37

Hal turned the task of packing and moving the squadron back to Cantabri's positions over to Sir Loren, and went back to Rozen. He sought out Limingo the wizard.

He thought he knew how to finally trap Ky Yasin, but needed a magician's help.

To his disappointment, Limingo turned him down.

"Your theory sounds perfectly valid," the magician said. "So your plan should work excellent well. But the casting of the spell won't take a great deal of ability. I'll lend you Bodrugan, who should be quite competent, and is clawing for a chance to get back to the front."

Limingo noted Hal's expression.

"I'm not turning arrogant on you… I'm up to my eyebrows in another task, one that might be a bit more important in the long run."

Hal made understanding sounds.

"Have a seat," Limingo said. "I was going to send for you in the next couple of weeks anyway, since the matter pertains to you.

"One thing that has troubled me is that damned great demon—if that's what it is—you and your dragon fliers aroused when you raided Carcaor.

Assuming that apparition wasn't something spontaneous, which I certainly don't think, that means that the armies will almost certainly have to confront—and destroy—whatever it is when they close on that city, even though we have no idea whether it can leave its mountaintop and that damned castle it inhabits."

"I know," Hal agreed. "And I've been trying to think of what we might do."

"Well," Limingo said, "I happen to have a bit more information than you do. You remember that raider you set atop that mountain to stand guard until you returned with your dragons?"

"I do," Hal said. "Poor bastard must've gotten eaten by the demon… or been done away with however demons kill people."

"Not quite," Limingo said. "Three weeks ago, he wandered across our lines in the south. Somehow he managed to travel all those leagues without getting killed or captured.

"The problem is that he's quite raving mad.

"They returned him to his unit, which thankfully is under Lord Bab's direct control. He remembered the man, and what had happened to him, and sent him, with a pair of minders, on to me."

"Mad, you say?"

"Babblingly so," Limingo said. "I've set a team of secretaries on him, so that everything he says, no matter how nonsensical, is recorded and transcribed."

"What does that give us?"

"So far, nothing," Limingo said. "But I'd like to send on a copy of his ravings, to see if you can find anything in it."

"So the man lived," Hal mused. "I wonder what he did—if anything—to escape being killed by the demon."

"I don't know yet," Limingo said.

"Have your writers try to draw him out about what happened," Kailas suggested.

"That might make him worse," Limingo said.

"Or it might give us something to work from," Hal said. "We'll have to take our chances that the man lives."

Limingo looked at him thoughtfully.

"The war is getting to us all, isn't it?"

Hal didn't respond.

Bodrugan was more than delighted to get out of Rozen. He listened to Hal's plan, and nodded.

"Of course," he said, "the spell will essentially be the same as the one Roche cast against the king to ambush him in the Pinnacles. That won't be the hard part at all. What will be a bit… difficult, shall we say, is actually belling the cat."

"Don't remind me," Hal said.

Hal reported to Cantabri, who said he was more than delighted to have Kailas—and the First Squadron—back.

"And it's good to be back," Hal said. "Lanzi left a pretty sour taste in my mouth."

He realized he wouldn't have admitted that to anyone except another butcher like Cantabri.

Lord Bab snorted. "If you figure a way to have a war without killing people—and that includes civilians—be sure and let me know."

That was the unanswerable.

"How long until your squadron arrives?"

"I figure about a week, with Sir Loren chivying them along," Hal said.

"When I left Rozen, he was still beating up assorted quartermasters to replace lost, worn and stolen."

"That's time enough for you to take charge of a delicate matter for me,"

Cantabri said. "I want you to head a court-martial."

"Very well," Hal said, not liking the idea much. "But why me?"

"It's a fairly simple case of refusing to obey orders," Cantabri said. "But the culprit just happens to be a dragon flier."

Hal grunted.

"He's not the first," Cantabri said. "But he managed to make his refusal to fight a public issue. A couple of those damned taletellers reported the matter, so we can't handle it quietly as we have in the past by breaking him to the ranks and putting him in the front lines to get killed when the next battle rolls around."

"Do you happen to know his name?" Hal asked, hoping he wouldn't know the miscreant. But, considering the size of the dragon corps, he assumed he'd know.

"I do. And what's worse, he's a longtime flier, decorated, and has led flights. He's a rotten apple named Aimard Quesney."

Cantabri noticed Hal's expression.

"You do know him."

"Very well, sir." Hal told him about Quesney, how he'd been one of the first to fly with Hal in combat, been his tent-mate and someone who'd prized war flying as somehow cleaner than dying in a mucky infantry charge.

Cantabri hmmphed loudly.

"A godsdamned romantic! How in the hells can somebody be a flier, a fighter, from almost the beginning and still have blinders on?"

"I don't know, sir," Hal said. "But he cursed me roundly back when for figuring a way to kill Roche fliers—as if I hadn't, no one else would've—and then, more recently, when I tried to recruit him for First Squadron. He's an exceptional flier."

"I don't give a damn about that very much," Cantabri said. "Very well.

You're to take care of him. Give him a nice, fair trial, try to keep his lip buttoned and the trial over with in no more than a day, then convict and hang him before other fools start thinking of him as an example."

Hal stood, and saluted.

As he went out of Cantabri's tent, something came crashing in on him.

He, too, was a godsdamned romantic.

There was no way he was going to officiate at the murder of Aimard Quesney.

The question was, what could he do to change what looked like an immutable decision?