by Chris Bunch
"I had a letter from a man named Garadice who went north, looking for dragons," Hal said. "He told me the natives were moving south."
"Probably," Quesney agreed. "It gets cold up there, they tell me. And if the Roche are being their usual lovable selves and grabbing everything they can, why should the natives not try to get back some of the stolen land?
"Don't believe me," he said. "Ask around."
"I shall," Hal said. "Now that you've carried your message of woe and stupidity, would you like to hang around the squadron? It might remind you of the old days."
"It might," Quesney said, finishing his drink. "That's what I'm afraid of.
"No. I've done what I said I would, and given you a warning, not about getting yourself killed, but about losing your soul. I'll get the next fishing smack back west, toward Paestum, and then to Deraine."
"And your priesthood?"
Quesney nodded, started for the door.
"You know," he said, "I'm sort of sorry that I changed, or else that things did around us.
"I might have liked serving under you, on a squadron, at one time."
He shook his head.
"Thereby proving that the first loss you have as a dragon flier is what little sense the gods gifted you with."
* * *
The army might have been waiting for the weather to change, but not Hal or his dragons. He took two flights out a day. Not at regular intervals, remembering the idiocy of a certain, now-deceased, squadron commander, who used to send his dragons out like clockwork, so the enemy simply hid under a tree at the appointed hours, then continued on with their tasks.
The flights went out at roughly dawn and dusk.
Each of the new fliers was given a chance to lead a five-finger flight—Hal kept Yasin's formations, since the squadron had begun by using them.
When they came back, each flier was mercilessly grilled about what he had seen, and what went unobserved.
Hal frequently sent one flight out after another, then gave the two formations a chance to compare notes.
And he regularly led not only his own flight, but each of the others, evaluating his men carefully.
He wondered why there weren't any women with the dragons, and decided that either the Roche men were stupid in ignoring potential talent, or, more likely, that Roche women had more sense than to want to tootle around on a monster's back when icicles hung from its carapace.
He always tried to approach the enemy in a direction they weren't expecting, such as a dogleg out to sea from Trenganu, turning northeast for a time, then circling back over the lines, such as they were.
He'd barely taken off one dawn when Cabet, who was flying point, blasted a signal at him and pointed down.
They were just over the beach, and the Northern Sea's waves crashed sullenly below.
Rolling in the surf were the bodies of three dragons.
Hal took Storm lower, flew slowly over the corpses.
They'd been dead for a time, and the seabirds had been at them.
Storm bleated unhappily.
Kailas supposed he didn't like being reminded of his mortality any more than a human did.
These dragons had been sorely wounded, torn and gouged, and the wounds looked to be some months old.
Hal remembered dragons, seen from the battlements of Khiri's castle, below on the water with their wings furled over their bodies, heads tucked out of sight, looking like so many paper boats, being carried from the unknown west by the currents.
Many of them were injured, or young, and behaved as if they were fleeing something.
He wondered again what monsters had sent them into flight, monsters worse than the ominous dragons themselves. Demons, perhaps.
But no one had ever offered a clue.
He pulled Storm up, and the flight went on with its mission.
Three days later, as snow stubbornly refused to fall, although it was freezing, and Hal was very glad he'd chivvied the supply sections for proper warm clothing, they saw something quite unbelievable.
He had led a deep penetration out, and was perhaps two days' flight above Trenganu, flying just a bit inland, over rolling scrub forest.
He was looking down, and caught, in the corner of his eye, movement below.
He looked more closely, saw nothing.
He signaled for his flight to fly in a single line, and took them low.
He was in front, Farren Mariah had the rear.
Four dragons passed over the area without incident, then someone below must have been driven to rashness, and three arrows came up, missing Mariah by yards.
Hal was ready to circle back to see exactly what enemy forces lay below, when he saw, on a hilltop, what looked like an encampment, tents of brown cloth, matching the landscape.
Closer, and he saw men, around smokeless fires.
He chanced going lower, and a javelin came up, touched Storm's forward leg, fell back.
Hal took his flight back up, in a circle, while he shouted orders.
Then they dove back down again, ignoring the arrows, counting the enemy.
"How many barbs did you see?" General Arbala's chief of staff asked.
"I'm not sure," Hal said. "I'd guess about a thousand, maybe two.
"And one hill back was another group of them, maybe a little larger.
"We tried a sweep due east, found three more clusters, tribes maybe."
Arbala looked skeptical.
"We've never heard of the natives grouping up like that," he said.
The chief of staff shook his head.
"Not at all."
One of Arbala's officers laughed. "If they are dumb enough to knot up, they'll be all the easier to kill, now won't they?"
Arbala joined his laughter.
"Spoken like a true firebrand. And you're exactly right. And even if they are there, which I frankly doubt, how long, with the winter coming on, will they be able to hold?
"Savages are savages, and that's why we Roche rule the land!
"In less than a week we'll be ready to take them on… and if they want to stand around and wait, so much the better!"
Hal kept a frozen smile on his face, got out of Arbala's headquarters.
Back at the hall, he assembled the squadron.
"I want every man prepared to move within an hour's notice. That means packs ready, everything not in use in the wagons.
"Every flier is to keep an emergency pack, with rations, water, spare clothes, and a meal of dried meat for the dragons, at hand at all times."
Calt Beoyard came up to him.
"What are you expecting, sir?"
"Everything. Nothing," Hal answered honestly.
Hal feared that the natives might be laying huge ambushes, waiting for the expeditionary force to move out of Trenganu, and memorized what maps there were that showed what lay immediately beyond the town.
His strategic predictions were quite wrong.
Four days later, the barbarians moved first, and came out of the forests, wave after wave of them, with fire and the ax, intending to destroy Trenganu and everyone in it.
10
They came just at false dawn, having silently moved close to Trenganu in the night, in the rain. The sentries weren't expecting an attack, and it was far easier to crouch by a picket fire than walk the rounds.
The outposts and outer guards died to a man, and the natives pressed their attack.
The first Roche out of their barracks were cut down, and then the shouts of battle and men dying roused the town.
General Arbala's staff ran for their posts.
Which was just what the barbarians wanted.
No one ever knew how they figured out where the command center was: if it was magic, a spy among the "tame" natives, or careful reconnaissance.
But earlier that morning, a hand-picked team of barbarians had slipped through the lines, and hidden in one of Trenganu's abandoned shacks.
Seconds after the general arrived at the center, so did the
natives.
They slashed their way through the still half-asleep sentries, killing as they went.
Arbala, his entire staff, and a good percentage of his commanders, as well as more than half of the observers from Roche's army, died in the first few minutes of the battle.
Hal rolled out of his bunk, his mind still asleep, but his well-trained body grabbing for a sword and his pants, wondering with part of his mind why men were so afraid of being naked.
He stuffed his feet into boots, and, bare-chested, ran out of his office, his first thought of the dragons.
They were doing very nicely.
Hal never knew if the natives who went for the dragon stables had been detailed, or were just attacking anything that moved.
It was a very bad mistake.
The barbarians had crashed in the doors of the sheds used for the animals.
Storm, more battle-experienced than most dragons, saw unfriendly men, with weapons.
His long neck snaked out, and he caught two of them in his jaws, and crushed them.
The natives stood frozen in panic at what they'd roused, and Storm's great tail lashed and took three more down.
The rest turned and ran, into the swords of the on-rushing fliers.
There was a brief skirmish, and one flier was down, as were five barbarians.
Somewhere in the melee, Hal lost two more fliers, but then his men were strapping saddles on their mounts, and the dragons were thudding in their takeoff run through the door of the barn.
Storm was angry, wanting to stay on the ground, wanting more of these men who'd disturbed his sleep. Hal wouldn't let him, shouted him into the takeoff.
Hal saw running men, both barbarians in their brown, and men in uniform, and screaming women and children. A wedge of Roche broke through to the dragon sheds, just as Storm lifted into the air.
There were lit torches, and hayricks, and then houses on Trenganu's main street caught fire.
Smoke boiled, and Hal banked back, over the town.
There was chaos below, knots of men fighting, other men running, either toward or away from battle.
There were bodies scattered in the mucky streets, and more barbarians surging forward.
Hal saw a formation of natives, and, behind a barn, about a company of Roche, unaware of the natives, wavering, about to break.
He forced Storm down into a slithering landing in a mudwallow, and was off the dragon.
"You men," he bellowed, "where's your officer?"
"Dead, sir," somebody called back, and Hal noted there was still some discipline left if they could remember to use rank.
"Come on, then," he called, knowing that they wouldn't attack without a leader.
A burly sergeant moved toward him, then another, and then the men were dashing around the barn.
A native screamed when he saw the Roche formation, and then it was a free-for-all. There was a nocked arrow being pointed at Hal, then a spear grew out of the barbarian's chest, bloody point jutting forward.
Hal returned the compliment by blocking an axman aside, spitting him through the ribs, and kicking his sword free.
Another native came in, shouting incoherently, with a spiked club.
Hal knelt, came up as the club started down, and the man's guts spilled over his sword hand, blade buried to the hilt in his attacker's stomach.
He broke free, parried a man's spear thrust with his own spear, finished him off… and then there were no natives to kill.
Someone—Hal never remembered who—told him about Arbala's death.
It didn't mean anything. Hal was slipping into battle frenzy.
A woman, screaming, ran toward him, a child in her arms.
An arrowhead spitted her neck, and she splashed down into the mire.
"Let's go," Hal shouted. "Kill them! Kill them all!"
They ran toward the town's center, broke out into Trenganu's main street, saw a column of natives, and attacked.
The barbarians hesitated, volleyed arrows, and ran.
Hal went after them, caught up with one, and brained him with the pommel of his sword.
Other men were coming out of side streets, forming on Hal's men, without orders, and they pushed forward.
Hal heard a forlorn blatting, looked up, saw Storm overhead, then three other dragons came from nowhere, Mariah and the other Derainians.
Their dragons, better or more lethally trained than Yasin's, needed little guidance, and swooped low, talons reaching, tails whipping, into the back of the barbarian formation, and scythed through the natives.
This time they broke for good, and ran back toward the forest.
Panic took them, and the Roche were on their heels, killing as they went.
Hal had a moment of hope, thinking they'd driven them out of Trenganu for good, then another wave of natives, screaming defiance, came out of the brush toward them.
Hal, giving a needless order, shouted for his men to fall back, not to go in pursuit.
They were already moving back, back into Trenganu's center.
But, and Hal felt a moment of pride and hope, they weren't running, but retreating grimly, slowly, well-trained, experienced soldiers.
There were other men and women with weapons, or overturning carts to block the streets.
Hal wiped blood—not his own, thankfully—from his forehead, had a few seconds to take stock.
As far as anyone knew, he was the senior officer surviving. If any of the "observers" had greater rank, they knew better than to assume command of a disaster.
Kailas muttered an obscenity, then grinned as he thought of Aimard Quesney, who would probably be doubled up in hysterical laughter if he knew the plight Hal had gotten himself into.
The town around him was in flames, wooden buildings exploding, sending balks of timber spinning.
Across the square, he saw civilians, some wounded, some trying to treat the wounded.
There were others, standing, waiting, hopelessness large in their eyes.
At least, he thought, this godsdamned uniform is so drab nobody's running to me screaming for a solution.
So what are you going to do now, Kailas?
Hal spoke the only answer he knew half-aloud, looking up as a disconsolate Storm swooped overhead.
"All right. If we stay here, we'll die. We're going to fight our way out."
11
Kailas was waiting for the second wave of natives to overwhelm the surviving Roche in Trenganu, but they hesitated for a time, perhaps a little shocked at how many casualties they'd taken in the first assault.
Hal didn't care why. He seized the moment, grabbed armed men who looked like they weren't in the depths of panic, snapped orders.
Find ten men you trust, and go back through the town. Herd all the civilians into the square. Bring dry foodstuffs, blankets, warm clothes.
We'll march out at midday.
He chose other men to try to hold a perimeter against the natives when they attacked again.
Farren Mariah was there, and Hal put him in charge of the remaining fliers. Cabet in theory outranked him, but Hal utterly trusted Mariah, and in the madness he wasn't going to take time to give detailed orders. Besides, he had another mission for the ex-flight leader.
Mariah was to make sure the fliers had their emergency supplies, and the unit's wagons were ready to move.
Dump all supplies except weaponry and what was edible, and have the squadron's wagon masters pick up the lame, wounded, halt, and elderly.
Other troops were ordered to collect anything on wheels, and anything from mules to oxen to horses to pull them.
He told Cabet to take a Roche flier as companion, take off and head east, toward the ruins of Lanzi, the nearest outpost of the Roche army, and get a rescue in motion.
Quite suddenly it was midday.
He put that burly sergeant, whose name was Aescendas, and that company he'd briefly led, in charge of the rear guard, told him that if the men broke and ran he'd shove his sword up
every one of their asses, and then think about serious punishment.
The sergeant started to laugh, saw the cold warrior look in Hal's eyes, nodded, and was gone.
An hour later, the survivors of Trenganu moved off, keeping as close to the coast as possible.
Behind them, the flames of the city rose high.
And then it started snowing.
The retreat on that first day was like wading through quicksand, with a nameless monster at your heels.
The barbarians eventually finished looting Trenganu, and started the pursuit.
The only good things that developed were that the rear guard stood fast, not fleeing, but falling back slowly with the retreat; and the natives now had a superstitious fear of the dragons.
Each time Farren or another dragon rider sent his mount diving on the barbarians, they scattered and fled.
But Hal knew that wouldn't last very long.
He wished he had a magician who could produce some sort of spell, like his pebble-to-boulder incantation that had ruined the Roche cities. Or firebottles.
But they had no bottles, and Farren said he hadn't the slightest idea how such a spell could be cast, and even if he knew how, he doubted he had powers enough to do any good.
So they marched on, as the light snowfall continued.
In late afternoon Hal ordered the wagons circled, and all able-bodied men, and the armed civilian women, to report to the perimeter.
He wanted to keep his fighters at full alertness, but knew better, and let half his troops sleep at a time.
The natives tried two half-hearted attacks during the night, both easily driven off.
Hal found himself crouched at a tiny warming fire hidden in a fold of the ground, next to an old man who'd armed himself with a native's bow, with a handful of arrows stuck in his belt.
"Y'know," the man said, trying to make some kind of conversation, "tomorrow, about midday, we should pass by my gran'sire's farm."
Hal made a polite noise, not caring.
"I remember growing up on it, right on the fringes of the frontier."
Interest came, as Kailas remembered what Quesney had told him.
"Then more settlers came, pushed past us, built Trenganu, and started letting daylight in the swamp, as they put it.