"You talk of 'honor' and 'respect.' You demand it." Tynan looked straight into Borac's eyes. "We earn it."
Borac stared back, his muscles slowly relaxing. He let his face go slack.
The men laughed and good-naturedly cursed Tynan. Their eyes reflected back the light of the fire. Tynan threw his dice. From the bounce of the purple die, Borac saw that Tynan's dice were loaded.
"Cheat..." Borac said again, softly.
Tynan ignored the comment, taking his dice and money from the table. He raised his hand for another throw. Borac spat on the table before the dice fell.
The center of the table dissolved. Borac's spit turned the wood black.
"Humans! Fools and liars," Borac shouted.
The men at the table yelled in fear, scrambling away from their places on the ground. "Damn you, Borac!" Tynan yelled. "I'd like to kill you myself! You'd better be thankful for the damned Alliance!"
Borac flexed his muscles once, his clothes vanishing into the growing darkness of his flesh. He could feel the comfortable magic of the amulet tht gave him human form. He spread his wings against the night, his gaze cutting the darkness, his vision clear.
The Queen of Darkness forced he and his kind to follow the terms of the Alliance, the alliance of dragons with humans. But he did not have to like it-or them.
*****
"I just get to sleep and the commander wakes me," Tynan grumbled, hauling a saddle onto Borac's wide back. He expertly tightened the straps that slid across the black dragon's chest. "Says you've got another 'secret mission.' "
Borac said nothing, letting his chest relax enough for the man to make the necessary adjustments. He kept his eyes forward, his head resting on his front claws, staring at nothing.
"What's your secret mission this time, huh? If there is one!"
"It's been reported that the enemy has gained a cleric of Mishakal. He's healing their wounded. The general wants the cleric dead," Borac replied, voice grating.
"Oh, yeah?" Tynan woke up a little. He shrugged. "So how do we find this cleric?"
Tynan's favored weapons were javelins, and he kept a brace on either side of himself, over twenty in total. He also kept a short lance mounted on the saddle in a wide, static guard, a duplicate of the lance and guard used by the enemy. The man was obviously waiting for an answer.
Borac remained silent. The lance and guard reminded him of the cursed dragonlances, and that only made his mood that much darker. He did not care to answer any of his rider's questions.
Tynan strapped his sword onto his side, the sword he often said was enchanted to slay the weak and bring victory to the strong. Using a simple spell, Borac had found no magic on the blade, or on any of Tynan's other possessions. The man was all brag and smoke.
With a final check of his armor, Tynan drew the black leather hood over his head to protect his face against the abrasion of flying in the dust and cold, then donned his dented helm. Borac glanced back briefly, remembering every blow Tynan had received on that helm, every battle and every campaign. And in each, he had seen the human give no mercy to the fallen, no quarter. He cared nothing about the men he had slaughtered until the drinking started at the end of the day. Then the stories of his own prowess never ceased.
"I know what you're thinking, Borac," Tynan rumbled from within his helm. He pulled himself up by the horn of the saddle, dragging the straps uncomfortably across Borac's chest. When he had settled, putting his feet in the stirrups, he swung the lance into a neutral position and took hold of the reins that led to the harness around the dragon's muzzle. "I know what you're thinking, and I don't care. You just keep quiet. I'll treat you like any other horse."
Tynan pulled hard on the reins, forcing Borac to lift his head. Borac took to the air, keeping his fury to himself. Over the sound of the rushing wind, Tynan called, "You're working with us, now, dragon! For our side. And that's where you'll stay."
*****
"Pull up, damn you!" Tynan bellowed through the smoke, letting loose another black javelin as he twisted around in the saddle, a favorite stunt. Borac attempted to act as commanded, but could not find room to maneuver. A silver dragon above him converged with another swooping in from the left.
Tynan's javelin caught one of the silvers in the wing. It hesitated in its aerial lunge long enough for Borac to draw his wings in a moment, then unfurl them to their full span, catching the air and forcing himself higher. The first dragon shot past in a move Borac considered very immature. The dragon's rider was forced to clutch to the saddle to avoid falling off.
Tynan was kicking Borac frantically in the sides, pointing downward. With a quick glance around the aerial circus to ensure that he was in no immediate danger, Borac ignored Tynan's commands. The dragon opened wide the pit deep within himself, where his anger and bile lived and seethed. The taste on his long tongue was dark and thick, and when the acid left his jaws in a gout, he felt as if he spit out all his hatred for Tynan, for Tynan's friends, for all humans.
The acid splattered the silver dragon and its rider. Borac kept himself aloft, ignoring Tynan's continued commands and kicks, watched as the silver wings of his enemy were eaten away by the acid. The dragon, a young female, screamed as she felt herself dying from the attack. Unable to keep herself in the air, she spiraled downward. Finally, losing all capacity for flight, she dropped. Her body punched a hole in the wall of smoke, then vanished.
The dragon's rider screamed in pain and terror, screams that ended abruptly.
Borac rose higher into the sky, flying through the smoke. He guessed he was the oldest, most experienced dragon in this sortie. There was little to fear. Amidst the turmoil, however, they'd seen nothing of a cleric.
Tynan cracked Borac on the side of the head with a javelin tip, knocking the dragon from his reverie. "I gave you a command!" Tynan yelled. "I expect to be obey-"
Tynan's words were cut off in a gurgle of pain, his chest was pierced from behind by the bright silver tip of a dragonlance. The weapon tore through Tynan's body and struck Borac in the head above his eye ridge. Borac shuddered with pain, twisted his head to remove the barbed tip of the dragonlance. Another silver dragon, older and very experienced, had risen among the clouds and battlefield smoke to catch its enemy unaware.
The fiery agony of the dragonlance stripped Borac of all sensibilities. He dropped from the sky, a great black stone, agony driving consciousness away, instinct taking control. Ground and sky shifted dizzily as Borac continued to fall, assured that his foe would not follow him down such a steep, insane path. Tynan's lifeless body, harnessed in the saddle, jolted and jounced. Borac was glad Tynan was dead, wished them all dead. He wished for the ground to swallow him whole and lay himself to rest. To be free of this pain....
*****
... Borac faded back into consciousness. He lay crumpled against the hillsides where the battle between the forces of good and the armies of evil continued to wage. He was too weak to fly, and was aware that the fall had broken ... something. He could not feel anything except the burning in his head.
The dragonlance had penetrated the bony plating around his left eye. He could barely see through his right eye, his left was almost blind from blood.
Weakly, Borac lifted his bloodied head. Tynan lay nearby. He had landed on his head; his neck snapped, his body at an odd angle. Borac felt nothing. Survival. That, now, was all that mattered.
There were many other dead soldiers nearby, from both sides. Borac felt himself slipping back into darkness. He needed a plan. A moment's panic overwhelmed him as he reached out his magic to touch the amulet. At first, it did not respond and he feared he might have lost it. Then, the magic worked.
Borac willed himself to the shape he wore among humans-broken bones of his wings became broken fingers, bruises and cuts scarred new flesh. His left eye burned with pain. Pulling himself with his few good fingers, he crawled over to one of the fallen soldiers of the enemy. He removed the man's clothes, donned them quickly, working around the
pain, the agony. Then the blackness returned, fell harshly to crush him....
*****
Movement. Borac was jostled awake.
"He's alive!" someone whispered.
"Quiet!" a second man commanded. "Listen."
The wound over his eye continued to pulse blood, but now the eye was bandaged with a strip of cloth. His other eye was closed. He recognized the smell of humans.
A moment later, another man moved near Borac's right. "I hear nothing!" he said. There was the sound of sword scraping against shield, a rattle of armor, and shuffling dirt. "I'm going to try to find our company."
"We're not going anywhere!" the second man, perhaps the leader of these men, said. "A black dragon fell near here!"
The smell of human fear brought Borac closer to consciousness. He attempted to rouse himself further, unsure whether these men had penetrated his disguise, even clothed and in human form. They might be suspicious if they recognized the insignia on the uniform he had stolen. Borac clenched his teeth, letting himself feel the comfortable swell of add within his belly. It brought some measure of relief. If he needed, he could revert back to his dragon body and kill these men in an instant, even wounded as he was.
"That dragon's around here, I tell you!" said the third man nervously. "I feel it. Can't you?"
Borac kept his face slack and his eye closed. He could hear them shiver in their armor, and they stank of terror.
"I'm going," the third man said. "The battle has turned! If we don't escape now, we'll never find our company!"
"What of the dragon? And this wounded man? We can't leave him here."
Borac waited for an answer.
"We'll bring him along. You go ahead, scout the way," the leader finally replied. "We'll follow."
Another sound of rattling armor, and the scout was gone over a ridge. Borac felt himself being shifted, his head propped up under something softer than the ground, probably a bedroll. "Let's try to find a couple of spears and make a transport for this man. We'll take him back to camp and pray to Mishakal her cleric can do something to save that eye."
A cleric. A cleric of Mishakal. Borac almost laughed at the irony. He, the perfect assassin, a dragon, wounded, disguised as a human, and dropped at the feet of the man he had orders to kill.
He almost laughed, but when they lifted him, the pain overwhelmed him. He dropped back into darkness. ...
*****
". . . slaughtering everyone!" Borac heard. "The wounded and the living!"
Borac stirred from his darkness and slowly opened his good eye. The pain had subsided somewhat, though the memory of the dragonlance was like a fresh stab reopening the wound.
"We've rested long enough!" the leader said. Borac eyed his rescuers. It seemed all the men were cut from the same cloth, each about the same height, the same size. Their white uniforms were tattered and their armor damaged, links missing from chain mail and plates dented by mace-blows. They wore their helms and had their weapons ready.
The leader gestured toward Borac, then bent to Borac's side. "It would have been easier on you if you had stayed asleep," he said. "Are you up to being moved?"
Borac said nothing. His muzzy thoughts wove themselves into the realization that this man and the others were risking their lives to save him. If he had heard this tale in a bar, he would have laughed derisively. He didn't feel like laughing now.
"Let's go," the leader commanded. They lifted Borac from the ground and carried him out of a small depression in the side of the hill where they'd been hiding. Two of six men pulled the transport made of a blanket and two spears, while the others surrounded him, weapons ready. There was a feeling in Borac's heart like no other he had felt in his long years. These men were actually cooperating, working together to save what they thought was one of their own. He wondered if they played dice.
The soldier to Borac's right suddenly toppled over, two arrows piercing his chest. The leader deflected a thrown spear with his shield. Before the first soldier dropped to the ground, a unit of fighters from the Dark Queen's army charged down the side of the hill. Their battle cry cut the air and seemed to penetrate straight into Borac's wound, making him wince.
"Sorry," one of the stretcher-bearers said as they laid down the transport as gently as possible, though quickly. They ran forward to meet the attackers.
The sound of battle raged in Borac's ears. The fight was evenly matched in numbers, but his rescuers were fatigued and demoralized. The leader had lost his white cassock to a long sword's cut that also drew a line of blood across his stomach. He fought on.
Behind him, from out of the trees, an archer raised his bow, arrow aimed at the leader's back.
Borac slowly raised his right hand. He spoke a spell of death with his human lips. The archer crumpled to the ground.
The leader never noticed. He locked blades with the enemy, pushing strongly until he broke free of the stalemate. He drew another blade from his belt, holding his broadsword one-handed.
With a swift short sword parry that left his opponent's guard open, the leader withdrew his broadsword from the chest of his enemy. The other man dropped to his knees. The leader raised his sword high above his head and cut viciously down, the wounded man barely parrying. With a cry and another swing, the leader finally killed his man.
"Where's that archer?" the leader cried to his men, using a foot on the dead man's chest for leverage to dislodge his sword.
"Here, sir. He's dead, sir!" one of the others reported. "Funny. There's not a mark on him."
"Just as well, then," the leader said as he knelt beside Borac. "Everything all right here?"
Borac looked the man in the eye. He saw concern, compassion. These men were sincere in their effort to get him to their cleric. On the Dark Queen's side, Borac knew he would have been left for dead long ago, abandoned. No honor, no courage. Cowards. And cheats.
"South," Borac whispered.
"What?"
Borac licked his lips. "Go south, not west."
The leader hesitated, staring at Borac. Then, to the others, he said, "We'll stop here awhile to gain our bearings. We can't afford another ambush. I want all of you to scout a half hour in all directions. We'll meet back here afterward."
The leader watched his men dash off across the field and hills. After a moment, the leader said, "You should be safe here for now. They'll be back soon to take you to the healer."
"I'm ... a scout," Borac managed to say. Moving his jaw sent slivers of fire into his head.
"South," the leader repeated thoughtfully. Standing, the man checked his wounded stomach. Borac could smell that the cut wasn't deep. "Is there anything you need?"
Borac said nothing, slowly shaking his head. He felt himself slipping away.
The leader nodded once, stared a moment longer, then walked away, disappeared among the trees. Borac did not regret choosing the target of his spell; the leader would have been killed in a cowardly manner. Borac let out a deep breath and closed his eye, listening closely for the approach of the returning soldiers.
*****
... Borac cursed the race of humans. It had been more than an hour since the others had left. He wondered if the fools had gotten themselves killed, picked off by marauding troops. He cursed them again for stupidly splitting up their strength rather than just forging ahead.
Borac tried to raise himself, but he was still helpless in the grip of the dragonlance's fire. His head dropped back onto the stretcher and he almost retched from the pain.
"Humans!" Borac cursed them all in the name of his Dark Queen.
Then, with a great groan, Borac lifted himself to a sitting position. He shifted his weight and got his legs under him and tried to stand. Growing faint, he fell over.
Someone caught him. "You've got to stay down."
It was the voice of the leader, come back from his scouting. Borac let himself relax, let himself be laid out again upon the stretcher.
"Where were you thinking of going?" the man ask
ed. "Looking for us?"
Borac attempted to speak, but could only draw deep breaths to keep the pain at bay.
"We weren't gone that long. And you were right. We would have walked into the camp of the Dark Queen's army if we'd headed west. We've got to head south. Pick him up again," the leader commanded to the others. "He saved our lives. Let's do the same for him."
*****
The words of the leader echoed in Borac's thoughts as the men carried him back into their lines. The forces of good were not yet routed but their retreat was in full effect. Those lightly wounded were being tended by physickers so they could return to the field and protect those too hurt to move themselves. Borac saw cavalry riding out to form a vanguard.
Borac was amazed at the cooperation and trust among the soldiers. No whips cracked, no threats, no drunken rowdiness. There was respect, discipline, friendship ...
"We'll leave you here for now," the leader said. "We've got to return to the field."
With a wave, the man commanded his soldiers to lower Borac to the ground, placing him in front of a large white tent. The leader saluted once. "Perhaps we'll have the honor to stand with you in the field," he said. Then he and his men were gone, off to fulfill their duties.
An old man stepped out of the tent. His blue robes were well kept, but his long white hair and beard were ragged and uneven. He knelt down beside Borac and carefully lifted the bandage over the wounded eye.
"Are..." Borac began, careful to keep his dragon's hate from spilling forth with his pain. "Are you the healer?"
The old man looked startled, either by the question or by something else. "Me? No! But he'll be with you shortly. I'm here to help keep your mind off the pain. Dice?"
Reaching into a pouch, the old man pulled out a handful of dice. Borac closed his eyes. This compassion was too much for him to bear. He was a mature dragon and had seen a great many things, but this . . . these humans were almost not credible.
2 - The Dragons at War Page 13