Dragons of War (31 page)

With cheeks distended and eyes bulging, they turned back to the table and blew the smoke over the little animals, which became as still as stones.

Ribela sank into a lotus posture beside Lagdalen. Then Lessis, too, sank down and sat while she finished the final declamations.

A great flash of red light lit up the room. Lagdalen's eagle eyes blinked against it.

Somewhere on the interior high plane, a peal of thunder began that went on and on as if the very world would crack apart and fall to flinders. Slowly it died away.

The mouse and the bird became animated once more. The wren flew up and circled the eagle before landing on its shoulder.

Lagdalen became aware that the mouse was climbing up her leg. She had to fight hard against the instinctive desire to lean over and rend it in half. It climbed, crawling on her. Cuica was disturbed. The great wings rose.

Lagdalen exerted herself, urging calm on her great flying steed. The wings were folded again. The mouse climbed into the leather cup while the small bird perched on the edge of the cup. They were ready for departure.

The door of the room was opened. Two women came in. After quickly inspecting the three human forms, sitting silently, eyes blank, chests moving in and out in slow, steady respiration, the women pulled back the blind and opened the window.

The eagle flapped to the windowsill and then launched itself. Lagdalen felt momentary panic as the bird left the side of the tower. Suddenly she was floating on air, high over the ground. But the great wings beat with tremendous force and within a few seconds she was rising, circling the Tower of Guard once and then soaring above the town, out toward the Long Sound and the western shore.

The eastern half of Kenor was split north from south by the Kohon Scarp, a land feature two hundred miles in length with a long gentle slope to the north and a swift, sharp scarp slope to the south. The Kohon Hills and High Lake lay on the very crest of the scarp.

To the south of the lake, past the town of Portage, deep gulleys scoured the land where swift, seasonal streams thundered after storms. Farther on, they coagulated into the beginnings of the river Bur, which tumbled in a foaming torrent down a gorge before bending eastward and opening out into the Feutoborg Reach.

Captain Eads's small punitive force had to make its way down the Bur Valley, using the river where possible. To this end they built some square-ended boats, called "scows," and purchased some fifteen-man canoes. Each scow was built to take two dragons and two dragonboys, and to be portable around rapids.

As a consequence of its uselessness for river traffic, the country around the river was still virtual wilderness. Resettlement of Kenor had proceeded apace in the lands to the west and south, but along the Bur there were only occasional towns and fishing hamlets. Fur trappers were still the most common folk in the woods. You could go for days and not see a soul.

Indeed, not since the high days of Veronath had people dwelled here in any numbers. Even then there had been no cities in the region. So far, not even the engineering corps of the legions had found a way to make the Bur usable for river traffic.

The dragons were required to learn how to control the flat-bottomed, clumsy scows with oversized paddles that boasted blades four feet across. The dragons were not enthusiastic about this work, nor were they very adept at guiding the scows through the shallow, fast-flowing channels of the river.

The Talion Light Horse were accompanying them, but at a distance, riding overland, down the valley toward Widfields where the Kalens River emptied into the Bur.

By day they worked their way down steep canyons, on crystal-clear water running over a bed of boulders. Scrub oak and dwarf pine were all that managed to struggle out of the bare rock. The clear river waters were home to many fish, and they glimpsed enormous trout every so often. At night they hauled their craft out of the water and camped on shore under the stars.

The weather was clear and warm. Sitting around the fires with their evening meal and the river rushing past under the stars, it was easy to forget that they were heading to war and were not on some quiet patrol.

The dragonboys agreed that they had a problem. The dragons were not likely to learn how to paddle and steer at the same time. After a fairly young age, it became difficult to teach anything to a dragon. The dragon mind did not remain elastic, capable of accepting new things, new systems of thought, throughout a lifetime, but instead hardened at an age of six or seven years. Dragons were quick learners before then, however, and soon mastered the art of wielding the dragonsword.

The scows were not sturdy enough to stand up to collisions with the rocks in the river. Several halts were made every day to repair one scow or another. The Purple Green was particularly difficult at first.

On the third day, however, the dragons all got the hang of it, almost at once. It was uncanny. First to achieve proficiency was Alsebra, the green freemartin. Then came old Chektor and Cham. Then Vlok and the Broketail, and then all the others, Rusp and Anthe, even the Purple Green at last, discovered how to steer a boat.

The dragonboys exchanged looks of amazement. The dragons said nothing. The dragons were unusually quiet that evening at the campfire on the shore.

It turned out that the dragons in the other squadron, the 66th Marneri Dragons, had also learned how to paddle and steer that day.

There was plenty of driftwood for fires. They boiled legion noodles and doused them with oil, salt, and garlic.

They drank the ration of beer, a pint per man and a gallon per dragon and unrolled their blankets in short order. All went as usual until the dragons in both squadrons gathered for a short conversation. Dragonboys were pointedly shooed away out of earshot.

The dragonboys gathered on their own on a massive flat-topped boulder sitting in the shallows of the river.

Swane ascribed the dragons' behavior to the ancient pact between the old gods and the dragon lords. As fire god of the ancient Vero, Vesco, maker of lava, had been much concerned with dragons, as they were his heraldic beasts. When the dragons of the northland were attacked by frost trolls, Vesco had taken up his great hammer and gone to their aid. In the resultant battle, Vesco hammered the frost trolls and created snow. However, in the process a vital piece of Vesco was lost in Dragon Home. According to ancient lore, that part missing was his penis. Vesco's servants rode out across the world and searched everywhere, but could not find it until at last they came to Dragon Home where they found the god's lost member. Vesco rewarded the dragons with the gift of speech and the gift of shared thinking.

Relkin chuckled. Swane knew all the stories about the old gods, especially the rude ones.

"You, Swane, are a blasphemer, now shut it," said Halm of Ors, who came from a very religious family.

Swane bristled, but before he could offer a retort, Manuel spoke up. They were always surprised by these odd, occasional sorties from the usually silent Manuel, and when they came, everyone listened respectfully.

"At the Institute of Dragon Affairs in Cunfshon, they believe the dragons achieve a collective consciousness every now and then. It is a response to great stress."

Manuel was the odd one out, the academy student. He knew a lot of things about the dragons that the other boys did not.

"Well, that may be," said Relkin, "and maybe even old Vesco is responsible. I don't see why not, but the dragons were all just as surprised by it as we were."

"You ever seen anything like it, Relkin?" said Swane.

"Dragons learn things in mysterious ways. We've all seen them suddenly pick up a sword trick after they'd been shown it a thousand times and never got it right. Then all of a sudden they've got it, and they never make a mistake with it again."

"No half measures with the big ones," said little Jak.

Swane broke in excitedly.

"You remember when we was going down to Ourdh. That time we went through the swamp, and you couldn't sleep with all the frogs croaking. But the dragons went really weird. They all went to the rail and just listened. They didn't say anything."

"Dragon ain't human is all it is, Swane," said Relkin.

"I know that, you Quoshite. But you sort of forget it sometimes. And then they show you something, and you really remember it."

Some of them laughed at that.

"It's something to do with life in the sea, that's what we were told at the academy," said Manuel, the educated dragonboy.

"They go crazy when they see the ocean."

"Whether they're crazy or not, it's going to make the rest of this river trip a lot easier."

"Thought I was going to go crazy yesterday myself," said Bryon. "Alsebra was impossible, just downright vicious."

"Maybe we'll get to Fort Redor in time," said little Jak.

"Now, why did you go and say that?" groused Swane. "Now I'm never going to sleep."

They all felt the same shiver of apprehension. What lay ahead seemed dark and shapeless, filled with threatening thunder. An ominous cloud that hung across the horizon. A cloud filled with nine-foot-tall trolls, armed with swords and hammers.

Yet despite Swane's words, he did sleep, after a few minutes lying in his blankets on hard ground. They all did, too exhausted not to.

They breakfasted brutally early. Captain Eads knew the situation was very grave. Fort Redor might fall, or simply be masked by another besieging force while the main enemy army continued up the valley. The obvious target was the High Pass. He had determined to turn east when he reached the Lis. That would mean paddling upstream, hard work, but in the gentle Lis it was possible, especially in summer when he water was low and the flow much reduced. The important thing was to get to the High Pass.

The boats were on the water an hour later and with newly proficient dragons, they made much better time than they had before.

Still, it would take days more to get down the Bur, which stretched more than two hundred miles ahead of them. The easiest length of the upper river was the reach alongside the Feutoborg Forest. Here they glided quickly across smooth water past a dark, gloomy forest of ancient oak and beech.

Relkin had had enough of weird forests. He was anxious for them to leave the ancient wood behind, and only relaxed when at the end of the afternoon the little town of Grettons appeared on the east side of the river. They drew in and beached their canoes and scows on a broad strip of sand.

This tidy village of four streets and twenty stone houses with thatched roofs also held an ancient fane to the Great Mother, a small temple of beautiful proportion. It had remained hidden to all but her worshipers during the long night of the Dark Ages. The foul agents of the demon lords never suspected that the fane of the Hidden Mother lay here, at the gateway to the Feutoborg Forest. The fane was still kept up by a group of young witches, volunteers from Bea and Kadein.

Eads directed the men to set their tents along the shore just past the end of the town. The cooks began a boil up and sent into the town for bread and ale and fresh vegetables.

Stretched out along the sand beside the little town, they ate their fill. The sun sank way out on a western reach of the river. It was warm, full summer, and the weather had remained sunny and mild.

The townsfolk were hospitable, and there were several rounds of a good ale made by one Bosun Chesnew, who'd retired to this quiet spot after a life in the legions.

Bosun Chesnew was, in fact, happy to sit down with them and hear stories of north Kenor, Dalhousie, and the Argo country. He was also the bearer of news. Since the beginning of the invasion, they'd seen folk passing down the river, hoping to get to the High Pass and out of Kenor. Then a few days before, they'd started seeing a few riders coming the other way, up the old road to the Lis and then going on into the Feutoborg Forest. These folk were convinced that the enemy horde was actually close to falling upon the valley of the Bur at any moment. Chesnew had heard from another traveler, an Ugoli trader no bigger than an elf, that Fort Redor had fallen already and all its defenders had been slaughtered. Fort Teot was still holding, however.

The enemy army was said to be moving in an endless series of columns up the river road in Livolda. Enemy forces were also moving through the country on the other side of the river, in Picon and Gueva. Despite being set way up the river Bur, the folk of Grettons were getting anxious. You couldn't buy a donkey around the town for love or money.

Eads called Captains Senshon, Deft, and Retiner together. Retiner was for staying in Grettons for fresh orders. Deft and Senshon were for pushing on south in the hope of getting to the junction with the Lis in time to turn upstream toward the High Pass.

It was time for a commander's judgment. Eads would have to decide and take responsibility. They might also have to face the fact that the enemy could reach the confluence of the Bur and the Lis before they could, in which case they would have wasted time and effort to no purpose.

Such a possibility also raised the question of what they might do in such a case. Eads understood all this.

"We're in a race to get to the High Pass, gentlemen, and that's where the battle will be fought. We will need every man, every dragon that we can get there to hold the pass.

"The quickest way to the High Pass is by following the rivers."

"So we're to press on regardless?" said Captain Retiner of the Talion Light Horse.

"That is my decision, Captain."

"Yes, sir." It was obvious that Retiner disagreed, but he refrained from insubordination. Eads paused a moment.

"If we find that we're too late, then we'll turn around, but for now we will go south. We have to accept the possibility that we may be too late. However, we cannot pass up any opportunity to reach the High Pass."

The captains returned to their units and passed the word. They would be going on in the morning, south, toward the enemy, toward the High Pass.

In the last hour of twilight, Relkin found himself with a very rare moment with nothing to do. Dragon leader Turrent was busy going over poor Jak's kit, which had fallen into "disrepair," according to the booming voice of the dragon leader. Relkin slipped away and walked through the little town. There were girls everywhere, including girls his own age who cast him big eyes and enticing smiles.