by E. E. Knight
“That is not a bad crossbow,” Tirut said, as though he’d just tested it on a Sag House gourd. “That blackhearted bastard’s maimed his last. May the birds have his eyes and a dog his tongue.”
The five dragons of the reserve formed up again. Aurue flew up to meet them. At this distance Ileth couldn’t see any holes in the stitching. She hurriedly put Sifler’s mask and double-hats back on.
They passed low over the column. Hael Dun Huss signaled. She saluted in return.
“I think we can move back down the mountain at a more leisurely pace,” Tirut said, shouldering the boar-spear again. “You want to set pace, or shall I?”
“Be my guest, Watch Chief,” Ileth said.
“You ever get sick of the smell of dragons, look me up,” Tirut said. “Food’s very good, even by landsman’s standards. You wouldn’t be the first woman in breeches we’ve passed into the rolls with a wink. Brains and nerve matter more than whether you squat or stand to clear your bilge.”
PART FOUR
Many Happy Returns
“Glory comes with a bill attached.
You must be willing to pay it.”
—Sayings of the Serpentine
9
After turning over the freed people at the Harbor Fort for transport back to the Headlands—she stayed to watch them being loaded and say farewell to Tirut, who was already making himself useful at the Harbor Fort by shouting instructions to Rari prisoners in their own tongue—she decided she’d fly back to the Headlands. Her wounded dragon needed to be examined by competent physikers rather than a single undertrained apprentice.
She saw the prisoners clamber into the sea turtle and the Auxiliaries pass the towing cables through the loops on the Duke and Duchess’s swimming harness. The Duke was an old, heavily scarred copper dragon who had something very wrong with his wing—it dragged from the forehook joint out and was held in place on his back by strapping—and a gimpy leg; the Duchess was an equally aged green who lovingly nudged him along as he hobbled to the water.
She watched one of the Auxiliaries, standing chest-deep in the chill water as he attached the towing lines. But it wasn’t her usual idle examination of shoulders and the muscles in the back working this time—she knew this youth. It was Duskirk! Yael Duskirk! He’d been sentenced to the mines for his part in the poisoning of Vithleen and the egg theft, but it seemed he’d made it out. Maybe they took volunteers from the convicts, especially if they were young and had experience with dragons.
“He’s a sneaky one, the Duke, for something his size,” an Auxiliary at the Harbor Fort gate said. He spoke as proudly of the broken old dragon as any Serpentine dragoneer. “See the marks there on the drawbridge? While the towers were shooting at the flying dragons and sending up rockets and such, he rolled around in some mud and crept up on the drawbridge from the water. Climbed up the side and popped it loose with his legs easy as you’d shove a door open with your foot. The Duchess used her fire to get the door good and hot, then smashed it open with her tail. Then they were inside like a couple cats loose in a rat-killing pit. The Rari ironmongery, they only had one that could swivel to cover the inside of the fort. They’re both a bit mad—expect you to address them with all the old royal lingo like they were a king and queen of earth and sky itself, but they get the job done. Isn’t one of us in the Auxiliary dragon teams that don’t love ’em same as you in the Serpentine hold yours.”
“That one getting washed about, working the harness, do you know him?”
“Shaggy hair? Convict volunteer. He’s on the dragon team, though—that red wool shirt tied about his waist means dragon team. Tough little mutt, working in that sea.”
Duskirk was departing with the Duke and Duchess, so she wouldn’t have a chance to speak to him. He looked very thin. Maybe she could bring some food from the Sag into the Auxiliary camp, once safely back in her own clothes.
The man she was talking to went on to say something, apologizing for not giving proper credit to the dragoneers, but Ileth thanked him and went back to Aurue.
She flew back to the Headlands with her flying cap, mask, and scarf pulled well up, set down, pointed at Aurue’s wing-skin and grunted, “Physiker, now,” and hurried to the toilet pits. At the edge of the field she passed some men doing a “field oiling” of their swords by passing them over dragon-flame breathed into a sand pit by Nephalia. She now knew it was a quick way to get off the wet and preserve the steel.
Nephalia was belly down, resting limp wings, listening to a wingman rattle off figures from a table, two dozen this and a hundredweight of that, when Ileth passed. Nephalia sniffed idly, then perked up her snout and ears, looking at Ileth in confusion.
Ileth dived into the warren of tents.
The camp seemed quiescent, though she smelled food from a tantalizingly unlocatable source and heard snores. Three days of intense, round-the-clock battle had exhausted the dragoneers and Auxiliaries alike.
She found him settled behind a peg-screen for hanging armor and equipment.
“At last!” he said. “I feared you were both dead. What on earth kept you?”
She told him, briefly, about the slave train and Aurue being wounded.
“I got my nerve back, you know.” He didn’t seem happy about it.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“If you hadn’t been so quick to climb into my rig and go off, I might have made it.”
Was he really about to make this her fault? “You could have run after me.”
“That’s just like you, Ileth. Anything to draw attention to yourself.”
“That—that doesn’t even make sense.”
He said something about her knowing exactly what he meant and he turned away. “Now please leave.”
“Whatever happened today, you flew Aurue over the Rari coast. Think of the stories you’ll have for Miss Caribet.” She left him and his scarecrow flying rig.
* * *
—
Back in her usual plain camp attire, Ileth returned to work. It was the best way to get the memory of those dropped bundles of clothes on the roadside out of her mind.
Aurue’s injury was minor, but Ileth wouldn’t be at ease until one of the dragoneer physikers pronounced it so. With Sifler’s permission—he played the part of an exhausted dragoneer needing sleep—she took Aurue into the Old Post along the cavern wharf.
The Old Post was crowded with spent dragons. Most slept, with evidence of vast, oily meals all about. A tub full of broken and damaged scale that had been pulled out sat between two grooms, both sleeping with backs to the stony wall. Ileth lent a hand in washing medical instruments in the seawater—the great starfish had fled—and helped haul dirty dressings up and out of the canyon to be burned outside. They didn’t take chances with dragon blood.
She found Gift—Threadneedle was too old for a campaign camp—and had to wake him to look at Aurue. He gave her the caustic side of his tongue for waking him for something so minor and pointed out where her stitching could be improved. She accepted without thinking, then backtracked and gave credit to Sifler.
“Sifler did that? He’s much improved,” Gift said.
Aurue narrowed his eyes at her and glowered as she lied and elaborated on her lies.
The dragon turned away. “I’m for a meal and a long, long nap.”
Ileth knew she should be exhausted, but she felt gloriously alive. She’d braved shot and a downed dragon, even though the shot had passed before she knew what happened and as for her dragon going down, there’d been bucket she could do about it other than hang on.
She wanted to shout, dance, be kissed. There should be an enormous party. Astler was wise to have thought of such a thing so far ahead of time. She remembered the promise of the victory ball in the warehouse. It would be fun to shop for a dress to wear to it. Perhaps she should take Gandy. She minded her less and less. Sh
e liked all of Astler’s family, come to think of it. Even the widows seemed better on acquaintance. She wondered if she needed permission to return to Sag House.
Aurue was already asleep with his nose in the remains of a greasy dinner. He wouldn’t need her for a bit, and there were a few grooms about. She went up to see who was about to ask permission.
The Borderlander was in charge of a reserve of himself and Catherix. He stood at the assignment board, trying to organize a sheaf of papers on the ground before him with rocks atop them to keep them from being blown off in the wind.
“Hullo, Ileth. I’m trying to figure out if Auguriscious is on the wounded list or not. I’ve been told he is, but he’s still active on the board and there’s no physiker’s report. Seen him about?”
“The physiker, or Auguriscious?”
“Either would suit me.”
“The physiker is trying to get some sleep. You’re a brave man, so you can wake him if you wish. Me, I’m exercising the privilege of being the Governor’s daughter and going back to a tub and a real bed in the Sag.”
“It’s been a gargoyle’s ball, hasn’t it?”
“You think it’s over?”
“Every item of Garamoff’s target roster is scratched off. The Rari have been meeting under a flag of truce. A Daphine boat just brought them in.”
If it was over, they should hear the news at the Sag. It would be good to see everyone.
The path back to the house was so different now, not just because of the weather. There’d obviously been coming and going. Bits of twine, bottles, a bootheel—there was litter of coming and going, as passing by the Sag was the fastest way to get to the nearest village.
A servant admitted her. The house was quiet. Comity was in the kitchen, at the open back door, looking out at the Old Post.
Ileth asked how she was.
“Perfectly fine.”
“And everyone else?”
“I expect you’re here to see Astler.”
Ileth sensed something awful looming. “I would like to.”
“You want to see Astler? Well, you should.”
She led Ileth to a small, dark room on the first floor near the main entrance she hadn’t been inside before. She’d assumed it was a big cloakroom for guests. It had only a single stained-glass window with a priestly star design, and air came in through baffled shutters from the outside.
A long shipping box—Ileth had seen big fish come out of the icehouse in similarly rough-hewn containers—lay within. With growing horror, Ileth realized it was a coffin. A figure in a militia uniform lay within, packed with straw. Something had been written on his hand with ink and partially rubbed off again. He had Astler’s build and hands, except the hands had gone fleshless like an old man’s. The head had a bag on it. Even so, the way the bag lay on the head gave away that there was some terrible injury to the skull.
As was the custom in the north, the box rested tilted up. Ileth had heard stories that propping the corpse up encouraged the spirit to remain before departing forever, so that it might be touched by the farewells of those close to it before the funeral.
It felt as though she walked in a dream. This was some joke—a joke in very poor taste. Astler would yank the bag off his head, and she could be mad at him for days and days and days for horrifying her and his mother until he apologized, first through his cousin and then in person and she’d make it seem like she’d never forgive him but not really, she’d forgive him the instant he tore off that horrible bag and said surprise and why wouldn’t he? Did he want her to suffer?
Everything felt cold and far away. Was she going to faint?
“What happened?” Ileth wasn’t sure if she asked or shouted the question; it had to travel miles to this dark little room, didn’t it?
“The man who brought back the body was the militia commander himself, with that taskmaster you met here. It’s all in one of the letters they brought.” She pointed to a small round table with some correspondence atop it in a careful hand. “There’s one, a commendation, and another. He wrote it. To you. Left with the militia priest for safekeeping, with all the others.”
“I’m—how? He wasn’t even in the battle—”
“He’s my son, you little piece of nothing. You riser. You temptress. Now he’s gone, my heart’s dead—I thought losing his father was bad, but that was nothing, nothing!”
“He was—he would . . .”
“Yes, exactly, he was. All the family’s hopes centered on would have been and now he’s just a was.”
“May I read my letter?”
“You may not. I’d burn it if it weren’t the last thing he wrote. You’ve ended a family that’s been part of this land for five generations. Now get out of this house and never set foot on our land again.”
Blinded by tears, Ileth found the door, made the quick turn to the outside, made it three steps, and sank to her knees and pressed her hands to her face. Something shook her body. It was sobs coming out in silence.
She suspected Comity was watching and rose to her feet. She walked back toward the Old Post, no, she turned, then walked the other way, toward the Chalk Cuts. Was there some magic she could work by going to the last place she saw him? Wake from this dream? Warn Astler and Vor Rapp and even Sifler in time . . .
The old man was on one of the grassy, hummocklike hills around the Sag, tiny in a tentlike black overcoat. Ileth wondered how he made it up there. She saw other heads moving about. She should say farewell to him, so she started the climb. Horrified, she realized that the heads—and now torsos—she was seeing were a pair of men digging a grave. There were markers all about.
He looked up from his contemplation of the hole in the earth. The ground was a little too sandy; it kept collapsing on the diggers. “Oh, it’s you . . . uhhh . . . never did manage your name.”
“Ileth, sir.”
“Oh, Ileth, yes. Connected to Governor Raal. Or was it the dragons?”
Ileth didn’t bother clarifying. “I . . . I came about Astler, really. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know he was over there.”
“None of us did. It seems he left a note, but he always has so many papers and drawings about, it was shuffled up by a servant. He joined his old militia friends. The Harbor Fort was secure, they said. The Legion cleared it. It was secure. The militia was just there to open and bolt the doors. But there was a hidden passage the Rari used to come in and cut throats. They fought. In the end, they won, you could call it. They held them off long enough for the dragons to come.”
“They just sent him over?”
“He pleaded with his captain to be allowed to be with his friends. He wasn’t entirely untrained. So the captain agreed. He’s grieved. He’s grieved as much as my granddaughter. It’s chance, I said. Same chance as my sons. Our family just seems to have nothing but bad chances.”
“May I see him put in the ground?”
“Everyone but that Ileth is welcome.”
“I’m Ileth.”
“Oh, yes, you are. Well, his mother won’t allow that. She’s having a hard time with it, naturally. Thinks he wanted to have a uniform to impress you. Best you go back with your people. Your dragons, I mean. His mother is distraught.”
“I, I can’t just say good-bye this way.”
“Oh, you often don’t get choices with good-byes, girl. I’m at an age where it’s mostly good-byes. I’m good at them. Good-bye, Ileth. Visit the grave, someday, when it’s all faded. See to the flowers. He’d like that. Flowers would make him happy—he made such a study of them. He liked to draw, you see. I wonder if there’s drawing in the other world?”
Maybe the old man was as broken as Comity.
What had she wrought with that stupid commission? “It wasn’t for nothing,” she said, perhaps more to herself than to the old man. “With the straits open again the whole north will thrive
.”
“You don’t need to tell me that, girl. Got a letter just this morning about a shipping concern needs money to get going, and the man who handles the timber, he’s desperate for workers. I told him to offer a hiring bounty.”
She asked if there was anything she could do before she left. He sent the workers on a break and asked for a bit of her hair to bury with Astler, as they were close. “Not that you have a lot to spare.”
Touched, Ileth agreed, and he chose one of the longer bits on top and removed it with a pocketknife. “This’ll be between me and Astler. Comity has this idea that he went off with the militia to impress you. Comity knew him as a son, but I know men, or I’d never have prospered as I did. He wanted out on his own for once, to risk it all, after a lifetime of not being allowed to scrape a knee. I’ve heard it suggested he was after vengeance for his father and others of our Name, but that boy . . . well, vengeance wasn’t admitted into that heart where it might crowd out all the good there. No. It was a last trick of Fate played on the Aftorn bloodline, girl.”
He nudged one of the grave-soil clods of grass, broke it up with the side of his foot. Ileth saw a gleaming worm pulse as it moved back into shelter. “You’ll have your chance. They’ve been waiting on me for a while now. Not the only ones.”
Ileth saw the gravediggers exchange a look. The loose soil of the Headlands kept sliding back into the grave. Ileth felt her heart tumble down with the pebbles.
* * *
—
Peace came with the same suddenness as the war. The Daphine king, perhaps the friendliest of all the royal houses to the Vale Republic, offered his ships to keep the straits free and acted as mediator with the Wurm. It seemed the Wurm were as happy as the Republic to see the pirates chastised and effectively removed. Ileth heard that Watch Chief Tirut helped establish and organize the first garrison in the Harbor Fort under the Daphine Naval Armsmen; Ileth received a short letter from him some months later thanking her for her bluff that rescued him from service to the Wurm king.