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and fight, but the horses were having none of that. They also knew what was plunging down out of the sky at them, and were not at all willing to become dinner. Unlike the camels, they were not bound together; they could, and did, bolt in whatever direction seemed the most unobstructed. Not even the strongest bit, not the strongest rider, was going to hold back a horse in a state of panic.
    Avatre pulled up, shooting straight up into the sky, as Kiron clung to her saddle and looked for the missing camel. He spotted it just under them. The rider that had tried to steal it was now on the ground, with no sign of his horse—
    Unless his horse was the one currently heading north, riderless, at a high rate of speed.
    Kiron sent Avatre in a wingover to make a second pass, scattering the riders further. By this point the horses were in full gallop and not likely to stop for miles.
    At this point, there really was nothing more he could do to help—and in fact, landing Avatre would be rather counterproductive, given the reaction of the camels, so after that second pass he left the caravan workers to take care of the few remaining bandits themselves. He turned Avatre’s head homeward; she seemed content now to go.
    But if he had needed it—there it was. The proof that there still was useful work for the Jousters.

THREE
    “SO,” Kiron announced with glee to his wingleaders. “There’s still useful work for us.”
    “Not just useful, I’d say it’s important,” replied Huras after a moment. “Uh—I hadn’t wanted to bring this up before, but . . . without an enemy army to fight, Jousters aren’t exactly a necessary sort of thing to have about.”
    Orest snorted. “Neither are pet baboons, but no one complains about them.”
    But some of the others looked thoughtful. It was Oset-re who spoke up for all of them. “The thing is,” he said reluctantly, “The pet baboons aren’t eating enough meat every day to feed an entire village. For a moon. It was one thing when we were protecting people from their enemies. Without someone to fight?” He shrugged. “Granted, the Great King and Queen are Jousters and want dragons, but . . .”
    “But if we can’t prove ourselves useful, there will be all sorts of pressures brought to bear by nobles and common leaders and maybe even some of the priests,” Gan said bluntly. “We are quite visible, and quite costly and the things that go to support us could go to someplace else at a time when both Tia and Alta are trying to recover from terrible losses.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Granted, it is true that with the weather no longer in the control of the Magi, this year should be a normal one for crops. But there are fewer farmers in the fields as well, at least in what’s left of Alta. I don’t suppose Kaleth has had any revelations from the gods about how the harvest will be, has he?”
    Orest raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s the sort of thing that Kaleth hears about.”
    “Well, a fellow can ask, can’t he?” Gan was not in the least abashed. “I doubt the gods would be offended by so simple a question.”
    “I want to hear about what sort of tactics we should be using,” said Kalen firmly. “Driving off bandits is not the same as fighting trained soldiers. And what do we do with any that we might capture? We won’t have an army underneath us to act as our support in the field. We need to think of these things before we have problems, not after.”
    “Should we be getting permission to do this?” Menet-ka worried aloud. “This is nothing we’ve been told to do.”
    “But we also haven’t been told not to do it,” Kiron told them all. “And my thought is that if we wait for permission, we might be waiting for moons, but if we just go and do it, by the time anyone thinks to order us to stop, the merchants will be so used to the protection that the howls of protest will sound like a pack of wild hounds with prey in sight.”
    Gan grinned.