Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  “I’ll ride and thank my luck all the way,” Ileth said, wading toward her rescuer.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it. I was looking for you out here,” Amrits said, offering an arm for her to hook on to.

  “Really?”

  “Of course. Town in an uproar, two stolen ships aground, alarm bonfires burning, soldiers chasing Rari through the alleys like loose chickens, bells ringing, pirates in boats pulling this way and that, confusion everywhere. I told old Tinny, ‘Ileth has to be in the middle of this,’ and to keep an eye peeled, didn’t I, dear? And I was right.”

  The dragon tilted her head up so she could look back at them, staring through upside-down eyes. It was an unsettling move Ileth had never seen a dragon perform. Leave it to Amrits’s dragon to be unconventional. “No, it was that human girl from the house crying and begging that you look for her. Now that your promise is fulfilled, I thought we might want to do something about the pirates, as they’re threatening our Republic’s good citizens.”

  “You could follow those lanternlike lights out to some Rari ships, I’m sure,” Ileth said. “They sent the boats in from somewhere.”

  Flames shot up on the sea, far out beyond the sandbars. “A dragon got there ahead of us.”

  * * *

  —

  Dath Amrits contented himself with gathering news. He managed to find the captain of the soldiery who’d rushed down to the harbor at news of the Rari attack and determined that more dragons weren’t needed. The five others who flew out with him were ample to turn the Rari’s daring raid into a first-class disaster for them. The prisoner count was in the hundreds already, and they were still finding more hiding in alleys and trying to swim out to the sandbars.

  Ileth engaged in her own hunt, for Astler or any news of him. No one in Yalmouth had news. Captives were still being ferried off the crippled ships, now floating again under guard in the calm waters between mudbanks.

  Amrits tore her away from the search and they caught a fortunate wind. Flying back to the Old Post was only a matter of the time it took for the moon to set.

  In the new, much more obvious and concentrated dragoneer encampment Garamoff’s body had gone jerky in his excitement. He limped about gesticulating like a madman, pointing with his remaining fingers. “They say there’s no such thing as luck. I don’t believe it. Our luck is in for once. Damn! Damn! So much to do. Damn!”

  He went about the camp shouting orders. “First wing, on the line! To hell with the moon, we’ll go without it.”

  Dragoneers and their retinues rushed about, buckling themselves into their flying rigs, gathering and checking gleaming weapons with fresh strings, hanging religious icons about their necks or wrists or tucking them into their boots . . . their dragons shaking out their wings and having last coatings of salve applied, nostrils opening and shutting and griff rattling in excitement.

  Ileth wished she had something to do other than keep out of the way.

  Dragoneers Roben and Vor Rapp appeared out of the darkness. Vor Rapp had apprenticed under Roben. He was supposed to be a good fighting dragoneer. Roben grabbed her arm, pulled her along, and shoved her toward Vor Rapp. “Don’t stand there, apprentice, go help with that gray. Aurue. He’s asked for you.”

  Garamoff was shouting at one of his wingmen: “No choice, there’s always the chance they’ve heard dragons are about. I’ll lead the second wave myself. Their defenses will be organized by that time. Mark the dragons that flew into Yalmouth as ‘resting.’”

  The dragons formed a rough line on the flat ground near the lighthouse. It was a good spot to take flight; there was a cliff to add speed. Ileth hurried along with Vor Rapp toward Aurue and then Garamoff was beside them.

  Aurue was at the very end of the line of dragons, standing stiffly. He nuzzled Ileth. “I’m glad you are here,” he said.

  “Aurue and Vor Rapp,” Garamoff said, once he was where the gray could hear. “You’ll have to marker-burn instead of Catherix; she and the Borderlander are still out. Our target is the Harbor Fort. You’ve both seen the sketches, above and beside. There’s not much light from town and no moon. The first wing will need that marker to attack accurately so there’s no time wasted over target, getting shot. You have to burn something in the Harbor Fort. If it’s a launcher, all the better, but don’t be picky. Approach by stealth, low, start as large a fire as possible, and return. A great deal depends on you.”

  Vor Rapp looked as though someone had drained the blood from him through a tap in the ankle. His lips were white. “Understood, sir,” he said, turning his signet ring over and over again on his finger in thought.

  Ileth helped Sifler, who looked splendid in his sword and sash and perhaps just a little like a boy playing dress-up with his father’s uniform, adjust Aurue’s saddle. She checked and double-checked cinches and fastenings. Vor Rapp stood with his foot in the stirrup, ready to mount. He couldn’t get his flying gauntlets on over the ring so he handed it to Sifler.

  She passed around the front of the dragon and felt Aurue’s nose.

  The dragon’s head trembled against her. “I’m no battle dragon, Ileth.” Ileth wanted to cry. She soothed him as best as she could, stroking him under the jaw where she could feel the little hearts assisting with moving the blood up his long neck. They were pounding furiously.

  “Ileth, my dragoneer asks for you,” Sifler said.

  Aurue sniffed at her.

  “You have a soothing air about you. I feel . . . better.”

  “Whatever’s the matter?” Sifler said.

  “Fear,” Aurue said. His pronunciation of Montangyan had regressed to what it was when Ileth first knew him, and she had some difficulty understanding him. “I in difficulties moving.”

  He’d had to be talked into going out that night after the eggs too. Well, not every dragon was fierce.

  Sifler stifled a laugh. “A sheepish dragon. Who would have thought cow—”

  “Shut up, Sifler,” Ileth said tightly.

  “First wave: mount,” Dun Huss called across the line.

  Mnasmanus made a deep tone sound. It felt like it traveled through the ground and up Ileth’s legs.

  Vor Rapp climbed into the saddle and Sifler checked that his crossbow was secure, slung neatly under and around Aurue, and double-checked the safety tether to Vor Rapp’s thick, furry flying girdle and main saddle girth.

  “Ileth, I want you to know . . .” Vor Rapp said.

  Aurue clacked his teeth. Ileth had never heard him make that sound before. She turned away from Vor Rapp. The dragon looked wide-eyed and anxious.

  She caressed the dragon, felt his neck-hearts beating furiously behind his griff. “You’re so fast, Aurue. They won’t see you coming and you’ll be gone before they know you’ve been.”

  “Aides, retreat,” Dun Huss shouted once to his right, once to his left.

  “See you . . . see you when you get back,” Ileth said quietly in Aurue’s ear. Then to Vor Rapp: “G-good hunting, dragoneer.”

  She hurried off, following Sifler back to the line.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Sifler said. “Can you?”

  It had been happening all night for Ileth, so she said nothing.

  “Make ready!” Dun Huss called.

  The dragons and dragoneers exchanged words. Ileth watched Vor Rapp give Aurue a reassuring pat on his shoulder, and calls of ready came back. Aurue’s head and neck were unnaturally stiff and pointed forward. Ileth felt physical pain as she read the dragon’s fear and balled her fists against it.

  This time Dun Huss shouted: “First wave: dragons up!”

  Ileth couldn’t help but wonder what she’d be feeling, in a dragon’s saddle and with an armored pauldron on, hearing that ancient call.

  Mnasmanus opened his wings like a whip; a resounding crack broke across the line like lightning had st
ruck the ground.

  The dragons scuttled forward. Aurue hesitated for just a moment and then rushed off with the rest. Faster than the rest. Lighter and younger than the rest. He was first in the air, as it turned out, and climbed fast.

  The night turned quiet. Perfectly ordinary late-spring night, chilly but the wind caressed rather than reaching for your bones.

  The second wave readied with less chaos than the first, as they’d had time to prepare, and Roben on Falberrwrath lined the dragons up as Garamoff walked the line issuing last-minute orders with a good deal more if-then to them. Ileth had no duty, and though she wished to return to Sag House to see if there was news of Astler, she climbed the lighthouse steps to watch the opposite coast. A green-sashed apprentice wearing a uniform that looked as though it had been put together from odds and ends at the last minute watched the eastern horizon through a telescope. She recognized him as one of the clerks from the Masters’ Hall.

  The telescope stood on a tripod. Wheels and counterweights helped aim the thing, or perhaps hold it steady. To Ileth, the shore opposite was a smear with faint flicks of light from distant fireflies.

  “Hullo, Ileth,” the apprentice said, tapping a marking stick against an open page on a notebook. “You found your way back to us.”

  Taskmaster Henn was suddenly beside her. He was breathing hard.

  “Mad beginning,” Henn said. “At dawn you should—”

  “Ahh,” the apprentice at the telescope said.

  A light, brighter than the rest, flared up, faded, but it could still be distinguished on the horizon like the Evenstar, twice as bright as any of the others. Could it be Aurue’s fire? The apprentice studied matters through the telescope, then jotted something down.

  The apprentice spoke without taking his eye away from the telescope. “Ileth, do me a favor and uncover that lantern. Don’t move it, just uncover it.” He waved behind.

  “I’ve got it,” Henn said, who was nearer anyway. He touched the conical shield carefully to check if it was hot, then lifted it. The lantern had a protective panel to keep it from disturbing their night-eye, but it shone brightly out toward the dragoneer camp. Ileth heard a cheer go up. Someone blew a hunting horn, and more cheers answered it.

  Ileth ignored the noise. Sparks of dragon-flame could just be distinguished on the far coast, like fireflies glimpsed in a meadow. Ileth felt a cold thrill. It had begun.

  The second wave called dragons up and took off.

  She saw two dark objects, as big as the biggest ship she’d ever seen, shaped like oval floating rocks, moving toward the far coast across the straits. At first they seemed to be moving by, well, magic, but then she spotted a wave burst a dragon-length or so in front of one of the craft. That was no whale breaching, it was a dragon head.

  “What are those?” she asked, but she had already guessed. Some kind of covered barge.

  “We call them the ‘sea turtles’—it’s something we’ve been working on for a while.” Taskmaster Henn became animated. “The idea came from those Galantine barges with the ladders they designed for taking the Scab. These are bigger versions built for sea use. They’re like a turtle shell, hollow inside, with iron plates like scale on the top and sides. Barrels full of coconut coir lashed outside for extra buoyancy. Almost unsinkable. There are pumps inside for pumping out or spraying water across the top shell to wash off burning projectiles. The timbers are thick and reinforced and angled in such a way that most missiles—stingers and heavy meteors and things of that nature—will bounce off. Or just miss, they ride so low in the water. Try and ram them and they’ll most likely just bounce a bit, something to do with the oval shape. Try and board them and you’ll have to axe through the top timbers while being poked with pikes from below. In theory the troops inside can make them spiny as a porcupine. The dragons solve the maneuverability issue. They pull them through the water and then push them up on shore or near enough, so you only get your feet wet.”

  Ileth nodded. She’d “plunked,” as she’d once heard Annis Heem Strath style it, the night of the egg theft. But this was something new. The plan Annis Heem Strath had laid out provided for the transport of ships with fishing craft, coasters, things of that nature.

  “They’re taking troops over. That’s the King’s Legion going in.”

  “King’s Legion?”

  “I know, it’s the Montangyan Legion now. Or just the Legion. Traditions die hard. A lot of us still call it the King’s Legion.”

  Ileth, who sometimes grew confused about this or that guard company or even the more famous Battalions of the Republic, knew about the Legion. It was a formation mostly made up of those of foreign birth, or convicts of minor crimes who wanted a fresh start under a new name.

  “They will come back with our people?”

  “You have the idea. Bring soldiers over, bring the Rari captives back. If we can keep the Duke and Duchess from joining in the battle. We went over the plan with them again and again, but when the anvil chorus starts, no plan is safe with those two.”

  “I should like to meet them.”

  “Easier said than done. They hardly speak a word of Montangyan. The Duke says he’s too old to learn another damned human tongue. The handlers use Drakine, or sort of a pidgin that’s mostly Drakine, anyway.”

  She tried to share the Taskmaster’s excitement at the new ships or barges or whatever the turtles were, but failed. Ileth wouldn’t be easy until she saw Aurue again. She descended the lighthouse and passed through camp as the third wave assembled. If it hadn’t been a disaster, the first wave would be returning just at first light.

  It wasn’t a disaster. They didn’t suffer anything worse than scattered meteor fire, and Mnasmanus had holes in his wings. Aurue landed first, somewhat blackened by soot clinging to the oily residue about his snout. Ileth danced and ran as she went to him.

  “Overdid it making sure a storehouse was well alight,” he said, examining his wings.

  Vor Rapp’s battle rig was splattered with vomit. His eyes were white against oily soot. “He’s an acrobat. I suppose you know that,” he said to Sifler and Ileth, who helped him out of his harness and tether.

  So it went, wave after wave going out and returning. It became a blur to Ileth, which wing was landing and which was taking off. They had a great wooden board, weirdly like the job roster in the old Manor under the Matron, complete with wooden nameplates hanging from hooks, organizing the three wings and the reserve.

  She knew there were other maps, a large one and multiple smaller ones, where the sketches of the Rari strongholds, docks, and walls were annotated, and updated by the nearsighted Gruss, who took reports from returning dragoneers and made fresh diagrams according to the reports, rapidly filling sheets of paper with quick sketches to be used by the following waves.

  The cooks, both Serpentine and those impressed from the Auxiliaries, worked like mad. Meals, everything from fish to whole chickens, were doused in rough flour and fried using metal grids plunged into kettles full of cooking lard. Everything possible was done to add fats to the dragon diet to keep their fire-bladders full. The dragons returning from their flight stuffed food down their throat and moved off the landing fields to collapse, ignoring the weather and the usual desire for enclosure. Dragoneers and the ground staff snatched food and sleep when they could, working on their dragons even while the great creatures slept, sewing up rends in wings, pulling broken scale and slapping on plaster, then fixing a bit of stiffened leather as a temporary cap, and applying salve to muscles and ligaments. It was organized, exhausting madness.

  When the dragoneers ate and slept Ileth couldn’t begin to guess. Perhaps they did it in the saddle on the way over and back. No one had time to bathe, and soon a thick layer of greasy dirt and soot built up, leaving the famous Vale Dragoneers looking like a team of chimney sweeps.

  Ileth worked until her hands were raw and painful. She ha
uled food, wing repair gut, tankards of ale, and baskets of bread, anything the dragoneers called for, sleeping wherever she sat down until the next watch kicked her awake.

  But it had its intended effect. The Rari were driven from point after point. Ileth heard that even fishing craft without a single armed man were able to “go over” and bring back freed slaves, who were taking advantage of the chaos to slip away, following the crude maps and instructions on the dropped leaflets.

  It was close to dark on the second day when Sifler pulled Ileth to her feet from a dry patch of ground on the side of the lighthouse.

  “Aurue and Vor Rapp, returning.” Sifler was dark-eyed with exhaustion.

  Ileth groaned to her feet and they trotted to the open field where the dragon wings took off and landed.

  Aurue circled the field an extra time; he seemed to be talking over his shoulder to his rider. Finally, he landed, very gently, taking extra wingbeats and rearing up a little, like a butterfly alighting on a flower.

  There was definitely something wrong with Vor Rapp. He sagged in the saddle, held by stirrups and safety harness.

  They ran to Aurue’s landing spot, keeping clear of other dragons coming in. Aurue wearily walked to meet them. He looked fresher than the other dragons—it wasn’t as exhausting for him to fly this frequently, thanks to not having to haul scale into the air.

  Ileth moved to soothe Aurue, but Sifler pulled up short.

  “Stars, his head’s off,” Sifler said.

  A dead dragoneer. A dragoneer who died because Ileth chose him.

  “I knew something was wrong,” Aurue said, craning his neck back. “Poor man. I hope there’s not some superstition about your head being buried apart from your body like there is with the blighters, because I think it might have been smashed by a stone or ball. They were shooting projectiles at us.”

  “Guess you’re a dragoneer now, Sifler,” Mattin, the shaggy-haired apprentice, said. He was bringing wine in a little pull-cart for the dragons. It helped them sleep. “Congratulations.”