by Chris Bunch
"To our victory, and to the noblest of Deraine's warriors, gathered here tonight."
That, of course, was drunk to only by the women carefully positioned between each guest.
The next toast was by Lord Hamil:
"Confusion to our enemies."
That everyone drank to, Hal particularly, although he barely tasted the wine, since he'd been doing no drinking lately, and didn't think part of being a noble hero was throwing up on his host's linen.
The room was a marvel of old paintings and silk hangings. Four musicians, behind a screen, played softly, and a magician and two assistants worked interesting illusions that appeared, vanished, against a muslin curtain against one wall.
The illusions were of patriotic themes, great warriors, interspersed with sentimental scenes of life in Deraine. Hal wryly noticed that all these scenes were of the rich and their estates. That made sense, he thought. No one in the room, with the exception of Hal, came from a poor family.
He was seated next to Lady Khiri Carstares, who, he thought, grew prettier each time he saw her.
"I want to apologize," she said.
"For what?"
"I saw you were upset that I know about… about certain matters."
"I am," Hal admitted.
"Do I look like a Roche spy?"
"I never saw one wearing a sign yet."
She smiled.
"Maybe not you," Hal went on. "But what about that waiter who just served us this fish pancake?"
"That, you barbaric soldier, is caviar… fish eggs. With sour cream."
"Oh." Hal chewed. "I guess I like it. But us barbaric soldiers like anything that isn't trying to eat us."
"Stop trying to be clever," she said. "Leave that for Thom Lowess."
They chatted on, about almost anything and everything except the war, and Hal found Khiri a delightful conversationalist.
Of course you do, a part of his mind said coldly. She's agreeing with almost everything you say.
The next course was perfectly cooked steak in a green peppercorn sauce, followed by herb-baked potato thins, pureed spiced vegetables, a watercress and endive salad with a lemony mustard dressing, and dessert was a meringue tort. Each course was accompanied by a different wine, which, as before, Hal barely tasted.
"You're quite the abstainer, sir," she said.
"Sometimes," Hal agreed. "When I don't want a thick head the next day."
"You needn't worry about that," she said, leaning close, and glancing around to make sure no one was listening. "You won't be sailing until the winter storm the wizards have forecast has passed, and that won't be for at least four days."
Hal was brought back to reality. Again, Khiri noticed.
"I'm sorry," she almost wailed. "Should I be a total ninny, and not talk about anything?"
Hal thought of explaining, decided if she didn't understand by now, she never would.
But Khiri realized her mistake, and began asking him about the habits of his dragons. Hal, eager for the change, talked on, then caught himself, realizing he was probably beginning to sound like Dinner Bore, Category Thirteen, the Dragon Expert.
He was about to apologize, when he realized Khiri had taken off her evening slipper, and, hidden by the long tablecloth, was rubbing her soft foot up and down his inner calf, above his dress half-boot.
He found himself gently sweating, looked at Khiri, saw her smiling, delighted with the effect she was working.
He made some inane comment about one of the illusions, a soldier and his lover walking arm in arm through a swirling garden.
"You are married?" Khiri asked.
"No," Hal said.
"But you have a lover."
"Uh… well, yes." Hal was ashamed of his hesitation. "How did you know?"
"The best men always have lovers," Khiri said mournfully. "Tell me about her."
To his surprise, Hal found himself yammering on about Saslic, and Khiri seemed most interested.
Then Hal's glass was empty, and Thom Lowess was standing again.
"I thank you all for attending my gathering," he said. "Boats are at the landing below, and I suggest it's time for those who're aboard ship to leave, since the weather appears likely to change within the hour.
"The promised storm is, indeed, upon us."
Khiri walked him down to the dock, shivered as a chill wind caught her.
"You'll forgive me, Sir Hal, for not staying, but this gale is freezing my poor little marrow."
Before he could respond, she leaned close, and kissed him, her tongue darting for an instant between his lips. He reached for her, reflexively, but she pulled away with a bell-like laugh, and ran up the steps into Lowess's mansion.
Hal tasted that kiss for a long time on the ride through the choppy waters back to the Adventurer.
The storm broke as predicted that night, and the ships put out double anchors but still heaved restlessly as the rain and wind beat at them.
Hal spent most of his time, as did the fliers and handlers, making sure the dragons were as happy as they could be, feeding them tidbits of offal the ship's cooks were only too glad to get rid of.
He tried to spend his time thinking about how his fire bottles might be improved, either magically or with better material, but Khiri's face kept intruding.
Saslic asked him why he was so pensive, and he was rude to her, and apologized hastily.
She looked at him strangely, but said nothing.
* * *
Four days later, the storm ended, and the sky was a wintry blue, the seas calm as a lake.
Signal flags went slatting up and down masts, and anchors were weighed, and slowly, laboriously, the great fleet made its way out into the open sea.
Hal was standing next to Sir Loren, Vad Feccia and Mynta Gart, awestruck at the vast number of ships, and Loren pointed.
"Look."
Half a dozen warships, sleek three-masters, bulwarks heavy with infantry, their rams, beaks, catapults menacing, boiled past under full sail, banners streaming.
Gart stared after them, eyes shining.
"Shows what a damned fool you were, coming to the dragons, when you could be mate of one of them now, coverin' yourself with glory," Vad Feccia said, with more than a bit of a senseless sneer.
Gart looked him up and down, but said nothing.
Hal determined that Feccia would be chosen to supervise some detail, preferably involving dragon shit.
Winds rose, and another storm threatened. Hal saw sailors praying in the small niche behind the Adventurer's mainmast, guessed that seamen aboard the countless smaller ships would be praying even harder.
But the wind blew out before dawn, and once again the fleet sailed on.
Hal took his dragons up daily, staying close to the convoy, under orders not to fly south of the ships, toward land. The last headlands of Deraine fell away to their stern, and Sagene's coastline was, at most, a dim blur they never closed on.
Then the ships turned south, and even the thickest soldier realized they weren't about to campaign in the frozen north.
Morale and mood improved steadily.
They turned a bit closer to land, and twenty Sagene ships, plus escorts, joined the convoy. They were cheered by the Deraine soldiers and sailors, gave back huzzahs in return. The fleet was at full strength.
Hal was on the foredeck at night, and one of the watch officers paced back and forth a few yards away.
Something to the landward caught his eye, and he asked to borrow the sailor's glass.
A darker bulk showed—Sagene. He stared at it, then saw a flare of light grow, start blinking.
"What's that?" he asked the officer. The man took the glass, scanned.
"Shit," he muttered.
"What is it?" Hal asked. The officer passed the glass back. The blinking light flashed again, then died.
"Two fingers to starboard," the sailor said, and Hal swung his gaze.
Another light came to life, blinked.
"Navigation beacons?" Ha
l guessed.
"The charts show none," the sailor said. "More likely signal beacons."
"Signaling what?" Hal asked, then caught it. "Oh."
"You have it," the sailor said grimly, and hurried to the captain's cabin to report they were being tracked.
Storm fairly leapt into the air, and honked in glee. None of the dragons liked being aboard ship. Hal wondered about that—how they could sail like boats, but despise these wooden creations, guessed it might be the stink of men, or perhaps the unnatural swaying as the ship rolled.
He sent Storm high, two other dragons climbing behind him, swooping in pure pleasure.
The wind was from the west-south-west, and almost warm, even here, a thousand feet above the water.
Hal scented a different wind—the wind of battle.
* * *
Sailors put out long trotlines, and pulled fish in, fish multicolored and unknown to any of the men and women of Deraine.
The cooks set braziers on deck, and fried the fish, basting them in butter, and drenched them with hoarded lemons from Sagene. Hal thought he had eaten a record number of the crispy small delicacies, then saw Farren Mariah, still inhaling, two bites per fish, no more, not concerning himself with bones, crunching them like he was a beast.
"I'm catchin' up on a d'prived childhood," Mariah explained.
"You mean depraved," Saslic suggested.
"That too."
The dragons also liked the fish—fed to them raw, in bushel baskets.
Signal flags from the flagship went to the Adventurer, and Hal took half his flight aloft, flew east obeying the orders from Lord Hamil.
Great headlands rose from the sea, the ocean smashing high against them, empty bluffs that, according to his map, marked the farthest westering bit of Sagene.
Hal looked back, saw the fleet slowly turning west, following the coast toward Roche.
He saw something and, against orders, motioned Saslic to follow him down.
Storm's wings folded, and the dragon dove until Hal pulled the reins back.
The monster flared his wings, came level, and the headland's flat plateau was only a few hundred feet below.
Hal saw half a dozen tents, and something he couldn't quite make out. Then he saw it clear—a large mirror, gimbal mounted. There were half a dozen men around it, some looking out to sea.
Then smoke flared, and a small fire grew below the mirror.
It moved, beginning to flash rapidly, in some sort of code, pointed east. Hal squinted through the haze, thought he saw an answering blink.
He hoped this was an unmarked signal post of Sagene, but suspected far differently.
Hal waved to Saslic, and turned, at full speed, back toward the fleet.
A ship's boat took Hal to the fleet's flagship, a huge warship with holystoned decks and brightwork everywhere. Barefoot sailors in spotless uniform scurried here and there, as busy as housemaids, under the shouted orders of boatswains.
Hal saw Thom Lowess on the poop deck, nodded to him, ignored his obvious curiosity.
He was escorted to the enormous cabin of Lord Hamil. Hal thought it almost as large as a dragon pen.
They reported what they'd seen on the headlands to Hamil, Cantabri, two Sagene noblemen and staff officers.
Hamil said calmly, "I like this news but little."
Lord Cantabri nodded grimly, but said nothing.
Hamil got up, paced.
"So we must assume we've been seen… I'd guess those mirror-men could be Sagene traitors."
One of the Sagene nobles growled in anger, but made no comment.
"Or," Hamil went on, "more likely, long-range penetration agents from Roche.
"In either case, that means we've been seen by the enemy."
He looked worried. Hal couldn't understand—the fleet, and its design, had been known to everyone, including the gods on high, since before they sailed from Paestum.
Why should this latest be an astonishment?
But he held his tongue.
"Ships of the Roche fleet might be readying to sail against us," the other Sagene nobleman said worriedly.
Hamil nodded agreement.
"Very well, Sir Hal," Hamil said. "I'll notify the other three dragon flight commanders, and from now on you'll mount constant patrols to the east and north as we sail on toward Roche.
"You must be totally alert, watching especially for any unknown ships.
"From now on, as Lord Cantabri suggested to me back in Deraine, our fate could well be in your hands."
Chapter Twenty-Three
From aboard ship the Deraine fleet was most impressive. But from two thousand feet, the ships weren't nearly as awe-inspiring. Hal finally had a chance to count them, as Storm climbed for height. He made about seventy Deraine ships, thirty from Sagene and, in front and along the flanks, another twenty-five warships.
No one had any idea how many ships Roche might have in their navy, their size or deployment, since most of them were evidently berthed in southern waters.
It had possibly made sense to ignore the Roche navy as long as the war was fought on land, and the only sea-guard that needed keeping was over the Chicor Straits. But how no intelligence could have been gathered once Deraine decided on this amphibious invasion…
Hal turned that part of his mind off. He would never understand the thinking of generals and such.
Garadice and Sir Loren flew at Hal's flanks, and he set a compass course due west, eyes searching for any ships. Other than a scatter of fishing smacks, he saw nothing, and turned back after a three-hour flight, half of a dragon's comfortable range.
Hal and his team mates landed on the Adventurer's barge, and another scouting flight took off from another transport.
He reported to Lord Hamil on the flagship by coded pennant, ate, waited for his next turn aloft.
Hal spent the time inventorying the fire bottles he'd had made up, with spells by one of Limingo's assistants, wondering just how he'd use them in the invasion. He dreamed of a new device, something that would really explode, something as big as a man, but had no idea how such a killing machine might be built, either by normal engineering or by magic.
His next shift began at midnight, and so he chose Saslic and Garadice to accompany him as the most capable fliers, and paid close attention to his compass on the way out, and on the way back.
Nothing was seen.
Saslic brought him an interesting sheet of paper.
"Look you," she said. "We're not doing all we could."
"Explain, if you would," Hal said.
"Easily. We fly out for three hours, then back for three. That gives us a known area, like I've drawn here, which is no more than the fleet takes to travel in two days."
"Two days is a long time."
"To plan a battle?" Saslic asked, glanced about. "Particularly with these dunder brains in charge of us?"
"You have an idea?"
"Surely. If there's such a thing as a good chart…"
"Maybe," Hal said, "from the captain."
There was, a merchant seaman's map from before the war.
Saslic spread it across the navigator's table, ignored his scowl, and studied it closely.
"Just what are we supposed to be looking for?" Hal asked.
"For this," and her finger stabbed at the map. Hal bent closer, saw three tiny dots, just beyond the Sagene-Roche border.
"Islands. Uh… the Landanissas."
"Smart, smaaaart man," Saslic said. "A bit more than—what's the scale on this damned map?—eight hours flight time, assuming the fleet is about here. We wait until we're within six hours' range, then what we do is take, oh, two other fliers, and fly off to those islands. That'll give us a forward base to look for the Roche… Assuming they've got any ships out there."
"Supposing those islands, which look pretty damned small, don't happen to have anything like water or something we can feed the dragons with?"
"They will," Saslic said confidently. "Look. This little
one's got a littler dot, with the name of the port—Jarraquintah. Damned barbarous names these Roche use. Any place with a name has got people. Any place with people's got pigs and water.
"Admire my strategic abilities, O Sir Hal."
"I'm admiring," Hal said. "Four fliers."
"You, me, Garadice and Sir Loren. The best we've got."
Hal took Saslic's plan to Lord Cantabri, figuring that anything irregular was more likely to be approved by him, or at least go to Lord Hamil with Cantabri's hero stamp on it.
Cantabri studied the map and a brief outline thoroughly.
"You'd need gold," he said. "Both for bribes, and for supplies, assuming Dinapur's right, and the island's inhabited.
"What happens if it's garrisoned?"
"We'll make a sweep first," Hal said. "If there's sign of soldiery, we'll shelter on one of the islands until our dragons are rested, then fly back."
"And if all three islands have soldiers?"
Hal had thought of that.
"The only thing we'll be able to do is fly due north, toward Roche, and land on the water if our beasts are winded. Wait for a time, then go on to the mainland.
"We'll try to find a source of supply there, either by force of arms or with the gold, then fly back to the fleet."
"Assume you can't," Cantabri said.
"Then we'll make our way north, as we can," Hal said. "North and west, toward the Sagene border and our lines."
"And if you're captured?" Cantabri said.
Hal shrugged.
"Try not to talk as long as we can. Then…"
"Anyone can be broken," Cantabri said grimly. "I'm glad you're not laboring under illusions of heroism."
"I stopped that the first time I got wiped out," Hal said. "Back with the cavalry."
"A hard lesson to learn," Cantabri sighed, looking about Lord Hamil's cabin and the swarm of brave-looking staff officers. "Sometimes I think…"
"What, sir?"
"Nothing," Cantabri said. "I'll have to take this to Lord Hamil, of course. But I see no reason he won't approve.
"Go ahead and make your preparations, and I'll signal the Adventurer with the decision.
"And if I don't get a chance to give you my blessings and prayers, for whatever they're worth, when you fly off, you have them now.
"Go, and find the damned Roche, if they're out there. But come back!"
