Authors: Christopher Rowley
Relkin, meanwhile, had gone down the lines and found Jumble with a split talon on the left hand that had just started to get serious.
"That talon has to go, my friend."
"You are dragonboy?"
"Yes."
"By the fiery breath and the red stars above, that is good to hear."
Relkin got the heaviest cutters he could find and removed the whole talon down to the quick. Jumble's hand was a little larger than Bazil's, Relkin noted, while he filed the stub flat. Jumble was a young leatherback, and Relkin noticed a few things about the dragon's skin that reminded him that Bazil was no longer quite so young. Most of all, Jumble didn't have the marks of the hundreds of stitches that Bazil had received in all his years in the Legions.
"We're going to fix you up, all of you," said Relkin in an effort to reassure.
"That good, because horse boys not too good at this job."
"Yeah, I can imagine."
Relkin filed the stub until it was smooth, then he treated the surface with a hardening agent.
"You arrive today?" the dragon inquired politely.
"Yes. Came up on the barges from Razac."
"We been here a year now. They were going to send us to Aubinas, but then that fighting stopped and they didn't need us, so we stayed here."
"That's the way the military works, there's never much reason for how things work out."
"You have been in Legions for long time, you know more than this dragon."
"This your first posting?"
"Yes. Me and boy Sui, we came from Seant. Did our training in Blue Lake camp. Then came here. We from village of Keesh. You heard of it?"
"Sorry, never have. Haven't spent much time in Seant, though there's boys and dragons from Seant in our unit. Big Hurve, that orange brasshide, he's from Porthouse."
"Keesh is very small village. We leave there and go to Marneri. They send us up to Blue Lake and we train very hard. Then we go to Razac and ride in the boats all the way down to very big river."
"Yeah, we've done that. Years ago, now, we went down that big river a ways and came out in the land of Ourdh."
Jumble was staring at him with big dragon eyes, obviously impressed. "Well, then they brought us back up the river, and we stay here. When the sickness came, boy Sui was one of the last to die."
Relkin looked down. The 109th had been lucky with the plagues, and by a combination of luck and skill he had been spared the loss of his dragon. He knew that for dragons the loss of a dragonboy was just as traumatic. The sorrow was plain to hear in young Jumble's voice.
"You will get a new boy, soon."
"This dragon very sad. Sui was a good dragonboy, good dragonfriend."
"Yes, I'm sure he was."
Relkin went on to put a few stitches into a wound on the back of Jumble's neck. Jumble hissed when the Old Sugustus was applied, but he understood how necessary it was. Relkin's needlework was fast and efficient. Jumble scarcely noticed that part of it.
Later, when he'd finished with Jumble, Relkin went looking for more work. He reckoned he had just enough time for one more dragon before he had to get back and see to Bazil before they bedded down for the night. But boys from the 109th were all through this part of the dragonhouse, doing what needed to be done.
Manuel and Dragon Leader Hussey were talking in a corner. Jak and Endi were dividing up a pile of dirty bandages for washing. He looked into the end stall and saw the big, light purple brasshide, Vaunce, on his side while Curf worked patiently on the sore place, located on the flank, behind the left arm.
Curf looked up, but never stopped rubbing liniment into the sore plate.
"How's it coming?" said Relkin, thinking that Curf had made progress since the plagues.
"This is Vaunce, Relkin. He's amazing. I never dealt with a crullo, before."
Relkin noted how different a shade of purple this was from the dark tone on the Purple Green's huge body. Vaunce was a lovely pale color, with darker tones around the base of his talons and the edges of some of the plates of fibrous armor that covered a brasshide.
"Beautiful," said Relkin with frank admiration.
Vaunce lifted his head to give them a stare.
"You the Broketail's boy?"
"That's right."
"This dragon heard about the famous Broketail leatherback."
"Yeah, he's famous all right, and he'll be wondering where his dragonboy is by about now. The boil must be going. I heard the first gong a while back."
Curf nodded. "I'll be back soon to tend to Wout."
Relkin trotted back through the huge passage that ran down the spine of the dragonhouse. The plunge pool doors were open, and there was no noise from within. Relkin quickened his stride. Dragons were waiting in their stalls, hungry after a long splash and romp.
Relkin went straight into the kitchens and took a huge potcheen of soup and wheeled it up to the stall along with a dozen full loaves of fresh bread. Bazil was waiting, and devoured the lot in a matter of a few minutes. He had questions.
"How are the young dragons?"
Relkin shrugged. "They were a bit of a mess on the outside, and still very upset about losing their dragonboys."
"Yes. We come close to losing a partner many times."
"Yeah, but we made it through alive."
They clapped hand and talon.
"How is the blue one?"
Wyverns saw purple as blue generally, another thing that distinguished them from wild dragons. The Purple Green, himself, had excellent full-color vision.
"He has a sore plate, along the ribs under the arm."
"Ah, soft plate they call that."
"Yeah, that's it. Curf was tending."
"Curf?"
"Hey, Curf's been getting better. No complaints lately."
"Glad to hear this." Bazil swilled down the last of the soup and scratched his belly. "This dragon sleep, then in the morning this dragon meet with the young dragons."
He pushed back onto the mound of clean straw and settled himself for sleep.
Relkin understood that the older dragons felt it was necessary to establish their superior rank by virtue of age and experience, but that too much age was not a good thing either. Bazil would feel fresh and vigorous in the morning, and after a plunge in the pool he'd be looking his best, a leatherback in his prime. It would be a better time to deal with boisterous young dragons.
Relkin found a small group of dragonboys down by the hay chute. Jak had a jug of ale and they were taking a sip.
"Long day," said Swane, handing the jug to Relkin when he joined them. Relkin took a sip and passed it back to Jak.
"Too long, and tomorrow will probably be the same."
"Too right," groused Rakama.
"Where's Cuzo?" wondered Jak. "I haven't seen him since well before the boil."
"He went up to see base command," said Rakama. "I saw a messenger tag Cuzo just before the boil. I was coming back from the armory, had to get that shoulder plate fixed I told you about. Messenger came belting down the passage and into Cuzo's office. 'Right,' I said to myself. 'What's the betting we're going to be moving on tomorrow.' "
"Yeah, well the harbor's full of shipping," said Jak. "We could be back on the water tomorrow, just like that."
"Back down the river again. Just like when I was first in the unit," said big Swane. "Hey, remember going all the way down to Ourdh?" said Swane with a sudden snort of amusement.
"No tall tales about the whores in Ourdh, not tonight," said Rakama.
"Seconded," said Jak.
Swane's face clouded over. He liked to tell those tales of the exotic realm far to the south.
"And we'll be going to Fort Kenor, not Ourdh," said Relkin.
The memories of the whistling winds at Fort Kenor in the winter came back to them all.
"Got to get an extra freecoat."
"You already have two."
"Three is better than two."
"Better than that is an extra wool lining. Double the linings in one coat and double the coats on the very worst days."
"Trust Manuel to come up with something that elaborate," said Swane.
"Just a little bit of sewing, that's all it takes. Saves space in your pack."
"We'll need everything we can get come wintertime," groused Swane.
"Hey, quit your griping, at least we ain't going to Axoxo for garrison duty," said Jak. "Those poor devils, they're the ones who need our pity."
"Brr," rumbled Rakama.
"Hey, enough of that talk. Where's that ale? If we don't go back on the river tomorrow, maybe we'll have time to get the dragons set up for a sing. Get in some ale, buy some beef, let them have a good time before, well, you know," said Swane with a shrug.
They knew.
"Well, we haven't had a sing for ages."
"Yeah, get some ale at the Traveler's Inn, best in Dalhousie these days."
"Yeah."
Curf came into sight, loping down the main passage from the north end.
"Heard the news?" he said as he came close.
"What news?" said Jak.
"Enemy on the move out west. We're going to Fort Kenor, tomorrow morning, first thing."
"Oh right, we knew that already."
The top of the rock was a cold bleak spot, scoured by winds out of the Hazog. Munth's men had scouted the rock, seeking signs of an ambush, but found nothing. No one else was there. The rock itself was a solitary, jutting up like the fin of some giant fish out of the flat Gan. From its top one could see for many leagues in all directions. The Oon was visible in the west, a line of silver under the light of the moon.
Munth ordered his men to climb down again. He would wait alone for the meeting. They were to signal him when the other party had arrived.
Munth was a hard man, yet he was sensible enough to be afraid. This meeting was at the command of the Masters, and Munth was their man. Yet he knew that this prince of power, the Lord Who Burns Men, would test him in some way or other. To be a mortal in the company of the Masters and their like was to risk being ground up like a potato between millstones.
Munth had been born to a Hazogi herding clan and was inured to pain and suffering by the age of eight. He'd gone to Padmasa at sixteen and excelled in the training for the officer corps. Tall for a Hazogi, he was battle-hardened by twenty and had risen rapidly in the ranks, developing into a methodical, steady commander, with an intimate knowledge of cavalry. Munth was a master in the use of nomad cavalry in support of heavy infantry. Other Padmasan generals did not understand the strengths and weaknesses of nomadic tribesmen. They failed to use their endurance capability and their speed of maneuver to full effect.
Munth had survived Gestimodden. His formations had been virtually the only ones that had withstood the crushing charges of the Czardhan knights. Later Munth had witnessed Haxus's demise with little emotion. Haxus's contempt for the nomads had kept him from using them to blunt the effectiveness of the Czardhans. Instead they cooled their heels out of sight of the battlefield where the steel-clad knights broke the Padmasan line. Many friends had perished at Gestimodden because of Haxus's incompetence.
Now Munth was in Haxus's place. He commanded a force of fifty thousand Padmasan infantry, mostly imps. In addition, he had the tribal army of the Gan Baguti, which numbered around thirty thousand men, all nomad cavalry. Ahead of him, however, he faced the Argonath Legions, a rather different proposition from the Czardhan knights.
The Argonathi had been hammered by plagues, he knew. But he also knew that the troops of the Legions were exceedingly well trained. They boasted a skill at warfare far above that of anyone else in the world.
For the first time in his professional life, Munth was seriously worried.
To gain an edge therefore, he had equipped himself with fifty new, powerful catapults mounted on wagons hauled by teams of oxen. These, of course, added enormously to his feed problems, and increased his supply columns appreciably. Munth was a nomad at heart and disliked being held to a heavy supply train. It put the army at greater risk and slowed things down.
However, the catapults could break up formations, even dragon squadrons.
"And what I would give to know your thoughts at this moment," said a deep voice from behind him.
Munth whirled, hand on the hilt of his sword. He was confronted by a giant of a man, no, an elf, with the pointed ears of his kind. He stood there, hands clasped, in a surplice of white silk over silver chain mail. His face was perfectly formed, surmounted by the silver curls of the elven kind.
"Welcome, General Munth. I believe you know who I am." The mail-clad giant put up his hands. "I hope you're not really going to draw your weapon."
Munth caught himself, took his hand off, and stood back a step. "You took me by surprise."
"My apologies, General. I didn't mean to startle you with my sudden appearance, but I wanted to be here first and to observe you without your knowledge."
Munth stared at him. The giant had been here all along. Sorcery of such a high order was frightening, even to Munth.
"There are various ways to achieve invisibility, Munth. Some are more complex than others. I am a master of all of them."
"I am not versed in these things. You are called Lord Lapsor, they told me."
He maintained an external calm, but inside Munth was still shaken.
"That name will serve. Munth, I have followed your career. I have heard that you are an effective commander and can use the nomad cavalry better than any other."
Munth was recovering now and found his voice. "I think it is possible to use them, let us say that."
The Great One smiled disarmingly. "I concur completely. Padmasan general officers have usually looked askance at nomad cavalry. An elitist response from an officer caste molded at an elite academy. A response that has not served them well."
He brought his hands together and rubbed them gently. Munth immediately felt a soothing sensation run down his spine. Sorcery! The Masters had told him to expect it, and he tried to shake it off. Still, the effect was there.
"And yet, Munth, you are also a product of that academy. You have always served this army. What sets you apart?"