The replacements file in one by one, saying their hellos, they laugh nervously and glance at his scars, and it's nothing new to him. On the surface he's jokes and an occasional grin, but inside he's sullen, angry, maybe – if he stops denying himself – a bit frightened. This is the third wave of replacements since 3rd company arrived back in July, and there is no one left but him and him alone, and Byrd.
Someone is asking a question.
"Say that again," he says, looking at the newcomer.
"How was the flight over?" the kid asks. For a moment, Chervil is looking at Bolt; it's the same faded-out scales, tending more to gray than black. But the voice is different. The eyes have a yellower tint. And he's not looking at Bolt after all.
He shrugs. "I've flown over puddles before," he says, "it's just a really big, ugly puddle."
The kid – his name is Dauber – says "I didn't have to fly all the way. Ships."
And Chervil's interest is piqued. "Really now?"
"Ships in the middle of the ocean, and you land, and you eat, and then you're off again," said Dauber.
Damn, Chervil wished they had those when he flew over the puddle. Dauber's eyes flick down to his scales, the warped ridges like melted wax, and the bronze bar Monarda jokingly pinned to them. He'd hated it, he thought it was gaudy and he told her so.
But now it was important to him. Funny how things change. Funny how the ocean changes. Funny how he keeps her harmonica in the pouch closest to him, and when he thinks he's alone he'll launch into a set of notes for no one but him to hear.
He realizes Dauber has drifted off, chatting with his pals. At least he has something to be happy about, in this war. He doesn't know nobody is going to remember him. No one… Chervil shifts a half-step, and feels the reassuring weight of his journal. He writes everything there that he can. No one will ever commemorate the Carpenter Street Gang he used to run with, but maybe, if he writes them down, someone will at least know that they once lived.
He jots down the day's events in camp, just after curfew, before it gets too dark to see. Dauber and Velvet joined, and Horn and Hadur and Andraught and Sharps, and Pincer and Stinger (not the cowardly Stinger, he forces himself to remember, just another private in an army of privates), and Dremson, and a few others he writes down with a few first impressions. Isril. There are no dragonesses in this unit, not since Daring. He is summing up their numbers when Byrd arrives.
"Hey," says Byrd, barely visible in the last light of dusk. The long summer days have shortened, and the warm summer nights have grown cold, but there are no more night fires in camp, only decoy fires.
"Hey sarge," says Chervil, more out of habit, of respect, than fear.
They might have known each other as kids. Chervil certainly remembers a gangly, underfed dragonet or two from the golden days, but he doesn't know enough to be sure.
"We're deploying tomorrow," says Byrd, leaning against a tall post driven in the ground, to hold tin water cups. They jingle softly when he pushes them, then fall silent. "I thought you'd want to know."
"Not even training the greenhorns?" asks Chervil. He takes a deep breath. "They're gonna get slaughtered."
Byrd looked forty or fifty, more than double his mere score of years. But now he sags, positively ancient. "I know."
"Command's really pushing it," says Chervil, his voice lower. He's not angry. He's just disappointed, and afraid. Someday his luck will run out. Despite his nickname, his old nickname, he never goes into battle expecting to come back, because he saw what that did… and she thought she was safe… and she never returned. "Axe is really pushing it."
"I know."
Where did it all stop, he thinks. He knows Byrd thinks about it too, and he knows the war won't end with them; it will just pass over their graves. But as much as he wants to, he can't blame the general, because someone is pulling his strings too. And on and on and all the way up to the big bitch on top.
"What would you do if I left?" asks Chervil. It's not an innocent question. "Would you stop me?"
They've already discussed what they'd do when either of them dies, how the other will carry on their legacy. What they've left behind for when 3rd company is finally wiped out to a man. But desertion has never crossed Chervil's lips, till now.
Byrd opens his mouth.
"It's not about what's good for the company," says Chervil, he knows what's coming. "We are the company. And what I'm asking is just between you and me."
A pause. Both dragons listen to the newcomers chatting as they finish up their card game. Hadur cleaned out everyone except Sharps. It's the kind of thing Chervil liked to do, in July.
"So this is it," Byrd says. Resigned, sad, losing the last anchors in his life. He was never in control, he was a pebble straining against the current, until it swept him away. "After everything we've been through, we're done."
"After all the dragons we took into slavery," says Chervil. He laughs. "After we condemned them to a life worse than the one we lived when we grew up. After all the brave dragons we led to die. What's the right thing to do, Byrd? You're always thinking about the right thing. But now you don't know."
Byrd can't stop Chervil from leaving, if he wants to, and perhaps Byrd doesn't want to prevent Chervil from doing it, because Byrd's mind is on the future for his dragons and 3rd company isn't it anymore. Maybe it never was.
"At least tell me when," says Byrd. "Tell me when you're going to go."
"The next time we fight," says Chervil, "I'll help, but then I'm gone. Just… slip away. Missing in action. I saw a nice little place a few weeks back, nobody noticed. And I'll live there as long as I can. Someone will come along and kill me eventually, soots, splashies, toads, who knows. Our own. But till then, I'll be free."
"You better be," says Byrd. "It'd be a crying shame if you died now."
"But it'd be poetic, wouldn't it? The lucky star would go out, just when I'd need it most."
He rises the next morning as if nothing is different; puts on his battle-gear, his equipment, everything he needs to survive and wage war. But things have changed. He sees Byrd at morning roll call, and their eyes cannot meet. Today's mission is as fitting as it could possibly be: they are warriors pretending to be freighters, flying up and down the line where enemy recon could pop up and spring targets of opportunity.
Chervil feels like a wolf in sheepskin in more ways than one, as he pulls on the full looking rucksacks (empty), the modified freight harness, and the empty belly crate. He's fooling the enemy, but he'll be fooling his allies as well, if the soots and Hivewings meet.
Sortieing at six with forty dragons today, he writes in his journal, no friendlies otherwise. Just like July. If we are bait then it's a hook small enough for the enemy to swallow. Haven't seen any enemies around so I don't know if we'll get bounced just yet.
Should he say he's going to desert? It's true, and yet, if anyone spies on his book, then they will know. So he leaves his intentions out.
He's in the rear when they take off, and he stays there, glancing every so often at the sun. Surprise attacks are nasty, and the soots use them every chance they get. He wonders if he will be the first casualty, this time. It's not something dragons should worry about. It's a fate that's taken too many for him not to.
They fly half the day, they stop for lunch, then fly until dusk, heading north. Chervil knows he should talk to the newcomers – about what he's done, about what this company used to be, at least. So they know. So they can tell the next wave of replacements what they know, once he and Byrd are gone. That 3rd used to be in 108th recon, and that a dragon named Thorn used to lead it.
But what's the point, he thinks. So he does nothing. The day wears away like an old flamesilk's dying glow, fading and dimming until he realizes it's gone, there's only the memory that it happened, and that disappears too, in time.
He doesn't talk to Byrd that night. He knows they'll do the same thing tomorrow, only heading south, waiting for a chance encounter that might never come, or wipe them out in one blow.
Someone starts playing the harmonica – "Will you stop that!" yells Chervil.
"No," Sharps yells.
They all laugh like it's the funniest joke in the world, fucking pigs, the lot of them. Chervil rests with a bit of stuffing over his head; when the music ends, he packs it into his harness. Who knows, maybe it will be useful sometime.
Monarda's bar burns a hole into his heart.
Just like yesterday, the morning dawns as if it was any other. The mission proceeds like most others, boring, until it's suddenly not. The air is clear, dawn turning to early morning, with scaly, icy haze far above, greying out the blue in blue sky. The replacements complain about the thin atmosphere; Chervil isn't concerned. He's seen far greater heights. And while he's throwing quick glances left, towards friendly territory, somebody calls out a contact; Byrd calls them Skywings, Chervil calls them soots, as big a stain as the fellows in high command.
They're on a lead pursuit course when he sees them, tracking Byrd's advance south, adjusting gracefully for the mild wind sweeping the heights. A lot of them, too many. Chervil's mouth dries; they are fighting a battalion with a company. The enemy host casts shadows on the verdant forest, and they fly hard for Byrd, one company in particular leading the way.
Three to one. No backup… even if Chervil drops out to the dirt, there's nothing stopping them from sweeping the forest after they kill the dragons in the air, spearing every corpse. The logical course is to surrender.
He knows they won't accept.
'So this is it', Byrd's voice echoes. 'After all we've been through, we're done.'
"Weapons concealed," Byrd yells. He's with the 'escorts' over the disguised dragons. "Draw and about-face on mark!"
The soots above scream triumphantly; Byrd opens his mouth to shout.
But he never gets the chance.
Gleaming spikes fall from the swooping enemy – a perfect toss, Chervil thinks, as they perforate Byrd's side, his chest and his neck, metal rods sticking out from where his spine should be, little rivulets of blood trickling down his scales.
The sergeant falls without a sound, stone dead. There is no hope for him, and not much time left for Chervil. His beloved journal will die in the dirt. The enemy screams – he recognizes the words, he studied them in the phrase book – "Third gruppe, attack!" and a dragon sweeps down from the swarm, right at him.
Alea iacta est. The die is cast.
He whips out his spear in one last gesture of defiance. "You'll never amount to anything!" his mother had screamed. And she was right. About to die on a battlefield, like so many others. Just another body. The soot keeps coming – he's not going to slow down. By midair collision then.
The other dragon hits like a falling boulder – the impact slams into the stuffing beneath Chervil's harness, and the pain tears him apart – Monarda's harmonica breaks with a sickening crack – his eyes widen -
And the darkness rushes up to meet him.