Dragonmaster

by Chris Bunch

  “Serjeant Teh,” he went on, mispronouncing the name, “has informed me that some of you have already seen bully fighting against the barbarians, those savages who call themselves the Roche, with barely a hundred years or so since they crawled from the swamp.

  “For you, it shall be good to refresh your memory of the most important part of soldiering: drill. For only with the confidence that drill inspires can you go forth into battle, knowing the man on your left will do just what you are doing, and so bring the savages to their knees.”

  The speech went on, and on. Hal didn’t bother listening to more.

  He knew why Serjeant Te had winced.

  “You will run everywhere,” Serjeant Patrice bayed, and so the column of trainees ran through the estate grounds, twice around the cookhall, and stopped, some panting hard, in a long line.

  Hal, not by accident, found himself behind the redhead, Saslic Dinapur. They introduced themselves, wondered about the food.

  “And why’d you join?” she asked.

  “I was already in the army,” Hal said. “Things . . . changed at my old posting.” He didn’t elaborate about the massacre. “And I was a oddjob boy for a dragon flier named Athelny, back before the war.”

  Saslic grinned.

  “I met that old rascal once, when he came to the Menagerie, to ask something of my father. Even as a little girl, I thought he was a definite rogue.”

  “He was that,” Hal agreed.

  “Do you have any idea what he’s doing now? I hope wealthy, perhaps married to some rich dowager, and raising dragons somewhere in the north.”

  “He’s dead,” Hal said. “Killed by a bastard . . . sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Saslic interrupted. “I’ve heard—used—worse myself. And we are in the army, aren’t we?”

  “I guess so,” Hal said. “But after Lord Spense’s uh, enlightening talk, I’m not sure what century’s.”

  Saslic laughed, a very pleasant sound Hal decided he could get used to.

  “Anyway, about poor Athelny?”

  “Killed by an archer of a Sagene nobleman who’d euchred Athelny out of his dragon,” Hal said. “He flew off, north, toward Deraine, I guess, and we never found his body.”

  Saslic was quiet for a few moments, then said, softly, “A bad way to die . . . but a better funeral than most of us’ll see.”

  “True,” Hal agreed.

  “Move up, there,” a voice behind him grated. “Some of us want our dinner.”

  Hal turned, looked at the bluff Vad Feccia, thought of saying something, didn’t, deciding to fit into this new world as easily as he could, turned back.

  Feccia laughed, a grating noise, and Hal realized he’d made a mistake. The man probably thought Kailas was afraid of him. Oh well. Bullies could be sorted out at a later time.

  “You said something about the Menagerie?” Hal asked Saslic.

  Saslic nodded. “My father is one of the keepers at the King’s Own Menagerie, and I helped. I really liked working around the dragons, wanted to learn how to fly them, and when this came up, well, I guess my father’ll speak to me sooner or later for running off.”

  They entered the long building, which was divided into thirds, one the kitchen, the second a dining room for students, the third, closed off with a screen for the cadre. They got tin plates from a pile, had a glop of what looked like stew, some tired vegetables, a pat of butter and bread dumped on the plate as they passed down the line of bored-looking serving women.

  “Oh dear,” Saslic said.

  Hal thought it looked quite a bit better than most of the rations the army fed its troops in Sagene, but he didn’t tell Saslic that.

  The two looked around the small hall for a seat at one of the benched tables, just as Sir Brant Calabar crashed to his feet.

  “This is a damned outrage! Eating with commoners!”

  Farren Mariah, evidently the man he objected to, looked up.

  “’At’s fine, mate. Yer can wait outside, an’ I’ll save yer the indignity, an’ polish off yer plate as a pers’nal favor.”

  Calabar clashed his plate down.

  “Where I come from, a bastard like you’d warrant a whipping!”

  A man at the table behind Calabar stood. He was slender, long-faced, with a large, beaked nose.

  “Now, sir,” he said, in a nasal tone Hal had heard lords in the army use, “best you show some manners here. We’re all learners together, and there’s surely no call to behave like a pig.”

  Calabar whirled.

  “And who the blazes are you?”

  “Sir Loren Damian,” the man said. “Former equerry to His Most Royal Majesty, detached on special duty to this school, also Lord Dulmin of the Northern Reaches, Quin-ton of Middlewich, and other equally ponderous titles I shan’t bore anyone with, but ones I suspect have precedent in the Royal List over yours.”

  “Oh,” Calabar said in a very quiet voice, out-titled to the hilt.

  “Now, be a good sort, and sit down, and eat your meal,” Sir Loren said.

  Calabar started to obey, then crashed out of the hall.

  “Tsk,” Damian said. “But I suppose he’ll come around, when his belly calls, which it appears to do on a rather regular basis.”

  There was a bit of laughter. Sir Loren picked up his plate, and pointedly walked to the table Calabar’d stormed away from.

  “May I join you, sir?”

  “Uh . . . surely, I mean, yes m’lord,” Mariah managed.

  “My title here is Loren,” Damian said. “Most likely something resembling scumbucket to our warrants, I’d imagine.”

  He started eating.

  Hal and Saslic found seats. Kailas saw Serjeant Te leaning against the entrance to the cadre’s section, a bit of a smile on his face, wondered what it portended for Calabar or Damian, decided that was none of his concern, started eating.

  The food was actually fairly awful.

  “Forrard . . . harch!” Serjeant Patrice bellowed. “Hep, twoop, threep, fourp . . . hep, twoop, threep, fourp . . . godsdammit, Kailas, get in step!”

  Hal almost stumbled over his own feet getting them in the proper military order.

  The forty trainees, in a column of fours, marched away from the assembly area, down one of the curving brick paths into an open area.

  “Right flank . . . harch!”

  Hal turned left, and almost knocked a heavyset woman, Mynta Gart, spinning.

  “Lords of below, Kailas, can’t you do anything right?”

  The class was in military ranks, and the warrant teaching it had trouble reading the handbook he was holding.

  Hal was half listening, looking at another trainee two rows away. The man kept looking back at him as if he knew him.

  As the class was dismissed for a break, Hal recognized him and went up.

  “You’re Asser, aren’t you?”

  “I am that . . . and where do I know you from?”

  “Hal Kailas. I was Athelny’s dogsbody when you were barkering for him. You and . . . Hils, that was his name.”

  “Right!” Asser smiled delightedly. “I heard Athelny’s dead. What’re you doing here? Did that old fart ever give you a chance to ride a dragon like you wanted?”

  Hal explained, considering Asser as he spoke. Once, a long time ago, he’d thought the young man most dapper, a city slick. But he saw him through different eyes now, no more than another one of those who doesn’t sow, but has every hustle in the world for reaping.

  “Hils,” Asser said sadly. “He’s dead, too. I guess he thought he could outrun the warders, and anyway didn’t believe one of ’em would cut him down from behind. A pity. He was just about the smoothest bilker I ever knew, and him and me had a great partnership . . . for awhile.”

  “So what made you join up?” Hal asked.

  “It was like you said . . . made’s the word. The magistrate didn’t believe I had no idea who Hils was, and told me I was either gonna volunteer or be headed for the poogie for f
ive years or so.

  “I heard about this dragon thing we’re in, figured that’d be a good place to lay low.”

  “I’ve seen Roche’s dragons,” Hal said. “If I weren’t a fool, I’d think maybe five years in prison might be a little safer.”

  “Haw,” Asser snorted. “You don’t think a smart lad like me’ll ever go across the water, now do you?”

  Hal didn’t reply, excused himself, seeing an angry-looking Saslic motioning to him.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “That frigging Feccia’s a lying sod!”

  “I’m not surprised,” Hal said mildly. “In what category?”

  “Probably all of them. But start with his claims to be a dragon rider, back as a civilian, although he’s pretty damned vague about the details. But I caught him. Asked him some questions, which he didn’t answer quite right. Then I asked him when he thought was the best time to separate a dragon pup from the doe.”

  “What?”

  “And he went and gave me a vague answer, saying it varied, depending on circumstances.” Dinapur shook her head. “What a jack! A pup my left nipple!”

  “Not to mention a dragon doe,” Hal said, starting to laugh. “You know, a man who’s so damn dumb he doesn’t even know a kit and a cow probably won’t get very far around here.”

  “Who’s going to call him? A trainee? I’m not going to peach on someone, and for sure the cadre don’t know the difference.”

  “You’re right,” Hal said. “I wouldn’t nark the idiot off either. I guess we’ll just have to wait for his mouth to take care of himself.”

  “To the rear . . . harch! In the name of any god you want, Kailas, can’t you learn how to drill? I thought you were some kind of combat hero!”

  Hal thought of telling him killing someone, or keeping from being killed yourself, didn’t have a lot to do with square-bashing, and no, he’d never had any instruction whatsoever on what foot you were supposed to start marching with. The army across the water was a little too busy to concern itself with left-right, left-right.

  But he kept his mouth shut. So far, he’d stayed off the emptying shitter detail.

  So far.

  The day finally came when they turned in their civilian gear, and Hal his threadbare uniform, which they’d been washing when they could, as they could, and were issued new uniforms.

  They were fairly spectacular, which Hal guessed meant higher ranks were particularly interested in dragon flights: black thigh boots, into which tight-fitting white breeches were bloused, a red tunic with white shoulderbelts and gold shoulderboards, and a smart-looking forage cap, also red, which Hal thought would blow away twenty feet off the ground. With the gaudy uniform went very practical, and completely unromantic, undergarments, both in padded winter issue and plain summer wear.

  Someone, probably down the line from the uniform’s designers, had a bit of practicality, thinking what it would be like, flying in winter, and gauntleted catskin gloves and a heavy thigh-length jacket that must have required an entire sheep to produce were issued.

  Another practical item was a set of greenish-brown coveralls, perfect, as Serjeant Patrice said, “for cleaning the shitter.”

  Hal was starting to think the man had a problem with his bowels.

  They were also issued weapons—long spears and swords. Hal couldn’t see either having much use aboard a dragon, figured that Sir Spense had called for the issue so the class would look like his idea of proper soldiery.

  The only practical weapon was a long, single-edged dagger, which looked as if it had been designed and forged by an experienced bar brawler.

  He was a bit surprised Spense hadn’t given out spurs.

  “Lord, they let some raggedy-asses into uniform these days,” Patrice said, grinning his risus sardonicus. “Now, the reason you’re in these ten-deep ranks is we’re practicing parade maneuvers, and there aren’t enough of you idiots to form a proper parade.

  “Forrard . . . harch!”

  Hal stepped out correctly, determined for once he wasn’t going to make a mistake.

  “By the right . . . wheel!”

  The way the maneuver should’ve been done was the right flanker performed a right turn, began marking time, the soldier next to him took one more step, and so forth until the entire ten-man rank had turned right. In the meantime, the second row was doing the same, one step behind.

  It didn’t work out that way as soldiers slammed into each other, got confused and started marking time when they should’ve been moving, and everything became absolute chaos.

  “Halt, halt, godsdammit, halt,” Patrice screamed, and chaos became motionless chaos. He considered the mess.

  “I’m starting to think this whole son of a bitching class has got a case of the Kailases.”

  Hal, who for once had done exactly what he should’ve, felt injured.

  Somewhere in the mess Calabar laughed.

  “I heard laughter,” Patrice said. “Is there something funny I’ve missed?”

  Silence.

  “Who laughed?”

  More silence.

  “I don’t like being lied to,” Patrice said. “And nobody confessing is lying, now isn’t it?”

  Still more silence.

  “I asked for an answer.”

  The class got it, and raggedly boomed, “YES, SERJEANT.”

  “I have a good ear, I’ve been told,” Patrice said. “Don’t you think so, Sir Brant?”

  An instant later, he shouted, “Not fast enough, Sir Brant. Front and center!”

  Calabar trundled out of the ranks.

  “Was that you who laughed?” Patrice cooed.

  “Uh . . . uh . . . yessir.”

  “Don’t call me sir! I know who my parents were! You get your young ass to your hut, secure your clothes bucket, and run on down to the ocean and bring me back a bucket of water.

  “Move out!”

  Patrice watched Calabar run off, then turned back to his victims.

  “Now, shall we try it again, children?”

  Serjeant Te took Hal aside.

  “How’re you holding up, Serjeant?”

  “I didn’t think we had any rank here, Serjeant Te.”

  “That appears to be one of the good Sir Spense’s ideas. You’ve noticed that no one’s been returned to his or her unit yet for failure, either.”

  “That’s right.”

  Te nodded sagely. “Just a word, or mayhap a suggestion. It could be the good Sir Spense is truly in the dark, and afraid to throw anyone out until he has some idea of what might be required.

  “As for Serjeant Patrice—”

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” Hal said. “But he’s water to a duck’s back.”

  Te grinned.

  “Good. I didn’t figure he’d get under your skin.”

  “Not a chance, Serjeant. Matter of fact, he’s given me an idea on handling a problem of my own.”

  “I don’t suppose,” Rai Garadice asked Farren Mariah, “you’d be willing to tell us how you happened into dragon flying, since we’ve got a whole hour to waste before dear Serjeant Patrice takes us for a nice morning run.”

  The class was in a stable, looking out at the drizzle beyond.

  Farren pursed his lips, then shrugged.

  “I don’t guess there’s a’matter. The on’y dragons I’ve ever been around was oncet, when a show come to Rozen, I got a job cleanin’ up the hippodrome a’ter ’em.”

  “Nice start for a career,” Saslic said.

  “You name the tisket, I’ve held it,” Farren said. “Crier, runner, butcher’s boy, greengrocer’s assistant, glazier, changer’s messenger, a ferryboat oarsman for a bit, maybe a couple things I don’t think I oughta be jawin’ about.”

  “None of this answers Rai’s question,” Hal said.

  “Well . . . I went an’ made a bet wi’ a friend, don’t matter wot, an’ lost, an’ the wager was the loser hadda take the king’s coin.”

  “Hell of a bet
,” Saslic said.

  “Yeh, well there weren’t much goin’ on around, so it din’t matter,” Farren said. “An’ then, oncet I was in barracks, there was a certain misunderstanding, an’ somebody’d told me about these flights, an’ I thought maybe it’d be best to skip outa the line of fire.”

  “Misunderstanding?”

  “Uh . . . the men around me thought I was a witch.”

  There was a jolt of silence.

  “Are you?” Saslic asked gently.

  “Course not. I just got a bit of the gift, not like my ma, or my uncle, or his family. And my gran’sire was s’posedly a great wizard, good enough for nobility to consult.”

  “Oh,” Garadice said, forcing himself not to move away. Most people without the gift were quite leery of magicians.

  “A wizard,” Saslic said in a thoughtful tone. “Maybe we could have you rouse a spell that’d, say, cause Patrice to fall over yon cliff, or make his dick fall off.”

  “I couldn’t do someat like that!” Mariah said, sounding shocked.

  “Then what earthly good are you?” Saslic asked.

  “Broadly speaking,” the warrant droned, “if two cavalries of approximately equal mobility maneuver against each other in open country, neither side can afford the loss of time that dismounting to fight on foot entails. Hence, the same fundamental rules apply to all cavalry combats. . . .”

  Saslic looked at Hal, made a face, mouthed the plaintive words, “When are we gonna learn about dragons?”

  Hal shrugged. Maybe some time before they reembarked for the wars.

  Somehow Patrice made a mistake on the schedule, and the trainees had a whole two hours after eating before the mandatory late class, this one on Proper Horsemanship.

  Not that anyone actually had time for relaxation, busy with boot-blackening, cleaning their weapons—“all this stabbin’ and wot really rusts a blade out, eh?” was Farren Mariah’s comment—or trying to remember what it was like to be around a dragon.