Battledragon (5 page)

After trying with a few fishing skippers and finding no chance of a sternfish, he left and returned up the hill to the Dragon House. The snow was thickening steadily now, and the wind seemed even colder.

At Kinch he reported his failure to the dragon. There was an ominous lack of response. Relkin realized he had a very sulky dragon on his hands.

The dragons were to exercise after lunch, and this day they were watched over by anxious dragonboys alert to the slightest chip on a nail as they went through their routines with dragonsword and shield, crushing the big dummy trolls and cutting deep into the softened wood butts.

When exercise was done and joboquins, swords, and shields had been retrieved from the dragons, and the great beasts had taken themselves back to the plunge pool with much grumbling, the dragonboys dispersed on their own errands.

Relkin dug into his chest and put on his best blue breeches, his special occasion boots, and his formal dragoneer jacket. On the right jacket breast, he wore three rows of honor ribbons that represented the actual medals themselves. Four" white ribbons for his silver Campaign Stars, five scarlet ones for his Battle Stars, plus four special honors including a white-and-green one for the Legion Medal of Honor and a golden square with a black circle for the Legion Star, the highest honor the legion could bestow. The medals themselves reposed in his safe chest, deposited with the quartermaster of the Dragon House.

On his head went his Marneri cap, blue with a red outline thread, and at his waist he wore his best dirk and scabbard,, already polished to a frightening degree.

Then he set off for the Tower of Guard. Leaving the ground floor, which was open to the public, he showed his invitation to the guards and was allowed through. He climbed to the Tarcho apartments and was admitted through the wide double doors into the gracious hallway of white plaster walls and red tile floor. He passed the line of ancestor portraits, at least twenty in that one room, and met Lagdalen at the door to the receiving salon.

They embraced as if they were brother and sister, and in a way they were. They had served together in the legendary campaign to Tummuz Orgmeen. At one point they had been alone, lost in the darkness beneath the dread city, all their companions taken or dead and with no company except a dying witch.

Lagdalen patted his chest with her fist.

"You are grown to be a man, Relkin of Quosh."

"And you are the mother of the most beautiful child in all Marneri, Lagdalen Dragonfriend."

"Hush, she will hear you praise her and awake, and we have only just gotten her down. At the age of two and a half our Laminna has become quite imperial in her demands. We are kept busy satisfying her, believe me."

Captain Kesepton came by and waved away Relkin's salute. "Within these walls we can dispense with the salute, my friend. Come, you must meet the company."

Lagdalen introduced him to her father, Tommaso, and her mother, Lacustra. They both inquired after the health and well-being of the broketail dragon.

"Verily do I wish that he could be here," said Tommaso. "I pray that we will be able to entertain him in the summer months and receive him in person at our house in Gatchby."

There was little chance of that, thought Relkin, if they were all to be shipped off somewhere, but he smiled and replied as politely as possible.

"I know that he would be honored to attend. But he would be very hungry. You know what that could mean."

Tommaso laughed. He had served in the tower for more than twenty years, but once he had fought in Kenor with the legions and he knew how hungry a dragon could become.

"You had better listen to him, Mother, I don't think you've ever served dinner to a wyvern. Why just one of them could eat this entire banquet!"

"Tush!" she replied, "we could afford to feed one dragon whatever he wanted." She peered at Relkin for a moment. "And this young man looks famished. I don't think they feed you enough in the legion."

Relkin, Hollein Kesepton, and Tommaso roared at this, knowing as they did that the legions ate enormous meals, albeit of basic foodstuffs.

Relkin was led in and introduced to a couple of uncles, to Lagdalen's younger brother, Rozerto, a beaming fifteen-year-old with a well-fed look, and to Aunt Solomia and a train of other ladies of mother Lacustra's circle.

There was a long table, and Relkin was seated at the end on the right, beside Tommaso, with Hollein Kesepton beside him, Uncle Iapetor opposite, and young Rozerto beside him. A course of heggeli cheese with wafers and limes was served, and they drank to the emperor's health with glasses of white wine from Kadein. Then came a plate of oysters, and then roast ptarmigan, served with a light red wine from Minuend. Relkin surreptitiously let out his belt a notch. In truth, this was a rare feast for a dragonboy who usually had noodles and vegetables for his dinner.

"Another great ship in the harbor, Uncle?" said Rozerto.

"Aye, nephew, it is
Oat
, and a lovely sight she is. I served on her myself, when she was very new."

Uncle Iapetor had been a sailor all his working life and had retired after six years as captain of the white ship
Hoptree
, a vessel of one thousand tons with a crew of one hundred and fifty.

There was considerable speculation at the table about the mission of
Barley
and
Oat
. The most popular notion was that the ships were to sail for Kadein via the cities of Bea, Pennar, and Ryotwa, and that they would pick up men and dragons in each and deliver a large force, perhaps two legions, at Kadein. This force would then proceed to Axoxo and form the core of a massive assault planned for the summer that would end the long siege.

Relkin noticed that Hollein Kesepton did not contribute to this conversation with much more than a smile and a nod. He found himself thinking about tropical kit. Following the expedition to Ourdh a few years back, the legion commissary had evolved a lightweight suit of clothing to replace the wools normally worn in Kenor. Relkin had had a set of this kit, including a special lightweight cape for the dragon made of a wonderful linen from the Isles of Cunfshon. Somewhere along the line, however, most of it had disappeared. A lot had been lost during the year of the invasion and the battle at Sprian's Ridge. Dragon Leader Turrent had never inspected the tropical kit, and it had not been replaced.

The ptarmigans were followed by the first of the major courses, a great, steaming calf pie, four inches thick and four feet across.

Young Rozerto had grown bolder by degrees as he drank his second cup of wine and water. He began to ply Relkin with questions about the Dragon Corps. He was most interested in warfare, it appeared, which he identified as the most exciting and honorable pursuit for a man. What was it like to fight in battle alongside the wyverns, he wanted to know.

Relkin replied that dragonboys fought from just behind their dragons and that often one's main concern was to keep one's head down when the dragonsword was flying. The usual death for a dragonboy was, in fact, being crushed by the dragon or decapitated by the dragonsword.

The boy was awed. He kept glancing furtively at the three rows of ribbons on Relkin's jacket.

"How did you win so many honors?" he said at last, unable to restrain himself.

Relkin looked up, his mouth full of the calf pie.

Rozerto's question, while somewhat impolite, had drawn the interest of Uncle Iapetor, even while Tommaso frowned at his youngest for asking such a question of an honored guest.

Relkin swallowed the calf pie, took a sip of the fine Spriani wine. Iapetor and his neighbors on his left were looking at him expectantly. Some sort of response was called for.

"I've served in the legion for four years. It just so happened that there was a lot of work for us to do."

"Work? You mean campaigns," said Rozerto. "All those silver ribbons are for campaigns. I know that much. And the red ones are for battles." Rozerto turned to his father, "Papa, it is too exciting. I want to join the legions and go to war."

Relkin saw the glow in the boy's eyes. The naivete of it sent a chill through him. He spoke sharply in a cold voice.

"You might not enjoy the excitement, though. War isn't about glory. It's about killing and being killed. It's not something you ever enjoy."

He sounded more severe perhaps than he meant to be. It was just that he had lost so many young friends in battles both large and small. Youths not much older than Rozerto.

Rozerto's face had fallen.

"But school is so boring. I want to run away to sea or else become a dragonboy."

Relkin actually had wistful feelings when he thought of the concept of "school." He'd only had a couple of years in the village school of Quosh, and he'd always regretted his lack of education.

Everyone else was laughing, however. Poor Rozerto flushed.

"'Tis only orphan boys that are accepted in the Dragon Corps, young Rozerto," said Uncle Iapetor, attempting to be kind.

Kesepton corrected him.

"Actually other boys can join, but they have to go through the training at the academy. The classes have been expanded lately; there is a greater need than ever for dragonboys."

Tommaso smiled, but his eyes were uneasy. After the troubles he'd endured with his daughter, Lagdalen, he worried about his son.

"We will talk of this another time, Rozerto. You have a place reserved for you in the Officer Training School. We expect you to try for the First Regiment, to follow in my footsteps."

Rozerto looked downcast. "I know, Papa."

The talk shifted away for a moment to a discussion of the remarkable red wine they were drinking.

"It's a Spriani from the year of the great battle," said Tommaso.

"From a lucky vineyard, so many were destroyed that day."

"They had dragons treading in the grapes," said Iapetor.

'They had trolls and ogres, too. The painting of the battle in the auction house is most explicit," said one of the men to Relkin's left.

"You were at Sprian's Ridge, I believe, Dragoneer."

Relkin acknowledged the truth of this.

"You will allow us to drink to your health, then." They stood and raised their glasses.

Relkin kept a fixed smile on his face, although he was self-conscious, even embarrassed by this attention. He tried not to remember that day, which he thought could only be glorious to those who hadn't been there. It'd been a slaughterhouse with the dead stacked chest-deep. He would never forget the smell of blood, nor the dark red eyes of the enormous ogres.

He was rescued by mother Lacustra's demand that he come and sit beside her and Lagdalen for the next course or so. He was the guest of the entire family and not just a pack of men sitting at one end of the table.

Relkin moved to a place that was opened up for him in time for a great slice of gamecock pie served with roasted leeks. He was beginning to feel full, but he knew there were several further courses to come.

Now, surrounded by the matrons of the family, he endured another inquisition, this time chiefly concerning his marital status and what he intended to do about it. He explained carefully that he was affianced to Eilsa Ranardaughter of the Clan Wattel and that he had another five and a half years to serve in die legion before he could wed.

This occasioned a round of condemnation of the legion for making young men serve such a long time without marriage. At the same time, there were many whispered asides among the ladies. The name of Wattel was little known in the lands of the coastal cities.

There were many other inquiries about himself and his dragon, and he was kept busy so that it took a while to finish the gamecock pie. At once a great serving of roast venison was put before him, garnished with roasted turnips and caramelized onions.

The venison, he was told again and again, had been slain by Uncle Iapetor himself, a fine buck taken with staghounds and spear in the forest of Rogollo. Iapetor rose and toasted the stag and sang the hunter's song. He had a fine, clear tenor, and the table broke into determined applause when he'd finished and sat down.

Relkin struggled manfully with the venison, although by now he felt quite gorged. Nor was it possible to let out his belt, not with all these eyes upon him.

He ate on while Lagdalen tried to correct an aged aunt's impression that Lagdalen had been a dragonboy herself at some point in her life. Relkin chewed and swallowed. The venison seemed endless. Lagdalen's efforts, however, brought the threat of giggles to his lips.

At length he finished; not a scrap of venison or even leek remained. His plate was instantly snatched up.

No sooner was it behind him than the first of the desserts was brought in, a glistening cake five feet high, capped with a green dragon fashioned in marzipan.

Somehow he managed to devour it; in truth, it was remarkably light and tasty. Lagdalen shot him a look of sympathy.

"I'm stuffed," she whispered. "I bet you are, too."

He fended off more inquiries about his fiance from some of the more nosy ladies of the tower, and then was allowed to make his excuses and return to Tommaso's end of the table in time for the second dessert, a heavy, jellified trifle.

With a ghastly smile, he contemplated a large plate of this confection. A glass of sweet wine was set at his elbow.

The talk now switched into the dangerous channel of the state of the legions and bought commissions. This last, despite Hollein Kesepton's efforts to head it off.

Relkin labored through the trifle. Really, he could not manage another mouthful, and felt as if he might burst.

Uncle Iapetor thought bought commissions were all right, but that the prices should be raised considerably. Tommaso thought the whole thing was damnable.

Relkin was finally asked his opinion. He chewed, swallowed, looked around desperately for a moment.

"Well, the thing that we don't understand, is why it's allowed in the first place. You take units that are highly trained and motivated, and you give them to the command of men who have no training and perhaps no understanding of the training."