by Chris Bunch
Another equerry escorted Kailas down a long corridor, into a surprisingly simply furnished room.
The king was pouring a drink from a decanter.
"You, sir?"
"With all pleasure, Your Majesty."
"I think I said something, back when I knighted you, that Deraine needed new thinkers."
"You did, sire."
"Why are new thinkers generally such pains in the ass?"
Hal sipped at his drink, realized he would probably never have as fine a brandy in his life, didn't respond.
"What I had proposed for you was giving you some estates, so you wouldn't starve, a proper pension so you could sire sons or bastards, depending on your feelings, who'd become warriors of Deraine as well fitted as you.
"Plus medals, of course. Umm… Member, King's Household; Defender of the Throne; and Hero of Deraine.
"I also proposed sending you on a grand tour of my kingdom, with recruiting officers in your wake, scooping up all those starry-eyed sorts who'd want to be just like Lord Hal.
"Instead, I get… What? You don't want a nice, safe life. You want to go back to the damned front, where you'll be lucky to live a month.
"Do you have any idea of how long a dragon flier lives these days?"
Hal shook his head.
"Two, perhaps three months, at best."
Hal jolted, and King Asir nodded.
"It's not just those damned black dragons of theirs, but their tactics have changed. The Roche are now more interested in fighting than scouting, and when our fliers cross the lines, they're immediately attacked, generally outnumbered.
"At the moment, and I do not wish this repeated, we have less than no idea what Queen Norcia and her confidant, Duke Yasin, intend for the spring."
"And that's why I have to go back, sir," Hal said.
"What good will you do, other than becoming another martyr for Deraine?" Asir asked bitterly.
"I have an idea on how things might be changed, sire. Ky Yasin—that's the Duke's brother—"
"I know well who the bastard is," the king said.
"Yasin showed up over Kalabas not just with black dragons, but with them in strength. Instead of a flight, he had a full squadron, maybe four flights.
"Four against one, for that's how we were deployed… Well, those odds are deadly."
"They are," the king agreed.
"Some time ago, my old squadron was attacked on the ground by three flights, and nearly wiped out. I retaliated by striking back against those Roche, again and again, until we'd put the fear of the gods in them."
"I'm aware of the action," Asir said. "I do more than sit on my arse on this damned throne, you know."
"Yessir. I want command of my old flight… And can we get rid of the new name, and just call it the Eleventh?"
"We can." Asir had a bit of a smile on his lips.
"Build it up, until it's the size of Yasin's. Or bigger. And send us after those damned black dragons. If we hound them from pillar to post, never giving them a moment to strut about… Sir, I think we can start bending the odds back to where they should be."
Hal didn't speak his other thought—that if it was now fighting in the skies, perhaps one-on-one combat might be a momentary tactic, and other ways of fighting should be explored.
"Well," the king said. "You certainly don't go by halves, do you?
"You realize you're probably guaranteeing you'll get killed."
Hal thought of Saslic's words, shrugged.
"There's one thing I'm good at," Asir went on, "and that's judging men. So I know if I forbid this action of yours, all you'll do is slip away from your estates and somehow end up in Sagene as another dragon flier, probably named Anonymous.
"So I have no other options.
"Very well, Lord Kailas. We'll do as you 'suggest,'" the king said, now with a broader smile. "Now, get out of my sight, you blackmailing bastard."
Hal put his glass down, saluted.
"Oh. One more thing," Asir said. "I've heard a certain term used, and now declare it an official title, you to be the first to hold it.
"Dragonmaster."
"What a tale this will make," Sir Thom Lowess whispered, unable to speak through excitement. "What a tale!"
Chapter Thirty-One
The remnants of the Eleventh Dragon Flight were waiting at their old base. They were a pretty sad relic.
They were tattered and torn, and most of their equipment had been dumped overside from the Adventurer, to make room for fleeing soldiers.
Some had been wounded—the black dragons had not only gone after dragons in the air, but had been able to identify the flights' mother ships, and attacked them, as had the Roche catapults as the beachhead was being cleared.
Worse, they knew how badly they'd been beaten. Now, without any real work, with only six dragons and five fliers, they could do little except make-work, and mope about, feeling sorry for themselves.
That would change, he knew, with replacements, new gear and, most importantly, more dragons and their fliers.
Hal noticed Nanpean Tregony, who was busily avoiding him, found Tregony was keeping company with Vad Feccia, which made perfect sense to Hal, the pair in his mind being equal villains.
At least Serjeant Te had survived the withdrawal, and had been doing what he could to take care of the Eleventh.
"But it's damned hard, sir, and I realize there's no excuses to be made but, without an officer in command, your requisitions tend to get ignored, and when you don't have any trading stock, any good souvenirs, it's very damned hard to go a-bartering for what you need."
"No officers?" Hal asked. "What about Sir Nanpean Tregony?"
"Do I have to say anything?"
Hal thought. "You do."
"He isn't worth a bucket of warm owl spit. Oh, he's a good dragon flier, and seems aggressive enough. But he surely doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone else in the flight, excepting maybe his personal dragon handler, and how many dragons he's killed.
"He's got plenty of money—guess his father's mines are really paying off in the war—but won't spend a copper of it on anything but himself."
Hal nodded. It was what he would have expected from a Tregony—except for being able to fly a dragon well.
Kailas set about putting matters in hand—first restoring the flight to its proper strength, then he'd worry about implementing his idea the king had approved.
The first item was calling in Feccia, and asking what had happened to him when the invasion collapsed.
He said that when the black dragons attacked, he'd gone for altitude, but been driven down and inland. Flying just above the brush, he'd managed to elude the two monstrosities on his tail, but his dragon had been exhausted.
He flew west, as Hal had done, found a resting place, with water. Then he'd tried to return to Kalabas, but every time had encountered the black flights, and was always outnumbered.
"I went back to my hiding place, and then, the next morning, my poor dragon was cramped from the attacks of the day previous. I found some wild hogs, and chased them into my dragon's clutches.
"But it was a day and a half later when I was able to fly back. The fleet was well at sea, only a few stragglers around the landing beaches.
"I followed the ships until I found the fleet, found the Adventurer, and was safe home."
That possibly wasn't the bravest story from the debacle Hal had heard, but then Feccia wasn't high on his list of candidates for hero medals. He seemed to scout with a degree of ability, and Hal wasn't sure it wasn't a sign of intelligence for a scout to avoid battle when he was outnumbered.
When the flight changed as Hal intended, Feccia might not fit in, in which case he could be transferred to a more conventional dragon flight, or possibly put in charge of the maintenance section.
Hal had an idea Feccia wouldn't be heartbroken to have an excuse to walk away from flying.
But that would be for another day. Hal was a little reluctant to harshly
judge anyone from his flight training, particularly as the numbers dwindled.
Mynta Gart was the first to arrive from hospital. She'd been simply knocked from the sky by a particularly skilled three-dragon combination, not the blacks, Hal was surprised to find.
"Landed—not far from where Saslic crashed—and some bastard put an arrow in my other leg." She smiled wanly. "Now I limp on both sides, like I'm a lubber on her first day at sea."
"Did you see Saslic's body?"
"No," Gart said, looking away. "I saw her poor damned beast—what did she call him, Nont?—trying to get up, with his poor damned wing torn away. And then he fell back and some bastard put a spear in his throat. But I suppose, the way he was, that quick a death was best."
But her eyes gleamed a different story.
Hal didn't need to ask if she wanted revenge. He made a note to put her in charge of one of the new sections he planned.
Sir Loren and Farren Mariah arrived together, with their own stories.
Sir Loren's dragon had been struck by arrows from the ground. He landed, and was attacked by a Roche knight.
"I was fighting my best, which prob'ly isn't all that good, killed the man after he wounded me sore with his blade, then his squire attacked me with a damned great axe. I killed him, too, saw my poor dragon had breathed his last, and, since they hadn't hurt me legs, I took off, running like a stripe-assed ape.
"Passed several dozen arrows, I did."
Farren Mariah had been forced to land by a pair of the black dragons.
"An' I was just standin' there, with me thumbs up, an' this horseshit great rock from one of their bleedin' catapoops slams down next to me, throwin' splinters and shit here, yon and everywhere. Got fragments in my eyes, thought I was blind, and if I lived they'd put me next to the Rozen city gates to beg, which ain't proper for a Mariah.
"But m'beast kept whistlin', and I could see blurry well enough to crawl aboard, and he trampled down some of their friggin' soldiers takin' off, and somehow found the Adventurer.
"I may marry the bugger."
Hal found himself missing Lady Khiri, but in a very different way than he'd missed Saslic, when she was still alive. It was a pleasant kind of melancholy, tempered with a selfish gladness that he had something, someone, far distant from these killing fields and, at night, could dream about her great gray castle by the sea.
He smiled wryly at that, remembering that he didn't have to be here in Sagene at all. He could be comfortably lazing about some estate somewhere, and he realized King Asir had been so surprised by his behavior he'd never gotten around to telling Hal just what estates he was being given.
With my luck, he thought, they'll probably be coal mines in some stony waste.
Hal decided he'd made Nanpean Tregony suffer enough, and summoned him into his tent.
Tregony was about two inches taller than Hal, and still good-looking, even if he was starting to get a bit heavy. Hal noted the livid scar along his neck he'd given the man years ago, rescuing the dragon kit, wasn't displeased.
"You may sit," Hal said, keeping his voice flat.
Tregony obeyed.
"So you're the one who was going to avenge me?"
"That was pap the taletellers came up with," Tregony said. "Someone told them we came from the same village, took that, and ran hard with the information."
That could have been. Hal had certainly experienced the taletellers' willingness to brutalize the truth for their own ends.
"Very well," he said after a suitable pause. "Your records don't seem to have caught up with you. Perhaps you'd fill me in. Starting from when you entered the service."
"It was after the siege of Paestum was lifted," Tregony said. "I wanted to do something against the damned Roche, and there was a man—Garadice—who came through the district, looking for dragon fliers.
"I took the king's silver, and they trained me and sent me to Sagene.
"I went to a flight in the Second Army area. We got caught up in one of the Roche offensives, and did what we could—I credit myself with half a dozen or more dragons—then my dragon was taken down by one of their bastardly catapults, and I was captured."
Hal was interested.
"They have a special camp for dragon fliers," Tregony went on. "Far behind the lines, up north, on this island, well up an estuary."
"How many fliers are there?"
"There must have been thirty when I was captured. Probably there were fifty when I made my escape."
"Good for you," Hal approved, against his root feelings for the man. "And how did you make your escape?"
"I'm a bit of an athlete," Tregony said, looking down at his stomach. "Was, anyway. And being a prisoner helps you stay lean. I saw my chance, and kept it secret, since the Roche have spies in the camp.
"It's a terrible place, ruled by threats and cruelty and the lash, I can tell you.
"Anyway, I went out one night, when it was storming. Wore padded clothing. Pole-vaulted the first fence, and the padding kept the spikes from hurting me when I banged into it, landing. I used the pole to help me climb over the second fence, and then I was gone.
"I had some gold, some silver, and kept to the woods. The Roche peasants like their queen and their rulers no better than I do, and were willing to feed me, or sometimes put me up when it was raining. And so I worked my way east, always east.
"I stole a horse and, after that, it got easier. Then I reached the lines, turned the horse loose, and slipped across by night.
"When I got back from my leave, I said I wanted a chance to get back at the bastards for their cruelty, and the way I'd been treated… And so they sent me here, to the Eleventh."
Hal thought the story interesting.
"How many dragons have you brought down?" Tregony asked.
Hal shrugged.
"I don't keep track."
"I do," Tregony said. "More than I've killed?"
Hal thought of asking Tregony if he remembered a certain dragon kit, decided there wasn't any point.
"That's all," he said. "Go on about your duties."
Tregony, lips pursed, got up, saluted, went out. Outside the tent, he happened to look back in the tent, and Hal saw a look of utter, cold hatred on his face.
Chapter Thirty-Two
King Asir may have ordered the Eleventh Flight's augmentation, but even kings have limits.
There were few replacement fliers arriving in Paestum, and fewer dragons. At least Sagene was finally producing dragons and fliers, but those men and women were going to their own forces.
Hal had Rai Garadice write his father asking what was going on, and got an unhappy reply that the recruiters weren't able to bring in new men as fast as they should, and dragon training, what with many of the best trainers having gone off to the front and gotten killed, was even slower than it had been in peacetime.
"Besides, everyone," he wrote, "wants dragons, for everything from courier duty to parades, and all too many of these are great lords, well away from the fighting, with enough influence to get their way. I'm sorry, my son, but there's little I can do about it, at least for the present."
At least Hal, by pulling every string he could think of, and several Serjeant Te knew of, was able to bring the Eleventh up to a normal authorized strength of fifteen dragons and fliers.
Once or twice, Serjeant Te convinced a replacement depot officer to call for volunteers from the ranks of the unassigned enlisted men.
Since most of the new blood was headed for the front lines, and the spring offensive wasn't far distant, the idea of being able to stay alive a bit longer sang clearly, and so the Eleventh was actually a bit overstrength in its ground complement.
Te had an idea, which Hal found capital, and so a special, very secret section was set up, manufacturing authentic war relics. Men who could sew made up Roche battle flags, others scoured trash dumps for battered Roche weaponry. The flags were carefully bloodied—"aye, th' man who fell over this standard, defendin' it with his life's
blood, as you can see, was a great Roche knight, bravest of the brave"—as were most of the weapons. No one found it necessary to inform the souvenir's new owner the blood came from chickens, bought from local farmers, who were delighting in the flight's presence, since any beast, in any condition, was perfect dragon fodder.
Hal put his experienced fliers to training the new ones, so they might live beyond a single flight when the spring came, and, with the grudging concurrence of the First Army Commander, Lord Egibi, restricted his winter flights to reconnaissance along the lines.
While the storms raged, the soldiers along the front retreated into dugouts or, if they were lucky, huts. The enemy was not so much the Roche as King Winter, and the deathdealers were colds, fevers, the ague.
Magicians cast occasional spells, and fighting patrols went out, on foot or horseback.
But all three armies seemed content to wait for better weather.
On one flight, Hal found what he'd been looking for—a new base for his command. The old farm was not only too far behind the lines to suit him, but a constant reminder of defeat, the scars from the Roche raid still black and ruinous.
The new base was a small village at a crossroads, east of Paestum, a few miles behind the lines. It hadn't been looted too badly, and, best of all, had been a dairy commune, with huge barns ideal for dragon shelter.
The flight moved carefully to its new quarters, trying to ensure the ruined village still looked no better than a ruined village.
Hal's troops welcomed the change, one of the few objectors being Sir Nanpean. Hal puzzled at that—he would've thought any flier as intent on building his kills would have welcomed being closer to the fighting. But he quickly forgot about that, figuring Tregony probably had found a mistress at a farm around their previous station, and now was forced to be as celibate as the others.
Hal, rather gleefully considering his disgust with religion, set up his headquarters in the town church, an imposing high-ceilinged monument whose only flaw was that the tin ceiling leaked badly. But his artisans put that to rights, and Hal took over the gods-shouters' quarters for his own. Priests being priests, there were several excellent stoves, and so the building became an off-duty den for the men. Hal found something interesting—the small cubicle intended for the confession of sins to whatever god or gods this temple had been dedicated to had a small screen in its rear, low to the ground. The screen concealed a listening tube that went directly to the priests' quarters, no doubt for priestly entertainment and possible blackmail. He showed it to no one, except Serjeant Te.