“Get the dragons harnessed and up,” he ordered shortly, to their astonishment. “We need to go to the practice field. Aket-ten, you have Heklatis, Huras, you take this man. Fast! I want to get there and back before anyone notices!”

The wing understood, at any rate. And to his immense satisfaction, although they were the last to know, they were all the first into the air, even Huras, with the injured Jouster.

They led the way to their field, and landed there. The dragons had all just been fed (and drugged) and were sleepy—and while they were irritated at being forced to fly, they were inclined to lie right down on the warm grass in the sun and bask rather than quarrel or wander. Simply staking their reins down kept them in one place. The Jousters all gathered around Kiron and Lord Khumun, who both looked to Heklatis.

“Give me a moment,” the Healer muttered. He closed his eyes, and began to chant under his breath, and shortly he was sweating as if he was trying to shove a heavy stone up a ramp all by himself. He grew paler, too—and just when he began to sway a little with exhaustion, he stopped, opened his eyes—and sat down hard in the grass.

“They won’t find us, not for a while,” he said heavily. “And if they try to scry, what they’ll see is all of you practicing up there—” he pointed at the sky above.

“He’s a Magus, as well as a Healer,” Kiron explained to the baffled faces. “And—that’s where our story begins, I suppose.”

He explained everything; Toreth’s original plan, and why he had decided to make the Jousters into a force to make the Tians forge a real peace, their long discussions, the change in the plan after Toreth’s murder by the Magi, Kaleth’s visions—and finally, what they had done to the tala. “In a few days, you’ll be using the new stuff,” he told them. “And so will they. Once the dragons aren’t drugged anymore, we thought they would probably obey for a while out of habit, but we planned to go along on one last flight and—goad the Tian dragons into rage, so they’d throw their riders and escape. We were going to warn you so that you could ride your dragons down to the ground and turn them loose.”

Silence. Kiron began to sweat. Told out like this, to senior Jousters—it didn’t seem like such a good plan anymore.

“The Magi are trying to kill us anyway,” growled the injured man. “Isn’t that obvious? It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”

After a moment, there was some muttering of agreement. “But why?” asked someone else in a bewildered voice. “That’s what I don’t understand!”