35

Hal's plan of attack was sent off, by courier, to the palace, with a note that it would be implemented within the week unless it was countermanded by the king.

No response came.

That had been somewhat expected—the king, after all, ruled in the end by popularity, and Danikel's idea was one guaranteed to cause civilian deaths, not just in the course of the attack, but in the winter to come.

Danikel's plan was simple: burn the city of Lanzi to the ground, warehouses, docks, shipping, businesses, inns and houses. With no receiving and distributing point, either for incoming or outgoing trade goods, it would be difficult to move goods promptly into the heart of Roche.

Especially with many clerks, warehousemen, longshoremen and other trade experts hopefully being dead.

It was a simple plan… and an ugly one.

Roche had already lost access to some of its richest farming land, first with the assault that took the Bluffs, then with the General Offensive. Now the screws would tighten further.

Hal had no response from Rozen, and so, as he'd promised, the plan was set in motion.

Two flights were issued large amounts of firedarts—there should be no need of the casting pebbles on this attack.

They were dispatched to the two Adventurers, once again at sea off the River Pettau.

The other two flights were similarly armed, and put on standby.

The flights aboard ship flew out in the late afternoon of the set day, and the other two, at Seabreak, were airborne an hour after the first two.

Hal flew with the first element from the Galgorm Adventurer.

They took off, orbited the blockade fleet once, forming up, then made for land.

It was chill but clear as they flew up the delta. Fishermen and boaters saw the thirty dragons overhead, and went for any shelter they could find.

None of the Derainian or Sagene fliers paid them the slightest mind.

The waterway grew wider, and then they saw Lanzi ahead, ancient buildings along the city's canals and estuaries.

Hal heard trumpets blast ahead of them, and men running for catapults.

He blew a single blast on his own trumpet, and the two flights formed parallel lines, the dragons flying close.

Then he was over the wharves, and aiming as best he could while hurling the firedarts.

Again and again he made his throws, then the swamps of the city's outskirts were below him.

He blew two more blasts, and slowly the lines wheeled back over the city.

Here and there, he saw fire start to spurt, taking easily on the ancient lumber, especially along the waterfront where, for generations, fish oil had soaked the warehouses.

Again, he sent firedarts cascading, and then they were over water, and he was out of ammunition.

Hal set course back down the main shipping channel, into the delta and the open sea.

They were still in sight of land when the other two flights of his squadron from Seabreak flew past, toward Lanzi.

Then the blockading ships were ahead, and the flights broke apart, and, in line, dropped down for landings on the pair of Adventurers. There was beer waiting, and steaming roast meat on buns, but Hal had no appetite.

The dragons ate greedily from barrels of salt beef, then fresh firedarts in netting were loaded aboard the dragons, and they were airborne again, flying back toward Lanzi.

Once more, they passed the rest of the squadron, coming back empty.

Hal took his flights upriver. Now there was no need to check his compass—a pillar of smoke curled above the doomed city.

He circled wide to attack Lanzi from a different quadrant.

Once more they flew their course, seeding death and flame.

One of the newer fliers was gawking down at the boiling fires, didn't notice a catapult tracking her. Her dragon was hit near his hindquarters, screamed, snapping at the bolt, pitching his flier off, down into the roaring blaze, then followed her into a fiery death.

Hal brought the dragons back over Lanzi, dropping the last of the firedarts, then set a course back to sea.

Once more, they saw the other two flights, shuttling back to feed the fires in the dusk.

Hal kept his dragons in the air, and didn't land on the ships.

The other two flights would, and replenish and spend the night.

Hal and his dragons at least had the comfort of Seabreak.

The fliers were very quiet that night. No one seemed interested in drinking. Perhaps it was because they'd been told they'd be returning to Lanzi the next morning.

Or perhaps there were other reasons.

They took off in midmorning, laden with the old-fashioned firebottles.

The two flights on the Adventurers should have been well on their way.

It was a still fall day as they sighted land, and then the two flights coming away from the city.

This time, there wasn't a smoke cloud to follow, but a writhing great flame that rose higher than his dragons. For an instant, he was reminded of the great demon that still waited outside Carcaor.

He signaled, and his dragons climbed to a safer altitude, above the flames.

Today, no one was interested in shooting at dragons.

All that existed below was fire and agony.

Hal steeled himself, went in over Lanzi, scattering firebottles as he went.

He saw, below, a fire wagon hurtling up a street. A gout of flame reached out from an alley, almost casually, and licked up wagon, horses, men.

Below him, as he swung back, still adding to the fire, was a small lake.

There were bodies floating in it, and he saw, his stomach churning, that the water was boiling.

He had to bank sharply as fire came up at him.

Hal saw a wizard, easy to define in his robes, acolytes flanking, evidently casting a spell.

But the fire was stronger than magic this day, and the flames took him and his assistants.

Hal realized he could hear nothing—the fire was roaring like a great beast as it ravaged the city. The center of Lanzi was a mass of flames, and Hal blinked, seeing a stone building melt and pour across a street.

It was as hot as a still summer day over the city. Hal was sweating, not just from the heat.

They were over the docks then, and the fire had taken the warehouses and ships. There was a handful of boats on the river, and the flames were reaching them as well.

Out of ammunition, they went back downriver, seeing people fleeing the city below them.

They landed on the Adventurer, and Sir Loren came up to him.

"Sir, there's three fliers who came back with their firebottles. They've refused to go back over Lanzi."

Hal wanted to sympathize with them, but couldn't.

"Tell them to make their own way back to Seabreak," he said, his voice sounding like it was coming out of a metallic throat, "turn in their dragon emblem, and tell them to stand by. They'll be off the squadron as soon as I return."

Hal and his two flights spent that night on the ships. Kailas was totally exhausted, but couldn't sleep.

At first light, he took his two flights, freshly rearmed, back over Lanzi.

There were still flames, but there was little left to burn.

He saw a scatter of river boats up from the city, sent Storm down on them.

The sailors dove overboard when they saw him coming.

He coldly fired their ships, then led his dragons back out to sea, and to Seabreak.

Lanzi had been completely destroyed.

True to his word, forcing callousness, he ordered the fliers who'd broken—his three, and four from other flights—off the base, and back to the replacement companies.

What happened to them when they got there, whether they were grounded, or given another chance, mattered not at all to him.

He gave his fliers one night to drink themselves into sodden forgetfulness, if they could. The next morning, he put them into hard physical training and flying.

No one would be permitted time to brood about what had happened, even though he knew Lanzi would always be at the back of their minds.

There were no celebrations of this victory, no boasting, not even from Alcmaen.

What had happened to Lanzi quickly spread across Deraine, but in a very muted manner, without celebration.

Even the normally jingoistic broadsheets dealt with the horror with circumspection.

Possibly even the most rabid taleteller realized that something different had come to war, something even more terrible than the traditional sacking of a city. If men could ruin a metropolis from afar, without bloodying their hands, would common decency, already mostly a fiction on the battlefield, completely vanish?

It was a question never asked, never answered.

Now the feats, mostly made up by the taletellers, of the Dragonmaster and his squadron were muted, and the stream of love letters to Hal from strangers dropped away.

But there were exceptions. The adulation the Sagene had for Danikel seemed to redouble. Hal wondered if they had known the idea for leveling Lanzi had come from him would have lessened their adulation. On consideration, he thought not. Sagene, he'd noted, hated hard, and, after all, it was their country that had been invaded to start the war.

Kailas got a new group of supporters, members of groups with strange names like Deraine First, Derainians Supporting Our Men and Women in Uniform, Sorrowing Mothers for the War, Derainians for Decisive Action, and so forth. Those letters he threw away unanswered and unopened.

There were also single letters, almost all from men, most of which began with: "Dear Lord Kailas… I never had the privilege of serving the colors, but what you've done strikes a chord…" Those too, after the first handful, went into the trash bin.

Hal supposed everyone thought there were two merciless monsters in Deraine's ranks—himself and Lord Cantabri.

He tried to push it away, but it bothered him, like it bothered the others who'd been in the attack.

Strangely enough, Khiri, who he expected would have been most upset by what had happened, with her husband as the cause, seemed to know nothing of the matter. She never brought it up on her periodic visits to Hal, and seemed more passionate, more caring than before.

Perhaps Hal should have brought it up with her, and exposed his heart, but he didn't, grateful for what appeared acceptance of the realities of the day, and feeling far too tired to look behind the surface.

The blockade continued, and Hal and the King's First Squadron returned to the normal duties of scouting for the inshore blockade, and chivying any ships they found.

Lanzi remained a ruin, with only a scattering of people who returned to its desolation, evidently having nowhere else to go.

Now Kailas took his whispering death further upriver, where small boats met coasters in camouflaged inlets, hastily breaking down cargo into deck loads, and scurrying south, away from the dragons.

It was still dangerous—Hal lost two dragons to the weather, two more who just disappeared—but now it was becoming routine.

Hal considered, decided that it was time for him, and his fliers, to return to the real war. Any collection of dragon flights could handle the blockade. Enough people had told him the First Squadron was to be used for special duties and the most hazardous tasks for him to believe it.

Besides, he now had a target worth pursuing, one that was very capable of striking back.

Not sure of who he should importune, Kailas sent a request directly to the king.

He was owed a favor.