Alta by Mercedes Lackey

The former Dragonboy Vetch has now reclaimed his real name, Kiron, son of Kiron, and returns to Alta riding a dragon that he has raised from an egg, named Avatre. But more to the point, to not be stopped, he's had to cultivate an air of expecting priviledge, an upper-class, even noble mentality. He stops several times at estates and commands food for both himself and Avatre before heading to the capital of Alta, Alta City.

Before he gets to the city, however, he comes upon two youths fishing in boats. And when the boat is overturned by a river horse, he goes into the water to rescue the one closest to the angry and dangerous hippo, he's already found out that the youth is a girl. Kiron is hurt in the attack, and the girl, Aket-ten, and her brother, Orest, take him to the estate of their father to rest and heal.

With his entree into Altan society assured by his rescue of Aket-ten, Kiron tells some of his story to Aket-ten, Orest, their father Lord Ya-tiren, and, later, to the master of Dragons in Alta City. Aket-ten is fascinated by Avatre. One of her talents is to "hear" the thoughts of animals. Normally, she cannot "hear" dragons because their thoughts are so muddled by the Tala, but Avatre is different.

Once he is healed of his injuries, Kiron is presented with many young men who wish to become Dragon Jousters, and partners with Dragons. Too many, actually, but first he sets them to work as Dragonboys to the Dragons that Alta actually possesses, even before any eggs are found. Not only that, but he makes his prospective Dragon Jousters do all the work, even the disgusting, dirty and smelly parts. One of them is Orest, the brother of Aket-ten, who has been working alongside Kiron with his tutor while Kiron learns to read.

Another of the prospective Dragon Jousters is Toreth, Crown Prince of Alta, along with his twin brother, Kaleth. Since Alta is ruled by twins, two male twins as Kings and two female twins as Queens, one twin always goes to be a priest or scholar, while the other twin goes into the military. And Dragon Jousting counts as being in the military.

But Kiron, despite his duties, cannot ignore the fact that not all is well in Alta. Though the Twins supposedly rule, it is the mages who seem to do more with the running of the country. And through Aket-ten, he discovers that the mages are draining the power of the priests with some kind of magical talent or ability to send storms against Tia. And when Aket-ten herself is nearly drained unto death, it is Kiron who rescues her and warns her father of what is happening.

When he shares his suspicions with the Dragon Jousters he is training, Toreth confirms Kiron's suspicions of who truly rules in Alta, but when he hears about what is being done to the gifted ones, and discovers that the rulers have started to look younger, as the mages themselves look and seem ageless, both of them develop some very startling suspicions about the mages and what they are doing- and why they seem invested in the near-continual war between Alta and Tia. Could it be that the mages are feeding in some way on the death of the young men and the Dragon Jousters who fight the war?

When the supply of Gifted ones runs dry, the Dragon Jousters are sent out on punishing raids against the Tians, almost as if the mages wanted them to die. And when the drained Gifted are prevented from foreseeing a disastrous quake, the mood of the common people in the city turns against the mages, and the mages respond by turning their most fearsome weapon against the enemies of Alta on the city itself, the Eye of Light.

Toreth tries to speak with the ruling twins about the danger of the Mages, but when he returns, hours later, he tells them that the twins now look to be only a little older than he and his brother, and that he was told off for being young and foolish. The Mages have gotten to them, and they will not listen to anything he has to say. The next morning, he is dead, killed in his sleep by a snake that should not have been there, for his dragon, Re-eth-ke would have killed any normal snake.

Re-eth-ke goes into mourning, and only Aket-ten, now working as a healer to the Dragons of the Dragon Jousters, is able to help Re-eth-ke. She takes Toreth's place as rider to his dragon, and is accepted by the others. But they soon see that they must leave Alta City to prevent themselves from being slain along with the rest of the Dragon Jousters. Their only hope lies in a ruined city located in the desert, nearly halfway between Tia and Alta. But can they get out of the city without being spotted, and can they rescue Toreth's brother Kaleth, and their promised twin brides as well before the Mages can marry them and introduce themselves into the line of succession?

Well, as we can see in this volume of the Dragon Jousters saga, things are tough all over. Just when Vetch/Kiron has escaped Tia and the tyranny of the Tians disdain for all thing Altan, he returns home only to discover that his homeland is under a different and far worse tyranny- that of the Mages, who are using the deaths of the Altans under their command to give themselves power and endless youth- using the years of the dying youth of Alta for themselves.

Needless to say, this is an even worse sort of tyranny than that he was subject to in Tia. And he begins to fight it to keep his own country free. However, he soon finds that not even the Dragon Jousters can set things aright in Alta. Certainly not when they have the rulers under their thumbs, or in cahoots with them. It's hard to tell if the Altan rulers really know enough about what the mages are doing to their own youth who die as soldiers, or if they are merely seduced by the effects that the mages can offer them- seemingly endless youth and health. Which is very appealing to rulers who are suffering the effects of old age!

Thus, if the mages have their way, the war with Alta will never end. Young men will continue to be sent off to die to continue the mage's cycle of death and power, while the mages and the corrupt ruling pairs gain from every death. It's a sickening thought, and Lackey makes it clear just how horrible people who can do such things are. And worse, the mages are getting greedy: sending more and more to their deaths for the sake of power. They are also killing off the Dragon Jousters because they see the Dragon Jousters as their only true rival for power. Though the Dragon Jousters don't have any magical power, they are rivals for the mages in the eyes of the people. And the mages cannot stand that.

You might think that all this talking about power and politics could get a bit boring, but Mercedes Lackey makes the whole thing interesting to read, as it impacts the life of Kiron, his friends, and the girl he is coming to care for, Aket-ten. Tying the results to the lives of the people in the book gives it an immediacy that is usually lacking in other books.

I liked reading this book. Even if the ending is something of a downer, with the Dragon Jousters forced to flee Alta City to avoid becoming Mage Chow (so to speak), it makes you look forward to the next book in the series, and hope to downfall of the mages is slow and painful for them. Highly recommended.