Dragons of War (26 page)

"If you like I'll get out the
Weal of Confshon
. You show me in the texts where it says a man should be stoned to death for saying what the sailor said about the Dian."

They fell silent. Eads tapped the dog-eared tome in front of him.

"Legion manual don't allow me to execute a man except in cases of murder in the course of mutiny."

He drummed his fingers on the top of his desk.

"So, gentlemen, when I consider the actions of religious fanatics who would ignore the laws of the land, go beyond the
Weal of Confshon
, and ask me to do something not in the legion manual, then I think I will look forward to the courtmartial and to the full investigation of the administration of justice in the town of Kohon that is sure to follow it."

The merchants looked at one another. They were plainly not satisfied with this, but they found Captain Rorker Eads impervious to any further complaints.

In the dragon quarters, Dragon Leader Turrent summoned Relkin and Jak. He greeted them with a mirthless smile.

"So, Dragoneer Relkin, you are returned to us safe and sound."

"Yes, sir."

"Stand to attention when I address you, Dragoneer!"

Relkin stiffened, so did Jak.

"Yes, sir." Relkin wanted to groan aloud. Turrent was going to use this as another excuse to load him down with details. He would spend the rest of his life scrubbing cook pots and hauling wood and water.

"Once again, Dragoneer Relkin, you have been the center of attention."

Turrent flicked a glance down to Jak.

"And now you have taken to leading our younger members astray. This time we almost lost young Jak here, who came close to being flogged to death. Am I right, young Jak?"

Jak gulped, swallowed. "I don't know, Dragon Leader Sir!"

"Well, I do. Dismissed, Dragoneer Jak. Be ready for full-kit inspection by evening horn."

Jak stared stupidly at Turrent.

"Did you hear me, boy? I said dismissed. Now get out of here!"

"Yes, sir." Jak scurried away. Turrent turned back to Relkin.

"Dragoneer Relkin, why is it that you are always at the center of disaster?"

Relkin remained silent.

"Now, Dragoneer, as I have explained to you before this, I do not want a dragoneer in my unit who is always courting danger! I want a steady dragoneer who does his job and keeps his head down! Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"I do believe, Dragoneer, that the Mother has not quite made up her mind about you. She wants to slap you down, I think, but She takes pity on you for being so young and so promising. But what She won't do I will. You are a disgrace! You can't seem to do the slightest thing without getting the whole army involved. Now I don't think this problem is caused by a lack of intelligence. I know that you are as sharp as they come. So I can only assume that the problem is a lack of diligence, of concentration, of willpower! Now, if it was a matter of intelligence, then I would throw up my hands. That is something that only the Mother can change. But if it is only a matter of motivation, well this is something I can cure. Oh yes, Master Relkin, I can, and I will; so help me I will."

At length Relkin was released. There was a mountain of work to do and with a grim sense of doom barely averted, he returned to it. After the evening meal, he went to Captain Eads's office. Eads was cool but not unfriendly.

"You have been living an exciting life, Dragoneer. Too exciting. I'm sure Dragon Leader Turrent has conveyed this view to you."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me what happened."

Relkin repeated the tale. When he'd finished, Eads looked down at a scroll in his hands. He made no comment. Relkin began to grow nervous.

Finally Eads looked up.

"Your account squares with that of the sailor."

Eads was looking at him with intent blue eyes.

"Something is going on here, Dragoneer Relkin. What can it be? Are you accursed? I heard that you just about single-handedly destroyed the Temple of Gingo-La on her isle in Ourdh. Has she put a curse on you?"

Relkin had wondered about this, but he recalled Lady Ribela's contemptuous sniff when he'd asked her about the possibility of a curse from Gingo-La.

"It was not I who did the damage, sir, it was the dragon. And I was told by someone who knows much of the lore of goddesses that there was nothing to fear from that particular one."

Eads chuckled. "Well, someone seems to have it in for you. You must be more careful. You are the only dragonboy in history to win the Legion Star. I don't want my command to be remembered as the one in which you were lost!"

Eads was smiling, but his gaze was still fastened intently on Relkin.

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what's happening, either. I seem to be on a run of pretty bad luck. I mean, anyone could have been sent to fetch the hides. It just happened to be me."

"Yes, well, we shall have to try and stay out of such scrapes from now on. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Eads was on the point of dismissing him when there was a sudden shout outside and below. Then came a commotion. Boots were thumping on the wooden sidewalk. Voices were shouting in the distance.

There was a sudden knock at the door.

"Enter," said Eads.

A flustered-looking Sub-lieutenant Apteno came in.

"Sir, the beacon on the Kelderberg has been lit. We can see it clearly."

Someone came running up behind Apteno, the broad figure of Sergeant Quertin.

"Captain Eads Sir!" said the sergeant, crashing to attention in the doorway.

"At ease, Sergeant, what is it?"

"Beacons are lit from the Kelderberg to Keshon Heights, from Keshon down to the breaks. With the telescope we can see beacons lit on the Beks in Tuala."

"Thank you, Sergeant. What do you think it means?"

"War, sir."

"It is, indeed. I wonder what is going on."

Captain Eads arose. Relkin was dismissed and ran at once to the high tower and climbed until he could see the beacon lit atop the Kelderberg on the northwest face. Then across the river and farther down, he glimpsed another distant fire, the beacon on the Keshon Heights.

"War!" yelled someone down below. Distant shouting came from the town.

Something big was in the air, the world was turning on this moment. Relkin felt a shiver run down his spine as a cool breeze blew down from the Kelderberg. War, it was a terribly familiar sound to a dragonboy from the peaceful village of Quosh.

The news sprang eastward across the Empire of the Rose. War! The great enemy in the West had finally launched its stroke. Havoc and terror rode like storm clouds at the front of a vast army that marched out of the Gan and drew upon the western marches of Kenor. On a front forty miles wide it came, snakelike columns of squat imp soldiery, stiffened with nine-foot-tall trolls and controlled by thousands of men: fell men with dark eyes who served the power in Padmasa. In front and on the flanks rolled a great cloud of nomad cavalry.

War! The beacons were lit on the high points, leaping from mountain to hill to mountain to seashore. In the north it went from the great volcanic cone of Mt. Kenor to the Tuala Hills and Dalhousie and then on to the Upper Argo and Mount Red Oak. In the south it went from Fort Teot and then up the river Lis from hill to hill until it was picked up by the soldiers high up on the south col of Mt. Livol, overlooking the High Pass.

Then from the mountains the message flashed to Razac and the Blue Hills, to Arneis and Par Navon, and thus at last to the watchers in the Tower of Guard in Marneri, the High Tower at Castle Point in Kadein, or any of the other fortresses of the Argonath. War was coming!

The cities convulsed.

Following the beacons came messenger birds, pigeons bred in Cunfshon, doughty, relentless fliers. Within two more days, every city and major town in the Argonath had the news.

When the news reached the great cities of the Argonath, the ports of Talion, Vo, Vusk, Marneri, Bea, Pennar, Ryotwa, Minuend and great Kadein, there were further explosions of activity. Witches instructed trained herring gulls and fastened message loops to their feet. The gulls rose and set out at once, across the Bright Sea to the Isles of Cunfshon, the motherland of the Argonath, the nerve center of the Empire of the Rose.

The winds were favorable to the flight of gulls, and the messages began arriving in Cunfshon an hour after breakfast the next morning.

At once the beacon was lit on the Tower of Swallows above the city of Andiquant, and it sped on across the isles as the ancient watch towers of Defwode, Nusaf, Par Convon, Wick, Byrn, and Exsaf lit their fires. Even the distant, small isles of Ilf and Alaf were reached by noon with word passing from ship to fishing boat to ship until it was in Alaf harbor as the bell began tolling midday in the temple tower.

Great War was begun, an assault against the western edge of the empire.

And everywhere that that message came, flashing and flickering, the empire responded. Long laid was the planning against this day.

In this was revealed that remarkable quality of the Empire of the Rose that had enabled it to survive and prosper throughout the long wars. For now, even before the enemy's great blow could actually land, the empire was at work upon the response.

Throughout the western parts of Kenor, the women were setting out in boats and on horseback, heading east away from the danger of capture by the enemy. Men mustered to their volunteer units, while in the forts the legionaries prepared for a siege. It had long been expected, everyone had work to do to prepare, and all went about it with grim efficiency. Steel was sharpened, arrows were fletched by the hundred thousand, minds and spirits were prepared for the coming ordeal.

In Andiquant there was a tremendous stir, as was to be expected from the purposely built Imperial capital.

Immediately, the Great Witches convened, reviewing the situation with the emperor in a private meeting. The rest of the Imperial Council waited outside, nursing injured dignity and growing anxiety as the minutes mounted. Within the locked star chamber, the Emperor Pascal rubbed his knuckles to relieve tension. He muttered in self-reproach. The news had shaken him.

"Our storm crow was telling us to beware, but we would not. That is what I recall, Lady Sausann. The Grey Lady told us to fear this and to act on that fear, and we did not."

"Yes, Your Majesty," said an ashen-faced Sausann. She had willfully blinded herself to this possibility. It was she who had organized the opposition to Lessis. Now she tasted real fear.

Emperor Pascal Iturgio saw a catastrophe looming.

"I was so determined to open our mission to Csardha, I was blinded by it."

The cool magisterial tone of the Queen of Mice broke in on these self-recriminations. "Your Majesty need not torment himself. He was not the only one to discount the news brought us by Lessis." Ribela stepped forward to the great table.

The map of western Argonath was unrolled across it.

Pascal Iturgio strode up, laid his hands on the table, and leaned across. His eyes met those of the witches.

The emperor groaned softly. "My fault, it is my fault. You are but advisers."

They did not meet his eyes. All had failed him, and he had failed himself in this matter. All except Lessis, and she was not present, having sailed to Marneri weeks before.

It was an uncomfortable moment for them all.

"What are the latest-known dispositions, Your Majesty?" said Ribela, examining the lands of the far west. She sounded indifferent to the shame around her.

The emperor shook himself into life. His voice grew louder and firmer. Some vestige of the Imperial force reasserted itself.

"There is a suspicion that the enemy host is actually breaking in two. But there are so many Baguti cavalry surrounding the marching columns that we lack precise intelligence. We can only guess at their intentions. Fortunately, we have long planned for such contingencies."

He placed markers on the map.

"Here is what we expect. The enemy will strike at Forts Kenor and Teot simultaneously. Since each is held by a single legion, they will be forced to remain inside the fortifications and accept a siege."

He pointed to a place on the river Oon just south of the solitary cone of Mt. Kenor.

"Here at Cudbern's shoals, we expect the northern force to cross."

He gestured farther south.

"The force to be sent against Fort Teot would likely cross here, just above the junction of the Oon and the Lis.

"Once the forts are invested, then large forces of imp and troll will be freed to march upriver, pillaging and destroying as they go."

"The womenfolk," breathed Sausann. "What of they?"

"They will be evacuated well ahead of the onrush. Already I would expect a great tidal wave of refugees is proceeding up the valleys."

Ribela looked up now with her dark eyes.

"What will be our response on the ground."

The emperor shrugged, "This is a question for General Hektor. I can only answer in generalities."

"Your Majesty, generalities would suit me perfectly well. I would not ask for more from you. General Hektor will speak to us presently, but I for one need to catch hold of the very basics. As you know, I have not given much thought to such things in recent time."

Not in the past century at least, thought Pascal Iturgio. He had never seen the Queen of Mice until she had suddenly begun appearing in the flesh a year ago, during the Ourdh crisis. He had spoken with her, sensed her on the astral plane many times since childhood, but never had he seen her. It was sometimes oddly frightening to deal with these women, these creatures, who had lived centuries before one was born and would go on living centuries after one was dead and in the ground.

"Lady, I can do that at least. Should they capture either of the forts, then they will strengthen that side of their assault force and move it upstream. We will seek to block them with the legions at Dalhousie and Fort Picon. However, we will be much outnumbered and will sooner or later have to fall back. In the meantime, we will raise an army in the Argonath, five to seven legions in strength, reinforced from Cunfshon, and move it to confront the enemy wherever he concentrates."