Chapter Nineteen

"It is most unfortunate," Lord Egibi rumbled, his snow-white mustaches ruffling in a most martial manner, "the Roche chose to test their new secret weapon, deploying infantrymen in baskets slung below their damned dragons, on your Eleventh Dragon Flight. Sir Fot Dewlish and his men fought hard, but they were sadly outnumbered.

" Most unfortunate," he repeated.

Hal tried to hold back his anger, wondering what stove his reports of the Roche tactic months earlier had served as kindling for. Lord Egibi noticed Hal's expression.

"Is something the matter, Sir Hal?"

"Nossir."

The Lord Commander of the First Army had a good reputation among the troops as a man who'd given his life to soldiering in the service of the king, first against bandits in the north of Deraine, then on loan to the barons of Sagene to advise their own campaigns against highwaymen, then, just before the war with Roche, on the east coasts, quelling an outbreak of piracy.

He was a very big man, with very big appetites that he never bothered to deny, and boasted that he had no enemies, other than the Roche, living, who were worth acknowledgement.

The Lord Commander of the First Army got up from his padded chair, moved his bulk to a large-scale map, tapped a point.

"First the Eleventh is hit," he went on. "With the success of their attack, I can only assume the Roche will be striking at other flights.

"Sir Hal, I need a tactic to combat this! That's why I ordered you recalled from your sorely earned leave. I desperately need my dragons to prepare for the summer offensive, and if the Roche continue decimating—hells, destroying—my flights, I'll be blind!"

Hal's anger vanished. Finally someone in high command was admitting the dragons were more than just parade toys, only two years and more since the war had started.

"I've read the citation at your knighting, and agree with the king. We must have new ideas, new thinkers, or this war will just keep grinding us down and down until one side or the other collapses from sheer exhaustion. Which will hardly be a famous victory."

"Yes, milord," Hal said, trying to sound like a man of intelligence and action. "Give me a few days with my squadron, getting a full picture of what happened, and I'll do my best to come up with something."

"Go ahead," Egibi said. "But do more than your best, lad. Deraine needs help, desperately."

Hal saluted, started to leave, turned back.

"I'll need one thing, sir. A magician. A very good one. If possible, I'd like the services of a man named Limingo, who's still in Deraine."

"This matter has the highest priority. I'll have a courier off on a picket boat within the hour, requesting this Limingo be assigned to First Army and to you. And anything else you need will be provided."

"There just might be some other things, sir," Hal said.

"Just ask," Egibi said. "And we'll try to provide. I correct myself. We shall provide. Oh, by the way. A serjeant is a poor rank to command a dragon flight. Effective immediately, you're promoted captain on a brevet basis.

"Do well, and I'll confirm the appointment as permanent."

The crossbow thudded, and a bolt whipped down the long room into a target. Hal worked the grip under the bow back, then slid it forward, and another bolt dropped down into the trough from a tray clipped above the bow's stock.

Hal fired, and the second bolt buried itself beside the first.

"Good," he approved.

"Perhaps, as I warned you, sir," Joh Kious said, "a little light on the pull, due to the cocking lever design. But it will kill you your man. And five more with the other bolts.

"Or, precisely aimed," Kious added, eyeing the dragon on Hal's breast,

"even a dragon. I applaud your design of this weapon."

"Not mine," Hal said. "One of my men, remembering a sparrow shooter of his youth."

"Very well," Kious said. "Your spare bolt carriers and bolts are already wrapped. Will there be any other way I might be of service?"

"Yes," Hal said. "I'll need crossbows built for my three fliers upstairs, plus thirty more crossbows made to a general pattern, plus ninety bolt carriers. And a thousand bolts. For a beginning."

"Young man," Joh Kious said, sounding slightly shocked, "do I look like a factory?"

"No, but you are about to look very rich," Hal said. "I want you to set up a plant building these crossbows. Hire as many as you need, price the weapons reasonably, which doesn't mean what I'm paying for this one, and start work. Payment will be immediately made by First Army's quartermaster on acceptance by me, in gold."

"Of course you want these crossbows yesterday," Kious said.

"Certainly," Hal said. "As I said when I ordered the first one, if I'd wanted them tomorrow, I would have ordered them tomorrow."

Kious smiled.

"I've read about you in the broadsheets, Sir Hal. You certainly aren't a man unsure of himself."

Hal didn't reply.

"Very well," Kious said. "I should have known when I came across from Deraine something like this would happen and I'd be drawn into the maws of the military system once more.

"At least I'm providing for my old age," Kious said. "Which, remembering what it's like to deal with the army's quartermaster corps, looms close."

Hal and the three other fliers had expected the Eleventh's base to be thoroughly worked over. But the reality was worse—the farm estate was a shambles.

The main house appeared to have been set afire, and then some sort of explosion had scattered bricks across the grounds. Most of the other buildings had been fired as well, and the survivors of the flight occupied hastily pitched tents, scattered here and there.

Hal, riding behind Saslic on Nont, saw no sign of the flight's dragons as they lowered to land.

Around the flight's base was a garrison of infantry, also quartered in tents.

Very secure, Hal thought. Especially now that the barn's been burnt and the horse butchered for its meat.

Mynta Gart limped out to greet them, saw the captain's tabs Saslic had managed to find in Paestum, saluted.

Hal returned the salute, a bit embarrassed for some unknown reason, looked around as a scattering of handlers, some still bandaged, came out to take charge of the dragons.

"I think," he said, "I want you to tell me what happened, exactly as it happened, before we do anything else."

"Yessir." Gart's use of the title came easily, and Hal knew she must have seen others promoted over her head as a sailor, and thought little of the matter. "I think it best to repair to my tent.

"It's not a particularly lovely tale."

It wasn't.

The Roche, estimated two or three flights, all with basket-mounted infantrymen, had struck just as the sun was coming up.

"The first target was the nine dragons still on the ground, the bastards.

That was where I picked up an arrow in my thigh, doing nothing in the way of good, trying to save my beast. I never was much of an infantryman.

"They killed the dragons, and went after anyone wearing flying insignia, then started killing anyone who fought against them.

"I came to just as they were looting and firing the buildings. That was where our fearless leader got killed."

Gart seemed reluctant to go on. Hal nodded at her, and she continued.

"Dewlish was in his office… I guess he was hiding. They came in, and saw his rump sticking out from under his desk. Someone put a spear in it, and drove him into the open.

"They beat him to death with that godsdamned dragon statue of his.

Broke Bion in about a dozen pieces, and shattered Sir Fot's skull.

"They finally ran out of things to break, got back in their baskets and flew off. I don't think they took more than a dozen casualties, all told.

Bastards!"

There were only two good notes.

The attacking dragons had been normal, multi-colored beasts, so evidently the number of black dragons thus far trained was minimal.

And the second was that none of Hal's fellow students in dragon school had been killed. Rai Garadice had been off on a dawn flight, not returning until the carnage was complete.

"Our own Feccia seems to have seen the Roche approach, and vanished.

He claims he was going to alert the closest fighting unit, tripped in the woods and knocked himself unconscious, not coming to until the fight was over."

Gart smiled cynically. Hal made a note that, sooner or later, the coward would have to be dealt with. But there were more important matters to deal with.

Hal thought for a moment.

"What's our strength?"

"Five dragons… your three, and Garadice's and his partner. Nine fliers.

Twenty-three survivors. Not much in the way of equipment. Morale is nonexistent."

"New gear is on its way, as are replacement dragons and fliers," Hal said briskly. "Now, I want you to take over as my adjutant, since Dewlish's crony got killed, simplifying matters.

"And I want the unit assembled in front of the main house in half a glass."

"Adjutant?" Gart said. "But I'm a flier."

"And so you'll remain. On this flight, there'll be only two sorts of people—fliers and those helping them."

Gart managed a smile.

"That'll be a surprise for some people."

"The first of many, I hope," Kailas said.

"Do you know what you're going to say?" Saslic asked.

"I think so," Hal said. "But for the love of the gods, don't you—or Farren—smirk at me, or I know I'll start laughing."

"What's it to be, then?" Saslic asked. "The old tyrant who bites nails in half routine?"

"Pretty much. Now get your ass out to formation, woman."

"Yessir, master sir."

The formation was as ragged as the tents the men and women fell out from. The fliers were at one end of the rank, curiously waiting.

Gart called them to attention, turned the formation over to Kailas.

"If you haven't heard by now, I'm the new flight commander," Hal said.

"And I propose that we set about winning this war, instead of farting about the fringes as we've been doing."

There were mutters, some of agreement, others sounding surly.

"Here are the changes we'll start with," he continued.

"First, I want this damned camp straightened up. The tents will be rowed as they're supposed to be, and the grounds'll be cleaned. I don't want a flight that looks like a palace guard, but there's no particular reason you have to frowst about like vagabonds."

"Hard to wash, get clean, when all your gear's been burnt," someone in the ranks called, reluctantly added a "sir."

"Supplies, including rations, will be here by nightfall," Hal said. "For the moment, we'll keep that infantry contingent, in case our Roche friends decide to come back.

"Now, the second thing is from now on this flight is only going to concern itself with one thing—fighting the war. Anybody who thinks anything else is more important is welcome to apply for a transfer.

"I'll be in that tent over there after this assembly. Anyone who wants out will have all the help I can give.

"The same goes for anyone who doesn't want to soldier. The way out is wide open."

"The frigging Roche hit us once, now you're acting as if it's our fault,"

an unshaven man growled.

"No. It's nobody's fault," Hal said. "As long as it doesn't happen again."

"The hells with it," the man said. "I'll take you up on your transfer."

"Fine," Hal said. "The infantry always needs some more swordsmen."

The man looked alarmed, and there was a ripple of amusement.

"That ain't right," he grumped. "Almost die here, and then you'll put me where I'll get kilt for sure."

"Not my doing, friend," Hal said. "From your own mouth."

"But—"

"But nothing," Hal said. "You're gone as of tonight. And anyone else who's looking for the easy life can go with you.

"We got knocked down, but we're getting back up. And we're going to strike back. I promise you, the Roche who tried to destroy us will be destroyed in their turn.

"They'll be very damned sorry they ever heard of Eleventh Flight.

"We weren't much of a unit before, but all that's going to change, and change now.

"From now on, when anyone thinks of dragon fliers, they'll think of the Eleventh.

"That's all. All surviving section leaders report to me as soon as I dismiss you."

Hal had the beginnings of an idea, and ordered the clean-up crews to carefully set aside any Roche weapons or gear, and marked the spot where the few Roche casualties had been buried.

The wounded had been taken away when the Roche departed, so there weren't any prisoners to interrogate for what he needed, although he questioned the surviving members of the flight again and again.

At least, he noted with relief, none of them reported black dragons being used. But little else came—not the name of the attacking Roche units or anything else of value.

That, he hoped, Limingo the wizard would provide.

Egibi's promise was good. By late afternoon, wagons began rolling into the compound, filled with everything from foodstuffs to new uniforms to the necessary tools to squealing pigs for the still-to-materialize dragons.

Hal had been thinking of other things he needed, specifically one other man. Once more, a rider went off to First Army headquarters and again the request was granted, and another picket boat set out for Deraine.

"Yer might 'swell go for any wot and every wot," Farren said. "Soon enow the gleam'll be off the rose, and we'll be lookin' for the hind tit to suck like the rest of the army."

"I'll bet," Saslic said, "you haven't thought about us."

"Uh… what should I be thinking?" Hal wondered.

"Men!"

"I've had other things on my mind," Hal said, only half apologetically.

Saslic growled incoherently, found calm.

"Look, you. You're now the muckety of this flight, which means you've got to be a moral upright."

"Oh," Hal said in a small voice.

Saslic nodded. "Moral uprights don't go around screwing their underlings. At least, not directly, and not if they want to have their soldiery fawning and yawping at their feet."

Hal sat down heavily on his bunk.

"Hells," he said.

"Just so," Saslic said. "Here I have to go and fall in love with this bastard determined he's gonna be a Lord of Battles, a Dragonmaster above all, which means he better not show any human failings."

"I don't like this," Hal said. "I do love you and don't want things to change."

Saslic softened.

"I know. I don't either. But I don't see any way that can happen."

"What do you want to do?"

"I have thought about things," Saslic said. "If I were a tough warrior, which I'm not, I'd transfer to another flight. But I'm not that strong."

"Thank some kind of god for that," Hal said.

"But I can't see any way that we can keep fooling around. At least, not on the flight. Can you?"

"I suppose not," Hal said miserably.

"Maybe we can sneak around, like we're married to other people, when we're in Paestum or away from the Eleventh. But no more."

"Shit."

"Shit indeed," Saslic agreed.

"I guess I shouldn't be whining," Hal said. "Considering what it'd be if I'd never met you, or if I was back in the lines. But…"

Saslic shrugged, her face as downcast as Hal's.

"War's a crappy business, all the way around, isn't it?"

Hal very quickly became too busy to worry about his private life or, indeed, to have any.

Support replacements came in, and were fitted into their slots.

Morale stayed low, for there wasn't anything to do until the dragons and the new fliers arrived.

Then ten dragons arrived, chained in great wagons. They were only half-trained, and the handlers had to work very carefully to avoid being bitten or clawed.

Farren Mariah found one handler, a new man, lashing a dragon with a chain. The man went to the infantry that same day, after Hal had assembled the flight and, as scathingly as he knew how, said the handler was no better than a Roche, trying his damnedest to lose the war.

The new fliers arrived, even less trained than the dragons, and Garadice and Sir Loren were put in charge of their training.

Hal had his own worry—training his own dragon not only to obey his commands, but all of the nuances he'd laboriously taught the dragon he'd lost off Black Island.

Remembering Saslic's advice, he grudgingly gave the dragon a name, remembering the tales he'd heard as a child of his mountain people, when they were reivers instead of being miners. The name he picked was Storm, after the fierce hound a legendary warrior owned.

* * *

Limingo arrived, with a mountain of gear, his two acolytes, a little put out at having to give up the flesh pots of Deraine.

But he forgot his complaints when Hal told him what he needed.

"Hmm," he said. "An interesting idea, and one I'd never thought of before."

Hal showed him the piled Roche equipment, and he seemed unimpressed.

But when Hal took him to the graves of the Roche dead, he brightened.

"Now this," he said, "is matter we can work with."

His smile wasn't pleasant, and Hal's stomach roiled a little.

"I assume you'll want to be present at the ceremony, once I figure it out?"

Hal didn't but knew he must.

Next to arrive was Serjeant Ivo Te, the leathery warrant from flight school.

Hal's orders were simple—Te was to beat the flight into shape. Nothing mattered except flying. He'd report to Gart, to Hal in extraordinary circumstances.

"Any preferences on how I train 'em?" Te asked.

"None," Hal said. "As long as it's quick, and not too bloody."

"I never draw blood," the serjeant said. "Welts and bruises are generally more'n enough.

"The incorrigible'll go off to be Roche fodder."

Hal dreamed, and knew he was dreaming. He was not a man, but a dragon, soaring high, free, with nothing below but tossing waves and ahead a land of mountains, rocks, crags.

Here there were animals for food, animals to hunt.

There were no men in this world, and the dragon rejoiced.

He floated from current to current, diving sometimes through clouds, the harsh wind and rain a balm to him.

Somewhere in those crags was a cave, empty now, but in time, in season, a place for a mate and kits, a place to live from year to year, while the seasons rolled past, ever familiar, ever unknown.

A reveille bugle sounded, and Hal's eyes came open.

He sat up on his cot, looked out through the flaps of his tent at the flight's other tents, at a dragon grumbling as he was saddled, ready for the first patrol.

Hal remembered his dream, realized he was happy, feeling a great, quiet, sense of joy.

Kious' crossbows came in, and Hal had them issued. He ordered his fliers to begin practicing, first on the ground, then in the air, putting Serjeant Te in charge of the firing range as well. He made sure their confidence wasn't shattered by starting them on large targets, the size of cows, then working his way to man-size targets.

Thirty archers, real volunteers, from the infantry unit still guarding them were detailed off, and instructed in being dragon passengers.

Limingo sent one of his acolytes to Hal, saying he was ready for the ceremony, and would Hal please honor him by attending?

The acolyte said that he would be transcribing the results, assuming there were results, so Hal needn't worry about having to rely on memory.

The ceremony was scheduled at noon, rather than midnight, as Hal had expected, but Limingo had requested that all dragon flight personnel remain in their tents, for fear, the acolyte said, "of disrupting the ceremony." Then he added, a bit disquietingly, "or being disrupted."

The disciple, at the appointed hour, took Hal to the gravesites of the Roche raiders. The air was soft, late autumn, and a thin sun shone through the multi-colored leaves of the trees.

Buried in the gravemounds were spears, swords, arrows, all with their blunt ends pointed at a huge, round, bronze mirror or gong, hung about ten feet above the ground from a tripod.

Directly under it, an arrow had been mounted crosswise on a stake, set loosely in the ground so it could turn easily, like a wind indicator.

Limingo greeted Hal, noted his obvious nervousness.

"You don't have to worry… I'm not going to try to raise the dead. That isn't possible. At least I don't think it's possible… certainly not without some very potent, very dark magic.

"We're merely looking for some memories. Now, if you'll stand over there…"

Braziers were lit, and Hal wrinkled his nose. Maybe this spell wasn't dark magic, but some of its ingredients were certainly foul-smelling enough to qualify.

Limingo stood at one leg of the pyramid, motioned his disciples to the other two, then began chanting:

"Once you lived

Saw, fought, lived

Bring back that time

When your eyes still saw

Still saw."

He reached up with a wand, barely touched the mirror, and it began humming, like a great, strangely tuned gong. Again, he took up his chant:

"But then you bled

Then you died

You could not

Return.

But were left

Here on soil not your own

Forever wanting to go back

To the place you should

Not have left

The place with your friends

Your officers

A place of warmth

A place of life

Show us now

The direction of your dead longing."

The drone of the gong became louder, and the mirror came alive, showing huts, soldiers in Roche uniform, dragons, the dizzying view from one of the infantry baskets, dragons carrying soldiery, then, below, the farm the Eleventh Flight was quartered on. The scenes passed faster, faster, and there were men with swords, spears, soundlessly screaming Deraine soldiers, then the ground rushing up, and the gong's sound rose to a near-scream, then went black.

"Now, watch the arrow," Limingo ordered.

It swung back and forth, then steadied in a single direction.

"Mark!" Limingo ordered, then reached up and touched the gong, dulling it to silence.

"We should have enough power in the mirror to make this spell again,"

he told Hal. "Perhaps two or three leagues south of here.

"Draw those two lines until they come together, and—"

Hal's smile was wolfish.

"And we'll know just where the Roche came from."

Hal flew out before dawn, by himself. His dragon, Storm, was irritable, and the darkness let him remember a time when he was free, and he snapped experimentally at Hal, got a kick in his armored head for his pains, settled down.

Hal climbed high, then sent his dragon over the barren wasteland that was the front line, static now that winter was close.

His map was on his knees, a tiny dot that marked the intersection of the two magical lines his target, nothing more. In case he was brought down by the Roche, they would have no clue as to his mission.

There was heavy cloud for a time, and he flew by compass heading.

Then it broke, and Hal checked his bearings, saw he was on track, and began scanning the ground far below.

He saw what he was looking for almost immediately.

It was well camouflaged, with huge nets over the two open areas the Roche dragons would fly from, and the roofs of the barracks and the fliers'

huts were painted to look like farmland.

But not well enough.

"I must say, Sir Hal," Lord Egibi said, leaning back in his oversized chair, "you've taken long enough to return to me."

"Sorry, my lord. But I needed certain things, and then my magician took some time to prepare his spell."

" Certain things," Lord Egibi said with a snort. "You requisition materiel like you're… like you're a lord, dammit."

His attempt at looking angry failed, and a smile could be seen under his mustache. Then it vanished.

"I hope, for all this expenditure of time, supplies and the king's money, you have something for me."

"I do, sir," Hal said. "I now know where the three Roche flights that wiped out the Eleventh flew from."

Lord Egibi looked puzzled.

"And with that, you propose what?"

"I am going to obliterate those flights," Hal said quietly. "Every flier, every dragon, every soldier who attacked us will die.

"The Roche struck us with terror. Now I propose to give that back to them. To the last man."