by Chris Bunch
"You certainly know how to win your way into a commander's heart," Hal said sharply.
Alcmaen shrugged.
"I know what I am, what I can do, and expect others to do the same."
Hal stood, picked up his flying jacket and gauntleted gloves.
"Some of us don't," he said, not knowing whether to laugh or snarl at the arrogant little bastard.
It was just as he'd been told. There were other tales he'd heard that Alcmaen was very close to a born liar, claiming everything from being of noble, if illegitimate, birth to having been a spy for Sagene in Roche before the war to the vast estates he'd lost gambling to the beautiful women in Fovant whose hearts he'd broken.
"Why not?" Alcmaen said. "It's always good to have matters in the open."
Hal nodded him out, and slammed the door behind him.
Mariah and Gart looked at each other.
"Hoboy," Mariah said. "He'd better be better than I think he is."
"It'll be interesting to see," Gart said, grinning, "if our fearless leader doesn't decide to go for real blood."
"Five to four he doesn't."
"No bet."
Half a glass-turning later, Hal came back alone.
He slammed the door more loudly than he had on the way out, threw gloves and coat across a chair, thudded back behind his desk and used three words even Gart hadn't heard in her seafaring days.
"Well?" she asked.
"The son of a bitch is almost as great as he thinks he is in the air," Kailas growled. "He beat me three out of three, and didn't seem like he was working that hard."
"So you took him?" she asked.
"I don't see how I have any choice," Hal said.
"How's he going to fit in a nichy little niche in the squadron?" Mariah asked. "Can't see him being the coziest of tentmates."
Hal shook his head.
"He won't be. I'll give him to Richia, let him drive the 34th insane."
He leaned back in his chair, sighed.
"The bastard's killed almost as many Roche as he claims… and that's all that counts these days."
"I'll wager a badger," Mariah said, "back when you was a tiddly little cavalryman, you loved to put burrs under your saddle, too."
* * * *
"I am sorry, Lord Kailas," the Sagene captain, Sir Rhaetia, said, "but I cannot allow you, and your recruiters, on this flight."
"I beg your pardon," Hal said. "But I have the explicit permission of your Council of Barons."
"There are times that a patriot must oppose the commands of his superiors when they've lost sight of the important things."
"Obviously," Hal said, "you're aware that I want to talk to Danikel, Baron Trochu."
"Of course," Rhaetia said. "But it is important to the people of Sagene, to the soul of Sagene itself, that this man, our greatest flier, remains to fly and fight with a Sagene squadron."
Hal thought only a Sagene could say—and mean—something like that without sounding ridiculous.
He thought of arguing, then shrugged.
"Can I at least have the hospitality of your mess? It's getting late."
Rhaetia frowned. Clearly he wanted to say no, but his innate gentility forbade that.
"Very well," he said. "For the night only. In the morning, after the first meal, you must be on your way."
Hal inclined his head.
"Your dragons can be groomed in that tent there, and, at the far end, there's a trio of vacant tents for you and your team. I shall arrange to have a meal served there. But I shall put on guards to ensure you do not try to subvert my orders."
Rhaetia was a man of his word. There were a pair of sentries walking a post around the tents, and none of the Sagene fliers approached Hal.
But at least the food was superb.
"What are we doing to do?" Gart asked. "How good is this man, anyway?"
"The best," Hal said. "At least, unless the taletellers and medal-givers are complete liars."
"You're doubtin' that, ever?" Mariah said. "You should reassure yourself that all they tell is the truthiest truth of all."
"I suppose we'll have to try to get some kind of direct order from the Council," Hal said. "Or let the man stay where he is.
"Hells, come to think about it, we don't even know if he wants to volunteer."
"Yes we do," Gart said. "If he didn't, why would that captain all but lock us up here on the far side of nothing?"
It was an hour later when there was a tap on Hal's tent pole. Hal was still awake, updating his report.
"Come in," he said.
A slender young flier slid in. He was very good-looking, in a feminine way.
"Lord Kailas," he said. "I'm Danikel."
Hal grinned.
"You're welcome, Baron Trochu. How'd you subvert the sentries?"
"It is Danikel, sir. The baron is for other places, other times. As for the sentries, neither of them would deny a request from me. May I sit down?"
Hal shoved over a tack box.
"The amenities didn't go far enough for a suite of furniture."
Danikel smiled slightly.
"My captain is a good man, but there is no holding him back when he makes up his mind.
"I share the same trait, I hope. Which is why I am here. Would you consider allowing me to join your squadron?"
"I would indeed," Hal said. "And I've read enough about your performance that I don't need to put you through the tests I've devised for the others.
"Not to mention doing so might be a little difficult."
"It could indeed."
"Might I ask why you want to fly with me, instead of staying here? Especially when Captain Rhaetia thinks you're the soul of Sagene, and must fly with a Sagene squadron."
"That is a pretty thought," Danikel said. "And I am honored most deeply.
"I wish to join your unit because I think you will give me greater opportunity to kill Roche fliers. And that is all that matters.
"The more I kill—the more I am able to help others kill—the more quickly the war shall be finished, and Roche shattered so they'll never again set foot on my country."
Hal realized he was looking at the exception to his rules about patriotism—this man had seen enough fighting to have become cynical, but most clearly had not. Again, the Sagene thought differently.
"I see," Hal said. "Might I ask a question? You're a baron. Where are your lands?"
"Far west of here, west of Fovant," Danikel said. "May I ask why?"
Hal had been grasping at the last materialistic explanation for Danikel's bloodthirstiness—that his lands might have been ruined in the Roche invasion that started the war. But that was clearly not the case.
"Just curious," he said.
"One request, though," Danikel said. "Might I have two dragons?"
Hal lifted an eyebrow.
"I find I can fly more than any dragon I've yet ridden," Danikel said. "That's one reason for my wanting to move on. Our flight seems to be far down on the list for resupply, and I've been asking for such a favor from Captain Rhaetia for some months. He's tried his best, but without avail."
"Two dragons," Hal said. "I've got quite a few black dragons, and will be giving them to the best of my riders, which certainly will include you. But we're hardly oversupplied. Can you think of a way you can leave this base with the dragon you have now?" Hal asked. "Assuming you want to keep him."
"I do," Danikel said. "Hoko isn't the strongest, but she's used to my ways, and would make my transition easier. Yes, I'll take her."
"This is not going to improve my relations with your good captain, you realize."
"Naturally," Danikel said. "So I expect you should leave tomorrow, as the captain has told us you will. I'll be out on a dawn patrol, and join you somewhere along your route with what little baggage I need. Perhaps you can fly along the eastern highway, and we can link up sometime tomorrow?"
"How, exactly, are you going to handle Captain Rhaetia?"
"I'll leave h
im a note."
"That will drive him mad," Hal said. "And I'm sure he'll do something such as issuing a warrant for you as a deserter."
Danikel held out his hands.
"I care little about that." He grinned slightly. "What will he do? Make me fight in a war?"
Hal laughed.
"We'll do it that way… and travel, very quickly, back into the areas Deraine controls. You might be forgiven, being a hero sort of person. But I'm liable to end up in a Sagene jail charged with… hells, I don't know. Dragon-stealing. Flier-stealing. Whatever."
"There shall be no problems," Danikel said confidently.
There were none. Danikel, astride a fairly small, quite young blue-black dragon, swooped down on them an hour's distance from the Sagene flight, and they made it back to Bedarisi within two days.
Hal was now over strength by nine fliers.
But he wasn't worried about that.
The Roche would reduce the roster in short order, and he would likely find some volunteers who wouldn't work out for one reason or another.
Now, there was only one more army to cover, and he could afford to be very choosy in his fliers.
* * * *
"You know," Captain Sir Lu Miletus said, "there's a part of me wishes that you came to recruit me for your flying carnival, sir."
He looked marginally less exhausted than he had during the battle for Bedarisi.
"I'm sure," and it took effort for Hal to hold back sirring the man who'd first commanded him in aerial combat, "if you want to go, there'd be a way."
"No," Miletus said. "And don't tempt me further. I've got people to take care of right here. Although I could do with a few more to worry about… we're down to nine fliers."
Hal, remembering the lives that had tied him to the cavalry until they had all been killed, nodded, then asked the question he wasn't sure he wanted an answer to:
"Is Aimard Quesney still…"
"He is very much still," Miletus said. "Even if he does have trouble keeping roommates."
"And Chook?"
Chook was the enormous cook who'd once driven off a Roche attack, single-handed, with his cleaver.
"Hah. He's immortal."
Miletus's flight was quartered in a former dairy. The big milk barn served perfectly to house the dragons, and there were enough outbuildings for everyone.
Miletus, after making Hal promise to stay for the evening meal and drinks afterward, directed him to a small byre.
He found Aimard Quesney, who was even thinner than he'd been before, and with even more preposterous mustaches, lying on his bunk and reading a book of poetry.
He lowered his book when Hal entered.
"Good gods. It's young Hal… sorry. Lord, uh…"
"Stick with the Hal," Kailas said. "But you can leave off the young. I don't think I've been that for a couple-three years or more."
"So I've read."
Quesney swung his feet to the floor, sat up.
"And you're forming some sort of a super flight."
"I am. Do you want to join?"
Quesney's eyebrows crawled up his forehead, and he twirled a mustache.
"I guess that's a compliment of sorts.
"I don't suppose you remember the last time we had any words of significance, I cursed you for being a born killer. That's hardly the best relationship to have with one's commander.
"And I've not changed my mind about you.
"In fact, if half of what I read is true, you've gotten much more efficient at slaughter."
Hal, instead of being angry, was slightly amused. "Perhaps I have. And I certainly see why Sir Lu said you were having trouble keeping shedmates.
"Do you, by the way, know of any other way to end the war than by killing?"
"I'd like to try telling everyone to just frig off and go home," Quesney said. "Or maybe some of us… enough of us… on both sides… frigging off and saying we won't fight on, we're tired of dying and killing… maybe that'd have some effect."
"You dream."
"I dream," Quesney agreed. "And until I have the guts to refuse to get on that damned dragon one day, or the bastards succeed in killing me, I'll keep on doing my share of the death-dealing.
"But no, Kailas. I won't join your squadron, nor will I thank you for inviting me to.
"Now, leave me alone, dammit. I was very happy, reading poetry about a world that isn't eyeball deep in blood, and maybe dreaming I was in it, when you appeared and made me think.
"I'm tired of thinking in a world that appears to have abandoned any kind of thought.
"The hells with it all, Kailas. And the hells with you as well. Go on back to your war, and see if killing everything in sight works."
21
Hal could feel it in the wind—winter was drawing to a close.
The war would begin again in earnest.
Other signs were the constant stream of couriers coming in and out of First Army headquarters in Paestum, fast dispatch boats coming across the Chicor Straits from Deraine and mud-spattered coaches from Fovant to the Sagene commander.
Less welcome were the streams of paperwork from headquarters and, worse yet, the Most Important Visitors from anywhere and everywhere, eager to "inspect" the famous—without anything yet on which to base it—First Dragon Squadron, and, even better, a meeting with their commander, the fabled Dragonmaster.
One visitor who was very welcome was Lord Bab, who showed up, and announced that the next time Hal had a Great Idea, he might keep it to himself. Cantabri admitted that he'd mentioned Hal's Special Raiding Squadron in Important Circles, which meant to King Asir. He'd immediately been given orders to form such a unit, at least battalion size, and have it ready for special tasks during the spring offensive.
Hal had offered very mock sympathy.
He had enough troubles of his own.
Somehow, when he'd envisioned this squadron, some years earlier, of dragon fliers who were trained, experienced, and the most dangerous Deraine and Sagene could offer, he didn't think that many of them might well be a shade on the arrogant side.
But so it was.
Rer Alcmaen had no sooner been checked out on a black dragon, requiring almost as short a time as he'd bragged about, when he cozened a fellow Sagene flier into going out across the lines predawn, against Hal's standing orders.
Kailas ripped into him, but halfheartedly, since Alcmaen came back with two victories. Of course, he claimed four, but unfortunately only two were witnessed, and sulked magnificently when Hal refused to send the claim forward to army headquarters.
Alcmaen's boasts had, in turn, fired Danikel, Baron Trochu, who also went out, without bothering to select a fellow flier, and came back with three claims. All of his dragons had gone down within sight of the lines, and were confirmed.
Naturally, the Sagene broadsheets went wild with these five victories, and trumpeted loudly about the true superiority of the Sagene fliers.
These brags meant the world to Alcmaen, nothing at all, it seemed, to Danikel.
But it meant, to Hal, that he couldn't discipline the two without incurring the wrath of the broadsheets and, most likely, King Asir.
Hal damned his new diplomatic nature, went back to work.
The overall problem with his experienced fliers was that few of them thought they had anything to learn.
Hal knew better, but had to pose his lessons very carefully, for fear of throwing pouts into his killers.
He had figured out six rules for living while flying dragons about:
1. Always get the upper hand before you go into a fight. That meant use altitude, surprise, blind angles, clouds. If you don't have the advantage going in, don't fight. Always beware the dragon in the sun, coming at you from your blind spot, and always try to be the dragon in the sun.
2. Your dragon probably knows better than you do. In any event, it can't hurt to pay attention to his or her squeals, honks, and moods.
3. Always have a back door out of a fight. Never
get cornered. If you are, try to climb out of it. Never get into a diving or a turning contest with a Roche if you can avoid it—he and his dragon are liable to be better at it than you are, and if you learn that fifty feet above the ground, you are pretty well out of options.
4. Always have numbers before you attack. Never one to one, seldom two to one, and don't get cocky and assume you've got a kill with three to one.
5. War isn't a sport. It's a killing time, so don't think about chivalry, or about "being fair."
6. Finally, the situation makes the rules. All of the first five can be made meaningless in a second, and then you'd best be able to figure, and fly, your way to safety.
All most logical. But Hal had to be very wary of just how he got his fliers to learn them.
"I think," he grumbled one evening to Gart, "I'd just as rather use a godsdamned bungstarter to get things into some of these peoples' minds."
"Howsabout," Mariah suggested, "I winkle up a wee spell.
It'll either make 'em smart… or perhaps change the lot into dormice."
"You aren't that good a wizard," Gart said.
"Want to bet?"
Gart considered, then shook her head.
"I'd play hell losing… especially as a dormouse. I understand they don't take being beaten with any sort of composure."
* * * *
Hal was making the armorer Joh Kious a rich man, if not necessarily a happy one, since Kious despised working with a bureaucracy. Even with Hal walking point for him, there was still too much paperwork for the independent-minded craftsman.
He had to hire several men to built the multiple-bolt crossbows for Hal's squadron, and was also busy making modified firebottles. These had originally been thin glass bottles, with a fire-making spell and flammable liquid inside.
Hal had come up with the second generation, working with Lieutenant Lord Callo Goang. This was a long dart, the length of a man's arm. It was cast of cheap lead alloy, both to save money and for ease of breaking. It was made in two parts that screwed together. In the hollow center was more of the flammable liquid, sealed with a spell.
These firedarts were vastly more accurate and handy than the old firebottles, although a good supply of the latter was kept in the armory, in the event of shortages.
