Storm of Wings

by Chris Bunch

  Deraine had held the Roche, driven them back slightly.

  Duke Jaculus Gwithian, and his staff, were among the knights who stood their ground to the last man, neither asking nor giving quarter.

  He may have been a dumb bastard, Hal thought. But he was surely a brave dumb bastard.

  Aimard Quesney was sitting near the dragon lines, away from the others that night. Hal brought him a plate of food. He took it, set it down untasted.

  "And so you've got what you wanted," Quesney said. His voice was flat, not pleased, not angry. "You've got your war and your killing.

  "Be proud, Kailas. Be very proud. We've bloodied the land and the water, and now you're the first to take it to the skies."

  Without waiting for a response, he walked away, into the darkness.

  They were in the air at dawn the next day. Again, Miletus, even though he commanded the flight, let Hal control the fighting.

  It didn't matter to Kailas—the situation was so desperate nothing mattered except killing Roche.

  Again, the battle on the ground was mounted, and again Deraine held.

  On the next morning, before the two sides could stumble together and hew away in exhaustion, they heard trumpets from the south and east.

  This time the flight's mission was its original—to scout the land.

  To the east, they found, proud in its finery, freshness and armor, a massed Sagene army. They barely had time to report the miracle before the Sagene smashed into the unprotected Roche flank.

  They were the army that'd been assembled to defend Sagene's capital of Fovant, and the Roche attack on the Deraine soldiers had given them time to march east, and strike where they weren't expected.

  The Roche fell back, across the wasteland their soldiers and green mist had created. But they didn't break, as the Deraine soldiers had, but fought stubbornly from hilltop to ravine to draw, killing one Deraine here, half a dozen Sagene there.

  But they were pushed all the way back through that bloody summer, back across the border, and several miles into Roche territory.

  Deraine and Sagene disengaged, numbly prepared fighting positions, and then collapsed in total exhaustion.

  No one knew how many men died in the brutal series of battles. Some said half a million, others said a million, others even more.

  "Serjeant Kailas," Miletus said. Hal was helping his hands groom his dragon. Hachir, still with the flight as were the other thirteen crossbowmen, was also helping.

  "Sir?"

  "I've got orders for you."

  Hal waited.

  "Since the crisis appears over, you, and six others—Dinapur, Feccia, Garadice, Gart, Mariah, Sir Loren, are reassigned."

  "Where?"

  "Back where you were supposed to have gone in the first place. The First Army," Miletus said. "Around Paestum."

  That was what Hal had wanted, but he was just too tired to celebrate.

  "I'll be sorry to leave you, sir," he said, telling the truth.

  "Don't be," Miletus said. "Those bastards across the line're too tired to do anything for awhile. Things will be nice and quiet in these parts, and we can recover and maybe think about getting drunk and laid.

  "Up north, where you're going, things are just starting to get interesting.

  "I've sent dispatches to whatever Lord High Plunk will take over the Third Army about what you did… about your ideas.

  "And I'm giving you a sealed dispatch, for your new Commander at the First Army, with the same details. Maybe he'll give you a medal, or make you a knight, or even give you a free drunk in Paestum.

  "As for leaving us… we'll run into each other again, down the road.

  "If we live.

  "It's looking to be a very long war."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Again, Paestum had changed, becoming more and more a smooth-running machine to process troops toward the front and, as a byprocess, to relieve them of as much money as possible.

  Hal was the ranking warrant of the seven fliers, still with the rank he'd had with the light cavalry. He'd wondered a time or two why no dragon flier ever seemed to get promoted. But he'd learned that if the army had a reason for doing what it did, it seldom chose to share its wisdom with the lower ranks.

  Hal's orders read for the seven to report to the Eleventh Dragon Flight. He asked a provost, got instructions to its camp, two leagues west of the city.

  All of them were heavy-pursed—there hadn't been much to buy during the retreat and battles. But none seemed in the mood for revel, still tired from the fighting, and Hal didn't think his new commander would be entranced if a warrant decided to stop the war so his charges could get seduced and drunk.

  He was very right.

  The Eleventh Flight had commandeered a sprawling farm, almost a manor. Most of the buildings were cheery red brick, and the grounds were neat if overgrown, although the land had been fought through during the siege of Paestum, and there were still shattered remnants of outbuildings here and there.

  It looked very peaceful in the summer sun.

  Hal smiled when he heard the screech of a dragon from behind the manor house, answered by one of their dragons on the wagons.

  But his smile vanished, seeing a formation of soldiers marching back and forth to the chant of an iron-lunged warrant.

  "Drill," Farren said as he might have mentioned slow torture. "Drill, here?"

  "Maybe," Saslic said, from her seat behind the wagon's driver, "maybe those are guards for the flight."

  "Maybe," Farren said. "Or, more likely, we've fallen into the clutches of a martynet, who thinks the war's to be won by square-bashint."

  Captain Sir Fot Dewlish dabbed delicately at his nose with a handkerchief that, Hal decided, was probably starched and ironed.

  Sir Fot was a very dapper officer. His uniform had clearly been tailored, and equally clearly had never seen a muddy battlefield, any more than Sir Fot had.

  He sat, very calm, very much at ease, at a desk that wasn't sullied with paper. Dewlish was about to say something when a clock gonged.

  Both men turned to look at it. The clock was a bronze monstrosity of a dragon, holding a world in one claw, a clock in the other. It had been carefully painted in exact colors.

  "That's our mascot," Dewlish explained. "The lower ranks quite revere him, and call him Bion."

  Hal made a vaguely understanding noise. He rather wished there was a dragon on Dewlish's chest, indicating he was also a flier, instead of on the mantel.

  "To continue," Dewlish said. "I cannot say, to be truthful, I'm much impressed by your, or your fellows', appearance. I've always heard that some of the dragon flights permit their fliers to go around looking scruffy, and now believe it."

  "There weren't a lot of tailors where we were, sir."

  "Do not be impertinent!" Dewlish snapped. "Now, or ever."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "I'll make arrangements for you to go into Paestum, in turn, and visit my tailor. He's quite good, and fairly economical. I assume that your lot has some money?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. Now, first let me acquaint you with the way I run this flight. I believe a good soldier keeps himself, or herself, quite smart." He frowned, as if not liking the idea of women being assigned to his flight, but said nothing.

  "There is no room for slackers, Serjeant Kailas. Not here, at any rate.

  "I believe that was the reason my late predecessor in charge of this flight suffered such terrible casualties."

  Hal didn't reply.

  "Fortunately, I understand you have had the benefit of being schooled, at least in your first days in dragon school -dreadful name, that—by an old friend of mine, a fellow heavy cavalryman, Sir Pers Spense."

  "Uh… yessir. We were, sir."

  "A pity how he ran afoul of these new thinkers in the army. Now he's over here, responsible for dealing with the recruits that arrive, before they're assigned to their new units.

  "He tells me their discipline is shocking
, most shocking, and he, and a loyal coterie, are doing their utmost to make them into proper soldiers of the king.

  "Poor fellow. He wants, more than anything, to be reassigned to a proper station, perhaps in charge of one of the schools of heavy cavalry.

  "But, like all of us, he soldiers on, without complaining."

  Dewlish smiled at Hal, and Kailas guessed he was supposed to have some sort of response. He smiled back, more a twitch than anything else, in return.

  "Now, Serjeant, I'll acquaint you with my manner of soldiering. I'll be wanting to address the new men, and, er, women, before evening meal. But you can give them the gist of my feelings, and, since it's still morning, help them to begin shaking things out, as I believe you fliers call it, informally.

  "I believe, as I said, in running things firmly. All fliers will be neatly dressed at all times, including when flying. I especially despise those disreputable sheepskins you wear."

  Hal was grateful it was still summer, hoped that Dewlish would trip over his spurs or a dragon before winter came.

  "We assemble before dawn, for calisthenics, and a run, for I believe a sound body breeds sound fighters. Then three flights, of two dragons each, go out on morning patrol, to scout the assigned tasks from army headquarters that we receive during the night.

  "Then the fliers return for noon meal and, after, drill, which shall be mounted, once I manage to obtain horses. Then the afternoon flight goes up, on its assigned tasks. Sometimes there will be an evening flight as well, returning just at dusk.

  "Are there any questions?"

  "Sir, won't the Roche figure out that we're passing over their lines at a certain time, and arrange their affairs to allow for that?"

  Dewlish snorted.

  "I do not believe those barbarians are capable of that kind of analysis. In any event, those are my orders, and, consequently, that is the way this flight will be run.

  "I'm aware," he said, reaching into a desk drawer and taking out a rather thick envelope, "that your former commander allowed a great deal of independence.

  "I received an interesting letter from him, suggesting that certain extraordinarily irregular changes you tried recently might be implemented in my command.

  "First, the existing King's Regulations give us quite enough to do as it is.

  "But second, and more important, just as I do not tell any officer how to run his command, so I brook no interference from others!"

  He ostentatiously tossed Miletus' letter into a red leather wastebasket.

  "As for certain other recommendations he made about you… well, I think a soldier must prove himself in person before any awards or such can be considered.

  "That, I think, is all, Serjeant. My orderly officer will show you your quarters, which of course are rigidly segregated as to the sexes, which is only natural, and the stables for your beasts. The rank and file you brought with you will be integrated into the flight, which should speed up their learning my way of doing things, and your wagons will become part of my establishment.

  "Oh yes. One other thing. I believe in a proper reward at the proper time for a man who has distinguished himself. And, on the other hand, I punish offenders uniformly, and with a very severe hand.

  "That is all, Serjeant."

  Hal stood, saluted smartly, and marched out, wondering what Farren Mariah would say when he found out about the new wind blowing changes.

  Mariah offered four absolutely horrifying and anatomically impossible obscenities.

  "Worst, the bastid ain't flyin', so that means he's prob'ly immortal," he mourned.

  "We could always arrange an accident," Saslic said.

  "Careful," Sir Loren warned. "This Dewlish doesn't impress me as someone who can take a joke like that."

  "Who was joking?" Saslic said.

  "One other thing," Hal said. "Dewlish isn't one for holding hands in the moonlight."

  "So what?" Saslic said. "I wasn't considering holding his paw."

  "For him… or for anybody else."

  Saslic used two sentences, and Farren's eyes widened in admiration.

  "That eunuch," she added. "I suppose we can't drink, either."

  "I already checked," Rai Garadice gloomed. "Fliers are permitted two drinks daily, which are served before dinner in the main mess."

  "I was wrong," Saslic decided. "He's not a eunuch, he's a godsdamned Roche secret agent, determined to ruin our morale."

  Following a daily briefing, the fliers went out, morning and afternoon, over Paestum, to the Roche positions on the coast, south for a time, then home.

  The First Army's orders were always the same: "Scout the Roche lines east of Paestum, and to their rear for any signs of troop build-up."

  Of course, since clocks could be set by the time the dragons overflew the lines, there was seldom anything to be seen, other than cavalry skirmishing, or an occasional infantry patrol in contact with the enemy.

  Once Hal saw movement, extensive movement, in a forest just inland, and asked permission of Dewlish to take another patrol back over the area at once, to catch whoever was moving about down there by surprise.

  Permission, of course, was refused—Dewlish said if it was anything of significance, it would be reported by the afternoon flight.

  Nothing was seen.

  "What the hell are we going to do about him?" Hal snarled.

  "You keep telling me I can't arrange an accident," Saslic complained.

  "Even if I did, who would you go to?"

  "Probably take care of matters myself," Saslic said. "Buy some poison next time I'm in Paestum. Lord knows if Dewlish ever fell over dead, there'd be no end of suspects.

  "The fliers all want him skinned alive, and the rest of the flight think that's too easy a fate."

  "Rest easy, children," Sir Loren said. "Concentrate on practicing your flying and getting ready for the next time our peerless leaders decide it's time to go out and get killed.

  "Besides, nothing lasts forever. Not even Sir Fot Dewlish."

  "You c'n afford to be, what do they call it, c'mplacent," Mariah said. "You're ahead of him in the Royal List, so he gives you little agony."

  "True," Sir Loren said, grinning. "And you lesser beings can work out your own fate."

  "Can I push him in the pond?" Farren asked Hal.

  "With my blessing," Hal said.

  "Now, now. Us high-ranking knights deserve a little respect," Sir Loren said.

  "And that's what you're getting," Hal said. "Very damned little respect."

  Frustrated, Hal took to doing just as Sir Loren suggested—flying his dragon either morning or afternoon around the base area if he wasn't scheduled for a patrol, and doing acrobatics in the sky.

  Thinking about the crossbowmen they'd used over Bedarisi, Hal started teaching his dragon to respond to shouts and pressure from his thighs. That would leave his hands free for other actions, which he was still devising. One thing he'd vaguely noted back then, through the haze of exhaustion, was that his dragon flew more slowly, couldn't climb as fast, with Hachir behind him.

  His dragon, still nameless, seemed to like curveting about, either high above the farm, or else flying very low, very fast along the country roads, hopefully terrifying any travelers and, sometimes, sending a wagon careening into a ditch.

  The first time it happened, Hal expected the farmer who'd emerged dripping from the green water to complain to Dewlish, but nothing happened.

  One of the stablemen said the locals were all terrified of the dragon fliers, swearing they'd made pacts with demons for their powers, and wanting nothing to do with any of them.

  "Which's a great laugh f'r us, 'cept when we figger ain't none of us getting' laid by th' local lassies. Though," he said and looked sly, "I've hopes for th' future, puttin' the word about one of th' gifts th' demons give us is double-length dicks."

  On the way back from a patrol, Hal landed near an infantry base, and traded some of the wine he'd bought in Paestum for a crossbow and a selection of
bolts.

  He set up targets at various ranges, and began mastering the weapon. He rated himself a fair shot with a conventional bow, learned when he was with the cavalry, and had little trouble adjusting to the more modern weapon.

  But firing at motionless bales of straw on the ground did little to teach him how to hit a moving target in the air. He found a Roche banner, and a length of rope, and convinced Saslic to tow the line behind her dragon, Nont, and let him shoot at the banner.

  The first time out, he almost shot Nont in the tail. Saslic had words with him when they landed, made him vow that if he was going to miss, miss to the rear, not forward.

  "One more like that—especially if it happens to tweak me—and it'll be a long, long time before this playground'll be open for you," she said.

  Two problems were immediately obvious—he wasn't good enough to always hit the banner on the first shot, and reloading the crossbow, while rocking in the saddle, was a good way to suddenly start practicing air-walking; and his bolts were unretrievable.

  The crossbowmen he'd traded for the first weapon became his very, very good, if a bit alcoholic, friends, since he had to stop almost every day for new bolts.

  Since his stops meant the other dragon in his patrol had to fly about for a time, he was afraid Dewlish would find out his extracurricular pastime, and forbid it, like he arbitrarily had forbidden the fliers associating with their stablehands when not on duty, keeping alcohol in their quarters, and ever appearing out of uniform.

  He thought of acquiring more crossbows, but the thought of going flying with a stack of weaponry clattering about behind him, possibly hung on hooks drilled in the dragon's plating made him laugh, wryly.

  "How strong're you?" Farren asked without preamble.

  "Strong enough, I suppose," Hal said.

  "Look 'ere," Farren said, taking a roll of paper from under his arm. "I remember, back as a lad, seein't a toy like this, use't to shoot at the poor larks flyin' about. I took the toy away from the little savage what wielded it, and warmed his butt with the thing.

  "It looked sorta like this."

  The sketch was of a crossbow. But conventional crossbows had nothing but a length of wood from the butt to the foot stirrup, with perhaps a guard around the trigger. This had a curved grip just behind the trigger, and a second grip in front of it.