by Don Perrin
She sat back, looked at Slith and at Kang.
Kang and Slith looked at each other. Kang heaved a sigh.
“Damn! This is just all we need!” Kang shook his head. “I’ve been waiting for the general to call us together, present us with a plan for the defense of the fort. He hasn’t done it so far and I’m beginning to think he doesn’t have a plan, except some vague notion that draconians are going to drop out of the skies to save us.”
“And if they’re as bright as this last lot, then they’ll fall out of the skies and land on their heads,” Slith said morosely.
“If only I had my dragon,” said Huzzad with a wistful sigh. “Flarion and I would have made short work of those vermin. I really miss her.”
“What happened?” Kang asked.
“Some Solamnic Knight with a dragonlance killed her.” Slith guessed.
Huzzad shook her head. “I could have understood that,” she said, frowning. “She was killed by her own kind. She and her mate both. Another red.”
“Since when do red dragons turn on red dragons?” Kang asked, amazed.
“Since these huge, bloated dragons arrived from some other part of Krynn,” Huzzad said. “Or at least, that’s what we assume. No one knows for sure where they came from. The one my partner and I fought calls herself Malystrx. She’s enormous. Three times the size of my red. We never had a chance. I wouldn’t have survived, if she hadn’t protected me. Flarion might have escaped, but she wouldn’t leave me.” Huzzad clenched her fist. “I took a vow over her mangled body that I would avenge her.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Of course, I’ll never have the chance. No one can stand against Malys. Not the entire Solamnic army, not our own Knighthood. She’ll rule Krynn and the Dark Knights will end up allying with her. Mark my words. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Still, you do have an idea,” Kang observed thoughtfully. “If there’s one thing that scares the crap out of gobbos, it’s a dragon. I don’t suppose there’s any way we could get a message to a red or a blue? Ask one of them to help us?”
“Not that I know of,” she replied. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look. Most dragons are in hiding, terrified of ending up as one of the skulls on Malys’s totem.”
“Skulls?”
“According to rumors, Malys saves the skulls of the dragons she’s killed and has used them to build a monument to herself. She believes that they give her magical power.”
Kang was appalled, disgusted. “It’s sad to see the state the world’s come to. What do you say, Slith? Slith?”
The sivak gave a start. “Sorry, sir, I wasn’t listening. I was thinking.”
“Thinking what?” Kang asked, interested.
“Thinking that if we can’t find a real dragon, maybe we could make one, sir,” said Slith. “You remember that time we built that wicker dragon?”
Kang chuckled. “I’d forgotten about that. Tell Huzzad.”
Slith was glad to comply. “We decided to play a joke on the … who were they, sir?”
“The Thirty-third,” said Kang.
“Right. The Thirty-third Infantry. It was made up a bunch of new hatched baaz. They thought they were hot stuff. Wouldn’t obey orders, weren’t respectful to the officers. We decided to teach them a lesson and so we made this dragon out of wicker. It was a huge contraption. Amazing design. The wings flapped, the jaws opened and shut. You should have seen it.
“Anyhow, during the dead of night, we hauled this dragon over to where the Thirty-third was bivouacked and we hoisted it into the trees. The next morning, the baaz woke up, all hung over after a night drinking dwarf spirits and they saw this dragon and—this is no lie, I swear it—they all fell flat on their bellies, scared out of their wits. They began to groan and wail. Some fool cleric even started praying to it. We laughed—Do you remember, Commander? I laughed so hard I thought I hurt something inside.”
“I remember,” said Kang. “And then from out of nowhere, some fool kender climbed into the dragon and began to make it ‘talk’—”
“—and that sent the baaz into a panic!” Slith laughed again, just at the memory. “And then, to make matters worse, a bunch of prisoners the baaz had caught escaped.”
“I’d forgotten about them,” Kang said reminiscently. “There was a half-elf and a Knight and a sickly mage. They’d been captured in that furor over a blue crystal staff. Those prisoners were as stupid as the baaz. Do you remember that adle-pated Solamnic challenging the dragon to a fight?”
“Ha! Ha!” Slith was pounding the table with his mug. “And then the dragon caught fire and the geniuses figured out it was wicker after all. The baaz lost the prisoners in the confusion. I wonder what ever happened to them?”
“They probably drowned in the swamp. You know,” said Kang after the laughter had subsided and he could breathe again, “that’s not a bad idea, Slith.”
“What? Drowning in a swamp?” Huzzad eyed Kang.
“No, building a dragon.”
Slith was nodding. Huzzad started to laugh, then she saw that Kang wasn’t.
“You’re serious!” she exclaimed.
“Damn right I am,” said Kang. “Goblins are stupid, more stupid than even the Thirty-third Infantry.”
Huzzad shook her head dubiously.
“And not only are goblins stupid,” Kang persisted, “they’re short-sighted. Look, a fake dragon doesn’t have to fool them for long! Just long enough to throw them into confusion, panic the front ranks.”
“We could tie keg bombs to it, sir!” Slith said, excited. “If we could figure out some way to make it fly, we could send it over the goblins and—”
“Boom!” said Kang gleefully.
“Boom, sir,” said Slith. “Boom it is!” He gulped down his drink, stood up. “By the gods, sir, I think we may still have those plans. I think they’re in The Chest, sir.”
There was only one chest in the regiment that was mentioned with such emphasis. The Chest was a large box made of solid oak reinforced by iron bands. The Chest had been with them ever since their inception as a unit and it had remained with them throughout their years of exile and wanderings. The Chest held plans, all the plans the draconian engineers had ever made. Plans for bridges, plans for dams, plans for stockades, guard towers, siege engines, plans for their ill-fated village, plans for Kang’s dream of a city, and, buried near the bottom, plans for a wicker dragon.
While Slith went off to investigate, Kang refilled his mug. “What do you think?” he asked Huzzad.
“I think you’re both crazy,” she said. “Totally insane. I’ve known gnomes who made sense compared to you.”
“Yes, well, it’s worth a try,” Kang growled. “I don’t see anyone else coming up with anything brilliant to save our skins.”
“You have a point there.” Huzzad yawned, stretched. “I think I’ll be turning in. I have an early morning tomorrow. Which reminds me. I’d like permission to take the females out onto the parade ground. They’re progressing well in their sword drill, but they’re finding the quarters a little cramped—”
“They’re what?” Kang bellowed, leaping to his feet.
“Sword drill,” said Huzzad, staring at him. “What did you think I said?”
“I thought you said sword drill,” Kang repeated grimly. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Huzzad? Giving them military training! I won’t have it! You’re to stop this nonsense at once. Do you hear me? At once!”
“I would stop it, only I didn’t start it, Kang,” Huzzad retorted. “They’ve been training themselves now for quite some time. They’re getting pretty good, too, and they’ll be better now that someone’s taking the time to show them what they’ve been doing wrong. They’re born fighters, Kang. Born and bred to it, just like you males.”
“I don’t believe you!” Kang stated, glowering. “I think you put them up to this.”
“Oh, yeah?” Huzzad said, her voice frost-rimed. “The scuttlebutt around camp is that twenty
swords went missing a few days ago. A sivak was attacked—one of the Queen’s Own. The attacker stole a requisition from him. Twenty swords, Commander. Now where in this fort might you find twenty draconians who were in need of twenty swords?”
“Are you saying—” Kang felt a tightness constrict his chest. “These children—”
“They are not children,” Huzzad snapped. “They are adults. And if you don’t accept that and start treating them like adults, you’re going to lose them. You have a soul, Kang. Your own soul. You have rights, duties, responsibilities. You have the right to be wrong, to make mistakes. I have the same. And so do these females. Each one has her own soul. Each has her own destiny. Each has the right to achieve her own destiny. You can’t take away that right. They look to you for guidance, Kang, for leadership and counsel. But they won’t for long. Eventually, they’ll start to hate you.
“All except Fonrar, of course,” Huzzad continued. “She loves you too much to ever turn against you. But even she is struggling with her love for you and her need to be true to herself.”
Kang sat down very suddenly. Fortunately, his bed was beneath him. He stared blankly at Huzzad.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice strained. “We can’t … that word you said.”
“Love?” Huzzad was amused. “Tell me, Kang. Don’t you love Slith?”
“Of course not!” Kang practically roared.
“No? How would you feel if Slith died?”
Kang pondered. Slith dead. A world without Slith. He’d always known it was possible. They were soldiers. Death was part of the job. But the thought of Slith not being there filled Kang with a great sadness, a vast emptiness.
“I’d feel bad,” Kang admitted, adding defensively. “We’ve been together a long time. We’re … comrades.”
“Comrades.” Huzzad rested her hand lightly on Kang’s shoulder. “Well, my friend, Fonrar feels very ‘comradely’ toward you. How’s that? And sometime soon, you know, you ‘comrades’ are going to have to get together and make little ‘comrades.’ So it’s not such a bad thing to have happen.”
“I … I guess not.” Kang mumbled.
“The females know about the goblin threat, Kang. They know that this is going to be a tough battle. They want to do their part.”
“Out of the question,” Kang said shortly.
“Why? Because they might get hurt? They might die? What happens if all of you die, Kang? What happens if every last male draconian is wiped out and these females are left trapped in their barracks, alone, weaponless, untrained?” Huzzad stood over him, stared down at him grimly. “What happens, Kang?”
He lowered his head, didn’t look at her.
“I’ll tell you what happens,” Huzzad went on relentlessly. “The lucky ones will be killed. The unlucky ones will be captured and taken prisoner. Maybe the goblins will torture them and then kill them. Maybe not. Maybe since they’re females they’ll be sent to some sort of wizard laboratory for experiments—”
“Enough!” Kang shouted.
“How would you want to go out, Kang?” Huzzad asked. “Would you want to die fighting alongside the comrades you care about? Or would you want to die alone, in torment—”
“All right, damn it!” Kang glared at her. “You’ve made your point.”
“Then Fonrar and I can take them out on the parade ground tomorrow?”
Kang looked back. He looked back to crawling on all fours around the campfire, pretending to be a bear, growling playfully as the little ones squealed and laughed. He looked back to the terror he’d felt when Thesik had wandered off and was discovered playing happily with a pack of wolf cubs. He looked back to holding Fonrar as she slept in his arms, her small fingers curled tightly around one of his large ones. He looked back … and he let go.
Kang cleared his throat. “Tell Subcommander …”—he gulped slightly—“Fonrar that she is to have her troop ready for inspection on the parade ground an hour past dawn tomorrow morning, in fighting order with weapons.”
“I will, Kang,” said Huzzad. “You’ll be proud of them,” she added as she left.
Kang lay down on his bed. He felt all wobbly and trembly, worse than when the goblins had hacked him open.
Destiny. There was that word again. Each has her own destiny, Huzzad had said. Each has the right to achieve her own destiny.
“Twenty swords!” he said to the darkness. “They snatched twenty swords right out from under the snout of the Queen’s Own. Hit him on the goddamn head with a goddamn rock! Proud of them?”
Kang smiled. “You’re damn right I’m proud of them!”
Kang went to the mess hall the next morning in anticipation of breakfast, only to find that rationing had been imposed. The presence of the goblins had meant that the hunting, foraging and raiding parties had not been able to hunt, forage or raid as usual. Consequently, food supplies were now running low.
“What is this?” Kang asked, watching the cook’s mate shovel a wet and slimy brown gooey substance from a large vat onto his plate.
“Think you’re funny, don’t ya?” The cook’s assistant glared at him.
“No, really, I’d like to know what it is,” Kang said in respectful tones.
“Venison steak,” said the mate. “Beef rump roast. Tenderloin of pork. Leg of kender. Either eat it or don’t. Makes no difference to me. Sir,” he muttered as an afterthought.
Having lived on grass and rodents for a month, Kang ate the brown goo and found that if nothing else could be said for it, the stuff stuck to the ribs. Stuck there in a solidified mass for the next twelve hours, in fact.
Kang had to give the cook credit. The brown goo would save on rations, due to the fact that it completely killed the appetite. Feeling as if he had swallowed a small boulder, Kang returned to the barracks, where he gave orders that the troops were to form up for inspection. All the troops, females included.
That day for the first time, the female draconians took their places alongside the males. The moment was a proud one for the females. They had spent the night polishing their weapons and harnesses and whatever shields and helms they had managed to obtain. The metal shone in the sunlight, their scales gleamed as if they had polished themselves into the bargain.
Commander Kang reviewed his troops—all his troops—casting a stern eye over the females as well as the males. He winced at the sight of the twenty shining new swords, was only momentarily taken aback at the sight of the stolen harness, helms and the shields, particularly when he recognized a cast-off leather belt that had once belonged to himself and that was now being proudly worn by Fonrar. But he recovered himself and, dismissing the rest of the regiment back to their duties, watched the females go through their sword drill with outward calm, if inward dismay, certain that one of the baaz—who handled her sword with particularly reckless abandon—was going to chop off a wing.
This trial over with no casualties, not counting the fact that he was a nervous wreck, Kang retreated to his quarters to restore his shattered nerves with a fortifying mug of cactus juice. He then took Slith’s initial plans for what he termed the Drunken Dragon and began refining them, preparing them to show to the general. As to the theft of the twenty swords, Kang considered writing a report, but then decided not to. What General Maranta did not know would not hurt him.
He was working on the plans for the dragon when Granak knocked, reporting that Commander Prokel wanted to see him.
“Goblins are on the march,” Prokel told Kang. “General Maranta’s called an officers meeting in the command tent in an hour.”
“Right,” said Kang. “I’ll be there.”
He paced about inside his room during the intervening time, glancing at the plans whenever he passed the table. The more he looked at them, the crazier the idea seemed. How could he present a Drunken Dragon to the general? General Maranta was likely to get nothing more out of it than a good hearty laugh and Kang wasn’t sure he would blame him.
The time ca
me for Kang to depart and still he lingered, dithering, undecided. Eventually, he walked to the door, leaving the plans on the table. He knew very well that if he presented the plan, he would fight for the plan, no matter how much the general mocked or disparaged him. Kang didn’t want to argue. He didn’t want to end up being placed in a position where he would have to choose between a superior officer’s orders and his own convictions. Kang reached the door, but he could not open it. He could not walk out.
He thought of Huzzad’s report. General Maranta had never been in battle. Not once. He had been stationed in Neraka, the Queen’s flunky, the Dragon Highlords’ pet draconian, but that needn’t have stopped him. Kang imagined what he himself would have done in that situation. He would have participated in the war. He would have fought with his troops, not just reviewed them. General Maranta had not done so. When battle had come to him, he had fled.
General Maranta wasn’t a coward. Draconians did not have it in them to be cowards. But General Maranta wasn’t a risk taker. That much was obvious by the Bastion he’d built himself. He wasn’t a risk taker and, worse, he disdained the troops under his command. A typical aurak, he had no care for anyone but himself. Kang guessed that so long as one draconian was left alive in this fort—and that draconian was General Maranta—then he would happily expend the lives of all the rest. He had not built this fort as a haven for draconians. He had built it as a monument to himself.
Kang picked up the plans for the Drunken Dragon and proceeded to the meeting. He took his time. He wasn’t looking forward to this.
“Kind of you to favor us with your presence, Commander,” General Maranta said sarcastically, as Kang entered the tent.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Kang said.
“I was just saying that you and your men had done a splendid job of patching up the fortifications,” General Maranta added magnanimously.
“Thank you, sir,” Kang said, feeling worse, as General Maranta no doubt intended.
“Our scouts report that the goblins are on the march. They’re moving slowly, of course. They’re disorganized rabble and they’re burdened with huge supply wagons. I anticipate that we have at least forty-eight hours to prepare against their attack. I have drawn up plans for the fort’s defense,” General Maranta said. “If you officers will approach the map.”
