by LeRoy Clary
“Okay, I see. If Unity attacks them, they’ll just pull back from the river and concentrate their troops in the area they must defend. That area becomes smaller and smaller, and the number of soldiers denser as they retreat closer to the pass, but their numbers remain the same.”
“Exactly,” Bender said. “Right now, they’re spread thin, but if they pull back, they have less area to defend.”
“How does that help us?” Tyler asked.
“They probably have very few, if any, troops outside that funnel area. If we travel inland and then turn south around the funnel area, in a course parallel to the river, we’ll get to that village and find a way to cross without much chance of stumbling into them. It’ll take maybe two days instead of one, but worth it.”
“I like it,” Tyler said, always appreciative of Bender’s orderly mind that also allowed him to plan intricate weekend passes that lasted an extra day or two without punishment, or volunteering for an easy work detail to avoid a difficult one.
Bender smiled. “Me too. Since we won’t have to creep around and sneak past Queensland patrols, we can move faster.”
The rest of the fog cleared as if the weather agreed with their decision. They shifted to travel on paths and trails that headed away from the river until they felt they were a safe distance from encountering any enemy troops, which was after mid-day. They hadn’t seen or heard any more camps, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t passed an unseen platoon or patrol.
But the day warmed and the farther away from the river they traveled, and the safer they felt, assuming Bender’s interpretation of the Queensland military was correct. As they moved away from the flats bordering the river, the ground was firmer and had more small hills to climb with their tired legs, and more downhill slopes to relax sore muscles upon as they walked down the other side.
As usual, Bender took the lead. He enjoyed the leadership role, chose the best trails, and had a map of the area fixed in his mind. Bender possessed the ability to study a map and recall details that Tyler never noticed, let alone remembered. A map on paper or parchment translated to a working knowledge of the land in his mind. Bender also could overlay several different maps, each containing different information, and draw from each.
They ate dried grapes mixed with nuts as they walked, and didn’t slow until darkness fell preventing safe travel. Bender took them directly to a tall cedar tree, his favorite type to sleep under. The scent of cedar, while pleasing to Bender and Tyler, seemed to offend most insects. The ground under them was usually deep in old dried leaves which were long and thin. The lower downward-swooping branches often reached the ground, providing a shelter from wind and observation underneath, hiding anyone sleeping under them from the casual passersby.
There would be no campfire again, but as they sat on their blankets, talk came naturally. Tyler said, “We should be far enough away from the river to turn south.”
“We’ll do that first thing in the morning. Give me your claw, and I’ll set it away from the tree where the ants can finish their work.”
Tyler rummaged in his pack until he found it, but recoiled from the rank smell of rotting flesh that flowed from inside when he pulled the flap open. What hadn’t been cleaned by the ants the previous night had turned rancid and rotten. He didn’t gag, but only because he’d caught the scent before he withdrew it and held his breath. From the gingerly manner Bender handled the other claw, his had fared no better.
After setting them beside the path, well away from the cedar, Bender reached for a branch of green cedar leaves and crushed them in his fingers to remove the stink, or maybe just to hide it with the strong scent. Without speaking of it, they emptied their backpacks and turned them inside out, again Bender used green cedar to wipe the material. Tyler copied him.
Bender said, “I hear there are pretty girls down in this part of the country.”
“There are pretty ones everywhere, according to you.”
“Ah, but these around here are not only pretty but lonesome. They say there are two girls born for every boy, a situation that only gets worse as the girls grow up and need a man. I’ve heard sad stories of them waiting for good men to court them that would break your heart, and I intend to do all I can to remedy that situation.”
Tyler laughed for the first time in a day. Right now, he’d trade meeting a pretty girl for meeting up with an old, leaky rowboat. Now, where did that stupid thought come from?
Bender said, “I wonder why things changed? About Queensland, I mean. Ever since we’ve been in the Army, we’ve massed troops up near the pass in the spring each year, then we cross over and attack them. They push us back, or we return because we didn’t have enough supplies to last a winter when the pass gets snowed in and blocked.”
“Almost a regular event. Same thing happens each year.”
“But now it changed. That bothers me,” Bender said, in a rare introspective mood.
“It’s probably the unknown that bothers you. You can’t predict the future when you don’t have the facts, and that’s what bothers you.”
Bender nodded, seeming to take no offense, and perhaps even agreeing. “You know me. I like to plan. You, on the other hand, bend whichever way the wind blows, and I appreciate that, but I can’t do it. Them coming here throws off all my thinking, and it’s consuming me.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“I think I already have, Tyler. At least, the important part of it,” Bender said.
He’d called him by his name. That was unusual and normally meant trouble. “This sounds serious,” Tyler tried to put a teasing tone in his voice and failed. He’d seen Bender like this too many times not to recognize the symptoms of his friend trying to understand the unknown. Bender needed to be in control and to do that he needed to understand. As in playing the gambling game of Blocks, Bender’s mind was not focused on the next move or even the one after that. He thought about what would happen in five moves, or six. Tyler preferred to only worry about the next one, and then cheat to win.
But while cheating usually assured a win, he also knew that he should never bet against Bender in a game, or he’d lose. The small cheats Tyler used gave him an edge, but Bender’s abilities provided a far greater advantage. Bender had depended on Tyler’s cheating to win games when they were growing up as if cheating was part of the game. He took advantage of it instead of Tyler. Bender used his mind to control the outcome, even when including Tyler’s cheating into the equation.
Tyler turned to his friend. “Okay, tell me what’s really bothering you.”
Bender said, “It’s fairly simple when you put all the pieces together. You and I are fighting on the wrong side of this war.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“What?” Tyler asked, dumbfounded. “Are you saying that we’re on the wrong side of the river? Because we already know that.”
“No, we’re fighting for the wrong army.”
Bender’s tone left no room for argument. He sat on his blanket, his eyes averted in the dim light, his head hung so low that his chin rested on his chest. He didn’t like what he said any more than Tyler liked hearing it.
Touching his shoulder, Tyler pulled his friend to turn to him. “What do you mean, we’re fighting for the wrong army?”
Bender said, “Listen to me, we don’t even know what this damn war is about and admitted that to each other a hundred times. We didn’t ask to join up; we were inducted. Taken when we were kids. And we’d be happier trying to earn a living from the farms our families owned. It isn’t our war. But worse than being forced to be in the army, I don’t want to fight for the losing side. That’s the wrong army, in my opinion, the one that’s losing.”
Tyler waited and considered Bender’s conclusion before answering. He didn’t necessarily agree, but picturing himself in the drab green colors of Queensland didn’t work in his imagination, either. He couldn’t imagine fighting against the men in his old company by switching sides. The whole idea turned his stomach.<
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Bender said, “You’re too quiet. I don’t like it.”
“I’m thinking, and I don’t like it either,” Tyler said. “I can’t see us fighting for Queensland against our people; people we know. We can’t go home because they won’t let us and besides, there’s nothing left of our village after the northern conflicts.”
“That’s about the same conclusions I came up with, too.”
“So, you’re telling me we can’t stay, and we can’t leave. You should have kept your big mouth shut and let me live in ignorance. At least one of us would be happy.” Tyler folded his arms across his chest and glared at the man who used to be his best friend.
“There’s more.”
“More what? More bad news? What are you going to tell me this time? That the sun isn’t coming up tomorrow? That your legs need amputation and you want me to carry you to the medical tent across the river? Or you’re lost in this forest and don’t know the way home? Or we’re surrounded by Queensland troops right now? For God’s sake, what is it this time?”
“Two bad things.”
“Two? Now it’s two more things to upset my life and everything I believe in?”
Bender said as if he hadn’t been rudely interrupted, a hand resting on the dragon egg, “First, that dog is still following us. The other is, my egg is changing shape again. I can see it slowly change when I watch closely and can feel it when I put my hand on it.”
Tyler looked at the egg lying beside his backpack. Its grayish-white color was the same as always. It looked the same shape, oval, but perhaps more elongated than a familiar chicken egg of the same size would. “I haven’t touched mine.”
“Maybe you should.”
Tyler noticed that Bender still sat with his egg beside his thigh, a palm gently resting on top. It would do no good to deny what Bender said, but Tyler was not willing to accept it. At least, not yet. Then a worse thought crowded into his mind. What if his egg was not fertilized, or dead and only Bender’s hatched?
Tyler’s eyes went to his egg again, and as if it exerted a pull, he leaned closer and used both hands to cradle it and draw it closer. Sitting up again, legs extended, he placed the egg on his thighs and kept his fingers resting on top of it. The soft leather-feeling shell didn’t generate warmth, didn’t move, and didn’t feel as if alive.
“Can I feel your egg?” Tyler asked.
Bender handed it to him. It felt no different. No movement, warmth, and any other indicators. “You’re sure?”
Bender said, “It’s not moving all the time.”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“Okay, just keep your hand on it. Now, what about the dog that’s still following us?” Bender asked.
“I haven’t seen it all day, and I was watching the rear the whole time. I kept a good watch back there, so how do you know if it’s still there if haven’t seen it?”
“Because it moved ahead of us right after the fog lifted. Every time we almost reached it, the thing ran forward and waited for us to catch up.”
Tyler said, “That’s how you knew it was safe to walk faster and not fall into a Queensland trap. The dog was your warning system.”
Bender nodded. “But what about the wild dog? What are you going to do about it?”
“Me? Why me? Anyhow, first, you don’t know it’s a wild dog. Second, I wish you wouldn’t call it that because it sounds scary. Just call it a dog.”
“Well, what about the huge dog that’s sneaking around like it wants to make a meal of us? What are you going to do about it?” Bender said.
Tyler rolled his eyes and answered, “We’ll work out what to do with the dog later. Right now, we have bigger problems. I just felt my egg move.”
“They’re going to hatch. Soon.”
Bender nodded. “They bond for life with the first thing they see, the same as ducks and geese. They think it’s their mother. That’s how the Dragon Corps controls them. The Dragon Master for each dragon is there when each one hatches. We need to think about that. When my egg hatches, I need to be there with it, and you need to stay away. Let it smell me and get to know me. Same, for yours.”
“That means we will be the mothers? Dragon Masters?”
Bender shrugged and took his egg back in gentle hands. “Listen. I know we intended to do the right thing and turn these over to Captain Torrie, but if they hatch, all bets are off. I say we make sure they imprint on us.”
“That makes us Dragon Masters,” Tyler said again, confused at the concept of being more than a lowly corporal in the infantry. Could the hatching of a creature elevate him to the lofty heights of a Dragon Masters? It didn’t seem right, or even possible.
“Yes, but not necessarily Dragon Masters that the Dragon Corps recognizes. Ours will be accidental, and since we know almost nothing of dragons, there will be problems. Or, perhaps we’ll be good at this since they can’t change what the dragons do, either. Once we are the mothers, nobody can change that. Ten years from now, or twenty, the dragons in those two eggs will see, smell, and recognize you and me. Even if we have not seen them for all that time, we will still be their mothers.”
Tyler said, “Not mothers, Dragon Masters. We are going to be reluctant Dragon Masters through no fault of our own.”
“You’re entirely too happy about this. We’re about to be Dragon Masters in a losing war effort. What do you think Queensland will do to Unity Dragon Masters after it defeats us?”
Tyler said, “Oh.”
“Exactly,” Bender said.
Tyler watched him carefully. Like playing Blocks again, Bender tended to live several moves ahead, except for when it came to wine, women, or money. In those areas, he moved ahead as if stumbling blind, mute, and stupid. But this was part of his life, and Bender planned his life, detailing each move like a game and contrasted it with other possible moves. Tyler saw that Bender had an idea. He waited until Bender was ready to talk.
Bender picked up a switch and drew two circles in the dead cedar leaves at the base of the tree, each the size of a man’s head. They almost touched, but not quite. Between them, he drew a wavy line. Pointing to one circle, he said, “Queensland.”
“The other is Unity?”
“And the line between is the Middling River. Notice anything?” Bender asked.
“I notice that you draw lopsided circles and neither kingdom is shaped like that.”
Bender laughed softly. He stood and placed the end of the switch where the wavy line ended, then dragged it across the dead cedar droppings as he walked all the way out to the path. “The river does not end where Queensland and Unity join. It flows between them, then out to that path and then beyond. Some say it eventually reaches a great sea with water that tastes so salty you can’t drink it.”
Tyler had also heard similar rumors, but what was important was the unasked question he knew Bender was struggling with. He said it out loud, “What is out there that we don’t know about?”
Bender smiled. “Who knows? What we do know that if we travel far enough down the river, there will be no more war between Queensland and Unity for us to fight. If we go far enough, the people living on the river will not even know those names.”
“We also know that to the north there is nothing left of our homes; no family to return to. We don’t know if there is another war down the river, maybe a worse one. We don’t know the customs of the people, where it goes, or anything else. There is more we don’t know than what we do.” Tyler sat back and waited. He’d given Bender reason to think about traveling down the river—and then yanked it back with other ideas. Bender needed information to figure things out, but he would get there with what they had.
Bender leaned forward and spoke intently, “We do know that neither of us could fight for Queensland, even if they allowed it. That wouldn’t sit well with either of us. We know Queensland does not use dragons, and we have two about ready to hatch, so that also makes Queensland a place to avoid. We know Unity is about to lose this war, or Queenslan
d wouldn’t have crossed the mountain pass. All that means, when put together, we cannot stay in Unity, and cannot go to Queensland.”
“Which means, we must go somewhere else. You could have just said that a long time ago without all the explanation,” Tyler said. “But, I can’t say I disagree with you.”
“I should have made it simple for you. That would have prevented me from reducing a complex set of interlinked problems to small words and simple concepts you might understand.”
“Do you also understand that if you keep on talking to me like that, I’ll leave you out in the cold the next time you stumble to the barracks too stewed to open the door?”
“That just happened one time,” Bender said.
“Then there was the time you fell into the ditch and went to sleep.”
“What about you? Remember waking in that serving wench’s room with her husband beating down the door?” Bender snorted as if he’d won an argument.
Tyler wasn’t having any of it. “I escaped out the window, didn’t I? She had a chair already placed under the window and helped me climb through. And anyhow, she was worth it.”
“You left your pants there.”
“That happens now and then,” Tyler said, recognizing his voice sounded defensive.
“Along with your pay-purse. Haven’t you yet realized that she was in on it? She and her husband? They got you to run off and leave your purse behind—and you were happy to do it.”
Tyler paused. Bender hadn’t mentioned the incident since it happened almost three years ago, but perhaps he was right. Tyler felt the heat rise from his neck to his forehead and was glad they were sitting in dim light.
Bender took mercy on him. “Never mind that old stuff. Listen, we’re in trouble here with eggs about to hatch and a war we’re losing. I think we have better things to discuss than your inadequacies.”
