wing-brush with disaster gave Vithleen energy, it seemed; she lengthened her neck and the pace of her wingbeats picked up. She put on a little more altitude. Ileth made out a lighter spot in the snow; it must be the glow of the lighthouse atop the Beehive. Home.

In another moment or two they were over the forested stretch of land south of Vyenn, the trees looking odd and foreshortened from above, and then at last they saw the lighthouse atop the Beehive. Its light, though blazing brightly as ever, was next to useless in a snowstorm. The Serpentine looked vast and strange with snow on it, seen from above Vyenn.

Vithleen didn’t want to risk a landing at the Beehive end of the Long Bridge, it seemed, because she swung around over the up end of the Serpentine. Ileth made out the little red door where she’d sat, what seemed like years ago now. It looked like a piece of a dollhouse.

After surveying the landscape, the dragon set down on the main gravel path, crunching snow and gravel as she came in with the Pillar Rocks looming just ahead. Snow made the Beehive beyond an immense, gray shadow.

“Stars, it’s good to be home,” Vithleen said, folding her wings. She stretched like a cat, low in front, which made Ileth’s dismount (she remembered even in her illness and exhaustion to use the off side) easier.

A member of the Guard in a heavy gray coat with a decorative pip on his fore-and-aft-rigged cap ran up to her. He held his hat on with the storm. Ileth didn’t recognize him.

Ileth used the words she’d been rehearsing since they’d left the Antonine Falls.

“Novice Ileth, reporting with mail,” she said, saluting as she’d seen the Guards at the fortress in Asposis do. She had no idea if that was the proper form, but it seemed to suffice.

“Thank you . . . novice?” the officer of the watch said, peering at her keenly. His eyes widened as he finally put the face together with the strange, snow-covered flying rig. “At changeover they said there was a mix-up with Vithleen and to keep an eye out for her coming in from any direction, but . . . a novice?”

“May I see to m-my dragon, sir?” Ileth asked.

“Certainly,” he said, snapping into formalities with ease. He directed another apprentice pulling guard duty to take the satchel to the Master in Charge.

“Look after your dragon, dra—er, novice,” he said.

It was fun to trip someone else’s tongue up!

She realized he was waiting for another salute. “Yes, sir,” she said, bringing her hand up again.

“I thought there was something amiss,” Vithleen said, as they walked toward the Beehive. “So you’re just a novice?”

“I was directed to you. I think someone wrote the wrong name down someplace. Or nobody recognized me in this getup.”

“It looks like, oh, what is his name? I have a hard time keeping track of humans. The tall one, Catherix’s man. His old getup.”

“The Borderlander, we call him.”

“I doubt anyone’s mistaking you for him. He’s twice your size.”

“Not that much!”

“I’m too tired to argue,” she said. She huffed out a snort. “Why does it feel so much colder on the ground? Ugh, let’s hurry. You rode me; you can get this saddle off and put some salve on if we ever make it to the warming room.”

The warming room would have to wait, though. She was told upon entering the Beehive that Master Caseen wanted to see her as soon as she returned. A team of grooms under a wingman she didn’t know by name came up to take care of Vithleen.

She reminded them to use plenty of salve.

For once, Master Caseen did not seem aggravated by her. He was amused. But not right off. When she was summoned to his office he stood up and placed his fists on his desk.

“Ileth, I am beginning to be of the opinion that I have to hold your hand or things go wing-over and tail first. Every time you walk out of my office and I can finally have my supper, you seem to get in trouble before it’s even digested properly.”

She felt her mouth go dry. Vithleen had promised she’d give a good account of their flight, but there was no way for that to reach the Master’s ears yet. “Am I . . . am I—”

“No, your name is still not crossed off the ledger,” Caseen chuckled, dropping the blood-and-thunder face. “We had a good laugh about it, imagining what must have been going through your mind when you set down in the Cleft. We figured Vithleen would return for a new rider and set out the next day.”

Ileth massaged her sore fingers. “She wanted to hurry a-a-along her route, I-I think. She didn’t like the look of the weather to the—to the north.”

“How did you like it?”

“My mind was most on how sore my back and legs were. I wondered if I’d done something wrong.”

“Oh, I asked some questions all right,” he said. “It was a mix-up in the flight cave. You weren’t supposed to go until Santeel returned. You disappeared, our wingman running the cave had to deal with a broken girth, the courier who was supposed to fly Vithleen—it was Duskirk from the kitchens, by the way, his first commission—was ill and a replacement was found but he wasn’t ready yet, and you showed up in an unfamiliar getup. All Vithleen knew was that she was to have a new rider. Not that she needs one, but it’s safer for dragons to have a dragoneer with them in case of the unexpected. So off you went on Vithleen with no one the wiser until Santeel returned covered in her breakfast and asked where you were.”

“Covered in—in . . . ?”

“She got airsick. It happens. That rig of hers will need some cleaning to get it out of the fur. She’ll go up again in a couple days. It’s natural, the dragons sometimes do a few fancy moves if they think a new rider is getting a little too full of themselves.”

“Santeel can give that impression,” Ileth said. “Am I to get a new training flight?”

“I think you’ve proved you can be taken up without falling off. Oh, did it make your teeth hurt at all?”

“No, sir.” She didn’t add that everything but her teeth hurt at the moment and she risked toppling over asleep standing in front of him.

“Then I can safely promise you that barring accidents you will fly again. Perhaps if I don’t see you in these quarters again until spring, hmmm? That is, if you haven’t decided to leave flying for the birds.”

“I came here to travel and see more of the Republic. I just didn’t think it would happen all in one day.”

“Don’t go adding a dragon rampant to your family seal just yet. It seems we must be careful with you. If this is what you do your first time up, I’m a bit afraid on your second you’ll fly off and start a war. But knowing your luck, you’d come back with three captured banners and a signed surrender. We’re done here. Go get some rest.”

“Yes, sir.” Ileth saluted.

“Novices don’t have to salute the Masters, Ileth. This isn’t the Guards.”

She nodded and left. She’d never heard anyone call her “lucky” before. “Lucky” Ileth. Ileth “the Lucky.” No, it was awful no matter how you arranged it.

She hurried back to the Dancers’ Quarter as quickly as her sore legs could manage the trip. She was eager to see if her celebratory drink was still there. Not that she needed the help being eased into sleep, but it might loosen up her stiffening leg muscles.