by Chris Bunch
Our cities, our islands, were now outposts to warn against danger.
We built huge rafts, put wind-catchers on them, and sailed west, leaving only the best and bravest on our frontiers.
Now it was time to give up the sea.
We built, on the edges of the western lands, more cities, and, from these, we explored into the land.
There were huge beasts. Some we fought, others were no threat, in spite of their size.
The Hnid stood brave.
Now the world was ours.
Now the elements were ours to worship, but also to serve us.
There was nothing but good around us, and we were the world's masters.
But wise ones thought that we had come too far, too fast, and there was a nameless doom in store.
We laughed at them, hut our mirth was hollow.
I wonder.
There was silence, and Hal's dream gave him no images, but in the background, very quietly, was the hiss of breaking waves.
Then another voice came:
Oh Malvestin, you spoke truth, for now is the tale of the downfall of the Hnid.
I am Quarsted, also a recorder, but of the people, not of those who called themselves kings, and ruled with no thought for the morrow and brought our people to grief.
We forsook the sea for the land, and our bodies changed, our lower limbs growing longer and with greater strength.
We settled the edges of the great land, pushed inland. Now our people sought things other than food and shelter.
Now the glitters that mountain streams held became precious, as did other baubles worn by our mates.
We, the Hnid, ruled the world.
Or so we thought.
And then it changed.
There had been dragons, winged snakes, in the skies when we found this new land, and at first we feared them greatly, for we saw them fight against the monsters of the land, and truly they were great warriors.
But they made only a few attempts against us, and so we forgot about them, since there were worse enemies closer at hand, the ferocious beasts of the forests and savannas.
And then it changed.
Our scouts reported a new sort of dragon in the skies. These were red and black, far larger than any we'd seen before.
We saw them attack the other dragons as if they were two different breeds, fighting wars to the death, and driving the older dragons out of the choicer roosting places.
And then they turned against us.
They acted as if they were at least as wise as we were, working in pairs, or trios, or greater forces against us.
They would attack our settlements, fighting from the air until they found an advantage, then landing, as if they were ground beings, and fighting with their deadly claws, fangs, and tails.
We could not hold against them.
And so we fell back, from the mountains to the plains, using the rivers to move at night, very grateful that our bodies still held a bit of the scorned water-love.
We fell back and back, to our great towns along the coasts.
Even here these savage dragons attacked us, over and over, even by night.
We drew closer together, and fought as best we could. But that best was not enough, and now the land, and the cities we had built were no longer guardians, but traps for us.
Again, we retreated to the water, and, in time, gave up the mainland.
Our mother, the sea, welcomed us back, although she should have scorned us, and once again, our bodies changed, back to what they were before.
We did not need legs, we did not need deep thoughts, and so the sea took them from us as her price for safety.
Our minds grew torpid, dull, needing little more than the power to feed and shelter ourselves.
We Hnid retreated to our outpost islands, and the tall trees that had grown up on them were woven together to give our cities cover, for the huge dragons still attacked us without mercy.
No one knew why they struck against us, for we meant them no harm, could do little damage to these nightmares from the skies.
No one knew why they fought against what should have been their brothers, attacking without mercy. We saw dragons hard struck, wounded, fleeing to the east, and knew not what shelter they would find.
The snake beings returned from the depths to savage us.
Our mates saw little good in breeding, and so, as the years go past, there are fewer and fewer Hnid born, and fewer of those surviving to become adults.
Now we are as we began.
Woe is ours, woe unto the tenth generation.
All is ended for my people, I fear.
The gods or whatever greater beings there are, if there are any, help us, and those who come and hear our tale take warning for their own lives and the lives of their people.
25
Hal awoke, fighting back tears and rage for the people, the Hnid, of his dreams.
He splashed water on his face from a bucket, opened a port and let the warm dawn wind take away the memories of his dream.
If it was a dream.
He washed, cleaned his teeth, dressed, and left his cabin for the deck.
He didn't want to speak to anyone until he'd recovered, but Kimana Balf was at the taffrail, staring down at the ship's wake, her face grim.
"And don't you look cheery," he managed.
"Don't rag me. Sir," she said. "I didn't sleep well."
Hal started to pass by, then stopped.
"You dreamed?"
"And never want to again," she said.
"Tell me about it," he said.
She pursed her lips, said nothing.
Hal took the lead, and told her of his dream, of Malvestin and Quarsted, and the rise and fall of the Hnid.
Balf jolted.
"I, too, dreamed of the Hnid. But my singers were female, and I don't recollect their names."
"I think," Hal said, after considering, "that we had best consult Limingo. This is most odd."
It grew more strange.
Limingo, Bodrugan, and their two assistants had also had the same visions, with small differences.
"Very strange indeed," Limingo said. "And, if it's a vision, the strangest thing is the way the Hnid change—or are changed—in a few generations."
"Not necessarily," Bodrugan said. "I've read of a lizard, in the far south, which can shed its legs and become a snake when it is dry, or grow flippers if the rains are heavy."
"Still…" Limingo let his voice trail off while he thought. "It would seem, though, that the Hnid can hardly be considered men."
"I care little of that," Hal said. "But I think we ought to summon the officers of all four ships for a conference. And the fliers."
"I agree," Limingo said, and flags were hoisted, and boats rowed across to the Galgortn.
The officers assembled in the huge wardroom, and Hal told of the dream, and Limingo that he believed this was hardly a dream, but a true vision.
There were nervous stirs at that. No one said anything for a few moments, then Guapur Hagi, captain of the Bohol Adventurer, looked at Hal and cleared his throat nervously.
"I think… without meaning to sound like a poltroon… that this dream, assuming the wizards are right and it's the truth… means we should turn back to Deraine.
"For I, too, have dreamed this dream of sorrow and punishment of the gods."
There was muttered anger from a few, and agreement about having dreamed as well from others.
Hal held up his hand for silence, then asked, calmly, "Why?"
"Because, well, this sounds like these red and black dragons have some kind of state or something," Hagi said. "I think we are possibly being foolish, and continuing into what might be a trap.
"Or that we could be outnumbered.
"I think," he said, gaining confidence, "we should advise the king of what we've discovered so far, and see what he wants to do.
"Maybe try to make peace, or fit out some kind of expedition or something."
&
nbsp; "We are the expedition," Hal said.
"I meant, like a fleet, with a lot more soldiers."
"As yet," Hal said, "we don't have enough information to do that."
"I think we ought to put it to a vote," Hagi said.
"No," Hal said, and his voice carried steel.
"This is not a village conclave. You people put yourselves under my command, which the king himself trusted me to hold.
"There is nothing that gives you the right to question me whenever you want, whenever things go awry. We came on this expedition because we wanted to experience and explore the unknown, and that is what we are facing.
"As you are my officers, I take what you say under advisement, just as I listen to the other men and women, and reach a decision from there.
"No more, no less.
"Now, if no one has anything to add," Hal finished, "this meeting is over. Return to your ships, and we sail on."
There were some mutters, but the officers behaved.
Farren Mariah caught Hal on deck.
"That, maybe, wasn't the brightest thing you've ever done, you know. You maybe should not have held this meeting, and let those dreams go unspoken and remain secret nightmares."
Hal made a face.
"I think you could be right."
"And I think Captain Hagi needs a bit of a watch over," Mariah said. "Or perhaps an anchor stone around his feet before he's given swimming lessons."
"Maybe."
But Hal made no order, and the ships raised their anchors, sailed out of the friendly lagoon, and went on, into the west.
Now land rose all around them, but not the solid mass of Hal's dreams.
It was as if they'd entered a river delta, except the water was salt. There were dozens, then hundreds, of tiny islets, growing into larger islands.
Some were swampy, little more than trees whose roots were submerged at high tide, and monstrous serpents, and legged fish that could leave the water inhabited the darkness between them.
Others were grassy hillocks, with tiny deerlike creatures bounding on them, and lithe cats to prey on the deer.
Some of the Hnid swam in the ships' wakes for a time, as if ordered to follow the expedition and report on its fate.
The passages were narrower, sometimes choked with vines, so the men had to kedge back out, and, cursing, find a new way.
Their progress zigged back and forth, and it was hard to hold to that westerly course.
The air was sweet, as the smell of dozens of spices hung around them, spices with no known equal.
"A woman could make a fortune here," Kimana Balf mused. "One cargo of these spices… whatever they are… brought back to Deraine, and you'd live in silk."
"True enough," Aimard Quesney said. "If the dragons let you."
The red and blacks were still up there, keeping their post, making no threat to the ships.
Yet.
Hal, a little worried they were off their course to the still-unseen mainland, took Storm up high.
The watching dragons paid little mind to the single monster and its rider, save to move somewhat west.
Hal went as high as he could, until Storm was panting, and he himself sucking for air, and looked west.
Dimly, on the horizon, the "delta" ended, and the seas opened once more.
Spices still hung close as they sailed on.
But now the islands were somewhat kempt, as if a gardener, albeit a careless one, was minding them.
They saw small huts along the water, but they were empty.
Then, one day, a seaman on watch saw the natives: they were like the monkeys men had brought back from the south, tailed, furry.
But they lived in the huts, and were seen with leaf packs.
What was in them was theorized to be spices.
But who, if anyone, they were gathering them for was never known.
Hal ordered boats launched, and tried to make peace with the apes, if apes they were.
But the animals would have nothing to do with Men, and so the expedition went on.
Then the islands changed, and were wild and uninhabited once more.
Hal saw the reason: great lizards, almost the length of one of the dispatch boats, that hissed menace when they saw the ships.
Hal sounded an alert, and armed sailors lined the rails, their weapons ready.
But none of these earthbound dragons did more than menace, and flash their foot-long fangs.
There had been no war so far between the expedition and the red and black dragons.
This changed.
As a pair of dragon fliers were taking off, just after dawn, one of the wild dragons dove, talons extended.
There were shouts of warning from the ships, but the fliers evidently didn't hear.
The red and black caught one rider by the shoulders, plucked him from his saddle, and threw him into the ocean.
He didn't surface.
The two wild dragons climbed back to their heights, and continued circling.
After the shock subsided, Hal stood on the afterdeck of the Galgorm Adventurer, staring up.
Farren Mariah came to him.
"I think," he said grimly, "we ought to think about taking it to the enemy now, for enemy they've proven themselves, for unwarranted liberties."
"Yes," Hal agreed. "Time and time past."
26
The plan was mounted cunningly.
Long before dawn, Hal and Farren Mariah turned out, and moved silently to the Galgorm's landing barge. Handlers brought out their dragons.
Although they wanted to protest, the two dragons were manhandled overside into the water, where they bobbed like cunningly carved corks in the light swells.
They decided they didn't mind the bath in these nice tropical seas as their riders clambered into their saddles.
The ships sailed on past them.
After a time, lights were turned on aboard the ships, almost on the horizon by this time, and sailors began preparing, quite loudly, for an early launch.
As they did, Hal and Mariah gigged their dragons into a splashing run that took them aloft.
Circling, they climbed for altitude, hoping the watching dragons' attention was fixed on what was going on around the fleet.
They climbed very high, gifting themselves with a private sunrise as they ascended.
Below them, in the lightening night, they could make out the dots that were the watching dragons, and below them, the ships.
There were trumpet blasts from the fleet below, and Miletus and Quesney, as arranged, made ready to take off.
Hal signaled to Farren Mariah, and the two dragons went into a steep dive.
On the Bohol Adventurer, Hachir and his partner also moved their dragons down to the takeoff barge.
The red and blacks were less than five hundred feet below.
Hal cocked his crossbow.
Miletus and Quesney's dragons thundered across their barge, and into the air.
Hal shot the first red and black from above, less than a hundred feet distant, aiming just between the shoulder blades.
The monster contorted, squealed in surprise, as Farren Mariah shot his partner in the wing.
Hal reloaded, fired into the neck of his targeted dragon as Storm dropped past then, on command, flared his wings and braked.
Farren Mariah sent his second bolt into the other wild dragon's throat as he dropped past it.
Below, the other dragons were airborne—but there was nothing for them to do but circle as the two red and blacks, still struggling, seconds apart, crashed into the ocean.
Neither of them came back to the surface.
Farren Mariah yodeled happily.
Hal did not. He swore he'd seen a flash of flame as one dragon hit the water, which made no sense. It must have been a trick of the rising sun. He forgot about it. They'd taken the first step. The second was soon to follow.
Half a day later, the second trap was set and sprung.
Hal and Farren Mariah
had landed, and they and their dragons fed. They waited impatiently until a glass before the now-dead dragons should be relieved, then took off once more.
This time, both dragons carried packs with iron rations and drink for the men, and smoked lamb carcasses for themselves, in case this flight took too long.
There was a high haze, perfect for what Hal wanted.
He and Mariah again climbed high, and flew west and north, until the ships were mere dots almost on the horizon.
They flew in wide circles, waiting.
Hal kept watching the masthead of the Galgorm Adventurer. He'd ordered the officer of the deck to signal when his glass showed it was time for the dragon relief to appear.
The banner was finally run up the mast, and, on cue, a pair of red and black dragons appeared from the west.
Hal and Mariah were far above and north of them, mere dots in the sky, hopefully hidden in the haze. But Hal took his partner behind a cloud as the dragons looked for the watch they were to relieve, and saw nothing.
He heard, from below, squawks of what he assumed was surprise, dismay, as the wild dragons saw no fellows awaiting relief.
He flew Storm to the wispy limits of the cloud, saw the dragons below turn back east. Clearly reporting the absence of their fellows was more important than keeping watch on the slow-sailing ships.
Holding altitude, trying to keep between the sun and the red and blacks below, Hal and Mariah followed the wild dragons.
Hal took compass readings as they flew, but the red and blacks held a straight course.
Very unusual—wild dragons, in Hal's experience, zigged across the landscape as they went, distracted by curiosity and appetite.
But not these two.
Ahead of them rose an unknown mass of land from the sea—jagged cliffs here and there, but mostly low coastline.
Unknown to Hal the man… but not to his dream-dragon. There was the flashing thrill of home, seen once, never to be more than a reverie in the land between sleeping and waking.
Hal was trying to keep his mind on his mission, but he couldn't suppress a thrill, realizing that he was certainly the first Derainian, perhaps the first man, to see this unexplored land.
He forced that thought aside, concentrated on the job at hand.
The dragons made for one of the cliffs.