Contact – Obstruction
A/N: Wrapping up a plotline I had almost forgotten about, the middle part of this chapter deals with another subplot which some of you may have taken interest in (aka pt35, way back in chapter 2)
I'm getting pretty weary of switching back and forth between PoVs all the time. Would you guys like to see long, two-three chapter arcs from one character's point of view or would you like to stay with what I'm doing currently?
As always, many thanks to LiterallyHasNoIdeasForAnOKName, who looked over parts of this story and gave feedback. I would also like to thank pt35, who stoked my creativity and pointed out problems with the story. They are both authors and you can find their work published under those names on fanfiction. As always, if you enjoy the story, don't hesitate to give me your thoughts.
July 7th, 5,015: Somewhere in the Skywing Kingdom
If that day was characterized by anything mundane in later memory, it was that it was then that they ran out of the food brought out of Smolderfax. It was this which first invoked recollections in those who survived, before they recounted their later experiences.
Unrealized memories, however, were of no comfort to Byrd, who had a sinking feeling in his gut that late morning as he watched the last of the mutton torn up and eaten, his own portion much smaller than those of his subordinates, as he did not wish them to go without. The ground was still damp in the shaded places, and the bottoms of his forearms and legs left patterned scale-prints in the moist earth, bare except for its clothing of droplets of dew and a smattering of pine needles and small grasses.
Already the dew was evaporating, vanishing into the air before his eyes. The air was different at altitude; the wind took moisture and whisked it away, and blew out flames when they were most needed, but never when they were least wanted. It didn't affect the fires of the soots, who burned Chervil, and laid a longish cut lengthwise along Byrd's scale. He chalked this up to another instance of the strange, quiet powers every dragon had which made reality wail.
His muscles yelled at him to keep lying down, to rest, to sleep. Byrd brushed them aside, pushed his body upwards from the right side while balancing his newly standing form on his left talons, which strained for a moment, then strengthened, digging pinpricks into the dirt. Byrd rolled his shoulders, felt the back of them brush his front pair of wings, then knew all of him was there, even his tail, which was stinging and twitching as the blood rushed into it.
Now he remembered. He'd slept on his tail. He kept telling himself he'd never do that again, and every few months it would happen to him most embarrassingly. None of the enlisted had their heads his way, however; most of them were licking the last blood from their chops. Savoring the last of the morning stillness, he managed an order, though his voice cracked on the last word.
"Pack up," he said.
It was at this point that the four lookouts from last night stirred from where they'd been lying on the ground, out cold with their legs resting on one side, their bodies pressed close to each other like soldiers often do before they learn better. They looked similar to dozing cats, only more deadly.
"Is there any food?" they asked.
"Check your haversack," said Monarda. She was crisper than the rest of them, standing offside with the brush covering up her ankles, turning her head this way and that to gaze through the trees and discern, possibly, what lay in the forest.
"Awwww," one said. They got up anyway, then leaned against the birch trees arranged in a ring around the camp, munching rations. One even scavenged a scrap of mutton from where it had fallen on a slab of fallen bark. He was lucky.
Slow moving.
"North, for five hours," he said. "No, belay that – two."
They set off.
Slipping through the trees, he cast a glance as to the position of the sun. It was getting on an hour since he'd issued the order. With the gears grinding in his head, he did a bit of figuring. With the rations running low, he wanted to be back in Smolderfax within three or four days; by the eleventh. If they took off for it now they could make the town in two days and a night, full stop, three if he wanted to give his soldiers rest. For combat-effectiveness, the second option seemed better.
They were an hour in.
"Number check," he said. Losing dragons while traveling was creatively called 'natural wastage', and Byrd didn't want any of that happening to his guys. The company stopped for three minutes in time as the word went up and down the line, checking and double-checking for surety, and then Monarda stepped forward with the word.
"We have all forty-five soldiers, including you, sir. Maven is lagging behind."
"How badly?"
"He was losing a few feet of ground for every hundred we went."
"Is he complaining of aches?"
Monarda shrugged. "They didn't tell me."
"Could've been that rodent," said Byrd. "I'd hate for him to be impaired."
He took two deep breaths, purging his lungs of built-up bad air, then made a low shout. "Continue!"
As slowly as they were going, an hour's difference of trotting made no difference to the structure of the land. It remained hilly and forested, with occasional gaps in the trees allowing sunlight to fall directly through the canopy. It was getting towards the afternoon, even though they had been going only an hour; Byrd had let them sleep in too much.
And then the terrain got too hilly. They ran into a sheer cliff about thirty minutes after stopping to account themselves, running neither parallel nor perpendicular to their course, but roughly north-west, counter to where their intended course, unless he either wanted to turn west and head back towards the course, or east and go south, further from the glimmering mountain palace he'd seen from the tower at Smolderfax, less than a week ago.
The dragons of third company shuffled to a stop not far from their leader, Maven wringing his arm and clenching his teeth.
"Which way, sir?" asked Monarda. Byrd thought of Bolt, but the young soldier was sharpening his talons, dulled by the long walk, and was little use.
"A few more miles won't make much difference," he said. "What direction will give us the best hope of catching Stinger?"
Monarda whipped their intelligence chart out of their haversack. "What speed?"
"Full, not flank."
"Got it, sir. West and west by south."
"Compasses for west, then," said Byrd, speaking louder so everyone could hear him.
"I was getting bored of the new territory anyway," said Chervil, on the other side of the group. "Trees for days and rocks to stub your toes on."
Byrd chuckled as he braced his body between two trees and buzzed his wings, first in small bursts to help him get up, then in longer sequences, and finally in a sustained manner as he took to the sky for the first time in twenty-eight hours, with the rest not far behind.
They spilled into the air as if the ground had opened a crack and released a miniature torrent of painted warriors, gathering in four-dragon formations where each dragon was separated by a dozen yards, their wings translucent as they beat faster than the eye could follow, their tails rippling behind them and their talons dangling in the wind. They were in the foreground of the great shelf of broken-down rock which stood high above the forest, whose trees neglected to climb the slate banks.
Ah, but it felt good to be flying again. Third company made good time that day, eating up the miles like the ration bars they ate while airborne. There were no soots, horizon to horizon; no other dragons, only vast acreages of young trees and old, whitened hulks which arose from the earth the moment they passed a small river. It was a welcome change in the scenery, but Byrd could not help but think about what had caused the fire. Had it been natural, or dragon-made?
Burning down the forest would've been an effective area-denial tactic. He couldn't imagine the smoke and heat caused by a fire like that, but it must've been huge.
And there on the horizon in the direction of their travel was another column of smoke; small, but unmistakable in its acrid blue curls. Smolderfax? - no, they were too far away to see that town, and too far north. Byrd hurried on, and the dragons behind him followed his wingbeats in traveling wedge, for they needed no urging on. The miles fell away beneath them as they swept past verdant trees and undergrowth, and reached the site of the burning an hour later.
Byrd descended to the ground just outside the burning territory, the better to speak. He dared not tread on hot coals: though it was ridiculous, there was always the possibility of the fire in the burning boughs leaping up and engulfing him, like the fire of the soots. Maybe, he thought, he would not be so afraid of fire if he had grown up with it, and coaxed it, but the Hivewing reliance on flamesilk for lighting and forging wrought unfamiliarity, and unfamiliarity bred fear.
"This isn't where we left Stinger, no – that was south of here," said Byrd. "Any ideas?"
The scent of the smoking tear in the forest left a bitter taste on his tongue. Maven landed with a thump in the background, panting and scratching himself against an unburnt birch trunk. Byrd eyed Maven and Maven held out a talon, thumbs-up, 'everything's ok'.
"Stinger, probably," said Monarda. "He must have come north, trying to outpace you to the top, then gotten jumped somehow."
Byrd had forgotten to share Bolt's revelation with Monarda. Now that he'd calmed down he could see how it could be farfetched, since they had no evidence for it, yet still he was operating as if the soots were fighting in scout-and-reserve. Apparently that paid dividends compared to Stinger's model.
Or, more likely, Stinger had been defeated because 3rd Company was not there to help him. That was Byrd's fault.
"If there was a corpse here, we'd know," said Byrd. "Fan out, try to find anything that might give us a lead. Flying doesn't give a track, and we don't know which way he's gone. It's not a full forest fire, thank goodness."
It was scary enough, though, with the billowing clouds of smoke emanating from what seemed like miniature sheets of flame in dry brush and places where logs had fallen. The forest would be burning if not for the rain two days ago.
While the forty-odd dragons under his command combed the wrack, Byrd ascended and hovered just outside where the smoke was ascending from the gash in the countryside, then pulled out his spyglass, extended it, looked through it. Mostly he was checking the horizon to the west and south, towards the sea or Smolderfax. Once he swept the ground to the north and east, checking for enemies flying at low altitude, but there were none, or if there were any they were hidden exceedingly well. It supported his hypothesis that there weren't as many soots as they'd figured.
"Sky's empty," he said, flying back down. His talons touched the ground smoothly, and it was only after they were solidly down that he let his wings rest, and had his shoulders bear the weight. "Either Stinger beat it or he was never here."
"Probably was," said Monarda.
"That's funny," shouted Bolt, his voice loud to be heard over the crackling, spitting fire.
"What is it?" asked Byrd. He half-trotted, half-cantered to where Bolt was, pulling a sooty object from underneath a fallen bough which had escaped the ellipse of destruction with little more to show for it than the dessicated mushrooms which were shriveled up on its top. The object, however, had seen better days. It was twisted in two, and it tinkled when Bolt finally extricated it from the branch.
"Looks like your spyglass, if it was stepped on and left in the mud to rot," said Bolt.
"Stinger's," said Byrd. He wiped at the scurf of earth and scraped away with an additional layer of red paint. "It's as if he tripped and dropped the thing, then pushed the branch over it or something. It's Hivewing make, at least, and I don't know of anyone else of our kind who would've been up here."
"Which way did he go?" asked Monarda.
"Towards town, probably," said Byrd. "We should be north of that, but a little bit east still, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then get moving," said Byrd. He jerked his head. "Maven, how you doing?"
The wiry dragon was leaning against the birch, as he'd been since he'd got here.
"Not feeling so well," said the soldier. The virile voice of yesterday was gone, replaced by a crackling half-whine.
"Can you fly two days?"
Maven considered. It was scary that he had to consider.
"Yeah."
"Anything particularly wrong?"
Byrd was still shouting, even though the fire was dying down. There was just too much moisture for it to be self-sustaining.
"Itches, and aches, and soreness. Why you askin' chief?"
"Because I am," said Byrd. "That's no way to talk to your staff sergeant. Get up and let's go."
So they did, fanning the flames as they took off and turned south-east by south, more urgently this time, and with less of a good mood. Stinger had been there, no doubt about it, and there had been a battle, miraculously with no casualties except a spyglass. The soots must have torched this part of the forest in the low-level fighting.
All too grim, Byrd conjured up the likely story.
The not-quite-competent company commander had realized the game was up, and was making a run for home, with casualties hanging from his force like beads on an open-ended necklace, slipping off as the soots killed any dragon who fell out of formation, and a few who didn't. Eventually Stinger would have to make a stand, but – and here was the stickler – his dragons would be deadly tired, and low on morale after their recent defeats and fast flying.
Byrd was the only dragon who stood between second company's capture and the soots, or worse, massacre. It took a cool head to withstand an invasion and not develop a vengeful lust for blood.
Justice alone demanded -
Wait.
If justice demanded retribution, what were the Hivewings doing here in the first place?
That was one of the thoughts he shouldn't be having, so he put it away in his mental filing cabinet and swore never to visit it again. He should have cured himself of disloyalty, but out of nowhere it materialized within him again, dangit.
With these things in mind he again raced across the territory.
It was going to be one hell of a patrol report when he got there.
Had it been a week ago, now, that he'd been jostling for position with Stinger at Smolderfax for leadership when Thorn left? Was it only yesterday he'd criticized his soldiers for criticizing second company and felt hollow inside? Now he was worried sick, and that told him he was a good dragon, that he cared.
The ground made a mockery of him as he strove onward, as the muscles in his wings burned, fighting against the acid weariness which crept from his bones. It felt like he would never make it, that even if he was going fast enough he had missed Stinger's course, and the other staff sergeant was fighting to the death elsewhere in the arcane wilds.
"Soots ahead, sir," said Chervil. Now was not the time for a joke, and the keen-eyed spotter never considered one. His voice strained. "An eighth turn right off-course, high!"
Byrd's eyes searched for the spot, found a group of dots he'd taken to be vultures, but which the sun had shone its light on and revealed to be colored red. They were swooping and circling in the air, above another group of dots, which were straggling like a row of birds buffeted by the wind.
"Adjust course one eighth right, crescent on call!" he shouted. "Flank speed."
He looked back and saw most of them picking up the pace satisfactorily, their four wings beating so rapidly they were a translucent blur to his eyes. Behind them lagged Maven, trailing by half a mile, and no longer able to keep up. Ever more he receded into the green foliage, until Byrd decided it wasn't worth his time to glance over his shoulder and spend the three seconds it took to check on the dragon.
Maven wouldn't be accompanying them until they stopped to rest, and that was that.
One of the soots rose into the air, crested on the wave of his momentum, then pulled a tight turn and uttered a shout, a yell which stood out to Byrd's ears fifteen or twenty seconds later because it was echoed by his fellows. They'd closed to a range of three miles, then, and it was at this point that the excellently disciplined soots had broken free from the combat tunnel vision and noticed the incoming threat.
They reorganized, pulling away from Stinger's battered forces en masse; leaving a pitiful, motley company now reduced to two wings and an injured flight, if that.
"Crescent formation! Blowpipes ready!"
A third of third company drew the blowpipes they'd long been gripping at their sides, and the rest tightened their talons on their spears, spreading out and edging to the front in four-dragon clumps, protection for the blowpipe soldiers and each-other.
"Spears ready!"
The soots had fully disengaged now, were letting Stinger's forces slink away into the woods, and that gave Byrd an idea, even as the red, angular enemies flew above them and feinted at diving, trying to waste the Hivewings' ammunition. It was a point of pride that his soldiers had grown wise to such tricks.
"Treetop level!" called Byrd. A second passed, and his soldiers only began to react. "Treetop level! Defend your own!"
He was playing to the Hivewing strengths by having his soldiers hover between the boles. No soot could dive on them without breaking a wing trying to pull-up. Though there was a small amount of disorganization when his soldiers descended, the enemy could not exploit it. The Hivewings were invulnerable to the conventional tactics. Fluttering just above the soft leaves, Byrd looked up and saw the soots fly around as they realized they had to go one-on-one to engage. Not three-on-one. Not two-on-one. One-on-one, at best.
And even if it was an even fight, that was still better than being defenseless as the enemy pounded them, swooping above and beneath and all around him, especially when he counted his foes and found they numbered 'only' sixty.
It didn't take long for the soot commander to attempt a solution. A detachment of three dragons folded a wing and dropped from the circling horde above them, probing.
"Pick targets!"
When they came too close Byrd let out a shout.
"Fire!"
Fifteen darts shot away and were lost, and one of the oncoming dragons faltered. He did not stop, though he must have known he was doomed, but let out a blast of fire and charged into the friendly ranks from the side, torching the forest as he went, his flames fueled by the knowledge that he had nothing left to lose.
Monarda ducked beneath the branches as the heat roiled her way, and Byrd shied away as he brought his spear in front of him to stave off the worst of the damage, then backed away quickly, waiting for the poison to take effect.
More flames erupted, blistering his scales by proximity and boy did that hurt, the flames were going to get him and – he ducked out of the way and let the crowd go by, controlling his fear better than most. And it was that clarity which brought tidings of their imminent doom.
The two other soots were in the forest beneath, stalking, splitting Byrd's attention between above and below, and by doing so bringing him to the point of impotence.
"Fire at will!" Byrd cried. "Fire at will!"
He didn't know if anyone heard him.
There was a single dragoness, whoever, who had the measure of their enemies. A thwack and crunch rose above the roaring of the dying soot, and then a squelch, followed by a roar and feminine hiss of triumph. Byrd permitted his lungs a breath of relief; Monarda had come through.
A hiss of fire permeated the air, followed by another crunch, which was succeeded by a yell.
"Not again! I just scratched the charcoal off, you tuna-colored bastard."
Two dragons and Chervil had tackled the last soot when it tried to come up through the trees, and while the enemy had had the worst of it, Chervil came in second place for the hurt. His scales were smoking, on the verge of catching fire, his wings were scorched, and his eyes were red and weeping.
Everything since the three soots entered the fray had taken place in twenty seconds, twenty seconds his focus had been inwards instead of outwards, during which the intelligent enemy commander could've taken apart third company while Byrd was preoccupied.
But he didn't.
Wary of sending their forces in piecemeal, and unsure if they could win against the new Hivewing tactic, the soot commander withdrew a half mile, content to block the way home until he thought of a counterattack.
"Regroup!" shouted Byrd.
All around him his dragons were falling back into the four-dragon flights which ensured safety for each soldier. The poisoned soot must have been taken out, or fallen to the forest floor, too sick to move if he wasn't dead.
Byrd already knew from Smolderfax that poison was less reliable than they'd been taught in boot. The enemy wasn't dying the way they were supposed to.
"Open up the flights two-three yards," he said, "Pass it around."
"Yessir."
The voice made Byrd look, turn away, then look again. It was Maven, the gray-striped Hivewing fidgeting in the air, his arms tense and twitching, but his eyes never meeting Byrd's.
"We'll talk later," said Byrd.
His tone brooked no argument.
"Monarda! You down there?" he asked.
"Yes sir."
"Report," said Byrd. He anchored his talons on two trees, relieving half the weight on his wings.
Sticks snapped underfoot, and woody brush swished and hissed as Monarda moved about beneath the canopy, then pulled her weight up the trunk of a stout, sweet-smelling tree, one with three-pronged, symmetrical leaves and the scabs of light green buds.
"Two casualties I saw, one bad," she said. "One had two wings burned off. He can't fly right now."
Byrd hadn't seen that one, but did see another, raked by a series of gaping, bloody talon-swipes, lying in a red pool on the forest floor.
"Can he walk?" asked Byrd.
"Yes, sir."
"Good," he said. Then he raised his voice. "Find me Bolt, and get a flight looking for a water source. Be back within two hours. And you four, casualties."
There was shuffling in the group, as the requisite, gray-striped soldier pushed himself to the fore, and four dragons shot off looking for water, if there was any to be had. The last flight had the grim job of caring for the wounded and disposing of the dead.
Bolt made a tail salute.
"As you were. That company and wing of soots over there are our problem. Do you see any way of getting past it?"
"Getting past it, sir?"
"Yes."
Bolt surveyed the terrain. There was a rise in the ground towards the enemy camp, evidenced by the taller trees in that direction. The shallow crest continued roughly east to west, then conjoined with a rocky knoll about fifty feet above the treetops; the foot of a bluff which ran roughly from southeast to northwest, like the rest of the hills and valleys in this country.
The outcropping was an excellent perch – for a specialized force with long blowpipes. The enemy had encamped just out of range, trusting their wings to give them oversight better than a fixed location. In Byrd's mind, that was a mistake.
"Get dry wood, and flint and steel," he said, the word 'wood' rolling easily off his tongue now, where before it came unsteadily from his lips. "We'll start a fire now, then keep it burning after nightfall. Fool them into thinking we're here, then slip out."
"I was thinking the same," said Bolt. "Those guys look tough, and I don't want a melee. Wait. What about scent?"
"The mud will help, but we'll have to go into the wind," said Byrd. He wiped the dirt from a talon on his scales, licked it, then held it up and waited for it to try. The cool breeze penetrated first on the northern side. "I'll do another test before we move."
Bolt kicked a leafless sapling halfway up, scratching the bark, which already was turning soft with rot. Another kick was enough to fell it. Byrd rolled his shoulders, untying the knotted muscles, then set off to tell the thirty-odd dragons lazing around about their new job.
The once novel forest became the setting of their drudge work, kicking and cracking and snapping of too-long sticks, as the detritus was assembled into a pile of brushwood, the dry leaves gathered in and the lingering embers of the prior battle stamped out. Byrd supervised this with half an eye, turning the rest of his attentions to Maven, who was leaning on a healthy birch, scratching both it and himself.
"Yeah," said the soldier, seeing Byrd approach. "You're gonna give me crud about discipline n bunk n stuff, and warnings and blah."
His tone was still scratchy, but no longer a whine. It was as if his voice had dropped.
Maven's half-closed eyes slowly traversed the forest, eyelids fluttering with the intermittent breeze.
How was Byrd supposed to handle this? How was he, who had his doubts, supposed to enforce discipline without feeling like the world's biggest hypocrite?
"Dragon up," he said, "and stop giving me lip."
"And why should I?"
"Because I am the authority here, put in charge of this company by high command, first and foremost, and last and least, I have earned these dragons' trust by my actions, which have probably saved you from a painful death, that is why. I do not care if you don't feel like obeying orders, you will obey orders quickly and respectfully. There is no 'or else' to this order; it simply is."
Maven licked spit from where it was accumulating behind yellow teeth, then ground his molars.
"You're making me angry."
"You've not seen the beginning of angry."
A pause.
"Not worth the trouble, you aren't," said Maven. He wandered into the center of the small glade, twisting his head this way and that as if lost. He leaned heavily to one side, lean legs stretched to their utmost, then stumbled leftwards and almost fell. Eventually he settled and contented himself with rearranging sticks where the fire was going to be, licking up drool when it threatened to spill to the ground, twitching oddly and mumbling things to himself.
A sudden movement caught Byrd's attention; shadows flitting from one tree to the next. He drew his spear from his side, stepped forward, mouth opening to give the call to arms.
"Sergeant!"
The first in the line of shadows stepped into a light patch, revealing a Hivewing snout framed between a white tree and a row of thorn bushes, their vines tangled and brambly.
"Report!"
The four Hivewings drew closer, half of them bleeding from odd gashes, the rest sporting black bruises and drooping wings. Wryly, Byrd thought they were in good shape as troops went.
"We found a spring, sir," said the first. "Plenty of mud."
"Good," said Byrd. He pivoted on one talon and moved with the other three, scratching out a raw patch of loam on the leaf-covered earth. "Third company, listen up."
A pair of soldiers trotting backwards while dragging wood stopped and perked up their ears.
"Camouflage at the spring, no more than eight of you there at a time, max. Be quieter than mice."
He looked up and scowled at the red dot soaring overhead, scored by the light of the waning sun. It banked left and the shadows shifted; now to its belly, now to its neck as it espied their camp from its safe height. Byrd felt like it was staring at him.
He dropped his gaze.
"The soots can't know we're up to funny business."
A soldier opened his mouth, then closed it, then stamped the earth with his talons. Byrd looked at the dragon.
"Question?"
"Are we going to eat now, sir?"
"Permission granted," said Byrd, a soft growl rumbling in his throat when he saw everyone stop what they were doing and pull a ration bar out of their haversacks. It was a fifteen minute setback.
His arms shook. He was too revved to be hungry.
Things went smoothly after that, despite the delay, though Maven refused to eat, drink, or move, instead growling at anyone who came near the firewood he was hunching at, which was troubling because it was one of three piles.
That dragon was becoming an impediment to the mission, Byrd told himself, looking down at the activity below from where he was hovering a yard above the trees. The soots ahead of him were the worst block, but troubles closer to home were bad for morale. It could've been the bite – but Byrd knew of no fever which resulted in this, had never learned of one despite his odd upbringing. Those thoughts led him to Monarda, and at that he told himself to focus.
The red menace were encamped about a mile away, clustered together on a clear patch atop the rock they'd shunned earlier. He brought up his spyglass and pulled, clearing the image of the soots and blurring the leaves of the trees close to him, so that the lime-green canopy wavered in an indistinguishable mass of vegetation and the light brought by the late afternoon sun.
Byrd's enemies were having a discussion. There was one dragon at the head of it; standing higher than any of the others, and speaking infrequently. Two others were talking in stops and starts, planning how to engineer third company's demise, likely. The rest of the sixty-odd soots were either circling overhead or resting on the rock or on the trees.
Having them on the rock complicated things.
"Sergeant."
The words came from beneath, were spoken in a near hiss. Byrd looked down and received a tail salute.
"As you were. What?"
"The casualty crew found another one farther out. He didn't make it."
"Action total?"
The dragon beneath him waited the length of a deep breath before answering.
"Two dead, three further casualties; two with their wings burned off, one bleeding heavily."
It was the worst after-action casualty report Byrd had yet received, and this from a skirmish. That third company had been spared thus far was a stroke of luck, a stroke he saw was now turning against them.
"If they can't fly they're on their own," said Byrd. "Tell them quietly, I wish them the best."
Once their forces took this area his dragons would turn up sooner or later. So Byrd hoped. For the first time the company was under a forty-soldier strength, and that stung. He looked to the soots one more time, saw a gleaming cavalcade of red scales slink off the pinnacle and duck into the forest, their bodies low to the ground, and wingtips bobbing with their footsteps. Simultaneously the remainder of the unit beat their wings and shot into the air towards him, as if catapulted.
The lookout blinked.
"To arms!" yelled Byrd, and was answered by a horn-blast from beneath. When it died away and was replaced by the distant rushing of wings he added, "Watch for enemies in the forest!"
After that his orders meant nothing, because there was no time to make them: the enemy was too close and the attack too sudden, and his soldiers were cast adrift of his guidance and left to fend for themselves, in groups of four or five clustered by trees, or pairs of dragons vulnerable to divide and conquer.
What Byrd saw was a maelstrom, soots charging him and dodging his spear, then attacking from another direction; teeth gnashing, fire billowing and dying into smoke which split into golden wisps in the sun's dying light; the witching hour; enemies running around torching the place, and splitting the Hivewings with the flames.
Into the whirlwind came the soots from the forest, and after them entered the eight Hivewings who'd been busy putting on camouflage.. The muddy Hivewings formed a unit, making their task the defense of the woodpiles, and killing the soots who'd split up in individual fights.
Byrd saw this from where he lay on the edge of the meadow, his body tossed up against a copse of green weeds and browned thorns, watching the crowd go by. A Hivewing got close and its mouth moved, but he couldn't hear the sound.
He saw his soldiers standing by the woodpiles, spears pointing in a circle outwards as the blowpipe wing expended the last of its ammunition; he felt his ears rustle from the rush of air as the soots set fire to the brush and the leaves and bushes on the far side of the of the fighting went up in sparks; he watched the blue shadows of evening dispel, vanished by angry firelight.
Maven lunged at the soots, and the soots ran, till one of their number came up with a halberd and sliced the soldier dead.
He should be moving. The heat on his face was like staring into an oven.
Byrd picked himself up on his left two legs, reared to his full height, then stumbled. His soldiers were winning the battle, losing the war. The fire was all-consuming. It crept through the brown leaves on the forest floor; licked at the woodpiles, charcoaled the outside logs before infiltrating them with fingers of flame.
A pinecone exploded with a bang, blasting him with smoke, and he coughed, head shaking, neck rattling, lungs searing as if he'd taken a hard flight in the cold. He needed to get his soldiers out of here. He wiped away the spit from his jaws with a foretalon, then bellowed.
"Regroup! Southwards!"
Where was south? – towards the tall, brown tree with the nuts scattered at its roots. The sun told him that. He coughed again, then loped away from the scene – alone. He should've set a point of regroup. He should've reckoned for this.
No one could reckon for this. He yelled over his shoulder.
"Regroup! Southwards!"
The soots were gone. There were no red scales before him, only inferno, running up the trees and consuming them in gouts of flame.
"Sarge!"
"I'm here!"
Against all odds, Chervil pushed through smoldering thorns, his talons scattering windblown embers as he stepped. His chest scales were melted into each other, like colored wax left out in the sun. A train of soldiers followed, eyes wild, champing at the path Chervil set for them like horses about to bolt. A roar heralded the approach of the fire, racing towards them in streaks.
"Sarge, we've got to go."
He needed to leave, but he had to stay.
"Stay here. Above the trees. Just out of reach of the fire," said Byrd. He panted for breath. "I'll be back!"
And he loped off with a winded gait, stopping every few paces for the sake of his lungs, wiping away the grime with a foretalon which was dirtier than his snout, then going around the perimeter of the flames; an eerily glowing pit of nightmare which cast long shadows that disappeared in the fringes of the deep forest. He could see his on his right, stretching so far it was distorted. He snorted, clearing smoke-clogged nostrils.
He would not be like Stinger. He would stick around for his people.
Suddenly a striped dragon crashed through the undergrowth, rearing, beating wings which were glassy stubs, leading another, and another; a disorganized cluster of soldiers with varying burns. They were running, flying, out of control.
"Report!" he shouted.
They stopped in their tracks and turned to him, and in that moment order rose above chaos. Somebody babbled something incoherent, but that was enough.
"Chervil – down south – go to him," he said. "Seen anyone else?"
The dragons shook their heads. Their number totaled more than five, fewer than ten. Byrd had forty dragons – had had forty dragons. There must be more. But he was still on the southern side of the blaze, and he was running out of time. The northerly breeze he'd sampled earlier was blowing it towards them, and the inferno needed little encouragement to broil him alive, even at a distance of a dozen yards from the first creepers of fire.
He lunged eastward, or what he thought was eastward. The last rays of the sun had disappeared over the hills, and the silver light of the moons was choked out by the trees and the flames. There were three more dragons on the far side, and he sent them all back, but after that, no more.
"Regroup! Southwards!"
His cries were echoed by the crackle of the thirsting fire. Shadows moved in the forest – it was his imagination – no, it was his own shadow. He saw shapeless forms flitting from bush to bush at his side. The trees roiled and bent; the air twisted and waved with heat. His mouth was dry, too dry, but when he licked his lips to wet them his tongue scalded.
A dragon took him by the shoulders, pulled him away from the flames and into the border of the woods, held him up when he stumbled over a log. It brought him southwards, then had him fly into the open sky above, where the air was cooler, and the wall of fire transformed into a jagged rent in the still forest.
"Where to?" asked a voice.
"South – southwards," said Byrd. His savior was immersed in shadow, but he knew that tone. "Chervil is there."
"Good, sir."
"Any others?"
The dragoness looked over her shoulder. "One behind us. Otherwise, nobody."
It was Monarda, and Byrd was thankful. Chervil and a few soldiers were hovering above the treetops a few dozen yards away from the fringes of the blaze, huddled up in a knot despite the warmth. There could not have been more than twenty dragons in that group, or half what his strength had been a week ago.
He pitied the Hivewing who could not fly.
"Report!"
"Twenty-one of us here, sir. We lost all our stuff."
"Including rations?"
"Eleven bars to go around, sir. That's all. Want to split?"
"I have three in my haversack," said Byrd. His head swam, and he swerved in flight, his talons scraping a tree. Then he recovered himself. "That makes fourteen."
"Who's that behind you?"
"Me," said a voice; deeper than Chervil's, lighter than Byrd's. "Bolt."
Byrd, plus Monarda, plus Bolt, plus those already here – that made twenty-four. The losses were still appalling, but he didn't have time to think about it now, because he knew he would be spending plenty thinking about it later.
"… Orders?"
"We'll wait here for five minutes, then to Smolderfax," said Byrd. He looked south and saw nothing but the ground and the stars, and the dark, humpbacked form of the stone ridge underscoring it all.
"This wasn't what I was expecting when I woke up this morning," said Chervil.
"Can it."
"Sorry, sir."
What had he done wrong, and how could he have done better? His plan to slip out under cover of darkness had been doing so well, and then the soots had come and it failed. These soldiers under his command trusted him, and half of them were dead before the fortnight was out. What did that say about him?
"Sarge. Sarge." Chervil's voice broke in on his thoughts, and he realized he'd been thinking in a loop. "It's been five minutes. Are we going to stay here or -"
"Set course for home," said Byrd. "We'll fly until morning."
He was alive. There were too many dragons who were not, who'd died this day, and now occupied empty space in the formation of third company. His soldiers deserved a better commander. It would not be until they reached Smolderfax that they'd be able to get one.
And to think; since they'd landed on these shores it had only been one week.
July 8th, 5,015: Somewhere in the Skywing Kingdom.
It is time at last to take a quick peek inside Maj. General Venom's tent, in a camp just outside of Azley.
Hers was not Krait's man-cave abode, but it was not typically female, either; the brown canvas and smooth iron tent-poles rested between the two extremes. The lush sward, once owned by another tribe, now supported a proud flag-pole flying a standard much like Blister's black-and-gold of 5,006 vintage, only the gold had been replaced by orange, and the black was in a vertical double-stripe, with a snarling dragon's-head embroidered into the Silkwing-spun fabric. Already the dirt was beginning to show in ugly brown patches where dragon talons had scratched it, hustling in and out of the aforementioned canvas tent.
This was a place for command. It rejected the new way, for good or ill. Certainly Wasp's methods were useful; certainly they granted greater cohesion. It was in those moments that Venom was free that she feared this, feared being absorbed into a whole, and losing her individual nature.
"And you think the queen will keep her word?"
Those were the words of a Lt. General; low in pitch to a scavenger's ears, they stood in the high range for a dragon, or at any rate for a general. Generals were usually past thirty-five years of age when they reached the rank, and Venom was no young whippersnapper herself. The striped dragon standing before Venom was the youngest in HICOMCN, mostly for his logistical abilities. Like Bolt, of the 108th, his stripes were a faded gray instead of black. Unlike Bolt, his name began with an R.
"For now," said Venom. "It depends on how well Krait does. For the moment we'll keep Way dispatches to a minimum, giving them only when necessary. If Krait can pull ahead then there will be no reason not to force this down the throat of the entire army. Read off the ledgers, please."
Because major traditional transitions in the middle of a war were the best way to go about executing conflict.
"We'll start with the day's logistical reports," said Rattlesnake. An aide conveniently pulled the papers off a wooden temp shelf and put them in his right talon. They could've used filing cabinets, but it was prohibitive to bring them across the ocean. When a dragon's carrying capacity was a thousand pounds over that long trip, it was stupid to haul more metal than was required for weapons.
"Three hundred and thirty-seven thousand gallons required by each division in the theater, per day," said Rattlesnake. "Fourth, fifth, and sixth divisions fall under your command, but fifth and sixth are still arriving in the theater."
Wonderful.
It was not strictly necessary that a general be delivering the briefing; in fact, it would've worked better for the army if an aide was doing it. But – and here was one of the marks of bureaucracy – a dragon's career often depended on how well he could give a briefing. There were hidden rules. He must not point too much. His voice must remain even, changing in pitch only slightly when indicating points of importance – even though all of his briefing was supposed to be important. If there was a blackboard, he must write information quickly and legibly, while talking, while thinking about what he was going to say next. He must not rely on an overabundance of notes. And so on.
"We currently require approximately four hundred thousand gallons of fresh water, per day, for ordinary consumption. The rivers and watercourses here are able to provide that, barely."
"Take a note; tell the colonels to locate their staging areas as close to the rivers as possible."
"Yes ma'am."
"What about medical usages?"
Rattlesnake flipped a page.
"About ten thousand gallons pd, in camp. We don't know what's happening out on the front."
"We're not touching on that yet," said Venom. "Food reports?"
"About fifty tons pd per brigade pd. Normally dragons eat less than ten percent of their weight per day, but due to physical exertion our soldiers are approaching that number. Stores as brought from the Seagull Islands, one hundred eight tons per brigade."
"And foraging?"
Venom was getting one of those sinking feelings.
"Captured livestock plus civilian food stores plus hunting, forty-five tons pd, minus five pd in the distribution. Supply is bringing over an additional ten pd allocated for the front, but again five are consumed in distribution."
The general did the math.
"We'll be running out tomorrow."
"Dedicating more forces to foraging would greatly increase our intake, but we can't take too much, from what I know of animal husbandry," said Rattlesnake.
"Go on," said Venom. "I won't pretend to know more than you do."
"As soon as we cut into the female population of existing herds, future production will suffer. For best output we can only take non-breeding males for consumption. Further hindering us is the local lack of cooperation, and what little we get isn't dried."
"Dried meats would double the amount a dragon can keep on talon."
"Yes, ma'am. But they also marginally increase water consumption."
"An interesting bind. And the distilleries?"
Rattlesnake flipped another page, and his eyes scanned the wide paper until they found what he was looking for.
"Dried alcoholic byproducts as feedstuffs conventionally account for up to twenty-five percent of consumption, with otherwise processed plantstuffs accounting for a further thirty-five percent at home and the rest being accounted for by miscellaneous sources such as insects and actual meat."
"And we can't use unprocessed plantstuffs."
Rattlesnake sighed.
"Unfortunately, any carnivore that tried to eat a plant with too much fiber would die due to bloating."
"Too bad. On to the original report."
"Yes, sorry ma'am. Distilleries were set up by July 2nd. Foraging of adequate foodstuffs was completed by July 3rd. Creating mash and the fermentation of mash took three days – that was only done three days ago. Distilling the alcohol and byproducts took a further one and a half days. Drying the byproducts takes two days. Distribution at this point takes two days, maximum – but as we expand the supply chains this will take longer and longer."
Venom pursed her lips.
"And the end result?"
"Our units will receive new ration bars by evening on the tenth."
"But they're running out on the ninth."
"And our current supply can only keep up with demand."
Again Venom did the math.
"We went over this yesterday – that means a four-day freeze. When will insect farms be set up?"
"I'm not sure. Our stock didn't do well on the ocean crossing. The salt killed the specialized breeds we brought over live. My subordinates are telling me the soonest they can get production going is in a month, so the rations will be unsupplemented until then."
"There's a hard limit to this?"
"Yes," said Rattlesnake. "Fourteen days to hatching, another fourteen to maturity, and a couple allowed for processing."
"That's all I needed to know on that front. I'll sign a General Directive for a four-day freeze beginning tomorrow – assuming no supply interruptions. And, speaking of fronts, what's happening in regards to intelligence?"
Rattlesnake flipped two pages, paused, licked his talon, then split the stuck leaves and scanned the contents. He didn't like what he saw.
"We've been having supply interruptions, ma'am."
Venom raised a talon, then lowered it. "Go on."
"We lost sixteen soldiers and thirty tons of cargo, along with approximately forty slaves," said Rattlesnake. His voice contained no distaste at the 'working prisoners': for a Hivewing they might as well be useful chattel. "This happened on the sixth. We're thinking it happened about a hundred miles east of Azley, or six-score from here. Not far at all."
"And I didn't hear about it because?"
"They were only missed on the seventh because they failed to arrive, and by the time news got here you'd already had your briefing. The staff decided the loss of a convoy wasn't a significant enough event to wake you up over it."
Venom stepped back. "They were correct," she said. "Still, what happened to them?"
Rattlesnake shrugged.
"We don't know."
And in those three words was contained everything wrong with the current state of the world.
"Did they get lost?"
"That's unlikely. We have them all equipped with compasses and other navigation equipment; besides, if they missed their destination they likely would've reported in somewhere else. The most plausible explanation is hostile activity."
"How did they get through the front?"
Again Rattlesnake shrugged. "Probably by night. It could be local resistance operations. We don't know. Our intelligence is sorely lacking."
"Have an order drafted to task an element on getting the location of our assailants," said Venom. Suddenly she found herself rubbing her eyes. It was getting late, and the light was fading. Rattlesnake's grey scales faded into the canvas and it was making it hard to see. "And light a candle."
"Yes, ma'am."
Rattlesnake reached for the shelf, pulled away a longish, lightweight instrument of two levers and a spring. He then strode to the tentpole, onto which was fixed an iron candle-holder, pulled back one of the levers, and let go. The spring action did its job, and there was a flurry of bright sparks which left dots dancing in Venom's vision even as she blinked, too late. When she regained her vision a flame was sputtering to life in the room, sputtering cheerfully and granting the place a more substantial light than the wan illumination streaming down from the three moons.
"Flamesilk would be nice."
"It would," said Rattlesnake. "It was regarded as a nonessential item, unfortunately."
"We could dedicate a full order to tying down the countryside, but that would severely cripple our abilities on the front," said Venom. "Get a regiment on it anyway."
"Already noted, ma'am."
She'd said that before, damn. She was getting tired. "We've been sidetracked. How's the front going?"
It was difficult to display maps without a large table in the tent, but thankfully the side of the tent included a set of spring-loaded clips which held up parchment easily. Currently this map was displaying information from the sixth; Rattlesnake bade an aide take it down and put up the one staff had prepared for the eighth. This one was still mostly white, displaying unit locations, probable unit locations, and enemy positions without much terrain in the background. Still, two or three brooks had been added, and there was a considerable expansion of front. Bunched up together were symbols, and a line for where the front was, and a number spaced every few inches on that line to indicate the number of Hivewings per mile. Last map's unit symbols had been predominately regiments and brigades. Now they were brigades and battalions, all in the name of front security.
That front security had failed. Venom made a mental note to mention this in her General Directive. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen again.
"I note two more towns than we had yesterday," said Venom. "Nothing beyond the front. When are the recon brigades reporting back?"
"Within the week," said Rattlesnake. "They're all due to deposit info by the fourteenth, not later. 108th captured that north town there, Smolderfax, on the second, but the small garrison had local resistance problems on the fifth and it was only after the sixth that staff decided the situation was under control. The enemy there is still predominately of what we have tentatively named the mountain dragon type, or what our dragons on the front are beginning to call soots. You heard about them in the first intel briefing, but since then we've learned somewhat more about them. Previous assumptions about limitations to their endurance are incorrect; it appears that they can keep up thirty knots more or less indefinitely."
"And our forces are stuck at twenty," said Venom. She rubbed her jaw with the dull undersides of her talons, the left side of her snout bright with firelight, its opposite dark and shadowed. "We could waste an entire order chasing these guys around."
"The alternative is putting larger garrisons on our positions and waiting for them to come to us."
"We still have to have lines of communication," said Venom. "Get the combat elements of fifth and sixth divisions helping with construction and escort until the end of the expansion freeze, which I'm planning for the thirteenth. By that time we should have production of ration bars going and levies coming from captured ranches."
"Yes ma'am."
"I have a feeling the enemy would be a lot bolder if they knew the situation of our supply."
"They don't, ma'am," said Rattlesnake.
"For the best, I hope it stays that way."
"As do I, ma'am."
"Forget the hopes. Put out a memo about operational security."
"Yes ma'am."
"Attach it to the executive directive."
"It would be a security issue if the note fell into enemy claws," said Rattlesnake.
The general bit her lip, considering. "In for an ounce, in for a shekel," she said. "An executive directive is already secure information. Put it on."
"Got it."
She paced, shoulders and tail brushing the canvas of the tent, making it bulge where she walked and fall back to its concave state with a ripple after she passed, her talons softly crackling on the springy sward.
"Get me a quill and paper."
The aide pressed the items into her talon, and then paper pressed against shelf and the quill danced.
EXEC GEN DIRECTIVE 1: All combat units in 2nd Cohort excepting recon stop in placefrm 9th July – 13th July. Combat readiness high, patrols necessary; stockpile excess supply for next offensive phase. Attack plans to be distributed per regiment. Signed, Venom.
It was done.
"Send this to staff for copy," said Venom. "I want it in Smolderfax by tomorrow afternoon."
"Yes ma'am," said Rattlesnake. "I will venture something."
"What?"
"Krait's in the same situation we are."
Written July 12th, 2020 – August 2nd.
Published August 2nd.
