Dragonmaster

by Chris Bunch

  Something no one had appeared to plan for, or at any rate hadn’t planned well, was resupplying the expedition. The fleet itself had to land all supplies, then sail back toward Sagene for more men, more equipment, more of everything.

  Only a few ships were left—picket boats, the flagship, hospital ships and the dragon ships, among others.

  With them went Thom Lowess, who’d taken Hal aside the night before sailing.

  “I think it’s time I moved on.”

  Hal lifted an eyebrow, Lowess drew closer, making sure there was no one to overhear.

  “I came out to write tales that would build morale back in Deraine. This disaster is hardly my cup of tea. And, to tell you my own personal feeling, things aren’t likely to improve.

  “But don’t worry, Hal. I’ll make sure your career stays on an even keel. Yours and Lord Cantabri’s.”

  Lord Cantabri sourly watched, from shore, as the ships sailed away, leaving the soldiers marooned, and said, “A frigging whale. We’re nothing but a damned stranded whale on this strand. Deraine forever. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.”

  26

  Ninety days later, the beachhead was even worse. There was more debris along the shore, more broken, abandoned weaponry scattered on the heights and below. The village had been ransacked again and again for materials for shelter, firewood, or simply for the joy of having something to ruin that wouldn’t ruin back.

  The Roche archers and crossbowmen killed their share, waiting in concealment until someone had a careless moment, and ensured he’d never have another one. More died through Lord Hamil’s insistence the Roche would only “respect” Deraine by aggressive patrolling. So every night patrols went out, and were ambushed.

  But still more died from disease. The sere Kalabas peninsula hid strange sicknesses, some that killed quickly, others that tore until a man or woman screamed for death’s relief.

  The expedition had run out of room to bury its dead, and so priests and sorcerers burnt the bodies in tall pyres. Soldiers swore they’d never be able to eat mutton again, the smell being just like that of a burning corpse.

  But that was just one of the stinks—decaying bodies of horses and men, spoiled supplies, burnt wood, decay and shit hung over the peninsula like an invisible fog.

  No one had allowed for the winter storms, even in the more placid Southern Ocean, so the supply line was constantly overstrained, in danger of snapping, and the troops mostly lived on iron rations, almost never seeing fresh food. Officers and staff personnel seemed only too ready to “borrow” a cabbage or a ham for their own use, figuring one item would never be missed. Of course, by the time everyone took his little bit on the way up to the plateau, the fighting troops got damn all in the way of foodstuffs.

  Reinforcements arrived, were assigned to different formations, plodded up to the top of the plateau, and came back down, wounded, dead or mad.

  Hal was down to ten fliers, eleven dragons, and he couldn’t tell which was in worse shape, the dragons with their lean sides and nervously flicking tails, or the fliers, with their twitching muscles, and remote stares.

  He was, quite illegally, able to make it a little better for his fliers, ordering paired patrols “out to sea, to make sure Roche ships weren’t returning.”

  Of course, the patrols went directly to the Landanissas Islands, one pocket of peace in a world tearing at itself. The fishermen welcomed the gold and strange, new foods, while the fliers were only too glad to trade hard biscuit and pickled beef, standard supplies, for fish or fowl.

  Pig-raising had become a major industry on the islands, and so the Eleventh’s dragons were a little less lean and weary than other flights’.

  But not much.

  Hal worried about everything, and had learned the worst of being in command. Sometimes he thought, when a flier died, he would almost have gone down in his place, rather than write the letter to whatever people he had, lying about how the flier had died instantly in an accident, rather than the probable truth that he’d been shot off his mount, and fell a hundred feet, screaming to his death, clawing at the air, trying to make it hold him up or, worse yet, killed by his own mount in its predawn irritation at being wakened for a patrol.

  At least, there were no Roche dragons on the peninsula.

  Not yet.

  Hal worried about that, too, then found a possible explanation—the Roche knew very damned well where the Deraine forces were, and didn’t need any scouts.

  Hal wondered why the black killer dragons hadn’t been dispatched to the Kalabas Peninsula, thought, forlornly, that Queen Norcia and Duke Yasin knew the beached whale was well contained by the forces at hand. But he wondered how soon the Roche would adopt his arming of dragon fliers as policy, rather than a scattered experimentation.

  The invasion, to Kailas’ eyes, was indeed a beached and dying whale.

  But the broadsheets from Deraine swore the invasion was a roaring success.

  “Damme,” Sir Loren said. “Look at this broadside. You went and did it again.”

  He passed the sheet across, and Hal read the tale by, of course, Thom Lowess, of how the expedition had been attacked by barbaric Roche warriors, from the far east, barely human, and how they’d broken the lines at the north side of the foothold, and only Sir Hal Kailas and his Eleventh Dragon Flight, heroes of Deraine, envy of the nation, and so on and so forth, had stopped the attack, landing their dragons and fighting as infantry until Sir Hal’s friend, Lord Bab Cantabri of Black Island, had arrived in the nick of time with reinforcing infantry, and driven the Roche back.

  Of course, no such attack had happened, and Hal certainly wouldn’t let his men and women be wasted fighting as simple infantry.

  “Wonderful,” Hal muttered, handing the broadsheet back. “Aren’t the people at home fed up with such crap? Haven’t they been able to figure out that if we’re such godsdamned heroes, every one of us, why we’re still stuck on this sandy-ass desert?”

  “Of course not,” Saslic said. “You don’t think anybody who isn’t actually fighting a war ever wants to know the truth, do you? Otherwise, there wouldn’t be wars at all, let alone fools like us to fight ’em.”

  “Fine, I calls it damn fine,” Mariah said, “to be allow’t to serve with such friggin’ heroes. Almost makes me not wisht I’d stayed at home and learnt more about castin’ lovespells. Ain’t that right, Feccia?”

  The man nodded thinly, forced a smile, and went out on the deck of the Adventurer.

  Hal wondered how, in such lean times, Feccia managed to keep up his bulk, decided he didn’t want to know. The man held up his end, even if he never went beyond what duty required.

  These days, that was more than enough.

  Hal, scouting up the peninsula, saw more Roche soldiers coming toward the front.

  Other flights, over the Ichili River, saw transports heading toward the river’s mouth.

  But the lines remained fairly quiet, with only the daily probe and nightly raid to make sure no one was likely to die of old age.

  Soldiers who’d cheered when they were told they’d be coming south for the winter couldn’t find enough obscenities, especially as they realized winter was ending, and they had nothing to look forward to except the increasing heat of spring and the drought of summer.

  “I’ve decided something,” Saslic said as they strolled one night, clothes in hand, along one of the empty beaches beyond Jarraquintah. “I think I want to get killed before you do.”

  “Gods rotating,” Hal said in considerable astonishment. “Here we had a nap, a bath, a nice dinner, some marinated raw fish, green vegetables, some chicken that burnt the taste of all that pickled monkey meat out of my mouth, a real salad, another swim, a little hem-heming around, and you go and say something like that!

  “Yeesh, woman! You’re a true romantic!”

  “Nope, just a realist,” Saslic said. “Which is one reason I’d better get killed before the war’s over, because no godsdamned civilian would ever understand me
.”

  “All right,” Hal said. “You’re obviously intent on pursuing the subject. Why do you want to get killed first—remembering that I’ve decided I’m immortal, which means you’re safe?”

  “Because you’re big, strong, brave.” She paused. “And dumb. So you’ll be able to handle the blow a lot better than I would when you get ripped in half by some dragon.”

  “What a charming thought,” Hal said. “I love you.”

  “I love you back,” Saslic said. “But dumb, like I said.”

  The Roche hit them at dawn, the day after Hal and Saslic had gotten back from their illicit leave. They struck cleverly, sending the first and second waves across in a suicidal frontal assault, which the Deraine and Sagene defenders cut down.

  The Deraine and Sagene forces didn’t notice other formations slip through the gullies and ravines of the rutted peninsula, and thought the first two waves were all there were. They relaxed, some coming out of their trenches to exult, to loot the dead, maybe even a few to try to help the writhing wounded.

  Two more waves debouched from the Roche positions, and this time there was confusion. Yet another wave smashed into the mêlée of hand-to-hand fighting, and this one broke through to the Deraine trenches for a moment.

  They didn’t deploy along the trenches as they’d done in the past, trying to kill all the Sagene and Deraine in them, but jumped over the trench’s rear parados, going for the edge of the plateau.

  The Deraine were about to cut them down from the rear when yet another line of Roche rose up and charged.

  Then all was madness, and the Roche had split the position on the plateau in half.

  Hal, awaiting orders on the flagship, saw signal flags go up. The flag officer deciphering them turned ashen.

  “Lord . . . Lord Cantabri’s down.”

  Hal’s stomach shifted, even though he’d realized some time ago that no one could be as impossibly brave as Cantabri and expect to live forever.

  “Dead?”

  The officer glanced at him, then lifted his glass again to the flags fluttering up from the shore station.

  “No. Wounded in the chest . . . Refused to give up command . . . He’s being taken to one of the hospital ships now. There’s a chiurgeon with him.

  “Nobody knows if he’ll live or not.”

  Lord Hamil was on deck, shouting for boats, strapping on his sword, telling all and sundry that he’d lead the counterattack himself.

  Hal went for his own boat, back for the Adventurer.

  And then black dragons, flying pennons Hal recognized as they swooped close as Ky Yasin’s, smashed over the plateau top, circled the ships, and went back the way they’d come.

  By the time Hal reached the Adventurer, they’d torn the patrolling flight from the skies.

  Some of the Roche fliers had crossbows, crossbows of a new design depending on a wound-up coil spring, like a clock, for their energy.

  But most of them needed no more than the brute ferocity of their mounts, who screeched in joy as they tore riders from their mounts, ripped into the dragons themselves.

  Hal waved his flight up, trying to get above the dragons, to gain altitude, then shouts came. Rai Garadice was pointing down at the ruined village.

  There was Lord Hamil’s banner, atop a pile of rubble, and wave after wave of Roche infantry attacking. Hal hadn’t seen them move down on the village, but now saw Roche cavalry cantering down from the plateau.

  Death above, death below, and Hal Kailas knew his duty.

  He blasted on the trumpet, and dove toward the embattled Lord Hamil. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw troops, Deraine or Sagene troops, going over the edge of the plateau, retreating back toward the beach.

  But there was nothing ahead but the torn banner of his commander, and his dragons, all ten of them, flashed over the pocket battlefield, crossbow bolts raining down.

  The surprise sent the Roche reeling back, time enough for the soldiery around Lord Hamil to regroup and begin falling back on their boats.

  A shadow came over him, and Hal ducked as a black dragon tore over him, talons reaching, missing.

  He fired a bolt straight up, without aiming, but heard the dragon howl as the bolt hit him somewhere.

  Then there was another dragon coming at him, jaws gaping.

  Saslic’s Nont was there, between them, claws flailing, far outsized.

  Hal’s world stopped as he heard Saslic scream, saw Nont torn by the black monster, a wing coming off, then Nont was spinning, falling, Saslic screaming as she fell out of her saddle, down into death’s madness below.

  Hal kicked Storm into a turn, trying to get to Saslic, and then the world was night and he smelt death as an unseen dragon, coming up from below, tore at his shoulder, his side, and then there was nothing at all.

  27

  There was a dull keening in Hal’s ears, and he dimly thought he must not be dead—demons of the other world would be rejoicing at having a man for their feast, for surely that was the afterlife he was intended for, not one of gentle lambs and flowers.

  He was lying on sand, he realized. Wet sand.

  The keening kept on.

  Hal tried to force his eyes open, couldn’t.

  Oh. I’m blind, he thought, ran a hand across his head, felt stickiness. Blood.

  The keening changed to a yip. Hal recognized it as a dragon sound. He pushed himself up on an elbow, felt down, found ragged cloth. Hal ducked his head, scrubbed across his face, winced at the stabbing pain, and wiped blood away.

  He could see, dimly, through a red mist.

  He sat up, used both hands to lift his tunic, ignored the pain and rubbed hard.

  Now he could see.

  Storm was lying next to him, and now he could smell the dragon’s fetid breath. Blinking hard, he reached out, found a scale, and pulled himself to his feet. He staggered, almost fell, but had his balance.

  He was on a beach somewhere. Then he heard the smashing sounds of battle to his right, looked up, saw cliffs, vaguely recognized them as being west of the beachhead at Kalabas.

  The war was still going on.

  He looked down at himself, winced. There was a long tear in his side, up across his ribs, that had missed gutting him by an inch. Another pain came from his shoulder, and there was a gouge there, probably from a dragon claw.

  That black dragon had also gotten him across his forehead. Blood ran freely down into his eyes, and he wiped again and again.

  He still had his belted dagger, at least.

  Then he realized Saslic was down, was dead, and there was no more world for him.

  He almost collapsed back on the sand, caught himself. The hells.

  All right. She’d died first, as she’d wanted, his mind said, refusing to allow pain.

  But I’m not dead.

  That means that I’m to seek revenge.

  She wouldn’t have wanted me to just collapse here on this damned beach, and give up.

  Maybe it was her spirit that made Storm call him back from wherever he was.

  All right, he thought again. If that’s the way it’s to be.

  Storm made another noise, and Hal looked at him.

  The dragon had a slash down one side, and several head-spikes were torn away, green ichor clotting over the wounds.

  There were other cuts down Storm’s side. He’d fought hard as he fell.

  Hal saw, lying in the low surf, the motionless body of a black dragon. There was no sign of its rider.

  “Good on you,” he whispered, and his voice sounded as if he was gargling glass.

  He wanted to lie down, get his energy back, but knew, if he went back down on the sand, which called to him more loudly than the softest feather bed, he’d never get up again.

  Storm made a low cry.

  “I hear,” Hal said, and pulled himself toward the monster’s forelegs. He almost fell, but made it to Storm’s neck.

  All that he had to do was pull himself up, into the saddle, but that was a milli
on leagues above him.

  But somehow he was there, where his saddle should have been, ripped out of its mounting rings, gone. His map case and quiver of bolts still hung to their rings, but his crossbow had vanished.

  The reins dangled just out of his reach. He stretched for them, and pain stabbed. Hal almost cried, wouldn’t allow himself.

  “All right,” he said once more. “Up, Storm.”

  The dragon whined, but came to his feet. Hal tapped reins, and pain came again. Storm thudded forward, slowly, then faster, and each time one of his feet struck, agony rolled through Kailas.

  He heard shouts, looked up, and saw, on the clifftop above, a handful of soldiers. His vision was too clouded to tell, but an arrow arced down, then others, and he knew the soldiers had to be Roche.

  Storm leapt for the air, wasn’t strong enough, came down again, then, just short of the water, was in the air, feet dragging through the waves, then the dragon was up, climbing for the sky.

  “Up,” Hal whispered. “High.”

  Storm obeyed, and Hal could look along the coast.

  There was Kalabas, not many miles distant, a scattering of ships moving out to sea, ships on fire, men in small boats.

  Deraine was beaten, was retreating, the last of its soldiery fighting clear of the peninsula.

  If Hal chanced going there, where could he land? Would any of the ships stop for him? Sure as hells, none would take his dragon aboard. He bleared, saw no signs of the Adventurer or any of the other dragon flight ships.

  “You and me,” he said, tapping reins to the right. Storm obediently turned south, out to sea, wings lifting slowly, coming down faster.

  Hal found his eyes closing, fought them back open. If he went to sleep, he’d fall, and they were a thousand feet, more, over the water.

  His fingers groped to the map case, opened it, took out the compass. No, don’t let it go, don’t let it fall, and he looped its lanyard around his neck.

  He knew the heading well, and turned Storm until he was headed a bit farther to the east.

  Toward the Landanissas Islands.