The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  "I can do better than that," Gart said. "The old Galgorm Adventurer, which no one in his right mind would go near who doesn't want to lug dragons about, is set for the breakers' yard.

  "I figure it ought to cost no more than a hundred pieces of silver, as she sits, just for the scrap metal in her hull. No one's ferrying dragons about these days, even for gold on the spot.

  "I can have her in the shipyard tomorrow, being refitted."

  "I may as well be hanged for a bull as a kit," Hal said. "Go ahead."

  Cabet was the first to arrive, loudly proclaiming how little he liked peacetime bureaucracy, and that he spent more time filling out reports than he did chasing smugglers.

  Hal hid a smile—Cabet was not only a good leader, but gloried in the fine details, never admitting that, somewhere inside, he had the soul of a bureaucrat.

  Cabet had only one request—that if he was killed in this adventure, there would be an award for his widow.

  He had been married less than a year.

  Hal thought that a good idea, and had Attecoti find a bank willing to write such policies for anyone who would journey with him. He didn't tell anyone except Attecoti that it was in exchange for his agreeing to do part of his banking business with them.

  Hal asked Cabet if he had a particular dragon he would like purchased for his mount.

  Cabet said not—if he had time, he'd train any beast that came to hand.

  Calt Beoyard also was an eager volunteer, having, to his surprise, found his excuses quite empty. Hal had him take a dragon up, and jousted with him in the skies over Rozen on Storm, refreshing his memory of how good Beoyard was.

  Acceptable. Not a Danikel, not a Richia.

  But, unlike the other two, still alive, which said something about his fighting ability.

  The next recruit lounged into Gart's office, where Kailas was headquartering his expedition from.

  "I heard," Bodrugan said, "you're planning something troublesome."

  "Who's talking?" Hal asked sharply even before greeting the magician. If there was gossip about, his plan was probably doomed.

  "No one," Bodrugan said. "But it's known that you've purchased a ship that happens to carry dragons. And I've heard you're not at your usual residence, nor staying with Sir Thorn.

  "I know nothing from nothing, but since the next expedition north won't set forth until next year at the soonest, I thought maybe you could use a wizard perhaps as demented as you are. I'm bored with civilization, I fear."

  Hal grinned.

  "Welcome aboard, you loon."

  Hal didn't need to turn from his lists to see who'd come in. The voice was enough. "I heard, bird, you're seeking me." Hal turned. It was Farren Mariah.

  "Could I ask your mean scheme, O my fearless leader?"

  "You could," Hal said. "I'm proposing a jail break."

  4

  Hal took Farren to a waterfront dive, and, for the first time since discovering Khiri with her lover, allowed himself to have an unwatered brandy.

  He hesitatingly told Mariah what had happened, still not wanting anybody's sympathy.

  Mariah sat silently for a time, thinking, then drained his glass and signaled for another.

  "Your first lady, Saslic," he said, without a trace of his usual singsong cant, "may have been right when she said there wouldn't be any after-the-war for a dragon flier.

  "Like there hasn't been for you and your wife.

  "And there didn't seem to be one for Chincha and myself, at any rate.

  "She wanted to travel, I wanted to stay in Rozen. She thought we should start some kind of business, I wanted to try politicking."

  "I remember you talked about becoming the gray father of your district," Hal said, grateful to be able to think of others' tribulations instead of his own. "What happened?"

  "Aaarh," Farren said, slipping back into his street tongue, "I said truth and they thought I was lisping. Nobody wants what is straight from the bosom, cousin, and maybe it's not the truth anyway, and you ought to be doing a fancy dance in grays.

  "That didn't go anywhere, especially when I realized I was being used as a front man for the district's business as usual.

  "I fell in on their scheming, and things came to this and that and someone pulled a knife, and I got six months in the bokey-pokey and some people had scars, and Chincha had gone by the time I got out, leaving me with just a note saying 'Dear Farren. Screw it.'

  "So I took up mopery around the streets. Did some spells, sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't.

  "And you know, Lord Hal, I found myself looking up every time a dragon flew overhead.

  "I thought I was just being strange on the range, and actually found a flying club, for the love of somebody or other. I went to a meeting, listened to all their crapetydoo-dah about the glory of the clouds and the wind whistling through their ears, and decided what they thought was flying wasn't what I thought it was.

  "And so back to diddling my doodling, and then your seeker found me, and you owes me, I thought he was a warder and I near had heart seizure for thinking I was going back inside for doing something I didn't remember."

  "Sorry about that," Kailas said, not sure if he was apologizing for Manus the seeker or what had happened to Mariah since peace struck.

  "So we're to be busting somebody out of the old dinga-donga-dungeon, eh? Who, if I can ask."

  Hal told him.

  Mariah laughed immoderately.

  "I love this. We spend a whole frigging war trying to kill this Yasin bastard, think we've succeeded, and now that the Sagene are going to top the evil son of a bitch, we're going to try to stop them.

  "Aaah, life, I loves, loves, loves you."

  They would need eight dragons, plus two handlers per dragon.

  Work on refitting the cavernous Galgorm Adventurer was proceeding apace.

  It was a hideous ship, like most that are intended for one purpose only, and then made worse by changing the purpose.

  The Galgorm had originally been intended to haul horses and, secondarily, men. It was a square-rigged three-master, with main and cargo decks. Both decks had stalls that had been later enlarged to accommodate dragons. Wide gangplanks had been installed on either side of the hull. Dragon "launching" and "landing" was done with a barge tied alongside, to the looward side. Dragons were led down one or another of these gangplanks to the open barge, and encouraged by their rider to take to the air. Since dragons never minded getting wet, a launch day could be fairly soggy for the fliers.

  Since the Galgorm was now Hal's, he made certain changes, such as a proper-sized kitchen, and enlarging the cabins to be more than just man-containers. He might be playing the fool, but he wasn't going to be an uncomfortable one.

  He and Farren then went shopping for monsters.

  There were more than enough on the market.

  Kailas preferred black ones, even though Storm was a conventional reddish with gold streaks.

  He took only the best.

  The dragons were at least sixty feet long, twenty feet of that spiked tail. He never ceased admiring their talent for death-dealing, from the dual-horned head with its lethal fangs and cruel neck-horn to the whip-spiked tail.

  All of the beasts he chose had some domestication, if dragons could ever really be tamed, and so their carapaces had been painlessly drilled for rings to hold the rider's saddle and bags, just as the armored head had been fitted for reins.

  It was great fun for Hal, until he noticed the expression, if expression it was, on one unchosen beast.

  He swore it looked as forlorn as an unasked maiden at a village dance.

  Thereafter, the pleasure was considerably diminished.

  He wished he could free all these captive dragons.

  But then what?

  Many of them had been captured as kits, and had little if any ability to live in the wild.

  Once again, he thought, man befouled what he did not destroy.

  That put him in a thoroughly bad
mood, quite ready to deal with his next caller, Sir Thorn Lowess.

  He came into the office quietly, and sat down, without greeting Kailas.

  Hal turned and looked at him, hard, for a moment.

  "How long have you known?"

  "Maybe… maybe a month."

  "And you didn't tell me."

  "No," Lowess said. "And it pained me. But I was friends with Khiri, and you, and finding out about her… behavior put me in the middle."

  "It did," Kailas agreed. His voice was harsh, flat.

  "I came to apologize… but I realized that wouldn't be right."

  Hal thought for a moment.

  "No. No, it wouldn't."

  "Lady Khiri desperately wants to talk to you."

  "I've been instructed by my advocate to have no contact with her."

  Lowess's jaw bulged. He was getting angry.

  "Aren't you being a little sanctimonious, Lord Kailas?"

  "Yes, I suppose I am."

  Lowess nodded once, stood, started for the door.

  "Wait a minute, Sir Thorn."

  Lowess stopped.

  "Very well. I'll talk to Khiri. But in the presence of my advocate."

  "That," Lowess said after a moment, "hardly sounds like you're interested in any sort of reconciliation."

  "No, it doesn't, does it," Hal said. "But that's the way it will be."

  Again, Sir Thorn nodded.

  "One thing," Hal said. "You've been a more than good friend to me. I do not want to lose that."

  Lowess smiled tightly.

  "Thank you for saying that. I feel the same. And I shall tell Lady Khiri what you have agreed to do."

  They met at the office of Sir Jabish Attecoti. Lady Khiri looked very beautiful, Hal supposed. And he was a bit surprised that she came without her own advocate.

  Khiri tried a smile, saw Hal's grim face, let it slip away. She looked at Sir Jabish.

  "This hardly makes for an easy conversation, does it?"

  Hal didn't answer.

  "Would it help to say I'm sorry… that he was just a momentary impulse, and we'd been… well, together, for only a few days."

  "Don't lie, Khiri," Hal said. "I know otherwise."

  Khiri bobbed her head, shed a few tears.

  "It was just… just that you've been so cold lately. I thought maybe there was someone else, and lost my temper, and oh hells!"

  "There was never anyone else," Kailas said.

  Khiri looked up at him, her face flushed.

  "You sound like you're my commander, or something like that! Isn't there any room for forgiving me? Please?"

  Hal just looked at her.

  She took a handkerchief from her sleeve, wiped her eyes.

  "I suppose… no. Never mind."

  She snuffled once, got up, and swept out.

  Hal and Sir Jabish exchanged looks. Neither of them said anything.

  It was a bright summer day, and the sunlight dappled the waves as two harbor boats warped the Galgorm Explorer out of Gart's dock, and swung its prow south, toward the open sea.

  Sailors swarmed the yards, and a dragon honked in surprise as the first wave lifted the ship.

  Hal looked back at the land, saw Gart waving, managed a smile, then looked ahead at the Straits of Carcaor.

  There was nothing behind him anymore to hold his mind.

  5

  Once, Frechin had sat on Sagene's coast. But ocean currents silted up the coastline, and, fifty years later, it was two leagues inland.

  But the citizens of Frechin were canny, and built a winding, deep-water canal from the ocean to the city, and dug out a huge harbor.

  The canal was guarded by twin fortified moles at its mouth, and the city itself by the great fortress-prison above the city, making it a safer harbor than before.

  In midsummer, wherries brought the Galgorm Adventurer to a berth near the canal entrance.

  Sagene citizens flocked to see the wallowing tub, and its load of dragons. Speculation ran rife as to what the Dragonmaster, famous even in a foreign country, was planning.

  A few well-trained sailors, apparently in their cups, let on that Lord Kailas saw adventure and profit far to the south, on the almost unknown coast across the Southern Sea.

  In the meantime, he was waiting for additional crew members and soldiers, since the coast was reputedly rife with pirates and hostile tribes.

  The Adventurer's master said they expected to be tied up in Frechin for at least a month, and opened negotiations for food and drink to be brought to the ship.

  Hal and the other dragon fliers had spent every clear, calm day on the voyage south, down the Chicor Straits into the open sea, around Sagene's capes into the Southern Sea, flying and practicing landing on the small barge that the Adventurer towed alongside as a landing stage.

  It was good to make sure none of them had lost these skills, Hal said.

  It might be very good. He hadn't seen Frechin's prison, but Hal had had an idea or two on how he might attempt to liberate Yasin even before they'd left Deraine.

  With their story adequately established, he decided to visit Yasin in his death cell.

  He was pleasantly surprised at the prison's warder.

  Sir Mai Rospen was a long-mustached soldier, most dignified in his manner.

  "I bid you welcome, Lord Kailas," he rumbled. "But I must advise you of something. Ky Yasin may be a convicted felon, and doomed to be hanged, unless his last appeal is successful, which, frankly, no one expects.

  "But he did what he did in the conviction of rectitude, illegally purchasing supplies on the black market and flying them into Roche.

  "In another time, in another country, he might be judged a hero.

  "But the war savaged us all, and so he will hang.

  "But he will hang as a gentleman, and I will tolerate no man mocking him."

  "That," Hal said honestly, "is hardly my intention."

  Rospen had a warder show him to a bare stone room, and Yasin was brought in.

  At least they let him wear civilian clothes, rather than whatever monkey-garb Sagene prisons legislated.

  He started, seeing Kailas, and then burst out laughing.

  "This is proof that the gods have an evil sense of humor," he said. "The last time I saw you—other than when you shot me—I was the visitor and you were the prisoner.

  "As I recall, I was full of pride, and just beginning to realize the war was turning against us, and I said some most intemperate things."

  "You did," Hal said amiably.

  "For which I was repaid by your first escaping, then returning and laying waste to Castle Mulde and liberating all of the prisoners we held.

  "A fitting repayment for arrogance. I think… I hope… I have learned, if not to curb my haughtiness, to at least conceal it."

  Hal indicated the other, rickety chair.

  Yasin sat.

  "So what brings you out of Deraine?"

  "I have a question of my own first," Hal said. "I could have sworn I killed you, back over the realm of the demon outside Carcaor."

  "You damned near did," Yasin said frankly. "I felt your crossbow bolt hit me, and a wave of pain, and then I was in the water.

  "My dragon had crashed beside me, and was thrashing in its death agonies. All I wanted to do was join it.

  "But I didn't.

  "I think I swam away from the beast, and then I was on the surface, trying to breathe. Without much success.

  "But somehow I managed to float downstream, flailing at the water. I guess I was afraid to die.

  "Anyway, the current took me a mile or more away, where I washed up on a little beach.

  "There was a scattering of huts. The people who lived there wanted nothing to do with cities or demons or fliers or war. But one of them was a passingly good witch and herbalist.

  "She crouched by me, and I could feel I was fading, and she snarled, 'Breathe or die,' and that shocked me into wanting to live.

  "I breathed, and then she lit a tap
er, and I was in a coma. Then came great pain, and I couldn't waken. The pain stopped, and I found out later they were pushing your crossbow bolt through me, until it came out between my ribs.

  "They cut off the broadhead, pulled the shaft out, and packed the wound with herbs."

  He made a wry face.

  "And so I healed, while my country fell apart.

  "But talking about wounds is like listening to old women natter about their ills, interesting only to them.

  "I ask again, if I may, what brings you here?"

  Hal tapped an ear, raised an eyebrow, and pointed around the room.

  Yasin smiled. "You remember the skills of being a prisoner well. No. This cell is not listened to, unlike some. At least, I don't think so."

  Hal had been lightly searched, but they hadn't found the tightly rolled linen in his boot. He pulled it out, unrolled it, revealing the letters of the alphabet.

  "We have interests to the south," he said, his fingers touching letters.

  W…E…W…I…L…L…T…R…Y… T…O…R…E…S…C…U…E…Y…O…U.

  Yasin's eyes widened.

  "Well," he managed, "That sounds… interesting. I wish that I could accompany your expedition, but I seem to have other commitments."

  "And you have let yourself fall out of shape," Hal said. "You're hardly fit enough for an adventurer."

  "This is true," Yasin said. "I fear that our exercise time, which is only two hours a day, just at noon, has been uninteresting to me, since I don't know of any calisthenics that prepare you for walking on air."

  "Still," Hal said. "You should get outside as much as you can. Your appeal hasn't been denied yet, and walking, in the open air, is good for you."

  He wondered, if there were eavesdroppers, whether his words sounded as stilted as they did to him.

  "You're right," Yasin said. "I should start immediately."

  "In the meantime," Hal said, "while we're still anchored here, is there anything we could bring you?"

  "A new trial," Yasin said. "Other than that, the warders here have been most gentle, and my mother has sent money, so I'm not living on prisoners' fare."

  "Good," Hal said, and led the conversation into dragon flying and the war for an hour or so, then took his leave.

  Hal's dragons became a familiar sight over Frechin, soaring close to the heights, and waving at warders on the prison's walls.