by Don Perrin
“The rest of us realize it’s not perfect,” Prokel admitted. “We can use you and your engineers to help us improve it and strengthen it. The only engineers we have are a dozen or so Pioneers. They’re good at tearing down, not building up.”
Each infantry regiment maintained a troop of Pioneers—soldiers with some engineering experience. Their job was to clear away obstacles from in front of advancing troops or create obstacles behind retreating troops. As the saying went, Pioneers either blew stuff up or made stuff fall down. They knew little about the construction or design of proper buildings.
“It’s good to have you and your men, Kang,” Prokel added. “You’ll fit in well.”
Kang didn’t answer. He wouldn’t mind helping them fix up their fort, offer advice and assistance, but just exactly how he was supposed to effect changes without the support of the general was beyond him. Kang faced another problem, too. He viewed this as a stopover, a way station, a place for his people to rest and heal before continuing on. He was not planning to remain in this ramshackle fort the rest of his life, as these draconians appeared to assume. He was still intending to reach his dream city, the city marked in red on his worn and tattered but very precious map.
Too many had given their lives for his dream. He was not going to let it die for the sake of convenience.
* * * * *
Flush with their victory over the hobgoblins, the draconian infantry marched proudly through the main gate on the south wall. Up close, the wall looked more solid than it had from a distance, but Kang gazed with admiration at the draconian guards walking the ramparts. They had more guts than he did.
“What’s that laughing?” Kang demanded.
“The men, sir,” said Slith. “Can’t say I really blame them.”
“Well, I can!” Kang was furious. “Go back and tell them to shut the hell up! These dracos may not be much in the way of engineers, but they saved our tails!”
Slith departed to return the First Dragonarmy Engineers to a proper state of decorum. Under Kang’s glaring eye, the draconian engineers marched past the tumble-down wall without so much as grin, although more than a few rubbed sore heads. Slith had been known to emphasize his orders with a few well-placed thwacks.
When Slith returned, Vertax motioned for them both to join him.
“Yakanoh and I will introduce you to General Maranta. Prokel will take your Second to find your troops some food and lodging. We’ll make provisions for your wounded, as well.”
At the word food, Kang’s stomach rumbled. A trace of drool slid out of Slith’s mouth.
“I’ll take care of the special unit, sir,” Slith said, as he marched off with Prokel.
Kang watched Slith leave with envy. He could have eaten a troll at one sitting and asked for seconds, but he knew the protocol. He would have to wait for his meal until after his meeting with the general.
Kang was about to follow Yakanoh and Vertax when he heard a cracking sound. He looked back to see a section of the wall give way. Frantic wing flapping was all that saved the baaz guard who had been standing on top of it from crashing down among the rubble.
“This beats the alternative,” Kang reminded himself. “You’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for this fortress.”
His only hope now was that the fort didn’t fall down on top of him.
* * * * *
“The troop’s mess is over there,” Prokel told Slith, pointing to a ramshackle building from which floated wonderful smells. “You can put your wounded under that awning we’ve rigged. We used to have a field hospital, but it burned down about a month ago. As for the rest of your troops”—Prokel looked concerned—“we’re short on space. But perhaps—”
“Don’t concern yourself with us, sir,” Slith interrupted. “We’ll build our own shelter. We’re used to doing that. What I need from you right now, sir, is a separate dwelling for the aurak and the special unit. We need one right away. Now, if possible.”
Slith jerked a thumb at the group of female draconians, who had gathered near the supply wagons. Their guards, led by the disgraced Cresel—whose punishment had not been forgotten, merely deferred—kept the females under close observation.
So far, the females had been well behaved. As Slith had remarked to Kang, Fonrar had a good head on her shoulders. She knew that this was no time to go larking about. Still, Slith could guess that the females were intensely curious about this new place and these new draconians. They would be eager to explore—they were always eager to explore—and he could foresee trouble down the line if he didn’t act swiftly to corral them.
“A separate dwelling?” Prokel was amazed. “I have to tell you, Slith, that only the general himself has a separate dwelling around here. As I said, we’re limited on space. The rest of us share and share alike.”
Slith was prepared for this. “It’s that aurak, sir,” he said, lowering his voice confidentially. “Difficult to get along with.” He leaned in closer, lowered his voice another notch. “A couple of the boys … said the wrong thing … the aurak took it the wrong way. I’m not really supposed to discuss it, sir. Commander Kang’s orders.”
“I see.” Prokel rubbed his chin with his hand. “But these other draconians who stay with the aurak …”
“Hand-picked, sir. They’re the only one he gets on with. The aurak likes his guards short,” Slith added. “Can’t abide a tall draconian.”
Prokel, who was rather on the tall side, looked uneasy. “I have heard about auraks who have … well … a certain cold-blooded quality. General Maranta is an aurak, but he is perfectly normal. He’s one of the very eldest draconians, came from the first clutch of eggs. Perhaps that explains it.”
“Probably does, sir,” said Slith.
“We do have a storage shed,” Prokel said, considering. “It’s got some ale barrels in it, but we could shift those—”
“It would only be temporary, sir,” Slith hastened to assure him. “Until we can build a suitable shelter ourselves. And we’ll take care of moving the barrels. Just tell me where to find it—”
“I can take you there myself,” Prokel offered.
Slith shook his head. “You must be tired and hungry, sir. We can manage on our own.”
“Very well,” said Prokel, not particularly wanting to have anything more to do with the mysterious aurak. “You’ll find the shed located at the end of that street. The street sort of twists and winds around itself, but keep following it and you’ll come across it.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll send the troops in to eat now, sir, if that’s convenient.”
“Certainly. I’ll go ahead and alert the cook. What about the special unit? Do they eat—”
“—with the others? No, sir.” Slith was grave. “Not anymore, sir. If you know what I mean. I’ll arrange for food to be brought to them, if that’s all right, sir.”
“Yes, quite all right.” Prokel left with alacrity, obviously glad to be rid of the special unit.
Slith chuckled to himself, reflected with some pride that the tale of the bloodthirsty aurak engineer would circulate through the fort by nightfall and that it would undoubtedly grow in the telling. He trusted that for a time, at least, the females would be safe from the other draconian soldiers.
Now he just had to make certain the draconian soldiers were safe from the adventuresome females. A task that Slith freely admitted might be far more difficult.
Vertax and Yakanoh led Kang to the large building he’d seen from the ridge, the building located in the very center of the fortress. The building was perfectly square, standing about twenty feet in height. It had been built of hand-hewn wood beams and large stones gleaned from the rock-strewn canyon, all slathered over and held together with mud that had hardened in the hot sun until it was rock solid. The only windows were narrow arrow slits and not many of these. The double doors were of oak, massive, iron bound. Kang was impressed. The rest of the fort might tumble down—probably would tumble down—but this building would
remain standing. Kang doubted if even a direct hit from a second fiery mountain would take it down.
“What is this place?” Kang asked, awed.
“ ‘The Bastion,’ ” said Vertax proudly. “General Maranta’s quarters are inside.”
The doors stood closed. Two sivaks, wearing black tabards emblazoned with the emblem of a five-headed dragon, stood guard. Sighting these, Kang’s jaw dropped. He turned an amazed stare on Vertax.
“The Queen’s Own?” Kang asked in a low voice.
Vertax nodded.
“I thought they were destroyed in the fall of Neraka!” Kang whispered, eyeing the guards.
The sivaks stood unmoving. Not so much as a wing flicked or a tail twitched.
“Come to think of it, though,” Kang added, “I thought General Maranta died in Neraka.”
“He never speaks of his escape,” Vertax said, his own voice quiet. “And I would advise you not to do so either. He much prefers to talk of his victories, not his defeats.”
“Can’t fault him there,” said Kang. “We were assigned to shore up the structure of a castle the Black Robes planned to use for a floating citadel or we would have been involved in that debacle ourselves. Would you believe it? The first few citadels the Black Robes tried to send up into the air, the blamed magic-users just yanked out of the ground. No regard at all for structural integrity. They were completely amazed when interior walls collapsed and bits of ceiling tumbled down on their silly heads. Wizards!” He shook his own head gloomily at the memory.
“At least,” he added, “no one can blame the general for the Neraka disaster.”
“True,” said Vertax, his tone ironic. “Truer than you might imagine.” He glanced at Kang from the corner of his eye.
Kang understood immediately, although it was something he had never before considered. Maranta had been made a general in Lord Ariakas’s army, but the title had been a hollow one. As a draconian, General Maranta had not been allowed to give orders to any human, not even the lowest private in the worst company of scraggly reserve foot soldiers. General Maranta had not been given a field command, he had not been trusted to lead armies. He’d been sent out on show, to keep the draconians content, thinking one of their own was a high ranking officer.
In reality, General Maranta had been assigned to meaningless duty, plotting strategies that were never used or ordering the dispositions of equipment and supplies that had already been ordered by some lower ranking human. As an aurak, a powerful magic-user, General Maranta had probably even been warned he was not to use his magic. General Maranta had knuckled under and had held his post throughout the war.
But perhaps General Maranta had not been the obedient, subservient draconian he had appeared. General Maranta had survived the fall of Neraka, whereas his commander, the proud and puissant Lord Ariakas, had perished. Kang felt suddenly proud of the cunning old aurak, who had been shrewd enough to foresee disaster and make his own plans accordingly, plans that not only saved himself, but many hundreds of his loyal troops. Kang would have given a great deal to know the true story of what had transpired at Neraka, doubted he ever would. There are some war stories that old soldiers keep locked in their hearts, never to tell.
The three officers approached the sivak guards. Kang had assumed that discipline might be good, but informal, considering that these draconians had slept, fought, eaten and worked together for over thirty years. He was therefore considerably astonished to see both Vertax and Yakanoh pronounce name and rank and even give the password for the day. He was more astonished to see the sivak guards look them over suspiciously, intently.
Satisfied, one of the Queen’s Own said, “You may enter. The general is expecting you.” The sivak turned cold eyes upon Kang. “This is the officer of the engineering regiment?”
“Commander Kang, First Dragonarmy Engineers,” Kang said, thinking it best to salute.
The sivaks looked him up and the sivaks looked him down, inside-out and sideways. Kang had never before undergone such intense scrutiny, even the one time he’d been briefly held prisoner by Solamnic Knights. He was starting to get a bit angry—they were all the same species for gods’ sakes—when one of the Queen’s Own gave a nod.
“You may enter, Commander Kang. However”—the sivak halted Kang as he started to walk toward the double doors—“I must ask you for your weapons, sir.”
“What?” Kang was on the verge of blowing up like one of Slith’s keg bombs.
Vertax laid a warning claw on his arm. “We all do it, Kang,” he said quietly. “It’s the general’s custom. A hold-over from Neraka.”
Recalling what he’d heard of the end of Neraka—draconians turning on draconians, killing each other—Kang reached behind his back and removed the battle-axe he wore on a harness between his wings. He’d worn the axe in that place for so long that, like his wings, it had become a part of him. He felt as if he’d lost a limb when he handed it over to the sivak guard. The Queen’s Own knocked a certain way on the doors. Kang heard what sounded like a heavy bar being lifted. The double doors swung open on well-oiled hinges and the officers entered.
Kang, glancing up, was astounded to see a crudely made, rickety and rusty portcullis hanging over the doorway. Kang cringed. If that portcullis was as poorly designed as the rest of the fort, he wouldn’t have been one of those sivak guards standing beneath it for all the jewels in the Dark Queen’s crown.
The doors shut behind them with a boom. Inside, the guards slid the massive solid oak bar back into place. No one and nothing was going to come inside that door if they didn’t want it to, not without a struggle at least. The interior of the building was cool and dark, so dark that Kang had to wait for his eyes to adjust. No torches burned, no lamps were lit. When he had gained his night vision, he stared around him in astonishment.
He would later describe the interior to Slith.
“I’ll swear, Slith, that they built the entire structure in one solid block of mud and stone and then they went inside and tunneled it out!”
“Sir,” Slith said, moderately disapproving, “have you been dipping into the draco spirits again?”
“Even if I had, I couldn’t have dreamed this one up,” Kang retorted. “It’s a maze. A goddamned honeycomb. Arched tunnels lead every which way, except the way you want to go seemingly. I would have never found the path that led to the center if it hadn’t been for Vertax and Yakanoh. And the place is huge! I don’t know how many rooms are inside it. No one knows. Vertax couldn’t even tell me. The number changes. Sometimes rooms are blocked up for no reason and new ones opened. And you know who lives inside that massive building, Slith? Just General Maranta.”
“Just him?” Slith was surprised.
“Just him,” Kang said. “The Queen’s Own have their own quarters near the HQ, but not inside it.”
“So General Maranta lives in his own fort inside his own fort,” said Slith.
Fort inside a fort. The very thought Kang was thinking as he walked deeper into the hollowed-out interior of this extremely strange building.
Kang never entered any building, but that he marked the entrances and the exits. He never went in a place where he could not quickly find his way out, should that become necessary. Instinctively, he began to take note of the various turnings: one right, one left, two left and so on. But after the twenty-eighth right turn and the thirty-seventh left, not counting the weird corkscrew tunnel and the serpentine corridor that doubled back on itself, he was forced to admit that he was thoroughly confused. The only way he could have escaped this place was to fly straight up and punch his head through the ceiling. And since the ceiling was some ten feet above his head and was, according to Vertax, shored up by heavy wooden beams with another layer of stone and mud on top of that, Kang figured he better stick closely to his guides.
It was then that Vertax told him, still keeping his voice low, for this entire cavelike structure must be a veritable echo chamber, that General Maranta lived and worked here alone.
“He’s not a recluse or anything like that,” Yakanoh hastened to add over his shoulder. The corridor was too narrow for them to walk side-by-side. “He inspects the troops periodically. Officers report to him on a daily basis—you’ll be doing that, too, Kang.”
“Here?” Kang couldn’t imagine coming into the Bastion every day. He didn’t like it. He felt cramped and stifled, as if the mud walls were closing in on him. His wings would have brushed against the walls on either side if he hadn’t kept them tightly folded. He scratched at an itch on his back. He missed his axe.
“No, not here. This is a rare honor you’re being accorded, Kang,” Vertax said. “The general has a command tent set up outside. We meet there. He keeps abreast of what’s happening in camp, knows what’s going on with everyone and everything.”
At this Yakanoh coughed into his hand, cast Vertax a significant glance. Looking uneasy, Vertax quickly changed the subject, launching into a discussion of how many months it had taken to build this place, what tools they’d used, how the general himself had designed the building.
So, Kang thought, the general has spies even among his own troops. Not surprising, he thought sadly. The aurak had seen treachery enough in Neraka.
Kang was wondering if they were going to walk all night. His empty stomach made protesting sounds, demanding to be filled. The officers rounded a bend, climbed a set of five stairs, and there, at the top, was another set of massive iron-bound doors and two more sivaks.
This time, however, the Queen’s Own asked no questions. After a brief inspection to make certain that the officers carried no weapons, the sivaks knocked on the door.
“Commanders Yakanoh and Vertax and Commander Kang of the First Dragonarmy Engineers here to see the general,” said the Queen’s Own to his counterpart on the other side of the door.
A moment passed for the message to be relayed and permission granted and then the door swung open. Accompanied by the other officers, Kang stepped inside.
