Prairie Fire (30 page)

“I'll bet,” she said, and then she seemed to remember that since I was technically under her command for the week, I couldn't leave until she dismissed me. “Don't let me keep you out in the cold if you've got a place to be.”

“Good night, Lieutenant,” I said, and walked back to the tent.

IN FRONT OF THE HORIZON

“Katrina explains a lot,” Owen said when I'd told him about my very short conversation.

“How so?” I asked. “Is this one of those dragon slayer honour things?”

“Kind of,” Courtney said. She sat on the foot of her cot and watched as I peeled off my layers. Owen sat on my bed and folded things as I handed them to him, unless they were wet and needed hanging. “Katrina was the first time that the Americans brought in Darktide instead of just relying on the Oil Watch. The ‘consultants' only slayed dragons on orders from the corporations they represented, only put out the fires they were paid to put out, and completely turned a blind eye to any flooding, because it wasn't part of their job description.”

“I remember my mother swearing at the TV a lot,” I said.

“I remember Hannah having to restrain Lottie from getting on a plane so she could go south and bash heads together,” Owen said. He took my snow pants over to the drying rack and laid them over a bar. “She doesn't get mad often, but when she does, she's pretty mad.”

“I still don't understand what that explains about Amery,” I said.

“Well,” Owen said, “Lieutenant Beaumont doesn't like consultant dragon slayers.”

“We're the Oil Watch,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but Lottie's not,” Owen said. “Not anymore, anyway, and when I'm done with my tour, I am not going to be any more accountable than she is. Plus, we did kind of destroy the ecosystem of the world's largest freshwater island last spring.”

“I guess that makes a little bit of sense,” I said. “When you talk to her, be sure to stress how dependent you are on the goodwill of the people who live in Trondheim.”

“Thanks, Emily,” Owen said, grinning.

“Get out of my tent, Thorskard,” I said, but couldn't even muster pretend anger behind my words. “We're tired and we have to walk tomorrow.”

He laughed, but he did leave us alone. When he was gone, we pulled our cots as close to the space heater as was safe, and prepared for our last warm night until next Friday.

“You know, even with the cold, this is still kind of fun,” Annie said. “It's been more like what I thought I was signing up for.”

“I know what you mean,” Courtney said. “Siobhan, will you sing us taps? I like the words.”

Voices carry pretty well at night, even in the woods. I have no idea who else besides us could hear me when I sang, but I didn't try to be quiet about it. Taps was easy to play, and it was easy to sing too. I let the words fill the tent, and if they escaped out into the night, so much the better. Taps is, after all, hope for a good night's rest, and everyone in the camp earned that every day.

In the morning, we shouldered our packs and walked back into the bush. We would be picked up by helicopters on Friday. Usually, the routes were arranged so that you looped back by week's end, even if you had to spend most of Friday walking. This week, though, we were headed out so far that they had decided it was worth the risk to fly back. It was a larger group than usual too, with Nick's squad in addition to ours, Kaori's, and Amery's, and a whole platoon of Patricias, so that they would match the Watch numbers nearly one to two. Of the dragon slayers, only Nick's mentor and her squad would stay behind to protect the main camp.

As a rule, helicopters were less risky than airplanes when it came to air travel. For starters, they were more manoeuvrable and could be landed much more easily. Oil Watch helicopters had special blades which could, in a pinch, decapitate a dragon, though that was a last resort because it tended to kill the helicopter in addition to slaying the dragon. If the pilot wasn't able to eject in time, things could get very messy. Still, it was kind of exciting. The idea of it, I mean. I left slaying-by-helicopter to Courtney and her sketchbook.

Our first two days were spent working on a ridge line, clearing trees so that the landform could be used as an outlook for both fires and incoming dragons. From the height, we could just make out the low blue line of the Rockies in the distance. When it got dark, we could see the lights of Grande Prairie in the other direction, even though it was some hours away.

“That's nothing,” said Laura. “You can almost see the lights of Regina from Saskatoon, if it's clear.”

“That is just insane,” Amery said. She had taken to eating with us because Kaori liked to, though she still wouldn't sit close to Porter. Her conversation with Owen was strained, but at least they were both making the effort.

“Lieutenant, tell them about the dragons in Texas.” Professional as always, Kaori somehow managed to make that a polite request.

Amery began to recount a story about the time she and a couple other dragon slayers from the National Guard, a sort of pre–Oil Watch organization the Americans had, took down what was apparently the largest dragon in North America.

“Bigger than a Chinook?” Nick asked at one point during the tale.

“Nothing is bigger than a Chinook,” Porter said flatly, and it was as if the cold wind blew the fun right out of the tent. There was a long silence, and the camaraderie of the evening was entirely broken.

“Aarons, you wanted to see my swords?” Owen said, finally. I looked at him with a smile.

“Yes, if you've got time,” our smith said. “It's been a while since we've really inspected them, and it's cold out here.”

“I've got time now,” he said. “Nick? Courtney?”

They all filed out with Nick's smith trailing behind them, and I turned to Kaori to ask her about her time in Edmonton. She hadn't done a lot of dragon slaying there, but she had gotten to see how a regular prairie city functioned. Edmonton had no totem poles because it was outside of the Chinook range (though some environmentalists pointed out that every year that range was increasing). It did, however, have the second-largest shopping mall in North America.

Porter disappeared from the tent a minute later, and Amery relaxed as soon as he was gone. It was probably out of line, but with everyone distracted, I couldn't quite help turning to her after I had finished talking with Kaori.

“What is it that you don't like about him?” I asked. “Is it just that he's rude?”

“No,” she said. “I don't like that he's a career officer who doesn't follow orders.”

“He follows orders,” I said, a bit defensively. He was my commanding officer after all. And he was involved with one of my very good friends.

“The ones he likes,” she said. “And the ones he doesn't like, he follows grudgingly. And every now and then, he disobeys entirely. He is exactly the sort of person who shouldn't mentor Owen.”

That was more or less exactly what Lottie had implied at Christmas, but I got the distinct impression that the two women had different reasons.

“What, because he'll ruin Owen's reputation?” I asked. Technically, I was probably being insubordinate, but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, and pressed on anyway. “Because I'm pretty sure that happened before we got here.”

“Maybe,” Amery said. “But he's not helping.”

“I think he's helping a lot,” I said. “He's helping Owen become a better dragon slayer, and that's what's important.”

“You say that now,” she said. “But someday you'll be watching his court-martial, wondering how the hell you all got there.”

I wasn't entirely sure we were talking about Owen anymore.

“So you knew Porter before?” I said. “In Kansas?”

“Of course I did,” she said. “He was the best. We were all so excited, Americans in general, I mean, when he was assigned there. This heartthrob of a British SAS dragon slayer. And then he destroyed an entire state because he didn't feel like honouring the oldest rule in dragon slaying.”

“Less than two percent,” I said, remembering what Courtney had told me.

“What?” She finally looked dangerous now, like she would report me to General Speed, and I would have to face whatever reprimand he could come up with. In that moment, I found I didn't care. I was through with stories. It was time for truth.

“That's how much of Kansas is on fire. Less than two percent. And he saved hundreds of lives. If you're going to make a career of this, you should probably stop listening to all the stories. I tell a lot of them, and I'll tell you something: I lie all the time. I lie for effect; I lie to protect people. But I lie. And so does everyone else, whether they are bards or not.”

She stared at me while I stood up to leave. It's difficult to make a dramatic exit when you have to put on four layers of winter gear between your seat and the door, but I did my best anyway. She didn't try talking to me while I was leaving, at least. Maybe she finally understood what I was trying to achieve.

Out in the cold, I realized that we had lingered over dinner for much longer than usual. We didn't have an official lights-out, but we did have a very early wake-up call, and most of us were pretty possessive of our sleeping time. I pried my glove off to check my wristwatch and saw that it was nearly time for taps. I put my glove back on as I was walking for the tent, and got my bugle without any of the ritual I'd so happily told Laura about only a few nights before.

I didn't want this to be the rest of my life. Not the part where I was in the woods in Alberta, but the part where I had to defend the people I loved from people who didn't know the whole story. I guessed it would be easier once I got home, back to the people who actually respected us. I would be able to ensure that our side of the events was told, and since I was apparently famous on the Internet, there was going to be a pretty receptive audience. It was the next few years I was worried about. The ones I'd spend out here.

And yet. It wasn't just Owen that our comrades were coming to respect. It was me, too. The cleanup crews in Fort Calgary all waved to me when I walked past them on the base. Most of the guys in the Patricias seemed to know me on sight, like they'd heard about me before we'd arrived. Kaori had kept her head shaved while she was in Edmonton, as had the rest of her crew and Nick's crew as well. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Reaching the ridge top, I looked out over the vista and sighed. There were so many freaking trees, and we had to cut down so many of them, and it was hard work. I knew it was important, but that didn't make it any more fun. I was about to start the call when something caught my eye.

The sun had set hours ago—this was winter in Alberta—but to the west there was an orange glow on the horizon.

No. My blood ran cold. Not
on
the horizon. In front of it. The stars above me shone clear, but those to the west were covered by a darkness that was no cloud. It was smoke. Smoke and fire to the west. And I knew what that had to mean.

I raised the bugle, but it wasn't taps that I played. It was the dragon call, with the special code, the one I had never wanted to play.

Chinook.