Battledragon (39 page)

"Dragoneer Relkin, I feel I must speak frankly with you."

"Uh, yes, sir?"

"I expect you don't much like me. You resent me coming over from an infantry unit. You all think I don't know a thing about dragons. Think this fellow Wiliger must be a real showboater, big mouth, fancy uniform. I know, I know, I have made mistakes."

"Yes, sir." Relkin found it easy enough to agree with that.

"Yes, well, it's always difficult, don't you know, when you have a new officer and a new unit. It takes time for everyone to adjust."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Dragoneer Relkin, it's like this. I wanted the chance to work with the dragons. I had a career in the infantry. I've told you a few of the things that we got up to over there, but I thought I would be happier in the dragon force. Do you see? And since my father had the resources to make such a switch possible, I thought I had to try it. I thought, the fellows over there in the dragon force will probably resent me at first, but they're good fellows and they'll give me a chance, and if I can show them that I'm as good as they are, they'll accept me and it will all work out well."

Relkin was stunned. Of all things this was the least likely. Not after these last few months. His thoughts flew back to that terrible moment in the restaurant in Marneri.

"Unfortunately things went wrong somewhere along the way. It was a long voyage; we were all cooped up on the ship. Tempers fray, you know what I mean?"

"Yes, sir."

"So now, Dragoneer, we're going into battle soon and I want to start again with you. I want a new beginning. I think we should clear the decks and start again. What do you say?"

Relkin felt a dozen sharp retorts bubbling to the surface and gritted his teeth and did his best to smile.

"Whatever you want, sir."

If Wiliger wanted to be nice to them, rather than carrying on like some imp master, then Relkin would do his best to help it along.

This response encouraged Wiliger enormously; Relkin saw the man swell happily. His face went a light pink. Relkin shuddered; some new enormity was coming.

"I'm so glad you said that, Dragoneer. Good. You know, I've been thinking. We need a motto for the squadron. Now we have a mascot. Well, another thing we could have is a motto."

"A motto?"

"Yes, sort of thing we have in the infantry regiments. You know, the First Regiment, First Legion, they're called the "Do-or-Dies" because that's their motto."

Relkin nodded; the concept was familiar, but no one had ever suggested such a thing for the Fighting 109th.

"Well, yes, sir, I suppose."

"And, in fact, I've come up with what I think will be a perfect motto."

"Oh, yes, sir." It wasn't that he'd expected to be consulted, but Relkin still felt oppressed. Wiliger was still Wiliger.

"Yes, how do you like this: 'We'll do it. What is it?' "

Relkin stared at Wiliger for a long moment.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Good isn't it? Because the Fighting 109th has a reputation to uphold. We'll fight anyone, it doesn't matter who they are, or even what they are, right?"

Wiliger chuckled at his own wit. Relkin made the gritted teeth smile again.

"And if we run into any of the things you saw carved on the stone, then it'll fit just perfectly, don't you know."

Relkin nodded weakly, astounded by this turn of events. Still, the important thing was to get an amelioration of Wiliger's reign of terror. If he was going to be friendly, then Relkin would let him. What the others would say, he knew, would be harsh. Swane and Jak had really suffered the last two days. Snap inspections, endless pot scrubbing. Jak had even had to polish the studs on the dragon's shield until they shone like glass. And yet, when all was said and done, Wiliger was their commanding officer, they had to get on with him. Swane and Jak would have to swallow their pride, just like everyone else.

And there was some fighting in the not too distant future. Bound to be, that's what they'd come all this way for. The Lady virtually had said as much. They just couldn't say quite what it would be they'd be up against. Relkin wondered if it could be worse than the ogres they'd faced at the battle of Arneis.

Wiliger stopped chuckling at last, and after a nod and a smile went back to his own tent.

The weeks slid by effortlessly as warm, indolent days succeeded one another. The vast fleet of rafts floated down the enormous river, rigged square sails whenever a favorable wind blew, and made steady progress. Food supplies were good, if simple, and were daily supplemented by hunting and gathering in the forests. General Baxander and his staff were pleasantly amazed at their success. They had brought an expedition of unwieldy components, more than twenty thousand strong, halfway across a continent barely known to exploration. Sometimes, when he contemplated the maps and saw how far they had come, Baxander felt a flush of pride. Then, inevitably, would come a cold douche of fear when he recalled that his whole army was now effectively beyond the world, lost in the heart of the dark continent. There would be no support, no help whatsoever from here on. Everything would be up to them, alone. And if he made mistakes, it was likely that not a man, not even a dragon, would ever get back over the Ramparts of the Sun, let alone see the coast again. The white fleet would go home empty, and the expedition would go down in history as the greatest disaster of all time. The responsibility made for sleepless nights no matter how tranquil their voyage on the upper river was.

On the rafts carrying the 109th Marneri, Dragon Leader Wiliger continued to be unusually amiable. There were inspections, but instead of handing out days of pot scrubbing for the slightest, tiniest thing, he merely remonstrated with the offender for having a hair out of place, or a speck of dust on some metal that otherwise gleamed like glass.

Wiliger had taken to appearing suddenly to involve one or more dragonboys in little heart-to-heart conversations. During these he radiated goodwill like a lamp. He particularly seemed fond of Swane and Endi. This behavior left the boys puzzled, but still pleased at the relative relaxation of the former reign of terror. The dragons noticed the new mood, of course, and became quite kindly toward the dragon leader, who previously they had regarded as a witless pest.

But while the dragon leader had changed from stormy to sunny, the character of the jungle, past which they floated day after day, had slowly turned in the opposite direction. Slowly things changed until at last they noticed that they had entered another world.

They had left the hills far behind now, and the trees had grown steadily taller. They were of different types from before, and there was a progressive absence of fruit trees among them. Monkeys could no longer be heard in the forest, and the cast of birds had changed, too. They were much fewer in number and far less visible. During the day, a brooding silence seemed to settle over the landscape. At night, they occasionally heard strange raucous cries like none they had ever heard before.

Late one day, close to the fall of night, several men in the advance guard reported seeing an enormous creature swimming in the river, or possibly walking along the bottom. For when it climbed out and disappeared among the trees, it was revealed to have legs like the pillars of a temple. These men were in a scout boat well ahead of the main fleet that evening, and they claimed that the beast was many times the size of a battledragon. As big as a whale, they said.

Their report electrified a fleet that had already been aroused by the stories told by the dragonboys from Marneri concerning the carvings in the ruined arena and the giant terror birds. However, there had been no further sightings of such birds or any other large animals. Indeed, in recent days there had been very little game brought in at all. Fortunately the daytime fishing had improved markedly in the last week, but the forests had become strangely quiet.

The scouts' description of what they had seen fit no known animal, and it triggered intense speculation, and some apprehension. That same evening, a flight of very odd-looking birds had been seen passing high over the river. They were like little triangles of pink and brown, caught by the sun's last rays. Those who knew their birds remarked that they had never seen birds with such a shape.

The men of the legions shrugged and spat. That night they hunched a little closer around the cook fires. Only a few of the most determined hunters bothered to go out in the forest. They brought back very little, too, only a huge tortoise and some oversize possums. The possums made good eating, roasted over the fire, and the cooks turned the enormous tortoise into a wonderful soup, which caused much comment around the fires.

Some Kassimi hunters reported finding the tracks of an enormous animal, and a pile of dung taller than a man. This, too, became the focus for much speculation and a lot of jokes.

Several days went past with nothing more seen but crocodiles, ever-present crocodiles, and fish. The land seemed devoid of life, although at night things shrieked and gibbered in the ancient woods. And yet these night calls were fewer and much farther between than had been the case in the upland forests.

Then one day a beast, something like a small dragon in shape, sprang from concealment and attacked two Kassimi foot soldiers who were out hunting. The surprise was so complete that it was on them before they could react. It threw one man down and disemboweled him with a slicing blow from one of the giant claws it bore on its hind legs. The other man fled after wounding the animal slightly with his sword. He returned to the campfires, and a body of men with cavalry support went out immediately.

They found the creature eating the fallen Kassimi and drove it to flight with their lances. It sprang away at a good pace, and the horsemen had to gallop to keep up with it while they dispatched it with spear and lance. It proved hard to kill. Even after it had been brought down and some men had dismounted to finish it off with the sword, it managed to thrash around on the ground and bite a man on the leg.

When they dragged in the thing's corpse, it caused a sensation in the camp.

The dragons came ashore, squad after squad, to look. They were particularly disturbed, for this killer beast was definitely of their kind. It had the scaled skin, the dragon eyes, talons, and long tail. It also had a wickedly flattened head and a tiny brain.

Each dragon in turn prodded the remains. Only the Purple Green suggested eating it. Most were silent afterward, troubled on some interior level. They shrugged off questions from dragonboys and ate sparingly. That night they scanned the sky for the dragon stars, but they were late to rise and low in the sky.

Men who saw the dead brute took away an indelible image of the large jaws filled with flesh-ripping teeth, the enormous leg muscles in the thigh, and ultimately of the eight-inch killing claw that tipped the second toe on each hind foot.

The witches examined the corpse carefully during a dissection carried out by the surgeons, and conferred with General Baxander. Afterward, word came down to all ranks. From here on they would all have to exercise great caution. Going ashore would become too dangerous. Large and aggressive animals might be encountered. The legends told of the striding killer beasts, monsters larger than dragons that ate men in a single bite.

They had, at last, entered the legendary Lands of Terror. They all felt the difference. As to what it all meant and what the future held for them, that was a question they deferred to their favorite deity. For the Argonathi and the Cunfshoni, it was the Great Mother; for the Czardhans and Kassimi, it was the Lord Protector, God of the Ancient Fire; for the Bakanites, it was any one of a thousand gods, all part of their complex pantheon. But to all of these deities, the men offered up the short prayers typical of soldiers and with them the hope that they might be protected from whatever ill might come their way.

Maps of this area were vague. It had hardly been explored. All that was really certain was that the river they rode would eventually deposit them in the southern part of the great Inland Sea.

To those with the maps to look at, the strategy seemed brilliant. By going through these strange jungles, they were making a hook around the lands of the Kraheen. When they reached the coast, they would turn north and within a few weeks they would be in the heartlands of the enemy. This route to the Inland Sea was empty of human beings. The Kraheen, like all the peoples of Eigo, shunned this ancient forest. Nothing would induce them to enter. Thus, the only danger was from the terrible animals that dwelled in the deep thickets. With eighty dragons on hand, they could be sure of driving off such animals.

And so they would arrive on the field against the Kraheen ready to give battle. Baxander's army was like a huge dagger hurled at their Great Enemy by the Empire of the Rose.

Of course that enemy knew they were coming. Every night they heard the distant screams of the batrukhs flying high above, monitoring their progress. The enemy knew what they had planned to do. He would be compelled to face an army built around Argonathi legions, with dragons and cavalry and all the formidable skills of engineers and provisioners that the Empire of the Rose was famous for. And he would have only the armies of the Kraheen with which to do it. These armies fought with fanatic determination, but they were disorganized and only lightly armed, good enough to defeat the tribal hosts of Eigo, but not to stand on the battlefield against such as the legions, or even the heavy cavalry of the Czardhan knights. In the enemy's favor was the fact that he would have time to prepare the ground, to build defense lines, and to set his tactics. Yet, in the end, he would still have to face them in line of battle and in such a clash the legions could not be beaten.

"Hektor's Formation" was the watchword on the rafts and there was much loose talk about the Battle of Salpalangum. There, a bare ten thousand legionaries had defeated an army ten times their number. In a mobile square, the legions, supported by the cavalry and mixed arms of the allies, could survive envelopment and cut through the heart of any enemy host.