Storm of Wings

by Chris Bunch

  Hal paid little attention to the bustle, eyes on Paestum's harbor they were sailing out of, and the distant border of Roche to his left.

  He would be back, though, as a dragon flier.

  Back, with a hard vengeance to take.

  Chapter Nine

  Deraine's capital, Rozen, had he been in another frame of mind, could have angered Hal Kailas. There were no buildings shattered by catapult stones, empty storefronts, shops with only one or two items for sale.

  Deraine could almost have been a country at peace.

  Almost.

  But here was a column of uniformed recruits being chivvied along by a pair of shouting warrants; there another formation of trained soldiers, grim-faced under steel helms and laden with weaponry, and there were far fewer young men to be seen on the streets and in the cafes than in peacetime. Here were a knot of women wearing mourning bands, there other women and children scanning the posted list of those killed or wounded across the Straits.

  Small patrols of warders, half civilian, half military, swept the streets.

  Kailas paid them no mind, his orders secure in a belt pouch, his mind on other things, specifically the cup of iced custard he was wolfing.

  He grinned. The hardened warrior, home at last, was supposed to head for the closest taproom and drink himself senseless on his favorite brew.

  Kailas, who'd never thought himself much of a milk drinker, had developed a lust for the rich, cream-heavy Deraine liquid, despising the thin, frequently watered whey of Sagene. He'd had three big glasses, and was topping them off with this custard, flavored with cloves and cinnamon.

  Kailas also thought of the other requirement of the homecoming soldier—a lovely girl under his arm, or at least a popsy.

  He had no one.

  Hal turned his mind away from loneliness, headed for the address he was supposed to report to.

  Rozen was a city that had cheerfully "just grown" at the confluence of two rivers. The only coherency it had managed was the result of three fires four hundred years earlier. Then there'd been great architects, working under the king's close supervision, intending to build a city of splendor, the marvel of the world.

  There were those great palaces and monuments, but two streets away might be a slum or a silversmith's street or even a knacker's yard.

  Hal had been in Rozen twice, before he joined Athelny's circus, and hated it both times, feeling alone and forgotten—which he had been.

  Now, an equally faceless figure in battered half-armor, sword-belt tied around his meager roll of belongings, he felt quite at home in the great city.

  He felt as if he were watching a camera obscura, arranged for his solitary pleasure. Kailas felt outside this city's life, but it wasn't unpleasant at all.

  He'd been offered leave after the destruction of his regiment, and had thought about it, but there was no one for him to go to. He had no desire to return to the tiny village he'd come from, nor any desire to visit his parents, and so he asked for orders to his next duty assignment.

  He wondered if soldiering had changed his outlook from the other times he'd been in the capital. Perhaps he'd seen enough people die young and violently to not mind being an outsider. He decided to give the matter a bit more thought, perhaps over a pint, later, after he'd reported in.

  His orders read for him to report to the Main Guildhall, which seemed odd, until he entered the huge building. It had been commandeered by the army, and now was a shouting bustle of recruiting booths.

  It was near chaos: a warrant brayed about the virtues of the dragoons, a clerk talked quietly of the safety of the quartermaster corps, an archer chanted about his elite regiment. Other warrants shouted how smart Lord such-and-so's Light Infantry uniforms were, or how Sir whatever would not only outfit a recruit, but send money to his family. Every branch of the service was represented, from chiurgeons to an arrogant-looking pair of magicians to a brawny farrier to a pair of jolly teamsters. There were even a scattering of women, raising nursing, transport, support units.

  Most of them had at least one, frequently more, recruits weighing the virtues and dangers of a corps.

  Except for one, a stony-faced, leathery-looking serjeant, lean as death, wearing the coronet of a troop warrant over his two stripes.

  Behind him, tacked to the wall, was a poster-size version of the leaflet Lord Canista had shown Hal a month ago, announcing the formation of dragon flights.

  Civilians prospecting the various booths would look at the warrant, then at the poster, and hasten onward. Evidently dragon flying was thought an advanced form of suicide.

  Hal walked up to the man, saluted.

  "I'm one of yours, Serjeant." He passed the orders from his corps commander across.

  "Fine," the man said, lowering the parchment. "M'name's Ivo Te. I was starting to think I've got plague."

  Hal didn't answer. Te looked him over hard.

  "You appear to have been rode hard and put away wet, young Serjeant."

  "Polishing rags aren't easy to find in Sagene," Hal said.

  "Don't I know it," Te said. "Until two months ago, I was top warrant with Eighth Heavy Cavalry."

  "I was Third Light. We scouted for you a few times."

  "You did," Te said. "I heard about your disaster. But it's nice to have someone else along who knows which end of a sword gets sharpened."

  "There are others?"

  "There are others," Te said grimly. "And, with one or two exceptions, a bigger lot of shitepokes, crap merchants, layabouts and deeks I've never met before."

  Hal grinned. "That good?"

  Te sighed. "It's going to be a long war, lad. A long war indeed."

  The recruits for dragon school were housed in an inn not far from Guildhall. Hal had little time to assess them before a dozen wagons arrived and, under a steady storm of cursing by Serjeant Te, the forty prospective fliers and their dunnage were loaded aboard and the wagons creaked away for the secret training grounds, somewhere beyond the capital.

  The base sat close to a forbiddingly high cliff, on Deraine's west coast. Below, gray surf boomed uninvitingly.

  "Be a good place for a morning bath after a good, healthy run," Serjeant Te said briskly, and was glowered at all around.

  Before the war, the base had been a religious retreat, gray-stone main buildings and cottages scattered about the huge estate. Hal saw at once why the retreat had been taken over—the religious types must have worshipped a horse god, or else their benefactors were of the galloping set. There were huge barns and corrals, and what must have been a race course at one time, now being leveled by teams of oxen towing rollers back and forth.

  "Where are our dragons?" a very young, very redheaded, very confident woman asked.

  "Not here yet, and that'll be Serjeant to you," Te growled.

  "Then wot the 'ells will we do, waitin'? Play wi' ourselves?" a man who could have been the young brother of Hal's cocky second, Jarth Ordinay, asked, cheekily.

  "The Lord Spense will find work for you," Te said. "For all of us."

  Hal noted, with a sinking feeling, the Serjeant's face didn't look pleased.

  Te had good reason.

  This was only the second dragon flying class held here at Seabreak—three more schools around Deraine, were also training dragon flights.

  Hal asked how the first class had managed, if the school didn't have any dragons, and was told they'd taken their monsters with them to Sagene, just as his class would… when the dragons materialized.

  The trainees were detailed off to the four-person huts by shouting warrants. One, a Serjeant Patrice, saw Hal's evident status as a combat veteran, but, unlike Te, didn't appear to like it, and chose Kailas for special attention, which meant more close-range shouting than for others.

  Hal had learned, trying to sleep in the rain, to put his mind elsewhere, generally soaring with dragons, so it was easy to ignore Patrice.

  The huts spread out in four rows, each in a different compass heading, meeting at
a common assembly area.

  Hal managed to get one as far from the assembly field as possible, knowing which huts would likely be chosen for details by the warrants.

  He did manage a minute with Serjeant Te, and requested the diminutive Farren Mariah, and "anybody else you think livable" for hutmates.

  The other two were Ev Larnell, a haunted-looking, thin man a couple of years younger than Kailas; and Rai Garadice, a cheerful, muscled youth the same age as Hal, whose name sounded familiar to Hal.

  The thirteen women on the course had their own huts, interspersed with the men's. No one, at least so far, slept anywhere but in the hut assigned him or her. There hadn't been any regulations read out about sex, but everyone automatically sensed it was against the rules. It had to be, since it felt good.

  The huts were single open rooms, twenty feet on a side, and there was a wooden bunk and a large open hanging closet for each student. In the center of the room was a stove, which would be welcome as fall became winter, and a wash basin near the door.

  Studded amid the huts were privies, with a long door at the rear, and half-barrels to catch the waste. Patrice had told them his favorite detail was telling someone to jockey a wagon down the rows, collecting the barrel's contents. All this was said with Patrice's usual expression, an utterly humorless tight smile the trainees found strangely annoying.

  They were allowed half an hour to unpack their gear, then fallen back out. Hal had a few moments to consider a few of the other trainees: the confident, redheaded woman, Saslic Dinapur; a stocky loud man named Vad Feccia; and an arrogant man named Brant Calabar, Sir Brant Calabar he was careful to let everyone know. He reminded Hal of his old enemy as a boy, Nanpean Tregony.

  Then they were pushed into formation, the experienced soldiers already knowing the drill, the civilians becoming quick studies of the others, for an address by the school's commanding officer.

  "This is not my first school command," Lord Pers Spense said. "I've taught at His Majesty's Horse Guards, and was chosen to be Master of the Ring; and half a dozen crack regiments had me as their guest instructor before the war.

  "I know little of this dragon flying you men—and women," he added hastily, "are about to attempt, but doubt me that it can be that different from riding any beast, except that you will be high in the skies."

  Spense was red-faced, probably balding under the dress helm he wore over a very flashy uniform Hal couldn't identify, but knew it wouldn't last beyond the first archer on the battleground. He was most stocky, hardly appearing to be anyone who was the first to push back from the dinner table.

  Spense slapped a riding crop against his highly polished thigh boots.

  "Therefore, we shall begin training all of you in what I call the School of the Soldier.

  "Serjeant Teh," he went on, mispronouncing the name, "has informed me that some of you have already seen bully fighting against the barbarians, those savages who call themselves the Roche, with barely a hundred years or so since they crawled from the swamp.

  "For you, it shall be good to refresh your memory of the most important part of soldiering: drill. For only with the confidence that drill inspires can you go forth into battle, knowing the man on your left will do just what you are doing, and so bring the savages to their knees."

  The speech went on, and on. Hal didn't bother listening to more.

  He knew why Serjeant Te had winced.

  "You will run everywhere," Serjeant Patrice bayed, and so the column of trainees ran through the estate grounds, twice around the cookhall, and stopped, some panting hard, in a long line.

  Hal, not by accident, found himself behind the redhead, Saslic Dinapur. They introduced themselves, wondered about the food.

  "And why'd you join?" she asked.

  "I was already in the army," Hal said. "Things… changed at my old posting." He didn't elaborate about the massacre. "And I was a oddjob boy for a dragon flier named Athelny, back before the war."

  Saslic grinned.

  "I met that old rascal once, when he came to the Menagerie, to ask something of my father. Even as a little girl, I thought he was a definite rogue."

  "He was that," Hal agreed.

  "Do you have any idea what he's doing now? I hope wealthy, perhaps married to some rich dowager, and raising dragons somewhere in the north."

  "He's dead," Hal said. "Killed by a bastard… Sorry—"

  "Don't apologize," Saslic interrupted. "I've heard—used—worse myself. And we are in the army, aren't we?"

  "I guess so," Hal said. "But after Lord Spense's uh, enlightening talk, I'm not sure what century's."

  Saslic laughed, a very pleasant sound Hal decided he could get used to.

  "Anyway, about poor Athelny?"

  "Killed by an archer of a Sagene nobleman who'd euchred Athelny out of his dragon," Hal said. "He flew off, north, toward Deraine, I guess, and we never found his body."

  Saslic was quiet for a few moments, then said, softly, "A bad way to die… but a better funeral than most of us'll see."

  "True," Hal agreed.

  "Move up, there," a voice behind him grated. "Some of us want our dinner."

  Hal turned, looked at the bluff Vad Feccia, thought of saying something, didn't, deciding to fit into this new world as easily as he could, turned back.

  Feccia laughed, a grating noise, and Hal realized he'd made a mistake. The man probably thought Kailas was afraid of him. Oh well. Bullies could be sorted out at a later time.

  "You said something about the Menagerie?" Hal asked Saslic.

  Saslic nodded. "My father is one of the keepers at the King's Own Menagerie, and I helped. I really liked working around the dragons, wanted to learn how to fly them, and when this came up, well, I guess my father'll speak to me sooner or later for running off."

  They entered the long building, which was divided into thirds, one the kitchen, the second a dining room for students, the third, closed off with a screen for the cadre. They got tin plates from a pile, had a glop of what looked like stew, some tired vegetables, a pat of butter and bread dumped on the plate as they passed down the line of bored-looking serving women.

  "Oh dear," Saslic said.

  Hal thought it looked quite a bit better than most of the rations the army fed its troops in Sagene, but he didn't tell Saslic that.

  The two looked around the small hall for a seat at one of the benched tables, just as Sir Brant Calabar crashed to his feet.

  "This is a damned outrage! Eating with commoners!"

  Farren Mariah, evidently the man he objected to, looked up.

  "'At's fine, mate. Yer can wait outside, an' I'll save yer the indignity, an' polish off yer plate as a pers'nal favor."

  Calabar clashed his plate down.

  "Where I come from, a bastard like you'd warrant a whipping!"

  A man at the table behind Calabar stood. He was slender, long-faced, with a large, beaked nose.

  "Now, sir," he said, in a nasal tone Hal had heard lords in the army use, "best you show some manners here. We're all learners together, and there's surely no call to behave like a pig."

  Calabar whirled.

  "And who the blazes are you?"

  "Sir Loren Damian," the man said. "Former equerry to His Most Royal Majesty, detached on special duty to this school, also Lord Dulmin of the Northern Reaches, Quinton of Middlewich, and other equally ponderous titles I shan't bore anyone with, but ones I suspect have precedent in the Royal List over yours."

  "Oh," Calabar said in a very quiet voice, out-titled to the hilt.

  "Now, be a good sort, and sit down, and eat your meal," Sir Loren said.

  Calabar started to obey, then crashed out of the hall.

  "Tsk," Damian said. "But I suppose he'll come around, when his belly calls, which it appears to do on a rather regular basis."

  There was a bit of laughter. Sir Loren picked up his plate, and pointedly walked to the table Calabar'd stormed away from.

  "May I join you, sir?"

&
nbsp; "Uh… surely, I mean, yes m'lord," Mariah managed.

  "My title here is Loren," Damian said. "Most likely something resembling scumbucket to our warrants, I'd imagine."

  He started eating.

  Hal and Saslic found seats. Kailas saw Serjeant Te leaning against the entrance to the cadre's section, a bit of a smile on his face, wondered what it portended for Calabar or Damian, decided that was none of his concern, started eating.

  The food was actually fairly awful.

  "Forrard… harch!" Serjeant Patrice bellowed. "Hep, twoop, threep, fourp… hep, twoop, threep, fourp… godsdammit, Kailas, get in step!"

  Hal almost stumbled over his own feet getting them in the proper military order.

  The forty trainees, in a column of fours, marched away from the assembly area, down one of the curving brick paths into an open area.

  "Right flank… harch!"

  Hal turned left, and almost knocked a heavy-set woman, Mynta Gart, spinning.

  "Lords of below, Kailas, can't you do anything right?"

  The class was in military ranks, and the warrant teaching it had trouble reading the handbook he was holding.

  Hal was half-listening, looking at another trainee two rows away. The man kept looking back at him as if he knew him.

  As the class was dismissed for a break, Hal recognized him and went up.

  "You're Asser, aren't you?"

  "I am that… and where do I know you from?"

  "Hal Kailas. I was Athelny's dogsbody when you were barkering for him. You and… Hils, that was his name."

  "Right!" Asser smiled delightedly. "I heard Athelny's dead. What're you doing here? Did that old fart ever give you a chance to ride a dragon like you wanted?"

  Hal explained, considering Asser as he spoke. Once, a long time ago, he'd thought the young man most dapper, a city slick. But he saw him through different eyes now, no more than another one of those who doesn't sow, but has every hustle in the world for reaping.

  "Hils," Asser said sadly. "He's dead, too. I guess he thought he could outrun the warders, and anyway didn't believe one of 'em would cut him down from behind. A pity. He was just about the smoothest bilker I ever knew, and him and me had a great partnership… for awhile."