Colonel Sabrino, ducked out of his tent. One of the tethered dragons at ffie temporary farm north of Gromheort flapped its wings and hissed at the Algarvian dragonflier stopped in his tracks, as if a human foe had insulted him. He sent the most obscene gesture he knew back at the dragon, which hissed again; it might have been insulted in turn.
Laughing, Sabrino swaggered off toward the officers' club.
That too was housed in a tent. The tapman bowed when Sabrino came inside. "How may I please you, my lord?" he asked.
"If you'd turn into a beautiful woman, that would give you a head start on the j ob, no doubt about it," Sabrino answered. A couple of fliers from his wing who were sitting around with drinks in front of them laughed.
So did the tapman, though he remained resolutely male and on the homely side. With a sigh, Sabrino said, "I suppose I'll have to content myself with a glass of port. Put it on my scot."
"Aye, my lord." The tapman pulled cork from bottle and poured.
Sabrino sipped. The fortified wine was not of the best, but it would have to do. Wartime meant sacrifice.
"Join us, Colonel, if you would," Captain Domiziano said. He tapped the stool beside him. Senior Lieutenant Orosio, who shared the table with Domiziano, nodded to show the invitation came from him, too.
"Don't mind if I do." Sabrino perched on the stool and raised his glass.
"Here's to a splendid little war."
"A splendid little war," Domiziano and Orosio echoed. They drank with their commanding officer. Orosio said, "As near as I can see, sir, we've got Forthweg in a box with a pretty ribbon around it."
"That's how things look to me, too," Sabrino said, nodding. "Pity we had to let them cross the border and do so much damage inside our kingdom, but we've paid them back and then some."
"So we have," Domiziano agreed. He had a bandage over one ear, which a Forthwegian beam had cooked. But he'd accounted for four Forthwegian dragons and torn up the enemy's countryside; the small wound hardly seemed to upset him. He went on, "We'd have done the same even if the Unkerlanters hadn't sneaked up behind King Penda and kicked him in the arse."
"No doubt about it," Sabrino repeated. "None at all. The
Forthwegians are brave enough, but they haven't got enough behemoths and they haven't got enough dragons and they don't quite know what to do with the ones they have got. We'd have needed another couple of weeks to overrun the whole kingdom, but we'd have done it, all right."
Orosio scratched at the edge of his goatee. "Sir, what do we do if we meet Unkerlanter dragons in the air?"
"Pretend they don't exist," Sabrino said at once. "If the fliers blaze at Mezentio you, evade. Not to put too fine a point on it, run away. [..IliKig_] does not want a war with Unkerlant. I'm told that's going to be - the subject of a general order in the next day or two. We have enough on our plate now without worrying about King Swemmel, too."
"I don't think the Unkerlanters are any great worry," Dormiziano said.
"We taught them enough of a lesson in the Six Years' War that Swemmel isn't likely to want to tangle with us, either."
"Here's hoping," Sabrino said, and drank to the hope. His junior officers drank with him.
An orderly stuck his head into the officers' club. Spying Sabrino, he immediately looked relieved. "Ali, here you are, sir," he said. "A message on the crystaI just came in: your wing is ordered to join in the attack on the town of Wihtgara." He pronounced the uncouth Forthwegian syllables as well as an Algarvian might be expected to do.
Sabrino drew a map from the vest pocket of his uniform tunic. He spread it out on the table so Domiziano and Orosio could study it, too.
After a moment, Sabrino's forefinger stabbed out. "About fifty miles northwest of here," he said, and turned to the orderly once more. "Ten the crystallomancer to reply that we shall be flying within half an hour."
He knocked back the rest of his port - it wasn't really good enough to linger over - and nodded to his companions. "Time to give the
Forthwegians another dose, lads."
As usual, Sabrino had to pick his way among the tethered dragons to keep from fouling his boots with their noxious droppings. As usual, his own mount had forgotten he'd been flying it for years. As usual, it hissed and flapped and spluttered, doing its best to keep him from climbing aboard. It did refrain from trying to flame him down; that was beaten into war dragons from hatchlinghood. For small favors, Sabrino gave thanks.
He gave thanks again when the dragon's enormous batwings thundered behind him and the ground dropped away below. The view he got from on high was almost worth putting up with the stupidity and viciousness of dragons. The view of the rest of the dragons in his wing, bellies silvered, backs painted in red and white and green, was splendid, too.
"Come on," he said, and tapped his dragon with the goad to bring its course farther north of west. "We can do it."
The dragon, predictably, didn't want to. As far as it was concerned, was up in the sky to hunt. Sabrino's purposes mattered little to it. It had been perfectly content to fly along in the direction it had chosen. When he tried to get it to change the small stubborn spot that passed for his mind, it twisted its head back along the length of its long, sinuous nec and did its best to pluck him off his perch with its teeth.
Even though it didn't flame him, its breath, full of the stinks of brirr stone and old meat, was nearly enough to knock him over. "Son of worm!" he shouted, and whacked it in the snout with the iron-she goad. "Daughter of a vulture! I am your better! You shall obey me!"
Every once in a while, a dragon forgot the most fundamental part its training - in which case, the dragonflier never got another chance I curse it. Sabrino refused to let that risk enter his mind. He whacked dragon's scaly snout again. With an irate hiss, it straightened its neck once more. He gave it another tap, and this time, however sullenly, it swum its path more in the direction of Wihtgara.
Down below, Algarvian columns filed down roads and across field.
Here and there, scattered Forthwegian companies tried to withstand them. They had little luck. Sabrino shook his fist at them. "This is what you get for invading Algarve!" he cried, though only his dragon could hear him. "What you visited on us, we visit on you a hundredfold."
He'd been worried when the Forthwegians approached Gozzo. [..H..] the city fallen, King Penda's soldiers could have spread across the plain of northern Algarve and done untold damage. But behemoths a: dragons had turned the battle in front of Gozzo, and turned every fig since, too. However brave the Forthwegians were, they could not sta up against such force.
Here and there, the retreating Forthwegians had set fire in the fie. and woods to slow the Algarvians' advance. Had they done that in( systematically, they would have got more good from it. As things we occasional whithin of smoke rose to Sabrino's nostrils: hardly what t enemy could have hoped to accomplish.
More smoke rose above Wihtgara. Sabrino's countrymen I bypassed the town to the north and south and joined hands beyond it, they'd done with Gromheort a few days before. The Forthwegt trapped inside the jaws of the pincers still battled to break free, but it had little chance. Unicorn cavalry, tiny as dots down below, charged squadron of behemoths. The egg-tossers and heavy sticks the behemoths bore on their backs wrecked the charge before the Forthwegians got to close quarters.
Dragons wheeled above Wihtgara. Till Sabrino drew near, he thought them Algarvian beasts dropping eggs on the defenders below. Then he saw they were painted in blue and white: Forthwegian colors. There were only a dozen of them or so. Without hesitation - or without any more hesitation than balky dragons usually caused - they hurled them selves at his entire wing.