Chapter Thirty-One

The remnants of the Eleventh Dragon Flight were waiting at their old base. They were a pretty sad relic.

They were tattered and torn, and most of their equipment had been dumped overside from the Adventurer, to make room for fleeing soldiers.

Some had been wounded—the black dragons had not only gone after dragons in the air, but had been able to identify the flights' mother ships, and attacked them, as had the Roche catapults as the beachhead was being cleared.

Worse, they knew how badly they'd been beaten. Now, without any real work, with only six dragons and five fliers, they could do little except make-work, and mope about, feeling sorry for themselves.

That would change, he knew, with replacements, new gear and, most importantly, more dragons and their fliers.

Hal noticed Nanpean Tregony, who was busily avoiding him, found Tregony was keeping company with Vad Feccia, which made perfect sense to Hal, the pair in his mind being equal villains.

At least Serjeant Te had survived the withdrawal, and had been doing what he could to take care of the Eleventh.

"But it's damned hard, sir, and I realize there's no excuses to be made but, without an officer in command, your requisitions tend to get ignored, and when you don't have any trading stock, any good souvenirs, it's very damned hard to go a-bartering for what you need."

"No officers?" Hal asked. "What about Sir Nanpean Tregony?"

"Do I have to say anything?"

Hal thought. "You do."

"He isn't worth a bucket of warm owl spit. Oh, he's a good dragon flier, and seems aggressive enough. But he surely doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone else in the flight, excepting maybe his personal dragon handler, and how many dragons he's killed.

"He's got plenty of money—guess his father's mines are really paying off in the war—but won't spend a copper of it on anything but himself."

Hal nodded. It was what he would have expected from a Tregony—except for being able to fly a dragon well.

Kailas set about putting matters in hand—first restoring the flight to its proper strength, then he'd worry about implementing his idea the king had approved.

The first item was calling in Feccia, and asking what had happened to him when the invasion collapsed.

He said that when the black dragons attacked, he'd gone for altitude, but been driven down and inland. Flying just above the brush, he'd managed to elude the two monstrosities on his tail, but his dragon had been exhausted.

He flew west, as Hal had done, found a resting place, with water. Then he'd tried to return to Kalabas, but every time had encountered the black flights, and was always outnumbered.

"I went back to my hiding place, and then, the next morning, my poor dragon was cramped from the attacks of the day previous. I found some wild hogs, and chased them into my dragon's clutches.

"But it was a day and a half later when I was able to fly back. The fleet was well at sea, only a few stragglers around the landing beaches.

"I followed the ships until I found the fleet, found the Adventurer, and was safe home."

That possibly wasn't the bravest story from the debacle Hal had heard, but then Feccia wasn't high on his list of candidates for hero medals. He seemed to scout with a degree of ability, and Hal wasn't sure it wasn't a sign of intelligence for a scout to avoid battle when he was outnumbered.

When the flight changed as Hal intended, Feccia might not fit in, in which case he could be transferred to a more conventional dragon flight, or possibly put in charge of the maintenance section.

Hal had an idea Feccia wouldn't be heartbroken to have an excuse to walk away from flying.

But that would be for another day. Hal was a little reluctant to harshly judge anyone from his flight training, particularly as the numbers dwindled.

Mynta Gart was the first to arrive from hospital. She'd been simply knocked from the sky by a particularly skilled three-dragon combination, not the blacks, Hal was surprised to find.

"Landed—not far from where Saslic crashed—and some bastard put an arrow in my other leg." She smiled wanly. "Now I limp on both sides, like I'm a lubber on her first day at sea."

"Did you see Saslic's body?"

"No," Gart said, looking away. "I saw her poor damned beast—what did she call him, Nont?—trying to get up, with his poor damned wing torn away. And then he fell back and some bastard put a spear in his throat.

But I suppose, the way he was, that quick a death was best."

But her eyes gleamed a different story.

Hal didn't need to ask if she wanted revenge. He made a note to put her in charge of one of the new sections he planned.

Sir Loren and Farren Mariah arrived together, with their own stories.

Sir Loren's dragon had been struck by arrows from the ground. He landed, and was attacked by a Roche knight.

"I was fighting my best, which prob'ly isn't all that good, killed the man after he wounded me sore with his blade, then his squire attacked me with a damned great axe. I killed him, too, saw my poor dragon had breathed his last, and, since they hadn't hurt me legs, I took off, running like a stripe-assed ape.

"Passed several dozen arrows, I did."

Farren Mariah had been forced to land by a pair of the black dragons.

"An' I was just standin' there, with me thumbs up, an' this horseshit great rock from one of their bleedin' catapoops slams down next to me, throwin' splinters and shit here, yon and everywhere. Got fragments in my eyes, thought I was blind, and if I lived they'd put me next to the Rozen city gates to beg, which ain't proper for a Mariah.

"But m'beast kept whistlin', and I could see blurry well enough to crawl aboard, and he trampled down some of their friggin' soldiers takin' off, and somehow found the Adventurer.

"I may marry the bugger."

Hal found himself missing Lady Khiri, but in a very different way than he'd missed Saslic, when she was still alive. It was a pleasant kind of melancholy, tempered with a selfish gladness that he had something, someone, far distant from these killing fields and, at night, could dream about her great gray castle by the sea.

He smiled wryly at that, remembering that he didn't have to be here in Sagene at all. He could be comfortably lazing about some estate somewhere, and he realized King Asir had been so surprised by his behavior he'd never gotten around to telling Hal just what estates he was being given.

With my luck, he thought, they'll probably be coal mines in some stony waste.

Hal decided he'd made Nanpean Tregony suffer enough, and summoned him into his tent.

Tregony was about two inches taller than Hal, and still good-looking, even if he was starting to get a bit heavy. Hal noted the livid scar along his neck he'd given the man years ago, rescuing the dragon kit, wasn't displeased.

"You may sit," Hal said, keeping his voice flat.

Tregony obeyed.

"So you're the one who was going to avenge me?"

"That was pap the taletellers came up with," Tregony said. "Someone told them we came from the same village, took that, and ran hard with the information."

That could have been. Hal had certainly experienced the taletellers'

willingness to brutalize the truth for their own ends.

"Very well," he said after a suitable pause. "Your records don't seem to have caught up with you. Perhaps you'd fill me in. Starting from when you entered the service."

"It was after the siege of Paestum was lifted," Tregony said. "I wanted to do something against the damned Roche, and there was a man—Garadice—who came through the district, looking for dragon fliers.

"I took the king's silver, and they trained me and sent me to Sagene.

"I went to a flight in the Second Army area. We got caught up in one of the Roche offensives, and did what we could—I credit myself with half a dozen or more dragons—then my dragon was taken down by one of their bastardly catapults, and I was captured."

Hal was interested.

"They have a special camp for dragon fliers," Tregony went on. "Far behind the lines, up north, on this island, well up an estuary."

"How many fliers are there?"

"There must have been thirty when I was captured. Probably there were fifty when I made my escape."

"Good for you," Hal approved, against his root feelings for the man.

"And how did you make your escape?"

"I'm a bit of an athlete," Tregony said, looking down at his stomach.

"Was, anyway. And being a prisoner helps you stay lean. I saw my chance, and kept it secret, since the Roche have spies in the camp.

"It's a terrible place, ruled by threats and cruelty and the lash, I can tell you.

"Anyway, I went out one night, when it was storming. Wore padded clothing. Pole-vaulted the first fence, and the padding kept the spikes from hurting me when I banged into it, landing. I used the pole to help me climb over the second fence, and then I was gone.

"I had some gold, some silver, and kept to the woods. The Roche peasants like their queen and their rulers no better than I do, and were willing to feed me, or sometimes put me up when it was raining. And so I worked my way east, always east.

"I stole a horse and, after that, it got easier. Then I reached the lines, turned the horse loose, and slipped across by night.

"When I got back from my leave, I said I wanted a chance to get back at the bastards for their cruelty, and the way I'd been treated… And so they sent me here, to the Eleventh."

Hal thought the story interesting.

"How many dragons have you brought down?" Tregony asked.

Hal shrugged.

"I don't keep track."

"I do," Tregony said. "More than I've killed?"

Hal thought of asking Tregony if he remembered a certain dragon kit, decided there wasn't any point.

"That's all," he said. "Go on about your duties."

Tregony, lips pursed, got up, saluted, went out. Outside the tent, he happened to look back in the tent, and Hal saw a look of utter, cold hatred on his face.