Chapter Seven

The ten horsemen rode at a walk into the glade below a forested hill.

Hal made a swooping motion with his hand, then at the ground.

Obediently, the other nine dismounted.

He pointed to two men, then to his right, two more to his left. They moved off to provide security for his flanks.

He chose one more, his normal second in command, a prematurely wizened city boy named Jarth Ordinay, and, taking a long ship's glass from his saddlebag, crept up the hill toward the hill crest, hoping for no surprises.

There were no ambushers or wizards waiting.

He went on his hands and knees, and crawled into the heart of a clump of brush, through to the other side, Ordinay, well-trained, about five feet behind him. He had an arrow and a strung bow ready.

The hill rolled down, past a nearly dry stream to open fields that had been well tilled once, but were now choked with brambles.

The morning was hot, still, and the loudest thing the buzzing of a swarm of bees nearby.

Half a mile from Hal was the Roche army.

Its tents were struck, rolled into the baggage wagons, and men were forming up across its front. Behind the infantry, massed cavalry were trotting out toward the flanks.

Hal swept the breaking camp with his glass, found a handful of still-standing tents. There were banners in front of them. Hal read them easily. A year and a half in the cavalry had made him an expert at heraldry.

Duke this, Baron that, Lords the other and his brother, no surprise, seen them before during the campaign, then he started a bit, at one banner he'd never seen before.

It was, he was fairly sure, that of the queen of Roche herself. He couldn't believe she'd decided to take the field, then saw, below the main banner, a longer pennant.

No. Not the queen, but some lord of her household.

That would be, assuming Deraine victory, almost as good.

That also meant that Roche had great hopes for the forthcoming battle.

He slithered back, out of the brush, motioned to Jarth, and they went back to the horses. The flank guards saw his return and, unordered, came back in.

"They're just where the wizard said they'd be," Hal whispered, reporting in the event he didn't make it back to the main Deraine lines.

"I'd guess ten, maybe fifteen thousand. Armored infantry, heavy cavalry, maybe a regiment of light cavalry.

"They're getting ready for the march, headed west, again, like we expected.

"They've got flankers out, heavy cavalry, so we'd best skitter back home, for fear of getting pinchered."

The men mounted. Their horses, as well trained as the men, had stayed still, rein-tethered.

Hal led them out of the glade, through the trees, into the open. Fifty yards distant was the ruins of a road.

"At the walk," he said in a low voice, and the horses moved slowly toward the ruined byway.

In unknown territory, using any road, no matter how shattered, could be suicidal. But Hal had taken his patrol nearby less than an hour before, and thought it unlikely there'd been a trap laid in the interim.

He was more worried about being between the two armies—the Deraine army was only half a dozen miles distant.

One reason he'd survived since the siege of Paestum was staying as far away from famous battles as possible. That was why he'd been promoted Serjeant, and his troops called him Lucky behind his back.

When he took a patrol out, it was very seldom he didn't bring everyone back, generally without serious wounds.

That was an uncommon boast for these times—after the siege, King Asir had brought a great army across the Chicor Straits, made alliance with Sagene's Council of Barons, and gone after Queen Norcia's army.

They found it, and the two forces smashed each other until they were both tottering, each unable to land the death blow.

They'd broken apart, brought in replacements during their winter quarters, and began skirmishing, each looking for the advantage rather than going toe-to-toe again.

There'd been half a dozen major battles, ten times that in minor brushes that produced no grander results than adding to the casualty lists in the eighteen months since Hal had been dragooned into the army.

One side would move south, the other after it, then the other way around.

Caught in the smash were the Sagene civilians, their villages and farms.

A great swathe was cut along the Roche-Sagene border. Here, all was desolation, save the occasionally staunchly garrisoned castle. What trade there was, what merchants there were, stayed close to the army, doing business as they could, when they could.

But the lands weren't empty. There were wanderers, deserters from both sides, and—most to be feared—those who'd turned renegade.

They knew all men's hands were turned against them, so gave and asked no mercy from any group of soldiers they encountered.

That was one of the jobs of the light cavalry, tracking and destroying the bandits, one reason that Hal Kailas' face showed hard lines, and his smile came but seldom these days.

But it was better, in terms of surviving, than his present task, scouting for the main force as they closed once more for battle.

Everyone knew this encounter was unlikely to be decisive, was not likely to end the war.

Everyone except the high commands on both sides.

Victory would only be won by one army breaking through and laying waste to the other's homeland, yet maintaining its own supply lines.

Sagene and Deraine had more men, more horses. Roche's soldiers were better trained, generally better led. Plus they had more dragons, more magicians.

Just recently, the Roche dragons had changed their tactics. They still scouted overhead, but, just as they'd done in the siege of Paestum, had begun attacking riders and patrols who ventured beyond the safety of the Deraine catapults.

The few Deraine dragons were only used for observation, and what they reported was frequently wrong, and even more frequently disregarded.

Hal sometimes wondered if the end would be all three countries hammered back into barbarism.

All he could hope for, and it was a measure of his strength that he still could hope, was to survive until the war ended. All too many soldiers had given up, dully realized their doom was to be killed, wounded or captured, nothing more.

But an end to this war seemed far in the future.

Hal broke his thoughts, not only because they were veering into gloom, but because anyone who thought of anything other than the minute he was living in was likely to add to the butcher's bill.

He turned in his saddle, looking back at his patrol, scanning the hillsides for movement, then the skies.

As he did, a flight of four dragons, in vee-formation, broke out of the clouds and dove on the patrol.

Hal swore—some Roche magician must have sensed them, and sent out the fliers.

"Dragons!" he shouted. "Spread out, and ride hard for our lines!"

The green-brown dragons swept past above them, then banked back, and dove toward the ground. They flared their wings no more than fifteen feet above the ground, and, almost wingtip to wingtip, beat toward Hal's onrushing patrol, hoping to panic horses and horsemen. But this was not the first, nor the fifth, time Hal had been attacked by dragons.

"Jink!" Kailas shouted, and, obediently, the riders kicked their mounts one way, then another. The dragons tried to turn with them, couldn't, and the ten men rode safely under their attackers. One man—Hal didn't see who—had courage enough to fire an arrow at a dragon.

"Full gallop," and the riders kicked their horses hard, bending low in the saddle, trying to keep from looking back at the closing doom.

It was hard, especially when a scream came. Hal chanced a look, saw a horse pinwheeling through the air, gouting blood from deep talon-wounds in its back, saddle torn away.

Its rider… Its rider was tumbling in the dust, getting to his feet, stumbling into a run, knowing no one would turn back for him, following the strictest orders.

Hal wheeled his mount into a curvet, came back at his afoot soldier, saw, out of the corner of his eye, a swooping dragon. He leaned out, arm hooked, and the man had it, was neatly flipped up behind him, and the dragon whipped past, close enough for Hal to have touched its right talon as it missed him.

Again he turned, and his horse was gasping, flanks lathered. Two dragons were coming at him, each not seeing the other, then avoiding collision at the last minute as Hal rode under a torn-apart tree.

A dragon smashed through branches above his head, climbed for height for another attack, and on the other side of the hill were the Deraine lines. Hal's patrol was strung out in front of him, riding for safety.

Two dragons came in for another attack, but the patrol was too close to the lines, and half a dozen catapults sent six-foot darts whipping through the air at them.

All missed, and the Roche dragons were climbing away.

One screamed in rage and disappointment, and Jarth Ordinay blatted an imitation up at him, one of his major talents.

They galloped past the outlying pickets, were in the forward lines, and now they could sit straight, breathe, and even show a cavalryman's panache, laughing at the past danger, easy in the saddle, safe for one more day.

"It has been in my mind for some time," Lord Canista, commander of the Third Deraine Light Cavalry, "that our king might be well served by your being promoted lieutenant and knighted, Serjeant."

Hal gaped. Being made an officer was impressive enough, the Deraine army having three ranks: lieutenant, generally knighted; captain, always knighted, and commander, who'd be a lord, duke or even prince.

Outside Canista's tent, all was a bustle as the army got ready once more for battle.

"First, that pennant you spotted belongs to one Duke Garcao Yasin, who's Lord Commander of Queen Norcia. The two, I was told, are close."

Canista coughed suggestively. "Very, very close. So obviously this upcoming battle will be of great import to Roche." He noticed Hal's expression.

"You know of him?"

"Uh… nossir." Hal thought back, remembered the Yasin with the flying dragons back in Bedarisi had a first name of Bayle or something like it.

"But I may've encountered a relative of his before the war. A dragon flier.

Do you know if he's got a brother?"

"Of course not," Canista said, a bit impatiently. "And let us return to more important matters, such as your knighthood. You fight well. But more important… Well, did you know your troopers call you Lucky?"

"Uh… yessir." Hal was still considering this Baron Yasin. Assuming a relationship, and he had no way of knowing whether Yasin was a common name in Roche, that would certainly indicate the Roche fliers were, indeed, spies. He brought himself back, listened to Canista.

"That's more important… for a leader," the lord went on. "Any damned fool with no survival sense can become a great warrior… until he's cut down by some lucky sod from the rear.

"Deraine needs lucky officers, Kailas," Canista went on. "The gods know we haven't had many leading us thus far."

Hal looked blankly unopinionated at that.

"Well, I assume you have an opinion?"

"Sir, I'm a commoner."

"Everyone knows that," Canista said. "Where do you think all these damned knights' and barons' and dukes' and whatalls' fathers came from?

"Damned few of us were born to the purple. Time past, time enough for us to get snotty about things, one of our ancestors was good at sticking people with his sword, and lucky enough to do it mostly within the law, or not get caught, plus live through the experience.

"And their descendants are the ones who've ridden out in this war. And are getting themselves killed, like everyone else.

"Deraine will need a whole new generation of nobility, and where the hells do you think it'll come from? From commoners like you.

"It might interest you that my grandsire, ten, no eleven generations gone, was a blacksmith."

"Yessir," Hal said.

"Mmmph," Canista said. "At any rate, that's something for you to think on, if you want the responsibility. Actually, I'm speaking like a damned fool, for you already have the responsibility. Being knighted would just get you more.

"We've a battle afore us, so think on it. Afterwards, if we all live, you can give me your decision."

"Yessir." Hal clapped his right hand against his breastplate in salute, turned to leave.

"Wait, lad," Canista said. Hal turned back.

"Something I'm required to show you," he said, pulling a rumpled piece of paper from his small field desk, handing it to Hal.

Dragon Men!

Deraine Needs You!

Men … and Women

Who Wish to Fly

Mighty Dragons

As the Eyes

Of the Army

Are Bidden

By His Most Holy Majesty

To Volunteer

For the Newly-Forming

Dragon Flights!

Experienced Dragon Handlers

Will Do Deraine

The Greatest Service

By Volunteering

Fly High Above the Fray!

Defy Roche's Evil Monsters!

Extra Pay

Extra Privileges

Bask in the Adulation

Of the Nation!

Join Now!!

Experienced Men and Women Only!!

"I call this damned nonsense," Canista grumbled. "But someone said you'd been around the horrid monsters back before you joined up.

"And doing the king's duty, I decided to show it to you, and give you the chance.

"Even though there's a war, a real war, to be fought down here on the ground, not zooming around peering at the foe and, often as not, making up lies to confuse poor honest lords such as myself!"

Hal barely heard the lord, looking at the sheet of paper, thinking, dreaming.

To be out of the muck, away from the front lines and shouting officers, to be clean. Inadvertently, Hal scratched at a louse bite on his elbow, caught himself.

Gods, how he wanted that… to be above the clouds, above this endless cutting and killing, free, alone.

Then he caught himself.

"Thank you, sir," he said, handing the paper back.

"Good man! Not interested at all, I can see, like a proper soldier."

No. It was hardly lack of interest.

It was Hal's mind, suddenly reminding him of the twenty-five cavalrymen he was given charge of, plus another ten supporting troopers.

If he left, who would take care of them?

He thought of other sections, whose warrants had been killed or transferred, and their new commanders, who had caused more than their share of deaths learning the ways of war.

Could Hal give over men, who'd entrusted him with their lives, to some fool, fresh from Deraine's horse academies?

Never.

As long as they lived, Hal Kailas had to be there to lead and, if necessary, die with them.