The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  He'd also taken the precaution of having a very heavy crossbow, almost a catapult, mounted high in the rigging of the four larger ships.

  He didn't think dragons could see in the dark. At least, none of his civilized monsters could. And since man couldn't, either, there was no point in cutting into the expedition's sleep.

  There was little rest for either the innocent or the wicked. Warrants ran troops up and down ramps and ropes, keeping them in shape regardless of whether they were expected to fight or forage.

  Hal kept his fliers in the air for at least half a day, every day that weather permitted, slowly accustoming the dragons and men who hadn't spent time over water to the situation.

  He had Limingo recast his spell to the ship's beef, so a lost flier merely had to touch an amulet, think of the salt beef in casks aboard the Adventurer, and the spell would tell him in what direction he did not want to go. All the flier then had to do was ignore his stomach, and fly in that direction.

  Outside of producing some gastric distress, particularly in Farren Mariah, the spell worked as well as it had earlier.

  One thing Kailas did not do, and his officers were strictly ordered to do the same, was waste his people's time with idiotic drills or details.

  If you were off duty, you were off duty, and advised to get your head down, Kailas being a firm believer that sleep could and should be accumulated, as could fatigue.

  If a soldier or sailor was caught larking about, then the kitchen called, with a loud and clarion voice.

  And the passage wore on.

  It might have gotten boring if all hands hadn't felt the unknown ahead, which is always a threat.

  There were incidents to mark the days:

  A huge whale, its back scarred by deep-sea battles with giant squid, passed through the middle of the formation one morning, its odorous spout guaranteeing attention.

  Its wise and skeptical eyes considered what it could never have seen before, then it was beyond the expedition, and sounded.

  Another time a school of dolphin frolicked around the bows of the ship, playing follow-my-leader, or tag, or who knew what.

  Hal had been digesting a meal of the last of the eggs and fried ham and was contemplating feeding Storm and Sweetie, when the dolphin showed up.

  They were leaping and cavorting, and Hal was miles away from the expedition, when a voice broke his contemplation:

  "I don't believe in any sort of afterlife… but if there is, I think I might like to come back as one of them."

  It was Kimana Balf.

  Hal thought about it for an instant, nodded.

  "There's worse," he said, and turned below to feed his monsters.

  * * *

  A storm struck, but one in the air. The sea was relatively calm, although the waves were whipped into froth, and the spray was a third element between air and water.

  The ships had all sail struck, and kept a wide berth from their fellows.

  Hal lay snug abed, listening to the clatter of the rigging, and the shouts of the seamen on watch.

  Alone in his stateroom, he was almost asleep when the thought came that he wouldn't mind a bit of company.

  That brought him fully awake, wondering just who his lecherous subconscious was thinking of.

  It refused to tell him, and so he bundled back up in his blankets.

  But he was not quite as content as he'd been before.

  The seas grew warm, and warmer.

  Men went on deck without gloves, or even a jacket.

  Hal issued orders for any man taking off his jersey to be careful of sunburn, and promised that anyone who put himself in the lazaret for that cause could count on some nice healing saltwater baths to alleviate the pain.

  Now a routine came:

  Some men, those with little seagoing experience, spent time off watch staring at the horizons, hoping for sign of land, any land.

  None came.

  Experienced sailors remembered the past. Now, each man and woman had a space, self-assigned and created, only a few square feet. But when he was in it, he was alone, ignored by his neighbors on either side.

  Similarly, officers could pace the quarterdeck quite precisely—so many steps toward the rail, turn, so many back, frequently with a fellow, dancing perfect attendance, pacing as he or she paced, turning when they turned. Others were doing the same, completely unaware of anyone else.

  Hal felt the men and women could journey for years like that, with never a fight, seldom an argument.

  Hal hurried with the others when someone shouted a flying fish was aboard.

  He'd never seen such a creature, delicate fins, and light, multicolored body, its colors fading as it died on the wooden planks; had never sailed that far south.

  Only the most experienced had, since Deraine was not a seafaring nation, and few of its ships had ever come into these unknown waters.

  There was an argument starting about whether the fish flew, or just glided.

  One sailor was pointing out, with inescapable logic, that it wouldn't be called a flying fish if it didn't really fly, when the shout came from the masthead.

  High overhead, almost lost in the scattered clouds, were a pair of dragons.

  Hal found a glass.

  They were red and black, and even from this distance they looked huge.

  Neither had riders, but they flew together in perfect formation.

  Hal, remembering his dreams of murder and pain, felt cold fingers down his spine.

  21

  The dragons banked, then came down on the fleet as if they were no more than curious creatures who'd never seen Man.

  But they held to their close formation.

  Hal watched, worrying.

  Part of his mind reminded him that there were animals in his world that did the same—ducks, geese, the recently seen dolphins—without Man's guidance.

  Another part muttered, "Bullshit," and tried not to panic.

  "All hands to alert," he shouted, and warrants' whistles shrilled.

  Hal ran to the dragon stalls.

  "I'll have Storm."

  "Mine after," called Farren Mariah, checking his crossbow.

  The wild dragons lifted from their dive about a thousand feet above the ships.

  Storm, even though he was a domestically raised dragon, saw the red and blacks and started hissing like an angry teakettle as he came out of the stable deck, a groom hastily adjusting Hal's saddle.

  "Shut up," Hal shouted, foot in a stirrup as he swung into the saddle. An armorer tossed him magazines of bolts, and his crossbow.

  The dragon, still looking up at the red and blacks, and moving his head back and forth, thudded down the ramp to the launching barge in a timber-creaking run.

  Storm's wings unfurled with a canvas-cracking snap. He took three more steps, was at the edge of the barge, then he leapt up, and was in the air.

  Hal snapped a magazine into place on the crossbow, brought the cocking piece back, then forward, and hung the ready weapon on its hook on Storm's carapace.

  Behind him he saw Mariah's dragon climbing, wings slashing for altitude.

  The foreign dragons pulled up sharply, and climbed, away from the ships.

  They had speed and altitude on the two Derainian dragons, and, at about two thousand feet, converted height to more speed, diving down toward the water, and flying west-southwest.

  Storm tried to catch them, but wasn't able.

  Hal and Farren Mariah chased the two for a few miles, then broke off the pursuit, their ships still in sight, and turned back for safety, having no idea of what lay ahead.

  The rest of the day passed without incident.

  At nightfall, lookouts reported two more dragons dogging the fleet.

  The dragons—or replacement scouts—were still there when the sun rose.

  Hal didn't know what to do: the wild dragons weren't making any hostile moves, and all he knew about them was what he'd seen in his vision.

  He didn't want to start a
war or take sides in one yet, not knowing what caused the hatred between the red and blacks and other dragons.

  But those two monsters endlessly circling overhead made everyone nervous.

  The seas grew yet warmer, and the winds softer, but there was still no sight of land.

  However, one of the dispatch boats saw something odd: a huge ring of floats, with nets hanging below them, but never a sight of any boats or men. It was torn, and appeared long abandoned.

  Hal had Limingo cast a spell, to see if he could somehow sense the presence and form of the civilization that had made the nets, out there to the west.

  Nothing came.

  On the fourth day after the dragons had first been seen, lookouts shouted officers to the bridge.

  There was nothing, at first, on the horizon.

  A very sharp-eyed lookout in the bows, and one of the men at the masthead, were pointing due west.

  Hal saw nothing, then slowly quartered the sea with his glass.

  At first he thought it was a hair stuck to his lens. Then he saw another one.

  There was nothing on his telescope.

  He looked again out to sea.

  The hair was larger than it had been, and was clearly closing on the fleet.

  Hal waited.

  In moments, it was clear:

  It was some creature's neck, snakelike, sticking up about thirty feet above the water, leaving a purling wake behind it as it came.

  "Ain't no seaweed-muncher," a lookout with a glass muttered.

  Hal studied the creature. He could make out more of its features now. Atop the snaky neck was a flat, long head, with gaping jaws, and, even at this distance, sharp fangs.

  No, it wasn't a vegetarian, not with teeth like that.

  "Hands to alert," he called. "All dragon fliers to their stations. Ready the beasts for takeoff."

  Sailors hustled to obey.

  The onrushing creature suddenly veered to the side, toward the Bohol Adventurer. A sailor was leaning on the rail, gaping at the beast. The beast's neck flashed out, jaws reaching, and Hal heard the scream across the water.

  The sea monster had the man by the middle, jaws clenched.

  It lifted the sailor clear of the ship. Hal saw his fists drum against the beast's head, to no avail. The creature turned on its side. Hal saw a thick body, fins fore and aft, and then the creature went under, carrying the sailor with it.

  Another monster's head snaked out of the wake of the Compass Rose, reaching for the helmsman. But someone moved faster, and hurled a marlinspike into the beast's face.

  It shrieked, rolled away, and then there was a forest of jaws coming out of the water beside one of the dispatch boats.

  The creatures slammed into the side of the small ship, and rolled it hard, its rail almost going under.

  The beasts tried again, and Hal realized they must have attacked ships before… or else they were far more intelligent than any sea creature he had heard of, other than a whale.

  The dispatch boat rolled again, almost going over on its beam ends, and then there were dragons in the air.

  One, flanked by his partner, dove at one of the monsters, and the rider sent a crossbow bolt into the beast's neck.

  Correction… her partner, as Hal recognized the dragon as Kimana Balf's. Her partner, another Sagene, put his bolt into the beast's body, just at the base of the neck.

  The monster screeched, rolled, snapping at itself, and went under.

  Hal realized he had more important things to do than gape, and ran down from the bridge of the Galgorm to where Storm waited on the launching barge.

  Farren Mariah was already orbiting above him, and Hal was airborne in seconds.

  Dragons were pinwheeling, diving over the stricken dispatch boat, and Hal found a target, fired, hit the sea beast in its open mouth. It screeched, tucked its head underwater, and dove, Hal not knowing if it was wounded or killed.

  He pulled Storm around, looking for another target as he worked the forehand of his crossbow back and forth, reloading it.

  A pair of monsters were slamming against the dispatch boat's side, trying to overturn it.

  Hal dove on them, and they saw him, and went under.

  He looked for another target.

  But the monsters had disappeared underwater, as if signaled by a leader.

  The dragons patrolled around the ships as the fleet put on full sail.

  But none of the sea creatures surfaced again.

  After a time, Kailas blew the recall, and the dragons landed, one after the other, and were quickly led up the ramp to their pens.

  Soldiers with spears and ready bows lined the rails of the ships.

  But they weren't attacked again that day.

  The dispatch boat's timbers were cracked, and the ship was leaking.

  The crew wove lines through a spare sail, rove it overside as a patch. That would have to hold until they found secure land to careen the small ship and make more permanent repairs.

  Hal thought of sending it, or the other dispatch craft, back to Deraine to report the incident.

  But he decided there might be more important messages, and more information, to follow.

  They sailed on.

  Overhead, two more red and black dragons swung through the skies, watching.

  22

  They sailed on west, doggedly followed by alternating pairs of dragons.

  "Clever enough by half," Farren Mariah observed. "Note, they change shift with the glass?"

  Hal hadn't… it was worrisome enough that the dragons knew enough to replace one another. But now he kept track, and found Farren Mariah right.

  Every now and again he ordered dragons into the air against them, but the bigger monsters, having altitude and speed, always avoided interception.

  Then he gained another follower… or quite possibly more.

  One of the snake-headed creatures appeared in their wake. When one of Hal's dragons swooped on it, it would submerge, then, stubbornly, reappear, never closing, never attacking.

  Hal, assuming there were more underwater, posted a watch on the creature, and tried to put it out of his rründ, without much luck.

  He also noticed that the red and blacks liked these sea monsters as little as men did. One or another of them would occasionally, never with success, try to creep up on the snake-headed beasts, who'd always dive to safety in time.

  Hal was starting to get nervous in this utterly unknown and foreign world.

  None of the experienced seamen had seen either the red and black dragons or the snaky creatures before in their journeys… but then, none of them had been this far west.

  The skies were clear and tropical, and temperatures grew still warmer.

  But there was nothing on the horizon that suggested land.

  Then, Limingo came to him one day and said he'd been having himself mesmerized, and, unconscious, let himself float west.

  He'd sensed nothing, and had begun doubting the usefulness of this spell. Then one day, very vaguely, he'd sensed some sort of wizardry, "like a dull glow, before the sun rises, against the clouds," to the south-southwest.

  He could nearly indicate the direction on the compass, and so Hal had the fleet's course changed in that direction.

  Every day, he put up dragons in predawn darkness, hoping to ambush his followers.

  But they figured out his plan, and now were almost on the horizon every dawn, only closing on the tiny fleet when the dragons came back aboard.

  Hal gave that up, and put out paired dragons at dawn and dusk, directly on their course, and four more on ten-degree-divergent courses, sweeping ahead of the ships, hoping to see land, or at least whatever had sparked Limingo.

  Four days later, they found land.

  Of a sort.

  The fliers returned to the Adventurers, had themselves boated across to the Galgorm, reported, in considerable perplexity.

  Hal went out with Limingo behind him, flanked by three other dragons with Bodrugan and the
two acolytes as passengers.

  It was land, about two days' sail distant, and it was quite strange:

  It was two islands, the larger about a third of a league in diameter, with reefs surrounded by a huge lagoon.

  The main island appeared to be solidly wooded, with no sign of life.

  The second island was lightly wooded, also with no signs of settlement.

  But beyond the low reefs, which had waves breaking across them, were half a dozen of the net circles they'd seen earlier.

  These ones were well kept, and Hal, looking down on them, understood how cleverly they'd been built. They weren't free-floating, but fixed to stakes. Another net, on the inside of the circle, fastened to booms, extended from one side to the other.

  A gate could be opened at either side of the circle, then closed, when fish were penned up.

  Then the boom would be worked across, narrowing one of the semicircles, making it easy to scoop the net's prey out.

  But there was no sign of boats or men.

  Hal took his dragons lower, but still saw nothing.

  He swept over the island, and it looked even stranger—as if it had been roofed, and then the roofing had sprouted branches and leaves.

  That made no sense.

  "There is magic down there," Limingo shouted over Kailas's shoulder. "Or there has been."

  Hal nodded understanding, blew the recall, and they returned to the fleet.

  He kept his crews on half alert all that night and the next day, going to full alert as they closed on the island, even though they'd seen nothing but their constant followers overhead.

  Limingo and Bodrugan cast and recast spells.

  Nothing.

  The snake thing had, thankfully, vanished. At least for the moment.

  Hal took half a flight aloft as they approached.

  The day before, the lagoon had been deserted, peaceful.

  Now, it was a battlefield.

  The snake rhings had swarmed the lagoon, and were tearing at the nets.

  But they were not undefended.

  Small creatiares, smaller than a man, but thicker-bodied, were splashing about, doing their best to drive the snake-heads away.

  They weren't animals—they were using sticks, some sharpened at the end, and clubs against the creatures.

  But there were too many of the snake-heads.