Written August 8thSeptember 7th. Published September 11th.

Updated October 8th, 2020

Conflict – Downtime

A/N: This one took a bit to write, mostly because I had a lot of shuffling to do. Originally there was going to be content from other perspectives than Byrd's in here, but in the end I decided that would be too complicated and make this one hectic and hard to read, especially since it's meant to be the ending of Byrd's current arc. Inspiration was taken from pt35 in his wonderful reviews and PMs, as well as the people in the Wings of Fire Writer's Guild Discord server. The actual writing, editing, and proofreading was done entirely by me.

Enjoy the early update!


Our greatest weapon is the mind. It is also our worst enemy.


July 9th, 5,015: Smolderfax

They traveled most of the night of the seventh, then stopped for a forced rest on the eighth, flying a little more that day, then waking up early on the ninth and concluding their journey.

Coming into Smolderfax left Byrd with an odd sense of deja vu. He remembered the place as enemy, as the town where Chervil was injured, where the stony gazes of the natives made him feel like a trespasser treading where he did not belong. Where he learned of Monarda's past. Most importantly, it was the town he'd left with forty soldiers and come back with half.

He would be next. They'd relieve him and put in a competent commander, and then he'd never see these dragons again.

These were his thoughts when he led the beleaguered company over the ridge on the northeastern side of the settlement, watching the red tower with a heavy heart. The morning sun shone on their ranks as they circled it, passing through its shadow twice before a dragon came out on the balcony and hung the two-flag combination for them to land. Twenty-four dragons set down their talons on the green sward; in friendly territory for the first time in a fortnight.

The first word came out of Bolt's mouth. "Damn." He raised a talon and pointed at a smoking wreck of a building.

What had been a fine barn was now destroyed; its stone foundations cracked and smoking, with posts smoldering from where they were embedded in the masonry. Piles of gray slate flakes adjoined wall and ground. The iron bars that locked the door were there – hulking slabs of iron lying at an odd angle in the doorway, the air curdling and warping around them, distorted by the immense heat. Worse than the toppled cobblestone was the rich scent of burnt mutton. Chervil spoke.

"Looks like they sabotaged the sheep."

Sheep and goats were an excellent auxiliary food source here. The image of thick, inviting stew slipped from Byrd's eye, replaced by watery gruel.

One less thing to look forward to. It reminded him of life selling trinkets in the Hives, and being rewarded with spent cricket; a rabbit haunch a kingly meal to him; a tarnished earring the attire of governors, for all he could get it.

He needed something to believe in; to let him sleep after he redressed his soldiers' fears.

"Do what the garrison tells you to," he said. He put on his best smile, keeping his teeth concealed but raising the corner of his cheek. "I'll file my report, debrief and be back by afternoon."

Byrd kept his thoughts to himself, and spake nary a word more before spinning on his talons and trotting towards the brick building turned staff headquarters, setting his wings lively and his step neither too long nor too quick.

He stepped through the swinging doors of the comfortable bar and break room they'd taken on the light chocolate trim remained, and so did the barrels behind the tall counter, though the cellar was closed, and only a dark cutout in the floor remained. A fellow staff sergeant was waffling with a logistics form, lazily writing in the boxes with long strokes of his pen.

"Is the debrief officer present?" asked Byrd. If there was a debrief officer. The occupation was a mere week old.

The sergeant looked up and spoke, drawling as if bored. "I dunno where he is, in the Gulls maybe. Never heard from him. Somebody else will be along to take care of you soon enough."

He was being fed a fat load of hurry up and wait.

"I need to debrief and file my report."

The sergeant turned his body halfway, flipped through the top of a paper stack until he saw the title he was looking for, then took out the sheet and handed it to Byrd over the counter. "Here's what you need for the report; quills are in a box: standard format, just like in the academy. Take your time. Not much happens here, anyway. I got here yesterday and I'm already bored out of my skull. Too many trees."

"Agreed," said Byrd. "I got used to it, but that doesn't mean I like it. Can I have a second sheet?"

"Sure," said the sergeant. "What for?"

"I like to gather my thoughts."

A sigh. "True."

The black, unlit lamp hanging against the wall swung and creaked. A dragon had landed outside. He brushed aside the swinging doors and strode in imperiously. Byrd watched him from the sides of his eyes; the black-striped beast who wore the blue squares of a warrant officer: who ruled those under him with the iron talon of tradition.

It was more than a patch.

Byrd coiled the tip of his tail around to his side and raised it as high as he could.

"As you were."

"Yes, sir."

It was so strange; taking orders after a week of autonomy.

"Name?"

"Staff Sergeant Byrd, commander of third company, 108th recon."

"Opel, Chief Warrant Officer Three, 112th line brigade. I saw your dragons outside. I also see that you're filing a field report."

"I am."

"How many operational casualties?"

"Twenty-four," said Byrd, clutching the quill tighter.

Opel froze, black eyes searching Byrd.

"Heavy," he said. "I have to report your arrival on the base logs. I'll debrief you when you're done."

"Understood," said Byrd. "Who is commander of the garrison?"

"Major Aprocri," said Opel.

The big warrant officer beat his wings momentarily and ascended through the oval gap in the ceiling, landing with a heavy clunk that resounded through the floorboards above. He'd probably heard the fifty percent casualty rate and balked. Imagine the brass's reaction. The eighteen-year old Byrd buried his face in the report page, thinking. He could blame it all on Stinger – but often things had been his fault. He shouldn't waste time and space covering his tail – he should write down what had happened, and his conclusions, especially the tactic of low-level fighting.

Hopefully the brass would get that out to his fellow troops.

With that in mind he took the first report form and wrote his preliminary thoughts, not bothering to fill in the date or name because this was a first draft and exempt from filing.

Considering more, and writing on the back of the first draft note before he put down anything final, he spelled out his conclusion thusly:

After my week's experience in the field, I have discovered trivia and found several working tactics against the sub-species of enemy deemed the soots; stratagems which are by no means unbeatable but are certainly helpful.

When engaging soots, stay near the ground: this frustrates their flying pattern. The enemy will then be forced to either make runs in predictable lines, fight on the ground, or give up entirely.

Often dragons believe, after their first encounter, that the soot flight advantage is indelible and overpowering, without countermeasure. This is untrue and defeatist. As demonstrated above, there ARE countermeasures and there ARE effective tactics, which do not require the use of overwhelming force.

Defeatism in the army is based upon unsound opinions and uncontextual factoids. The skilled commander should always be equipped to rebuke ill sentiment in his subordinates.

On Soot Doctrine:

Enemy battle tactics usually involve swooping, hit and fly attacks. Lecture your soldiers to keep formation when this occurs, or losses will be heavy, as the enemy picks off stragglers. Experienced enemy commanders will circle overhead to draw fire. Do not fall for this. Additionally, they may attack from the sun.

Suspect ambushes and traps, especially when the enemy is in retreat, as he normally prefers delaying action over full withdrawal.

Unconfirmed, but suspected hypotheses suggest that the soot method of deployment is different from ours, involving scouts following a small friendly force while guiding in a large enemy force. It is prudent to move in thick concealment for short periods during travel, to throw off this method. Keep this in mind, and seek evidence to confirm or deny.

"What are they calling the red dragons that breathe fire and fly fast?" asked Byrd. The sergeant mumbled something under his breath, but Opel stuck his head down over the lip of the ceiling-hole and gave the answer.

"The Mountain Sub-Type. Put a hyphen between sub and type."

"Thank you," said Byrd. This learned, he translated the events of the recon flight and his conclusions to the second draft sheet with cool, tidy strokes of the quill, employing the writing skills drilled into him by the academy, which at first received in him a bright young student who could barely read.

"I'm done, sir."

"Excellent. I'll debrief you up here – one moment."

There was the scratching of quill against paper.

"Do you have knowledge of the 108th commander's whereabouts?" asked Byrd.

Shuffling.

"No idea. Come on up; I have a couple of questions to ask you, and then we'll be done."

The debriefing went well, as far as Byrd knew. Opel said little during it, mostly letting Byrd tell his story, and what a story it was when it was told to a dragon who hadn't been along. Byrd remained concise; telling what he knew and what he'd done, and Opel told him to pause and go, and say things again if he hadn't been clear enough, all while the warrant officer scratched out notes. It was more tedious than exciting for Byrd; because he already knew everything that had happened, beginning to end, and so it was a relief to him when he could say, "and then we came here."

"There's not much I can say to all that," said Opel.

There was something he could help Byrd with.

"How soon can you resupply my troops?"

Opel averted his eyes from Byrd momentarily. "That's the thing. We can't."

"How come?"

"We're out of supplies, everything but what's in the bottom of the barrel. A shipment was supposed to come in on the seventh, but it was delayed because of security concerns, they said. So they rescheduled it to yesterday, but it hasn't come yet, and there's one to one odds in town they won't get here today, either. The whole cohort is in a four-day freeze."

"I thought the system would be smoother than this," said Byrd. "Does that mean we're staying here?"

"You'll be staying here for the moment. Some poor convoy got whacked by Azley and high command got spooked," said Opel. "We had a barn full of mutton, but one of the prisoners escaped a few days ago and decided to torch it while he was flying the coop."

Byrd nodded. "I saw that. Azley?"

"New cohort headquarters. Couple hundred miles south."

"My soldiers need food."

Byrd was getting a tad impatient.

"We haven't got enough for this base and your soldiers both. I'd authorize you to hunt, but the garrison's small and we can't take a chance."

Byrd had been a good hunter in his day, and the practice's forbidding stung.

"They could try, one at a time."

Opel put away the quill and paper, then flew out to the balcony, looking north to the treeline only a few hundred yards away, just past a set of squat stone towers the purpose of which Byrd could not guess. The larger, older, blacker warrant officer hummed, and cocked his head.

"I don't see why not."

"Thank you," said Byrd. He too could see out the balcony, but what his eyes fixated on was the river; brown waters weakened by the dry weather; the yellow gravel and muck of its bed now its banks. It was a different animal from when he had seen it last. "Ah, one last thing."

"Yes?"

"Should third company set up our own watch, or should we coordinate with your garrison?"

A pause in the conversation as Opel thought.

"Coordinate. Have your dragons take first night watch only; it's the easiest and they deserve the break."

"Thank you sir."

"Was there anything else?"

"Yes, sir," said Byrd. His voice shifted from the congenial tone it had been in during the briefing, settled on a harder note. "During the last engagement, Staff Sergeant Stinger, 2nd company of my unit turned and ran while my company was engaged with a numerically superior enemy force, in a battle that inflicted more than a dozen casualties on my unit. If he had held his ground and fought the outcome would've been different. He acted against the interests of the Hivewing army, and what he did could be construed as treason."

"Strong accusations, sergeant," said Opel.

"I stand by them sir," said Byrd. "He ran and half my dragons are dead. Where is he?"

"He came through here last night," said Opel. "Left just this morning. He told me you were wiped out."

Byrd growled. "I want him court-martialed for that."

"Was your unit the only one present when this happened?"

"Yes."

"Then it'll be hard to get results from high command. Petty infighting isn't liked in the army, and as long as they can pretend it didn't happen they won't do anything about it," said Opel. He pursed his lips. "For what it's worth, I believe you. I have no authority over him, but if I can get word to your brigade commander it's possible that he'll never see command again."

Promises. Opel was earnest enough, but Byrd was experienced in the army as these things went and knew booting an incompetent commander could take years. The best he could hope for was that the other officer was killed.

"Thank you sir," said Byrd.

"It was a pleasure working with you, sergeant, though it's a shame this had to take place under such unfortunate circumstances" said Opel. "Dismissed."

But by the time he looked over his shoulder, Byrd was already out the door. Third company were the same as when he'd left them; scuffing the dirt, mostly, or lying in it as in Chervil's case. That dragon needed a golden cross, or a silver moon, for acting the way he did.

"Afternoon," said Byrd.

"Afternoon, sarge," they said. Their eyes were on him, tracking him as he walked on the warm grass.

"How'd it go?" asked Bolt.

"Not as well as I'd hoped."

A frown came over the faces of the assembled dragons. Monarda stepped forward from her place in the back, lending her ear.

"Second cohort is in a four-day freeze, which means we'll get some R&R. That's the good news. The bad news is, that's because we're out of supply."

A puff of dirt went up from Chervil's place, and Byrd saw the dragon's fist clenched tightly in the soil.

"I did talk with the warrant officer, and he says you're allowed to hunt, one at a time to keep up the garrison."

It wasn't like having a ready-made store of food in the cellar, but it comforted his soldiers nonetheless. The wilds could supplement their bellies until a shipment arrived.

"I'm going to find accommodations for you guys. While I'm gone, get a drink and wash off in the river, in that order. We all need a bath."

His search went about as well as expected, which in the army was to say it was one giant rolling fustercluck.

"Sorry, no available spaces in town," said the junior warrant officer, when he'd got to the other side of Smolderfax. "You'll have to sleep on the grass."

Full? Byrd glanced behind him and saw the one and two story rain shelters in town; the homes, the foundations where little shops had been. What kind of floor-hogging -

"Understood," he said.

Out on the sward, after a week of sleeping out in the hot, the cold, the rain and the thunderstorms. He took his leave and trotted on the river side of the hill, resting his wings for when he needed them, feeling that soreness creep into them, into his everything. The sky was a yawning blue crack walled off by the cliffs on the left and the forest to the right. Most of his time during dragonet-hood had been spent without sky, and the same went for every Hivewing. Knowing the soots could swoop in and kill them any time they wanted didn't make him like the blue yonder any more than he already did.

He needed a roof over his head and food to eat, and time to think – no, yes. When he was fighting he wished for a rest, but when he was resting he was beset by those nagging doubts.

Any Hivewing who loved the sky after a week in these mountains was touched in the head.

And so would I have to be, to keep believing I'm fighting for a just cause. What are we here for?

His questions remained unanswered, though the answer was within his grasp, if he dared to open his eyes and look.

There were the boys, splashing in the water, and Chervil, the fire gone out of him, resting a few feet from the bank, the waves splashing and lapping at his ruined chest, washing up against his talons and coating them in brown sand.

"Afternoon sarge," he said, when Byrd was a dozen yards from the edge. The dragons of third company – more like third wing plus a flight now, now that their numbers were halved – looked up apathetically.

"Afternoon," he said. "I thought you'd be horsing around with the others."

"I don't feel like it," said the soldier. He cast his gaze to the middle of the brown river, where eddies spun in the waves where the dragons dove. Bolt surfaced with a splash, holding a striated clam, grainy white with bands of dark yellow, colored like the dusk.

"Hey Lucky, feelin' alright?" Bolt yelled.

"Just chilling," said Chervil.

"Catch!"

And the gray-striped dragon tossed the oval-shaped clam, which sailed through the air and missed. Chervil blinked when the splash fell across his scales, water slicking his wings, which he twitched to shake off the wet. The ruined soldier looked to the shallow bottom where the bivalve had hit and sank.

"You missed."

"Dangit," said Bolt. "Let me find another one."

"Why not?" said Byrd, with a hint of humor in his voice. "I remember eating one of these when I spent time on the coast. Fish up as many as you can; we'll make a game of it."

Bolt pursed his lips at that, then twitched his wings and shrugged his shoulders, rolled in the water and dove back to the bottom, followed by a few others. Byrd sidled up to Chervil, standing next to him, though his subordinate was merely resting on the streambed with his head above the wet.

"Hey boss."

"You're not jokey today," said Byrd. Nobody needed to ask why.

"Every time I feel like saying something funny I get so damn philosophical," said Chervil. "That's what the sense of humor is for, but…"

"It's not working out."

"Yeah."

A clam launched itself from the water, followed by the talon which had thrown it. Closed tightly, it hit the sand with a soft thump and a puff of grit.

"Where's Monarda?" asked Byrd.

"Somewhere in the river. She'll probably have an armful."

They stood there for a while, taking it all in, Byrdwondering if it would ever get old, to be here, to have the luxury of living.

"How long are we going to spend like this?"

"I don't know," said Byrd. He got up and trotted around the beach, collecting clams and scooping them into one pile. Once twenty or thirty had been tossed up he huffed. "I'm going to get a pail."

Chervil twisted around to look at him. "Chuck 'em in and bake 'em."

Byrd smiled. "Ha, no.I'm going to do what they used to do back home."

He ambled up the slope, not going any faster than he needed to, because though he knew he could be called to action at any instant, he had time. Besides, he needed to save his muscles (so he told himself). There was an iron bucket in the red tower, big enough to hold twenty gallons or so, its bottom crusty with sand, and he took it and strode through the door.

Going down the hill, paradoxically, was more difficult than climbing up. A dragon's strength is in his back legs, and if he is careless he will throw himself heels over head down the incline, tumbling until he breaks his neck. The memory of the crushed soldier was still fresh in Byrd's mind, and he chose his steps methodically, traveling in stops and starts.

He waded into the river until it was neck height, then drew the bucket and returned to shore, stacking clams in the container. One of them had an open lid, and he tossed it back in the river.

"Dead," he said. "We don't want one of those making us sick." Aloud he shouted, "That's enough!"

Chervil nodded. By that time most of the group had emerged from the water and were drying off in the sun, talking about nothing in particular or stealing glances at the bucket and the weird procedure their sergeant was putting himself through.

"It's getting late," said Chervil. He pulled himself out of the water and onto the fine sand, sunning orange-black scales in the light of the waning sun, chest patterns swirling like a sculpted block of red marble. "Think that will make a dinner?"

Byrd counted up the victuals in his head. "There's one for everybody, and half more if you're willing to split."

"Sure."

"That'll get us through," said Byrd. He strode from the pail to the group, who were offside, resting, fidgeting, or doing their best impressions of a wallflower.

"No room," he said. "I don't know how, but that's the way it is. We're sleeping outside. Those of you in first wing will take first watch for the guard tonight, followed by the second, and third tomorrow and day after nights, then repeat."

They took that well, all things considered; with a minimum of grumbling.

"That was the bad news," said Byrd. "Good news is, dinner's in fifteen minutes."

That cheered them up. In a few minutes they'd all claimed spots in a ring on the grass, then come up to the pail to take their share of food, chat, and pry open the stubborn mussels. Byrd had trouble with them too, and yet eventually he did open his, and get at the meat inside. It was odd – dry, for food originating in the river, yet good. This was the real way to get food; diving down in the cool water and working it loose from the bank.

As an officer, Byrd had a different perspective than did his soldiers; whereas most of them were grateful for their evening dinner now, and content with it, he had to look to the future, though he was stuck in the present. He disliked what he saw. Casualties, more casualties, lack of supply, potential enemy counterattacks. The list of threats was hard to count.

Now, however, he was enjoying the rest, rebuilding his strength and endurance from when it had been worn down by exhaustion in the field. It was going to be a good downtime.

All too soon the evening came, darkness creeping in while he listened to the wind. Oh, there were things to do, but the work went easier when he knew he had sleep and security to look forward to. The stars came, white specks in a cloudless sky still purple with the remnants of dusk, glittering as he gazed at them, watching for shadows flying before them. When none came he lowered his head to the buzz of wings, watching a company of Hivewings settle onto the beach down by the river.

"Day patrol's in, boys," he said. "You're on first watch."

"Where from, sir?" asked one of his soldiers.

Byrd had gotten the rundown from one of the dragons in the 112th, and he knew where to send them.

"One up on that house," he said, pointing northeast and upriver. "One on the tower and two on the cliffs."

They nodded and slipped away to their positions, leaving Byrd behind as he stood in the moons-lit, flank-deep grass, a thick sward so dense walking in it was more like wading. A chill put a shiver in his bones, and then it was gone.

Skill and reflex had spared him, and more than his fair share of luck. He was alive to feel these things; his talons comfortable on the cool grass, his tail flicking every few seconds and swishing. There was the urge to dwell on those who had died, and the impulse to tear himself away and forget. He could do neither.

"Make camp," he announced. "Wait."

Sleeping out in the open like this was a tad dangerous.

"Move closer to the edge of the forest," he said. He and the twenty-odd dragons with him picked up a trot and headed north until they were at the border of the trees, where the grass-blades tickled the branches of the bushes, and the sharp odor of mouse wafted through the air like a spice. He flattened the undergrowth with an arm and lay down in the resulting bed, ears tuned to the gurgling waters for a while; always on the lookout for Pyrrhian wingbeats.

None came, and gradually his eyes grew heavier and he drowsed off.


Byrd fell asleep to the crickets, and woke up to the crash of breaking glass. An insistent tugging wrenched at his shoulder, combined with half-heard words shouted into his ear.

"Get up!"

" - downtime -" Byrd said, his voice a croak.

"Forget the fucking downtime!"

A fwoosh sounded in the air, and his night-adjusted eyes flared with pain when they beheld yellow-orange rivulets of fire. Someone hauled him to his talons. He reached for his spear, but it was missing from his body – he'd gone to bed weaponless.

Third company had laid down like sheep at the slaughterhouse!

"To arms!" he yelled.

Out of the darkness loomed an angular, quadrupedal shape; wings sharper than jigsaws, outlined by the fire licking the doors of the red tower. He reared and raised his front talons, expecting the biting pain in his forearms, pausing awkwardly when it did not come.

Like so many times before, Monarda was there; a blur, a rush, a killing wind shoulder checking the enemy. Unlike so many times before, she did not come away unscathed. A claw met her chest and ripped, and then the soot was upon Byrd, frozen in time, its momentum expended, the sudden deceleration causing blood to fly from its talon onto his shoulder, where it splattered.

With a lightning blow of his tail he struck it in the neck; a crack, and its head lashed sideways. It fell to the ground and rolled, and tried to pull itself up on its front legs. Byrd didn't let that happen, lunged and bit into its throat – viscera everywhere, tissue in his teeth, and blood, viscous blood splashing everywhere, tasting malignant and cancerous instead of spicy and rich.

Byrd turned a full circle where he stood, heart thumping in his ears. His spear! He had to find it. Though there were more things to be worried about than his weapon, tunnel vision closed in on him; his veins pulsed with purpose. He rummaged beneath the tarp they spread to prevent the worst of the rust – yes, no, here – the one with the bolt-shaped groove in its shaft was his.

Only after he had it in his claws did he realize he'd spent fifteen precious seconds getting something he didn't even need to kill dragons. It was a force multiplier, that was it.

Stupid.

More shapes, swooping near him, wings snapping like cloth in the breeze when the wind changes; soots, not Hivewings. Enemies above him, behind him, everywhere around him.

"Third company, on me!" he shouted. How many heard the clarion call he knew not. Dragons stirred nearby, groaning, grumbling, griping as they made the blurry transition to consciousness.

That time spent waking up cost them dear. Three soots swooped down like swift shadows, swiping at soldiers, his soldiers, injuring left and right, killing for the sake of killing. He threw his spear and missed – he had aimed at the enemy's afterimage, and it was still there in the night. And there was still Monarda to tend to.

Who'd been the voice in the night? Where was that dragon now?

Those questions went unanswered when something went boom. He whipped his head to look behind him at where the sound had come from, felt a rumbling in his legs and saw the source; the limp, red form of a soot meshed in sliding red bricks, bricks hurtling downwardsas the red tower imploded and the second floor collapsed towards the ground, flames licking at the masonry.

What the hell?

The reassuring buzz of friendly wings filled the air now. The bulk of the night watch had come from the other side of town – from awakening to this had been little more than a minute.

He watched his dragons stumble to their feet – those that could. He gave orders, his brain descending into crisis-mode, running on automatic, the fearless state of mind he'd been in at the ambush in the wavy northern hills; at the fire in the woods, hell, when he was taking this town.

"Square! Square! Get bandages, now!"

To the young enlisted soldier, to the confused dragon awakening in the night, to the injured dragoness gritting her teeth in pain, his voice was everything. They needed him. And he couldn't let anything get in the way.

He'd ordered a square formation because they were on the ground, and they didn't want to be in the air. In the air the soots could come from below as well as above; the earth limited them.

There were pitifully few dragons left to make the square. Of the rough score with which he'd laid down to sleep, he now saw a dozen and a half, maybe not even that. By the firelight he searched the grass; each blade reflecting on its edge a tinge of flickering gold. A darker, fallen form marked Monarda's body – and hopefully not a corpse.

The remainder of third company behind him, he knelt at the scene, scales wet and rank with the blood gushing onto the earth. Bandages. Pressure. Breathing check. His claws moved without thinking. A halting breath raised his hopes – and then it was followed by nothing.

"You," he said, pointing at no one in particular. "See if she's alive. And the rest of you, stay frosty or you'll get us all killed! You got that!"

They nodded, and forced their gazes away from the supine body. Chervil forced himself forward – and Byrd barred the way. The sergeant whispered in his subordinate's ear.

"Don't."

Then another dragon took Chervil's place, and Byrd's focus flowed back to the battle, what was left of it. It was already over – the reinforcements had come; the invading soots hadn't pushed their luck, and had fled invisibly into the forest.

Moons-damnit, thought Byrd, and then other thoughts pushed their way to the had happened to the watch on this side of town? Why hadn't they fought? Why hadn't there been a signal?

And smoldering on the crest of the shallow western hill was the wreckage of the red tower.

The reassuring calm of crisis decision-making drained away, replaced by the post-combat jitters, and a horrifying sense of loss. He checked the other bodies laying where third company slept – one superficially wounded, another badly so, and two quite dead. There could be other casualties he couldn't see. He gave care to those who needed it, saved identification for later. He looked over his shoulder, shouted.

"Is she alive?"

"Barely, sir," said the dragon standing over her. "She'll live if she has time to recover."

"OK," said Byrd. "The rest of you, move to the tower and triage as needed."

The hasty midnight combat had become a rescue mission. It was funny… how fast things changed. He looked back to his patient, and his gaze caught on the snout of one of the dead dragons. It was a familiar one, one he'd grown to know well on the course of their week-long patrol.

Bolt.

He let out a heavy breath, reached out with two talons and closed the dead soldier's eyes. It was a terrible way to go, caught out like this. There was a temptation to dwell on Bolt's death, like there was a temptation to dwell on all of them.

His greatest responsibility was to those who were still alive. Byrd mouthed an 'I'm sorry', then stood up and strode towards the burning tower, leaving that place, and heading towards the cluster of dragons who'd flocked to the circle of firelight.

"Who's in charge here?" he asked.

"Me, for the moment."

Byrd had been expecting Opel's low, understanding voice, or the confident tone of a senior officer, surely. He turned to his left and he saw the originator of the unsure words that'd just flown into his ears.

It was the sergeant he'd seen in the red tower from earlier. In command. Of this side of town.

"Excuse me?"

"Opel's dead I saw his body burning up in the inferno and everyone else in the building burned except one other guy and I'm the only one who got out -"

"Everyone else save one is dead?"

"Yes."
Byrd growled. "What about Major Aprocri?"

The sergeant wrung his talons. "He was in there too. He didn't make it out."

That – that – that was just what I needed.

He stared down the younger officer, and the sergeant yielded. "You have seniority."

Byrd nodded. Then he rattled off orders.

This is the kind of situation which they invented the word FUBAR for.

What had happened to the guard? Why had the alarm not been set? Another ache set in. He had had four dragons posted to the watch. There was a good chance they were all dead, and now – now what?

"Any chance we can send a counterparty?" asked the sergeant.

"No," said Byrd. "The soots are either fifty miles away by now or hiding in the forest. Dividing our force and going after them yields nothing and risks too much. Wait. I never did get your name."

"Staff Sergeant Ambrosia."

"Byrd," said he. "As acting commanding officer I'm ordering you to scour this village and find anyone with a higher rank than mine, preferably a lieutenant, or a warrant officer at least."

Ambrosia nodded and buzzed off, leaving Byrd alone and unhappy on the edge of the circle of firelight, the reflection of the burning tower dancing in his eyes. Dragons scuttled about this way and that, and he stepped forward, shouted orders, something about a bucket brigade for everyone without a job.

They had the dragonpower, he saw: every Hivewing in this little town had flocked to the debacle. What was missing was the buckets.

"Pails, now," he shouted, and that was about as effective at curing the shortage as a talonful of water was at extinguishing a forest fire. A few dragons got their hands on some, started passing them out to others. Soon there was a sparse single line of soldiers going down to the river; among them Chervil. His jaw was set and he moved sharply, putting too much force into his limbs, his emotions unreadable except that he was trying to conceal them.

Then a yell came from the burning tower.

"Staff Sergeant!"

A shout turned the air to crystal, and then Byrd stepped forward and the moment broke. "Report!"

The speaker stumbled away from the flames, coughing and wiping his eyes because of the smoke. "We found the lieutenant."

"Alive?"

"Currently."

"Can you move him?"

"We're doing it now sir."

Two dragons pulled the body from the wreck; wings burned off, scales charred like melted wax in a manner he had witnessed all too often in the last few days. Wings could grow back in a few years, but the body scars would remain long after the next molt. Byrd threw his head right, pointing with his nose toward a dark patch of ground and the half-dozen dragons laying in the grass, attended by two Hivewings still standing. A breeze came and clogged his nostrils with the foul odor of blood.

"My company has triage set up. Move him," he said. Several Hivewings were just standing there, too horrified to watch, too shocked to not watch. Byrd looked at each of them in turn. "You, you, you, get out of the firelight and put up a lookout."

They bowed politely and left, stalking slowly into the night, as if their talons were weighted with iron. Later someone would ask him what he was thinking during that moment, and the first thing he would say was, "I really didn't want to be there."

"Staff Sergeant!"

His head twitched a touch towards the speaker, and his eyes met those of the other dragon. "Report."

"We found the bodies of the watch, but we can't identify what units they're from. Seven casualties."

Byrd did four and four and found that they didn't make seven. If the watch from third company had died, that left three dead from 112th, and one still alive.

"Manner of death?" he asked. Seven more dead, the hell with it. They needed to expand the cemetery.

"Broken spines. We also found crush marks, as if the enemy killed them from above."

Byrd nodded. So that was why they hadn't heard anything.

"Organize the bodies in one place," he said, paused, and looked into the dragon's black eyes. "Respectfully."

"Yes sir."

"Dismissed."

The dragon was already two paces off when Byrd said, "And get that soot off the roof if you can."

There was a chance they might not be able to. The body was embedded arm-deep in the structure, hind-legs popped out of their sockets and twisted until they lay over the back of the soot, which was laying side-on in the wreckage, dead as a door-knob. Byrd saw bone protruding from its flanks and turned away, watching the triage area, absorbing the chaos as it poured into his eyes.

"Anybody with medical experience!?"

Stone hissed and cracked as Hivewings hovered over the blaze and poured water into the structure, already reduced by a floor in height because of the earlier implosion. There was a dent in the rubble where the balcony had used to be, as if a giant had swung his sledgehammer.

That tower burned for a long time. There was hardwood in it, and strong alcohol that boiled off and combusted with ephemeral flame. It was morning before the last glowing ember was doused, and a full list of casualties was taken. Thirteen dragons were dead, four of them from third company. Twenty more were wounded badly, including Monarda. It could've been worse, too, Byrd thought. He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus them on the mess. Instead they fixated on the horizon in the infamous thousand-yard stare.

If the soots had stuck around instead of fleeing, things would've turned out differently. He could have been dead. If not for Monarda, he would have been. And part of that was his fault. He had moved away from the open field, he had, but he had not taken shelter in the forest. Those who'd been murdered before they'd had time to fully awake would have been spared.

He cursed. "We were like sheep," he said to himself. "We all went into the field and laid down like lambs."

That the enemy had likely been observing them during the day and had pinpointed their positions didn't make him feel better. This was on his head, damnit.

What a helluva first day of downtime.