by Chris Bunch
Expecting lines of hopefully weatherproof huge stables for the dragons, and neat barracks to the side for the men, they saw, instead, some tattered tents, worse than the ones the former students had brought with them, patched here and there with other colored canvas or even cloth. Some of them had torn grommets, and were held to the ground, flailing in the strong wind, with branches for stakes.
The human quarters were even worse, everything from huge packing crates to tiny infantry tents to sod-roofed shanties supported on logs and “found” lumber.
It looked like a proper base—one that had been struck by a tornado, and then reoccupied by trolls.
There were a handful of people about, most seemingly doing nothing except squelching back and forth on the open meadow in front of the squadron’s buildings.
One woman was watering a dragon at the pond.
At both sides of the meadow were catapults, with infantrymen manning them.
A single dragon patrolled the air overhead, flying in endless circles around the meadow.
Hal ignored the moans—as an old soldier, he noted what must be the cooktent, a large, well-pitched tent, with smoke coming from chimneys at the front and back.
Seeing that, he knew that everything had not fallen apart.
“Do you want me to report in, sir?”
“I’d appreciate that,” their escort warrant said. “Now we’re away from my grounds, and on yours.”
Hal caught himself, glanced at Sir Loren Damian, who grinned damply, but made no protest.
There was a guidon pitched in front of a bell tent, and Hal went to it, knocked on the ridgepole.
“Enter.”
He pushed the outer flap aside, and walked into a tent crowded with four cots, one piled high with maps and sword-belts.
On another, a man snored loudly, a ragged cloak pulled over him.
Sitting at a field desk sat a man whose body and face were sculpted by exhaustion. Hal was tired, but this man was beyond that.
“Serjeant Hal Kailas,” Hal said, clapping a hand to his breast. “With eighteen other dragon fliers and mounts, mobile, as ordered by First Army Headquarters.”
The man blinked, rubbed his eyes, picked up a bottle of brandy, and uncorked it. He shook his head, and put the bottle away.
“I am assuming for the moment you’re not a magician’s imp, sent to taunt me with impossibilities.”
“Nossir. I’m . . . we’re for real.”
“Just maybe there are gods,” the man breathed, realized Hal was still holding the salute. “Sit down . . . or, anyway, find something to lean against.
“I’m Lieutenant Sir Lu Miletus. Someone said I was going to be a captain, but the orders seem to have gone awry.
“You said nineteen dragon fliers?”
“Yessir.”
The man stood, extended a hand, and Hal clasped it. Miletus looked as if he’d been studying to become a priest or other ascetic before the war, with his lean, long-faced, somber expression. But Hal saw smile lines on his face.
“Nineteen,” Miletus breathed again. “That just might put us back in the war. Any support people?”
“Nossir. We were told you’d have all necessary ground personnel.”
“We did,” Miletus said. “Until the dragons brought the cavalry on us. At least we didn’t lose any of our beasts . . . all ten of them.
“And now, just a little late, we’ve got those arrow-throwers assigned to keep us safe from intruders.”
He shook his head.
“Never mind. We’ve gotten so good at making do with very little we can probably win this godsdamned war with absolutely nothing.”
He pulled on a muddy cloak.
“Let’s go see how we can get your people settled, Serjeant. I’ll tell you beforehand I’m going to make myself rather loathed, since I’m going to take away five of your dragons from their masters.”
Hal kept his face still.
“My fliers—all six of them—have more experience. . . . I assume that none of you are more than school-trained?”
“That’s correct. Sir.”
“Don’t look so sour, man. What I’m doing is not only best for the flight, but it might keep some of you alive.
“Also, all of you are grounded until I personally give you permission.”
He grinned, noting Hal’s deliberately blank look. “And I don’t mean to denigrate you by keeping you out of harm’s way for the moment.
“You’ll see. You’ll see your training didn’t really give you any help for what’s out here.
“Now, let’s get your men fed, and start finagling for quarters.”
“Four of us are women, sir.”
“I’d heard they’d finally gotten around to recognizing the other half,” Miletus said. “Not to worry. I don’t think any of my men have enough energy to raise a smile, if that was your concern.”
The new ones were quartered here and there, some in existing tents, some in the smaller tents they’d brought with them.
The escort warrant and his men rode back the way they came, showing evident relief they wouldn’t be required to get any closer to the war zone than they already had.
Miletus didn’t, as far as Hal saw, quiz any of the replacements about who was the best flier, who the worst. Instead, he put them up, one by one, over the meadow, ordering them to do certain maneuvers.
Hal quickly found out neither war nor careless habits had driven the flight into slovenliness.
They’d been hammered hard when the Roche crossed the lines, losing fliers and dragons to Roche magic; their catapults, which were brought up just behind the front lines; weather; and two to enemy dragons, who’d attacked their beasts until the Deraine dragons went out of control, whipping across the skies and losing their riders, then vanishing into the mists.
Bad enough . . . but then the dragons had guided enemy cavalry through the shattered Deraine positions to the flight’s base.
“Everyone,” Miletus said tiredly, “became infantry, and we fought as well as we could.” He looked around sadly. “Which wasn’t very, I’m afraid, although at least we drove them back.
“The closest thing we had to a hero was Chook, the cook.”
Hal waited for an explanation, but none came.
“The Sagene command offered us infantry to guard the base, but I told them to keep the men on the lines, except for those catapult men. There isn’t anything here worth another attack.” He brightened. “At least not ’til your arrival.”
He grinned. “I’m certain you find that reassuring.”
Hal found a relatively dry bell tent, with four cots. Three of them were bare, the fourth occupied by a wiry man with amazing mustaches, who introduced himself as Aimard Quesney, and told him to take any bed he wanted.
“Won’t I be disturbing anybody?”
“If you are, and anyone says anything, move out sprightly,” Aimard said. “For they’re all quite dead, and I’m getting tired of waiting for their ghosts.”
“Small, but cozy,” Saslic said, waving a hand around her hut. “Note the greenery on the roof, which’ll go well with my face when I think about what I got myself into wanting to play soldier.”
The hut was small, ten feet on a side. But shelves had been built along the walls by a skilled carpenter, and there were cleverly hinged windows on either wall.
“Built for two,” Saslic said. “But I hid the other cot before anyone could claim it.”
“Why?” Hal asked.
“Did your mother have any sons with intelligence?”
“I don’t guess so. Explain.”
“I thought a certain northern fool might want to come visiting from time to time, and since I’m not into either threesies or witnesses, I thought we might like privacy.”
“Oh.”
“Speaking of which, why don’t you slide the door shut? I noticed you coming back from the pond, looking cleaner than you have since we left Paestum, and thought you might be interested in messing abo
ut.”
In the dimness, Hal saw her slide out of her coveralls, and lay back on the bed.
“Close, but perhaps we can manage,” she murmured.
Later, as they lay together, Hal had a question.
“I know men aren’t supposed to ask and all. But what’s going to happen to us?”
Saslic kissed him on the nose.
“Why, we’re going to get killed. Preferably nobly, in battle.”
“Oh.” Hal thought. “No. I’m going to live through this.”
“Of course you are,” Saslic drawled. “That’s what everybody who filled up all these empty cots knew.”
“No,” Hal said stubbornly, trying to sound as if he were positive about things. “I’m going to survive.”
“Well, good for you,” Saslic said. “I’m not. Which is why I haven’t bored either one of us talking about love, or after the war, or anything else beyond this moment. So remember me fondly when I’m gone, and name your first child after me.
“And as for immediate moments . . .”
She moved close, hooked a leg over his thighs, and pulled him on top of her.
“Remember, anything you don’t see might kill you,” Miletus said over his shoulder. “C’mon, Fabulous. Get your arse in the sky.”
He tapped reins, and the dragon’s wings flapped slowly, and it took a few steps forward. Then it was clear of the mucky ground, and climbed into the skies.
Hal, sitting behind Miletus, tried to keep the map he’d studied ready, and glanced at the compass clipped to his fur-lined jacket, then put it away, mindful of Miletus’ orders to keep his eyes on the sky, not anywhere else.
He shivered at the chill spring wind blowing in his face, and decided, before next winter, if he lived that long, he’d have to have someone make him furry thigh boots like Miletus wore and some sort of tie-down fur-lined cap.
They flew south-southwest, toward the salient.
“I’ll skirt the edges of the battleground,” Miletus shouted. “No point in giving their damned catapults a shot at a virgin, now is there?”
The lines were clearly demarcated—two long scraggly rows of huts, with most of the vegetation in front cleared, the woods around cleared for firewood and building materials. Between them was open, rutted land torn by marchers and horsemen.
They flew down the lines, turned, went back the way they came, turned back to base.
Miletus slid out of the saddle, tossed the reins to one of his handlers, said, “Well? What did you see?”
“Not much of anything,” Hal said honestly. “Smoke from fires, a couple of horsemen in back of the lines.”
“That’s all?”
“Yessir.”
Miletus shook his head.
“And you’re a combat veteran. Kailas, if you expect to be alive in a month, you’d better learn to sharpen your eyes.
“First, you missed a flight of three dragons, ours, but they could well have been Roche, moving east, just west of that little bend in the lines that’s marked as the Hook.
“Second, there was a Roche dragon circling a position about a mile north of them.
“Then there was that stationary cloud over that ruined village.”
Kailas looked perplexed.
“There was a wind blowing, maybe seven, eight miles an hour. Clouds don’t hang about when there’s wind, correct?”
“Nossir.”
“That’d suggest, if we were a proper scouting patrol, to take a look. Probably the cloud is magically cast, and there’s most likely something underneath it the Roche would rather we not see.
“I’ll send a couple of beasts up as soon as I finish with you.
“Then there was a column of cavalry, a company, perhaps more, riding toward the southern end of the salient, which would suggest someone’s up to no good.
“Lastly, and you couldn’t have known this, we passed over a scruffy little forest that was a nice open piece of land yesterday or the day before.”
“Magic?”
“Probably not,” Miletus said. “More likely camouflage nets. By the size of the area, I’d guess an encampment of a company, perhaps more, on the move.
“On patrol, it’d be your job to get lower and closer, and find out what sort of unit.”
Hal had nothing to say.
“Your most important weapons are your eyeballs,” Miletus said. “Keep looking, keep moving your head about. And don’t forget to keep looking over your shoulder.
“The Roche love to creep up on you from the rear.
“When you can find one, buy a nice lady’s scarf, the softest silk or lamb’s wool you can find. That’ll keep your neck from getting chafed.
“Pity there’s no way to clamp a mirror somewhere on a beast’s neck plate.
“Now you see what we face, and what you’ve got to learn.
“I’ll sign you off for patrol—but only with an experienced flier, until he tells me you actually stand a chance of staying alive around here.”
Chook was a large, jovial, nearly bald man, who claimed that his family owned the biggest—and, of course, the best—restaurant in Rozen, with a clientele of knights, dukes, even, once or twice, the king himself, “though he came in disguise, of course,” plus a goodly contingent of the royal court’s magicians.
No one knew if he was lying, but no one cared. Chook was not only a superb cook, but could almost always make something close to edible out of the iron rations they mostly lived on these days.
He prided himself on his “beef in the grand tradition of Chook,” which consisted of the smashed dried beef they were issued, the iron-hard crackers, powdered milk, and assorted liquids and spices from the huge wooden cabinet that was always kept locked.
It was this cabinet that’d made him into a hero. When the Roche cavalry attacked, he’d stayed in his mess tent, until four cavalrymen dismounted and, sabers ready, came looking for some food or drink to loot.
Chook told them to get out.
They laughed, started toward him.
The first two were bowled over by one of the long wooden benches he threw at them. The third slashed at the cook, who ducked around the stroke and hurled him against the glowing stove.
The fourth turned to run, and Chook threw, with unerring aim, the cleaver he used to behead any looted chickens. It buried itself, with a dull chunk, in the back of the man’s head.
Miletus heard the sounds of sobbing, ran into the tent, saw the fourth corpse, the third man’s head stuck into the open oven door, charring nicely, and the other two with ghastly saber wounds in their chests from their own blades.
Chook sat at a bench, crying bitterly.
If few were stupid enough to criticize his cooking before, for fear he’d throw a pet and lose his brilliance, no one at all dared after the slaughter.
“So what should I be most scared of?” Hal asked Aimard Quesney.
He raised an eyebrow almost as groomed as his mustaches.
“Odd for anyone to be owning to fear,” he replied. “I thought we were all fearless knights of the air, and so on and so forth and I was the only one who...” And he broke into song:.There’s a dragon leaving the border
Limping its way toward its home
With a shit-scared flier a-clinging
With a grip that’d bruise to the bone.
He hiccuped, pushed the flagon of fairly decent wine at Hal, who shook his head.
“I’m on my first patrol tomorrow.”
“Have a drink anyway,” Aimard said. “Gods know I will.” He swilled, ignoring his glass. “It’s easier to die with a hangover. Besides, it gives you an excuse for drinking the next day.”
The flight had a separate club/mess for the fliers, administered to by the legendary Chook. It was no more than a raggedy tent, with planed logs for benches, and a long bar their rather pathetic supply of alcohol sat behind. The canvas walls were pinned with cutouts from the broadsheets of Deraine and Sagene: sketches of beautiful ladies, pertinent letters, stories of soci
ety and such.
The best thing was that the mess was open around the clock, with either Chook or one of his assistants standing by.
“To be most afraid of,” Quesney mused. “First, your own dragon, who’ll be the most likely to kill you, chewing your leg off, or just dumping you off to see if you can walk on air like it can.
“Second, the weather closing in, and you getting lost in it, or blown into a mountain or forest.
“Third . . . leave third for a minute.
“Fourth, the Roche on the ground, with their catapults, crossbows and archers. If you’re hit, try to steer your dragon as far away from the troops as you can, for they’ll treat you most harshly should you fall into their hands.
“At least, try for some soldiers you haven’t been spying on, and hope for their tender mercies.
“Fifth, our own soldiery, who’ll be as quick to launch a bolt at you as the Roche. Perhaps, since we’re losing, a bit more quickly.
“Sixth, our own command, who haven’t the foggiest what a dragon’s supposed to do, and so will punt us into the most unlikely places and situations.
“Now, to go back to third.” Quesney paused. “That, of course, is the enemy dragons.”
“What will they do?” Hal asked.
“What they’ll try to do is scare you away, back away from the lines and your scouting.
“If there’s any in the vicinity, they might try to attack with one of their teams. That’s if their dragons decide they want to attack you, which is very seldom.
“They’ll try to tear you off your dragon, or tear at your dragon’s wings and body, though that’s rare enough. Generally they make great pains of themselves, and occasionally get lucky, and one of them’ll be close enough to get in with that snaky head and have a bite of you.”
“Has anybody thought of taking a magician up, and having him cast a spell against the Roche dragons?” Hal asked, thinking of some of the ideas in his notebook.
Quesney looked puzzled, shook his head.
“Doubt if you could find a wizard stupid enough to strap himself on the back of a dragon. And it’d take long enough to build a spell so that everyone concerned would be miles away by the time it swirls into life.”