by Chris Bunch
"What's it to be, then?" Saslic asked. "The old tyrant who bites nails in half routine?"
"Pretty much. Now get your ass out to formation, woman."
"Yessir, master sir."
The formation was as ragged as the tents the men and women fell out from. The fliers were at one end of the rank, curiously waiting.
Gart called them to attention, turned the formation over to Kailas.
"If you haven't heard by now, I'm the new flight commander," Hal said. "And I propose that we set about winning this war, instead of farting about the fringes as we've been doing."
There were mutters, some of agreement, others sounding surly.
"Here are the changes we'll start with," he continued.
"First, I want this damned camp straightened up. The tents will be rowed as they're supposed to be, and the grounds'll be cleaned. I don't want a flight that looks like a palace guard, but there's no particular reason you have to frowst about like vagabonds."
"Hard to wash, get clean, when all your gear's been burnt," someone in the ranks called, reluctantly added a "sir."
"Supplies, including rations, will be here by nightfall," Hal said. "For the moment, we'll keep that infantry contingent, in case our Roche friends decide to come back.
"Now, the second thing is from now on this flight is only going to concern itself with one thing—fighting the war. Anybody who thinks anything else is more important is welcome to apply for a transfer.
"I'll be in that tent over there after this assembly. Anyone who wants out will have all the help I can give.
"The same goes for anyone who doesn't want to soldier. The way out is wide open."
"The frigging Roche hit us once, now you're acting as if it's our fault," an unshaven man growled.
"No. It's nobody's fault," Hal said. "As long as it doesn't happen again."
"The hells with it," the man said. "I'll take you up on your transfer."
"Fine," Hal said. "The infantry always needs some more swordsmen."
The man looked alarmed, and there was a ripple of amusement.
"That ain't right," he grumped. "Almost die here, and then you'll put me where I'll get kilt for sure."
"Not my doing, friend," Hal said. "From your own mouth."
"But—"
"But nothing," Hal said. "You're gone as of tonight. And anyone else who's looking for the easy life can go with you.
"We got knocked down, but we're getting back up. And we're going to strike back. I promise you, the Roche who tried to destroy us will be destroyed in their turn.
"They'll be very damned sorry they ever heard of Eleventh Flight.
"We weren't much of a unit before, but all that's going to change, and change now.
"From now on, when anyone thinks of dragon fliers, they'll think of the Eleventh.
"That's all. All surviving section leaders report to me as soon as I dismiss you."
Hal had the beginnings of an idea, and ordered the clean-up crews to carefully set aside any Roche weapons or gear, and marked the spot where the few Roche casualties had been buried.
The wounded had been taken away when the Roche departed, so there weren't any prisoners to interrogate for what he needed, although he questioned the surviving members of the flight again and again.
At least, he noted with relief, none of them reported black dragons being used. But little else came—not the name of the attacking Roche units or anything else of value.
That, he hoped, Limingo the wizard would provide.
Egibi's promise was good. By late afternoon, wagons began rolling into the compound, filled with everything from foodstuffs to new uniforms to the necessary tools to squealing pigs for the still-to-materialize dragons.
Hal had been thinking of other things he needed, specifically one other man. Once more, a rider went off to First Army headquarters and again the request was granted, and another picket boat set out for Deraine.
"Yer might 'swell go for any wot and every wot," Farren said. "Soon enow the gleam'll be off the rose, and we'll be lookin' for the hind tit to suck like the rest of the army."
"I'll bet," Saslic said, "you haven't thought about us."
"Uh… what should I be thinking?" Hal wondered.
"Men!"
"I've had other things on my mind," Hal said, only half apologetically.
Saslic growled incoherently, found calm.
"Look, you. You're now the muckety of this flight, which means you've got to be a moral upright."
"Oh," Hal said in a small voice.
Saslic nodded. "Moral uprights don't go around screwing their underlings. At least, not directly, and not if they want to have their soldiery fawning and yawping at their feet."
Hal sat down heavily on his bunk.
"Hells," he said.
"Just so," Saslic said. "Here I have to go and fall in love with this bastard determined he's gonna be a Lord of Battles, a Dragonmaster above all, which means he better not show any human failings."
"I don't like this," Hal said. "I do love you and don't want things to change."
Saslic softened.
"I know. I don't either. But I don't see any way that can happen."
"What do you want to do?"
"I have thought about things," Saslic said. "If I were a tough warrior, which I'm not, I'd transfer to another flight. But I'm not that strong."
"Thank some kind of god for that," Hal said.
"But I can't see any way that we can keep fooling around. At least, not on the flight. Can you?"
"I suppose not," Hal said miserably.
"Maybe we can sneak around, like we're married to other people, when we're in Paestum or away from the Eleventh. But no more."
"Shit."
"Shit indeed," Saslic agreed.
"I guess I shouldn't be whining," Hal said. "Considering what it'd be if I'd never met you, or if I was back in the lines. But…"
Saslic shrugged, her face as downcast as Hal's.
"War's a crappy business, all the way around, isn't it?"
Hal very quickly became too busy to worry about his private life or, indeed, to have any.
Support replacements came in, and were fitted into their slots.
Morale stayed low, for there wasn't anything to do until the dragons and the new fliers arrived.
Then ten dragons arrived, chained in great wagons. They were only half-trained, and the handlers had to work very carefully to avoid being bitten or clawed.
Farren Mariah found one handler, a new man, lashing a dragon with a chain. The man went to the infantry that same day, after Hal had assembled the flight and, as scathingly as he knew how, said the handler was no better than a Roche, trying his damnedest to lose the war.
The new fliers arrived, even less trained than the dragons, and Garadice and Sir Loren were put in charge of their training.
Hal had his own worry—training his own dragon not only to obey his commands, but all of the nuances he'd laboriously taught the dragon he'd lost off Black Island.
Remembering Saslic's advice, he grudgingly gave the dragon a name, remembering the tales he'd heard as a child of his mountain people, when they were reivers instead of being miners. The name he picked was Storm, after the fierce hound a legendary warrior owned.
* * *
Limingo arrived, with a mountain of gear, his two acolytes, a little put out at having to give up the flesh pots of Deraine.
But he forgot his complaints when Hal told him what he needed.
"Hmm," he said. "An interesting idea, and one I'd never thought of before."
Hal showed him the piled Roche equipment, and he seemed unimpressed.
But when Hal took him to the graves of the Roche dead, he brightened.
"Now this," he said, "is matter we can work with."
His smile wasn't pleasant, and Hal's stomach roiled a little.
"I assume you'll want to be present at the ceremony, once I figure it out?"
Hal didn't but knew he m
ust.
Next to arrive was Serjeant Ivo Te, the leathery warrant from flight school.
Hal's orders were simple—Te was to beat the flight into shape. Nothing mattered except flying. He'd report to Gart, to Hal in extraordinary circumstances.
"Any preferences on how I train 'em?" Te asked.
"None," Hal said. "As long as it's quick, and not too bloody."
"I never draw blood," the serjeant said. "Welts and bruises are generally more'n enough.
"The incorrigible'll go off to be Roche fodder."
Hal dreamed, and knew he was dreaming. He was not a man, but a dragon, soaring high, free, with nothing below but tossing waves and ahead a land of mountains, rocks, crags.
Here there were animals for food, animals to hunt.
There were no men in this world, and the dragon rejoiced.
He floated from current to current, diving sometimes through clouds, the harsh wind and rain a balm to him.
Somewhere in those crags was a cave, empty now, but in time, in season, a place for a mate and kits, a place to live from year to year, while the seasons rolled past, ever familiar, ever unknown.
A reveille bugle sounded, and Hal's eyes came open.
He sat up on his cot, looked out through the flaps of his tent at the flight's other tents, at a dragon grumbling as he was saddled, ready for the first patrol.
Hal remembered his dream, realized he was happy, feeling a great, quiet, sense of joy.
Kious' crossbows came in, and Hal had them issued. He ordered his fliers to begin practicing, first on the ground, then in the air, putting Serjeant Te in charge of the firing range as well. He made sure their confidence wasn't shattered by starting them on large targets, the size of cows, then working his way to man-size targets.
Thirty archers, real volunteers, from the infantry unit still guarding them were detailed off, and instructed in being dragon passengers.
Limingo sent one of his acolytes to Hal, saying he was ready for the ceremony, and would Hal please honor him by attending?
The acolyte said that he would be transcribing the results, assuming there were results, so Hal needn't worry about having to rely on memory.
The ceremony was scheduled at noon, rather than midnight, as Hal had expected, but Limingo had requested that all dragon flight personnel remain in their tents, for fear, the acolyte said, "of disrupting the ceremony." Then he added, a bit disquietingly, "or being disrupted."
The disciple, at the appointed hour, took Hal to the gravesites of the Roche raiders. The air was soft, late autumn, and a thin sun shone through the multi-colored leaves of the trees.
Buried in the gravemounds were spears, swords, arrows, all with their blunt ends pointed at a huge, round, bronze mirror or gong, hung about ten feet above the ground from a tripod.
Directly under it, an arrow had been mounted crosswise on a stake, set loosely in the ground so it could turn easily, like a wind indicator.
Limingo greeted Hal, noted his obvious nervousness.
"You don't have to worry… I'm not going to try to raise the dead. That isn't possible. At least I don't think it's possible… certainly not without some very potent, very dark magic.
"We're merely looking for some memories. Now, if you'll stand over there…"
Braziers were lit, and Hal wrinkled his nose. Maybe this spell wasn't dark magic, but some of its ingredients were certainly foul-smelling enough to qualify.
Limingo stood at one leg of the pyramid, motioned his disciples to the other two, then began chanting:
"Once you lived
Saw, fought, lived
Bring back that time
When your eyes still saw
Still saw."
He reached up with a wand, barely touched the mirror, and it began humming, like a great, strangely tuned gong. Again, he took up his chant:
"But then you bled
Then you died
You could not
Return.
But were left
Here on soil not your own
Forever wanting to go back
To the place you should
Not have left
The place with your friends
Your officers
A place of warmth
A place of life
Show us now
The direction of your dead longing."
The drone of the gong became louder, and the mirror came alive, showing huts, soldiers in Roche uniform, dragons, the dizzying view from one of the infantry baskets, dragons carrying soldiery, then, below, the farm the Eleventh Flight was quartered on. The scenes passed faster, faster, and there were men with swords, spears, soundlessly screaming Deraine soldiers, then the ground rushing up, and the gong's sound rose to a near-scream, then went black.
"Now, watch the arrow," Limingo ordered.
It swung back and forth, then steadied in a single direction.
"Mark!" Limingo ordered, then reached up and touched the gong, dulling it to silence.
"We should have enough power in the mirror to make this spell again," he told Hal. "Perhaps two or three leagues south of here.
"Draw those two lines until they come together, and—"
Hal's smile was wolfish.
"And we'll know just where the Roche came from."
Hal flew out before dawn, by himself. His dragon, Storm, was irritable, and the darkness let him remember a time when he was free, and he snapped experimentally at Hal, got a kick in his armored head for his pains, settled down.
Hal climbed high, then sent his dragon over the barren wasteland that was the front line, static now that winter was close.
His map was on his knees, a tiny dot that marked the intersection of the two magical lines his target, nothing more. In case he was brought down by the Roche, they would have no clue as to his mission.
There was heavy cloud for a time, and he flew by compass heading. Then it broke, and Hal checked his bearings, saw he was on track, and began scanning the ground far below.
He saw what he was looking for almost immediately.
It was well camouflaged, with huge nets over the two open areas the Roche dragons would fly from, and the roofs of the barracks and the fliers' huts were painted to look like farmland.
But not well enough.
"I must say, Sir Hal," Lord Egibi said, leaning back in his oversized chair, "you've taken long enough to return to me."
"Sorry, my lord. But I needed certain things, and then my magician took some time to prepare his spell."
"Certain things," Lord Egibi said with a snort. "You requisition materiel like you're… like you're a lord, dammit."
His attempt at looking angry failed, and a smile could be seen under his mustache. Then it vanished.
"I hope, for all this expenditure of time, supplies and the king's money, you have something for me."
"I do, sir," Hal said. "I now know where the three Roche flights that wiped out the Eleventh flew from."
Lord Egibi looked puzzled.
"And with that, you propose what?"
"I am going to obliterate those flights," Hal said quietly. "Every flier, every dragon, every soldier who attacked us will die.
"The Roche struck us with terror. Now I propose to give that back to them. To the last man."
Chapter Twenty
The Eleventh Dragon Flight came over the wooded hillcrest just as the sky lightened. Ahead of them was the Roche dragon field.
Hal hadn't dared scout the base more than once, for fear the Roche would realize they were the target. But he assumed almost all armies were the same, and their leaders despised anyone wanting to sleep past a time when he could see his hand in front of his face.
Roche soldiers were, indeed, straggling out of their huts and barracks toward morning formation, and there were three dragons being saddled, prepared for flight.
The Eleventh was in a shallow vee, Hal in front.
Each dragon carried a flier and one archer, except for Vad Feccia's m
onster. Behind Feccia rode Serjeant Te, who not only had a bow like the others, but a ready dagger.
Hal had told Feccia that Te would be his passenger, and added, "He'll be most helpful to you, and make sure you don't stumble over any more tree roots."
Feccia had protested volubly about being misunderstood, and that he was as proud to be taking part in this revenge attack as anyone, smiling, but his eyes held pure hate for Hal Kailas.
Hal might have worried about being backshot, but not with Te around, and especially not since he'd learned, in his cavalry days, to turn his back on no one.
The dragons overflew the Roche formation, crossbow bolts raining down, and even a few of the archers managing aimed shots. They dove on the three dragons, who were barely awake. One reared, and Saslic's Nont ripped his throat open. The second took three bolts in his chest, thrashed, and died.
The last's wings flared, and he stumbled forward, trying to get aloft, as Sir Loren's dragon tore the rider away, and Garadice's beast's tail smashed its neck.
They banked back, and Hal motioned for a landing. They touched down, and, as ordered, the archers tumbled off, and, carefully picking targets, began their killing.
Hal motioned his dragons up, and they took off again, flying low across the field, shooting at anything that moved.
The Roche base was a howl of confusion and disarray, much, Hal thought, like the Eleventh must have been when the Roche came a-raiding.
He steered Storm over one of the camouflage nets, very low, and the beast seemed to know what he wanted, reaching out and grabbing the net, then, flapping hard, it went for the sky.
The net was far heavier than Hal had figured, and Storm was about to fall out of the sky when, to his considerable surprise, Feccia's dragon was on the net, just beyond Storm's wing-reach, lifting, and then Garadice's dragon was alongside, and the net was coming up and away.
It was like overturning a rock to see scorpions scatter. Under the net were the dragon pens, the monsters screaming in surprise at the sunlight, fliers running for their beasts, handlers trying to get them ready to take to the air.
Hal grabbed the bugle hanging from one of Storm's head-spikes, tootled unmusically, but his flight heard, and responded.