Dragon (Vlad Taltos)

by Steven Brust

  “Well, that’s what I signed on for,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “Downriver about half a mile.”

  “Right along the river?”

  “Yes. For the same reason we are.”

  “We could make use of that, you know. We could mess with their drinking water or—”

  “There are traditions involved, Vlad; we don’t do that. Officially.”

  “Officially?”

  “I mean nothing organized. But I’ve never heard of a unit that was upriver of the enemy who could resist a few pranks, at least.”

  “You must tell me about them.”

  “Another time.”

  “All right. In any case, it should be easy enough, with them right next to the river. How many of them are there?”

  “More than there are of us,” he said. “But then, we’re dug in pretty good. Why do you need to know?”

  “I have to know how much I’m after, don’t I?”

  “Oh. Yes.” He did some calculation. “More than one wagon, probably more than two, fewer than six.”

  “Ah. An exact science, I see.”

  “Plus, of course, whatever they’ve already taken off the wagons.”

  “Right. Plus that.”

  “They won’t have unloaded much; they won’t know exactly when they’ll be moving out. Of course, your target will be toward the rear.”

  “Okay,” I said. I did some calculating, trying to figure out the best way to go about it; difficult, without complete information. “It’ll be easier if I have some help. A lot easier.”

  The Captain spoke for the first time: “How much help?”

  “Two should do it. Just extra hands to speed matters up.”

  “I don’t want to lose valuable troops.”

  “Glad to hear it. I doubt they want to be lost. I know I don’t.”

  He started to respond, glanced at Morrolan, cleared his throat, and said, “Perhaps some of your tent-mates, to keep the gossip down.”

  “They’d do.”

  “Who’s your corporal?”

  “Rascha.”

  “Very well, I’ll speak with her.”

  “Good enough,” I said. “I’ll set off around midnight.”

  He nodded. Loiosh said, “This should be fun, Boss.”

  “Sure, Loiosh. Maybe you’ll get a promotion out of it.”

  I went back to my tent and pulled my cloak out of my satchel. Virt and Napper were sitting in front of the fire, sharpening their weapons. Aelburr was inside, catching a nap. He opened one eye and said, “Not going to sleep like a sane person?”

  “A sane person wouldn’t be here.”

  A corner of his mouth twitched and he went back to sleep. I stepped out of the tent and sat down next to the others.

  “Nice night,” said Virt.

  It was, actually. I hadn’t noticed. I realized that I didn’t notice the weather unless it was bad. Napper, however, said, “She means she doesn’t have picket duty tonight.”

  “How ’bout you?” I said.

  “No. Probably tomorrow, though.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Virt, “we’ll be somewhere else. Either upriver or downriver.”

  “There will still be picket duty, though. And, most likely, worse weather.”

  “True enough,” I said, because I agreed with him. I checked the various goodies in my cloak, then checked the time and found that I had a few hours to wait, so I set about sharpening my blade.

  A little later Rascha came by. She gave me a funny look, worked her mouth a couple of times like she was having trouble talking, then she said, “Aelburr! Virt!”

  Virt said, “I’m right here, you know.”

  Aelburr poked his head out and said, “Yeah?”

  “You’re both assigned to Taltos here for tonight.”

  I felt them looking at me while I studied the top of the tent in front of me, just to see if it was straight.

  “What is it?” said Virt.

  “He’ll explain,” said Rascha with distaste, and moved along quickly.

  They both gave me inquiring looks. So did Napper. The top of the tent was reasonably straight. I said, “It’s nothing much. I’ve been asked to cook tomorrow.”

  Napper made a grimace. Virt said, “There’s something you’re not telling us.”

  “Yeah, well. I’ll explain later.”

  “How much later?” said Aelburr. “Is this going to interfere with my sleep schedule?”

  “Think of it as picket duty. Sort of.”

  The three of them exchanged glances. “All right,” said Virt. “When are you going to explain?”

  “Around midnight, we’re going to take a walk. We’ll go past our own pickets. Then I’ll explain.”

  “Ah,” said Aelburr. “An adventure.” He didn’t look pleased.

  Virt said, “I don’t know how good I’d be at sneaking around.”

  “You don’t have to be either silent or invisible; you just have to not be heard sneaking or seen skulking.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Once we get to, uh, where we’re going—”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “—you hide behind any handy objects, but in getting to them you just walk. Don’t crawl, and don’t try to walk silently. If there’s any of that to be done, I’ll do it. And you’ll be going without your swords.”

  “How did we get so lucky?” said Virt.

  I shrugged. “You have the good fortune to bunk with me. Not only do you get to listen to me snore, you also get to go and get killed with me.”

  Napper cleared his throat and looked at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Sure,” I said. “You can come, too.”

  He nodded.

  Soon after midnight we set out, creeping along the river. At roughly the halfway point between the pickets, I stopped and sketched out the plan in a whisper; then I motioned them to follow me before they could ask questions I didn’t want to answer or, more important, think about what we were doing. Having them thinking would do no one any good.

  Loiosh spotted the enemy pickets and guided us past them. I don’t think any of my little band figured out what Loiosh was up to; they just followed me. That was best. Once past the pickets, we had to remain hidden until Loiosh and I could identify the cook-tent. We entered the enemy camp and I had them wait while Loiosh and I searched. The supply wagons were near the mess-tent, which was both good and bad for my purposes. The cook-tent was less than thirty yards from the river, which was good.

  “Well? Are they guarded?”

  “Four guards, Boss. Moving rightwise around the wagons and the tent. You want to try the same trick we used last time? That was fun.”

  “No. Too much danger they figured it out. And I won’t discuss your idea of ‘fun.’”

  “What then?”

  “We wait.”

  “Clever, Boss. Do you think if I had opposable thumbs I could come up with plans like that?”

  “Shut up, Loiosh.”

  I returned to where my compatriots were hidden, and, in the flickering half-light of the enemy campfires I indicated that we would just be sitting there for a while. I couldn’t see their expressions. I was just as glad.

  It was neither warm nor pleasant, but they were used to waiting for action, and, for that matter, so was I. We waited a little more than two hours for the guard to change, assuring us of several hours before they were relieved again. I had their movements figured out. And there had been no one checking on them. Loiosh said, “If this had been your operation, Boss, you’d have gotten all the details before you went to work.”

  “If this had been my operation, Loiosh, I would have hired someone else to do it.”

  I signaled to my temporary squadron that they should stay there, and I moved a little closer to the guards. I drew a dart from my cloak, waited for the guard to pass by me, then threw the dart into his back. He cursed.

  “What is it?” said someone.

  “Something bit
me.”

  “Bees sleep at night.”

  “Well, that makes me feel better.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “I better see the surgeon; I’m starting to feel queasy.”

  “You have any allergies?”

  “Not that I know of. What is there that bites around here?”

  He didn’t get an answer, because the woman he’d been talking to was out cold by this time. At least out cold, maybe dead, because a blow to the top of the head with the hard pommel of a dagger can kill, even if you don’t intend it to. Fortunes of war and all that. And then, as the man succumbed and collapsed, I stuck a dart into the woman to be certain—the poison on the dart probably wouldn’t kill her, but it wouldn’t make her feel any better, and, in any case, neither of them would wake up any time soon. I hoped I hadn’t killed either of them; I hate killing people I haven’t been paid for. Were this a Jhereg operation, it wouldn’t have come up. Jhereg operations are cleaner.

  So, okay, you don’t need the details; I took care of the other two guards as well, and I didn’t kill either of them for sure, though I may have hit one a bit too hard … .

  Oh, skip it. I went back to the others and motioned for them to follow me.

  The rest of the job involved one decision: Was it safer and easier going to the water or from the water? One was quicker, the other safer; I opted for quicker. I was fairly certain I could vanish into the night if by chance I was seen, but I doubted my companions could. I called them close and whispered, “If there’s an alarm, we go straight into the river, drop everything, and swim downstream as far and as fast as we can, okay? Remember to get rid of your boots.”

  They nodded. I didn’t think they were very pleased with the prospect. We entered the mess-tent and took care of business there, which took only a few minutes. While we did so, I had Loiosh smell the wagons so he could tell me which ones we were interested in.

  “Three of them, Boss.”

  “Good show.”

  I left the tent first and looked around in spite of Loiosh’s assurance that all was clear, then I led my little band over to the wagons and pointed out the ones we wanted. There was a little more light here, and I could see them wondering how I knew. I resolved not to tell them.

  We dumped kerosene over them. Now was when we had to be fast, because no one is going to pay much attention to someone half glimpsed who is moving about the camp as if he belongs there, but the smell of kerosene is strong and sets off alarms in anyone.

  It only took a minute or so to drench the wagons, then I signaled that we should retreat back toward our own camp. Virt looked a question at me, presumably, How are we going to set them on fire? I smiled back at her and led the way.

  We made it past the pickets without incident, at which point Virt said, “How are you going to start the fire from here?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I picked a stick, drew on my link to the Orb, and started it burning. “I’ll think of something,” I said, and handed it to Loiosh, who flew off into the night.

  They stared in wonderment for a moment; none of them, I think, had any previous clue of Loiosh’s intelligence. Just for fun, I led them past our own pickets.

  Once back in camp, all three of them reacted as I should have expected: laughter bordering on the hysterical, which was a little terrifying in Napper’s case; and, along with the near hysteria, an unreasonable desire to continue being silent, as if the habit had been ingrained for life in the few intense hours.

  Eventually they quieted down, and then Aelburr whispered, “Hope they like toast,” and they all burst into giggles again, with hands clapped over mouths to keep it quiet, which, of course, made it even funnier. I found myself laughing with them, until we were informed that if we didn’t quiet down at once we’d be put on report. Napper, tears streaming from his eyes, tried to whisper something that struck him as funny about that, but couldn’t get it out, and the effort made him laugh even harder.

  Virt, however, hysterics or not, was not anxious to be put on report, so she gestured that we should follow her. She started jogging toward the river, then veered away to stay within the boundaries of the camp. I wondered what she was up to when my question answered itself; it is hard to stay hysterical when you’re out of breath from running, and hard to run when you’re out of breath from laughing. In a few minutes, we weren’t laughing anymore, and Virt led us back to our tent.

  It actually worked; I, at least fell asleep quickly, and I think the others did as well, and there was really nothing more to the incident until breakfast the next morning, when we each took our biscuit and looked at it.

  “Yes,” said Napper. “They taste rather better today than they did yesterday, don’t you think?”

  Whatever happened in the next few hours, I decided, getting a pleasantry out of Napper counted as a moral victory.

  12

  A FEW BUMPS AND BRUISES

  Sounds broke in to interrupt my stare-down with Ori: the sounds of Easterners being slaughtered. Mostly screams—and screams that were different from the cries of the wounded, because these had the edge of terror. I realized then that even from here I could feel the presence of Blackwand. On the field below me, to my right, Easterners were dying and my side was winning; the souls of my kind were gone, swallowed up, vanished forever, destroyed; and my side was winning the engagement. You could say I had mixed feelings about this.

  On the other hand, if I wanted to present myself as a negotiator, it did put me in a stronger position. As I considered this, another interruption came, this one in the form of someone pushing through past the honor guard and coming up next to Ori.

  It was about here that everything speeded up and slowed down; that is, things began to happen faster, but it seemed as if I had more time to observe and think it all over, to weigh the options, note the dangers, and be afraid.

  “Well,” I said. “My Lord Fornia. I hadn’t expected to find you here.”

  He didn’t appear any better disposed toward me than he had been when last we met, which, now that I thought about it, was only about a quarter of a mile from this very spot. Coincidence, if you like. I don’t, terribly. I did think, for a moment, about taking a shot at him; the reasons against were legion, including not having much chance of killing him, having less chance of escaping alive, and being certain that Morrolan wouldn’t thank me even if I managed. But I did think about it.

  Ori said again, “He’s an assassin. Kill him.”

  I said, “Oh, let’s not.”

  Fornia said, “No, he’s not here to assassinate me. Whatever his threats, Morrolan would never countenance such an act.”

  “In war, my lord? In battle?”

  “On the other hand,” said Fornia, “I do not believe you are here as a negotiator. Morrolan would no more send an Easterner to negotiate with me than he would send a Jhereg to assassinate me. So what are you doing here, exactly?”

  The warriors stared at me; behind them, no doubt, were more of Fornia’s sorcerers. I turned my head and gestured to the battle to my right. It was worse than it had been; I could make out Morrolan, and around him, even from this distance, I saw corpses lying in heaps. Or, at any rate, bodies; I didn’t have to be there to know they were dead.

  I turned back to Fornia. “They’re getting closer,” I said. “Morrolan and his brigade. With Blackwand,” I added.

  He didn’t seem unduly worried. I went on, “Morrolan didn’t send me to kill you or to negotiate with you. He didn’t send me at all. I’m here on my own.”

  “Indeed,” said Fornia. “Do you, then, imagine you can kill me, here, now?”

  Why wasn’t he worried? If Blackwand was coming for me, I’d be worried. I’d be more than worried, I’d be bloody terrified. “No,” I said. “Or, perhaps yes, I could, but it is not my intention to try.”

  His eyes strayed to the carnage below, now noticeably closer than when I’d reached them. He seemed unconcerned. “What then?” he said.

  “I wan
t to stop the slaughter.”

  He gave a short laugh. “You have become a soldier. Soldiers have wanted to stop the slaughter as long as the profession has existed.”

  That I believed. That, at any rate, had been my desire since the first time I was in battle. No, I suppose, since the second time; the first time was too confused, the second time, the morning after we had burned up the enemy’s biscuits, is the battle I have the clearest memory of, and the greatest feeling of disgust, at least up until this point. It all seemed to happen slowly, with a neat succession of images burning themselves into my memory.

  That time, the engineers, instead of digging the ditches and building up the earthworks, passed out shovels and guided us in doing so. The ground, I remember, was soft and easy to work with, a fact the engineers never let us forget. The air was dry—almost throat-parching dry—but cold. The sort of cold where any little bump or bruise has an additional sting to it. I hoped we wouldn’t be doing any fighting, but I expected we would, and I was right.

  So we dug a deep ditch and piled up dirt until it reached the height of our chests, and whether our clandestine activities in the night had anything to do with the fact that we were able to finish before they attacked, I don’t know, but I’d like to think so. It makes me feel useful.

  The juice-drum gave the call, “Rubbing Elbows,” which meant to form the line, and we did, under Rascha’s guidance. We were each given three javelins, which we stuck into the ground near us. Rascha had a spyglass, and her first word as she studied the enemy that was just too far away to see with the unaided eye was “Cavalry.” Then she said, “Pass the word for pikes.” Then, almost at once, “No, never mind. They’re reforming.”

  This time Loiosh did not suggest I bug out; he probably didn’t know why I’d stayed in the line last time, any more than I did, but figured there was no help for it and I was just bound and determined to remain for the fight.

  Rascha continued studying their lines, occasionally making aimless gestures with her left hand; I assumed some sort of spell to help her see or to counter any clouding spells the enemy might be using.

  “No cavalry,” said Virt. “You won’t have to fight your own kind yet.”