34

"Now this, young Lieutenant, is an example of what is called irony," Sir Loren Damian said to Farren Mariah. "Since you have ambitions beyond getting yourself eviscerated in this war, ambitions that I've heard include public leadership, learn to use irony whenever possible.

"It'll make the masses think you to be educated, and hence fall into line and obediently do your every wish."

"Aarh," Farren Mariah said, then considered what lay before them again. "But 'tis a bit of all around turn around. To think this is where we all began, and where we end up now."

Where, was the old monastery named Seabreak, where Hal and the other founding members of the 11th Dragon Flight had begun their training.

Gray stone against a gray sea and foggy skies, it looked no more inviting than it had almost ten years before.

Perhaps someone in the army had sensed the gloom, because Seabreak was no longer used as a dragon fliers school either.

Hal thought that was not frigging likely. Armies aren't known for being mood-sensitive.

But this would be the new base for the First Dragon Squadron in the blockade.

It might have sounded odd for Hal's unit to be based in Deraine, rather than in Paestum or the conquered fringe of Roche. But Roche, east of the Zante River, curved out, and the farthest reaches of the country that would be Hal's operational area were a closer flight from Deraine.

Not that anyone would have objected if it had been longer—what little comforts war can provide are easier to get hold of closer to the mother country.

"At least one thing," Mynta Gart said. "We know where the back door to the mess is."

She looked down, toward the heaving sea. Three frigates were moored there, plus two light corvettes, and the familiar Galgorm Adventurer dragon transport and a newer sister ship, the Bohol Adventurer. Her expression was unreadable.

"Are you sorry you didn't stay in the navy? Hal asked quietly.

She hesitated.

"No, sir. I don't think so, anyway." She forced her mood to change. "I wouldn't have met fine, upstanding gentle souls like Farren."

Mariah looked offended.

"O Captain Fearless Leader Lord Kailas, sir, I gotta lodge a complaint on being picked on by my superiors."

"Not nearly enough," Hal said. "But since you've problems with the present company, I'll put you in charge of divvying out the buildings."

"The student huts are for fliers, right?"

They were the best thing about Seabreak—four-person cottages scattered around the estate.

"Right," Hal said. "But first we make sure the dragons have enough. I don't think we'll have to pitch the tents."

They didn't. The dragons fit comfortably into the large horse barns the religious order had built before the war. The explanation Hal and the other students had made up was the order, which seemed to have vanished, worshipped some sort of horse god. Or else their acolytes were most wealthy.

There was also more than enough room for the humans in the squadron.

It took about two weeks for replacement dragons and men to trickle in, and then Hal sent a courier to Supreme Army Command in Rozen to say that he was ready to go to back to battle.

There were five men on the single-masted sloop, in peacetime a patrol boat for the Roche fisheries, now a guard ship on the inner passage that led from the Roche border west to the Pettau River.

Their duty was to keep watch for any Derainian intrusion and summon reinforcements from their nearby headquarters, garrisoned with a half company of marines and a very small hooker.

One man was at the helm, another in the prow, keeping watch, although the Roche were local sailors and utterly familiar with the passage, with its tidal vagaries and shifting sands.

The other three were forward, arguing about what the proclaimed blockade might mean to them.

They'd pretty well decided that the Derainians would try some sort of big raid, end up going ashore and finding little in the way of loot or enemies, and henceforth keep an almost-useless patrol far offshore.

None could see getting worried about anything. War may have been boring, but they were sitting quite comfortably on the trade route from the east, and anything they couldn't catch or their wives make could be traded or purloined from the small coasters headed for the delta and Lanzi.

One of them heard a sound, like the rasping of silk, looked up, and shouted an alarm.

Three black dragons dove out of the lowering cover toward them.

The sailors had just time to see the fliers wore Derainian uniforms when a crossbow bolt whipped through the helmsman's leg. He groaned, let go the wheel, and stumbled back, just as a second bolt took him in the chest.

He fell on his back, lay still, just as the lookout was hit in the body by another bolt.

One of the arguing men ran for the wheel as the sloop yawed out of the dredged, marked channel.

He, too, went down.

The two survivors dove for shelter, one behind the upturned ship's boat, the other behind a bulwark. The bulwark wasn't heavy enough to stop the next round of bolts, and two took him. He stood, screaming, stumbled forward and went over the side.

The survivor stayed where he was, even as the sloop ran into the shallows, hard aground, then lurched sideways, its mast cracking overside.

The dragon riders didn't wait for the tide to take and wreck the sloop, but flew on, down the waterway, looking for another target.

Hal looked down at the ocean, and thought of the few hours it took to fly from Deraine to beyond the Zante River, as opposed to the days he spent as an escaped prisoner in that damned boat he'd killed for, tossed by the seas and hoping he was headed somewhere friendly.

From up here, the water looked friendly, bobbing whitecaps in the still-warm sunlight.

He knew if he was down there, conditions would be a deal less inviting.

Ahead of them, the barrier islands rose out of the sea.

Hal blatted an alert to the other three dragons in his flight, not that there should be any need to bring them to the alert.

Two of the dragons carried passengers—earnest young women with drawing boards firmly lashed to their saddle rings.

Hal touched Storm's neck with a boot, and the dragon obediently turned east by northeast, flying, at about three hundred feet, above the sandy islands that were covered with brush and scattered trees bent by the near-constant offshore wind.

The dragons flew as slowly as they could, and the artists busied themselves drawing.

Hal considered how much of war never appeared in the romances, tasks such as this, making maps for the ships that would keep the inshore blockade.

At least there weren't—yet—any Roche catapults or dragons to worry about, and he relaxed in the sun.

As much as he could ever allow himself, which was not much.

Too many dragon fliers had eased off, when they absolutely knew it was safe… and gone down to a very surprised death.

Hal thought about after the war, then grinned, remembering a story of Farren Mariah's.

"Ah, it'll be a grand, grand homecoming when somebody flinches and we're struck with peace.

"I'll land my dragon in the street outside my house, where my mother, the always-delightful Lady Mariah and my sisters, those she hasn't succeeded in marrying off to some dunder-brain with money, are waiting, having made all my favorite dishes.

"I'll whip out my sword in one hand, dagger in the other, then run, zigging and zaggetying through the gate and the yard, ducking any archers lurking about, kick open the door, flash up against the wall inside, and then bellow, 'Ma! I'm home!'"

* * *

It was raining, a dull soaking rain that had started before dawn, and looked to last for days.

Below Hal and his three dragons, eight coasters, under full sail, scattered among tiny islets.

The wolf was in the fold.

Four of the new shallow-draft raiding ships and three corvettes had been guided into the inland passage by Hal, and then led into the convoy.

Some of the Roche coasters gave up, and ran aground, their crews leaping into the shallows and running ashore for shelter. Others, stouter, more foolhardy, or, most likely, with captain-owners aboard, packed on sail, and tried to flee upchannel.

But there was no safety this day.

The sleek corvettes and raiding ships ran at their heels, and sorcerous firebottles were hurled from the Derainian ships.

Perhaps the Roche knew about pirates, who would dare everything before ruining their chances at loot.

The Derainians cared nothing about grain or furs, and so the ships roared up in pitch-fed flames.

There were three Roche warships based in Lanzi, and now they were coming out, after a Derainian corvette who'd chanced pursuing his merchantmen almost into the harbor itself.

They were fast, almost as fast as the corvette, and knew their waters far better.

The Roche sailors sensed a victory, something to savor after the weeks of their convoys being savaged by ships that struck and ran.

But the sailors weren't anticipating the full flight of dragons that dropped out of the clouds, casting pebbles that sent waterspouts climbing into the sky.

Two pebbles, now boulders, smashed into one ship, and the rest of Hal's flight came in low, with firedarts.

That warship took flame, and the others fled.

But they had bowmen aboard, and one Derainian dragon was hit three times in the chest.

Screaming pain, it climbed for the heights as the rest of the flight closed in about it.

Somehow the dragon kept in the air in the long flight back across the Eastern Sea toward Seabreak.

They were in sight of land when the dragon's indomitable will broke, and it spun down, into the waters.

Hal took Storm low, saw his flier swimming hard away from the dying dragon, went around again, shouting to Storm to go down, down to land in the waters, trying to rescue the flier.

But there was nothing to see but heaving gray waves, and the sinking body of the dragon.

"All right," Hal said. His fliers were drawn up in front of him, some still in the throes of their hangovers after the fliers' traditional wake for the dead flier.

"We're going to make things easier… and harder.

"All of you who've no experience landing dragons aboard ship are going to learn. Half of the squadron—the half that isn't on patrol—will practice.

"Here's the change. From now on, one flight will be assigned to each of the Adventurers. They'll be offshore, with the navy's great ships.

"The other two flights will be here, resting. Every three days, a flight at sea will interchange with one on land.

"You won't like it and the dragons will hate it.

"But if you're hit—like poor Patric was—you stand a chance of living, if you can get away from Roche to one of the dragon ships."

If the water hadn't been so cold, and the wind so gusty, and the seas so sloppy, it might have been funny watching the newer fliers learn how to bring their dragon down to the barge tied alongside the Adventurer, stall the reluctant beast until it thudded down, then was led up a heavy ramp on to the ship itself.

But it was, it was, and they were, and, on a regular basis dragons and men went overboard.

For the dragons it wasn't that upsetting. They honked displeasure, and either tented their wings over their head, as dragons had done for no one knew how long making the great passage east from unknown lands, or the more intelligent ones clambered aboard the barge or took off from the water.

Two of them actually swam to their unseated riders and waited until they hauled themselves back into their saddles before unfurling their great wings and thumped across the ocean into the sky.

Those beasts instantly became priceless.

Hal chanced a passage over Lanzi, seeing if a convoy was in port, wondering if he dared go after the small boats that would bring the cargoes upriver, as he'd done during the siege of Aude.

He was half looking for Roche dragons, half watching to see if the Roche had brought in any catapult units.

Lanzi was a wonderful city, he decided. Very ancient, very rich, with twisting cobbled lanes, houses and businesses that climbed for three or more stories, leaning crazily toward each other, gay banners flapping in the wind from the sea.

The gray world about the city may have inspired the Lanzians to paint their buildings in the rawest of bright colors.

Even the wooden parapets were painted, many with vivid murals.

Hal decided it would be a city he'd like to show to Khiri, when the war was over.

* * *

Below Hal, a fishing village was afire. It was true that a handful of Roche marines had been quartered on the village, which made it technically a justified target. But Hal doubted if the fishermen had been given much choice by the Roche soldiers when they arrived.

The village had a clear view of one of the deepest passages into the delta, and the watchmen would have ample time to see the Derainians, and take a small boat, or even use signal flags, to warn any merchant shipping approaching.

And so one of the raiding ships, guided by the dragons, ran up on the beach, and armed sailors poured out, with orders to seize the marines and tell the fishermen they'd best become neutral if they didn't want to be treated as soldiers.

Hal had no idea what had happened, but suddenly flame had poured out from one hut, then another, then a third.

He sent Storm low, saw women and children being pushed into a group, some scattered bodies, and then the boats onshore burst into flames as well.

By the time the raiding ship was kedged out into deeper water, the oil-soaked boats and buildings were burning down into ruins.

He saw no sign of the civilians, wondered if they'd fled, or been taken somewhere as captives. Or…

Hal didn't think he wanted to know for sure.

In theory, having a personal life makes a warrior more vulnerable.

Hal decided there might be merit to the idea in the abstract, but he'd take the chance.

Besides, it didn't seem anyone was going to make it out of this war alive anyway.

It was very nice having Khiri show up from time to time. She was never obtrusive, taking rooms at the tiny inn in the closest village, as did some of the other wives, and gave Hal someone to talk to about things other than soldiering.

Fliers and groundsmen found lovers in the surrounding villages, or else visited Rozen and brought back friends. Every now and again someone—Hal studiedly kept from finding out who—imported a bevy of whores from the capital, and so most everyone had someone to cuddle as the nights grew colder.

Some of the dragons came into season, and Hal arranged for them to be mated with dragons from Garadice's host, which also gave the dragon fliers some time off in the capital.

Hal had worried there'd be problems with Khiri as the blockade tightened, but she never brought up the subject again.

He noticed she wasn't quite as much of a flag-waver as at the start of the war, but then, who was?

The squadron still suffered losses. But only one, the flier shot out of the sky over Lanzi, was the result of direct action. There still were no Roche dragons to worry about.

The casualties came from poor judgment but mostly from fliers getting lost, and not being able to find the Adventurers, or even Deraine.

Hal remembered what he'd come up with, years ago, before the raid on Black Island, and sent to Rozen for a magician. Bodrugan showed up, and cast a spell on the ever-loathed salt meat served aboard ship, so that a flier thinking of it would be drawn toward the fleet.

Another spell was cast for fliers trying to return to Seabreak.

An instantly beloved dish on the squadron was tarts, made from the small apples of the district.

Those apples were used as the base for the second spell.

Losses dropped, and fliers used the second spell as an excuse to visit the area's farms, ostensibly to refresh the spell with new apples, actually to court the farmers' and workers' daughters and, naturally, wives in some instances.

It was still dangerous up there, but a deal less so than if the squadron had still been down south, back with Cantabri's slowly grinding offensive.

The squadron was grounded by an early storm. The two Adventurers, unhandy pigs at sea as they were, had been brought back from the blockading squadron, and the dragons and their fliers had nothing at all to do for a few days.

The more experienced fliers spent their time drinking, maintaining their gear and sleeping. The newer ones still had energy enough for gaming, gambling and wenching.

The storm faded, but daylong, low-level fogs still clung to the sea and the shores of Roche.

Hal was fuming about the war's hiatus one day, watching some very bored fliers play a game of quoits, when the idea came.

Just after dawn the next day, he had two flights in the air. Seabreak vanished into the fog, and he set a course by compass for Roche.

Every now and again the wind scudded the fogbank open, but there was nothing but roiling ocean below.

He kept track of the time, and on the mark started looking down and around.

There was a long clear patch below, and Hal spotted a smallish, uniquely shaped island below.

That gave him a location from his map, and he took the flights north, following the invisible inland passage below.

Ahead, he saw things sticking through the fog, thin spikes that were masts, with yards vanishing in the mist and topsails here and there.

Hidden in the mist below were Roche coasters, happily believing they were invisible to any enemies.

But their masts gave them away, so many quoit pegs sticking up through the mist.

Hal, flying as slowly as he could, flew along the convoy's course, back and forth, casting pebbles and then firedarts as he went. Other fliers behind and on either side did the same.

Mostly he heard nothing but splashes as the pebbles grew into boulders and slammed into the sound.

But there were also crashes as a boulder smashed into a ship, and screams to be heard.

He cast until he'd run out of pebbles and darts, then brought the flights up, and set a return course for Deraine.

Whispering death had struck once more.

Kailas was brooding quietly in his hut about the blockade. It was very effective, but not a complete closure.

When he flew over Lanzi, he could still see coasters coming in and leaving, and river boats taking cargo inland.

Winter was almost here, and the weather would keep the dragons grounded, and probably drive the Derainian ships to seek shelter, while the Roche coasters could still bring in their goods behind the barrier islands.

He'd been scheming for several days, without product. His fliers knew he wasn't that happy, and why.

There was a knock.

"Enter," he said.

Danikel, Baron Trochu entered.

Hal offered him some tea from the pot on a trivet.

"You've got a problem?" he asked.

"No, sir," Danikel said. "An idea."

"I could use several."

"I think I've got a way to seal off the blockade. The only thing is,"

Danikel said, "it'll most likely kill off some thousand Roche children and women."

He smiled wryly, his face boyishly innocent.