August 2nd, 5,015
Kyde awoke with a pounding headache. When had she fallen asleep? She remembered the fight, trying to save Somers and taking a poisoned blow in the process. She looked around. Corporal Stringer stood over a burned Mudwing, pulling out splinters while another dragon cleansed the wounds with water. It looked strange – oh, Quintain.
"Corporal," she tried, but the voice came out as a rasp. "Corporal!"
"Don't get up, you can't take it right now," said Stringer, easing out a particularly nasty splinter with his pair of tweezers. Griff said he'd killed a dragon with those once; Kyde almost believed it.
"Hey corp, seen any food?" asked a voice. Cowslip sauntered in, eyelids drooping from lack of sleep, but otherwise not much the worse for wear. "A gut this grumpy needs an intervention."
"You need sleep more than food," said Stringer.
"Ey, don't throw stones from glass houses. So how's the lass?" asked Cowslip.
"Alive," griped Kyde. "Doesn't feel like it though."
"You're lucky you didn't get hit in an artery, we're out of tourniquets," said Stringer. He turned to the burned Mudwing. "Should be good to go now – but the wound will weep. Wash it out at least twice a day, and don't get dirt in it or things will be nasty. The usual."
"What's the outlook corps?" asked Kyde.
Stringer put his tweezers back in his pack, took out a bottle and gave it a sip. The strong scent of alcohol wafted into the air.
"Oh come on," said Cowslip.
"If you wanted a nip of brandy you should have gotten it back at the ranch," said Stringer. "Now, since you asked, Kyde, it ain't bad and it ain't good either. You'll have a bum leg for a while, but you'll walk on it again. Could've been worse. That spear cut within a few inches of the tendon. A little more this way and you'd never walk on that thing again."
"Oh," said Kyde. What could she say? She'd had a decade of luck during the last war, and it had kept going even to the next. Someday that luck would run out.
"You'll still get around alright, once you get over the venom," continued Stringer. "Your wings are fine. Your other three legs are in good enough shape that you can get around, do good work even. But you're not fighting on that leg for a month."
"Am I to stay here then?" asked Kyde.
"Maybe," said Cowslip. "Depends what el-tee says when he gets back from gathering the new recruits. We're bugging out by tonight."
"Leaving so soon?" asked Somers.
"Hey man, about time you got here," said Cowslip. "Nice duds."
Somers wore a new pouch over his chest; it had the look of wasp handiwork all about it, with more pockets than Pyrrhian pouches, but no clips to fit on a combat web either. It was light red, leather, and had a loop of some strange cord strung through two metal eyelets.
"I liberated them from the previous owner," he said. "So. Where are we going?"
Cowslip shrugged. "Somewhere other than here, obviously. I think we made quite a stir. And I don't know if we'll take Kyde. Maybe they can hide her here."
"I'm right here boys," said Kyde. She'd gotten up on her front legs, wings fluttering to keep away the flies.
"Yeah, sure," said Somers, leaning up against one of the walls. His stomach growled.
"Hungry?" asked Cowslip. "Me too."
"There's plenty of good wasp corpses lying around, if you want em," said Somers. "Well-cooked, too."
"Dragonflesh ain't that great," said Cowslip. "And it's taboo for a reason ya hungry buffoon."
"The hives barely count as dragons," said Somers. "Worst-case scenario you have to drag em away from Orwen so the villagers don't see us eating the corpses."
"…"
Deere started pacing, uncomfortable with this train of thought.
"Wasps are a lot harder to slaughter," said Cowslip.
"But there's an unlimited supply," said Somers.
Stringer took another nip of brandy from his stash. "It's dishonoring the dead," he remarked. "We ain't that desperate."
"Nah, I haven't eaten any because you are what you eat," said Somers. He paused. "Guess I should eat 'em while they're still alive."
"That saying doesn't make any sense," said Cowslip. "I'm not a side of beef and Stringer isn't a bottle of brandy."
"It's metaphorical. Rhetorical. Whatever."
The rest of Cowslip's wing filed into the triage area; at least what remained of them. Regrettably, private Squirrel was still alive.
"Hey Kyde, you coming with?" he asked.
"No, I'm staying in Orwen," she said.
"Ha," said Cowslip. "Maybe we'll let Squirrel stay here too."
Kyde noticed the interloper out the corner of her eye, before she said anything. She had her head bowed down, though she would have stood as tall as Somers did with better posture, and a few of her scales had a grey fringe. She was older than Kyde, then, but not by much.
"I see you've been treating dragons here," she said, "have you seen my husband?"
"What's he look like?" asked Stringer.
"Dark brown. Big. Heavy jowls."
Stringer shook his head. "Haven't seen him on this side of town."
The dragoness glanced at Somers, then glanced again. "Have you?"
"I have," said Somers. His nostrils flared, a bit of smoke puffing out of them. "I killed him myself."
Kite's jaw dropped.
"He was a sniveling, spineless coward, half the man Griff ever was! He's as dead as every other wasp in this town and you know what?" said Somers, "He got off too easy. Get over it."
Kite broke down and sobbed.
Cowslip pulled Somers by the shoulder, snarling into the bigger dragon's face. "What the hell, man?"
"What, you're gonna defend him? The man deserved to die," said Somers.
"The hell's gotten into you -" said Cowslip, and he glanced at the still crying Kite – "ugh. You could've told her a hundred different ways, heck, you could've lied. What made you so rude?"
"I'm stating the facts."
"Forget the facts man, you can't act like that. It's not right," said Cowslip. "Dragons will see that attitude and think that's us, and Starling can't afford that. You're gonna be pissy, go be pissy by yourself."
Somers growled. "What were you gonna do, lie"
"Anything but what you did," said Cowslip. He stepped back, licking a fleck of spittle off his nose with his long tongue. "Gah, what a mess."
He looked around, scowling when he saw the civvies that Somers had attracted with his moons-forsaken stunt. "Quit staring," he said. "If you've got enough energy to stare, you've got enough to work graves, before the flies get to the corpses."
"Eat the enemy," Somers suggested.
Cowslip growled.
"I know it's tough, but moons, quit being such a prick over something that already happened. This isn't you. This isn't the smooth soldier I know, this is you getting in the way of three-o'-fifth just because you're pissy. And if this was o' nine and we were in the proper army, you'd get shot down for this before you got off the ground."
Another wisp of smoke drifted out of Somers' nostrils, and Cowslip thought he might go off again.
"So that's it, huh?" asked Kite. She sniffed. "You boys come in and wreck everything and then you leave, just like that." She tucked her head under her wing and folded it in tight.
"What the hell man," Cowslip hissed. "You just offed a random civvie 'cause you felt like it?"
"He was the informer," said Somers. "Slipped out and told the hives we were in town."
Recognition bloomed on Cowslip's face as he connected the dots. He said, "You better tell her that, before she takes a chunk out of your hide."
Somers didn't move.
"Damn, at least say you're sorry."
"Apologies don't bring back the dead," said Somers.
"Stop being a damn brat."
"Make me."
Cowslip took a deep breath. "All the grief you're going through, you just dumped on that poor girl. What, you get to make everyone feel like shit because you're feeling bad? You didn't have to come out and say that, but you did. Now the least you can do is explain your reason for it."
He waited, staring into Somers' eyes, until Somers looked away, turned to face Kite.
"Your husband squealed," he said. "An' my brother died for it. I found him talking shop with an enemy officer when I flew the coop – that's when I killed him."
Kite nodded, her jaws clamped tighter than a vice.
"A life for a life," said Somers. "We'll call it even."
"You didn't have to kill him," she said.
But he had, and neither Gall nor Griff was coming back.
Somers spit into the dirt, giving Kite one last glare. "That's plenty fine by me."
Cowslip put a talon on Somers' shoulder. "C'mon, let's get out of here. I have a feeling you're not welcome in Orwen any time soon."
Starling convened in Orwen's central square a half-hour later, gathering Mudwings 'round the well while he stood in the middle. The wasps' central tower smoldered to the east, curls of ominous smoke peeling off into the sky, while a team of three-o-fifth's soldiers roamed the streets, dragging away the dead bodies as they found them. Somers and Cowslip trotted around the edge of the circle, patrolling.
"Wonder what boss'll do with Quintain," wondered Cowslip, out loud. "Can't stay here when the wasps get back, can't fight either – too spindly."
Somers grunted, spotted a red-tailed dragonet nosing into the crowd.
"Scram, kid, you're not wanted," he said.
"Lieutenant's orders," added Cowslip. "Can't have the young-uns getting in the way."
A voice rang out in the square.
"Ahem!" said Starling.
"I'd like to thank Loon for getting you here, but other than that, let's make this quick," he said. "If any wasps come over the horizon we are capital B boned, so we need to high-tail it out of town. The chain of command is as follows: Able under Sergeant Robin, second in command Corporal Blackbird. Brave under Sergeant Snipe, second in command Corporal Reed. Chord under Sergeant Cowslip, second in command, Somers.
"I notice a few of you are veterans from the last war, so we'll get you trained in fairly quickly. For those who have never fought, forget anything you ever heard about fighting the good fight. We are fighting to make the enemy die for his queen, not to die for ours."
Cowslip nudged Somers. "Second in command, not too shabby."
"Cowslip, Somers, present!" ordered Starling, having finally spotted them wandering about in the back row.
"Yes sir," said Cowslip.
The two pushed their way through the little throng of recruits, some as old as Somers, some brimming with the nervous excitement of youth. This latter group outnumbered the first, and Somers judged most of them had been born after Griff gave him his pen-knife back in ninety-seven. Back before the really bad years of the war, when the army still had a half-dependable courier service.
The youngsters gawked at him, convinced Somers must be a star of a dragon, a war hero. The tips of Somers's horns had started to turn a lighter shade of grey, and a few of the scales on his snout wore a coat more salt than pepper. He was a fighting dragon of old, in a land where many peaceable men had died before they reached forty.
Dumb greenhorns, he thought. He might be a bit banged up, but he wasn't as old as he looked.
"Stand in a line, and I'll count off," said Starling. "Ones with Robin, twos with Snipe, threes with Cowslip." The dragons shuffled into a line with little order, save that the tallest congregated near the head and the shorter ones stood farther away from Starling, nearest to Somers.
The lieutenant started counting off, but Somers wasn't paying attention, his eyes wandering over the mud flats to the south, the brown houses, the smoking foundation of the tower, the air still shimmering as heat boiled off the cracked stone. The villagers had piled up a stack of enemy bodies – hardly identifiable as wasps, their bright orange stripes burned away, only distinguishable from Mudwings because they had four wing-roots instead of two.
He'd seen this destruction before.
Heck, sometimes he'd caused it.
"Hey Somers, we're heading out soon," said Cowslip. "Help me keep these guys flying straight."
"Oh moons, don't remind me," grumbled Somers.
"Won't be that bad," said Cowslip.
"Oh, it will be. Can't trust these kids to hold a spear without stabbing themselves," said Somers, speaking quietly.
"They've been in the militia. They'll be fine."
He doubted it.
It was bad enough getting a company of experienced soldiers to march cross-country without getting lost, let alone three-oh-fifth plus a wing's worth of soldiers and another two wings' worth of greenhorns hardly out of the egg. Somers skimmed over the young faces as he counted them – they weren't worth memorizing, when so many dragons just like them had come and gone. Thirty dragons. Thirty replacements.
He recognized most of the older guys. The town class act, the butcher's kid, the musician. But there weren't many of them, nowhere near enough to match the cornucopia of dragonets that'd been running around here when he was young.
"Hey Somers, long time no see," said one, what was his name? Could've been Rorik, could've been Kfir.
"You too," he said, going through the motions.
"Sergeants and corporals, to me," said Starling.
Somers and Cowslip ambled over, joined shortly by the rest; Robin, Blackbird, Snipe, and Reed. Reed was the youngest of them, born a year after the last war began. The rest were all older, bruised, scratched, missing ears or talons.
"We've got so many we're overstrength," began Starling. "Corporals are now acting sergeants, sergeants, acting lieutenants. Blackbird, Somers, and Reed, there's more riding on your shoulders now. That said, we're heading to the edge of the Rainforest. Remember those old fairgrounds by Watercress?"
All nodded save Reed.
"We're splitting up and heading there. Bad enough hiding thirty soldiers from overhead patrols, with sixty it can't be done. Especially since the enemy will be out for blood."
"Got it," said Robin. "When will we be linking up, sir?"
"Four days from now. If you get there first, stay as long as you need."
"But sir, the fairgrounds are open space," said Reed. "Not much cover."
"Not anymore. The trees got into it and they're twenty feet tall for acres and acres," said Snipe. "The enemy won't find us."
Starling nodded. "We'll get in contact with the Rainwings and call in that support we keep hearing about. I don't expect a lot now. But give it a couple months and we should have something."
"What about Kyde?" asked Cowslip.
"I've already talked to her," said Starling. "The locals say there's a farmstead nearby that will take her until she's healed. She'll make it to the fairgrounds on her own."
A pause.
"And Quintain?" said Cowslip.
"Coming with me," said Starling. "Skywing talk is that the Rainwings are taking in more like him. Won't be an issue. Anything else?"
A pause.
"Alright then. Get your flights in order. Robin first, Cowslip last. Dismissed."
"Yes, sir," said Cowslip.
The huddle broke, sergeants jogging back towards the men. They had their gear stowed properly, Somers noted – pouches rigged on combat harnesses, weighted with what little food they had. Almost every dragon had a spear, and those that didn't carried the collapsible dart shooters of the enemy.
"Able!" called Robin, "form up for takeoff!"
It was a time-honored tradition; the dragons spaced out so each had enough room for his wings on either side, with the sergeant in the center and the corporal at the head. Whilst the enemy often placed the sergeant in the lead, the Mudwing army trusted the corporal to spot while his superior gave orders. The other soldiers stood by on the edge of the town square, giving Robin's men enough space, though none stood on the burned ground, where it was still too hot to walk.
"You can't keep a good Mudwing down," murmured Cowslip, watching the show.
"True that," said Squirrel, eyeing one of the dragonesses in the crowd.
"Shut up," said Cowslip.
Robin yelled – "Takeoff!" and the dragons leaped into the air, Corporal Blackbird going first and the whole cavalcade going up after him. The wind drew breath when the dragons raised their wings, and then exploded with snaps as the Mudwings left the earth. Lieutenant Starling was among them, and Quintain in the back, the oddly colored, four-winged dragon not so much jumping as levitating into the air, his wings blurring like those of a dragonfly.
They banked above the town, the young soldiers waving and yelling down to their friends and family, fighting the good fight at last. It was a spectacle. It was a show of Mudwing strength.
It was meaningless.
Somers's eyes still kept straying over his right shoulder to where Griff would be standing, making some dumb quip about the weather, about Squirrel, about anything.
Moons.
You never know what you have until it's gone. He knew that saying. He'd seen it happen a thousand times. Yet somehow… he'd just assumed he would have his brother, forever.
"Bravo! Form up!" called sergeant Snipe. Acting lieutenant Snipe, sort of. His formation was neither a wing nor a company.
Another twenty-odd dragons gathered between the squat, one-story buildings, giving a healthy space to the well and the walls of the butcher's shop behind them, its white awning fluttering in the breeze. Someone had paid good silver for the linen, and why not? The future was bright a month ago. Now the cloth had black, burned patches in it from falling embers, and the edges hung in tatters.
A crowd had lined up, curious heads poking out of windows, mothers with their wings clutched tightly to their sides, fearing they might never see their boys again. But even with the whole town lined up, the Mudwings were still a precious few. Less than there had been when he was a dragonet, before the last war.
Soon it was Somers's turn to leave. They lined up in the square, with him at the head.
"Take off!" cried Cowslip.
Somers leaped into the air, leaving Orwen behind.
A/N:
I have about 20,000 more words of unpublished SC content left, which I will release over the coming weeks. The story is just a mess. I've been trying to make it better than it is, but this story has so much baggage that I would prefer to do that in a rewrite. Take notes. This is what happens when you publish over twenty chapters without planning an ending. However, it doesn't feel fair to leave the story without including some of the work that past me planned for it, so I will put my content out there for you all to read and review.
Stay posted.
B Avar.
