Storm of Wings

by Chris Bunch

  "So what made you join up?" Hal asked.

  "It was like you said… made's the word. The magistrate didn't believe I had no idea who Hils was, and told me I was either gonna volunteer or be headed for the poogie for five years or so.

  "I heard about this dragon thing we're in, figured that'd be a good place to lay low."

  "I've seen Roche's dragons," Hal said. "If I weren't a fool, I'd think maybe five years in prison might be a little safer."

  "Haw," Asser snorted. "You don't think a smart lad like me'll ever go across the water, now do you?"

  Hal didn't reply, excused himself, seeing an angry-looking Saslic motioning to him.

  "What's the problem?"

  "That frigging Feccia's a lying sod!"

  "I'm not surprised," Hal said mildly. "In what category?"

  "Probably all of them. But start with his claims to be a dragon rider, back as a civilian, although he's pretty damned vague about the details. But I caught him. Asked him some questions, which he didn't answer quite right. Then I asked him when he thought was the best time to separate a dragon pup from the doe."

  "What?"

  "And he went and gave me a vague answer, saying it varied, depending on circumstances." Dinapur shook her head. "What a jack! A pup my left nipple!"

  "Not to mention a dragon doe," Hal said, starting to laugh. "You know, a man who's so damn dumb he doesn't even know a kit and a cow probably won't get very far around here."

  "Who's going to call him? A trainee? I'm not going to peach on someone, and for sure the cadre don't know the difference."

  "You're right," Hal said. "I wouldn't nark the idiot off either. I guess we'll just have to wait for his mouth to take care of himself."

  "To the rear… harch! In the name of any god you want, Kailas, can't you learn how to drill? I thought you were some kind of combat hero!"

  Hal thought of telling him killing someone, or keeping from being killed yourself, didn't have a lot to do with square-bashing, and no, he'd never had any instruction whatsoever on what foot you were supposed to start marching with. The army across the water was a little too busy to concern itself with left-right, left-right.

  But he kept his mouth shut. So far, he'd stayed off the emptying shitter detail. So far.

  The day finally came when they turned in their civilian gear, and Hal his threadbare uniform, which they'd been washing when they could, as they could, and were issued new uniforms.

  They were fairly spectacular, which Hal guessed meant higher ranks were particularly interested in dragon flights: black thigh boots, into which tight-fitting white breeches were bloused, a red tunic with white shoulderbelts and gold shoulderboards, and a smart-looking forage cap, also red, which Hal thought would blow away twenty feet off the ground. With the gaudy uniform went very practical, and completely unromantic, undergarments, both in padded winter issue and plain summer wear.

  Someone, probably down the line from the uniform's designers, had a bit of practicality, thinking what it would be like, flying in winter, and gauntleted catskin gloves and a heavy thigh-length jacket that must have required an entire sheep to produce were issued.

  Another practical item was a set of greenish-brown coveralls, perfect, as Serjeant Patrice said, "for cleaning the shitter."

  Hal was starting to think the man had a problem with his bowels.

  They were also issued weapons—long spears and swords. Hal couldn't see either having much use aboard a dragon, figured that Sir Spense had called for the issue so the class would look like his idea of proper soldiery.

  The only practical weapon was a long, single-edged dagger, which looked as if it had been designed and forged by an experienced bar brawler.

  He was a bit surprised Spense hadn't given out spurs.

  * * *

  "Lord, they let some raggedy-asses into uniform these days," Patrice said, grinning his risus sardonicus. "Now, the reason you're in these ten-deep ranks is we're practicing parade maneuvers, and there aren't enough of you idiots to form a proper parade.

  "Forrard… harch!"

  Hal stepped out correctly, determined for once he wasn't going to make a mistake.

  "By the right… wheel!"

  The way the maneuver should've been done was the right flanker performed a right turn, began marking time, the soldier next to him took one more step, and so forth until the entire ten-man rank had turned right. In the meantime, the second row was doing the same, one step behind.

  It didn't work out that way as soldiers slammed into each other, got confused and started marking time when they should've been moving, and everything became absolute chaos.

  "Halt, halt, godsdammit, halt," Patrice screamed, and chaos became motionless chaos. He considered the mess.

  "I'm starting to think this whole son of a bitching class has got a case of the Kailases."

  Hal, who for once had done exactly what he should've, felt injured.

  Somewhere in the mess Calabar laughed.

  "I heard laughter," Patrice said. "Is there something funny I've missed?"

  Silence.

  "Who laughed?"

  More silence.

  "I don't like being lied to," Patrice said. "And nobody confessing is lying, now isn't it?"

  Still more silence.

  "I asked for an answer."

  The class got it, and raggedly boomed, "YES, SERJEANT."

  "I have a good ear, I've been told," Patrice said. "Don't you think so, Sir Brant?"

  An instant later, he shouted, "Not fast enough, Sir Brant. Front and center!"

  Calabar trundled out of the ranks.

  "Was that you who laughed?" Patrice cooed.

  "Uh… uh… yessir."

  "Don't call me sir! I know who my parents were! You get your young ass to your hut, secure your clothes bucket, and run on down to the ocean and bring me back a bucket of water.

  "Move out!"

  Patrice watched Calabar run off, then turned back to his victims.

  "Now, shall we try it again, children?"

  Serjeant Te took Hal aside.

  "How're you holding up, Serjeant?"

  "I didn't think we had any rank here, Serjeant Te."

  "That appears to be one of the good Sir Spense's ideas. You've noticed that no one's been returned to his or her unit yet for failure, either."

  "That's right."

  Te nodded sagely. "Just a word, or mayhap a suggestion. It could be the good Sir Spense is truly in the dark, and afraid to throw anyone out until he has some idea of what might be required.

  "As for Serjeant Patrice—"

  "I don't mean to interrupt," Hal said. "But he's water to a duck's back."

  Te grinned.

  "Good. I didn't figure he'd get under your skin."

  "Not a chance, Serjeant. Matter of fact, he's given me an idea on handling a problem of my own."

  "I don't suppose," Rai Garadice asked Farren Mariah, "you'd be willing to tell us how you happened into dragon flying, since we've got a whole hour to waste before dear Serjeant Patrice takes us for a nice morning run."

  The class was in a stable, looking out at the drizzle beyond.

  Farren pursed his lips, then shrugged.

  "I don't guess there's a'matter. The on'y dragons I've ever been around was oncet, when a show come to Rozen, I got a job cleanin' up the hippodrome a'ter 'em."

  "Nice start for a career," Saslic said.

  "You name the tisket, I've held it," Farren said. "Crier, runner, butcher's boy, greengrocer's assistant, glazier, changer's messenger, a ferryboat oarsman for a bit, maybe a couple things I don't think I oughta be jawin' about."

  "None of this answers Rai's question," Hal said.

  "Well… I went an' made a bet wi' a friend, don't matter wot, an' lost, an' the wager was the loser hadda take the king's coin."

  "Hell of a bet," Saslic said.

  "Yeh, well there weren't much goin' on around, so it din't matter," Farren said. "An' then, oncet I was in barracks, ther
e was a certain misunderstanding, an' somebody'd told me about these flights, an' I thought maybe it'd be best to skip outa the line of fire."

  "Misunderstanding?"

  "Uh… the men around me thought I was a witch."

  There was a jolt of silence.

  "Are you?" Saslic asked gently.

  "Course not. I just got a bit of the gift, not like my ma, or my uncle, or his family. And my gran'sire was's'posedly a great wizard, good enough for nobility to consult."

  "Oh," Garadice said, forcing himself not to move away. Most people without the gift were quite leery of magicians.

  "A wizard," Saslic said in a thoughtful tone. "Maybe we could have you rouse a spell that'd, say, cause Patrice to fall over yon cliff, or make his dick fall off."

  "I couldn't do someat like that!" Mariah said, sounding shocked.

  "Then what earthly good are you?" Saslic asked.

  * * *

  "Broadly speaking," the warrant droned, "if two cavalries of approximately equal mobility maneuver against each other in open country, neither side can afford the loss of time that dismounting to fight on foot entails. Hence, the same fundamental rules apply to all cavalry combats…"

  Saslic looked at Hal, made a face, mouthed the plaintive words, "When are we gonna learn about dragons?"

  Hal shrugged. Maybe some time before they reembarked for the wars.

  Somehow Patrice made a mistake on the schedule, and the trainees had a whole two hours after eating before the mandatory late class, this one on Proper Horsemanship.

  Not that anyone actually had time for relaxation, busy with boot-blackening, cleaning their weapons—"all this stab-bin' and wot really rusts a blade out, eh?" was Farren Mariah's comment—or trying to remember what it was like to be around a dragon.

  Since it was an unseasonably warm fall evening, most of them were gathered outside their huts, talking while they polished.

  Mynta Gart saw Brant Calabar staggering away from the steps down to the rocky beach with yet another full bucket, said, "Guess our Serjeant Patrice is havin' himself a salt water bath."

  "Good for his complexion, I'd bet," Saslic said.

  "A better wash'd be to trail him overside for a league or so," Gart said. "And then cut loose the hawser."

  "You sound like a sailor," Saslic said.

  "That I am," Gart said proudly. "Will be again, once the fighting stops. Once had my own coaster, then got bit by that patriotic fever, and got made a mate on one of the king's patrol boats.

  "Which was damn stupid of me, since what navy Roche has looks to be hiding in port until the war's over."

  "So why'd you volunteer for dragon flying?" Hal asked.

  "Why not? Used to be, when I was up on the north coast, I'd see wild dragons overhead, some heading, no doubt, for Black Island.

  "Looked romantic and free to me." She looked around at the trainees.

  "Damn, but I love this freedom."

  "What about you, Kailas?" Feccia asked, when the rueful laughter died. "You have a personal invite from the king to bless us with your company?"

  "Where I'm from," Hal said, "that's not a question civil men ask."

  "Prob'ly wise," Feccia said. "I've heard villains are careful about things like that."

  Something snapped inside Hal. He'd made a bit of a joke about solving his problem, and now was suddenly the time. Crossbelts and white polish sailing, he was on his feet and blurred across the ten feet to the bigger man.

  His mouth was gaping, and Hal, anger giving him strength, yanked Feccia to his feet. He slapped him hard across the mouth twice, and blood erupted.

  Hal let him stumble back, kicked him hard in the stomach, was about to hammer him, double-fisted, across the back of the neck when Ev Larnell pulled him back. Kailas spun, was about to go after Larnell when the red rage faded.

  He dropped his hands.

  "Sorry."

  Hal turned back to Feccia, gagging, bent over, and jerked him erect.

  "Now, listen, for I'll only say this once," he said, his voice barely above a whisper even as his fury died. "You'll not talk to me, nor about me to anyone else, unless you're ordered."

  Feccia stared up at him, his expression that of a cow staring at the butcher's hammer. Hal backhanded him twice again, grated, "Did you understand?"

  The man nodded dumbly, and Hal shoved him away. Feccia stumbled off, toward the jakes, stopped, vomited, then staggered on.

  The anger was now cold, gone in Kailas.

  The other trainees were looking at him, quite strangely.

  Saslic suddenly grinned.

  "Did anyone ever tell you you're lovely when you're angry, soldier?"

  The tension broke, and there was a nervous laugh, and the trainees went back to their cleaning.

  "You look like you've been in a fight, Feccia," Serjeant Patrice said through his grin. "You know fighting's forbidden here."

  "Nossir," Feccia muttered, breathing coming painfully past cracked ribs. His face was puffed, swollen and bruised. "Not fighting, Serjeant. Walked into a doorjamb, Serjeant."

  "You sure?"

  "Sure, Serjeant."

  Patrice stepped back. "Damned surprise, this. Maybe you might end up making a soldier."

  That night, in their hut, Hal decided to break his own rule, and asked Rai Garadice if his father happened to be a dragon flier.

  "He is," Garadice said. "Trained me, even if he thought I was still too young to go on the circuit with him."

  "I thought so," Hal said, and said he'd tried to find a job with Garadice just before the war started, and that he'd said he was going to go find a place in the country and let the world go past until it was tired of war.

  "That was his intent," Rai said. "Then, after Paestum was besieged, he—what was it Gart said this afternoon?—got bit by patriotic fever, and tried to enlist.

  "They told him he was too old, and go home.

  "He moped around for awhile, and I thought he'd given up, then he started writing letters to everybody when the war started dragging on. Including, I think, to Saslic's father at the King's Menagerie, saying he knew a lot about dragons, and they could be the key to victory.

  "I guess everybody thought he was a little bit mad, since nobody's yet figured out what good dragons are for, other than playing spy in the sky, or so I'm told.

  "Anyway, they came to him, made him a lieutenant officer, put him out with twenty others, and now he's a dragon requisition officer, responsible for buying dragons from their owners, or taking young ones from their nests and taming them to be flown.

  "I hope he might be with our dragons when they finally arrive."

  "Be a damn relief," Farren put in from his corner, "if the king'd give him orders to boot this eejit Spense back into a horse ring, and get some bodies in wot know which end of a dragon poops and which end bites."

  "So then we've got three dragon riders in one hut," Ev Larnell put in.

  "You've got experience?" Garadice said.

  "Course I do," Larnell said. "In my district, we had fairs, and we'd always have dragon riders to top the day."

  "And you were one of them?"

  "Sure," Larnell said.

  "How'd you rig your harness?" Garadice asked.

  There was a long silence from Larnell's end of the room, then, "Why, just like everybody, we used ropes as reins, to a heavy metal bit and a chain headstall."

  "What about saddles?"

  "Just like on a horse," Larnell said, and his voice was thin. "Except with long straps, under the front legs and coming forward from just in front of the back ones."

  "Oh," Garadice said flatly.

  Hal realized there was more than one phony in the class besides Feccia.

  * * *

  The next day, after the forenoon drill, Ev Larnell came to Hal. He licked his lips, and said, tentatively, "I need a favor."

  "If I can."

  "Last night… Well, I guess you and Garadice figured out that I've never really been on a dragon in my
life."

  Hal made a noncommittal noise.

  "You're right," Larnell said, his voice getting desperate. "All I've done is seen 'em fly overhead, and I went to a show once, before I joined up."

  "So why'd you lie?"

  "Because… because I was scared."

  "Of what?"

  "I joined up when Paestum was surrounded by the Roche, and went to Sagene with the King's Own Borderers.

  "We've fought in every battle so far, and generally in the vanguard. Kailas, every man, twice over, in my company's been killed or taken off, grave wounded.

  "I'm the only one who's still alive from the first ones, and I know they're going to keep putting us in the thick of things, and then, when we're wiped out, bringing up fresh men, so it's like a whole new unit, and there's no need to give us rest.

  "But I remember… I'll always remember. Remember what it's like, seeing all your friends, down in death, friends you were joking with an hour earlier. Then you determine you're not going to let anybody close, let anybody be your friend, and maybe that's worse." Larnell's voice was growing higher. "I just couldn't take it any more.

  "I'm no shirker… I wouldn't run away. But I thought, if I claimed I knew something about dragons, it'd get me out of the lines. Give me a chance to think, to pull myself together.

  "Don't tell on me," he pleaded, and his voice was that of a child, terrified of being reported to his parents.

  Hal looked into his eyes, saw the wrinkles at the edges, thought Larnell had the gaze of a very old man.

  "Look," Hal said after a moment. "I don't nark on people. I've said it before, I'll probably say it again.

  "You want to fly dragons, that's good. But don't start things, like you did last night. Keep your mouth shut, and don't go looking to get exposed."

  "I won't. I promise I won't. And thanks. Thank you."

  He bobbed his head twice, scurried away.

  Excellent, Hal thought. Now, you're all of what, twenty, and you're a priest confessor. And what if Larnell finishes training, and then breaks in combat, and puts somebody's ass in a sling?

  If that happens, a part of his brain said coldly, you'll have to kill him yourself.

  "Can I get you something from the canteen, Hal?" Vad Feccia asked, parading an ingratiating smile.