Dragon Ultimate (35 page)

"And if we can break the front elements, we might even stampede the whole damned horde. Such things have happened."

"If we hit them hard enough, sir, just at that moment when they've cooled down after coming up against our lines here, they'll be ripe. They'll be beat, footsore, and tired. We'll go in hard. I think we can shatter them."

Urmin felt his own confidence grow. "I know the men are angry that we had to retreat. This might be just what they'd like. If we can get to grips with their army, then we can smash them."

Urmin smiled grimly. "Then let them bring on their sorcery, and I'll put a hundred dragons on them and we'll see how long they last."

"Damned right, sir," said Hollein, feeling an unusual readiness for battle.

"Never forget the dragons of Argonath."

"Never!"

They took another sip of the forty-year-old brandy of Urmin's grandfather Albimuel, then rode back across the bridge. As they went Urmin was thinking hard about this riposte. It would need judicious timing, and it would need to slam home with everything they had. He made a note to meet with the witch Hadea. She might be helpful with the matter of timing.

It could be done! If they struck hard enough.

Miles away, poor Jumble was left to play out what luck remained to him. Unfortunately, he didn't have much left. When he'd stepped down into the bog after those Baguti, he'd gotten knee deep into quicksand that had slowed him then frozen him in place. To try and get out he was working backwards slowly when some Baguti crept up behind him and cut him across the back of his right leg, severing the big tendons.

After that he was unable to walk, and could only stand there up to his knees in mud, virtually immobile. When a party of overeager Baguti rushed him, he feigned helplessness until they were very close, then swept his sword through their ranks and sent the survivors splashing back through the mud with cries of horror.

More Baguti arrived; torches lit up the swamp. Arrows and spears continued to fly his way, but the men stayed out of the range of that long dragonsword, circling around him, looking for the moment to rush him.

Then it came. At a prearranged signal the Baguti charged him from all sides, their war cries resounding from the dismal swamp. Jumble swung hard on the forehand, checked himself from falling by jamming his shield down into the mud, and came back with a return stroke that caught four men in the act of trying to spear him from behind. Their screams cut off with a mighty "thwack" as the sword sent their souls to hell.

The others scrambled back with snarls of hate.

But now his shield was stuck in the mud, and he couldn't heave it free. He was exposed to thrown spears.

The spears were out, and the Baguti were closing in when a chieftain galloped up and barked orders at the men surrounding him. The men were displeased, the chieftain barked more orders, and the men spoke back angrily.

Abruptly there was a sharp sound in the air as if a giant whip had been cracked above their heads and a green light flashed about them.

The spearmen fell absolutely silent and turned away from the trapped leatherback.

Now they waited in a ring around him. Jumble watched them with dull eyes. He was young and would not live to be much older. He knew his mistake had been to pursue too eagerly, not waiting for the dragonboy. Forgetting that with only a single dragonboy to two dragons, Relkin might not be watching his back as well as Sui might have. He'd forgotten all he'd learned and put himself at risk.

He was puzzled for a while about why they didn't spear him and get it over with. The whip sound and the green flash had frightened them, that was clear. Maybe they wanted him alive. This thought brought both hope and fears.

They waited as the sky lightened at last and dawn broke over the land of Kenor. Then Higul rode up with a huge wagon drawn by a team of albino trolls.

The huge trolls came at him from all directions and, though he killed one, they overpowered Jumble in the mud and bound him with chains. They placed him on the wagon and towed him away, back toward the deeper swamp. By midmorning he was far to the rear. In his heart there was little besides regrets and despair.

He never heard the great roar of his name, the battle cry of the 109th and 145th fighting dragons of Marneri, as they burst out of the fort and pitched into the enemy front lines. He never heard the din of battle either, for a steady cool wind out of the west kept the sound of it from reaching him. Jumble passed beyond the reach of any assistance with no idea of the furious fray that had broken out below the fort.

When the dragons broke the trolls and sent them running, the Padmasan horde trembled. The Legions poured out behind the dragons and spread the confusion throwing the imps back on their heels and catching the enemy in the midst of meal preparations. The imps rallied for a brief few minutes, but the trolls could not be turned around, and the ogres were too slow for defensive fighting against dragonsword. The Padmasan horde rocked back.

The news of the counterattack reached Munth where he rode his horse at the Little Mountain Stream bridge, a mile from the fort. At once he understood the danger, He had overlooked the recuperative powers of such well-trained troops.

He ordered the Baguti forward to stiffen the imps and help hold the Argonathi, until the trolls could be halted and given enough black drink to get them into fighting mood again.

The various Baguti hordes went forward, with the Irrim and the Skulltakers in the lead and the mountain horde at the rear. They scrambled through the thickets and down the Military Road, but they ran into mobs of panicked imps. Then columns of fleeing trolls packed the road. The Baguti could not ride through; they bunched in the road and created a bottleneck instead, and the trolls just pushed through them, trampling anyone who was foolish enough to stay in their way. The Padmasan army had become a mob, a mindless thing struggling to escape through critical choke points. The Baguti were forced to flee as well, riding their mounts into the swamps to escape the keen edge of dragonsword.

The Legions kept up the pressure and the Legion cavalry came down the road at the gallop and into the rear of the fleeing mobs of imps. Imps, trolls, and men were cut down in the tightly pressed chaotic mass.

The men in the Legion front knew they were winning, and the dragons knew it, too, and this put great heart into them and kept their swords in motion through all that long, blood-soaked day. Again and again they sang the Kenor song in triumph after bringing down trolls and Padmasan cavalrymen, the hated mercenaries who served the evil ones.

By the end of the day they had driven the Padmasans all the way back to the lines on the beach. The Irrim Baguti retreated northward through Brownwater Lagoon to the Argo shore. There, without pausing, they recrossed the Argo to the north bank.

The Skulltakers and the other western tribes crossed the Oon with the Padmasans, then pressed westward, leaving the volcano of ill omen behind. Once more Ashel Veerath had shown itself to be a graveyard for the nomads.

Clearly the Padmasan contribution to the war had come to an end.

Almost unnoticed in all the chaos, just before the Irrim clans urged their mounts to swim the river, a large boat had crossed over with a dragon chained in the hold.

The fire for Jumble and the other casualties blazed high on the parade ground below Fort Kenor. The dragons sang their death song for their dead and the great noise of it was audible miles away.

Urmin watched from the corner tower. There had been losses, but the battle of the Oon crossings would be entered in the books as a great victory. Kenor was spared; even the Argonath cities themselves breathed easier. Urmin had a stack of congratulatory messages on his desk.

Kesepton entered after a knock.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, Kesepton, I want you to take my report to Marneri. You deserve the chance of being the first of us back in the city."

"Why, thank you, sir. Thank you very much."

"You were right, General."

"Sir, that was only a field rank. Am I still really a general officer?"

"You are, until the Argonath Legion is decommissioned. That won't happen until I am replaced or receive an order to do it."

"Thank you, sir."

"You were damned right, and we whipped 'em and sent them running. They thought we'd be trapped in here, under siege, and instead they're back over the Oon and running for their lives. A damned fine victory. Except…" he trailed off.

Their eyes met.

"We took a lot of casualties out there."

"Hard fighting, sir. The army fought magnificently."

"Yes!" Urmin's enthusiasm was relit. "Caught them when they were mentally unprepared, just like you said, and they never got organized again. You will find yourself credited with the idea in my dispatches." Urmin took Hollein's hand and held it tightly for a moment. His face filled with emotion. He had never expected to command an army like this. He had not dared to dream of achieving a victory of this order, either.

"May the Mother look after you. Go at once and be with your family for Fundament Day."

"Yes, sir!"

Outside on the parade ground the pyre burned low after a while, and the wyverns set to drinking a boatload of ale and remembering their lost companions. Many a song went up in memory of this old champion or that, like great Sorik, who was cut down years before. Or Nessessitas who died in the gladiatorial ring at Tummuz Orgmeen. Or Themistok, a valiant green from a century before.

They had a great victory behind them, but for now their thoughts were only for their dead. They drank and sang the melancholy funeral dirges of their kind.

Men avoided them that night. Even dragonboys tiptoed around their charges.

In the morning, scouts came in from General Va'Gol down at the crossings. The Padmasans had not stopped in their headlong flight for the mountains. They had a long march ahead of them, and unless they got to the high passes before snow fell, they would be trapped on the Gan. With both Axoxo and Tummuz Orgmeen in Legion hands, there was no easy way out to either north or south.

Another rider came up from Kenor Landing a little later to announce that a second shipload of ale had come ashore that afternoon and would be sent up to the fort. The fort's own brewery had been struggling to keep two entire Legions and all their dragons supplied, so the arrival of ale from upriver was a source of great cheer.

Spirits were further raised by the news that two thousand more men, scraped together from Kadein, were on their way downstream from Dalhousie. Fresh horses and riders from the Talion regiments were also on their way, coming up the Oon from the southern valleys of Kenor.

Now came a period of quiet activity. Dragonboys had the time to try and patch up the dragon's kit, as well as their own. Joboquins, of course, were a mess of stretches, burst studs, and ripped thongs. The official name for the battle was Crossings of the Oon, but for the ordinary Legionaries it would forever be the Battle of the Sorcerer's Beasts.

Relkin worked alone, in the stall. His own coat was a mess, with one sleeve torn loose and the other ripped. He'd lost a heel off a boot, which was at the cobbler's, and left him in sandals.

The joboquin was on the hook. More work was needed, but the worst was repaired. They could pass Cuzo's inspection the next morning. It was time to make sure the dragonboy could pass inspection. No chance of getting a replacement for the coat here at Fort Kenor, and Cuzo would not take excuses, so it would have to be done by the dragonboy. He took up needle and thread, small needle and lighter thread than he was used to, and started on the sleeve reattachment. It wouldn't be beautiful, but it would have to pass muster until he got back to Dalhousie and the Legion commissary.

As he worked he could not stop thinking about poor Jumble. The dragon he'd lost. The ultimate failure for the dragonboy, to lose the dragon. He sank into bitter self-recrimination.

They'd not found a body yet, but they had found tracks of a heavy wagon. So it was supposed he'd been taken captive. Relkin had all the excuses lined up, and he'd heard them all from everyone else. It didn't take the sheer horror out of the idea though.

Bazil came in after a while, fresh from a plunge in the crater lake. He understood immediately that boy was in an anguished state. He stood there awkwardly, towering over Relkin.

"Just want to say that it not all your fault. Jumble at fault, too. In fact, Jumble more at fault than dragonboy."

"Yeah, thanks, my old friend. I know he was a novice. But I should have kept that in mind. He was a good sort, and he was young, and I should have kept a close eye on him."

"How one dragonboy supposed to fight with two dragon to watch? It not possible. Not your fault, they ask too much."

"Too much of this dragonboy, that's for sure. I must have just looked away at the wrong time. I must have been just watching your back, out of habit, you know?"

"Good habit, keep this dragon alive."

"Yeah, but didn't help keep Jumble safe."