Through the Darkness

To his disappointment, the fellow shook his head. “Colonel, I’d love to, but I don’t dare. You’ll be flying a long way, and the beasts are anything but in the pink of condition. The idea is for them to come back and fly more loads, not to try and do too much all at once and break down.”

Reluctantly, Sabrino nodded. “All right. That makes more sense than I wish it did.” He bowed to the handler, sweeping off his fur cap as he did so. “I am glad enough to own that you know your business.”

“Like I say, I wish I could do what you want,” the handler answered. “I know what our comrades need down there, same as any Algarvian does.”

“Well, we’re going to bring diem as much as we can.” Sabrino raised his voice to a great, full-bodied shout: “To me, you whoresons, to me! We run the gauntlet one more time.”

Out of their tents came the men who weren’t already standing by or mounted on their dragons: not very many, since most of the dragonfliers were as eager to fare south as was their commander. When the handlers finished the job of loading the dragons, they waved. Sabrino, by then atop his own mount, waved back. He whacked the beast with his goad. It screamed in outrage, beat its great wings, and all but hurled itself into the air despite the heavy burden it carried. One after another, the remaining dragons in the wing followed.

Their farm lay close to the fighting front. Before long, they flew south out of the land the Algarvians still held and into the terrain Unkerlanters had seized in this second winter counteroffensive. Footsoldiers on the ground blazed at them. Without a doubt, crystallomancers sent word of them farther south--in the direction of Sulingen.

Sabrino let out a glum, weary curse. He had to fly a nearly straight path to the besieged city. Had it been much farther from his dragon farm, the dragons wouldn’t have been able to get there at all, not if they carried anything worthwhile.

Clouds scudded through the air, getting thicker as the dragons flew farther south. Sabrino spoke into his crystal: “Let’s use those to hide in. The less Swemmel’s whoresons see of us, the less chance they’ll have to try to blaze us down.”

Dragons didn’t care about clouds one way or the other. Sabrino was glad these were intermittent; otherwise, he would have had a hard time making sure he was flying south. As things were, he got glimpses of the terrain below every so often. He didn’t need more than glimpses. He’d flown this route a great many times.

And so it was, when he passed over the Presseck River, that he warned the men of his wing: “Don’t fly too straight and smooth and stupid around these parts. The Unkerlanters have a lot of heavy sticks waiting down there. Give ‘em a good target and you’ll pay for it.”

His own dragon didn’t take kindly to dodging now this way, now that, to speeding up and slowing down, or, indeed, to much of anything else. He didn’t care whether the beast took kindly to it or not. So long as the dragon obeyed, that sufficed.

Sure enough, beams came to life below the wing. He watched the flashes with respectful attention. None came particularly close to him. None brought down a dragon. He knew better than to rejoice too soon. The Unkerlanters would have another blaze at the wing on the way back. His dragons would be unladen then, but they would also be very worn.

Somewhere up ahead, Unkerlanter dragons, fresh ones, would be flying back and forth across the route he and his comrades would have to take. Sometimes they found the Algarvians, sometimes they didn’t. Sabrino doubted that was the most efficient way to use dragons, but King Swemmel hadn’t asked for his advice.

This time, he and his countrymen were lucky. If the Unkerlanters had spotted them, it would have meant a running fight in the air all the way down to Sulingen. As things were, the Algarvian dragons flew on undisturbed toward the still-burning pyre of the much-battered city.

Unkerlanter footsoldiers--the men besieging the Algarvians trapped in the wreckage of Sulingen--started blazing at the dragons. That didn’t worry Sabrino much. Footsoldiers brought down dragons only by the strangest of chances. But Swemmel’s army would have heavy sticks, too, and those were truly dangerous.

As he did on every trip into Sulingen, Sabrino marveled that anything there was left to burn. His countrymen had fought their way into the place in late summer, had fought their way through it as summer gave way to autumn, and had been trapped inside it since the middle of autumn, since not long after snow began to fall down here. Now, one block at a time, the Unkerlanters were taking back what they’d previously lost the same way.