Dragons of War (45 page)

In fact, things couldn't be worse. Eads was running out of room to maneuver just as the refugees were reaching complete exhaustion. Ten days and nights of forced march had killed fifteen percent already. The rest put one foot in front of the other in a slow mechanical way, but the enemy would be on them soon. The terrain was not promising.

The Kalen River moved through soft ground all through its middle course. Lake Wattel was a placid, bean-shaped interruption of the river some twenty miles long and six or seven wide. On the southern side, the lake pressed close to the bottom of the hills of Wattel Bek. Here the road ran between lake and hillside, and here the refugees were jammed together in a slow-moving mass.

Eads rode to confer with the Captain Retiner of the Talion Light Horse. He found Retiner and Troop Leader Croel waiting for him. The troopers were still capable of fighting, but their horses were beat and they themselves were much cut up. Still they were working back and forth across the enemy's front, harassing the Baguti and keeping them off the refugee column.

Eads and Retiner knew they had a disaster looming.

"We will be destroyed if we have to fight them in a line across the trail. They will be able to bring all their numbers against us. The dragons will be worn down, and they will break through."

Eads conceived of a desperate scheme. He called for Dragon Leader Turrent, and when Turrent arrived, he outlined it quickly.

"The dragons are exhausted, sir. I don't know."

"I know they're tired, Dragon Leader. We are all tired. But we will all be dead soon if we cannot slow the enemy's advance."

Turrent nodded. "Yes, sir, of course…"

And thus the fittest dragons, Bazil Broketail, Alsebra, Vlok, and the Purple Green, who had feet of iron now and complained far less than he used to, were sent scrambling up the steep slopes of the Bek, through tangled brush at the bottom that hid them from view.

They had become expert at setting ambushes. It brought out the natural predator in their souls. Many times they had managed to throw over the Baguti and get in among the imps, causing general panic and considerable casualties. Once attacked like that, the imps would be balky for the rest of a day.

The enemy had changed his approach, however, and recently there were more trolls up among the vanguard imps. The dragons found themselves in bruising little battles with squads of trolls again and again.

Eads and Retiner planned to engage first, on the road itself, launching fifty Talion troopers in a diversionary charge straight at the Baguti column.

Eads hoped to tempt the Baguti column forward. Then the dragons would swoop down and burst into the fray and drive the Baguti into the lake.

It was a favorite sort of one-two punch for Eads, and he had used it several times. The Baguti had fallen for it before. Had they learned proper caution yet?

The dragons climbed the slopes. Up above the tree canopy there were massive boulders, dropped from the pinnacles that stood out from the main mass of the Bek.

The dragons set themselves amid the boulders, hidden among what cover they could find. Dragonboys watched the scene from vantage points farther down, where they could see through the brush to the trail.

They waited, tense, anxious, tired beneath it all. The sun was high in the sky, the light dappled the great beasts beneath the trees. They were so still that one might almost have taken them for a row of big boulders. Then a long neck turned, and a great dragon's head would swing up and big black eyes would glisten.

"Someday this will be over, and we will drink beer and think back to it, and we will laugh about it," said Bazil Broketail.

"I am not so confident that I will ever want to laugh about this particular experience," replied Alsebra.

"I want to sleep for a week," said Vlok.

"I want to kill imps," said the Purple Green.

"Well, when it comes down to it, so do I," said Alsebra. "I would just like to be able to sleep for a few days before I kill imps again."

"Troll down there," grumbled the purple Green. "I smell them now."

This remark caused the others to sniff the air.

"I don't know," said Bazil. The Purple Green claimed to have a powerful nose and to disparage the noses of wyvern dragons. Bazil had refused to believe it, but slowly he was coming around.

"By the ancient gods of Dragon Home, I smell nothing, maybe a little horse if I strain."

"Flying dragons have stronger sense of smell than wyverns," said the Purple Green, matter-of-factly. "I can smell horse at great distances. And mammoth, too. Mammoth makes great eating I can tell you. Right now I smell imps and trolls."

"How many trolls?" said Vlok.

"Don't know, could be many."

"Fighting trolls every day is hard work," said Vlok.

"My arms are weary enough," grumbled Alsebra.

"The problem is that we have slowed down to pace of refugees. That means the trolls can catch up."

"Damn trolls, they seem to get tougher every time."

"This is new breed to me," said Vlok.

"This is like sword trolls of Tummuz Orgmeen," said Bazil. "Problem with them is that they move so quick. They clever enough to use a sword, but not clever enough to use it well."

There came a whistle.

"That was Manuel. Time to go."

They shifted in their positions, hefted their swords.

The silvery call of the cornets came from the woods below. The Talion cavalry troopers were making their demonstration charge, generating as much noise as they could.

They heard the charge go past them in the woods below. Heavy brass horns blared from that direction. A huge shout went up. More horns and more shouts, the woods were alive with the enemy.

The Talions blew their cornets for the retreat. Simultaneously Turrent blew his cornet and sent the dragons crashing downhill, stamping through the thickets, swords out and ready.

The troopers were thundering past along the trail. Behind them came a shrieking mass of Baguti, their curved scimitars aloft.

The dragons paused. Would the imps follow the Baguti, blood-crazed by their proximity to the refugee train? This was the crucial moment for Eads's plan.

Suddenly there was a blast from heavy horns and a thunder of drams all along the dragons' left flank. Beneath the horns, they could hear the shrill cries of imps and the roar of trolls.

"Their whole army is coming up, they have outmarched us."

"I smell troll, very close now."

"What do we do?" said Vlok.

"Good question that," commented the Purple Green.

The dragons looked to Dragon Leader Turrent. Turrent was looking off to the left with anxious eyes.

A baying mass of imps was going past on the trail, spear points glittering above their heads. But with a large force coming on their flank, it would be suicidal to attack now.

"Let us go back to where we hid," suggested Relkin. "Those loose boulders. We'll roll them down. That will keep them busy for a while."

The dragons and dragonboys did not wait for Turrent's assent. They turned and scrambled back up the steep slope of the Bek, plunging through the line that separated the lower slope forest of mature trees and the scrub and saplings on the higher level. They were back among the tumbled boulders.

The horns were blasting down below and drums were thundering. Dragonboys darted about the boulders seeking the ones that would be easiest to set rolling down the slope.

"This one's the best," claimed Swane, pointing to a near cylindrical piece of rock, lying on its side atop another similar piece. Each was five feet wide or more.

"For once I agree with you," said Manuel.

Relkin reached the spot. 'There's another good one over there. But both of these are ready to go."

The dragons put their forelimbs against the rock, crouched, and flexed huge thews. They heaved as one and the rock rolled, crashing through the trees and hurtled down-slope toward the trail.

The booming of the drums ceased like a miracle. A horn blast was cut short. Screams arose, and continued to rise as the boulder rolled on.

The second one was already on its way. The dragons now gathered around the one that Relkin had found.

This was more irregular, six feet in diameter, resting between two flat slabs.

Once again the dragons put their backs into it and heaved the rock up an Inch or two and set it rolling. It fell off the slabs with a crash and then bounced on, skittered down the bare rock slope, and boomed through the thickets and into the downslope woods. More screams erupted at once.

"Over here," called Manuel, "I think I've found a good one here."

The day wore on. The enemy swarmed up about them, and they were forced to give ground, even before they'd run out of good boulders. The arrows came in so thick and heavy that they had to retreat. As it was, the dragonboys were cutting out dozens from joboquin and dragon hide.

There was nowhere to go but up.

The dragons broke off a section of rock, a triangle thirty feet long, and sent it lurching, sliding, and finally tumbling down into the center of the enemy below. They saw trolls knocked flying. The dragonboys sent up a ragged little cheer. Dragons looked at each other and shrugged. Boys were always finding ways to be noisy; it was their nature.

Arrows shot overhead suddenly. A heavy horn was blaring on their left. The damned imps had gotten up on their flanks again. It kept happening. They had to move.

Behind them, the slope of the Wattel Bek was broken open in a narrow canyon that zigzagged up steeply between a pair of pinnacles, crazy juts that had separated from the main mass of the Bek. Up this the dragons trudged while dragonboys kept up a constant rain of arrows from their quick firing Cunfshon crossbows.

The dragons reached the top and called down. The boys ran up, ahead of the yelling imps that flooded in, driven on by the men who commanded them.

The dragons found two good-sized boulders and had them in position by the time the boys reached the top. The first boulder crushed a dozen imps. The sight of the second one being positioned at the top of the cliff sent the rest of the imps running back to the bottom as fast as they could scramble. In vain their masters lashed at them with whips, even swords. The imps were panicked and could not be checked.

Manuel, who had proven himself to be good with the Cunfshon bow, loosed a long shot and struck down one of the imp officers. The others retreated, cursing loudly while the dragonboys cheered again.

The enemy had cleared back to the bottom of the steep little canyon. They would have to go wide on either side to get up the steep face of the Bek; it was virtually a cliff in this section and the one above it. It would be hours before they managed that.

Meanwhile, the Purple Green had rolled up another good-sized hunk of rock, and Bazil and Alsebra were prying out a few smaller, but handier pieces of stone. They could keep them at bay for now.

The only problem was that there was no obvious way to go anywhere else, except down. The cliff was twenty to thirty feet high all around them, leaving them at the bottom of a kind of cup in the rock. Flies were bothering them, and the dragons realized they were trapped and their spirits sank somewhat.

"We cannot go down."

"Damn, I'm hungry already."

"We get too hungry then we just go down there and eat troll."

"Foolish wild one," snorted Alsebra. "We go down there and troll will eat us. There's a hundred of them down there."

"Not after that big rock we pushed down. We got a few then."

"Look, you go ahead, while they're eating you, we'll think of a way to get out of here."

Dragon Leader Turrent felt the need to try and cheer everyone up. He strode among the dragons, murmuring to each.

"Don't worry. We'll work it out."

When he had passed and gone off to sit by himself and try and think of a way out, the dragons murmured together.

"Looks like we're done for…"

"By the ancient gods of Dragon Home, I never thought I'd end up like this."

"I don't know, maybe we can climb this cliff," said Alsebra.

"I don't think so," said Vlok.

Bazil Broketail perked up at Alsebra's words, and he immediately turned and studied the cliff above them. It was not that high, a mere twenty feet in places, but it was steep, virtually sheer. Nor did there seem to be any obvious handholds big enough for a dragon.

"No," he concluded, "I don't think so."

Alsebra shrugged. "Maybe you're right," she agreed.

Not for the first time, the Purple Green lamented his decision to join the legions. Bazil didn't have the heart to argue with him about it.

Turrent stood up and turned to the dragonboys.

"Who are our best climbers?"

They looked down, some glanced at Relkin.

"Relkin, who else?" said Bryon.

"All right, Relkin, you're for the mission. Who else?"

"Swane's good enough," said Relkin.

Swane swelled a bit, proud to be named like that. For all his swagger, Swane was sensitive to Relkin's opinion of him.

"All right, get rid of both my problems at the same time. Both of you, get up this cliff and find out if there's any way out of here."

"Yes, sir," said Swane. Relkin nodded.

They looked along the cliff. It was rock and rock-hard dirt, but there were handholds and a few good deep lateral cracks. For Relkin, who had lived on the crags of Blue Stone as a child, it was not a difficult cliff. For Swane, who'd climbed the fells of Seant all his life, it was equally easy. They were soon up on the ledge above. This was as constrained as the one below on which the dragons stood. However, there were clefts in the cliff face here, and one of them provided a neat chimney that they could climb easily using shoulders and feet on opposite walls. They went up like this for thirty feet and then rolled out onto a larger, flat place, a natural step back for the hill.

More steep cliff wall loomed above them.

Relkin turned to look along the ledge and found himself face-to-face with two young, and strikingly attractive, women.