The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  She seemed, for the moment, oblivious of his eyes, and he forced himself to look away every time she turned her head toward him.

  He was surprised to find his antelope haunch gnawed to the bone.

  She had finished her meal, tossed the bone far out on to the plain.

  He found a leaf, wiped his greasy, half-grown beard clean, wished he'd brought a razor.

  Kimana was staring at him.

  Hal had been married, had certainly been with his share of women, but still found himself blushing.

  Kimana giggled, got up, went to the spring, and washed out her mouth.

  She went back to her bedroll, which Hal realized had been laid out, with his next to it.

  She lay back, one knee slightly raised.

  Hal thought her the most lovely thing he'd ever seen.

  His body agreed.

  Kimana gurgled laughter.

  "Come here, you silly… but clean… man."

  He obeyed.

  Both moons were high in the sky when sleep finally took them.

  Hal would have liked to have lazed in Kimana's arms the next day, making love from time to time.

  But he was a soldier. Of sorts, at least.

  And so, muttering inaudibly, he spanked her awake, thinking of other pastimes that could arrive from such a beginning, and they broke camp.

  They moved on, deeper into the plains lands.

  They encountered scattered grazing buffalo, saw no sign of the catlike predators.

  The buffalo were even larger than they'd looked from the air, and they made sure not to come close to any of them, especially if they had calves.

  The sky was overcast, muttering.

  Hal's hair was on end, and then thunder crashed as ball lightning rolled across the sky toward them.

  "For those trees," Hal shouted.

  They broke into a trot for a distant grove.

  Hal saw the buffalo starting to move.

  They were walking, then running, massing up into a herd, and charging toward the two humans.

  There was no way they could make the trees, even if the spindly things were strong enough to climb.

  And Hal remembered what he'd learned about going to a high point, or a high tree, when lightning was about.

  He also remembered something a herder boy had told him, forgotten years ago.

  "Stop!" he called.

  Kimana, just in front of him, obeyed, although she gave him a look as though she thought him utterly mad.

  "What are you doing?"

  "We're going to stand here."

  "And get trampled?"

  "Cattle won't run over you if you're standing still. They'll run right past us."

  "Who told you that?"

  Hal lied. "Common knowledge. And I used to herd cows, when I was a boy."

  "I don't believe you," Kimana said. But she came close.

  She had her eyes closed.

  Hal looked at the oncoming herd, their stretching horns, realized the herder hadn't said anything about what stampeding cattle did with their godsdamned horns.

  He, too, closed his eyes.

  The rush of hoofs became thunder, impossibly loud, louder than what was going on in the skies, and then they were buried by it, roaring on either side.

  And then it was gone.

  Hal opened his eyes in swirling dust and the overpowering smell of cow shit.

  "I'll be dipped," he said, in considerable surprise.

  Kimana looked at him.

  "You were lying."

  "Well…"

  That was the fifteenth day.

  It was about midday, and they were moving through tall grass, broken by copses of thorn trees, when Kimana saw movement ahead.

  It was what they'd feared most—the grass moving like a long wave.

  And it was headed in their direction.

  Hal pointed back, toward the closest grove, and they ran hard for it.

  He glanced over his shoulder, knowing better, knowing that slowed him down.

  The grass was moving faster.

  Hal didn't think he could run any harder than he was. He was wrong.

  Whatever was chasing them was only a dozen yards behind as Kimana reached the first tree. Hal threw her up into it bodily and swarmed after her, ignoring the long thorns that ripped at him.

  He reached the first crotch, less than a dozen feet above the ground. Kimana was above him.

  She was staring past him, at the ground, and suddenly screamed.

  Hal had his crossbow off his shoulder, and turned, almost falling, and triggered a bolt down.

  He didn't see what he was shooting at, didn't want or need to. He worked the crossbow's action, sent two more bolts down, as Kimana fired, too.

  There was a hiss, more like a screech, and then the grass was moving away, zigging here, there, and gone.

  "What was it?" Hal panted.

  "It… it was a snake," Kimana managed. "I think. But it had stubby arms with claws."

  They waited a few minutes, but the monster didn't come back. Kailas thought it might be more dangerous to stay where they were than to keep going.

  They came down from the tree, feeling the pain of far more thorns than they'd felt going up.

  For the rest of the day, they zigged from grove to grove, ready to flee if the beast, or his friends, came back.

  But nothing happened.

  They bolted the last of their iron rations just under the tallest tree they could spot, and then climbed as high as they could and wrapped themselves in their blankets, spending an uncomfortable, but safe, night.

  The seventeenth day was a day of heartbreak.

  They were moving fast, on mostly open ground, and saw a pair of dragons.

  Hal glassed them, and saw they weren't the enemy, and, though they were at quite a distance, that both dragons looked to have riders.

  They came out into the open, waved, even foolishly shouted.

  But the dragons kept on flying away from them.

  Hal, in desperation, dug in his pack, found his flint and steel.

  He struck them desperately, but the sparks flew into still-live grass, and the fire didn't catch.

  He didn't know if that would have turned the dragons in any event, but he sagged in defeat as the two monsters vanished into the afternoon haze.

  That night they camped by a small river, and Hal shot a pair of large fish.

  But neither of them had much appetite.

  They made love in misery, in desperation, and finally fell asleep.

  The next day, they saw, rising in the distance, the coastal mountains, and allowed themselves a moment of hope.

  Then Hal noticed billowing high clouds rolling in from the south, from the ocean. The rain came down in sheets, and they tried to push on through it. But the winds grew stronger, and the rain heavier, and they were forced to find shelter in a thick grove, afraid of what they might encounter in the near-total darkness.

  They barely slept, and, still in the dark of the nineteenth day, went on, almost running.

  But just after dawn, four pairs of the red and blacks appeared, and they had to hide.

  The dragons, as if knowing the humans were somewhere below them, swept back and forth, only flying off in the late afternoon.

  Kimana and Hal went on until well after nightfall, moving by moonlight, and were into the foothills when they collapsed from exhaustion.

  The twentieth day took them into the mountains.

  Hal found a pass leading due east that was smooth, and promised easy traveling.

  Then, after two hours, the pass turned north, and ended in a blank wall.

  They had to go back for an hour before they could find a scramble to the top of a ridge, and the ridge led on toward the blue glimmer of the ocean.

  On the twenty-first day, the last day the ships were to still be waiting, they came down out of the mountains. Below them was the bay the expedition had hidden in, less than an hour's travel distant.

  They coul
d barely keep from running, and, well before twilight, crested the last low ridge, the bay fingering out below them.

  There was only one ship, and its masts were canted at an angle.

  As they grew closer, they recognized the Compass Rose, one of their fast corvettes, yards drooping and bowsprit smashed.

  The ship was wrecked, dashed against rocky outcrop-pings at the water's edge.

  The bay was otherwise empty, with not another ship to be seen.

  They had been abandoned.

  29

  Illogically, but quite understandably, they ran to the water's edge, not knowing what they hoped to find—a message, a map, a clue, something.

  But there was nothing, except marks where boats had been beached, then launched once more.

  Farther down the beach lay the wreck of the Compass Rose. It needed no seaman's eye to tell that it could never be repaired and refloated.

  Hal's heart was completely empty, as was his mind.

  Kimana raised her eyes, and they were hard, dry.

  "The bastards left us here to rot," she said fiercely.

  Then the shout came, and they both spun.

  Coming out of thick brush up from the water were two men: Hachir, and Hal's longtime orderly, Uluch.

  Hal could find nothing more intelligent to say than, "You didn't leave us."

  "No," Hachir said. "We didn't. But some others did."

  "None of us who want to fight ran away," Uluch said.

  He was looking over his shoulder, up at the skies. "Come on, sir," he said. "Those devils are still about."

  Hachir collected himself.

  "Yes," he said. "We've only kept this watch out of… well, hope that you were still with us… and coming."

  "What happened?" Hal asked.

  Uluch didn't answer, but led them up the beach, taking care to drag his feet so the marks in the sand didn't look like footprints. He took them to solid ground, then, keeping close to brush, to a draw that sloped upward.

  The draw widened, and in its center was a small camp, concealed by scrub brush and low trees. There were camouflaged canvas tents, a small smokeless fire, and some fifteen men and half a dozen women.

  Two men kept watch with crossbows.

  Hal saw some of his best: Farren Mariah, Bodrugan, one of his acolytes, four of his fliers, including Hachir, others.

  He counted the missing: Garadice, Quesney, Cabet, Miletus, among others.

  "Bigods, bigobs," Mariah said. "Now you're here, and the show can begin."

  "If someone will tell me what the hells happened…" Hal began.

  There was a clamor.

  The loudest came from Mariah:

  "The bartarts went and mutinied on us."

  Hal sat down heavily on a log.

  "Shit," he said. "Guapur Hagi?"

  "At the head," Mariah said. "Other fainthearts."

  "I should've hanged him before I left," Hal said grimly. "What're the details?"

  Hagi had begun plotting even before Hal had left with the others on his long scout, finding sympathetic listeners among watch officers and soldiery.

  He had presented his case skillfully—this was not so much a simple mutiny, as a protest against Hal's pighead-edness in hot returning to Deraine at once, with the awful news of this land full of danger and the evil, almost sentient, dragons.

  King Asir should be warned as soon as possible, so he had time to mount a proper expedition or… or whatever he wished to do.

  Why Kailas chose to tarry on in this treacherous land was unknown.

  Hagi's men passed harsh whispers about Hal's desire to save his own reputation, besmirched as it had been by his adventures with the Roche.

  When Quesney and Mariah came back, with word of the ambush, the stories changed a little.

  Of course Hal—and that woman with him—must be dead. If not by dragon, then by the horrid monsters of this unknown land.

  And with Mariah's report of the dragons that weren't, bursting into flames like nightmare apparitions, that was almost enough.

  The capper was the great storm. During the blow, the Compass Rose had dragged its anchor, and gone on the rocks. Its captain and half its crew were killed trying to save their ship.

  "The muttoneers must've had their plans ready," Farren Mariah said. "Sheep-shaggers that they are."

  The mutineers had moved at dawn, and before anyone could do anything, all five ships were in their hands.

  Of the missing fliers, Mariah was sure that Cabet, Quesney, Miletus, and Garadice must be unwilling prisoners.

  That made Hal feel a tiny bit better, that he wasn't a complete fool at judging men.

  Those who refused to follow Hagi had had but a single chance to flee into the undergrowth with what they could carry.

  "It was only that monster Chook who made them set food, canvas, and weapons out for us," Mariah said. "None of the fliers who wanted to stay were listened to.

  "And we could hear from the shore Hagi refusing to let us have any of the dragons, the shitheel.

  "We could hear our monsters howling, knowing something was wrong.

  "So they sailed away, leaving us to die," he finished. "Which thus far, we haven't done, no credit to his worthless ass."

  "And we've got what was aboard the Compass Rose," Hachir said. "Some dry foodstuffs, and a decent arsenal. Bows, some crossbows, enough spare quarrels for an army. No quartermaster supplies, which is why we're all looking a bit raggedy."

  "Probably," one of the rangers said bitterly, "the king'll send somebody back in ten, twenty years, and find our skeletons, all dragon-chewed, and they'll put up a monument to us."

  Hal tried not to look at the eager faces who were sure the Dragonmaster would come up with something clever that would save their lives and bring them back, in triumph, to Deraine.

  He could think of nothing.

  Go to ground and wait? With the creatures of this land stalking them?

  Build rafts and sail to the Hnid, the sea people? And what then? Would they somehow help them build some kind of boat capable of the ocean passage? Maybe. That, so far, was the best impossible option.

  And if they did build boats, what was to keep the red and blacks from attacking them when they were afloat?

  Capture wild dragons and flee on them? The only man really skilled at taming dragons was Garadice, who was with the mutineers. Hal himself had only long-ago memories of taming half-wild creatures.

  He could think of absolutely nothing that offered salvation.

  30

  With his worries, Hal thought he'd sleep hardly at all. But just knowing he was safe… or, at any rate safer than he'd been out on the plains, surrounded by armed, friendly warriors, instead of being with just Kimana in the wilderness, swept over him like a welcome comforter, and he slept dreamlessly until just after dawn.

  Kimana was curled next to him, and woke when he did.

  They wandered down toward the water.

  There was a sentry there, watching for dragons.

  They washed, came back.

  Kimana took his hand. Hal felt a bit uncomfortable, but no one made any notice, other than Farren Mariah, who muttered, " 'Bout damned time."

  They ate well—some of the soldiers had unstrung clothing for the threads, and tied gill nets. Others had rocked the rabbitlike creatures and shot the small antelope.

  Hal missed bread, thought himself a sybarite.

  He thought more on what they could do to survive.

  The first step was easy—get away from the water. The land was too open, and Kailas thought the red and black dragons would certainly spot them in time, no matter how careful their precautions.

  And the wreck of the Compass Rose would draw the demons' attention even more strongly.

  As far as escape went… nothing came.

  Nor did he have any ideas about striking back.

  So much, he was thinking, for Great, Inspired Leadership, when two of the sentries gave alarm.

  Dragons, approachi
ng from the east.

  Everyone found weapons and cover.

  There were four of them, three being ridden, two with double riders.

  No need to keep guard—red and blacks had no riders.

  The men and women burst into the open, shouting, waving, and the dragons circled for a landing.

  Hal saw the empty-saddled monster in front, recognized him.

  Storm.

  Somehow… but explanations would be for later.

  The dragon thudded down, and Hal had his arms around the reeking beast's neck, and it larruped him with its tongue.

  Kailas couldn't speak for a moment, then recovered.

  The men were Aimard Quesney, Cabet, Lu Miletus, Garadice, and Chook, the cook.

  "Thought it was about time for us to come back," Quesney said, trying to be casual as he slid from the saddle.

  "Godsdamned well escaped," shouted Chook. "Th' fools went and turned their back, and we were gone."

  That, in fact, was just what had happened.

  Sort of.

  The guard aboard the Galgorm Adventurer had gotten careless, and Chook had his cleaver. Once before the massive cook had shown his talents, before Hal had known him, when some attacking Roche had made the mistake of invading his kitchen, and had died to a man.

  Now Chook had been biding his time, and saw it.

  The guard died, as did his watchmate. Chook bashed open the compartment the still-recalcitrant fliers had been locked in, and they found weapons, and seized the watch.

  "There weren't enough of us to take the ship back," Quesney said.

  "But we locked the watch below," Cabet added. "And set the dragons loose. Saddled four of them, even though your mount wouldn't let anybody on his back.

  "We were trying to decide what to do next, when somebody on the Bohol sensed something wrong.

  "They had the odds, and so we fled, after grabbing what gear we could."

  "None of the other fliers—even those that'd gone along with Hagi—were bold enough to come after us," Lu Miletus said.

  "And we thought it was time to see what you were about," Garadice added.

  "Poorly," Farren Mariah said. "Poorly-roarly, until just now."

  "And now what?" a soldier asked.

  "Now," Hal said, "now we can fight back."

  It had come to him in a flash, as all the pieces arrived.

  At least, so he hoped.