Joust is the first book in the Dragon Jousters series. The first book in this thrilling new series introduces readers to a young slave who dreams of becoming a Jouster-one of the few warriors who can actually ride a flying dragon. And so, in secret, he begins to raise his own dragon. Vetch was an Atlan serf. Anger was his only real sustenance—anger that the land he worked had once been his family's farm, and anger at the kind of work he did—for the crop he helped raise gave the Jousters their ability to control the great dragons that had enabled Tia to conquer more than a third of what had once been Atlan lands. It seemed that Vetch's entire cruel fate revolved around dragons and the Jousters who rode them. But his fate changed forever the day he first saw a dragon. From its narrow, golden, large-eyed head, to its pointed emerald ears, to the magnificent blue wings which were spread to catch the sun, the dragon was a thing of multicolored, jeweled beauty, slim and supple and quite as large as the shed it perched on. Vetch almost failed to notice the tall, muscular Jouster who stood drinking from his water bucket. And when Vetch's master raised his whip to punish the serf who had dared to pause in his duties, the Jouster had stilled his hand. "I need a boy," he said, and with that and a call to his mount, Vetch found himself lifted above the earth and transported like magic to a different world. If this Jouster had tamed his dragon, perhaps Vetch too could tame a dragon. And if he could, then he might be able to escape. And if he could escape, maybe he could even bring the secret of dragon-taming back to his homeland of Atlan. And maybe, just maybe, that secret might prove to be the key to Atlan's liberation...