Dragons of War (18 page)

"I might even joust with the mystic," she said, and went along with their mood. Lessis said she bristled too quickly. Dignity had become too important to her. All right, she would be as frivolous as anyone.

Three hundred men, one hundred horses, twenty dragonboys, and twenty battledragons made up the expeditionary force to the Kohon Hills. A flotilla of schooners, sloops, and flat-bottomed river brigs had been assembled to ferry them up the navigable rivers Dally, Tuala, and Darkmon, a distance of around one hundred leagues.

The dragon squadrons were the 66th and 109th Marneri. The cavalry century was from the Talion Light Horse and the infantry centuries were the 322s (Third Century, Second Regiment, Second Legion Marneri) and the 182s (first Century, Eighth Regiment, Second Legion Marneri). In overall command was Captain Rorker Eads, twenty-eight, with almost nine years service in the legion: a tall, sandy-haired man with a determined expression most of the time. A seasoned officer in every respect, he'd had four campaigns against the Teetol and had seen combat against raiding parties of imp and troll in every summer.

On the third day out, slowly beating upstream on the broad, sluggish Dally, they passed prosperous farms with red barns, white houses, and orchards decorating the hillsides. This was the legendary Valose, land of fruit and vine. Here they grew the hardy Hopsrung grape, from which came the famous white wines of Lodover and Chanay.

Aboard the river schooner
Alba
, the 109th Dragons lazed, and even dragonboys had an easy time of it.
Alba
was a good ship and easy to manage, her crew old and efficient. There was little for dragonboys to do except feed and water the dragons. Their kit was immaculate, of course. Months of the rule of Digal Turrent had brought about that much, at least.

The dragon leader ordered exercise sessions for everyone in the early morning, and then again in the afternoon. The dragons exercised alone, since Captain Noonce would not have more than one of the great beasts moving around at a time. As it was, he prayed for the timbers of his old but graceful vessel every time the Purple Green moved. Turrent had vowed to keep everyone in the unit "lively," however, so exercise for the dragonboys continued at full tilt.

The only thing that disturbed Relkin's dislike of Turrent was the fact that the dragon leader took part in all the exercise sessions himself, leading them in push-ups and sit-ups, running on the spot, and various calisthenic exercises. Everything else about the dragon leader was a sheer pain. Being cooped up with him aboard a small vessel like the
Alba
was close to hell.

There were midday "parades," more like inspections, carried out every day. But the 109th's equipment was already spotless, and it wasn't being used.

Then there were spot inspections, when Turrent would tear open their packs and search for contraband. And there were impromptu work details, scrubbing the aft decks for instance, something that pleased Captain Noonce considerably since he and his elderly sailors had let the old boat get a little crusty. But even with Turrent in command, there were many hours for just sitting around, watching the world go by.

Relkin still had plenty of extra work, of course. Turrent had made it plain that it would take an "eternity" before he would relax his grip on Relkin of Quosh. Relkin peeled turnips, carried slops, and drew water for much of every day.

The others helped him out, surreptitiously, for Turrent was fierce with anyone caught doing it. But there was a general dislike of the dragon leader and a genuine respect for the Quoshite. He was a legend in the legion, and more importantly, he was their legend and they were proud of him. Sure he was a bit taciturn, but they knew him as a steady comrade and a good fighter to have behind your back.

And so buckets of water were furtively carried in to the dragons whenever Turrent wasn't looking. And Swane and Tomas, usually with Mono, too, would gather outside the galley while Relkin peeled turnips and mashed garlic for the akh. While they talked, their knives worked on the turnips and garlic, and with three or four to do it, the work was soon done.

In the afternoons they played desultory games of mungo and double-sevens with the dice. Swane usually bet too heavily and was starting to pile up debts. The new boy Bryon was showing great skill at mungo and was clearly ahead. Tomas Black Eye possessed fabulous luck in streaks, but bet incautiously and rarely broke even. Relkin was usually uninterested in the games. He was just not in the mood. The experiences of the past weeks had affected him strangely.

Often he thought back to the wonder of that flight from Mt. Ulmo to Dalhousie. The vast open spaces of the sky and the land below, and soaring across it effortlessly.

At times he looked at the great Purple Green and wondered how the former wild dragon had ever been able to accept the life of the ground-bound.

Knowing in tiny part just what the great wild drake had lost had made Relkin empathize with the Purple Green. He'd also realized anew how important the support of Bazil had been for the wild dragon. Nothing but such support would have held the Purple Green within the traces of the legion life.

At other times Relkin thought about how close he had come to being lost himself, condemned to a life as a wild vagabond, living from his bow, trying to keep two dragons alive in the forest. Life had been kicked over and sent spinning like a milking stool ever since the dragoness High Wings had been captured by Trader Dook.

As a consequence, he was feeling very serious and grave. Life was real and life was earnest, and the goal was not the grave, or so said some prayer he half remembered concerning the god Caymo.

Bazil, too, seemed subdued. Humbled for a while following the disastrous folly of the recent past. Bazil knew that his exemplary legion record was now besmirched. There was a mark of instability there that would never be erased. Still, they had come through it in the end, and he and Relkin were yet together, man and giant beast, blood brothers across the gulf between wyvern and human being.

Bazil was also mourning the great love of his life. She was gone and would not return, or so she said. But he had the memories now of his progeny, of strong, darting Braner and graceful Grener. They were beautiful and so young. And there were also moments when he was quietly grateful that he would have nothing whatsoever to do with them for the rest of their lives. Wild dragons possessed such uncertain tempers!

And so the third day passed in the manner of the first two. Relkin sat by himself as much as possible and brooded on the passing riverbank.

Swane finally won a few rounds at mungo, and his exultant whoops started an argument. The game broke up early as a result, and after everyone had taken water to their dragons, they found themselves lurking by the ship's rail amidships.

The conversation turned to the Cralls, the bandit clan in the Kohons that they were due to chasten.

"How much trouble can they be?" said Swane. "I'm sick of everyone worrying about them. They get on a battlefield with us, and they're done for. We'll have to bury them. Remember Salpalangum? Without dragons they can't fight us."

But some of the younger boys weren't reassured.

"Salpalangum was different. These Cralls are cavalry skirmishers and kidnappers. They fight with treachery and bribes and booby traps. They aren't going to take the field against us."

"Well, in that case we'll take their homes and burn 'em along with everything they own. Either that or they'll have to carry it all with them and that will slow them down and then we'll have them."

"Swane's always too confident."

"Yeah, too right. It's always Salpalangum this and Salpalangum that."

Relkin sighed. They were back to this again.

"I don't see old Chektor chasing down no cavalry, nor Vlok, either," said Jak.

Relkin turned away from the others. It was all speculation. Quite likely the bandits would simply decamp for a season or two once they knew that there was a punitive mission in the territory. He leaned over the side and gazed at the landscape. He noticed that things had changed. The afternoon light was deepening, and a few languid clouds were blowing south and west of them. The farms were dwindling rapidly, and soon they petered out completely. Forest took over the banks of both sides of the river.

"Where are we?" said Swane.

"This is the forest of Valur."

"The haunted wood."

The character of the country changed entirely. Dark forest primeval, dominated by immense oaks, beeches, elms, and occasional giant willows, took over and hugged down close to the riverside.

Gradually the forest grew denser and denser, and soon they moved along in a hush broken only by occasional birdcalls, and once by the howl of a wolf somewhere to the west.

In the late afternoon when the light was filtered green through the multitude of leaves, they glimpsed the ruins of the ancient fane of the Nolgar. These were the gods of old when the early tribes of the Vero, the Ota, the Abbad, and the Shanti came down from the mountains and assumed the lordship of this land.

From the Nolgar arose the old Donoi gods, which held sway until the rise of the worship of the Great Mother on the Isles of Cunfshon. These were gods with wild ways and habits both cruel and capricious. Asgah, the ancient god of war, symbol for the first dynasty Veronath kings, held a rose stem in his mouth from which blood ran. Jolly old Caymo, lord of wine, song, and the pleasures of the flesh, was known by his horns and swine's tail and big red nose.

Now the fane was desolate, tended only by a few mystics of the older religion. The roofs had long fallen in, leaving but the stone walls of the buildings, along with shattered statues and crumbling stone-flagged plazas. Pylons carved with strange runes jutted above the trees. A long wall was just visible, straggled with the roots of the trees that now grew atop it. Through it all was a brooding spirit of silence and darkness.

However, the desolation was not total. At night the woods were filled with pixies and danger. Elves hunted the deer, and when the full moon rose, the shees were dancing to the high pipe and fiddle. Human travelers made haste to be well away from these woods lest they become bewitched by the music and wander away into the trees and be lost forever. Many unfortunates had lost their lives in Valur woods this way.

Some authorities claimed that such poor souls eventually perished of starvation, dazed, lost in some dark glade deep within the wood, their minds undone, never to recover.

Others told an even darker tale of elves gathering the bedazzled and selling them as slaves to a hidden realm of dwarves, survivors of the ancient times, who worked them to death in the fabled mines of Veronath. The mines, once the source of half the gold in the world, had long been lost, their location swallowed up in the first Dark Age following the fall of Veronath. And yet there were many legends that linked the mines to the ancient wild forest, and thus a steady stream of wanderers and adventurers entered it in search of golden riches. Few ever returned, and those that did were often crazed and spoke of dancing endlessly to the music of the elves in their shees beneath the moon. Furthermore, no gold mines had ever been discovered and no nuggets ever brought to the outside world.

There had been those solid folk with no belief in the magical realm who had dared to colonize the ancient forest. They had failed. The land was weird, haunted by the ghosts of ancient Veronath. Farmers' luck always ran bad. A malevolent spirit took control of draught animals. Placid oxen suddenly turned and gored their masters. Donkeys became implacably fierce. Crops failed. Rabbits multiplied in their corn. People grew hungry and desperate.

Though the colonists gave up, the river traffic continued to pass through, for the land of Kenor was knit together by its navigable rivers. Travelers on land tended to go around the forest and to travel by day when doing so.

The dragonboys were quieted by the ruins. Even Swane forgot to compare them to the great ziggurats of Ourdh. Indeed, these ruins were not on such a grand scale, but there was a spirit brooding in this place. It was oppressive to the dragonboys and to the men. Only the dragons were oblivious.

Alba
continued her stately progress, and at length the ruins fell far behind and left them with the world of trees and water. When darkness fell, the fleet put about and dropped anchor in a well-known cove behind a point that jutted out into the river.

The moon rose a little later. It was close to full, and above the great trees seemed ancient and golden and somehow closer to the world, as if they had been snatched back to an earlier age. The sky was crystal clear, and a few stars in the southern sky were visible still. The forest was dark and almost silent. Little gleams of pink and yellow spoke of the passage of pixies through the haunted woods.

Captain Eads ordered a doubling of the watch throughout the fleet. He was most concerned about men going over-board, bewitched by some phantasm. The reputation of Valur was well-known.

Evening meals were cooked up and afterward some of the men, who'd had a little whiskey tucked away, started singing the Kenor song and "La Lilly La Loo." They kept it up for a few minutes, but the forest seemed to grow more oppressive with each verse. At length they fell silent, the songs stuttering out aboard each ship in turn.

Relkin felt restless and stayed on deck, leaning over the side and gazing off into the forest. Once he thought he saw a distant light, hard and bright, not the little blurs of the pixies but something much more substantial. Another time he heard a short snatch of music, just a few bars, pipes and fiddles, far away. Then the darkness and the silence were resumed, until the moon broke through the shadows and cast her light across the ship.

His thoughts came back to himself and his situation in life. He was seventeen, in his third year of active service. One more and he and Baz would be eligible for a year's duty in the home city.

Seven more and they would be finishing up their legion careers. They would be entitled to forty acres apiece of good, level land. The Soil Survey wizard Ton Akalon had told him all about Tuala. It was just opening up now, but even in seven years, there would still be good land available. It was a wide basin, cloaked in oak and beech forest. Small towns had sprung up around Lake Tuala. In time he would visit those towns, perhaps live close to one.