The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  Hal obeyed, shivering at the cold. There was nothing inside the tent except a camp cot.

  He stuck his head back out, saw Limingo and his two assistants drawing convoluted symbols in the sand. The two laborers stood well back from the scene, near where the land sloped down to the beach.

  Evidently Hal wasn't the only one who was a trifle goosey about magic.

  The acolytes set up seven torches, on chest-high poles stuck into the sand, waved their hands over them, and they sprang into life. In spite of the onshore winds, the torches burnt steadily, never flickering.

  The assistants took scrolls from their cloaks, began reading in unison.

  Their chanting was a bit soothing.

  Hal yawned.

  "Now, you, back inside, and on the cot," Limingo said.

  Hal obeyed.

  "Now, I want you, as much as you can remember, to feel as you did when you had that dream, that vision."

  Hal thought back, tried to obey.

  Limingo took a small green leatherbound book from his cloak, started reading, in an unknown tongue.

  Hal got sleepy.

  Limingo kept reading, and it became a chant, and suddenly he switched to Derainian, or else Hal suddenly and magically understood the language he'd been speaking.

  Go in Go back

  Go in

  Go back

  Into the current

  Into the wind.

  All at once, Hal was lying on the beach outside, feeling pain, the long pain that had carried him across the great waters, fading, ebbing, and he knew and welcomed death.

  He realized he was now that dragon outside, dying, and he tried feebly to fight against death.

  Somehow he knew he was moving backward, still the dragon.

  Now he felt the waves wash over him, and whimpered as the pain came back.

  Then he was in the surf, the waves crashing at him, at his brutally torn wing, his ripped-away tail, his battered carapace.

  He was farther out at sea, his wings, such as had been left him, wrapped around his head, a tent against the buffeting winds and waves.

  He was alone, no land in sight, the current carrying him.

  Part of him was this poor maimed dragon, being swept west by wind and waves, and part of him, a strange part, small, soft-fleshed, lay in some sort of cover on a far-distant beach.

  A voice came:

  Let it take you Let it take you

  Watch the stars

  Watch the stars

  Let it take you

  Now come back

  Come out

  Slowly Just a bit.

  He peered out, into the storm's beginnings, up at the sky, as someone, something, had commanded him, saw the night sky, clouds whirling past.

  It was day, and the pain was stronger, but so was his strength.

  From the depths below rose a snake-headed monster, wide fanged jaws snapping at him, and he found strength, clawed talons striking out, and the surprised snake-head snapped back, hissed, went looking for weaker prey.

  He was in the air, tumbling, spinning, crashing down, and for an instant the cold water felt good on his wounds, then it seared, as he came up.

  There were strange things in the water, skeins, with fish leaping inside, the skeins being tended by odd, bulky things that were not fish.

  He was in the air, floundering, and it was night, and again the voice came:

  Watch the sky

  Watch the sky

  Remember the sky.

  He obeyed once more, and then he was flying, barely flying, wing torn, fleeing from those three red and black monsters that had attacked his crag, tearing into his mate and their egg.

  Something had told him to fly into the rising sun, and he obeyed, and he saw the sea below fade back, and then there was land—

  And there was agony as the three monsters ripped at him, and his mate lay dying, and he fought back, without hope, uselessly—

  And something cold dashed into his face, and a voice was shouting:

  "Come out now! Come back! Or face the real death!" and it was Limingo, not chanting a spell, and Hal was back on the beach, remembered pain tearing at him, fading down and away as Limingo's spell receded.

  He sat up, shaking, his body drenched in sweat.

  He threw up suddenly.

  Someone was kneeling beside him, holding a hot drink.

  He managed to sip it, felt its warmth.

  Then he was cold again, and someone draped a cloak over him.

  He was one again, Hal Kailas, on a beach beside a dead wild dragon.

  But he would never forget those moments of remembered dying agony, as he, the dragon, suddenly without a mate or kit, fled from his home across the ocean, currents and winds taking him west, hoping to see a peaceful land, finding nothing but death.

  Hal Kailas remembered what Limingo had shouted, and he looked up at the sky, at the stars.

  He shuddered, remembering quite exactly, knowing that he now knew where he must go.

  17

  !A GRAND ADVENTURE!

  INTO THE UNKNOWN

  WESTERN LANDS!

  JOIN THE DRAGONMASTER

  AS HE EXPLORES

  LANDS OF MYSTERY

  On His Majesty's

  Service

  HIGHEST PAY

  AND SHARES OF ANY PLUNDER

  BONUS FOR

  THE EXPERIENCED:

  Dragon Fliers

  And Handlers

  Raiders

  And

  Officers & Seamen

  ALL OF A GOOD HEART

  AND BRAVE SOUL

  CARRY THE FLAG OF DERAINE

  INTO THE WILDS

  Apply in person to…

  18

  Hal started putting the pieces of his expedition together.

  The poster was nailed up around Deraine. Hal wondered what sort of recruits he'd find, but had other tasks at hand first.

  But he did make a call on Sir Thorn Lowess. The taleteller was somewhat nervous over not having told Hal about his former wife's peccadilloes, but Hal made no mention of that. Khiri, like many other things, was now in the dead past, and Hal mostly succeeded in not thinking about her.

  Hal told Sir Thorn that he wanted the maximum amount of publicity, to make sure he got the best in the land.

  Lowess said he'd cooperate, but had a suggestion: the campaign was to wait for a bit, until Hal had something concrete to talk about. Also, he was to play utterly mysterious to the other tale-tellers.

  "That'll bring 'em flocking around, sniffing like hounds. Then, later, I'll do my story. Since they'll have been dropping little tidbits until then, there'll be no way the other broadsheets can ignore your crusade, and so they'll go louder and bigger, like hounds baying after their better who's sniffed the prey."

  Hal shrugged. He had less than no idea of how the taletellers worked, and even less curiosity.

  Now came the ships. He already owned the Galgorm Adventurer.

  The king gave him a basin to fit out in, and the Galgorm was taken into dry dock and given a far more thorough refit than she'd had before Hal set off for Sagene, including new yards, rigging, canvas, her bottom scraped and coppered, and a more seaworthy launching barge built, since they were to be testing the stormy Western Ocean. Also, both the galley and the cabins were made more luxurious. It might be a very wearisome cruise.

  The Galgorm's sister ship was given to Hal for a seedling rent, as were two light corvettes, the Compass Rose and the Black Orchid, as well as two fast dispatch boats.

  That was adequate for Hal. He wasn't mounting a battle fleet. If trouble, big trouble, was encountered, the dispatch boats were to flee, and bring the word back to Deraine, while the other four would do what they could to escape.

  There were more than enough shipwrights out of work to take care of the rebuilding of the six ships, so Hal turned his attention to the main concern: the dragons, their fliers, and their handlers.

  He planned, since he had no idea how long
the voyage would take, to take only sixteen dragons, plus replacements, which would give the monsters enough room to be comfortable.

  He planned to divide his sixteen into two flights.

  His first recruit was Garadice.

  The old man came up the gangplank of the Galgorm, which Hal had made his headquarters, looked about and nodded approvingly.

  "This is more likely a project than you forming groups of bandage experts," he said. "Of course, I'm along."

  "Of course," Hal said, although privately wondering if the man would take to his command, since he'd been used to nearly complete independence during the war.

  His old dragon doctor, Tupilco, appeared, explaining that no one seemed to need to medicate monsters these days, and signed the articles.

  Next were the fliers.

  Of course, Farren Mariah, the first he sought out, grumbled, glowered, and accepted the charge of being commander of the first flight.

  The second flight went to the man who'd first commanded Hal, back at the start of the war, Lu Miletus. He didn't offer any explanations for why he wasn't content in peacetime Deraine, and Hal didn't ask, grateful for the man's proven ability.

  Cabet showed up, which gave Hal an adjutant, and a known replacement as flight leader if there were casualties.

  He asked Cabet casually about Calt Beoyard. Cabet grinned. "Remember that bordello in Carcaor? The one with the very young girls?"

  Hal did… and he also remembered Beoyard's fascination with the dive.

  "He's gone back into Roche, become the protector of the brothel, and swears he'll never get anywhere higher than a second-story bedroom, or demons can take him."

  That was that.

  Hal was trying not to lose his temper listening to a carpenter tell him how to reinforce the dragon pens on the Galgorm, when a wiry man with amazing mustaches came aboard.

  Aimard Quesney.

  He and Hal stared at each other, then Quesney made a sort of salute.

  "Are you coming aboard to tell me how I've found a new and interesting way to make a fool of myself?" Hal asked.

  "I thought about it," Quesney said. "Especially after seeing your poster. Tsk. Plunder indeed."

  "Unless I'm very mistaken," Hal said, "there'll be no plunder. We're sailing west to try to help the dragons… as you, and others, suggested. Or at least to find out what's driving them west, killing them when it can."

  Quesney stared at Hal.

  "I think I might owe you an apology," he said. "That is truly an honorable, if probably foolish, quest."

  "I'm glad of your approval," Hal said sarcastically. "Might I ask what happened to your priesthood? Weren't they quite pure enough for you?"

  Quesney flushed, then recovered, and stared out at the harbor.

  "I deserve that, I suppose. I've not formally left. I came down to Rozen to see just what you were intending.

  "Now I know.

  "Is there room for another flier?"

  "Are you willing to accept discipline?" Hal asked. "I don't need a doubter always behind me."

  "If you'll have me, I'll serve faithfully."

  Hal hesitated. Quesney was an extraordinary flier…

  but he'd certainly been a pain in several areas, from his firm opinions to his dissidence.

  And yet…

  "I'll have you," Kailas said, making up his mind. "And don't make me regret it."

  A trace of a smile came to Quesney's lips, and he rose, and saluted, a very crisp one this time.

  "I won't," he said. "Sir."

  The next step was putting Sir Thorn Lowess into motion.

  His fellow scribes had been frothing at the mouth, trying to get details on this royal expedition into the unknown. But nothing came from either the palace or from Hal.

  Then the wave broke, with several long pieces by Sir Thorn on the possible danger to the west that might threaten Deraine, the pogrom that was evidently being waged against the dragons. The best and the bravest would sail on a fact-finding mission, he wrote, "and if there's fighting about, there's no readier for it, or braver, than Lord Kailas, the Dragonmaster."

  And so on and on.

  Sir Thorn's fellows had to catch up, with little facts beyond those Lowess had contrived.

  Naturally, then, their stories were wilder and more heroic than his.

  The second wave of applicants roared in, in person and, in spite of the poster's caution, by post and messenger.

  It seemed everyone wanted to go with the Dragonmaster.

  Sometimes this was good: there were more than enough applications from combat-experienced rangers, scouts, sailors, dragon handlers, even clerks who'd spent time in the military.

  Sometimes these included faces from the past:

  Uluch, Hal's old and taciturn body servant, arrived, announced he wished his old tasks back. Hal asked him what had happened since he was discharged. Uluch said, briefly, "Went back to the greengrocer's. Didn't like it. The boss's wife didn't like me. That was that."

  And that was that.

  Another was Chook, the enormous and lethal cook from Lu Miletus's squadron, whose family had supposedly owned a great restaurant in Deraine.

  "I went back, thinking I knew ten ways to steal from the owner. Found out other people, who hadn't bothered to waste time in the army, knew twenty.

  "So I beat 'em all up, decided I wanted to lay low for a while, and heard about you."

  Hal didn't give much of a hang about Chook's murder-ousness, remembered how good he was at making gourmet dishes out of ration salt beef, flour, and imagination, and signed him aboard instantly.

  Sometimes things were heartbreaking:

  No, Hal wouldn't sign someone on because his wife was unfaithful.

  No, Hal wouldn't take the romantic student who'd avoided the war, regretted it, and wanted to prove himself.

  No, Hal had no idea whether someone's missing wife had signed on under another name, and didn't have time to look.

  No—and this was the worst—Hal couldn't accept the schoolboys who sometimes showed up at the docks, with improvised knapsacks, looking for adventure. He couldn't manage to be fatherly and order them back home, remembering himself as a young runaway. But he couldn't take them.

  To see the hope in their eyes extinguished like a snuffed candle… this sat hard with him, and he took it out on the dockyard workers.

  Sometimes it wasn't hard to turn down volunteers at all: men and women with strange, distant looks in their eyes, who wanted something from Hal he couldn't, didn't dare, offer them. Only a few of them were combat veterans, although several lied about their experience.

  Sometimes, somebody he'd have liked to have aboard turned him down:

  Sir Loren Damian, he of the gentle soul and deadly flying skills, arrived. He listened to Hal's spiel, then smiled.

  "First, I'm not going with you. I'm perfectly happy on my farm, raising horses that don't try to tear my leg off, unlike dragons, and tenants who have no interest in anything beyond their plow, a bit of beef, and a pint in the local.

  "I came down to test myself, which I suppose is unfair to you, but I wanted to know if I could be wooed by the thought of distant lands and deadly enemies.

  "I find I'd rather read about it, later, when Sir Thom writes of your adventures."

  He and Hal had a riotous night in the fleshpots, and Hal went back to his work much more cheery, even with an aching head.

  Another who wouldn't go, because Hal didn't offer, was Sir Thom. Hal remembered the time the tale-teller had gone into the field and found that the whisper of the ax and the whine of the arrow were not for him, except when they were told about at a distance.

  Ex-fliers swarmed to him, including a few Sagene, who'd somehow heard of the expedition.

  Hal was intrigued that a good percentage of them were women, wondered why, got no volunteered explanations.

  He signed fourteen of the very best on, which gave him a few extra bodies to allow for sickness and loss.

  He no
ted, and didn't like noting, a short, slender, Sagene brunette named Kimana Balf. She reminded him of the dead Saslic Dinapur entirely too much, and Hal had forced the past away and wanted nothing romantic in the present.

  But she had a great deal more experience than her years and features suggested, and Hal took her on.

  One of the last fliers to appear was Hachir. Hal had roughly recruited him at the beginning of the war as a crossbowman, to ride behind him and kill Roche fliers. Hachir had done well, then the ex-teacher had gone back to his infantry regiment.

  Later, he'd shown up as a fledgling dragon flier, explaining that he'd liked flying, and had applied and made it through school. But his return to Deraine had otherwise been a disaster, when he discovered his wife had found a lover.

  Seldom smiling, Hachir had done yeoman's work in the final days of the war, managing to survive the vast aerial battles.

  But now, he was still mournful-faced.

  Farren asked if he was related to a beagle, or had hard times stayed with him after he got out of the military.

  "No, the times weren't hard," Hachir said, trying a smile and failing. "I went back to teaching, but couldn't stand nattering little voices and the squeak of chalk."

  Farren reported to Hal.

  "Too well rehearsed a hoary story." He stopped, made a face. "I guess he's just one of the ones who should've died, maybe getting some kind of medal."

  He was silent for a time, then said, very quietly, "Maybe there's more than one with us who that could be said about."

  Hal bought Mariah a drink, added Hachir to the roster.

  Garadice had found his dragons—mostly the big blacks that did so well, all of them with battle experience. These were in the peak of health, and as well trained as possible. Their riders would be responsible for the finishing touches, and making the beasts lose whatever bad habits their previous owners had given them.

  Hal took Storm, even though he was neither huge nor a black, and a second dragon, one of the biggest blacks, which he wryly named Sweetie, after the dragon he'd once ridden that'd been named and raised by a little girl, and that had dumped him into captivity during the war.