"Mercedes Lackey - Dragon Jousters 2 - Alta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

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how the first time he had been carried a-dragonback he had sworn he would never, ever set foot off the
ground again. It had been an utterly terrifying experience for one who had never been any farther from
the ground than the flat roof of his father's farmhouse. To have that experience while lying face-down
over Ari's saddle, when he had never seen either a Jouster or a dragon up close before, had only made it
worse.

And to tell the truth, the first few flights with Avatre had been almost as frightening. But he had known
very well that he should not and could not walk across the desert, so he had gritted his teeth and tried to
guide her, and somehow, they had learned to fly together.

Only on the latter half of the journey had they actually learned to hunt together, however. Their first few
efforts, singly and together, had been less than stellar, and for a while, he had relied on the Bedu more
than he had liked.

Now, thoughтАФhe was actually rather proud of their ability to feed themselves. They had even worked
out more than one technique, and Avatre had learned how to dive, rake with her claws, strike, and hover
on commands that could be either physical or verbal. She had even learned to tow or carry something on
the other end of a rope; a hard lesson to master, when her natural instinct was to either fight it or give in
and flop down at the end of the tether.

This sort of desertтАФon the very edge of the fertile landsтАФhad a lot more in the way of game than it
might appear. There were wild camels, asses, and goats, animals that had escaped from the Bedu; there
were also herds of gazelle (Avatre's favorite) and smaller game.

And lions. And Kiron (he must learn to think of himself as Kiron!) had learned that he could often rely
on the lions to show him where the other game was.

So when, as they circled up the thermal, he saw a pride of lions trotting purposefully toward the north,
far below them, he raised his eyes and looked for the cloud of dust that might be telling them where the
game was.

Avatre had learned the same signs, and her eyes were keener than his. Before he had seen the telltale
plume of slightly thicker dust carried on the kamiseen wind, she had made her turn out of the thermal
and was gliding down in a new direction, north and a bit west, bringing them closer to the green horizon.

It took two more thermals, and they had left the lions far behind, when the herd of wild asses came into
view, grazing slowly on the scrubby vegetation that hardly anything else could stomach. They must
never have been hunted by a dragon, for they did not even seem to notice them in the sky above. Too
bad for them, then.

He got out his sling, and readied a stone. One thing that had certainly made hunting easier was that the
farther he and Avatre got from Tia and the wild dragons that lived and bred in the mountain valleys

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beyond the river, the easier it was to find unwary game. Yesterday had been unusual in that they had