Into The Darkness

Istvan laughed a little himself, some of his good humor restored. He brought the tools back to Turul and dumped the contents of the pails in a special slit trench that had been dug even farther away from the streams than the Gyongyosian soldiers' latrines. Then, with a sigh of relief, he stripped off the gauntlets and the shin protectors and hung those up, too.

He hadn't even started to walk away when he saw one of the scout dragons spiralling down toward a pen he had just cleaned. He shook his fist at the great beast. "If you shit in there again, you can clean it up yourself," he called. Turul thought that was pretty funny. Istvan didn't. He meant it from the bottom of his heart.

Down came the dragon, with a great fluttening of wings as it landed.

The blast of wind from them almost knocked Istvan off his feet. The flier sprang off the beast's neck, secured its chain to the iron post in the center of the pen, and started to dash away. "Who set fire to your breeks?" Turul asked.

"We're going to have company," the flier answered, and pointed west.

He said no more, but hurried away to give his superiors a detailed, account of what kind of company and how soon.

Only one kind of company mattered, though: the Kuusamans. Several ley lines converged on Obuda. That was why Gyongyos and Kuusamo kept fighting over the island. The natives' sorcerers hadn't discovered ley lines. They sailed by wind and paddle; several fishing boats bobbed in the ocean off the island.

"If we weren't fighting the Unkerlanters, too, we'd kick Kuusamo hard enough to make the Seven Princes leave us alone," Istvan said hotly.

Turul shrugged. "If all seven of the Princes ever walked in the same line, they might do the same to us. Nobody's giving this war everything he had - and a good thing, too, says I. "

Being young and from the back country, Istvan said, "Not bloody likely!"

"I'll bet the recruiters smiled when they got their hands on you."

Turul smiled, too, but not altogether pleasantly.

Drums started thudding an alarm. Istvan forgot about the cynical dragonkeeper and ran to snatch up his stick and to assemble so an officer could send him to a battle station. He almost collided with several of his squadmates, who were also doing their best to seem seasoned soldiers.

None of them had yet seen combat. Istvan was half eager, half terrified.

The Obudans had seen combat, even if they hadn't taken part in it.

They had their own strong opinion on the subject, and showed it by flee ing the town of Sorong. Some ran up toward the top of Mt. Sorong, othersjust headed off into the woods. A few carried sacks of coarse native cloth stuffed with their belongings; most didn't bother, and took off with nothing but the robes on their backs.

"Have no fear, fierce warriors of Ekrekek Arpad!" Major Kisfaludy cried. Every tawny strand of his beard seemed to quiver from great emotion. "We have a surprise in store for the Kuusamans, if those little slant-eyed demons ever dare set foot on the soil of this island." His grin was both fierce and conspiratorial. "They can have no notion of how many dragons we've flown into Obuda since we took it back from them. "

In his mind's eye, Istvan saw dragons dropping eggs around and then on Kuusaman ships that presumed to approach Obuda. He saw some of those ships burning and others fleeing east down the ley lines as fast as they could go. He joined the rest of the squad, the rest of the whole unit, in a rousing cheer.

"And now, down toward the beach," Major Kisfaludy said. "If any Kuusamans are lucky enough to land on Obuda, we shall drive them back into the sea."

Along with his comrades, Istvan cheered again. Wings thundered, off in the distance, as dragons hurled themselves and their fliers into the air.

Istvan laughed to think of the dreadful surprise the enemy would get when flame and raw energy consumed them. If they were rash enough to set themselves against the will of Arpad the Ekrekek, they deserved nothing better, not as far as he was concerned.

He trotted down a path through the woods toward the beach. At the edge of the trees, sheltered among logs and rocks, stood egg-tossers and their crews, also ready to rain fire down on any Kuusamans who reached land. Istvan waved to the crews, then filed into a trench.

After that, he had nothing to do but wait. He watched the dragons wing their way east against targets they could see, but which the bulge of the earth hid from his eyes. And then he watched in some surprise as dragons came out of the east toward those that had flown from Obuda.

He scratched his head. Was a flight returning already?

Sergeant Jokai cursed horribly. At last, the curses cooled to coherence: "The slant-eyes have gone and loaded a ship full of dragons. Life just got uglier, aye, it did."