And it had led to this.
If they won the war, if Paul managed to survive, if they could... weed certain members of the Council, Celine with her monsters, Reyes with his girls and his whips and his knives and, most especially, the Demon, if they could choose the right people to take the Keys of the Freedom Coalition, maybe they could dig out.
Which meant winning. And that meant using, yes, every weapon at their disposal. Even Celine. Even this... monstrosity.
"It's magnificent."
* * *
"They're magnificent," Rachel sighed.
Herzer shook his head as the dragons winged in to a landing on Raven's Hill.
"You're joking, right?" he asked. "I see what you meant about the surprise."
There were six of them, four with riders and two riderless. Five of them were wyverns, which, unlike the classic "dragon," had two powerful hind legs and a vast span of wings to support their flight. Wyverns were nonsentient and trainable, barely. They had something of the intelligence, and personality, of horses. If, of course, horses ate flesh instead of grass and needed to consume close to their own body weight in food every day. Their bodies were also the size of a large horse but their wings, even folded, took up more cubic meters than their bodies. When opened, the batlike wings spread some thirty meters to either side.
The one on the end, though, was a true dragon. Four legs, long neck, massive wings, large enough to overshadow the five wyverns. Dragons had been developed slightly before the elves and were sentient beings, with all the rights, and responsibilities, of humans. But further creation was halted shortly after the AI wars in reaction to the various horrors of that war. Afterwards there had been a brief population increase but over the succeeding two thousand years the race had dwindled away to almost nothing.
And here was one landing in Raven's Mill. Apparently with the purpose of flying them down to the sea. And then accompanying the expedition to the Isles.
"You have got to be joking," Daneh repeated for him. She was still puffing from the trip up the hill and now looked at their "rides" with total befuddlement. "Tell me we're not riding those down to Newfell."
"Okay, I won't," Edmund said, chuckling. "But you might want to start climbing on."
"Cool," Rachel said, then looked more closely at the True dragon. "Excuse me, Miss Dragon?"
"The name is Joanna," the dragon said, lowering her head down to Rachel's level. Despite a mouth full of very long teeth she had flexible lips and a mobile tongue that permitted quite clear speech. "Joanna Gramlich. Most humans have a hard time telling dragon sexes. How did you know?"
"We saw you at Marguerite's birthday party," Herzer interjected. "So you're now part of the Freedom Coalition? That is wonderful to hear."
"That is a long story," the dragon replied acerbically. She had a fairly high-pitched voice that still rumbled. It was a tough trick. "I prefer to use the term 'independent contractor.' Duke Edmund prefers the term 'mercenary.' "
"A mercenary dragon?" Rachel gasped. "Why?"
"Do you know how much food it takes to run this damned form?" the dragon said. "I was caught like this by the Fall. I got really tired of trying to catch my own food."
"Joanna works for room and board and a fairly high salary, which she takes in gold and gems," Edmund noted dryly.
"And don't forget combat bonuses," Joanna said.
"I won't. But this is a diplomatic mission."
"Sure. Like it's going to stay that way with you around. Are we going to sit here jawing all day or are you ready to go? I can take two. I'd prefer the females; they look lighter. One of the wyvern riders can double up with the duke. I hope the big boy can stay on wyvern-back."
"I don't know," Herzer temporized. "How do you control it?"
"Don't try," Joanna snapped. "It will follow me; it knows who the pack-momma is. Just strap in and hang on."
Herzer hefted his bag and walked over to the wyvern, looking up at it askance. The body wasn't much longer than a horse, but the giant legs bulked it to nearly twice the weight and three times the height. The "saddle" was a pad on the back, held in place by double straps running from the neck back to the legs; the wings attached all the way down the rest of the body. There were four reins that ran up to the beast's head but Herzer knew darn well that he had no idea what they were for.
The skin of the body was smooth with small, pebbly scales like a lizard, and it was clear that the wyverns derived most of their genes from lizards. The wing skin, on the other hand, was almost scaleless and what could be seen seemed more like a bat's. There wasn't much to be seen of it because the way the wings folded and refolded, most of the open skin was folded under the flight bones.
The wyvern turned its short neck to the side and glared at him out of one baleful, and very human-looking, eye. After a moment it made a sound, something like a very large dove, which sounded either questioning or querulous. Or, probably, both. Or so it seemed to Herzer.
"Hi," someone said, walking up behind him. It was one of the wyvern-riders, and Herzer started when he realized that it was a she. In their leather uniforms and helmet it was hard to distinguish sex at any sort of distance. "I'm Vickie. Let's get you strapped up."
"O-kay," Herzer said. "Where do I put this?" he asked, holding up his bag. He'd packed one spare uniform and some light clothes including a bathing suit someone had dredged up in his size.
"Don't ask Joanna, or you might not like the answer," Vickie said with a smile. She took the bag and stepped nimbly up the wyvern's legs to the top where she attached the bag just behind the saddle. The dragon made another questioning sound and shifted the leg she was standing on at which she slapped it on the side. "Shut up, Chance."
"The way this works is you lie down on his back. Don't try to sit up. It looks great in pictures and it works like shit in reality. See the slots on the side?"
"Yup," Herzer replied. He'd been giving the harness a good look. "How do I handle the reins?"
"Like Joanna said, don't," Vickie replied. "I'll hook them up, though. The top reins are for up, the bottom reins, which hook to your feet, are for down. Pull right with the top reins to go right, left reins to go left. Don't try to do a stoop, you won't like it."
"What's a stoop?"
"If you don't know what it is, you don't want to try it. Just hang on and don't mess with the reins. Chauncey will follow us just fine as long as you don't mess with anything."
She waited as he climbed up the wyvern, then attached straps across his thighs. There were clear grab straps on the front but the only thing actually holding him on were the thigh straps. She finished by hooking the bottom reins onto his boots and pushing the top reins, which were one continuous circuit of leather, under his body.
"The worst part about riding dragon-back is learning to keep your legs still. You go and stretch and this bad boy is going to head for the ground like a falcon. Got it?"
"Got it," Herzer said settling his body in the seat. He was glad he hadn't brought his armor; it would have been very uncomfortable. "Is it Chance or Chauncey?" he asked.
"It's Chauncey," Vickie admitted. "I call him Chance for short."
"What's taking so long, Vickie?" Joanna bellowed and Herzer realized everyone else was already mounted. "You're supposed to be mounting him up, not arranging a mounting!"
Vickie looked at him with a dyspeptic expression. "Gotta go."
"See ya." Herzer grinned, wriggling closer into the seat. "We'll arrange the other some other time."
Vickie chuckled and patted him on the butt as she climbed down.
"Thanks, but I don't go both ways," she said as she jumped nimbly to the ground.
"Pity," Herzer muttered as he watched her mount her wyvern. As soon as she was on, Joanna spread her wings and with a massive blast of wind, lifted off the hill and swept down over the river.
Chauncey was apparently well trained because with a bound that caused Herzer's neck to snap back he leapt forward and upward into the air, following the
larger dragon. Immediately the air was filled with wings as the formation of dragons reached for the sky.
For a moment it was all that Herzer could do to control his vomit reaction. The combination of the height and the up and down motion of the wyvern as it got up air speed was sickening. But after that brief spasm he found himself caught up in the spectacular view. The dragons were making a curving climb to the right that carried them first out over the Shenan River, which glittered in the early morning light, then over the town of Raven's Mill itself. Looking around he realized that they were already higher than Massan Mountain. As he thought that he grabbed the straps because the wyvern suddenly stopped flapping. For a moment he thought something had gone wrong but it was just a glide period as the formation turned towards the mountain across the river.
As they passed back over Raven's Hill Herzer felt an upward motion that wasn't from the dragon and realized that they had passed over a thermal. Apparently to take advantage of it the dragons began their slow wing-beats again and they rapidly gained height until they lost the thermal and ceased flapping. They crossed the river at a gentle glide and Herzer had to wonder where they were going. The ocean was to the east but they were going west.
Just as he really started to get worried, it wasn't impossible that New Destiny might have co-opted this "mercenary" dragon to kidnap Duke Edmund and his family, they passed over Massan Mountain and hit another, much stronger thermal.
This was, apparently, what Joanna had been looking for because she began a climb at the end of the mountain, in the midst of the thermal, and the dragons seemed to rocket into the air under the power of their wings and the much greater energy of the rising air.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Daneh had ceded Rachel the front seat on Joanna's back and Rachel had initially been quite happy with that. She was looking forward to flying dragon-back. However, shortly after climbing on, as the dragon muttered various imprecations about sharp shoes, she rethought her position. For one thing, while she wouldn't have preferred to have the view to the front blocked by her mother's buttocks, it was now hers that were directly in view. What was worse, she badly needed to pass wind. The change in altitude, the frisson of fear on the lift-off, the whole experience was causing her internals to rearrange quite disastrously. And while she and her mother had had some tough times, gassing in her face was not going to be anything but killer embarrassing.
To take her mind off of it, she decided to brave the dragon's wrath.
"Joanna!" she yelled. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes," the dragon rumbled in reply, without turning her head. "But if you think I'm going to look you in the eye you need to stop reading fantasies. Flying is hard enough without having to look backwards!"
"That's fine," Rachel shouted back. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"You can ask," the dragon said.
"Are you always this touchy or is there something in particular that has you pissed off?"
Rachel felt the seat under her shaking and clutched at the grab-straps, but after a moment she realized that it was just the dragon laughing.
"A little of both," Joanna admitted. "I've been called a bitch before, plenty of times. But this mission has me ticked in a major way."
"Why?" Rachel yelled. "Southern skies, warm seas, tropical sun..."
"Long damned flight," Joanna admitted. "We don't get to go on a pleasure cruise. The ship's supposedly set up to let us land from, but my guess is we're going to have to fly most of the way. That's like doing a five, six, ten day marathon. We can do it, but it's still a pain in the ass."
"Oh."
"And that's not all," Joanna said, warming to the subject. "What the hell are we going to eat? The ship we're meeting can't possibly carry enough fresh meat for us for the whole trip. So that means, what? Salt beef? Fish? Raw fish? I hate sushi!"
"Sorry!"
"Not your fault," Joanna said. "I hate this Fallen world. I want to be able to Change. Any time I want. I want to eat chocolate."
Rachel just nodded at that; she felt the same way.
For that matter, if she was in the pre-Fall days, even riding like this, she could have her gas bypassed rather than be impolite. Oh, well, at least geneticists had long ago fixed the smell problem.
"Damn thing," Joanna muttered.
"What?" Rachel shouted back. Due to the rush of the wind, Rachel had to shout but any statement from the dragon was fairly clear.
"Oh, nothing," the dragon replied. "Your boyfriend's mount is riding my slipstream. It's just an extra weight to pull."
Rachel looked from side to side and noticed that the other dragons had spread out in a v, with the exception of Herzer.
"He's not controlling his mount!" she pointed out.
"I know, it's just Chauncey being lazy. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Why are the other ones in a v?" Rachel yelled. "They look like they're going to run into each other."
"Slipstream again," Joanna answered. "There's a low-pressure area that passes out to either side. Ever see geese fly over?"
"Plenty of times."
"Same thing. That doesn't drag directly on me, though, like Chauncey is. Damn idiot wyvern."
They continued in a slow spiral upward, riding the thermal and the power of the slowly flapping wings for what seemed half the morning. But by the rise of the sun it couldn't have been more than a half an hour. Finally, Rachel felt a drop, more a feeling of lightness.
"Top of the thermal," Joanna said, banking to the east. "I got at least three thousand meters out of it, which is pretty good for a morning in October."
Rachel had been avidly looking at the view in the distance but at those words she looked down. And then screwed her eyes tight shut and grabbed at the straps.
"Don't look down," Joanna chuckled.
"Too late," Rachel replied.
"Oh, what the hell is that idiot doing?" Joanna growled.
* * *
Herzer had realized during the climb-out that Chauncey was riding the bigger dragon's slipstream. But he for sure wasn't going to try to mess with a spiraling climb. However, when the dragons lined out and glided into the sun, he decided that it was worth seeing if he could shift down the line. The worst that was going to happen was that he would release Chauncey and the wyvern would go back to his accustomed place.
There remained one problem. He was directly behind Joanna, no more than twenty meters. Her tail actually whipped back and forth past Chauncey's nose, close enough to nearly hit it. The tail end of the extended V formation of the wyverns was actually behind his present position. Which meant that he would have to slow down, then catch back up. He knew neither command.
Going on a hunch, he slowly pulled back on the climbing reins until the slack was out, then pulled back on those and the diving reins, very slightly. His clamp held the reins snugly but he was always careful not to flex too hard lest he cut the reins like snapping a twig.
Herzer wasn't even sure what Chauncey did, but they began to drift backwards from the larger dragon, while staying more or less at the same height. He was actually dropping slightly below her, but staying on an even keel, not in a "dive" or whatever.
Herzer let back out on the reins and then pulled, ever so slightly, on the left rein. Obediently, Chauncey entered a slight bank to the left, but they also began to lose height. Herzer loosened up on the rein, pulled a bit to the right, and shortly found himself just outside the left-most of the riders on more or less the same heading. Unfortunately, he was about sixty meters below the wyvern and nearly a hundred behind.
Oh, well.
The rider just happened to be Vickie and he could hear her shouting at him, but he wasn't sure what she could do about his experimentation.
The problem was simple. He had to get up to their level and get Chauncey to speed up so that he could enter the proper formation. They were now, steadily, pulling ahead of him and either gaining altitude or he was losing it in comparison. But Chauncey seemed content to obey o
rders and follow the present course. Despite the fact that it was the wrong one.
He pulled, gently, on both up reins. All that did was cause him to lose more ground, but they did gain some height, briefly. Then Chauncey pulled against the reins and reentered the glide. Herzer suddenly remembered a term "stall speed" and wondered, briefly, just how close he had come to making the dragon "crash." If such a thing was possible.
He suddenly had a very clear vision of a tree limb in his face. Shortly after the Fall he had been one of the people chosen, because he had some limited riding experience, to "help out" with a round-up of feral animals. While he had been trying to keep a boar from killing a female friend, Diablo had jumped over the spitted boar and Herzer's forehead had impacted a tree limb at nearly a full gallop.
John Ringo - Council Wars 02 - Emerald Sea Page 11