Along with the ships that carried dragons were a great many more that bore soldiers, and others with behemoths and horses and unicorns and egg-tossers and all the other supplies an army needed to fight on land these days. Xavega said, “This is a far mightier armada than the one the Algarvians used to take Sibiu.”
“So it is,” Leino said. “But the Algarvians were sneaky in a different way, for their ships did not use the ley lines at alclass="underline" they were just sailing ships, like those of ancient days. They got into the Sibian ports before the defenders even realized they were there.”
Xavega cared nothing for such details. “This fleet is mightier,” she said again, which was indeed true. “Lagoas is mightier than Algarve.” Taken by itself, that struck Leino as much less obviously true.
Coughing a couple of times, he said, “Kuusamo has also had a certain amount to do with this fleet”-that certain amount being about two parts in three.
“Well, aye, a certain amount,” Xavega allowed reluctantly. By her tone, that certain amount might have been about one part in ten.
A shout rose fromHabakkuk\ tall watchtower: “Land ho!” Down on the deck, Leino couldn’t see the Derlavaian mainland, not yet. Before long, though, he would. Habakkuk and the other dragon-haulers would want to stay as close to the mainland as they could, to let the beasts aboard them fly as far into Jelgava as they could. Before too long, the Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons would fly from farms on Jelgavan soil, but Kuusaman and Lagoan footsoldiers would first have to take that soil away from the Algarvians.
Xavega said, “Still no trouble fromKingMezentio ’s men. They are all looking across the Strait of Valmiera, thinking we would try to strike against them there. But we fooled them by sailing out of that eastern port.” She didn’t remember the name.
Leino nodded. “We seem to have fooled them. The better our job of that, the smaller the price we shall have to pay.” He pointed. “Look-some of the ships are sending their landing boats toward the shore.”
Sure enough, men were scrambling down nets and rope ladders from the ley-line transports to the smaller craft that would take them up onto the beaches of southeastern Jelgava. Because a good many ley lines ran toward those beaches, the smaller craft also had sorcerers aboard to take advantage of the world’s energy grid. In earlier invasions by sea, some Kuusamans had had to try to reach Gyongyosian-held islands from their transports in rowboats and little sailboats. Logistics here had improved.
“They are not going to be able to make behemoths, or even unicorns, climb down ladders,” Xavega said. “How do they propose to get them into the battle?”
“I do not know,” Leino answered with a shrug. “I have not tried to find out, either, I must admit. KeepingHabakkuk going has been plenty to occupy me for now. If I thought they did not have a way, I would worry. But I expect they do. If I transfer to the land campaign, I suppose I will have to worry about that kind of thing.”
He looked west again. Now he could see the mainland of Jelgava. He’d been here on holiday with Pekka, but that was at the resorts of the far north. Whatever this was, a holiday it was not. I hope it’s not a holiday for the Algarvians, either. It had better not be, or we’re all in trouble.
He didn’t just see the mainland. He saw smoke rising from whatever Algarvian fortresses or barracks or other installations the dragons could find. And he also saw fountains of water rising from the sea not far in front of the foremost ships of the invasion fleet. He cursed softly in Kuusaman: cursing in classical Kaunian never satisfied him. The dragons haven’t wrecked all their egg-tossers. Too bad.
An egg landed on one of the small craft taking soldiers toward the shore. After Leino blinked away the flash of light from the burst of sorcerous energy, he stared at the spot, hoping to spy survivors clinging to bits of wreckage. But he saw only empty sea there, empty sea and other landing boats hurrying toward the shore.
Xavega had chanced to be looking in the same direction. “Brave men,” she said quietly.
“Aye.” But Leino wondered. Then he shrugged. Whether they’d been brave or terrified, what difference did it make? The egg hadn’t cared. And what they were now, irretrievably, was sunk. A moment later, another egg struck a boat. That vessel too, vanished as if it had never been.
And, a moment later, alarm bells aboardHabakkuk clanged. A dowser shouted, “Enemy dragons!” and pointed toward the west.
For a long moment, Leino didn’t spot them: he was looking high in the sky, where the Lagoan and Kuusaman beasts had flown. When his gaze fell closer to the sea, he spied the dragons-two of them, a leader and his wingman-driving straight toward the fleet just above the wavetops. Each of them flamed a light craft full of soldiers. Then they pressed on toward the bigger ships of the fleet itself.
Every heavy stick aboard those bigger ships started blazing at the Algarvian dragonfliers. None struck home, though. The dragons flamed a few men on the deck of a ley-line cruiser not far fromHabakkuk. That done, they dodged their way back toward the Jelgavan mainland.
“I hope they get home safe,” Xavega said. “I do not care if they are the foe. They have great courage.”
Algarvic peoples-Lagoans as well as Algarvians-were prone to such chivalrous notions. Leino didn’t argue with Xavega, but he didn’t agree with her, either. As far as he was concerned, a particularly brave enemy was an enemy who particularly needed killing.
The Algarvian dragons did escape the massed blazing power of the whole allied fleet. But they were the only two enemy dragons Leino saw that whole day long. And, even as they escaped, the first small craft let their soldiers out on the beaches of Jelgava. Now the Algarvians had a new fight on their hands.
Talsu was discovering that life in a tent was less different from life in his home than he’d expected. He was warm enough. He had a roof over his head. True, it was a cloth roof, but with spring edging toward summer that mattered very little in Skrunda. If he was still under canvas when rain came with fall and winter, that would be a different story. He’d worry about it then, though-he couldn’t change it now. After the eggs from Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons burned him and his family out of their house, he was glad they were all alive and in one piece.
Worst about sharing the tent on the edge of town-one of many-with his father and mother and sister was that he and Gailisa had so little privacy. His parents were considerate enough to go out walking every now and then, and he and his wife did the same for them (both pairs taking Ausra along as needed), but still…
He also went out walking and into town for other reasons than privacy these days. For most of four years, ever since the Jelgavan army collapsed andKingDonalitu fled to Lagoas, he’d taken Algarvian occupation for granted. It wasn’t that he liked the redheads-he despised them. But he hadn’t seen anything that would get them out of his kingdom. In certain minimal ways- accepting coins withKingMainardo ’s beaky profile on them, in making clothes for Algarvian officers, in not using his every waking moment thinking up ways to dismay or kill them-he’d acquiesced in their presence in Skrunda.
Everything was different now. After days of uneasy silence, Skrunda’s news sheets had to catch up with rumor and admit what could no longer be denied: the islanders had landed on the Derlavaian mainland. They’d landed, in fact, not far from Balvi-the capital of Jelgava lay close to the beaches where they’d come ashore.
After fetching a news sheet back to the tent, Talsu waved it in his father’s face. “Just listen to this.”
“Well, I will, if you ever read it to me,” Traku answered.
“All right.” Talsu stopped waving the sheet and started reading from it: “ ‘King Mainardo, the rightful ruler of the Kingdom of Jelgava, expresses his complete confidence that his forces and those of his valiant Algarvian allies will succeed in repelling the vicious invasion by the air pirates whose raids have already caused the Jelgavan people so much hardship.’ “