by Chris Bunch
"Besides, until I'm able to travel the hills of Roche freely, my studies are at a halt."
"Good. I'll give you the rank of lieutenant, at first," Hal said. "And the minute the war ends, you'll return to civilian status."
His family was horrified that Kailas was putting their jewel in harm's way, and Hal swore he had no intention of letting anyone harm him.
Goang settled the matter by saying he was joining, and that was that.
Hal felt a bit like a kidnapper, taking Goang from the heart of his family. The man left burdened with packages, warm clothes, advice and money.
It was very different, calling on Mav Dessau's father, Baron Dessau. The student of architecture and magic had survived the raid, but just after returning to Deraine had fallen ill, and died within a week.
Hal, as he'd promised Mav, called on his father, a bluff, boisterous country man. He didn't seem much interested in Hal's account of his son's help, nor of how he clearly looked up to his father.
The man offered Hal a drink, then said, "Well, I suppose I'm glad you came to call, Dragonmaster. But I'm sure you'll have to admit that Mav's help was purely accidental. You could hardly call him worthy of soldiering, now could you?"
Hal set the untouched drink down, looked coldly at Dessau, and said, "Baron, you may be a big supporter of the king, but I'm sure you will have to admit you're more than a bit of a shithead, and damned unworthy of having a son like Mav."
Dessau goggled. Clearly no one had ever, or not within memory, had the temerity to call him that.
He glared at Hal, considerably smaller than he was, and reached for a coach whip hanging on the wall.
Then he noted Hal's hand was on his dagger, the catch of the sheath unsnapped, thought better of doing anything, and stamped off.
Hal let himself out, rode away, trying to think that he'd somehow revenged Mav, but knew the dead could never be avenged.
Hal was summoned for a final audience with the king, who gave him only one instruction: that he was to visit all Sagene dragon flights as well as those of Deraine.
Asir had already gotten permission from Sagene's Council of Barons for such an irregularity.
"And," he added, "be sure to pick more than a token number of Sagene. You, by the way, will be flying a dual banner of both countries' standards when you take the field."
Hal was starting to realize there was a great deal more to high command than merely bashing the enemy.
He picked up his cap, clapped a hand to his chest, was about to back out of the royal presence, when the king held up a hand.
"One other thing," Asir said. "I know Baron Dessau is a shithead. In fact, I'd most likely call him worse names. But to myself.
"That's all."
Hal found a frizzy-bearded man with a sad face waiting at Sir Thom's.
It was Garadice, chief dragon trainer, who'd withdrawn to a secret base with some fifty black dragons, gathered in the raid on Black Island. His son, Rai, had trained and flown with Hal and had been killed in the siege of Aude.
"I have a small present for you," Garadice said. He attempted a smile, failed. Hal wondered if he'd ever smile again. "The rest of the army will think me a villain, and you a conniver who only succeeds because you're the king's favorite."
"A small present can do that much damage?"
"Well, perhaps it isn't that small."
Hall waited.
"I have some forty-six trained black dragons, which I have been instructed to provide for your new squadron."
Hal whistled, then asked, "How trained are they?"
Garadice chose his words carefully.
"I don't think I'd walk up to one on a dark night and shout Boh, and I'd make sure they're well fed at all times… but other than that, as trained as any dragon by a show-flier before the war."
"Good," Hal said. "Very good. Now we might have something to really shake Ky Yasin in his boots."
"There will be more in the offing," Garadice said. "We've had some luck setting out trapping ships like the Adventurer, keeping well south of Black Island, putting out lures, and have snared some twenty or so kits, almost yearlings.
"Some, interestingly enough, come from the west, and are a bit war-torn, even though, as far as I can tell, they've never seen man or his wars.
"It makes me wonder what the dragons coming west are fleeing. But that's for another time, when there's peace.
"With several wizards, I'm working with them and hope to have them in shape by the time they're a year older, perhaps less."
Another man sought Hal out, just as he was completing final packing for his trip across the Straits to Paestum, to start his quest.
The man limped up to Sir Thom's mansion, knocked on the door, announced himself, and was taken immediately to Hal.
"I don't suppose you might have room for a crippled flier," Sir Alt Hofei asked, a bit tentatively.
"Great gods, yes," Hal said. "I've never heard of a dragon flier who needed to run footraces.
"Welcome to the First Squadron, my friend," he said, pouring Hofei a brandy. "I was wondering if you were going to decide to serve on."
"Why not?" Hofei said. "There's little joy to be had here in Rozen these days. The time's past, and I missed it fair, when a man in a uniform would never lack for a damsel."
"I don't think it was around very long at all," Hal said.
"That's what the old soldiers say," Hofei said. "A war sucks away all the best things, and leaves nothing."
Hal looked at him closely.
"Are you sure you want to go out again? I'm sure you could find some nice soft posting training new fliers or something."
Hofei shuddered.
"I think being around half-trained glory-boys and -girls, not to mention quarter-trained dragons, might be even more dangerous than finding some Roche fliers to bother.
"No, Lord Kailas. I'm in it for the duration… or until they succeed at killing me."
"Then be welcome."
Hal had assigned Farren and Mynta two of the black dragons, in spite of their protests.
"It's simple," he explained. "We want to make as good a show as possible."
"You think a good show's one of those nasty bastards chewing my leg off?"
Hal considered.
"It could be."
"What about you?" Farren said. "I notice you're still on that old beast you had before."
"He's the Dragonmaster," Mynta explained. "He can do as he likes."
"Damned great monster we went and created," Mariah whined.
Two days later, they flew across the Chicor Straits to Paestum, and started looking for fliers.
* * * *
Cabet was running the squadron and, Hal grudged, doing a good job, even if his attention to the smallest detail was driving everyone slightly insane.
There'd been orders issued by King Asir other than the all-encompassing one Hal had in his belt pouch: the First Squadron was almost overwhelmed with supplies, from new tentage to farriers and wine and beer.
Mariah licked his lips at the thought of all that alcohol going down the throats of the undeserving, and wondered again if he was really necessary on this recruiting trip.
Hal said he was. Farren grimaced, but didn't object, and went to spend some time with Chincha, the dragon flier he was sweet on.
Two days later, the Grand Tour commenced.
It was fairly grim.
They started in First Army's area, which was the hardest fought through, so Hal comforted himself that this was as bad as it would get.
It didn't make him feel better.
He encountered two sets of dragon fliers at the first three bases. The old, experienced fliers were worn out, exhausted. The newer fliers were eager, inexperienced, and fell fairly easy prey to Ky Yasin and his black dragons across the lines, or the other Roche flights.
Of the names he had for prospective volunteers, the response, all too often, was: "Sorry, sir. But he was killed a month or two months or three months ag
o."
Or: "Wounded. Sent home. Won't be back. Hope he makes it."
Or: "Gone missing on a dawn flight. We think we saw his dragon heading north that day, with nobody in the saddle."
Or just a slow shake of the head.
Hal had twenty-seven fliers in all four flights of the First, and needed at least another thirty-three.
He'd thought that wouldn't be an impossible goal, but was starting to wonder.
He had many volunteers—at one base, the entire flight turned out, drawn by the magic of the name Dragonmaster.
Hal put them through two tests in the air—one against either Farren or Mynta, and, if they appeared competent, then against himself.
In neither case did he insist on a mock victory. He wanted to see if the fliers had a feel for the air and, more importantly, for their mounts.
A mediocre flier with a good dragon, and some empathy for the beast, could destroy a superior flier who had no feelings at all for his dragon.
After these tests, he interviewed the prospective volunteers.
He rejected those who were flying out of revenge, or anger, just as he refused those who seemed intent on building a score.
The new fad with the broadsheets was to keep track of the top-scoring dragon flier.
Hal considered it absurd, since he had less than no idea of how many men—or dragons—he'd killed, and wasn't interested in trying to keep track.
The days were bloody enough as it was.
He also rejected those who spouted patriotism. These were invariably either the inexperienced or the fools. Flag-waving didn't last long on the front lines, and, when it vanished, the flier was most likely to be killed in a short while. What gave true tenacity were things like inner strength, in a very few cases, religion, or, the most common of all, fighting for the others in your flight.
They found ten acceptable volunteers in all of First Army, and moved on south.
The situation was a little better in Second Army—they hadn't been as heavily engaged for as long a time as the First, and the fliers weren't quite as shattered.
Twelve more volunteers were picked.
They, like the first, were told to secure their gear, given chits for meals and fodder, and told to make their way to Paestum and report to the squadron.
Mynta muttered that, as adjutant, she should have been left behind at the base to make sure the replacements were slotted in properly.
Hal didn't tell her there would be another change made when they returned—he still wanted an adjutant who'd been trained as a flier, someone who'd have a degree of sympathy for the poor bastards aloft. But this time, he would look for one who couldn't fly anymore. A flier as able as Gart was too good to waste on the ground for even the few hours allotted.
It was desolate winter, the ground gray and muddy below the dragons' wings, the skies dark and foreboding when they weren't storming.
Hal's thoughts were equally bleak, wondering how much longer the war would go on, and what would, what might, happen when it ended. He wondered if he'd be content with his estates, and Khiri, but suspected not. But he had no idea of what might interest him, if he lived.
He also wondered why both sides couldn't just quit, and say this whole nightmare had been a mistake. He didn't say anything, of course. The Dragonmaster's face could only be turned to war.
Besides, there'd been too much blood shed for a painful, inconsequential peace to be declared. There would have to be a winner and a loser… and so the war would drag on to a dark and unknown conclusion.
The lines they flew over appeared deserted, although now and again there'd be the moving dots of horsemen as light cavalry foraged or patrolled, and were driven back by infantry or heavy cavalry.
Hal knew there were infantry down there, huddled in their winter shelters or, if they were lucky, in some castle that hadn't been razed or in the ruins of a village or town.
Occasionally they saw other dragons in the air, sometimes on their side of the line, sometimes on the other. Generally the Roche fliers had the odds, and so Hal and his two companions would dive for cover.
Hal had the idea that the Roche had the edge in the air at present, and determined that would be changed as quickly as he could manage.
Yes, there was still a war to be fought, no matter how tired the soldiers were, and so he continued his search.
19
Bedarisi, to a less jaundiced eye than Hal's, might have been charming at one time. It was an ancient city, close on the Roche border.
It had winding streets, old buildings that leaned toward each other, and was known for having the best food in Sagene, better even than Fovant, its capital.
But it was here that the second great Roche offensive had been bloodily repelled, where Hal had seen his first combat as a dragon flier, so he had considerable prejudice against the place.
The city had been smashed by magic and by the soldiers of Deraine and Sagene—the Roche had been driven back on the city's outskirts. There'd been unfought fires that burned whole districts to the ground, and Hal could still smell the acrid reek of the ruins.
The people in the streets were pinch-faced, dressed raggedly, looked hungry, and scurried away from anyone in uniform. There were almost no young women, only a few young men. But everyone on the streets moved like they were aged, even the youngest children.
Another reason for Hal's dislike of the city was personal—there'd been a terrible episode before the war, back when Hal had been apprenticed to a dragonmaster, Athelny of the Dragons, who had great talent and skill with the monsters, but was also a driven and inept gambler. He'd wagered everything, including his show, in a card game with a Sagene nobleman and Ky Yasin, who at the time had his own flying show and was pretending to be a civilian.
And he'd lost to the Sagene—a Lord Scaer.
Trying to flee north to Paestum on his one remaining dragon, Scaer's guards had wounded the dragon flier. Athelny had vanished without a trace.
That was another mark against Bedarisi.
But it was the Third Army's headquarters, and it was here that Kailas chose to take a break from the road, and let the prospective volunteers come to him.
He set up shop about a third of a league distant from army headquarters, which was in a large manor house just beyond the city. Third Army officials found an abandoned farmhouse for the trio that hadn't been too ravaged by the battles.
It was Kailas's intent to screen prospective fliers, rest a bit, then move east, and, following King Asir's orders, comb out the Sagene dragon flights.
The volunteers trickled in, and Hal was very sure that someone in Third Army was sabotaging his—and the king's—efforts.
He couldn't figure out who, although he'd narrowed it to someone in army headquarters, who probably resented Kailas's taking "his" reconnaissance elements.
Or, conceivably, the person could have been a traitor for the Roche.
But Hal had expected something like this, and was vaguely surprised there hadn't been more obstructors.
He still managed to get six good fliers, four of them women.
Another volunteer showed up.
"I don't know about this one," Gart said. "He's very new, fresh out of flying school."
"Wring him out, and we'll see," was Hal's response. He was a bit irritated, fingering an invitation from the "Noblemen of Bedarisi," asking him to a banquet before he left the area.
He didn't want to go, but remembered King Asir's caution about being diplomatic, and grudgingly sent a message back that he'd be most pleased.
He'd just finished giving the response to the messenger who'd brought the invitation when Gart came back.
"He can fly, sir," she said. "He's still got a lot of the school ideas… but he's fairly good."
Hal, wanting to get a bit of the paperwork out of his system, took Storm up against the man, and was surprised when the man was able to force him into what was called a winding contest—two fliers trying to turn inside the other until either
one of them succeeded and was able to make a direct attack on his enemy, or when the dragon's wing folded under the pressures and the beast spun out of the skies.
The volunteer was very much at home on his dragon, and forcibly made the animal bank, its wings almost vertical to the ground.
Kailas heard the dragon squawk in protest and grinned.
He tapped Storm with his left rein, and kicked it with his left foot. Storm obediently ducked, folding a wing, about to turn into a dive.
Hal pulled back sharply on both reins, and Storm squealed, but obediently flared his wings, and the dive was broken off, and Storm climbed.
Just in front of Hal was the volunteer, who'd anticipated wrongly that Hal would continue in his dive.
Hal sent Storm over the man's head, blasted once on his trumpet that he'd killed him, and signaled for him to return to Hal's farmhouse.
Hal brought Storm down just behind the other's dragon, who was whipping its long neck back and forth, clearly unhappy at being bested.
Kailas slid out of his saddle, went to meet the other flier.
He was vaguely familiar.
The man noted Hal's puzzlement, grinned.
"You don't remember me, do you, sir?"
"No."
"I was your crossbowman, back when the Roche were trying to take Bedarisi."
Hal remembered.
"Right. Your name's… Hachir. Married. Used to be a teacher."
"That's me. Also used to be married."
Hal waited.
"After I flew with you, going back to shooting knights off horses got a little tame. Someone said they were looking for fliers, and so I volunteered."
He smiled, a bit twistedly.
"I got a surprise home leave before I went to the school… and found out my wife had made… other arrangements."
"I'm sorry," Hal said, a bit awkwardly.
"These things happen, I guess," Hachir said, but there was still pain in his voice.
"So I went to the school, graduated second, came back here, and got in some flying time, and a bit of fighting, before the weather closed in. Now the Roche are only accepting a fight on their terms, which means about three or four to one, and over their lines if possible.
