The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  There was more than sufficient prey on the plains and hills nearby.

  The dragons multiplied.

  There were other tribes of the monsters, in other parts of the mountains, and they fought their wars of breeding and territory, mostly flash and bluff, although too often the bluff became real, and the great beasts tore at each other and dragons fell to their death before their rage cooled.

  Then the red and blacks came into the world, and the wars with them were never bluff.

  Every battle was to the death, and the dragons couldn't seem to understand that they were being hunted down like vermin, the red and blacks always choosing their time and odds.

  Kits were choice prey to the foreign beasts, as if the red and blacks were intent on exterminating the other dragons.

  The dragons fought back, finding the red and blacks' sanctuary, attacking hard. But that single attempt failed to rid them of the red and blacks, and was driven off with many casualties.

  Now the world belonged to the invaders.

  Then there were far fewer dragons, and many of them flew away, to find other, safer cliffs for homes, or even to join other tribes.

  Only half a dozen dragons were left, old creatures, set in their ways.

  They were attacked one dawn by the red and blacks, and fought as hard as they could.

  But there were too many of the enemy, and the last of the dragons were savaged from the skies.

  The land was silent, except for the wind, and the triumphant screams of the red and blacks as they flew over the tableland, then away.

  Then there was nothing but the wind, and the passage of empty years.

  Hal awoke.

  It was still dark, but the horizon was beginning to lighten.

  He had the answer to his question, although he didn't know where he'd found it.

  There was but the one home for the red and black dragons.

  Now it was time to destroy them.

  32

  The return flight was uneventful, except for one incident: Hal had come out of the mountains, over rolling foothills, and saw another dragon in the distance.

  Storm was quickly alert.

  The other dragon appeared not to see him, and drew closer.

  Hal was about to climb for cover in the high clouds when he saw it was not a red and black, nor one of his own.

  Then the wild dragon saw him, and half rolled in surprise.

  It recovered, and, amazingly, neither attacked nor fled, but held its course.

  Hal restrained Storm from his attack, and the two flew side by side, about a mile apart, for a few moments, then the other dragon turned away, as if its curiosity was satisfied.

  Hal thought that very odd. In this part of the land, he would have thought all dragons felt they had no friends, whether red and black or any other shade.

  But he forgot about it when he reached his valley.

  His tiny unit was in an uproar.

  The commotion had been caused by Garadice, who'd announced that, with Kailas's permission, he intended to make all of them dragon fliers, from orderly to scout, unless they proved they suffered absolute fear of heights.

  Hal was momentarily shocked, like the others, then thought about it.

  Why not? After some consideration, he realized that the only thing that "made" a dragon flier, in his estimation, was a love of being in the air.

  Other than that, it was just a hazardous job.

  And here, marooned in this alien land, what wasn't?

  He announced, to moans, growls and, here and there, some eagerness, that he would go along with Garadice's decision, and that training would begin the next day.

  The first stage, as in the famous rabbit-cooking recipe, was to capture their dragon.

  Actually, the first step was finding a dragon. Or, rather, a cluster of dragons. Hal hoped that what he'd seen in his dreams or visions, that dragons in this land grouped together, still held true, and so he and his handful of fliers went looking.

  A long day's flight away, they found a rocky outcropping on the coast that, as Mariah put it, was "friggin' crawling with monskers."

  Hal refused to let the image grow in his mind, and took his four dragons, Quesney, Cabet, Miletus riding, plus Garadice, Mariah, Hachir, and Kimana behind, to an isolated crag of their own, where they spent a day watching the wild dragons.

  Garadice passed his time oiling a long, tough rope that had been part of the Compass Rose's rigging.

  The others picked two young wild ones, perhaps two or three years old, one male and one female. The next morning, before dawn, the hunters were in the air over the male's pinnacle.

  Hal put Storm in a dive past it, and the young beast thought that was a challenge, and rolled out of his nest after him.

  The beast didn't notice two other dragons diving on him, one either side, until they crowded close. The young dragon lashed out with his fangs, was pinioned around the neck by Miletus's beast, who didn't fancy having to perform in such a pacifistic manner and started protesting loudly. Garadice, sitting backward on Miletus's mount, tossed the line around the youngster's neck.

  The captive dragon was unceremoniously pulled away from its home rocks, kicking, wings flailing, for about a mile, then Miletus took it to ground.

  Waiting men quickly staked the dragon down, helpless, then Garadice ran in, under the monster's tearing claws, and tied a weighted blanket behind its carapace.

  It was left to shrill and stew, while the others went back to the crag and did the same to the female dragon.

  This time Cabet got raked across his chest, and Garadice nearly had his leg bitten off, before the female was safely grounded a hillock away from its brother.

  Next, the men went hunting game from the air, their targets on the ground below.

  Four antelope were coursed down and killed.

  One each went to the tethered dragons, who showed their gratitude by trying to murder their benefactors.

  But, in spite of the rending howls of captivity that night, the next morning, both antelopes' bodies had vanished.

  That was a good start.

  That afternoon, a pair of the sheeplike grazers were caught, and half a dozen more of the rather stupid creatures driven into a draw and pinned there with brush to provide very fresh meat.

  The dragons struck at their warders only halfheartedly when they were fed this time.

  Two days later, they were baying for their meals in the afternoon, and paid little mind to the men bringing them.

  "Good, good," Garadice said. "These appear to be smarter than the ones I've trained, especially those gods-damned black ones, who just want to kill people."

  "Sensible sorts that they are," Mariah said. "Though I believe these are just waiting for their main chance to get us good."

  The female almost proved him right, and nearly removed Mariah's ear at the next feeding.

  Now the fliers moved their camp close to the dragons, giving them a chance to get used to humans night and day.

  This was going very well, so well that Hal made another shuttle to their valley base, and brought back more fliers-to-be.

  They captured, tied, and mock-saddled two more dragons.

  That cost them their first casualty—a scout got careless, taking a dragon his meal, and lost most of his lower arm.

  The dragons were now well used to their "saddles," and the time had come to mount them. While they were half-asleep, real saddles replaced the blankets, and then heavy leather hacks, pulled into the beasts' jaws behind their fangs, were used. This last produced blind, lethal rage from the dragons, more than anything since their capture.

  "I never thought," Garadice said, "I'd be missing things as basic as chains and bits.

  "There's much to be said for civilization."

  "You're telling me," a rather pale Farren Mariah, who was scheduled to be the first rider, said.

  When the male dragon was familiar with his harness, he was taken aloft on a long lead handled by Garadice, who was
sitting facing the rear on a dragon flown by Kimana.

  Predictably, the dragon cavorted and twisted, but was too glad to be free of his earthly tethers to fight that much, and, sooner or later, swooped more or less under control at the end of the lead.

  Then it got very dangerous.

  A third dragon, Aimard Quesney in its saddle, flew close to the young wild dragon, Farren Mariah poised behind the flier.

  The third beast veered close, and before the wild dragon could bank away, Mariah jumped, grabbed its carapace, pulled himself firmly into the saddle and hung on.

  It was safer, trainers had learned, to make a first mount of a dragon in the air, for a dragon on the ground could roll, and use its great tail as a sweep to tear the rider off.

  This one still tried, but the requirements of flying limited his options.

  The beast twisted, turned, spun.

  Hal, watching on the ground, felt himself pale a little. He'd never had to train a completely wild dragon, and was, at the moment, most grateful.

  The question was, who would wear out first?

  The wild dragon sagged, held a course, and then Quesney took his monster in close and Mariah leaped again, this time to safety.

  "I'm very damned glad," Mariah said, once safely on the ground, "there's no spiritous liquors about, for I'd surely set a bad example.

  "As 'tis, I'm grateful I'm wearing my brown breeches."

  The next day, Mariah went up again.

  The dragon knew what to expect, and so tried some new twisting maneuvers. But Mariah hung on.

  This time, he was able to bring the dragon down for a landing, then jump off and run away while the others tied the beast down again.

  In normal lands and times, that would've meant Mariah had his dragon, and would now train it.

  But these weren't normal times.

  Mariah, not having fallen off, would be used as first breaker on each of the wild dragons, to his wild objections.

  But no one was listening—they were watching Kimana Balf in her first ride, a spectacular, sky-covering series of leaps by a most aerobatic dragon.

  By that evening, there were two slightly saddle-tamed dragons.

  Garadice and his team went out and managed to collect two more dragons, both females this time. They almost faced disaster when a third attacked Aimard Quesney, almost dumping Garadice from his perch.

  But he hung on, and the two monsters were mock-saddled and pegged down.

  "I'm starting to think—" Farren Mariah said.

  "Glad of that," Hal interrupted. "About time, and all." The two were up to their elbows in guts, butchering animals for Chook's ministrations.

  "Sharrup," Mariah said. "Before I was so rudely crudely interrupted, I was saying I'm starting to think there's good to be said for armies."

  "Like how?" Kimana Balf asked. She was watching the slaughter from a few yards away.

  "In armies, big-time fliers like myself have underlings underlinged to take care of the slops… like this one… whilst they occupy themselves with sailing yither and hon among the clouds.

  "The hells with this equal-opportunity adventuring."

  "You want me to make it worse?" Hal asked. "Wait until all of the groundpounders are sailing in the clouds with you.

  "Who'll then wash the pots and pans?"

  "Quality will out, and all will be chosen for their true talent," Farren Mariah said, in an uncertain tone.

  Kimana Balf and Farren Mariah turned their two semi-tamed dragons over to Hachir and Garadice for final training as their own mounts, while they moved on to breaking the second pair.

  That went more easily than they'd expected—the two already-ridden monsters seemed to take an interest, and had a honking converse with the new dragons.

  "I think they're being told to go along with the course of events," Balf said.

  "More like," Farren Mariah said, "being told just when you gets careless and hangs your leg out for an easy nip-off."

  Now it would get interesting.

  Hal flew back to the valley, brought back more non-fliers, Bodrugan and, surprisingly, the eagerly volunteering orderly, Uluch.

  He'd considered the bruiser Babil Gachina, gotten as far as putting him up behind Storm for the trip back to the pinnacles, then saw the look of complete terror of the air on the man's face, and his clenched eyes.

  Another one who would have little of this flying nonsense was Chook, the cook.

  Fairly sure of the answer, he thought, Hal asked the enormous man when he wanted to learn to fly.

  The man set down the cleaver he'd taken with him on his escape, turned and considered Kailas, who, for an instant, thought of reaching for his dagger.

  Or running.

  But Chook said and did nothing but turn back to the roast he was preparing.

  Garadice himself, strangely, wasn't the best flier Hal had. He seemed to lack confidence in himself, and was jerky with his rein commands, and sometimes too slow to react.

  No, there would be some who wouldn't become fliers.

  They'd taken enough dragons from one tribe, clan, or whatever it should be known as, Garadice decided, so they moved the forward camp farther west, to a small mountain range, where there were more dragons.

  Also, Hal thought the new fliers were skilled enough for them to start flying patrols, each paired with an experienced flier, and he rotated the pairs from the valley to the forward camp.

  "I was just remembering something," Kimana Balf said lazily. She and Hal were in their rather crude tent made of animal skins.

  Outside, a low fog and drizzle kept them from flying.

  The dragons were quiet, having been fed an animal apiece, and Hal had named the day a make-and-mend, with no one expected to do much.

  "You were remembering what? One of your great victories in the war?" Hal asked.

  "Don't be so godsdamned bloodthirsty. There is life beyond slaughter, you know."

  "All right. I'm learning." Hal rolled over, put his head on her thigh.

  "I remember, one time, after I brought down… never mind. Like I said, the point of the story isn't gore.

  "Anyway, I did something that somebody of a great rank thought was impressive, and he told me to take a week's leave.

  "The war was going slowly, and it was winter and there was not much going on in the air, so I wasn't shorting the war effort.

  "I didn't have, as you know, much of a family, or anyway didn't feel like going back to the old winery for a visit, and there wasn't anybody special around that I was sweet on.

  "So I convinced my squadron hostler he could spare a couple of horses, and saddled up and rode to Fovant."

  "Nice city," Hal said, not mentioning that either he or his ex-wife owned a rather palatial flat there.

  "It is, isn't it.

  "Anyway," Kimana went on, "I knew of this old hotel, so traditional I don't think they admitted to anyone there was even a war going on.

  "It was right in the center of the city.

  "I had money, so I took a nice, quiet, huge room that fronted on the back garden, which was looking a little bit bare, since I guess all of the gardeners had been sucked up by the war.

  "But I didn't care.

  "There was a row of bookstores a block over, and I bought ten or twenty books. Some that I'd sworn I should read, others that didn't matter to anyone.

  "Meaningless pliff, in other words.

  "And I went to my room, built a fire in the grate, and got into this big wooly nightie I'd found, and curled up under some wonderful flannel sheets and feather comforters.

  "That was all I did, for the whole week.

  "Read, and, every now and then, bathed and dressed and went to find a restaurant, where I kept a book open in front of me.

  "Didn't talk to anybody, didn't go anywhere, didn't drink anything.

  "Just read.

  "And when I went back to my squadron, it was as if I'd been gone for a year or more. I felt like a brand-new person."

&nbs
p; She was silent.

  "Did you ever do anything like that?" she asked.

  Hal thought.

  "No. I don't guess I did."

  No, he hadn't. He'd always been busy, with his wife, or with friends, or with the war or going somewhere or doing something.

  He'd never just sat there and let things pass by.

  Not unless he was worrying himself sick, or planning something.

  "I wonder if I'd like doing that," he said, a little wistfully.

  "Maybe we could try it. I'm sure the Council of Barons has forgotten they want your ass on toast by now."

  "Maybe we could."

  The training was going better than Hal had expected. But he knew he had only a limited amount of time before the red and black demons discovered him.

  Every now and again one of the fliers saw one or two of them, arcing across the skies, as if patrolling their realm.

  Sooner or later…

  There was a great deal to what Farren Mariah had been complaining about—more than just who was to perform the scut details—regarding the virtues of belonging to an organization.

  One was the small matter of clothes.

  There was wear, there was tear, and there were only four or five needles in the group.

  And no cloth, other than canvas that was originally meant to be sails for the Compass Rose.

  Hal had a dream that they would be marooned in this strange land for years, and that when King Asir finally sent someone to find out what had happened, they'd encounter some stark-naked loons, with beards down to their belly-buttons.

  They used animal hides for almost everything, scraping them in running water, then rubbing brains into the hides and stretching and tanning them. Canvas was cut and curs-ingly sewn into outer garments.

  Their technique got better, but Hal still yearned for the feel of fine, clean linen against his skin.

  * * *

  A red and black swooped over the valley, and the men and women scurried for cover.

  The dragon came back to take another look.

  Hal wondered what it had seen. If anything. He thought he might have gotten careless at having the camouflage detail fine-tune their cover.

  But the dragon flew on.

  Seeing nothing.

  Unless, of course, it planned to come back later.