Into The Darkness

"Two years ago, before we bounced the Kuusamans off this rock, you'd better believe the natives were telling them how wonderful they were."

"It Could be, I suppose," Istvan said.

"Could be, nothing - it is." Jokai spoke with great assurance. "And if those slant-eyed whoresons throw us off of here again, the Obudans'll tell lem what great heroes they are. And if any of our boys didn't get away, they'll tell the Kuusamans where they're hiding."

Arguing with a sergeant wasn't smart, not unless you were fond of latrine detail. Istvan wasn't. He poured down his morning beer - that was brought from home, for the stuff the natives brewed wasn't fit to drink; it was, in his view, barely fit for removing varnish - and went outside.

The barracks lay just outside of Sorong, the biggest town on the island, which didn't boast more than three, plus a couple of smaller villages.

Sorong was halfway up a hill the Obudans called Mount Sorong. That made Istvan want to laugh. If the natives ever saw a real mountain, like the ones that towered above his own home village, they'd take that name and throw it into the sea: the stubby little hill didn't come close to deserving it.

But, since it was the highest ground on Obuda, though, Istvan could see a long way from where he stood. Down below were small patches of timber and long stretches of wheat and barley fields and vegetable gardens.

Out past them, the surf rolled up the beach, then slid back down again.

Istvan had never seen the ocean before he went into the army. Its immensity fascinated him. He could spy a couple of other islands, blue and misty in the distance. Otherwise, the water went on forever: or as far as his eye could reach, which amounted to the same thing. He was used to looking up if he wanted to see the sky, not straight out.

When he did look up, he spied a couple of dragons circling overhead, so high that, even with their enormous wingspans, they seemed only dots, midges seen at arm's length. They floated as high as any of the peaks serrating the skyline back home. Up there, the air got cold and thin. The fliers swaddled themselves in furs and leather, the way hunters did when they went after snow leopards or marauding mountain apes.

His reveries were rudely interrupted when Sergeant Jokai came out behind him. Sergeants were unlikely to know any other way to interrupt a revenge. "Time on your hands, eh?" Jokai said. "That's a shame. That's a crying shame. Why don't you go police the dragon pens? The scouts won't be back for a while, that's plain."

"Have a heart, Sergeant," Istvan pleaded. 

"I was breathing," Istvan answered bitterly, as Turul chuckled again. "Don't do too much of that while you're working, or you'll be sorry after-wards."

"I'm already sorry," Istvan said. All that did was make the dragon to keeper laugh louder than ever. Istvan himself was something less than amused. Mucking out after horses or unicorns was nasty, smelly work. Mucking out after dragons was nasty, smelly, dangerous work. He shoveled dung and raked foul straw, doing his best not to let any [..ns.] of the fetid stuff - and it was far more fetid than what horses and unicorns produced - touch bare skin. The brimstone and quicksilver dragons ate

Its ~along with their meat made their wastes not just odorous but corrosive. They also made their wastes toxic, for those who dealt with them over far years. Mad as a dragonkeeper was a common expression, but not one Istvan sed had the nerve to use around Turul.

Istvan cursed when a couple of drops of dragon piss splashed up and ad, caught him on the arm above the gauntlet. The stuff burned like acid. It really was acid. He snatched up some clean straw from a corner of the pen and eaks scrubbed it off. It left behind a nasty red welt.

The copper-skinned Obudan boy watched him, wide-eyed. Dragons fascinated the locals. Even wild ones were rare all through the long reach of islands between Kuusamo and the western mainland of Derlavai. None out of the islanders had ever imagined taming them. That a man could ride irrupt one high into the heavens left the locals astonished and awed. No matter how astonished and awed they were, Istvan didn't feel like couts being watched right now. He grabbed a ball of dragon dung with his gauntleted hand and made as if to throw it at the Obudan boy. The boy fled, shrieking with laughter.

He might as well have asked for the moon. "Go draw your leathers and go get to work," Jokai said implacably. He hated idleness in any form.

Poor Istvan hadn't yet perfected the art of looking busy even when he wasn't.

Cursing under his breath, he went over to the dragon pens - at the prescribed brisk march, because Jokai was watching - and pulled on elbow-length leather gauntlets and leather shin protectors that fit over the tops of his shoes. He grabbed a rake and a broom and a pail.

Turul, the head dragonkeeper, chuckled as Istvan donned the protective gear. "And how did you win the prize?" he asked.