Battledragon (4 page)

Relkin's eyebrows shot up. Weeve smiled and put a forefinger to the side of his nose, then took up a couple of mugs of strong ale and went back to his friend Givens.

Relkin sat there rocked with surprise. Tropical kit? Then they wouldn't be going to Axoxo after all.

Unless Weeve was wrong about this. Rumors were always just rumors until you had the orders, one of the earliest lessons of the military life. Relkin was still determined to get those second liners for the freecoats. He could always cache them here in the Dragon House if they weren't needed, but if they were going to Axoxo then he would really want one. That would be a long, cold march from the western bank of the great river to the White Bones Mountains and all the way would be over the flat steppe of the Gan. The winter winds coming down from the north would be bitter.

Relkin found he'd finished his slight ale. He looked at his glass for a moment and fought off the temptation to indulge in a strong one. Instead he had another slight ale. There was still a bit of work to be done on the kit, including sewing by candlelight. One thing he didn't want was to be caught out by the new dragon leader. Relkin had had such a hard time with Dragon Leader Turrent at first. Turrent had really borne down on him hard, from jealousy, or so it had seemed. He didn't want to go through that again.

He sipped the slight ale and settled back on the wooden settle by the bar. The settle was two-sided, and behind him some sailors were loud in conversation. They talked of the marvels each had seen on the faraway coast of Bakan. He heard about floating cities, dreamstones, and a battle between magicians in which pink bubbles contended in the air with blue clouds.

Their talk was wide and general, and quite took him out of himself. A bell rang for the third hour before midnight, and' Relkin shook himself free from a reverie in which he and Eilsa Ranardaughter floated away on their own sea schooner.

Outside he found a cold wind blowing down Tower Hill. He pulled over the breast flap on his freecoat and buttoned it down. There were patches of ice here and there on the pavements. To avoid one of these he almost bumped into another swift-moving figure, at the corner of Broad Street, under the Candle Maker's Lantern.

With a cry of recognition, the two embraced and clapped each other on the back.

"By the breath, young Relkin. I didn't know you were back in the city," said Captain Hollein Kesepton.

"We transferred today. Believe you me, we'd been looking forward to it, too. We've had a long wintermonth up at Dashwood. Cut a lot of wood."

"Worked up an appetite, too, I expect. You'll be asked to the Tarchos' tomorrow. There'll be quite a feast."

"I look forward to it, sir. And how is the Lady Lagdalen, and the child?"

"Well, well, absolutely blushingly blooming, and Laminna has several new words. You'll find her changed."

"I expect so, sir."

Hollein walked beside him, and they mounted the hill at a good clip. Any effect from the slight ale was passing quickly. Relkin raised the rumor he'd heard from Weeve. Hollein downplayed the rumor, but Relkin had the thought that Hollein's disregard rang a little false. No one had to tell Relkin something important twice. They don't want the dragonboys talking about this, he thought. And for sure, Captain Kesepton said as much when he finished the subject.

"I have heard that something unusual is happening, but it is a delicate operation and there is a great deal of secrecy attached. It would be best if this rumor wasn't made too much of in the Dragon House, do you see?"

Relkin nodded. "I see."

Kesepton switched tacks.

"I was sorry to hear that they didn't give you the step to dragoneer. A wretched business if you ask me."

"We'll not make it hard for him sir, sir, I can assure you of that."

"Mmm, well, you'll have to keep a check on some of your fellows, that Swane of Revenant for instance. He's a hothead if ever there was one."

"Oh, we've learned a few tricks for cooling old Swane down."

"A wretched business, and you will have to make the best of it. Of course, if he's absolutely hopeless, then everyone will soon know and there'll be a change ordered. I've heard that he's brave enough. He led a crazy charge that recovered a key position in the battle of Cudburn's Shoals. They said he was braver than a lion that day."

"Oh, I don't doubt his courage." Relkin thought back to Wiliger's appearance at Dashwood. To show up like that, with his lady friends and presume to inspect the 109th Dragons took courage of a sort.

"No, it ain't courage we worry about, sir, it's his judgment. He's never served with dragons in his life."

"By the breath," muttered Kesepton, his face darkening.

They parted outside the Tower of Guard, Hollein to climb to the great apartment of the Tarchos where he lived with Lagdalen and their child, while Relkin went to his right through the Dragon Gate and down the steps to the Dragon House.

As he came in he started to trot; he was late and the last boil had already been dished out. The cooks were already cleaning their equipment and stacking things ready for the next boil. The fires were damped down for the night.

Back at the stall he found Bazil finishing up a bowl of stir about.

"Ah, damn boy back at last. This porridge no good, not enough akh."

"I'm sorry, I met Captain Kesepton on the street and we chatted too long."

"Bah, you never a good liar. This dragon can smell beer on your breath."

You couldn't fool a wyvern's nose, that was for sure. Relkin attended to the kit. Some studs on the joboquin had begun to strain during the last practice bout and needed attention. The joboquin was the essential heart of the dragon's armoring system. It was a sleeveless jacket of leather strips, each equipped with buckles, studs, and eyeholes that could secure the other pieces of a battledragon's kit, including his armor plate, his scabbard, his cloak, and the pack he wore on a route march.

There was something on the dragon's mind. He set down the bowl, having scraped it clean, licked his spoon, and drained the last of a bucket of ale. But instead of lying down as usual for a nice long sleep, he remained hunched over in a corner, idly scratching his sides and the back of his thick neck.

"What is it?" said Relkin.

Bazil's eyes popped. Why did dragonboys always know when dragons need something. It was uncanny to dragons.

"Look, you can't hide it, I know there's something or else you'd be down and snoring."

"By the fiery breath…" he began. "I need to get a particular kind of fish, a large one. I need to have this fish roasted."

"What kind of fish?"

"What we call a sternfish. You know this?"

"Sure, and they have a deadly reputation. The shark that swims behind a ship near shore."

"They will eat anything it is said, but they also make good eating themselves if they are roasted properly." •

"It will be expensive."

"We have plenty of silver in our savings account. I do not ask for this thing lightly."

"Yeah, I know."

Relkin understood. It was the ongoing rivalry between Bazil and the Purple Green. Ever since they'd been stationed in Marneri, the Purple Green had been riding Bazil about the so-called tastelessness of fish and other seafoods. In Marneri the dragons ate fish twice a week and shellfish as well in soups and chowders.

"All right, I'll check the fish market tomorrow. See what I can find."

"That would be good." The dragon settled his two and a quarter tons out on the pile of fresh straw that took up two thirds of the stall.

Manuel stuck his head in. Bazil began to snore, his huge belly rising and falling in perfect cadence.

"Dragons are down," said Manuel.

"Thanks for stepping in, I was, uh, talking to Captain Kesepton."

Manuel's face wrinkled in disbelief.

"No, really, I was." The disbelief didn't disappear. "Well, you're right, I was down at the Blue Bear earlier."

"Yeah. Well, there's still no sign of the Dragon Leader Wiliger."

"Thank the gods for that."

"You and your gods. Thank the Mother and be done with it"

"Not after Sprian's Ridge. Old Caymo rolled the dice for us that day."

"That's not what you were saying when we were there."

"Well, in hindsight it seems clear enough."

Even as he said this Relkin knew he didn't believe it.

"She'll despair of you, Relkin, before your time."

"I think she already has."

"I keep hoping that someone will intervene to stop what's happening. Before he gets here."

"I told you what Toup said. 'Nothing to be done about it.' Have to face it, we're stuck with him for a while. Captain Kesepton said that if he were to show himself as being positively harmful, then he'd be relieved."

"I'm more afraid that he'll turn out to be just minimally competent, and we'll be stuck with him until there's an emergency."

"Who knows, he may turn out better than we think. The captain said he was conspicuously brave in a fight at Cudburn's Shoals during the invasion."

With this crumb of consolation they had to be content. Manuel went on to his own stall and a list of small tasks to complete while his dragon, the Purple Green of Hook Mountain, the only wild dragon to ever serve in the legions of Argonath, snored his thunderous snore.

Relkin returned to reinforcing the threading on the affected studs and brooded the while on the new dragon leader. Life under old Dragon Leader Turrent had been hard enough, but this could be ten times worse.

When he'd finished the studs, he slipped out and took a final turn about the Dragon House to be sure that all was well. Everyone was asleep. He doused the big lamp in the center of the hall and took himself to his own bunk.

They awoke to a day of sullen gray skies, a cold northerly wind,
¹
and a distinct threat of more snow.

The central fire in the Dragon House was blazing when Relkin went down for hot kalut and a bucket of water. A quick check showed no sign of Dragon Leader Wiliger nor any message from him. That meant that Relkin was still in command, and he took the opportunity to urge everyone to make sure their kit was complete and all metal cleaned and polished. They didn't want the new dragon leader thinking they were a slipshod outfit. The responses varied from mildly surly to insolent, but everyone acknowledged the point. Of course, they had already polished every single scrap of brass and steel and checked and rechecked every item on the long list of things that every dragon and dragonboy ought to have, but they accepted mat this was a time to make double sure.

The breakfast boil was announced by the bell, and dragonboys moved to fetch immense cauldrons of oatmeal stirred with butter and salt. They returned for loaves of fresh bread and bacon, which was given the dragons every other day while they were in the city of Marneri and which they ate with relish, whole sides at a time, slab roasted on a medium hot fire.

After breakfast Relkin received an invitation to dine that very day with the Tarcho clan. Lagdalen insisted that he come. Relkin had no reason not to, and he deputed Manuel to stand in for him during the evening hour. Bazil would have been invited, too, but the Tower of Guard was not designed to allow ingress by dragons. Their friend Lagdalen of the Tarcho promised to come and visit him very shortly, however.

Relkin worked swiftly through the morning. He checked all the brass fitments and gave them a last-minute buffing.

Then the steel, starting with scabbards and going on to blades and morningstars. He forced the dragon to sit still for half an hour while all his talons were filed once more and burnished to a deep glow. All the dragons were being exhorted not to do anything boisterous for the rest of the day. There were to be no scratches, let alone chips or cracks, in those talons today. At length he finished and let the dragon retire to the plunge pool.

Relkin went out in the forenoon and trod quickly down to the dockside through a chill wind. He noted that the
Barley
had been joined by another white ship, only a little smaller than the
Barley
itself. Scattered flakes of snow were whipping along in the wind. Two white ships could carry a full legion, without horses, and with everyone crammed in tight. Relkin turned over the rumors in his mind. Whatever else was true, there was clearly a voyage of some kind in the offing. They'd have to work hard on the ocean discipline with the wyverns. It would be best if the dragons were kept belowdecks as much as possible on a sea voyage. The smell of the sea brought on ancestral longings, and there was always the danger they would go feral.

At the dockside he turned right and made his way around to Fish Place, a broad stretch of cobbles along the wharves where the city's fishing fleet docked. Facing the boats stood a row of solid three- and four-story buildings, dominated by an even larger one in their midst that had a large front gate with the doors propped open. He dodged through this gaping entrance and was enveloped in the odors of the fish market.

Sweating dockworkers were moving huge slabs of ice on which reposed mounds of fish—cod from the Cunfshon banks, tunny and swordfish from the Bright Sea. A halibut large enough to have swallowed a dragonboy was wheeled past on another ice block.

With a roaring clatter, a train of dollies bearing tubs of salted herring was thrust past by a team of burly lads. Relkin caught sight of their red faces, heard their cheerful banter, including a few insults tossed his way that he ignored completely, and he wondered briefly what it must be like to be one of them. To live here in the city as a civilian, to grow up here with a mother and a father and a firm place in life. It was so unlike his own existence that it actually had a romantic tinge to it.

He inquired at the stalls along the sides of the market, but sternfish were rare these days in the Long Sound. No one much fished for them anyway, and they were rarely brought in for sale.

"No demand for that," he was told on more than one occasion.

"Ol' mansnapper? No, son, we don't carry that. Too strong a flavor. No one likes that."