He tried to urge it back toward the east, toward the Algarvian lines. But, lost in its private wilderness of pain, the dragon paid no attention to the increasingly frantic signals he gave it with the goad. It flew straight for the river. The water is cold, it must have thought. It will feel good on my hurt wing.
"No, you miserable, stupid, stinking thing!" Sabrino howled. "You'll drown, and you'll drown me, too." He pounded at it with the goad.
Maybe he did a little good. Instead of coming down in the water, the dragon landed on the riverbank. Sabrino unfastened his harness and leaped off its back as it waded into the stream. Only then did he realize it had come down on the western side of the river, putting that stream and several miles of enemy-held country between himself and his countrymen.
Fast as he could, he got out of the furs and leather he wore to ward himself against the chill of the upper air. Drawn by the dragon, Unkerlanter soldiers were trotting toward him. They would finish him off if they got the chance. He didn't want to give it to them. Clad only in his drawers and clutching his stick, he plunged into the river.
He struck out for the eastern bank, swimming as strongly as he could. Even in late summer, the water was bitterly cold. The Unkerlanters shouted and started blazing. Puffs of steam rose from the river not far from Sabrino; their beams were plenty to boil it here and there. But they didn't get close enough to the water's edge to blaze with any great accuracy. For a while, Sabrino simply accepted that. He wasn't about to look back to see what was going on.
But then he didn't have to. His wounded dragon's bellows of pain and rage told him everything he wanted to know. Swemmel's soldiers would have to stalk it and kill it before they could worry too much about him. And, although it couldn't fly, it remained deadly dangerous on the ground. Sabrino thought he could safely concentrate on his swimming.
He was worn when he splashed up onto the eastern bank. He lay there for a couple of minutes, gathering his strength. I'm getting too old for these games, he thought. But he wasn't so old that he felt like dying. Once he got his wind back, he climbed to his feet and started east. Somehow or other, he would have to get through the Unkerlanter line and back to his own.
First things first. He dove behind some bushes. A squad's worth of Unkerlanters were trotting toward the river. They were pointing at the dragon, and didn't see him. He supposed they were going to have some fun blazing at it. They couldn't do it much harm, not from this side of the stream. Of course, it couldn't flame them over here, either. Once they'd gone past him, Sabrino scurried east again.
He found the Unkerlanter in the bushes by almost stumbling over him. The fellow was squatting, his tunic hiked up, his stick beside him on the ground. He stared at Sabrino in the same horror and astonishment as Sabrino felt on coming across him. Then he grabbed for his stick. Sabrino blazed first. The Unkerlanter let out a moan and toppled.
Sabrino put on his rock-gray tunic and his boots, which were too big. He didn't look anything like an Unkerlanter, but he wouldn't stand out so much at long range wearing the tunic. The man he'd killed had some flat barley cakes in his belt pouch. Sabrino wolfed them down.
Should I lie low till nightfall? he wondered. In the end, he didn't dare. His dragon would draw more Unkerlanters, the same way amber drew feathers and bits of paper. The farther away from it he got, the better. And every step put him one step closer to his countrymen. One step closer to the Unkerlanters' main line, too, he thought. But he kept moving.
It almost cost him his life. A couple of Unkerlanters spotted him and started running after him. He blazed one of them, then ran like blazes himself. But the other soldier seemed to take two strides for every one of his. I'm much too old for this, Sabrino thought, heart thudding fit to burst.
The Unkerlanter kept blazing as he ran. He couldn't aim very well doing that; he charred lines in the grass and shrubs all around Sabrino. But then his beam caught the Algarvian dragonflier high in the back of the left shoulder. With a howl of pain, Sabrino fell forward on his face. With a howl of triumph, Swemmel's soldier dashed up to finish him off- and took a beam right in the chest. Wearing a look of absurd, indignant surprise, he crumpled.
"Never try to trick an old fox," Sabrino panted. Right at the moment, he felt like the oldest fox in the world. He robbed this Unkerlanter, too, and then cut the dead man's tunic into strips to bandage his wound. It hurt, but he didn't think it too serious. He also stuffed cloth into the toes of the boots he'd stolen to make them fit better.
Now he did hide till midnight. The Unkerlanter had an entrenching tool on his belt. Sabrino dug himself a scrape- awkwardly and painfully, with only one arm working well- and waited for darkness.
It came sooner than it would have at the height of the fighting for the Durrwangen bulge. Fall was on the way, and then another savage Unkerlanter winter. When night arrived, he scurried forward. He favored his left side, which had stiffened up. Every time he heard an Unkerlanter voice, he froze.
The front, fortunately, was fluid hereabouts. The Unkerlanters and his own men had foxholes and outposts, not solid trench lines. A determined- no, a desperate- man could sneak between them.
Dawn was painting the east red when someone called out a nervous challenge: "Halt! Who comes?"
Sabrino almost wept. The challenge was in Algarvian. "A friend," he said. "A dragonflier blazed down behind the enemy's line."
Silence. Then: "Advance and be recognized. Hands high." Because of the wound, Sabrino's left hand didn't want to go high. He raised it despite the pain. Moving forward as if surrendering, he let his own side capture him.
"Here you go, Constable." A baker offered Bembo a slice of cheese pie. "Try this and tell me what you think."
"Don't mind if I do." Bembo never minded taking free food and drink from the shops and taverns on his beat. He'd done it in Tricarico, and he did it here in Gromheort, too. He took a big bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Not bad," he said, and took another bite to prove it. "What all's in it?"
"Two kinds of cheese," the baker began. He spoke good Algarvian.
"Aye, I know that," Bembo said impatiently. "What livens it up?"
"Well, there's garlic and onions and leeks," the baker said, and Bembo nodded each time. Then the Forthwegian looked sly and set a finger by the side of his nose. "And there's a mystery ingredient. I don't know whether I ought to tell you or not."
By then, Bembo was finishing the slice of pie. "You'd better," he said, his mouth full. "You'll be sorry if you don't." Had the whoreson given him mouse turds, or something like that? Surely not- if he had, he wouldn't have told Bembo at all.
"All right, I'll talk," the baker said, as if he were a captive Bembo was belaboring. "It's dried chanterelle mushrooms."
"You're kidding." Bembo's stomach did a slow lurch. Like all Algarvians, he thought mushrooms disgusting. Forthwegians, on the other hand, were wild for them, and put them in everything but tea. Bembo's hand fell to the leather grip of his bludgeon. "I ought to loosen your teeth for you, feeding me those miserable things."
"Why?" the Forthwegian asked in what sounded like honest bewilderment. "You just said you liked the pie."
Bembo could hardly deny that. He did his best: "I liked it in spite of the mushrooms, not because of them."
"How do you know? Be honest, Constable. How do you know?" The baker speared a mushroom out of the pie with the point of the knife he'd used to slice it. He offered it to Bembo. "How can you really know till you try?"
"I'd sooner eat a snail," Bembo said, which was true- he liked snails fine, especially in butter and garlic. The Forthwegian baker made a horrible face. Bembo laughed at that, and wagged a finger at the fellow. "You see? I'm not the only one." But the mushroom remained on the end of the knife, a mute challenge to his manhood. He scowled, but then he ate it.