by Chris Bunch
Besides, as he kept reminding himself, politics wasn't a soldier's business.
* * * *
"And what is this?" Hal asked suspiciously, peering about the room.
It was the great room of an apartment that was larger than most merchants' houses. It was on the top floor of a four-story building that overlooked Fovant's river, with four bedrooms, a jakes for each room, the great room, a banquet hall that could've served a dragon flight, and servants' quarters a half-floor below. Outside glass doors was a roof garden that Hal thought he could land Storm in without hurting either the dragon or the plants.
"It's ours," Khiri said. "I bought it as a birthday present."
"But it's hardly my birthday."
"Then it's for last birthday… or next." Khiri looked carefully at him. "You don't like it."
"I didn't say that," Kailas protested.
"I've been looking for something like this ever since we got here," Khiri said. "Since we both love Fovant so much, after the war, we'll have a place to stay."
Hal started to say something, stopped himself. It would have been bitchy at best, probably something about he didn't like not being consulted.
It wasn't as if Khiri didn't have more than enough money of her own, which Hal had never an intent of controlling.
He forced a smile.
"And now we do," he said.
"Are you really sure you like it?"
"I'm really sure," he half-lied. "I just never thought about after the war."
He walked to the doors, went out into the garden, looked down at the afternoon strollers below.
Khiri came up behind him, put her arms around him, nuzzled his neck.
"I'm just sorry there's no furnishings yet. Like a bed."
Hal turned, kissed her, cupped her buttocks in his hands.
"And Lady Carstares is suddenly too humpty-hoo to even consider having her little lights screwed out on the floor?"
Khiri looked down.
"At least it's polished wood," she said. "Better than some old castle stone."
"So 'tis," Hal said, unbuttoning her dress.
She stepped out of it.
Khiri wore only a shift under it, her breasts not needing support.
She kicked her shoes off. One arced high in the air, disappeared over the garden wall.
"Oh dear," she said. "I hope it doesn't skull some good and proper Fovanian."
"If it does," Hal said, his voice getting throaty, "they can look for another apartment. This one's vacant."
Khiri giggled, came into his arms.
Later, he wondered why he'd almost behaved like a total shit. Was it worrying about living through the war? Or wasn't he sure he loved Khiri as completely as, say, Saslic? He'd gotten almost as cranky when she'd brought up having children a month or so ago.
The train of thought was making him most uncomfortable, and so he turned away from that, and began nipping, gently, at her nipples.
In a few seconds, they both had something else to think about.
* * * *
The talks were going very well, and there was distinct optimism in the Deer Park.
An attack all along the front—how could that not break Roche for good and all?
Hal remembered what the king had said about the man who fights everywhere fights nowhere, but that couldn't break his mood.
The endless war, having an end…
The other fliers seemed to feel the same, and Hal was reminded that their normal easy cynicism was as much a facade as anything else, little more than a pose youths have always found attractive.
After all, the fliers were all young—even the oldest, Mynta Gart, was just a bit over thirty. Hal suspected Alcmaen was probably older than that, but he was adamantly twenty-five by his claims, and Hal suspected he'd be so long after the rest of his thinning hair vanished.
If there was real pessimism, and Hal suspected there was, it would be among the older men, the infantrymen who were hurled forward, day after day, never being told their place in things, never allowed to see any more of the war and the world than the muddy patches around them.
Hal came into one of the common rooms of the Deer Park's mansion to see a group of his fliers, including all of the 11th Flight's survivors, and Danikel in the background, standing around a great wall map that had the front lines scribed on it.
He'd intended to get a nightcap from the attendant, and nurse it for a few minutes, leaving his fliers alone. No organization is better for having its leader try to be one of the boys, hanging about constantly.
But Farren Mariah saw him, and waved him over.
He got his drink, and obeyed.
"Sir," Mariah said, careful as always to maintain military formality with outsiders close, "we're having a proper go-diddle about after the war, and what our plans are.
"Everybody's bein' most closemouthed about everything, so perhaps, you being the man in front and such, you'll enlighten us with what a proper flier does when peace breaks out."
Hal took a sip of his brandy.
"First," he said slowly, "I'd guess he'd kiss his dragon, then the ground, then his own sorry ass for doing something as surprising as living. That's what I'll do."
There was laughter.
"You're as bad as the rest of us," Mariah said. "C'mon now. Serious as it lays."
Hal thought.
"I'll be honest. Damned if I know. Maybe start a carnival or something. Gods know I can't see sitting around some castle diddling myself until I die of boredom."
"Perhaps you might stay in the army," Sir Loren suggested.
"Perhaps I might find someone with the last name of Damian to be orderly officer for the next two weeks for even thinking that," Kailas said. "One war's enough for anybody.
"And why am I in the barrel, anyway? You, Gart. You're far more upstanding than the rest of us."
"I'll buy myself a coaster," she said. "And start carrying cargoes every which way. Maybe even up some of these damned rivers we've flown over. Gods know the Roche'll be needing everything after we whip them."
"I can see it now… ten years gone," Mariah said. "There'll be this great warehouse, right on the waterfront of Rozen. GART SHIPPING. WE TAKE ANYTHING ANYWHERE AND MAKE A DAMNED GREAT PROFIT DOING IT."
"Is there anything wrong with that?" Gart asked.
"Of course not," Mariah said. "It's my purest of the pure jealousies that's speaking."
"I know very well what I'm going to do," Sir Loren said, sounding very mystical. "There's a spot on my land, not far from my manor house that, long ago, before there were dragons, when men lived like gods and the gods drank with them, was most sacred, and, to this day, is very beautiful. It's a tiny vale, and the gardeners have it planted in roses.
"What I'll do is build a bower, and train roses to climb up through it. In the bower, I'll have a marble stand made. On the stand, I'll put my crossbow, which I'll have silver-plated, with gold trim."
The fliers were goggling. Sir Loren was known as one of the most antimilitary of the fliers, although he kept his opinion generally to himself.
"And every morning," Loren went on, "just at sunrise, I'll go out, just as the sun's rays strike my crossbow… and piss all over the son of a bitch!"
When the laughter died, Hal looked at Farren Mariah.
"What about you? I know you're a city rat and all. Are you going to take Limingo's advice, and study magic?"
Mariah's face was serious for an instant.
"P'raps," he said. "More likely, I'll go into government. Real government, you know, the kind that lets pretty fellers like the Dragonmaster and all those lords and ladies speak to the king for their regions, and meantime these other fellers stay in the background, with good red gold handed out here and there, to make sure things happen the way they're supposed to happen.
"It'll be all over Rozen, if you want to have something done, legal or no, go see Farren. I'll have the urchins write ballads about me, and I'll be surrounded with the wittiest of balla
deers and the prettiest of girls.
"P'raps it might not be bad for me to stand for all veterans. Nobody else is going to, once the killing stops."
His voice had become a little bitter, and the fliers were quiet, knowing the truth of his words, not meeting each other's eyes.
"And what about me?" Chincha asked. "When you're out cavortin' with the ladies?"
"Aarh," Mariah said. "I'll buy you a fancy man from Sagene, who knows tricks with massages and like that. You'll not want."
That broke the mood.
"If any of us had any decency," Danikel, Baron Trochu, said from the fringes of the group, "we'd try to pay back what we owe to the dragons."
"What?" Mariah said, pretending outrage, "those smelly bastards out there, honking and slobbering? What do we owe them?"
"Our lives," Danikel said quietly. "Our chances of winning the war. The best tool to beat the Roche back and keep them in hand. And if you think we'll be forgotten about after the war, what the hells do you think'll happen to our dragons?
"Stuck in a cage in an exhibit somewhere. Or part of one of those damned flying carnivals. Giving fat merchants and their squealing daughters rides, up, down, three gold coins if you please, sir?
"Or maybe just taken out and killed, since they're pretty much of an annoyance. Doesn't anybody think they deserve better than that?
"Mariah, if you're really looking for a cause, you could do better than help the dragons."
"And what would that get me?" Mariah said. "Right now, I stink like dragons, true. And that brings the maidens out… did before I met Chincha, at any rate. But do you think that stink's going to be so popular when we're at peace?
"No, young Baron. You've got your lands and your peasants to keep you in clover. The rest of us will have to find something else."
Danikel seemingly hadn't been listening to Mariah, but looking at Hal.
"You know what I'm talking about, don't you, sir? Don't we have a debt?"
Hal took a deep breath.
"Yes. I know what you're talking about. And yes, we do owe them."
He drained his snifter.
"And I'm for bed. All this is getting far too serious for me."
Again, there was laughter, and that marked the end of the evening.
But Hal lay awake, listening to Khiri's bubbling snore for a long time that night.
Outside, in one of the barns, a dragon shrilled in his sleep.
30
The cheering started just before noon, and rolled, like a wave, from the gates of the Deer Park to the mansion.
No one needed to know what it meant.
An agreement had been reached between the ruling barons of Sagene and King Asir.
Hal felt his heart leap, went looking for the details.
As matters turned out, there were three levels of agreements. The first, since there had to be something to tell the masses and leak to the Roche, was that Sagene and Deraine had reached a general treaty of goodwill and close cooperation from now until forever, to ensure there would be no stab in the back by the Roche or anyone else.
Paestum, as rumored, would become an open city once the war was over.
Both countries formally agreed there could be but one end to this war: complete and unconditional surrender by the Roche, and occupation, at least for a time, of their lands while a less bellicose regime was installed.
Most civilians thought this an obvious requirement.
Many soldiers did not, arguing that would make the Roche fight even harder if they knew Queen Norcia and her court would be replaced by something, someone, unknown.
Others snorted, saying they didn't see how the bastards could fight any harder than they already were, and wanted to make sure their children or children's children, wouldn't be attacked by the Roche, or at least not this version of them.
Hal didn't know, seeing good argument on both sides.
The second level of the treaty agreed there would be a massive attack in the far south, in the Fourth Army's area. All other armies would go to full alert to disguise the buildup.
This level was intended for discovery by Roche spies, and was false.
The real treaty included not only the first articles, but the agreement for the general offensive, from all armies, against the Roche, intended to smash their lines from north to south and seize Carcaor.
There were banquets, parades, and general goodwill from all.
King Asir couldn't go beyond the Deer Park without being buried by hurrahing crowds.
Before the goodwill was inevitably worn down, the Derainians packed for their return to the front.
On that last night, Hal jerked awake in the small hours.
A thought, a dream, had come, and he managed to keep from losing it.
He was sitting on the bed, feet on the floor, sweating.
"Whassamatta, love?" Khiri murmured.
"Nothing. Something I forgot to check," he said. "Go back to sleep."
"Ummuck," she said, and obeyed.
Hal dressed hurriedly, went to the planning room, consulted maps. They suggested he wasn't even slightly about to cry wolf.
He went to the stables, and further confirmed his suspicions.
Then he found the officer of the guard, and got directions to Limingo's rooms.
"But my master has given orders not to be disturbed," the servant-acolyte said, pulling himself up from the cot across the entrance.
"King's orders," Hal lied. "Now, go get whatever Limingo needs to wake up."
"But—"
"Move!" Hal said, in a voice that would carry across a parade ground.
The man obeyed.
Hal shoved the cot out of the way, opened the door.
Limingo was not alone—a handsome, tousled, naked young man was getting up, fumbling for a sword.
Hal ignored him.
"Limingo, I think we might have problems."
The wizard started to say something, stopped, then told the young man to get dressed and go back to his quarters.
He pulled clothes on, looking at Hal cautiously, as if expecting Kailas to be shocked or enraged.
Hal felt neither and, in any event, hadn't time for emotions.
By the time Limingo had washed and dressed, his servant was back with a tray with a steaming teakettle on it, and cups.
He poured.
"Now, what's the great alarm?" Limingo said. "I hear no sounds of tumult or disaster."
"If I'm right, you won't, not for three days," Hal said. "Listen to my thread of logic, and please tell me I'm full of shit, so we can go back to bed," he said. "Back on the front lines, we were jumped when the king visited Lord Cantabri, straight out of nowhere by a battle formation of dragons.
"We drove them off, but for the rest of the time we were on the lines, there'd be a dragon or six hovering just out of range.
"When we pulled out, coming east to Fovant, we had a pair or more of Roche dragons—always black, and I'd suspect from Ky Yasin's elite squadron—tailing us.
"I was wondering then if there was a spy with us, or if the Roche had some very skilled recon soldiers in the bushes, reporting to a wizard who passed the word along to their dragon fliers.
"But I never saw any sign of their scouts, either afoot or on horseback, lurking about, when I was airborne. I asked the raider captain if he'd seen anything, but he hadn't.
"Isn't it possible that, if you have, say, a bit of the cloth of someone's pants, assuming he's a filthy sod and never changes, you could use magic to track him?"
"Certainly," Limingo said. "It's not that hard a spell, either.'
"Well, let's say somebody breaks into the king's stable tent, and cuts a few strands off that damned royal red blanket he's so fond of?"
"That would work very well indeed, as long as the tracker was only concerned with when the king was a-horseback," Limingo said. He was starting to look a bit worried.
"Remember those four Roche who tried to attack the king the first night after he left
my squadron? We killed one, ran the other three off, with no gains. Or so we thought.
"However, I just went out to the stablery, and looked at the king's riding gear. And that blanket has about four or five of its long fringes cut off.
"Do you think maybe that's what those infiltrators were after?"
Limingo nodded slowly.
"Now, let's put another bit into the equation," Hal went on. "Remember how desolate our way was, even after we crossed the border into Sagene, and now some of the king's favorites asked if we could turn away from the main road to Fovant, which we did?"
"Yes." One of the many things Hal liked about Limingo was that he actually listened when you were speaking, and saved his comments until you were through.
"I just looked at the map, and traced the route we were supposed to follow—and the one we'll take back to the areas we already hold.
"Two days after we turned off the main highway on to the byways, we would've passed through a rocky place. Chasms, draws, small but steep peaks. It's called the Pinnacles. Looking at the map, and remembering my days as a cavalryman," Hal said, "I would've loved to have ambushed somebody right in the middle of that, particularly somebody who doesn't have a heavy escort, not needing one that far from the front.
"What do you think about that, my sorcerous friend?" Hal said, with a bit of triumph.
"I think we'd best wake up the king," Limingo said. "And I don't think anybody's going to get a lot of sleep for the rest of the night."
"You're wrong there," Hal said. "I think the only one who won't be getting any sleep is me."
* * * *
The king looked at the maps Hal had laid out once more.
"I don't normally like guesses about what the enemy is going to do, Lord Kailas. But your suppositions make entirely too much sense for me not to allow for them.
"I suppose now we roust out a baron or two, borrow whatever guard regiment or regiments we can, and have them march east to the Pinnacles and winkle the Roche out. We can use that damned blanket of mine—and I should have known, remembering my father's warning against fripperies—as bait."
"That is one option, Your Highness," Hal said carefully. He didn't like any of it, particularly exposing to the Roche they'd caught on to the blanket trick, having a vague idea about putting the principle to use himself against the Roche.
