Dragon Ultimate (32 page)

Eventually they stood down and got some sleep, arms weary from the effort of bringing down the monster.

With the dawn, repairs on joboquins and kit began in earnest. Fortunately the Baguti showed no sign of interfering. Scraping sleep out of their eyes, dragonboys jumped to it and brought up kalut and noodles for the dragons, then ate their own hurried breakfasts while darning needles flickered in their hands.

The sun gradually climbed into the sky while the men and dragons worked under the direction of an engineer to repair the shattered palisade and parapet.

The seventh hour was past when a dust-covered rider came galloping in from the front line. He jumped down and ran to report to Captain Beeds. His message was grim. The same kind of attack they had faced down in the night had occurred at Brownwater. But there the tentacle beast had broken the wall open, torn down the gate, and let the Baguti ride in.

Four dragons had been slain, two more badly wounded during the subsequent rout and retreat. More than a hundred men had been left to the mercy of the imps, to be roasted alive and eaten.

More important, the Irrim Baguti were now through the last barrier and could envelop the northern flank of the main position. Already Baguti riders were active in the rear areas of the main army. The messenger had been delayed by having to hide in the swamp twice when parties of Baguti went by.

Beeds knew that he could not abandon his position. If the army had to retreat, then it would have to come through the Angle, across the Neck, and onto the Military Road that ran to Fort Kenor. Along that road there were three well-fortified positions that would offer some degree of shelter for the retreat. But at all points they would be enveloped in clouds of hostile Baguti cavalry. It was vital they hold the Angle.

That day was one to test the strongest nerves. General Tregor found himself racked with nightmare visions even as he worked to stem the Baguti on his flanks and keep the front line organized and steady.

The enemy launched probing thrusts around noon, then in early afternoon committed to a mass assault on the front of the Red Rose Legion. The assault lasted for hours as the imps were hurled forward with the fumes of the black drink rising through their brains. At the same time the Baguti attacked the new, hurried fortifications on the south flank. They made a few breaks in the line, but were thrown back each time, and in the end withdrew with little to show for their efforts.

Far in the rear of all this, the Angle was quiet. The 109th and 145th combined squadron were ordered to stay put and hold their position. Baguti cavalry came to take a look at them, but by that time the defenders had created a short rampart and parapet wall on the inside of the main line facing toward the river. The rampart was only five feet high, and the parapet was assembled from what they could fetch out of the nearby swamp, but the Baguti showed no interest in attacking.

At the northern end of the line the Argonath Legion was also left in peace, although just a little father north, in the scrub around Mud Pond, the fight to contain the Irrim Baguti grew extremely hot. Tregor's cavalry were involved in a daylong struggle with the nimble Baguti ponies, while companies of foot soldiers fortified positions on the northern flank and also along the road to the Angle. These positions served as bases for the Talion troopers. Dragons were kept for the main line, in case the enemy did decide to give up on the Red Rose Legion and shift the assault columns to the north.

Late in the afternoon General Va'Gol of the Red Rose Legion reported that the enemy attacks on his front had ceased. The dark masses of Padmasa had slipped back across the shallows, leaving mounds of their dead behind. The Red Rose Legion had suffered relatively few casualties. Va'Gol was confident he could continue to hold his line.

The sun slowly sank in the west while the catapults picked at each side's positions. The Legion boiled food while men and dragons stood down, except for the cavalry, who would get no rest for the foreseeable future.

By dusk Tregor had encouraging reports from both flanks, and his nerves began to settle. In the south the Red Rose Regiment had managed to inflict a sharp reverse on the main column of Baguti. In the north the Talion troopers had checked the eruption of the Irrim Baguti and largely pushed them back to the northern sector, close to the break-in point at Brownwater Lagoon.

Tregor went to sleep that night, totally drained, but feeling that he had a good chance of just fighting it out on the line. The Padmasans would either have to attack or give up and go home. If they attacked, he felt sure he could hold them and take a heavy toll. Eventually they would have had enough and the horde would move back across the Gan for the distant mountains. Then the Baguti would slip away, too. They'd raid on their way out, before recrossing the rivers and returning to their normal haunts on the Gan. By then, however, the emergency would be over, and winter would be in the offing.

And yet he was still deeply troubled by the business at Brownwater. Sorcery was something you simply could not plan for.

Kneeling by his cot he said his prayers and called for blessings for his distant wife and their children. He got into his blankets and wondered if he really could sleep, but then exhaustion turned out the lights and his snores filled the tent.

The night hours passed quietly. Tregor dreamed for a while, gentle dreams of the hills of Seant, rising above the Long Sound. His mother at the door of a whitewashed stone cottage in the golden rays of the late-afternoon sun.

He awoke suddenly, disturbed by a sound inside the tent. It was pitch-dark, but there was a skittering on the fieldcarpet, and something leaped up into his face.

With a shriek of alarm he warded it off. It landed on his bed, between his legs, and he jerked back with a yell.

The guards were in motion, the tent flap opened. Light flashed in from a lamp. The thing on the bed was shown to be like a monkey, but with the head of a dog. It bared yellow fangs and sprang at him with a hiss.

Now that he'd seen it he was even less eager to let it touch him. He swung desperately and knocked it away while rolling out of the bed.

He landed on his hands and knees, but the thing leaped onto his back and sank its teeth into his neck. He reached up to tear it away and was bitten on the hand as well. The guard struck it with his spear butt and kicked it aside.

The creature was not easily deterred. It bounced from the floor and climbed the tent pole before leaping onto the guard's head. The guard fell over with an oath, crashing through the map table.

Tregor saw the thing leap off the guard and turn right back to him. It sprang for him, with those weird black eyes fixed on his throat.

Instinctively he got the fallen guard's spear up and knocked the thing aside. Another guard had entered the tent, the first still struggling to rise. The thing sprang at Tregor again, and this time he knocked it down and speared it before it could get away. The second guard dropped on it and stabbed it again and again with his dagger. It was slow to die.

By then Tregor was quivering on the floor, his mind lost in nightmarish hallucinations. The injured guard was similarly disposed, wailing through clenched teeth. The animal's fangs were poisoned.

Kesepton was one of the first on the scene. General Urmin was summoned from his tent and found himself in command of not just the Argonath Legion, but the entire army. Tregor was trembling, unable to speak. The witch was with him, along with the surgeon. The body of the dead monkey, if that was really what it was, was being examined. The fangs were hollow, having discharged their poison. Tregor was obviously unfit for command of the army.

General Urmin took command. Tregor and the injured guard were taken away on a stretcher, twitching, their faces puffed up as they gasped for breath. Urmin immediately made Kesepton Field General of the Argonath Legion, then turned to the maps and charts, when they'd been rescued from the wreck of Tregor's table.

Urmin had to shake his head wearily. He had been looking forward to retirement, a hero at the end of a long but otherwise undistinguished career. Then the twin plagues had struck the Argonath. Urmin found himself promoted to general and sent to take command of a combat Legion under Tregor. Bewildering as all this had been, Urmin had kept his head. His country needed him more than ever. And serving as a Legion commander beneath Tregor had meant he had only the tactical concerns of his Legion to worry about. The strategic responsibility was Tregor's.

Now the whole burden rested on him.

Staff workers rebuilt the map table, and Urmin had a hurried conference with officers. He informed General Va'Gol of what had happened and received confirmation from Va'Gol accepting his actions and his command for the duration of the battle. Urmin gave thanks for the cooperative nature of the Cunfshon men.

Newly promoted, Hollein Kesepton went down to the tent Urmin had been using just a few minutes before. Once he'd taken a look at the situation there and informed the staff of what had happened, he went back to see Urmin.

"Well, General," Urmin said the word softly. "What d'you think of the position?

Hollein smiled, wanly. "Serious, sir, but manageable; we have control of the battlefield despite the Baguti on our flanks."

"So we should stand here and hold the line?"

"Yes, sir."

"What about the attack at Brownwater? What d'you put that down to?"

"The sorcerer, sir, the same one we defeated at Avery Woods."

"A close-run thing that day, Kesepton. You credit this tale of a giant octopus?"

"I don't know, sir. It sounds fantastic, but there was a similar attack at the Angle which was beaten off. They cut the monster into pieces."

"Yes, yes, of course. So we might expect more attacks like that?"

"Anything is possible. You saw what happened to General Tregor."

Urmin pursed his lips. "Tregor is in the medical section. They couldn't tell me much about his condition except that he's hallucinating."

"Let's hope there aren't more of them."

"I've doubled the guard. We'll be looking more carefully from now on."

The day dawned eventually, and the Argonath army waited behind its fortifications. The catapults picked away at the enemy's catapults on Crescent Island, and the Legions worked on their defenses while they waited. The flank defenses in particular were thickened that morning with ditches and stakes.

The Padmasans stirred eventually, but though they marched up and down on the distant bank of the Oon, they did not attack. Unknown to Urmin, the Padmasan army was quiescent because its general, the great Munth, had been called to a conference with Lord Lapsor.

These two now stood on a barren hillock a dozen miles north of the battlefield, overlooking the Oon from the west. The batrukh waited nearby, with the Mesomaster standing beside it.

Munth's eyebrows rose at seeing a Mesomaster reduced to little more than a batrukh handler.

Waakzaam approached with the man Higul at his side. Munth had noted Higul's rise to prominence. Higul was like himself, a hard man with no sorcerous pretensions. Waakzaam preferred Higul to the Mesomaster. Munth understood, it made sense. Mesomasters were a pain in the ass.

"Greetings, General Munth," said the elven lord.

"Greetings, Lord."

"We have driven in his flanks and tested his line. But we have not broken him yet."

"The Legions are stubborn opponents, we have always known that."

"You have absorbed casualties."

"Too high, much too high. We are attacking them in a well-fortified position. I begin to think I may have to move south and try to cross farther down."

"Except that we have their army surrounded."

Munth nodded. "That is so, but a screen of tribesmen is not going to halt them if they wish to march to the volcano."

"I will thicken that screen with other resources."

Munth had heard reports from the Irrim Baguti about the monsters raised from the muck of the swamps.

"Ah, yes, well that might change things. If we can exert more pressure on the flanks, we might thin out that line. I have kept the ogres back, in case an opportunity for a breakthrough might come. If they had to pull dragons off the main line, then I would throw the whole army at them with the ogre force to break their line."

"Good, that is what I expected of you. I thought you were a combative type. Why we pushed for your appointment, y'know."

This was a surprise to Munth, who blinked, silent.

"You have friends in high places General," purred Waakzaam the Deceiver.

Munth was captured by the sweet words and sorcerous seduction of the Deceiver. "Thank you, Lord, that is a great relief to hear. I would not want enemies there."

"So you will drive home with your army while I tear into the flank. Good, we will break him on this line, and then invade the Argonath."

Waakzaam beamed down at the Baguti. Munth might rise high under the rule of the Dominator. He had the right attributes.