Dragons of War (30 page)

Lagdalen shivered. The thought of the prosperous home provinces with their towns and farms and villages being overrun by a horde of vicious, man-killing imps was too terrible to contemplate.

"They have to be stopped," said Lagdalen. There would be no future for Laminna unless they were.

"Yes, my Lagdalen, you are right."

She realized the trap had shut close around her.

"I will do whatever is needed," she heard herself say.

New orders flew up to Kohon Town on the wings of Imperial carrier pigeons. Captain Eads was to immediately pull his force out of Kohon Town and head back to Dalhousie. The Second Marneri Legion was being dispatched at once to reinforce the legion in Fort Kenor.

Eads had anticipated such orders. Within the hour the first units were loading onto barges. By the end of the day, the whole force had embarked and was being hauled down to the top of the breaks at Keshon. Behind them they left a sullen town, quite suddenly emptied of soldiers, except for a small detachment in the fort.

Down below the Darkmon Breaks, they waited briefly for a river ship to take them off. While they were waiting to board, they cast longing eyes at the taverns nearby. It had literally been a month since any one of them, man, boy, or dragon had tasted the slightest drop of ale. But, alas, more orders had arrived and were waiting for Captain Eads. He was enjoined to make all haste. The crisis on the frontier had grown sharper. The legion had already left Dalhousie and hurried down the Argo to reinforce Fort Kenor. Eads was to follow, all the way to Fort Kenor, at once.

They embarked at once therefore, with no time for the taverns. On the riverboat
Floz
, they were tightly packed. It was a smaller ship than
Alba
. There was some grumbling. Tension was rife. Two fights broke out among the legionaries in the first hour.

Captain Eads had foreseen this, however, and had managed to purchase a dozen casks of fine ale from the Blue Pelican while the force was embarking. That evening, as they headed downstream on the broad, gentle Darkmon, Eads ordered the issuing of a couple of rounds of ale. He and the other officers joined the men in the singing and the early roistering, then withdrew to their own quarters at the rear, leaving the men to the bawdy verses of the old songs when they came around again.

The grumbles died away. Praise for Captain Eads was universal, and talk turned to the future instead. A major war was in prospect. Now they would be tested as soldiers as they had never been tested before.

In the meantime they returned to the pattern of the previous voyage, except that now they were going downstream, which was easier and faster. Several days went past during which the old
Floz
was virtually taken apart and rebuilt by the dragonboys and men under the urgings of sergeants and dragon leaders.

Soon they were on the outskirts of the haunted forest of Valur once more. As promised, Relkin was going to remain below the entire time they were within the margins of the fell wood. But before they had more than entered the forest reach of the river, a small, swift sailing vessel hailed them from the opposite direction and very shortly Captain Eads had a new set of orders from Dalhousie.

As he read them, Eads's face became grim and set. He called in his officers and told the captain of the
Floz
to turn his ship around and return at once to Brok's Town at the head of the Darkmon.

The captain was stunned. But he gave the orders at once, and the
Floz
was brought about, headed around, and set to tacking upstream on a light but favorable wind.

Eads explained to his officers, and they to the men. The situation had grown complex and very dangerous. The enemy's assault had long been prepared. Fort Teot had been masked by a force estimated at forty thousand. Armies of thirty thousand imps had attacked Forts Kenor and Picon and prevented any aid from going to Teot. In the meantime, while Teot was besieged, a huge force, perhaps one hundred thousand strong, was proceeding up the River Lis.

Eads was ordered to take his force back upriver, cross the Grand Portage at High Lake, and then to work down the river Bur to the Lis. There he would receive new orders and be told to either head for Fort Redor or the High Pass. They were to make all possible speed.

Dragon Leader Turrent called the 109th together and told them what he had just learned from the captain. When he'd finished, the dragonboys went back and told the dragons.

The great wyverns took the news solemnly but philosophically. Whichever direction they went, they were due to get in some fighting. That much was certain.

The dragonboys perceived rather more than this. Everyone knew that there was but half a legion, likely less, stationed at Fort Redor. Since the establishment of Fort Picon and the pacification of the northern Teetol, Redor and the central Lis valley had been a peaceful region.

Half a legion, some Kenor militia, plus themselves, would be set against a host of tens of thousands of imp, hundreds of troll, thousands of riders.

Later the boys sat together on deck and discussed war in quiet voices. The younger boys were unsure about the future, both frightened by the gravity of the situation and also exhilarated at the thought of finally seeing battle, real battle for the first time.

The older boys had seen plenty of fighting and they were quiet, sensing that the odds were suicidal.

Swane groused, as usual, but this time with a willing audience.

"Silly generals, they send us all the way up the river, then all they way down, and then all the way back up again. If they'd worked it out right the first time, we'd be down the Grand Portage by now."

"We'll be there soon enough."

"Dragons won't like it."

"Hard on the feet. Rough country down that side, I've heard."

"It will be rough all the way down the Bur. It's a wilderness over there. There's rapids forty miles long below the Feutoborg Forest."

Little Jak's eyes were luminous. In his relatively short life, he'd never been in true wilderness. Never been anywhere except Marneri and Fort Dalhousie.

"We're going to see real fighting," he said brightly to cover up his nervousness.

"Yeah, little one," growled Swane, "and it won't be no picnic, either, no beer and skittles."

"More like trolls and cavalry with dragon lance," agreed Tomas Black Eye.

Jak nodded, abashed but still looking forward to the shock of battle with a part of himself that was as yet unbloodied by the world. The fight with the Cralls had been easy enough, though everyone had said it would be hard.

"So how do you feel about it, Relkin?" said Manuel.

Relkin had been silent so far.

"I don't know, scared, I suppose. But the 109th has been in tight spots before. We'll come through."

" 'Course we will," barked Swane. " 'Course. Silly bugger Manuel."

"Shut it, Swane," said Manuel.

"Oh, yeah, and who's going to make me? You? Think not Manuel."

"Please, Swane," said Relkin.

Swane grumbled but kept it to himself.

"I've always dreamed of the day I'd see real combat, with the dragon," said Halm of Ors. "You know, doing what we've trained for all our lives. But now I suddenly see another side."

"You saw combat against the Cralls, didn't Anther make the most kills?"

"The Cralls were easy meat, we all know that."

"This isn't going to be easy," said Bryon. "We're probably all going to die."

He said this with such a straightforward seriousness that it left them all silent. Swane raised his head, was going to speak, but felt the silence and dropped it again.

"Better go see to that old dragon," said Mono, getting to his feet and heading for the hatchway.

The
Floz
returned them to the breaks, which they climbed once more while cargoes of wheat slid downhill in the Imperial chutes.

In Kohon Town, they found the elders busy hanging half a dozen members of the cult who'd been caught eating food with salt on the third day of the week.

They transshipped to lake craft and set sail that same evening. Behind them the lights of Kohon Town dwindled. Above rose the crescent moon. The stars glittered in the west.

Far to the east, across the mountains, the same stars glittered above the Tower of Guard in Marneri. Inside the tower, in a room on a high floor, great magic proceeded by the light of a fire of reeds in the grate. The blinds were drawn tight, and the heat in the room caused trickles of sweat to run down the invisible faces of three women.

Lessis chanted with a poet's passion. The blood from Lagdalen's arm hissed on the amulet, still glowing from the fire.

A wave of nausea rose in her gorge. Lagdalen fought it down. It was a side effect of the toxic mixture they had all three imbibed from Ribela's flask.

The mixture, derived from red toadstools, Rumeric seeds, and crushed Dixanth beetles, had a foul taste and an extraordinary effect on the mind.

The amulet seemed to spin before Lagdalen's eyes. She felt the magic power at work. The very warp and woof of the world was in play. Lightness welled in her chest, as if a balloon were inflating there. She imagined herself floating away, legs pointing down, mouth open in a soundless shriek. She giggled inwardly and then caught a flicker from the eye of the presence hovering at the side of the spell making, Ribela. Lagdalen brought her attention back to the work in hand. The nausea had subsided, for which she was thankful. The amulet glowed and seemed to spin. The motion was unpleasant, there was a tension gripping her stomach, tightening her diaphragm until it was hard to breathe.

Lessis made some peremptory gestures. Ribela threw a handful of twigs and herbs, bound in a yellow silk thread, into the fire where it exploded with a white flash that startled Lagdalen and left her mouth gaping in surprise.

For a moment the torrent of words ceased. They approached the climax. Lessis had warned that it would be very difficult.

Ribela held a beaker to her lips.

"Blood?"

"The blood of one eagle, the blood of the eagle ye shall be," said Lessis. "The blood of a wulfeagle, a white-tipped sky ruler from the mountains, an old friend of mine."

Lagdalen steeled herself not to taste and drank some of the dark blood. Ribela cast the rest onto the amulet where it smoked and stank atop the dried crust of Lagdalen's blood.

Without any need for a summons, the door opened, and one of the acolytes of the Temple came in carrying a standing perch, atop which sat a wild eagle with a small bandage wrapped about its left leg. Lessis went up to the bird and brought it down to the fire on her arm. The immense talons could have crushed her arm like a twig, but they did not. The eagle was subdued, with a glazed look to its eyes.

Ribela began chanting now while Lessis put her hand over the bird's head, shielding its eyes and moving close to Lagdalen.

Lagdalen stared at the bird, so strangely passive. She knew that it was lost in some all-encompassing web of sorcery cast by Lessis, the Queen of Birds.

"Cuica, warden of the sky, is his name," said Lessis. "You will see so much with his eyes, my Lagdalen."

"I am ready."

The acolyte positioned the perch beside Lagdalen, and Lessis returned the bird to it. She then took up a little leather pouch connected to a strap that she fastened around the eagle's neck.

Now Lessis and Ribela thrust forward their right arms. Lessis gave Lagdalen the knife. The hallucinogenic poison gave her another heave of nausea, but she fought it down. Struggling to concentrate, she slashed each of them across the forearm. Blood welled and ran down their pale skin. With a hiss, the witch blood joined the other bloods already dried upon the amulet.

The chant resumed, and Ribela completed the motions. Herbs burned in the fire, and within the smoke there ignited a flare of bright red light, like lightning in a distant cloud.

Lagdalen stared into the eyes of the eagle, which stared back with an utter glossy blankness.

And then with a peculiar wrenching effect, she saw herself staring back at her as if from a mirror held close up to her face. Every pore, every wrinkle was visible to her from vision far more acute than anything she had ever known. A feather was out of place on the inside of the right wing. The cut on her heel tingled slightly. She ducked her head, without understanding how or why, and preened the feather.

There was a strong desire in her to lift away, to soar, to put a great distance between herself and this place. Her wings beat a few times.

A whistle intruded, a soft pulsed whistle. She looked around. Lessis was whistling, Lessis's eyes were staring in at her, peering in like portholes in a dark firmament.

"You must control him, Lagdalen, almost like riding a horse. It seems very strange now, but you will adjust. You will feel what he feels, just as you will see what he sees. As I mentioned, you will get used to it."

And now Lagdalen realized fully that it was done. For better or worse, her mind was now fixed within the eagle's.

Her body continued to sit cross-legged on the mat, eyes closed and breath coming in regular, disciplined fashion, but she no longer inhabited it with her mind. From now on it would be watered and fed by the acolytes. As long as she lived, that was. If the eagle died, so would she. On the other hand, if someone were to destroy her body, she would live on in the mind of the eagle, for a while. At length, however, several years perhaps, she would fade and be lost forever. Lagdalen was familiar with the legends concerning animancy and the practice of werewolfing. Now she herself had taken part in this most forbidden of the great magics.

Now the truly bizarre began to become the normal. Long afterward, she would still question what she thought she had seen at this point.

A small cage was set on the table. A mouse opened the cage door from within and emerged and sat still on the table. A small bird, a wren, flew in and settled on the table and hopped around the mouse, pecking at microscopic items in the dust.

Lessis and Ribela carried on with the many complex motions of the spell. First Ribela, then Lessis, cast bundles of herbs into the fire and leaned over and inhaled some of the thick, evil-smelling smoke that resulted.