Dragon (Vlad Taltos) (20 page)

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Authors: Steven Brust

BOOK: Dragon (Vlad Taltos)
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“And they could probably bring a spear phalanx against us.”
“Hmmm. Matters,” said Napper.
“What,” I asked, “is a spear phalanx?”
“A unit specially designed to wipe out units like us.”
“Oh.”
“Think of a solid wall of very big shields with ranks of spears sticking out of them, and those in back, who aren’t even in danger, pushing the ones in front at you.”
“I see. Well, no I don’t, but I’m convinced I don’t want to.”
“I’ve been through one of those,” said Virt. “I didn’t much care for it. I probably wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t had help.”
“What sort of help?”
“They don’t like getting hit from the flank while they’re engaged in front. The especially don’t like it when it’s heavy cavalry.”
“Do we have heavy cavalry?”
“Probably. I’d still rather skip that fight.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “I won’t order it.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Which reminds me. That business last night.”
“What about it?”
“Are you—”
I was saved from having to evade another question by the juice-drum, which told us to form our line again.
“Here they come again,” said Rascha.
“Bugger,” I said.
Napper stood and bounded back to the earthworks, his eyes shining.
“More mounted infantry,” said Rascha. “Ready javelins.”
You don’t need to hear about the second assault, or the third. We survived, and more died. Virt picked up a gouge on her left leg that didn’t amount to much, and I got a bruise on my forehead that knocked me down and would probably have been fatal if I hadn’t been rushing my opponent; she caught me perfectly, but it was the flat of the blade. Things got hazy for a bit, and I don’t know what became of her, but then it was over, and, while we were awaiting the fourth assault we got word to retreat. Napper didn’t like it, but I was delighted.
Rascha came by and gave me a new cap, since I’d lost mine in the last assault, and Virt, limping along next to me, said that the bandage around my forehead made me look like a real warrior. I made scatological culinary recommendations.
“Loiosh, I just want you to know, for the sake of my familiar having complete information, that my feet hurt.”
“I think you’re cheating, Boss. Everyone else has to either carry on without complaint or be known as a complainer. You get to complain without anyone knowing it.”
“Because I had the foresight to show up with a ready-made listener to complaints.”
“That’s a new job for me. Do I get a raise?”
“Sure, Loiosh. Your salary just doubled.”
“Heh.”
We didn’t start the march until fairly late in the day, so we stopped blessedly early, posted the extra pickets, and settled in to a hasty but well-organized camp. I suppose the art of setting up camp has a whole lot of theory behind it, too. Maybe that was what Crown was so good at; I don’t know.
I had the second picket duty, which gave me the dubious pleasure of sleeping a little less than four hours, standing guard for four, and then sleeping another hour and a half before having to get up. We weren’t attacked during the night, which I wondered at. In fact, I wondered why we never launched attacks during the night. I wondered if it was some sort of agreement among Dragons, the way the Jhereg won’t have you assassinated in your own home or in front of your family.
Turned out I was wrong, it was all a matter of generalship and the art of war, about which I know nothing now and at the time knew even less. You see, I somewhere got the idea that good generalship would have a lot in common with running the organization and that there would be a great deal of similarity between battle tactics and, say, planning an assassination. I found out later that I was wrong. Oh, in very general terms, sure there are some similarities, but not in any useful way. I was speaking with Sethra Lavode about the Wall of Baritt’s Tomb and the campaign leading up to it. I said, “You have this reputation, you know. I mean, as being a great general. You were Warlord I don’t know how many times, and—”
“What about it?”
I had to cast about for words. It’s hard to tell the most powerful sorcerer and perhaps greatest general in history that you weren’t impressed with how she did her job. She might take it wrong. After mumbling a bit, I finally said, “I don’t know. It’s just that the whole time I was marching and waiting and sneaking around and fighting and marching again I kept waiting for you to make some brilliant maneuver, or some great stroke, or pull some trick, or something.”
“How many tricks do you use in your work?”
“Huh? I’ll use a trick any time I think I can get away with it.”
“So will I,” said Sethra Lavode.
“But you usually don’t?”
“Tricks, feints, sneak attacks, night attacks, they all work better if they’re on a smaller scale. A unit, maybe a company, that’s
about it. Once you have anything larger, the chances for miscommunication and mistake become too great. And there’s always more of a chance for error on attack than defending even in the most simple operations, so if you add something tricky it gets much worse. That’s one reason I prefer to defend whenever possible.”
“So that’s why we kept holding positions and then retreating after we’d won?”
“Those skirmishes you’re talking about—”
“Skirmishes?”
“All right, Vlad. Those battles, then, that you won, you couldn’t have actually won if you had remained. Fornia wouldn’t have attacked if he hadn’t been pretty sure he could overrun those positions eventually. We had to keep drawing him after us.”
“Well, I suppose that counts as a trick, then.”
“Maybe. Except, of course, that he knew very well what I was doing.”
“Then why did he do what we wanted?”
“Because it was what he wanted, too. He wanted to try to get past our advance positions so he could divide our forces, which would have put me in a very uncomfortable position. It was a race, if you like. I needed to hold him off long enough for all of our forces to be in position; he needed to break through and separate us so we couldn’t combine. And then, of course, the big, decisive engagement. However much planning you do, you don’t really know until the armies meet and have it out. Even if your position looks perfect on paper, or even if it looks utterly untenable, you don’t know until someone calls for an attack and the fight happens.”
“Okay,” I said. I tried to phrase my next question, then gave up just as she figured it out.
“The reason,” she said, “that I have been successful is that I pay attention to details. The fewer details you miss, the greater your chances of winning.”
“Well,” I said. “That much is rather like assassination. Or so I’ve heard.”
“I don’t doubt it. It means keeping open lines of retreat and communications, and always knowing how you’re going to feed and water the troops, and where they’ll be camping, and what sort of ground they’ll be crossing at every point, and the nature of your officers and where their strengths and weaknesses are, and how much dependence to place on which intelligence reports, and how far to push a particular victory, and how to salvage as much as possible from a given defeat, and so on and on and on. The details—the little things that lead to your peace, instead of the enemy’s.”
“Lead to peace?”
“Peace is the goal of war. Didn’t you know that?”
“Uh …”
“Come, Vlad. Until there is peace, you haven’t won. That is, you haven’t accomplished your goals. On the other hand, it is worth remembering that, until there is peace, you also haven’t lost.”
“I guess I hadn’t looked at it that way.”
“You have never had to.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“The other reason I’ve been successful, I think, is that I’m very aggressive. And of course, my reputation helps. They think of me as being a great general, which makes the enemy afraid to be aggressive, which makes me a great general.” She laughed a little. “But my usual approach is to give the enemy every chance to make a mistake, and then I punish him when he does, and the biggest mistake may be not to be aggressive enough, which is one mistake I never make.”
“Aggressive on defense?”
“Certainly, Vlad. After all, it’s always the defender who starts the war.”
“Excuse me? Then it was Fornia who started the war with Morrolan?”
“Yes, indeed. That made him the defender, and that was why so much of my effort was involved in bringing him over to the attack.”
I shook my head. “I don’t see how it is that the defender starts the war.”
“It isn’t that complicated. The attacker doesn’t want war. The attacker wants to conquer. If the defender would simply allow him to do so there would be no war.”
“Uh … Sethra, I think there’s something wrong with your logic.”
“No,” she said. “There isn’t. It’s counterintuitive, but it isn’t wrong.”
I thought all that over, remembering the battles and the retreats and the marches, and I said, “Assassination is easier. Or so I’ve heard.”
She smiled and made no answer.
But that, as I said, was months later. At the time I just sat in camp along with everyone else, stood picket duty, marched, and griped. I think of that period as “the long march,” although it was made clear to me that it wasn’t long by anyone’s standards except mine. I don’t know exactly where we marched—I keep meaning to find a map and trace the route—but we usually had the Eastern River on our left, and we always had the Eastern Mountains on our right, and we kept going north; and then one day we turned around for no apparent reason and headed back south, almost exactly retracing our steps. No one except me, it seemed, found that infuriating, but I was annoyed enough to make up for the rest of them. My comments on the subject met with shrugs and puzzled looks until I stopped talking about it.
The weather for the most part stayed dry and cold. The cold wasn’t too bad, because marching kept me warm, but I learned that dry wasn’t all that much better than raining, because we were now passing through an area that hadn’t seen any rain in some time, and so whenever we were on a road, which was most of the time, the troops in front kicked up dust that we had to eat
all day—even worse than before. Dust so thick you walked with your cap down and tried to keep your mouth closed, but you couldn’t because your nose was plugged up. A few of my comrades had handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses; I tried that, but breathing became difficult so I stopped. Periodically someone would conjure up a cross breeze just to give us some relief, and even I took my turn at it, but we couldn’t keep it going all day without a major weather-working, which was expressly forbidden by the Captain—something about interfering with “stated objectives of the Brigade.”
Excitement, what there was of it, came in the form of raids from the enemy, usually directed at the supply trains that came along several miles behind us. We would hear about them because we’d suddenly be ordered to halt, we’d have to take battle positions, and then we’d wait, and then we’d be ordered back in line and we’d set off marching again.
Then, one day, we made a sharp turn, put our backs to the river, and headed toward the mountains. There began to be a feeling of urgency, or maybe
purpose
is a better word, but I’m not sure where it came from. It grew colder as we climbed still higher, and the Eastern Mountains loomed ever larger. One peak in particular seemed to be our destination; a very tall, reddish-looking mountain with, it appeared, nothing whatsoever growing on its side. One evening, before the light failed, we stopped a few miles away from it, and I saw just how steep it was; it seemed to rise straight up from the ground, its top lost in the overcast.
The funny thing was, I didn’t recognize it until the next day, when, after only a two-hour march we reached its foot, and Loiosh dived into my cloak with a psychic squeal, and then I looked around and said, “I’ll be damned.”
“Then don’t get killed,” said Virt. “But what is it this time?”
“I know where we are.”
“That’s good. Where are we?”
“That piece of rock,” I said, “is Baritt’s Tomb.”
She nodded and looked around the area: a few hills here and there, and off to the southwest a flat plain covered with rocks and low grass, then a tall hill beyond. I could suddenly imagine warriors on each of those hills, and others charging across the plain.
“Good ground for fighting,” she said.
SOLDIER’S STEW
Just a few short minutes before, the approaching battle had been terrifying. Now it was also loud. I felt this awful sense of urgency, that I should be doing something
now
, but I just stood there, and so did Fornia. It did accomplish one thing—which was to give myself time to think. What was Fornia accomplishing by doing nothing? Why was he letting me, an enemy, just stand there like that?
Was he delaying, too? If so, why? The only thing he could want was for the battle to close in on him, and what would that get him? I would have given whole worlds to know what he had in mind. I wished—
I did a quick check. Yes, indeed, there was a teleport block in place. But. Maybe.
Time. I needed time. I needed time to find out why Fornia needed time. Well, okay, so maybe he’d be willing to give it to me.
“What are you going to do when they get here?” I ventured.
“You’ll see,” he told me.
“Do you expect me to just wait here?”
“Do as you wish.”
“
Kragar!
”
“
Vlad?
”
“
Kragar, I need Daymar. .Now.
”
“
Daymar?
”
“
Now.
”
“
Uh … how do I—?
”
“I’ll give you my location, you pass it on to Daymar, and warn him there’s a teleport block up.”
“How can he get past a teleport block?”
“Damned if I know. But he said—”
“Yeah, he might at that. I take it this is urgent.”
“You might put it that way, yes.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“hurry.”
Yeah, Daymar. He might be able to help me. I didn’t terribly enjoy calling on him; I hadn’t much enjoyed what he’d done last time we’d met. That had been … what? Two weeks ago? Less? Impossible. In that time I’d fought in three engagements, marched halfway around the world through rain, mud, and dust, and come to here, to this place: the Wall of Baritt’s Tomb.
There had been nothing, at first, to indicate that stopping there was any different from any of our other temporary halts, except for the obvious one that we had halted early in the day. But there was no rush to put up defenses, and no indications we’d been given a position we would be holding against an attack. I found out later that this was because the original plan had been for us to be part of a major attack against one side of Fornia’s army, but that this had changed when Sethra, at the last minute, had learned how Fornia had deployed his forces.
“Deployed.” That’s a military word. I learned it from Sethra. I’ll have to make sure to use it on Kragar sometime, just to see his reaction.
Virt and Aelburr scraped out a fire-pit while Napper and I pitched the tent. “No wood around here,” said Aelburr.
“So we freeze?” I said.
They ignored me. Virt said, “The wagons should be across in a couple of hours.”
I looked at Napper. “Coal,” he explained.
I felt stupid and didn’t say anything.
We went through the rituals of setting up camp, but I kept looking up at that mountain, the flat slab extending up until it became lost in the overcast. Occasionally the giant Jhereg would swoop down and Loiosh would dive into my cloak. The Wall had been dedicated to Baritt’s memory, and as long as it stood it would bring him to mind whenever it was seen or even mentioned. I thought back to meeting him. Would someone by now have mentioned the Wall? Would he care? It seemed a shame, not to mention ironic, for him not to know that there was a monument to his memory.
On the other hand, I hadn’t much liked him.
Three hours later we had a fire going and water heating. Aelburr made something called Soldier’s Stew, which involved crumbling a lot of biscuits into boiling water along with the rest of our rations, and molasses, and it should have been disgusting, but he added some basil, mushrooms, toeroot, and nutmeg that he’d picked up somewhere, and the thing was all right; we sang his praises the rest of the day.
We did picket duty early in the evening, and so were able to get a good night’s sleep, and the picket assignments indicated no enemy nearby. The next day some of the company drew out a squareball field, wrapped a bunch of rope around a rock to use as the ball, and played a good rousing game while the rest of us stood around and yelled encouragement and obscenities. The injuries weren’t nearly as bad as a full-scale battle would have been but were bad enough to get us yelled at by Crown and cursed by the company physicker. I did, however, resolve never to get into a fair fight with Dortmond. That was okay, I had no intention of ever having a fair fight with anyone. There was more S’yang Stones that night, and someone pulled out a reedpipe and a bunch of them sang bad songs off key, and Aelburr made more Soldier’s Stew.
At one point, I found Rascha, Virt, Dunn, and Aelburr standing looking out over the flat field nestled between the hills.
“That’s where they’ll be,” Rascha was saying. “They’ll spread out between those hills, Dorian’s and Smoker’s, command both of them, and try to hold us off from there.”
“If we fight here,” said Aelburr.
“Well, yes,” said Rascha. “But the sergeant hasn’t given any indication that we’re going anywhere.”
“I think it’ll be here,” said Virt. “What I don’t understand is why we haven’t taken positions on those hills ourselves.”
“You’re the expert,” said Rascha. “What do you think?”
“I think the only thing that could keep the Captain’s grubby paws off those hills is orders from above.”
“Good thinking,” said Rascha.
“You’ve heard that?” put in Dunn. “We’ve had specific orders about them?”
“Only a rumor, but that’s what I’ve heard.”
“But why?”
Rascha looked at Virt and gave a bow. Virt said, “To entice an attack. Same reason we haven’t built up any defenses. Sethra wants them to attack us, and she’s making it as attractive as possible.”
I said, “Will they fall for it?”
“It isn’t a matter of falling for it,” said Virt. “They’ll know how we’re laid out. If we’re offering battle on favorable terms, they’ll take it.”
“But then they wouldn’t be favorable terms for us.”
“It isn’t that simple,” said Virt.
“Then don’t try to explain it to me,” I said. I wandered away. It was too pleasant a day to think about fighting. There was a breeze whipping south along the mountain that brought cool air, but it wasn’t yet cold, and it was dry, and not even terribly dusty. I came upon Dortmond, who was sitting back in his chair, feet stretched out, smoking a pipe. He opened one eye and said, “Well, it’s the Easterner who fights like a Dragon. Wine?”
“Sure.”
He pulled a beautifully carved wooden goblet from a canvas
bag at his feet, filled it from a bottle next to his hand, and passed it to me. I tasted it. It wasn’t wine, it was brandy; even better as far as I was concerned.
“To the soldier’s life,” he said.
I didn’t care to drink to that, but I did care to drink, so I raised my glass and swallowed.
“How did you get this stuff?”
“The victualer is a friend of mine, and a few of the provisioners owe me some favors, and there’s always a little spare room in some of the supply wagons.”
I drank the brandy. Loiosh, who had been flying about collecting scraps of food, found me and landed on my shoulder. Dortmond eyed him. I said, “Do you believe he’s good luck, too?”
“Sure. Why not? We’ve had good luck during the whole campaign, haven’t we?”
“Have we?”
“Well, are you alive?”
“Haven’t checked lately.”
He refrained from the obvious wisecracks and poured me more brandy, still calling it “wine.” He said, “I think the campaign has been pretty lucky, all in all.” He reached into the canvas bag once more, removed a loaf of bread and a large chunk of cheese. He broke off some of each and passed them over to me. It was a smokey meiren cheese, very sharp and good. The bread was stale but not moldy, and much, much better than biscuit. He broke off some more cheese, held it up, and Loiosh flew over and took it from him in one claw, holding it almost delicately while feeding himself. I watched him eat: nibble, chew, swallow, wipe mouth on wing. He was rather more civilized than I.
“Luck,” said Dortmond.
“I feel sick, Loiosh.”
“Good cheese, Boss.”
I said, “So tell me, what are you going to do after the campaign is over?”
“Me?” said Dortmond. “I’m going to go fight another one.”
“Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Because,” he said, “I like it.”
“You’re not looking for promotion?”
“No. I like it where I am.”
“And if you get knocked on the head in one of these battles?”
He closed one eye, tilted his head, and said, “You’re a cheerful son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
“Just curious.”
He shrugged. “All right. Well, you have to die sometime.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. It doesn’t strike me as a good reason to rush into it.”
“Have some more cheese.”
I did. A little later a woman I didn’t know came over and joined us. He gave her some cheese and brandy; I took the hint and made myself scarce. Back by our own tent I met Napper, who scowled, I suppose just on principle, and said, “Are we going on any more of your expeditions?”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Hey, Napper.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever wonder what it’s all about?”
“What, the war? Why, do you know?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“What, then?”
“Fornia stole something Morrolan wanted.”
“Oh. Seems reasonable. We should go steal it back.”
“I doubt it will be that simple.”
“You’re probably right.” I thought, but didn’t say,
Besides, that would end the war, and you’d hate that.
Then I thought,
Yeah, it
would
end the war. Maybe I should do that.
“Sure, Boss. It’ll be easy.”
“Well, but it might be possible.”
“How?”
“If we get to a decisive battle, Fornia will be there, and if Fornia is there, the sword will be there.” .
“Sure, just walk up and take it.”
“I don’t know, Loiosh. Maybe—”
“Maybe you’ll get yourself killed, Boss.”
“Everyone’s got to die sometime.”
“Heh.”
“And it’ll probably be safer than standing to battle.”
I had him on that one; he shut up.
We were joined by Dunn, Tibbs, Virt, Aelburr, and Rascha, and the bunch of us sat around and I listened as they told stories, most of them funny and not terribly complimentary toward officers, about various campaigns they’d been on. Rascha announced light picket duty again, which I went off and did, then I went to bed once more.
It was one of the most pleasant days I’ve ever had.
The next morning we watched as a cavalry troop rode in and set up camp near ours, and, shortly thereafter, we saw the movement of more of our infantry. I recognized Aliera riding a light-colored, spotted horse alongside the infantry column; I wondered if she knew how much those who marched beside her hated the dust she was kicking up. They made camp to the west of us.
Things changed with the new arrivals. Nothing drastic, yet it was unmistakable. There was a bit more snap to everyone’s motion, and a little more saluting here and there, as if to look good in front of the conscripts. There was no fraternizing between corps, either.
Late in the afternoon, word spread through the camp that Sethra Lavode had arrived; Aelburr claimed to have seen her. Shortly after the evening “meal” a young-looking Dragonlord I didn’t recognize arrived at our tent and said I was to follow him.
Virt shot me a look. I shrugged, collected Loiosh from one of his scavenging expeditions, and followed.
We went through the camp and into the camp of the conscripts. I tried to spot the differences between their camp and ours, but there just wasn’t all that much; except, of course, that these were mostly Teckla rather than Dragons and there were certainly a great many more of them. But they had the same sort of campstools we were using, and the bits of conversation I caught seemed about the same, the expressions on their faces were no different from those in our camp. Make of that what you will.

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