Contact – The Getaway
City of Abalone, July 1st, 5,015: 5 Minutes after Contact.
Abalone was falling, and Starfish Wells did not intend to fall with it. They were sweeping through the town – the dragons that looked like wasps and had four wings and stingers that might work like the Sandwing stingers he had seen.
One more street and he would be at Crest's place, one more street -
Wells dashed past one of them lighting a torch; a smash of Wells's tail and the firebrand was knocked out of the dragon's talons and dropped to the dirt with a clatter, the enemy already lunging over it with his barb ready to strike -
Someone tripped up the dragon and stabbed it, and Wells looked back at the Sandwing, the proprietor of the Silver Run which he had been at only a few hours before and nodded thanks, just before the Sandwing's eyes rolled in his head and he slumped to the ground, lifeless from the barb which had impaled him and had been meant for Wells.
Wells whipped his head forward and scrammed, getting away from the dead men as fast as he could, rushing past a group of Mudwing sibs making a valiant defense against the enemy in the pavilion of a bar – Wells wanted to fight, wanted to warn them about the wasps diving on them from behind, but the words stuck in his throat and he could only gallop past, talons thumping to a tune of screams.
There was someone at Crest's door – pulling a Seawing out – he needed no more reason to jump with legs powered by rage, wings tucked and claws ready to rip, piercing the thin scales of the wasp who hadn't bothered to wear armor at all, and now was paying for it with his life, kicking with all his might and bending his tail towards Wells -
The two tumbled through the dirt and Wells came out on top, punched the wasp in the family jewels and let him roll away screaming, scrambled to finish the job and saw orange and black stripes looming on him from the side to tackle him as he had tackled -
"STARFISH!"
– and then there was a whizzing over his ear and the wasp who would have ambushed him collapsed with a bang and a crack.
Wells looked to the source of the noise and saw Crest on the step, helping up the Seawing on the ground with one forearm and clutching more bronze dishware in the other.
"How much time?" she asked.
Practical.
The wasp Wells had punched picked itself up and lunged towards him. Crest tossed Wells a metal scale-comb and Wells threw it into the wasp's snout, breaking it, and it went off shrieking in some language that sounded much like Common but with an accent that made it all but incomprehensible.
"Not much. The fort should hold them off for a little while but you need to get to the sea right now."
Crest looked between him and the metalware, as if wondering whether she would have survived if Wells hadn't come to her aid, and then to the dragoness standing on the dirt, bleeding blue blood from her arms and dazed from the shock.
"I'll go with you," said Crest, eschewing Wells's offer to escort her to safety.
"We know it's too dangerous. What if I'm killed?"
"You won't be. Bring as many as you can," she said, and shook the dragoness beside her. "Move or we die."
"I don't know…" said the dragoness.
"Give it your all," said Wells. "Ten minutes and this place will be a clean sweep."
A wasp buzzed their street and threw a torch into the next house. Buildings were built strong; many years of experience had taught the architects that, but years of peace had made their owners stockpile flammable things in them. Within moments the windows were dancing with flame.
With that kind of air cover…
"Follow me!" called Wells, and dashed off along the ground, then remembered who was with him and slowed to a quick lope. Their best hope was to get out of the city to the west, away from Puck Hill and – wait a moment.
Dammit, he'd forgotten his ring, the ring he thought of as his even though he had not bought it yet.
"What's wrong?" asked Crest, turning the corner, house-mate in tow.
"Nothing," said Wells, turning his head at a canter. "I forgot something, is all."
They went on, saw a young Seawing digging at rubble, tried to persuade him to go but could not. His parents were buried or taken, the poor kid, and he would not leave without him.
"Don't look," said Wells, his face grim.
They passed the intersection where the Mudwings had been, their bodies no longer animated with life but stiff in death, red blood staining the flagstones brown, and hurried on from that place, as if running through a dream of hell, only it was worse, for their hearts pounded and joints were weakened with fear. Above them dragons roared and hissed, fighting for the air which they had taken to because they had thought it was safe.
Wells and Crest dashed around a corner and headlong into four enemy soldiers wearing thin cloth armor, their spears set down as they wrestled a family of Seawings out of their homes. Rookie mistake. Wells picked up one of the spears, noted the iron tip and odd balance and jabbed at a wasp with it, aiming for his chest but slicing through the wings, two of the four. That was enough to make it hiss with pain, and the two hurried past, Wells brandishing the spear with plenty of bravado and little of confidence, just to keep the soldier from rushing him.
"Come on," said Wells in his loudest quiet voice, looking back to see the dragoness still peeking out from behind the corner, eyes wild. He could've shouted and the rest of the soldiers would've missed him, so tempestuous was the ruckus.
She shook her head.
Wells turned and loped away before the soldier he'd tussled with could tell his superior he'd been stabbed. Already he felt the first pangs of guilt – he could have helped that family, he could have saved them, somehow, even though he would have only got one and the rest would have ended him – there was always that sense that there was something he could have done, a sentence he could have said that would have persuaded the dragoness to leap. Perhaps she would make it to the sea.
"PSST! HEY!" came a male voice from above them. Wells looked up. "I bet you need a talon. I saw you had to slip past those hornets back there."
Wells did. The voice came from a Sandwing. Too scared to go alone. If there'd been someone with fire along when they'd passed that family… maybe things would have changed.
Still, he could have helped, if he'd been in a position to see.
Aware that he was holding the spearhead above him in such a way that would skewer the Sandwing if he glided down, Wells lowered the wasp-made weapon, its shaft lit by the orange of the spreading fires behind him.
"Be quick," said Wells, and the guy pulled himself through the window and dropped free.
"Nonam," he said, which Wells imagined was Sandwing shorthand for 'No-name'. "You?"
"Wells, just Wells. Crest, got anything?"
Nonam raised a talon just in time to catch another scale-comb.
"Last I've got," said Crest.
"Moons am I glad to see friendly faces," said Nonam, and Wells pardoned him the swear.
Oddly armed, without armor and riding the last updrafts of what hope remained to them, the trio proceeded through a dying town, wasps buzzing them with more grace than Wells could ever hope to achieve. If they weren't sacking his town it would've been majestic.
But they were, so it wasn't, and the three almost made it to the brush and into safety before they met their next set of enemies.
Almost.
Wells had better vision in the dark than Nonam did, and that was why he noticed the wasps shooting at them with blowdarts first. They whizzed through the air and splintered off brick walls and clay sidings, splotching them with oily stains; poison, Wells realized.
It could be disabling poison instead of the magical death spit type stuff, but Wells didn't want to take chances.
"Get by the doors, get by the doors!" he yelled, and Crest flattened herself to the building closest to the archers, ducking out of their sight, Wells only a moment behind. Where Nonam was Wells hadn't the faintest idea.
The wasps hovered, sliding in the air until they were parallel with the empty street, closing in on the ground for a better shot. Several things happened at once.
Wells pushed Crest behind a peach cart while jump-beating for a flashy takeoff, hoping to draw some of their fire. He could see the shadow of the first dart leaping from the leader's blowgun, arcing through the air what seemed right at him – and then he realized that he saw that shadow because of the flame boiling upwards underneath the wasp, hitting him, wrapping him in oily Sandwing fire -
Then Wells looked away, because he didn't wish that kind of death on anybody.
Nonam had scaled the side of one of the buildings, crisped their commander with a copious amount of flame, and the wasps hadn't replied in kind, maybe because they didn't have fire or maybe because they thought Nonam still had fire left, though with the amount he'd spewed he needed to be a Skywing to still have pressure, or maybe they'd never seen fire-breathers before, for they were scattering faster than the commander was falling to the ground.
There was no way to keep Crest from seeing the body this time, if it was anything to see; only a burned corpse with flaking scales and all the integrity and charm of a block of charcoal, its four wings – how odd; two was obviously more practical – shattered into crackling chips, smoke still wisping up from them.
Crest trotted out from behind the peach cart, trotted out and gagged.
"It's horrible, I know," said Wells, holding her close with his wing, and only then noticed the hole the dart had punched in the membrane, a few inches left and down from real flesh. Frightening, how such a tiny thing could kill him. He shivered.
"How's your fire?" he asked Nonam.
He spat a glowing ember into the dirt for an answer.
Pity there was no salvaging the blowgun.
"Still got the comb?"
"Yeah."
"Weapon of last resort, eh," said Wells, already on the move. "Were you a soldier?"
Nonam wiggled his wings for a shrug, already loping along. "Just about. Sergeant's patch?"
"I'd forgotten I was wearing that," said Wells. This Nonam could easily be a deserter or a draft-dodger. "I'm on leave. Just got promoted."
"Ahuh," said Nonam, casting an eye on Crest.
"Not what you're thinking."
"If you say so."
They came to the outskirts of the town, turned and looked behind them. The sight was almost beautiful, the way the flames danced above the rooftops which they had passed beneath in their odyssey, blind to the wider destruction, the echoes of roaring flowing through its streets. This was the remnant of Abalone, and to the right was Puck Hill, swarmed by the enemy.
He should be there; he should be fighting it out along with his compatriots, letting other dragons escape. Dragons like him.
Then he stepped back from the circle of firelight, turned and jump-beat his wings for a takeoff.
There was another fort near, one to flee to. He hoped they wouldn't kill the messenger.
Because the only way he could go was forwards.
And forwards they went, sometimes in front of the tide of enemy soldiers, beside it or behind it. In less than two hours during that fateful night, the crack units of 14th Recon Regiment had crushed any resistance they encountered along their route, driving into the Pyrrhian shoreline like an arrow along with the two sister units of their order nearly 4,000 strong, not counting logistics.
So fast did the blow fall and so great was its impact that the Hivewing advance often outpaced the news of their invasion, even fifty miles inland.
The regimental commander, Col. Pincer, had leeway in his orders – he was free to use any tactics that he wished within his Area of Operations, which meant that he was free to drive, encircle, and raze almost whatever he wished, save the villages, for they were to be used as bases.
At this point their advance was defined not by how many enemies they had to fight but how far Pincer felt was too far from their logistical network, for his unit had only two days of supply on talon after the long flight.
Serious casualties were few and far between thanks to the element of surprise and excellent first-aid.
Shortly after making a clean sweep of their AO the 14th continued to press onward, still exploiting the value of surprise, signal engineers leaving behind bonfires to mark their passage to the following logistics units, who, loaded down with supplies, could not keep up with the faster dedicated recon unit.
Far away to the south a fort burned brightly, rising smoke forming a haze and a false dawn, giving light to the land which had hither been illuminated only by the moons. The real dawn would come some five hours later.
Fairfield was encircled and forced to capitulate in a matter of minutes, before most of the townspeople knew what was happening – they were lucky in choosing to surrender then. The scattered households on the plain often only took a knock on the door. Sometimes there would be a veteran inside who would fight back; but always for naught.
All this Wasp knew at the time of its happening, though she was a great distance away in the Seagull islands; to lead from the front she needed not, for that was for her braver generals: she spoke with them directly through the new form of communication – sometimes it was better to use resources rather than suborn.
At the other end of the line was Major General Krait, 1st Cohort, the joint highest ranking Hivewing on the ground. His head was remarkably calm, considering he suspected – and in this Wasp took great pleasure – she could disappear his memories of everything he had ever done.
The librarian was asleep, and suddenly Wasp had, in her mind, vanished from her quarters and taken form in a fortunate aide standing next to his general in the main square of a quaint little dragon town where the tallest building was three stories and the inhabitants were primitives.
"Your orders were to preserve the villages," she said, and without looking: "Why is the coastal town on fire?"
"Certain enemies breathed fire, ma'am. Cl. Pincer determined it was best to let them self-immolate, and I decided not to spend dragons putting it out, as at the time we had surprised some type of underground fortification and taken it with minimal casualties."
"The military prisoners are being held apart from the populace," said Wasp, knowing before she had been told. "Have the soldiers put at hard labor and a junior officer killed for each instance of bad behavior, civilian or otherwise."
The general balked. "It would take time to send a messen -".
Wasp was impatient, and she did something she'd rarely done before, but now planned to do regularly; invested the general with power. His legs buckled at the hocks and his wings twitched, his face screwed up and teeth clenched of pain, the pain that came from feeling the feelings and seeing the vision of a hundred dragons now that she had delineated his control.
The queen looked to the Lieutenant General standing a few feet from the scene with what she knew to be soulless black eyes. "You are in charge should he perish."
Ordinary Hivewings were so weak.
"Ma'am, he may have a bursting in the brain -" began the Lieutenant General, and halfway through he found that his mouth refused to open.
Krait got upon his haunches, his composure shattered, his confidence departed and a pulsing migraine arrived. A lesser mind than his would've been cracked to atoms. But he had something new; he had power, and in a moment Wasp made sure he knew how to use it. The pain made any question of morality a moot point, though his conscience fought anyway, and lost. Consciences had a habit of dissolving in the presence of ultimate control.
"The enemy -"
"Is being rounded up now," said Wasp for him. "I expected nothing less, General."
Wasp Hive, July 2nd, 5,015: 11 Hours after Contact.
The stars are bright in the sky and there is a fresh breeze blowing through the tower, a tower rising high above a web of stays fixed to platforms high above a flat, empty desert beneath, bereft of everything save scrub. A door opens and shuts and a dragon slips into the hexagonal room: reddish-orange and with black stripes.
Already inside is his second-in-command.
"G'night sir," says a lieutenant to the boss. He would say good night, wouldn't he? He doesn't remember anything and that is merciful for the dragon, for at that moment he looks at his commander-in-chief and wonders what has happened to make the imperial signet hang askew, the four wings flutter about madly, the eyes stare off into space.
"G'night, sir?"
And General Dauber walks past without a word, passes the Silkwing busily dusting the Hivewing office that has been dusted a hundred, a thousand times and yet is being dusted again. Such a simple, inane existence; difficult, yet ignorance is bliss, and where in the morning Dauber would have told the Silkwing to run and fetch him a mug of water now he passes by like a ghost, the stinger in his tail dragging along the ground behind him.
And as Dauber retires into his quarters late, late that night, the memories of the afternoon come back to him.
Three days ago had been the big day. Wasp had arrived at the tower in person, escorted by a dozen of her honor guard, their armor black and their eyes red and their spears polished; twelve of the most trusted dragons on Pantala.
Wasp shooed them out like a Silkwing would flick away so many flies, and they went, tugged in the pit of their stomachs by the nervous anticipation of the consequence of even slow obedience; a fraction of a second slower than their queen should've liked and they were gone, down the gloomy pit and into the flamesilk memory hole, and their descendants degraded in the books of reckoning to commoners.
It was an old art, this, and unfair to say who possessed the other – Wasp or the ancient intelligence, both caught between a rock and their partner's unyielding, hideous strength in an ever-shifting deal with arcane devils.
He is weak. They wrangled him, taking turns with him like two dragonets arguing over a toy, or two dragons struggling with a sharpened spear. From thence hither, death was the only escape, and even that doubtful.
If a dragon be between her control and the control of himself, he can speak with others – yet not control them. Wasp is ruler, and ruler she shall remain, and though Grand General Dauber sees the depth of the terror and the very violation of his being that is that rulership when he is of his own mind after accessing that power, he also knows that his rule of his self may be taken away from him if he does or he says anything wrong.
She may order him to impale himself and he will do it happily – terrifying – yet does she read his thoughts, see inside his mind? Too dangerous to wonder if that were the case, and yet every time he tries not to think about it he thinks about it, and his mind wanders back to it in his idle hours and the idea stalks his nightmares when he sleeps.
Mind-reader or not, she relishes in his fear.
He starts when he is awoken, flares his wings and poises his stinger before he remembers it is of no use if he is to be taken away – but it is only his lieutenant.
"Good morning, sir," the dragon begins, as if there were such a thing as a good morning when every night is hell. "We have a Leafwing problem."
And Dauber's head swims.
The Skywing Kingdom, July 2nd, 5,015: 17 Hours after Contact.
"I was always interested in power," said Ruby, the red scales true to her name the brightest thing in the formerly gilded Skywing throne room, now embellished with flint-heads. It induced a sense of practicality in visitors to the kingdom compared to the silver trophies and twenty-four carat cups of yesteryear. "My mother wielded it like a hammer, and there I was in the background as a different version of myself, thinking that I could do it better and distill justice into the world."
Her guest was a subdued red, close to grey, standing at ease a few feet from the sharp, hundred-yard drop to the terraces below. She was a dragoness, still coming of age though a few years out of her bodily dragonethood, and looked for all the world like she belonged in this kingdom till the frills behind her jaws broke her Skywing outline and she became discordant.
"It's never that easy," said she. "Can you do this for me that, can you stop him from doing that this, Nightwings and Rainwings bloodletting throats one day and deep in love the next, and all the while Peacemaker to look after to make sure he doesn't become Darkstalker again, or do anything monumentally stupid like his older Nightwing brethren seem to be doing all the time. It's never a peaceful conclusion like in Coral's scrolls. My reason was yours, but I was never groomed for it, and no matter how badly Scarlet trained you, some training is better than none."
Glory, queen of the Rainwings.
"It wasn't worth the abuse," said Ruby.
This palace she had inherited from her mother and Scarlet's mother before her, and though the war was over and the nightmare ended it was awfully quiet and empty compared to what it had used to be back in the heyday, before dragons started dying left and right and favorite teachers and mentors were sent to training schools and the front and never seen again. It rose from the mountain as a crown, swept down the craggy slopes as a rocky necklace and placed its queen upon a lonely spire all in the center.
"Will Tsunami assume the throne from Coral?" asked Ruby. "Me, you, her, and perhaps Sunny in the future if Thorn glides down and Sunny takes the risk."
"Sunny wasn't at all irritating when I was cooped up with her for six years," said Glory, "no, not at all. In truth, the Eye of Onyx would pick her if it needed to, I'm sure of it. Tsunami I don't know about. She doesn't like Coral very well, but I don't think she'd kill the queen over it."
"Talk about it," said Ruby. "I didn't like killing Scarlet as Ruby and I didn't like it as Tourmaline, though my mother certainly deserved it. Was I really her child?"
"There's no way to tell," said Glory. "Tsunami doesn't have responsibilities like we do, only her younger sisters. She and Sunny and Clay went adventuring, with Peril attached and failing miserably at being discreet."
"No harm no foul," said Ruby. "Moorhen is alright, and we know Thorn is on the straight and true. I don't think Coral would cause harm to anybody, and then with you and myself being on our kingdom's thrones, there's a chance we'll have peace in our time."
"Peace in our time," said Glory, looking over the ledge with a warm expression on her face as a squirrel nibbled at an acorn in a young oak tree growing from the new path garden. "There are no soldiers in my kingdom, not anymore, though to say there were any to begin with was a stretch. There are so many Rainwings who haven't yet seen the world."
"The Skywings will always have a guard," said Ruby. "It's part of our culture, and I've no inclination to deny it. The bad old days of mobilization are gone, but that reminds me – Queen Snowfall has the potential to be pretentious."
"Five good queens and one bad egg. I think we'll manage."
A Skywing talon rapped a sharp rattle-tap on the floor.
"My Queen, may I enter."
"Of course, Marshal Eagle," said Ruby.
A Skywing trotted in, his scales rough and bruised from sparring and the battles of the recent war, though shining with a dull sheen around his neck where the turning of his head had caused the new coat of raw-tuna scales to bleed through before he shed his old covering.
"It's the Mudwing Kingdom. They have an emergency."
Ruby's jaw set and her wings quavered. There was fear in her, but she concealed it well.
"Tell me."
Glory – imperturbable, formerly acrimonious Glory – stirred on her feet. Acid green roiled at her ear fringes before it folded into the red facade.
"Queen Moorhen is under attack," said Eagle, acknowledging Glory's presence with a sidelong glance and nothing more.
"From whom?"
"We don't know."
Glory and Ruby sensed each other at the corners of their vision, knowing both of them were running the geopolitical calculus.
"The Mudwings were disarmed and unprepared," said Eagle. "The enemy are striped, black and red, and orange as well. We have conflicting reports of them possessing four wings or two. Whoever they are, they're not from this continent."
"And you are sure this is true?"
Eagle's face hardened into a tired grimace.
"I saw the civilians flying for safety, the casualties being carried off on tow ropes. Whatever they're facing down there, it's real. The invaders have reached the Mudwing villages, and they are within two hundred miles of their palace, closer now that you're hearing about it. Your castle staff wouldn't let me in for four hours, they wouldn't believe me."
"Make sure the castle staff get a reprimand, then," said Ruby. A pause as she thought. "We don't want to get involved in another war. Our people are rebuilding."
Disappointment reared its ugly head in Glory's heart; disappointment rather than anger. Who could blame Ruby for doing what she was about to do?
"I am willing to send aid to the Mudwings," said Glory, her voice near faltering at the end. It never did, but often it came close.
"Your tribe is not required to bear the burden," said Ruby.
It was about time the Rainwings stepped up to the plate. Beat the invasion, attain a greater political stature, go home and use that advantage to turn her kingdom into a competitor. Easy, right? That niggling doubt in the back of her mind told her to focus on the now, to use the big picture as her occasional guide rather than the source of every decision.
"We can and we will. I won't let Moorhen fall. A foreign tribe strong enough to make the Mudwings capitulate is a foreign tribe more powerful than we."
Eagle raised an eyebrow at the young monarchs' loquacious bickering. Ruby noticed it first, and held her tongue on the well-mannered retort.
Ruby appeared to change her mind. Glory's stand had convinced her.
"I will do what I can," said the Skywing queen.
She'd better, and quick.
"Have the Seawing Kingdom contributed anything?" went on Ruby. Four years of leadership had strengthened her foundations, changed her from the frightened, insecure dragonet she'd once been into something more.
"Coral and ROYDAMCOM are away without leave. I didn't get news of any authority more commanding than a lieutenant; the Seawing fellow with his wits most about him was a dragon named Wells, along with his fiancee."
"Has there been any contact in the north?" asked Ruby.
"No."
"Send a messenger over the top and get some contact with the Seawings; we'll need it," said Ruby, as Glory stood by and watched with a sinking heart, pulled down by the weight of despair. Fifteen minutes talk was all it needed to send the continent into war for the second time in a decade.
"Any other orders?" asked Eagle.
"Make sure our coastal border is secure. We're vulnerable. Mobilize the palace guard if you have to. I don't know what we're up against, but we're better safe than sorry."
Embedded in those words was the unspoken thought 'I trust you.'
"Yes, my queen."
Eagle departed silently, the bearing of bad news crushing his step. It was only when he was out of earshot that Ruby said: "Oh moons, not again."
Glory knew how her friend felt.
"I'm going back to my kingdom," she said. "I'll keep up correspondence."
"Good luck on the journey, and fair winds," said Ruby.
Glory stepped between the pillars of the open colonnade and looked back, her fringes roiling blue with appreciation.
"Thanks," she said.
Then Glory leaped. Ruby watched the Rainwing queen fly south-south-west, a path that'd take Glory through the north of the Mudwing kingdom before reaching the rainforest, and Ruby shook her head. Glory wanted to see what was happening with her own eyes, her safety left in the dust. It was so much like the Glory of four years ago, when she first had become queen.
Ruby withdrew from the tower and glided to one of the walls, ambling atop the edifice like she'd done in her younger days as a dragonet during the war, when there was no one to talk to except Scarlet, Vermillion and Peril. What palace guard would speak to the princess if it meant drawing the wrath of a tyrant?
Speaking of which, the guards were on the pavilion now; spears in talon, wings folded at attention, five score of them, and Eagle besides. The soldiers were male, most of them. There was something about war that attracted a dragon's mind; ego, or something else. The bored ones were the veterans; half of them born to kill, part of Scarlet's dragonet soldier program that took young Skywings and turned them into something else, before they had a chance to grow. It was the program that had begun with a grand marshal's death and ended with Peril, the dragons between sent to war at a young age. They fought and they died, and then the living fought again.
"We're going to war," said Eagle, standing at the head of the line, and the veterans' eyes lit up like firecrackers.
"The Mudwings need our help. You've fought with them and against them, and you know how tough they are. An unknown enemy has come from our eastern shore and invaded them."
If the greenhorns felt trepidation they did not show it.
"You know better than anyone else what you're getting into. Before the militia is mobilized, you are the first, last, and only line of defense. If any of you are not up to the task, I wish you to leave now; I would be ashamed to fight in your company."
None stirred.
"Captain Thrush, you are responsible for readying your dragons. I will requisition supplies for a two-week expedition, and we will leave on the morrow as the first expeditionary company."
"Sir, yes, sir," said Thrush, and saluted twice; once at Marshal Eagle, standing before him, and once towards Queen Ruby, perched on the wall, to the shout of the soldiers behind him.
"SIR, YES SIR!"
"Good," said Eagle, the tiniest wry smile flashing on his snout before it disappeared and he was all business again. "Break!"
The twin lines of dragons dispersed and vanished towards the armory. Eagle turned and looked at Ruby, now gliding down to him. Her back claws clicked on cold stone as she flared and set her feet.
"There's little planning on this mission. It's informal and rushed," he said. "It bothers me, but all the same I know if we wait we won't get anything done at all, and our aid will be for naught by the time I – they get there."
"You want to go with them."
"I do."
"Permission denied," said Ruby, watching Eagle's brow for that trademark wrinkle of discontent. It came and was gone: he had accepted it. "You'll have to stay here, mobilizing our troops."
"This crisis came at the worst possible time," said the Marshal.
"They always do," said Ruby, "or they wouldn't be crises."
Solitary in the courtyard, two dragons considered their fates, and then Eagle said, "Yes, my queen."
He had his doubts, but he would keep them to himself, and she knew that, and he knew she knew he would. That the Mudwings needed aid he was certain; that the Skywings were required to give it to them he was not. All the war the Skywings bore the brunt of it in Burn's Alliance, from Icewings to Mudwings to Seawings to Sandwings. Their martial culture demanded they continue forward, and yet he did not want to be the pillar for another tribe to lean on.
It all depended on Thrush now.
City of Abalone, July 2nd: 1800 hours, 1 Day after Contact.
In the bloody remnants of an occupied city underneath a darkening dusk sky, Major General Krait nursed his headache. The world around him teemed with the minds of lesser souls, dragons he could control, dragons who gave him a worse migraine than studying all night as a War Academy cadet, not to mention the soldiers in the field telling him all sorts of conflicting things, and on top of all that the wailing of the captured civilians over the fallen.
"This is driving me crazy," he said to his lieutenant general, one Mayhart. The dragon, steadfast as he was, nodded.
"We need more logistics."
Mayhart nodded again.
"We need to keep moving and keep them off guard."
It was becoming a triviality at this point.
"But I can't do both. No, don't nod again, give me some ideas, or I'll force it out of you," said Krait.
Confronted with this alarming predicament, Mayhart spoke.
"We could forage their agriculture, sir."
"Yes, I know that, but they don't have the common decency to stockpile it in hydroponics farms or centralized storages, no, it's spread out all over the countryside!"
"We could forage their agriculture, sir."
"You already said that. There's simply too much going on down there for even someone with my skills to handle."
"We could have third division do it, sir."
"They're occupied," said Krait.
"What about second cohort, sir?"
"Ah. There's an idea. Those mooks wouldn't mind if I borrowed a regiment or two, now would they? Serves them right for being late to the party."
"I agree, sir," said Mayhart.
"Shouldn't take too long. I'm tired of waiting for our supply people to become competent."
They were competent, and he knew it, but he needed something to be angry about when everything was going so well. In the first few hours they'd made fifty miles inland on all their salients, and now, nearly a day later, with the 10th Order of Second Cohort linking up from where they'd swept down from the north, they had the enemy in a pincer trap. The only way for the sea dragons to get to their native territory was south, to the sea surrounding this continent, or north, to the bay rapidly emerging on their maps. The swamp dragons, on the other hand…
Difficulties. A hundred and fifty miles out of the coast and they were finally running into some organized opposition, slowing their progress to perhaps seventy miles a day on tomorrow, and while that might make the logistics pukes happy it certainly wasn't making him happy, and what didn't make him happy wouldn't make Wasp wake up on the right side of the bunk, and so he had to do something about it.
Even if they continued at this pace they'd make their goal in less than two weeks. The continent was estimated to be about a thousand miles wide, just large enough to hold these swamp dragons and a few of their ilk, those firebreathing yellow ones he'd heard conflicting reports about – damn but he had the time to look into it himself with his power – just large enough to do that, and the shape their supply train and their chain of command was in he'd have been surprised if whole kingdoms hadn't come out and surrendered in a week.
The enemy was undisciplined, unexperienced, undersupplied and badly led. Seriously – how hard could it be?
There were the supply issues, but those would be caught up with later. Like anyone whose life is mostly secure and who has surplus hours waiting to be used productively or whittled away, Krait twiddled his thumbs and shaved at the surface, a scrap of sawdust here, a balsa cutting there. In an instant he was in what the locals called Abalone, watching through the eyes of a soldier lusting after a china tea-set; the most expensive thing the dragon would ever own, till the sergeant came in and told him it was for later, for the town's professional pillage.
Queen Wasp would take the creamer of every cup.
Then he was fifty, a hundred miles away, hovering where rolling, crusted earth met the still water of a choked pond and stank with the putrid odor of dragon-death. A strange dragon broached the muck with a humid roar and Krait impaled the muddy beast with a spear dripping red blood over the old coating of steaming soil. He held the body in check for a moment later, using eyes not his own to take in his handiwork, then spit on the failed swamp dragon and receded from the seat of control; the stem of the soldier's brain. The confused, broken reaction which came from being a guest in the self lasted a moment, then transformed to bravura when the cheers of nearby enlisted and the approving nod of the wing sergeant broke the soldier's mental haze.
He saw none of the yellow dragons. They flitted about in the back of his mind, the impressions of other dragons' memories. A glimpse of roiling, terminal fire boiled in his mind before it was gone and another replaced it; the viewer's body prone and charcoaled upon the Abalone street. A golden scale gave away its owner in the fields of green, choking trees; a volley of darts hissed into the flora, and whether any touched their mark none could tell.
Far to his north he felt the presence of another great force; 2nd Cohort under Venom's command. Her dragons were swiftly expanding from their original beachhead along the coast, flying and fighting. Beyond this he divined little, for his power did not extend to them; his authority was limited in scope and reach, and he knew even if he had the command he would be little able to utilize it.
"Mayhart, I have a headache."
Skywing Subcontinent, July 2nd; 1930 hours: 1 Day after Contact.
In a rolling field where the grass grew long and dry and the carbonized tree stumps emerged from the scrub like mushroom caps after a rain, a Hivewing recon brigade made camp. To north and east of them ran a green smudge on the horizon, the mark of the thick forest they'd struggled through last night and in the morning before they'd come to this open ground, and not a moment too soon. Now it was afternoon, and they were stopping for a short bite.
Staff Sergeant Byrd ate with his soldiers, dragons and dragonesses stamping their feet and rustling their tails at the reality of conquest in this expanse of new land.
It was the expanse that worried him.
"The land is charred here," he said to his Lieutenant-in-command, Thorn. "The -" and he struggled with the unfamiliar word, not often spoken since his grandmother's day "trees are burnt and the scrub has sprung up where there used to be forest, sir."
"You think dragons set it on fire?" said Thorn.
"Yes, but I don't see who, sir. There's the prisoners we caught in their forest cabins, but I haven't seen enough dragons to warrant… this."
He picked up a black bough and snapped it in half over his tail to prove his point. It was rotten, yet unmistakably the scent of charcoal floated up and filled the brigade's nostrils. He believed in Hivewing supremacy, and it would be a while before that belief was challenged, yet all the same the traces of fire made him cautious. Fire was an unnatural thing, something that meant circumstances had gone horribly wrong. A single flame, left unsupervised, could destroy a Hive.
"What do you think of it, then?" asked his superior.
"Press on, sir."
And Thorn nodded, heard flapping and looked to the heavens, to the the patrol gliding down from on high. They saluted habitually and delivered their report. Soon there would be no bothering with reports; just communication centralized and distributed by the minds up top.
"The sector's mostly clear sir, except for about four-score of armed red-type dragons grouped in our AO about five miles ahead. We think they spotted us."
"Four-score?" asked Thorn, skeptical.
They had found their dragons.
"Get a message out to the companies on our flanks; tell them we've found an enemy group. I'd prefer them to surrender quietly if possible. It saves time."
"Yes, sir."
"Signaliers! Blow horn for takeoff and engagement. Byrd, prepare your force."
The staff sergeant dutifully beat his wings and skimmed the ground to third company, still eating their bland rations; hydroponically grown, dried greens mixed with cultured crickets. And civilians wondered why dragons didn't like cohort food. He arrived as the brass blew.
"Stow everything and get off the ground," he said. "Patrol spotted an enemy group and we're going to meet them."
Their first real fight! The dragons of third company fastened their things in a hurry and rose to the sky with the rest of the battalion, leaving the engineers to erect a marker of their passage. The red dragons were about three miles off now, having closed the distance since the scouts had spotted them. Whether this was from curiosity or hostility was impossible for Byrd to divine until they got closer. When they'd gotten within a half mile of each other Thorn ordered them to hover midair while the strangers hovered steadily over the updraft coming from the windward side of a hill.
Then Thorn sent Byrd forth to parley, tail girded in a white napkin, signifying a truce. Of their adversaries there were perhaps two score and a half; a mere ninth of the brigade when it was in full array, though it was not. Four of the nine companies were splayed out on the flanks and one was bringing up the rear for operational security. Along with the engineers left behind at the campsite, that left approximately a hundred and twenty fighting dragons against fifty; still a vastly uneven match, but nothing like what it could be.
The dragons before him soared a dozen wingspans above the ground; red and orange most of them, with long, narrow bodies and a single set of large wings instead of the commonsense four. Most were armed with spears. A few bore javelins in their talons and in pouches, and one or two had nothing. A single dragon tucked his wings halfway in and glided gently to the clumpy grass slope, touching down with a light thump.
Both sniffed lightly, taking in the other's scent, and then the talking began.
"Lay down your weapons and surrender," said Byrd, and the strange dragon cocked his head and looked askance. Byrd devolved to the simplest of Common, stressing each syllable.
"Give up."
"No," said the dragon, unyielding in the face of almost three enemies for each of his own.
That word remained constant in either dialect.
"We will kill you if you don't," said Byrd.
It had to be done.
The dragon shrugged. The stones of that were astonishing. "No."
"Consider."
The red opponent did not understand, or pretended not to understand. "I am done here."
And with that it turned and flew away, perfectly exposed for Byrd in the second he needed for a killing blow. He hesitated, and the moment was lost. Byrd retreated to his group, wings buzzing as he ascended.
"He says he won't give in, sir," he said to Thorn.
The fool.
"He wants to hold?"
"I believe so," said Byrd.
"We can take him," said Thorn. "No one would fight to the death, no one. Capturing them would've saved time, but they're making things difficult. You're on the right flank; second company will cover my left. And stow that napkin."
Byrd did.
The fiery zeal of the enlisted was lacking from the officers' posture: they did not hunger to kill, but rather to achieve their object. The enlisted would murder and and rape and steal, and the officers might order them to do it, but for most of them a different anchor held their hearts in check. In Thorn Byrd saw common sense and proper caution. In Thorn's boss he saw little; in Wasp he saw even less.
She was a good queen, though: he was yet sure of it.
He looked out over the unborn battlefield and saw the enemy above them, strung out like malignant stars above the dirty brown and yellow scrub. They wheeled, their turns wider than those of Hivewings, but cleanly executed and with little skid. Were they faster than he, slower? Any intelligence from other sectors was rapidly outpaced by the recon brigade, and if 1st Cohort had learned any lessons about these dragons he was in no position to hear them.
Now the enemy came, soaring easily above his altitude, their wings borne on muscles the size of their necks; majestic if not for their hostile intentions. They sliced the ether on pinions sharp as knives, turned towards him in a slight dive and accelerated with their spears outstretched.
A Hivewing wavered.
"Stay tight!" yelled Byrd. "Bristle formation, three deep! Blowguns on my mark!"
Perhaps the enemy anticipated the Hivewing blowguns as spears, for they continued on the straight and narrow, though the dragons on the engaging side of 3rd Company raised their spears, forming a shock front against which a charge would fair ill.
"Mark!"
Thirty-two darts sung invisibly from Byrd's company, and one or two of the enemies shuddered at the wings, yet bore on. They parted at the bristle barrier with a flick of their tails and unleashed sheets of flame inside his formation, tearing it at the seams, and then they were gone.
"Regroup!" cried Byrd.
Momentarily his company was disorganized, and that was all the time the enemy needed. Forty-seven dragons winged back into the bristle crescent, some badly cut in the wings and body. The enemy carried poleaxes and billhooks as well as spears. Clearly he had underestimated them.
There was a straggler, a dragon who'd dodged too much and was stuck outside of the formation, three-hundred yards below.
"Climb!" bellowed Byrd, even as two of the fifty descended.
They chased the Hivewing soldier off, and there was no time for Byrd to order a flight to detach and rescue the dragon – his command structure was too rigid. One dragon buzzed the lower flank of the crescent, dissuading anyone from going out and helping the abandoned soldier, and the other, flying oddly jerkily, slew the detached Hivewing soldier, then glided to the ground.
That dragon was one of those poisoned in the first pass. He had climbed up again, held his position for a second, dived and still had enough energy in his bones to kill.
What was the hardiness of these adversaries?
"Second company, second company!" came the yell from Byrd's 2iC. The commander of second had given up his position, chased after the enemy nipping after his flanks.
"Move to support!" ordered Byrd, scanning above and below and around him. The enemy had gone after second company to a dragon, and he and Thorn were unfettered. All the same, 3rd Company was strung out like beads on a line while they flew, and that made him ashamed.
Seeing the approach of ninety dragons to the aid of a group that itself equaled their number, the enemy blew a sharp blast on one of their horns and extracted themselves from the melee one by one, diving out and using the speed gained that way to retreat to a fair distance. It was probably to converse with themselves about the invisible peril of the blowguns.
They left two Hivewing casualties and one of their own in their wake.
"Moons dammit," said Byrd, when it became clear the enemy would not retreat any further any time soon without being pushed.
Fifty against a hundred and twenty, and the fifty had won strategically in the skirmish.
"I don't want to see that ragtag behavior ever again," he told his soldiers. "You looked like a bunch of civvies heading for a candy stand, not the disciplined soldiers you are. I want double duty on watch tonight, and travel exercises the first chance we get."
"Sir, yes sir," they chorused. After that disgusting showing, he expected nothing less.
Author's Note: I say it, I say it, I say it just about every time, but thanks for reading all the way through this chapter and sticking with me to the end. I had a hard time getting started with these military scenes, but once I got them in motion I couldn't stop writing them, and I decided to cut it here before I went to a ten-thousand word long chapter. Please tell me what you think in the reviews. Should I keep making longer chapters, or should I tone it down to 5k and deliver faster updates? Your opinions are always appreciated.
Signed, Blackberry Avar.
P.S. Follow this story or I have no responsibility for the Hivewing who may eat you (page 184 of the Pyrrhian Legal Manual Article I Section II says this is loophole hasn't been closed, yet). Black out.
May 13th, 2020: Fixed a typo.
July 19th, 2020: There were multiple formatting errors, which bugged me. They've been fixed now.
September 22nd, 2020: Joseph101 pointed out that Glory spent six to seven years under the mountain instead of the four which she said to Ruby. This has been rectified.
