The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  All he needed now was the luck of the gods.

  * * *

  First, he took Garadice aside, asked him how long it would take to train a dragon.

  "You mean a yearling, fresh-hatched, or an old, incorrigible sort?"

  "Yearling. We don't have time for either a young one or an old fart."

  Garadice considered.

  "Rideable, unless it's the cantankerous sort, perhaps a month. Fightable… twice that. Capable of holding a formation—"

  "We won't need that," Hal interrupted. "There's not enough of us to make a formation."

  "Now," Garadice asked, "how are we to catch these dragons?"

  "A mere piffance," Hal said, waving his hand with an airy manner he didn't feel at all.

  Next was Bodrugan. Hal told him everything he knew or suspected about the red and blacks.

  "If these dragons aren't dragons—"

  "Which I agree with, from what you've said about them bursting into flame," the magician said.

  "Then what are they? Demons?"

  "I won't use the word demons," Bodrugan said, a bit pedantically. "For, after all, demons are only forces from beyond, from other realms, whom we haven't been able to master, as yet.

  "I would choose to use the term elemental spirits, perhaps."

  "Elemental?" Hal asked. "Like in earth, wind, water, fire?"

  "Just so," Bodrugan said.

  "That means they're very powerful?"

  "They are that," the wizard agreed. "But also easy—or, rather, relatively easy—to force your will upon, since any creature with that innate power will almost certainly be self-confident. Like people are.

  "From the elements, back to the elements."

  "So you can handle them?"

  "I don't know about handling," the magician said cautiously.

  "Kill them, then."

  "Kill them… exploding them… is obviously possible. Wiping them completely out may be almost impossible. Perhaps bringing them under control can be attempted. Or sending them back to whatever realm they came from. Would that be acceptable?"

  "If you could devise a spell that would do that… and keep the bastards from coming back again, hopefully ever, that would be more than enough," Hal said.

  "I can attempt to devise such a spell," Bodrugan said. "I'm sure I can come up with something that might be helpful. But whether I can work great magic is another matter entirely."

  He looked up at the sky.

  "I do wish," he said, a bit wistfully, "Limingo hadn't gone and gotten himself killed."

  It would take time to create a striking force, time that Hal certainly didn't have.

  But he had no other options.

  The first step, as he'd figured earlier, was to get away from the coast. There would be nothing gained by staying here.

  Hagi and the other ships had been well toward the lands of the Hnid when the mutiny against the mutiny had taken place. It would be months before they reached Deraine, and the tale they would have rehearsed by then would certainly prevent another expedition from arriving within a year, if then.

  The first stage was cautious scouting for a new base.

  It was a pure joy for Hal to be aloft again, especially over land he'd struggled across so recently.

  He sent scouts, including himself, to the south, with exact details on what to look for.

  Farren Mariah found their new home, and Hal thought, after considering it critically, it was just about perfect.

  It took little time to get ready to move. They would make packs of the Compass Rose's supplies, cache what they couldn't carry, and the ground troops would march off toward the new camp.

  The dragons would shuttle the men and women from the march to the base, since it was at least four days' journey distant.

  There was one more to come.

  He arrived in somewhat regal style.

  The sentries reported a boat headed toward them.

  It was a very small craft, a Hnid net carrier.

  This boat carried one human:

  Babil Gachina, the thief, Hal's one-time cellmate.

  He stood, arms folded like a triumphant prince, in the prow of the tiny boat, very much aware of the impression he was making.

  The boat was being towed by a dozen Hnid.

  Hal was wondering what the hells had happened, recollected what awe the Hnid had for Gachina's size, when the boat touched bottom, pitching Gachina into the shallows in a most inglorious arrival.

  Men helped him up, and he waded to shore, not forgetting to turn and bow to his servants, if servants they were.

  He asked for fish, and men hurried to bring them to him.

  The fish were pitched to the Hnid, who took them, and without ceremony swam back out to sea, towing the boat with them.

  Hal told Gachina to tell his story, and it was quite a tale:

  It had been two nights after the mutiny against the mutiny.

  "All was quiet, all was still," Babil said, and Hal knew that, if Gachina survived the expedition, he'd never have to live as a thief again, but could make a most comfortable living as a tavern tale-teller. "And they struck from nowhere, fiends from all the hells, screaming like damned souls…"

  To cut through the barroom panoply, the mutineers' five ships had been becalmed, just beyond the skein of tiny islands before the Hnid's lands, when the dragons came out of the night.

  Gachina had no idea what had summoned them, but there were "thousands" of them. He admitted to Hal, later, that he hadn't counted exactly, but there'd been at least fifty.

  They attacked from out of the larger, waning moon, and there was only a yelp of warning from one sentry before the dragons were on them.

  The large crossbows on the masts stupidly weren't manned, and so the dragons were able to swoop along the decks, tearing at men as they stumbled out of their quarters.

  One dragon became entangled in the BohoVs sails, and, accidentally, it seemed, brought the ship over on a hard list. Another lit on its foremast, which was standing at an angle, and the top-heavy ship capsized.

  Drowning dragons and men screamed into the night, and then the Galgorm caught fire.

  "Odd that," Gachina said, "because as it flamed up, the dragons seemed to veer away from it, as though flame was their greatest fear, and tore instead at the other ships."

  Babil tried a tale of his heroism, but caught Hal's eye, and told what might have been close to the truth:

  He came on deck on the Bohol just as it went over, ducked a dragon, saw Hagi ripped in half by a pair of the monsters, and dove overside.

  The two frigates were being attacked by the dragons, "bit by bit, the wood ripped off, like peeling a fruit," and Babil stayed low in the water.

  He heard more screams, then silence, and he kept down, and then there was silence for a long time.

  The sun came up, and there was nothing living and no ships afloat. He was surrounded by bodies and debris, floating dragons and men.

  "Then, after a time, the fish people found me, and took me to one of their islands, and gave me food, and then a boat, and brought me here."

  Gachina's tale brought the satisfaction of just retribution for most, but Hal saw the expression on Kimana's face, and knew it matched his own:

  Now there wasn't even the vaguest possibility of a rescue expedition for years.

  He was even more shaken to realize that these demons, fifty or seventy or however many there were, could destroy five ships and several hundred men, and all but wipe out the expedition.

  31

  Four days' march to their new base equaled a day and a half's leisurely flight, as the dragons carried marchers as they went.

  A few chose to stay afoot, Babil Gachina among them, and Hal, having things on his mind, didn't wonder about them.

  The valley was, indeed, just about perfect. It jutted off to the west of a deep canyon, and its walls zigged so that it appeared to come to a blind end near its opening.

  It was keyhole-shaped, half a le
ague at its widest, two leagues long. The long base of the keyhole was sparsely covered with grass, spare enough that the revolutions of the dragons they hoped to capture and train wouldn't mark the land for overhead observers.

  One side of the keyway was a nearly sheer cliff, pocked with caves both small and large, ideal for dragon shelters. The other side was thickly forested.

  Hal planned to steal an idea from the Hnid, and have his men bend the trees over, lash them to either their fellows or to the ground, and so roof the area.

  All of his women and men were shuttled to the valley without being observed by any dragons, either the red and black spirits or the "real" beasts of the land.

  Farren Mariah asked Garadice how they'd go about training the dragons. He grinned wickedly, and said, "I'd tell, but you won't like it, so I'd rather you lived in a bit of suspense."

  "Suspense, harness, business," Mariah moaned. "Now I know I won't like it."

  Hal was about to look for a cave for his quarters when Kimana announced she'd already found their living area.

  It was a cave with a small entrance that broadened into three chambers:

  "Conference room, living room, bedroom," she named them. "A bend between each of them, so we've a measure of privacy."

  Hal could do little but agree.

  A tropical storm raged that night, and Hal listened to the rain cascade down outside the cave. He thought of his palaces and mansions back in Deraine, decided he'd rather be here, then called himself a fool for thinking that.

  He then considered that it was Kimana's presence that made the difference. Realizing he hadn't gone mad yet, he reached for her, across their bed of piled rushes with blankets atop and below.

  Sated, Kimana fell asleep in his arms. Hal was just drifting off as well when a thought came, left him helplessly awake. The thought led to a question that he'd pushed away before, but now it loomed very large.

  And better, or worse, he thought he might have a way to find an answer.

  A dragon honked below them, and Hal wondered, before he, too, fell asleep, if Storm's presence had sparked his thoughts.

  Never mind. He'd consider the matter the next day.

  Kimana listened to his idea, which he presented without giving a complete explanation, then asked three cogent questions, which Hal was able to answer.

  Then she made a face.

  "Were we back in civilization, and were I the jealous sort, I'd think you were haring off to see a chippie.

  "Why are you so insistent on going solo?"

  "Because… well, because I don't especially like to be a fool in front of an audience," Hal said. He didn't add that there was a good chance of getting killed answering his question.

  "Hmmph," Kimana said. "Playing the hero again."

  Hal didn't answer.

  "So when are you going to mount this grand expedition of yours?"

  "The next big storm," Kailas said. "That blow last night gave me the idea."

  "Hmmph again. Who'll command while you're gone?"

  "Farren Mariah in charge, Cabet as number two to handle administration, Bodrugan in charge of magic and such."

  He called the three together, told them he had a scout to make, refused volunteers and an explanation, told them to keep the expedition in the valley.

  "And what about you… if you're gone overlong?"

  Mariah demanded. "Look what happened the last time you saddled up and rode wildly off in all directions."

  "That," Hal said smoothly, "is why, this time, I've chosen such obvious leaders as yourselves to keep things going smoothly."

  It was three days before the next storm came in from the ocean, from the east.

  Each of those nights Hal had slept, rolled in blankets, in the cave with Storm.

  Kimana had started to make a joke, saw the haunted expression on Hal's face, decided not to.

  For each night, as he'd hoped and dreaded, Hal had dreamed.

  Once again, he was that wounded dragon attacked over his homeland by the dreaded red and blacks. Once again he fled east, across the great ocean, to a new land, where he found beings who were not especially friendly, sometimes his active enemies.

  But he found a mate, bred, and his kits had spawn of their own.

  Hal, waking, wondered if one of them was the dragon who would be named as Storm, realized he would never know.

  Besides, this was not the direction his quest took him.

  Rather, he tried to force his dreams back, back to the days before, when the dragon was young and adventurous.

  Twice, his dreams obeyed him.

  When the skies clouded over, and a warm but vicious wind whipped over the valley, Hal Kailas knew well which way he wanted to go.

  He took off down-valley, gained height over the flat lands, then turned, set his course into the storm, quartering north.

  He didn't need a compass to set his bearing, but used one so that he would be able to give directions to his fliers.

  Hopefully, if he survived.

  He remembered a cozy hooded laprobe he'd had back in Deraine, and wished for it. The wind might have been tropical, but it still whipped at him, and the rain drenched him to the skin.

  He flew on, all that day, then took Storm under the shelter of some great trees at the edge of the plains, where the mountains began their rise.

  'Over there… and he instinctively knew the direction… lay the home of the red and black dragons.

  Hal's mission was to answer one question:

  Was that home the only one the red and black monsters had? Was that the sole point where they could come into this world from their other?

  He hoped it was, that his guess, seemingly so long ago, had been right, that there was only the one hellspot, so the ruins of his expedition weren't ridiculously outnumbered.

  But he had to know for sure.

  He curled up next to Storm again.

  He thought, amusedly, that most people would be slightly put off by the dragon's smell.

  But then, most people wouldn't be intrigued by his own odor, no matter how much his thorough drenching might have resembled a bath.

  Dragonmasters of fable probably weren't supposed to smell like their mounts.

  But then, he guessed that noble cavalrymen weren't supposed to smell distinctly horsy, either, and he surely remembered his days as a light cavalryman.

  On that thought, he slept, smiling.

  He woke before dawn, roused Storm, and fed him on two of the smoked "rabbits" he carried with him behind his saddle, ate dried meat from his own pack.

  It was still raining, and he wanted a fire to heat water for tea and boil some eggs he carried so carefully, wrapped in a spare set of underbreeches.

  But not this close to the red and blacks.

  He was just morosely chewing the last bites when he heard the shrill screams from aloft, went to the edge of the grove, looked up.

  Through the scudding clouds, he dimly saw a pair of the huge red and blacks pass over.

  Had they somehow scented, or otherwise sensed, his and Storm's presence?

  If they weren't real dragons, why did they need to call like them?

  Were their cries supposed to flush real dragons into the open?

  Deciding that was enough questions, he curried Storm, took him to pooled water, and saddled him.

  Then he took off, this time flying due north.

  To his west would be the red and blacks' sanctuary.

  For half the day, he flew along the edge of the plain, then over rolling hills, studded with trees.

  Here and there he saw grazing buffalo, once a stalking predator.

  But never did he see another dragon.

  This was as he expected.

  He outran the storm, and it was windy, but clear.

  The afternoon grew late, and shadows fell across the land.

  The ground below him was familiar, as though it was something he'd passed over as a child, or seen old-time paintings of.

  Here the
land would climb, and there would be a miniature mountain range, actually a rough circle of peaks around a high, craggy plateau.

  That was just what Hal saw now, in reality.

  Storm made a noise when he saw the mountains.

  Hal wasn't sure what it was, a whimper, a moan.

  But the dragon turned, unbidden, toward them, his wings widespread as he reached for altitude.

  They crossed between two peaks, and saw the barren valley of the tableland Hal had dreamed of twice.

  Storm swerved, as if he had changed his mind, and didn't want to go there.

  But Hal forced him to hold his course, and the dragon reluctantly lowered his feet as the land came up at them.

  They landed, and Storm folded his wings.

  There was silence, except for the whine of the wind, which Hal had thought would be ceaseless.

  A few yards away were scattered bones.

  Hal walked to them.

  They were those of a dragon, long dead, the bones browning, scattered by small creatures.

  He couldn't tell what had killed it, or if it had died naturally.

  Storm made a strange keening noise.

  The shadows were getting longer, and night was coming.

  This was a high land that should be haunted.

  Not by human ghosts, but by the shades of dragons who'd died long before.

  Here, Hal knew, was the home of his dream dragon, his dream dragon and many more.

  Then dragons had lived in closer-knit colonies than those they formed in their new world.

  Why they'd changed, he had no idea.

  He got back on Storm, gigged the dragon into its staggering takeoff, and flew low over the tableland.

  There were many bones scattered about.

  He spotted a small rocky outcropping, and a bubbling spring nearby, and landed.

  He unsaddled Storm, watered and fed him, and found dry wood for a fire.

  He didn't fear any red and black dragons in this place.

  Storm was restive, curling up, then getting up and sitting, staring out across the plateau, before curling up again.

  Hal didn't feel sleepy, but forced himself to roll in his blanket.

  He slept, and he dreamed. But this time it wasn't dreams of a single dragon, but of this colony, years and centuries ago.

  Four dragons had found the plateau, and made it home.