Bazil Broketail (35 page)

At the campfire of the 109th dragons, the boys discussed the rumors briefly. They were grieving for Tomas, killed beside old Kepabar, and Kalstrul, Sorik’s boy, who had been found dead after the battle, slain in a thicket during the victorious pursuit.

The trio of dragons that was left, Chektor, Vander and Nesessitas, slept like dunes around the fire. The surviving boys lay back against the dragons. Relkin and Marco Veli huddled against Nesessitas, but Relkin did not sleep, lost in misery at the thought of his dragon wandering somewhere out there in the unknown forest.

No one knew what had happened to the Broketail dragon. Bazil’s wild charge at the end had completed the enemy’s rout, there had been a wild pursuit through the forest, and afterwards the leatherback from Quosh was gone.

Somehow Relkin was certain that his dragon was not dead. If Baz had died he was sure he would have felt something, and he had not.

Which of course left him wondering if Bazil was out there somewhere with a broken leg or a wound too serious to let him move. Would his dragon die alone, perhaps starve to death?

It made tears well up in Relkin’s eyes even though he was fifteen now and hardened by experience of war. His dragon was lost and anything might have happened to him.

He was exhausted, but he could not sleep. He heard Rosen Jaib talking in a sing-song voice to the sleeping Vander on the other side of the fire. Vander had a nasty leg wound; he could not keep up with the rest of them and would have to be sent down to the Argo as soon as he was able to move.

Behind him Nesessitas snored, softly and gently as usual. Marco was asleep, Heltifer was asleep in his blankets, too. Even the elves, trackers sent from Matugolin’s army, were asleep in a row beside Heltifer.

There was nothing to keep Relkin from his dire thoughts about his lost dragon. He tossed and turned a while, and then got to his feet and wandered away to visit the other fires of the camp.

He considered disobeying orders and going out into the forest to search for Baz. There were elves out there tracking, but Relkin mistrusted the forest folk when it came to dragons. Would they report a wounded dragon unable to move, starving to death alone?

Relkin wandered over to the biggest fire, where they had cooked the evening meal. Rosso was the surviving cook and he was asleep. So was Cowstrap the smith. The Marneri men were laid out in a row, asleep in their blankets.

Still restless, Relkin went on and came to the fire of the Talionese troopers, lodged away from the rest, with their horses pegged nearby.

A few of these men were still up. They had augmented the rum ration with a flask of black spirit, picked up on the battlefield. The black drink of Tummuz Orgmeen was sweet and fiery, and tainted with the dark magic to feed the urge to battle. The most faint-hearted imp could be made a lion by just a half cup of the black drink forced down its unwilling throat.

Now the troopers’ eyes were lit up with the dark energy of the black drink. Their long hair was sticking out wild and unkempt. Their coats were opened despite the cold night air because they were hot from the energy within. Their voices were loud, their conversation uncouth.

Relkin squatted nearby, ignored by the young men, who passed the flask around once more. Their talk turned back to complaints against the witches. This had become something of an obsession with one of them—Trooper Jorse, a thick-bodied fellow from the city of Vo. When Trooper Menster passed the flask and said, “And damnation for all the witches!” Jorse roared in response, “Damn right, damn ‘em all to hell.”

But then Jorse remembered something.

“Except one, we’ll keep that little brown-haired wench from Marneri. Eh? Eh? We’ll keep her.”

Jorse tugged on his long, ragged mustachios as he said this. The others laughed and slapped their palms on their thighs.

“Right, Jorse got the idea. We keep that one.”

“A beautiful little slut. By the gods where do they get them?”

“Exactly, my frien‘, now there’s a tail worth keeping aroun’.”

“And a chest worth explorin‘?”

“Ha, ha. Now that would be worth an evening or two.”

“Anyway, I already had her,” said Jorse.

“What?” the others were openly incredulous. Jorse was a boaster, but this was unusual even for him.

“Yeah, had her in the woods that night we camped with the elves.”

“Oh really?” said Menster with exaggerated care. “How did you keep the elves
off
her? They go crazy when they smell a woman in heat.”

“I had a deal with that prince of theirs, after I’d had her he could have a go, too.”

“I bet he jumped at that.”

“He did. Anyway she was sweet, so sweet, and so enthusiastic. What they teach those witches to do, why it’s almost a crime!”

“I don’t believe it!” hooted Menster with glee and just a trace of concern. Could this be true? Had this oaf Jorse actually had his way with that delicious girl? Menster couldn’t stand the thought.

He wasn’t the only one present who couldn’t.

Jorse was shaken out of his jovial mood by a sudden stinging slap to the face.

“What the hell?” he roared, starting up.

In front of him he found a dragonboy, with a dirk shining in his hands.

“You befoul the name of Lagdalen of the Tarcho. Take back what you said and admit it to be lies, or you must answer to me. Now!”

A damned dragonboy, talking to him like that?

“Answer to you, is it? Well, I’ll be… glad to!”

Jorse pulled out his own dirk, a heavier, wider blade than Relkin’s.

“And I’ll be equally glad to cut out your liver, you little reptile pup!”

The others were up on their feet.

“No, Jorse,” said Menster loudly. “He’s only a boy. Just slap him around, no cutting.” But Jorse wasn’t listening. In a drunken rage he went for Relkin.

Relkin dodged his lunge, slipped to his left and got a knee up in the man’s crotch. Jorse gave an explosive grunt, stumbled and went to his knees. He doubled up coughing and spluttering.

Relkin stood there, praying the man would not get up, anxiously watching the others. They seemed about to rise and attack him.

Jorse was recovering, however; he was a seasoned trooper and had seen more than his share of fights.

“Why, you little bastard!” he snarled, and then he sprang forwards onto his feet, his dirk slicing the air just a hairbreadth away from Relkin’s nose tip.

His fist came around in a powerful punch that caught the boy on the shoulder and sent him staggering past the fire.

Jorse fought down the nausea from that kick in the balls and hefted his dirk.

“By the gods of men, I’ll cut his witch-loving tongue out of his head!” he roared.

The other troopers got to their feet, but none wanted to intervene other than to tell Jorse to be merciful. To kill the boy would only earn old Jorse a court martial, but with the man intoxicated by the black drink none wanted to cross blades with him. The boy got himself into this, it was up to him to get himself out of it.

On the far side of the camp, sitting by a small fire, Captain Kesepton and Lieutenant Weald discussed their situation. It was not good. Not good at all. Even Weald, the most stable and good natured of men had reached his limit.

“But Captain, the woman wants us to go marching off into the Gan with no orders from Dalhousie. I agreed that we had orders to meet up with King Matugolin and to engage the enemy, but to vanish into the Gan? That will make renegades of us all. We’ll face a hanging after court martial.”

Kesepton nodded helplessly.

“I’m afraid you may be right. But the orders she showed us were open-ended. You saw them. The lady says we go on, if we say no then we are open to charges of mutiny. We’d certainly hang for that.”

“So either way we’re going to hang, you and I, Captain.” Weald had a habit of putting his finger on the worst case in most situations.

“Looks that way, Weald, unless we can somehow succeed in catching this fugitive she wants. Then perhaps we can get someone to overlook the fact that my entire command has been destroyed in one week of fighting.”

“Against overwhelming odds, Captain. The men fought like tigers—we killed twice our own numbers. The dragons slew twenty trolls:”

“Unfortunately that’s never the yardstick that Dalhousie uses. They will look at the casualty list and then they will send me to court martial.”

“What if we can catch this man Thrembode?”

“Well, that will depend on our horses and on his. We lost contact with them after the battle, but we know they had to go north and probably had to climb Mt. Tamarack. That will have slowed them up a bit. We had scouts here all day and we had no sighting of a party heading north.”

“Unless he starts tonight, we will be ready to match him stride for stride to the river.”

“The way things are going, I expect he will have fresh horses somewhere.”

“That may be.”

“And fresh trolls, too. I’ve never seen so many trolls attached to such small parties of imp. You know there’s normally only a handful of the damn things with a regiment, but we’ve had more than a dozen each time sent against us.”

Unsaid, but in both men’s thoughts, were their poor battered dragon force.

“I know, I know. We can’t give battle against such a force again. We’re down to thirty-five effectives and it’s just not enough.”

“We’ve lost Vander, old Kepabar is dead, and the Broketail is either dead or lost in the forest. We can’t expect to fight trolls again with only Nessie and Chektor.”

A loud yell interrupted them. A pail went clanging away on the other side of the fire. Steel rang on steel.

“What the hell?” said Hollein, getting to his feet, noticing that his legs were hellishly sore.

“A fight among the Talionese,” said Weald. “Let Yortch handle it.”

But Kesepton had seen something. He was already in motion. With a groan Weald followed.

They found a dragonboy backed up against a boulder, his dirk knocked away, his mouth bloody. Trooper Jorse, twice the boy’s size, closed in, his own dirk shining in the firelight.

Suddenly Jorse lashed out with a boot and caught the boy’s leg and sent him sprawling. Another boot caught Relkin in the midriff and turned him onto his back with a gasp of pain.

Jorse leaned over him.

“Alright, little drag-rat, now comes the sticking time!” Jorse sneered and raised his dirk.

And stopped, transfixed.

A wide swathe of steel, worn but well-burnished, had suddenly slid in front of his face. He could see his own face clearly reflected in it.

A big voice spoke softly behind him.

“Yess, man has won the fight against the boy. Fight is over now, unless man want to fight me.”

It was a relatively soft voice for a dragon. He looked up into the eyes of the freemartin, Nesessitas.

He gulped and gasped, fighting the dragon-freeze.

“Man want to fight me?” purred the voice.

Dragon-freeze overcame him. Impatiently she poked him with her tail tip. He came out of the freeze and backed away, trembling.

The other troopers had their weapons out, but none was inclined to start anything with an aroused dragon armed with one of those long swords.

The next moment Kesepton and Weald arrived on the scene. Kesepton moved aggressively between them.

“Alright, what’s going on here?” he demanded.

A silence fell on the scene. Then the dragon spoke, still softly.

“Nothing very much,” she said. Jorse had recovered from the dragon-freeze, his blood was up again.

“Damned reptile, I was only chastising him for his own good!”

“And if I fought you, it would only be for your own good, man.”

“We’re allies, don’t you know that?”

“And so is boy, so why kill him?”

Kesepton waved a hand between them.

“Enough! Trooper, drop that weapon. Somebody tell me what started this.”

Trooper Menster spoke up at last.

“We were just sitting around the fire, sir, then this damn little hellion came in and punched Trooper Jorse in the face. Jorse sort of lost his temper with him, I’m afraid.”

Relkin was back on his feet now, his ribs hurt and so did his leg, but his anger was still hot.

“I did hit him and I don’t regret it. He befouled the name of the lady Lagdalen of the Tarcho, and no one does that when I’m around to hear them.”

Kesepton turned to the boy.

“Ah hah, it is Relkin of Quosh. I might have known you’d be the one to try and fight a trooper twice your size. What’s all this about Lagdalen of the Tarcho’s name?”

“I will not repeat what he said, but I will make him take it back.”

“Now, now, you’ll do nothing of the kind.” He turned to Jorse, who shifted uneasily on his feet while Hollein glared at him. “Because I will.”

Jorse glared back at him.

“Come, trooper, tell me what you said of the young lady.”

“It’s a lie, sir. I said nothing about her at all. I’ll leave that for her swains and lovers, sir.”

Kesepton colored; he knew that was aimed at himself.

“I find it hard to believe the boy would strike you and get himself killed on a whimsy.”

“He’s a little liar, sir. I gave him no cause to strike me, and then he pulled steel on me. No one does that and-”

Nesessitas shifted weight on the periphery of his vision. He bit the rest back.

Kesepton gave him a long, cool stare. Jorse fidgeted uncomfortably but remained defiant.

“I want no more swordplay in this camp,” said the captain in an iron voice. “And anyone who does pull steel here will answer to a court martial. You understand that?”

Jorse nodded eventually.

“Good.” Kesepton spun on the boy. “And you get yourself out of here and go to sleep.”

As the captain left he turned to Weald. “And where the hell is Yortch, anyway?”

Weald shrugged. Subadar Yortch was an unpredictable presence.

In the other direction Nesessitas walked Relkin back to the fire and the other boys. They were still asleep; so was Chektor.

“You see what dragonboys should be doing now?” she said. He nodded. The blood on his lip was sticky and drying. His ribs hurt something awful, but the worst of it all was the sense of aching loss.