Dragons of War (54 page)

"Aye, so they did."

"Father, there is a tide to these events, do you not see? The dragonboy says his destiny has been foretold and that he must stand in a field in Arneis. We must all go there. That seems so clear to me now."

Ranard gave a slight nod, he hissed again as Old Sugustus sank into another pocket of corruption. "Perhaps you are right, child. Perhaps we shall all die in Arneis, and the name of Clan Wattel will wither and go out like a lamp that has finally run out of fuel."

"I cannot say to that, Father. The dragonboy says his destiny was foretold him by elves. Can you imagine that? I really don't know whether to believe that dragonboy sometimes."

"Ye are much taken with the youth, I think. And he is a comely one and intelligent, I'd say."

"Oh, he is, Father. He is amazingly learned about the world. He has seen a great deal of it for his years."

"Ye may be taken with the boy, my child, but ye will be careful, will ye not? There are passions that can run wild and lead to unfortunate predicaments."

She blushed. "Oh, Father, we love each other but we know that our love is doomed. He is written to the legions for seven more years. How can I wait that long to be wed, especially when the delightful Edon Norwat is there to hand?"

Ranard grunted. He knew his daughter's true views on Edon Norwat.

"My child, if you wish to make your own mistakes, you may do so, but then ye'll not beget any heir to Ranard Clan Chief."

She sighed. The biological imperative of inheritance.

"I understand, Father."

Ranard was silent as she bound up the wounds again with clean linen bandages. His thoughts circling the future and the doom it seemed to hold for all he held dear.

On the far side of the camp, in the line of big tents that housed the 109th Marneri Dragons, Relkin sat with little Jak. The younger boy had learned to stifle the sobbing and the tears. His dragon was gone, and there was nothing to be done about it. Rusp had been burned to ashes, as was the proper thing. But Jak was still alive, and sometimes he had begun to think this was not right. He should die and join the dragon in the shades.

Suicides were common among dragonboys who lost their dragons and everyone, including Dragon Leader Turrent for once, had been very concerned. Turrent felt that he could hardly hope to convince young Jak of anything. He had been hard on Jak for weeks. Turrent was forced to ask Relkin to speak to Jak.

Jak, while not crying or sniffling, was morosely silent. Relkin waited a long while, trying to choose his words carefully. Jak sat, lost in misery.

"Jak, listen to me. You have lost Rusp, and for that we all grieve with you. Everyone liked old Rusp. We don't expect you to forget him in a day or two, but look, Jak, you have a job to do. Bryon is gone, too. We buried him today."

"I know, I was there."

"That means Alsebra doesn't have a dragonboy. Mono looked after her wounds, but she needs someone full-time. Take her on, Jak. We're counting on you."

Relkin sighed inwardly with relief when he saw that Jak was not inherently against the idea. However, the younger boy was not sure it would work.

"I like Alsebra," he said. "But she is a snappish one. She's not like my Rusp. And I don't think she likes me."

"Alsebra's an uncommon smart dragon, Jak. We all know that. You can count on it that she won't make things difficult for you. She knows she needs a dragonboy. What do you think she feels? She and Bryon grew up together. She is very sad, just like you."

"Truly?" Jak searched Relkin's face for any trace of deception.

"Why have I always felt that she didn't like me?"

"Perhaps she didn't at first. She's like that. As you said, she's not easily pleased. She was hard on Bryon, too. He was always complaining about it. But she's so handy with a sword that she's a joy to watch in a fight."

"That is true, I have seen her pull off things that only a man with a small sword could do."

Relkin nodded. Both he and Baz had commented on Alsebra's skill with a sword.

"Of course, Undaunt is small for a dragonsword," Jak went on. "All her kit is smaller than Rusp's. I won't be able to use any of the old stuff."

"They will give Rusp's equipment to another brass, Jak. You know that."

Jak looked at Relkin.

"You really think I can do this, Relkin?"

"Of course. Ask her."

After a few minutes to get up the courage, young Jak upped and went into Alsebra's tent. The green freemartin was awake, sharpening Undaunt with a whetstone.

Relkin glanced in through the tent flap a few minutes later. Jak was up on the freemartin's back, inspecting her bandages and the wounds beneath them. They were talking together, the usual back and forth between dragon and dragonboy. Relkin slipped away and returned to his own agenda. They marched in the morning, and there was a lot to do.

All night a forest of smithy fires blazed on the site of the ancient palace of the kings of Veronath. As weapons and shields were repaired, so figures passed the fires laden with swords and shields or pushing barrows filled with dragon armor and helmets. In the morning the smithies were still at work and eventually had to be left, with wagons to bring up the weapons as they were repaired, for the camp was struck immediately after breakfast and they marched, legionaries, clansmen, farmers from Bur Lake, dragons, and dragonboys.

The pace was brisk but the dragons accepted it without comment. They were used to such marching now, every day. They were lean and very much hardened by the experience of the past few weeks. In addition, there'd been precious little beer since they'd left Dalhousie months ago.

The deaths of Rusp and Oast had changed the inner mood as well. Zebulpator still rode high in the sky at night, but the dragons were no longer so concerned. The ancient cycles continued. The dragons had known that death was coming, and it had come. They had bid farewell to their comrades. Now they returned to the here and now. Slowly their normal good cheer began to surface.

Dragonboys in both squadrons noted the change at once, and the word flashed around. It was good to have the dragons free of their preoccupation with the red star and the Moon and death and fire.

In fact, it was a beautiful day, with clear skies but for the occasional white fluffy cloud. The land was still drying from the previous few days' downpour, but the rainfall had brought out the wildflowers on the hillsides. They were ablaze with poppies and asters and white daisies of a hundred different kinds.

The march took them through the heart of the Wattel lands. They passed small villages built of white stone with slate roofs. Women in brown tweeds and white blouses came out of the houses. Blond-headed children scampered past, squealing with excitement at seeing the Fird and the Host march to war and even more by seeing the grim-looking legionaries and the wondrous dragons, which they had never seen the like of.

Down narrow lanes, muddy from the rains of the previous few days, and on through a patchwork of small, square fields of green, surrounded by stone walls and hillsides of grass crowned with heather on the ridgelines. Sheep dotted the green hills, and the small streams were home to a champion race of trout.

When they halted, the folk brought them food, loaves of rye bread and great steaming potchoons of oatmeal and stirabout for dragons and legionaries alike. Unfortunately there was a shortage of akh. The dragons grumbled. On the bright side, however, there was a small amount of beer, a peculiarly dark and bitter brew that the dragons found to their liking. Those who had served in the Ourdh campaign found a certain resemblance to some of the beers they'd enjoyed in the far-off land of pyramids and palms. Alas, there wasn't that much, and it was soon gone. It was barely enough to get the dragons singing, but not enough to keep them at it.

For some, this was not entirely a bad thing.

The sky remained clear and calm, and they made good time and reached the site of the ancient stair by late afternoon.

They faced into a great bowl-shaped corrie, cut into the hillside by ice in ancient times when all this land had felt the breath of glaciers. Grass covered the lower slope of the corrie, but farther up there was nothing but bare rock.

The mouse and the bird escorted Ranard and the Clan Wizard Unoa to a certain expanse of bare rock. The mouse riding on Ranard's shoulder. The wren riding on Unoa's.

Unoa gave the commands for the ancient spell, and the golden outline of the door shimmered into view.

The men of the Fird gasped at the sight. All their lives they had lived with the memories of mighty magic from yesteryear, but never had they seen any of it, until now.

At another command, the rock opened inward silently, and after a moment's hesitation, they marched in.

Here they came to a halt. Ranard had neglected to tell Eads that though Clan Wattel had retained the secret of the stair and the spell required to open it, they had lost the secret spell that turned on the interior lamps. This spell had not been lost among the Great Witches of Cunfshon, however, and Ribela had communicated the details to Unoa. Now the clan wizard repeated the words, slightly nervous, but without a mistake. In a moment a glow began in the ceiling and soon dozens of lights erupted to brilliance all along the ceiling and down the walls.

Before them was stretched a sample of the ancient glories of Veronath. The sweep of white marble, the gleaming inlay of gold, and then above on all the ceilings were the panels of paintings, great sweeping paintings in a triumphalist style, protected by great magic from the ravages of time and thus still as fresh and bright and lively as the day they were completed, in the long-ago reign of Emperor Chalx the Great.

Ranard sighed inwardly at the beauty and sheer magnificence of all this. The Dark Stair was dark no more.

Overhead were paintings of the Seven Wonders of Veronath, including the Magic Cairn of Seagloss, the water gardens of Veron, the Tame Dragons of the Kings, wyverns like those who marched beneath the paintings.

Now their march became a fantastic descent on the great curving stair that wound down into the rock of the mountain's foothills. The ceilings were lit up and scenes from the history of Veronath went on, one after the other, as they marched downward.

On they went down the twenty-three turns of the stair until at last they emerged in the caverns of the river Eferni.

And there in the shadows, bobbing silently beside the docks, were the gondolas of Veronath.

In awe they stared at the enchanted fleet as it stirred under the spell saying of Unoa. One after the other, the swan-like boats glided up to the dock and accepted a heavy load of men and horses, and even a dragon apiece in the larger ones.

The boats were made of wood and should have fallen to pieces long ago except that they were maintained by a spell of such masterful, intricate magic, that it had held them together for a thousand years or more.

And now they slipped on under their own magical power down the secret river Eferni, through the very roots of Mt. Livol and into darkness. Beyond the darkness lay Dandelin, in Arneis.

Thrembode the Magician sat his horse on a hillock overlooking the river Alno just outside Cujac. On this side of the river Alno ran the north road to Rundel, to Bel Awl, and eventually to Aubinas and Marneri. On the far side was the east road, straight down the Alno to Fitou and eventually to Kadein.

Both roads were jammed with a constant-moving mass of war. Imps by the thousands in marching regiments under the dark banners of Axoxo. Trolls in great platoons of fifty at a time, marching with their axes on their shoulders; men on horseback, wagons by the thousand, a veritable avalanche of war making.

Thrembode felt a strong apprehension when he looked across the river. He had never studied war in any formal way. His path had always lain through the schools of magic, trickery, and the arts of deception. But he had absorbed the great military maxim that it was a bad idea to divide one's strength in the face of the enemy.

But this was the strategy commanded by Vapul, and Vapul got his orders directly from the Masters themselves. This was their plan.

As had been expected, the Argonathi resistance outside the town of Fitou had strengthened. A force of around thirty thousand legionaries had arrived quite suddenly two or three days earlier, delivered by skillfully handled river craft that brought them up in an endless stream of sails. Works and fortifications around Fitou had been built up quickly since then and now offered a formidable obstacle. It was also known that another legion and a half was about to join this force, ferrying up from Kadein. And that would put almost forty thousand legion troops in the field. With such a force and with a competent, bluff, direct general in command, which Felix of Brutz certainly was, one could take on the world.

Thrembode the Magician had seen what these legions could do. Just two of them had routed the huge but disorganized army of the Sephisti at Salpalangum. It was another military maxim that thirty thousand Argonath legionaries tipped with dragons were unbeatable, especially if they had adequate cavalry, and the force in Fitou had not only some legion cavalry squadrons, but thousands of horsemen who had come in from the countryside to the muster. These were the squires, the prosperous farmers of the bountiful lands of Arneis. Most had some legion experience, all were born in the saddle, and all knew this land, from Bel Awl to Fenx, like the back of their hands. They had made it hot for the Baguti cavalry. The Baguti had become somewhat timid, even nervous as a result, and the quality of their reports had suffered.

It was also a blow that General Felix had survived the assassination attempt made in Kadein at the beginning of the campaign. Yet survive it he clearly had. General Rastonel Felix was a hard man, an able, authoritarian commander with a long career in the frontier legions behind him. Thrembode feared what such a commander might do with seven or eight legions at his disposal.

So far, however, the Argonathi had remained on the defensive, and thus the gamble could be taken. Forty thousand imps, driving south on a broad front, with five thousand Baguti to screen them and create confusion, could likely fool the Argonathi into staying down there at Fitou for a day or two more.