Through the Darkness

Something thrashed in those bushes, something the size of a man. Istvan blazed again. His was not the only beam biting the bushes, either: here and there, they withered and turned brown, as if stricken by the drought that never came to this forest. After a while, the thrashing stopped.

“Got him!” somebody said in Gyongyosian.

Istvan wasn’t so sure. He’d seen too many wounded Unkerlanters who stayed alive for no other reason than the hope of taking a couple of Gyongyosians with them. King Swemmel’s subjects weren’t a warrior race--as the stars proclaimed, no folk but the men of Gyongyos were true warriors--but they weren’t soldiers to be despised, either. Gyongyos was learning that the hard way.

Kun strode forward. Before Istvan could shout a warning, the mage’s apprentice went in among the bushes, stooped, and then rose and waved. “He’s dead,” he called.

“Where are his friends, though, you fool?” Istvan called back. Kun started as if jabbed by a pin, then dropped down into the bushes again. This time, he didn’t get up right away.

But no Unkerlanters hot for revenge came charging at him. He made his way back to the rest of the squad. “Just one of the goat-eaters,” Szonyi said. “Just one, and now he’s not there anymore, either.”

“Just one,” Istvan agreed. “But he tied us up for quite a while. He wounded one man, and we’ll have to hustle to get back to the path, and hustle even harder to catch up with the rest of the company. He caused almost as much trouble as if he’d blazed us all, may the stars be dark on his spirit.” He trudged back toward the path. No one would ever put this down in a history of the war. He didn’t even know whether to reckon it a success. He didn’t know whether the war was a success, either. Success or not, it went on.

Sunlight sparkled off the greenish blue waters of the Strait of Valmiera. To the north lay the Algarvian-occupied mainland of Derlavai, to the south the great island that held Lagoas and Kuusamo. Cornelu looked up into the sky, watching for dragons.

For the moment, he saw none. He and his Lagoan leviathan might have been alone in the ocean, and that ocean might have stretched unchecked to the end of the world. He wished that were so. He knew too well it wasn’t.

He still hadn’t given this new leviathan a name. One day, he told himself. One day I’ll know. Meanwhile, keeping the beast nameless was one more way for the Sibian exile to keep Lagoas at arm’s length. The leviathan didn’t care one way or the other. So long as it got plenty of squid and mackerel and, those failing, sardines, it stayed happy. Cornelu wished the notion of a full belly cheered him as readily.

At his command, the leviathan reared in the water, working its great tail to propel the front of its body--and him with it--higher above the surface of the sea. But even with that widened circle of vision, he spied no ships. That suited him fine.

He checked the sky again--a beautiful sky, full of puffy white clouds that drifted across it the way dumplings drifted in soup. It remained empty of dragons. He wondered how long it would stay that way. Algarvian beasts flew against Lagoas and Kuusamo, while Lagoan and Kuusaman dragons visited destruction on the mainland of Derlavai.

Sometimes, high overhead, opposing flights met and fought. Sometimes a heavy stick or another dragon would wound a dragon over land, either before or after it dropped its eggs, and the beast and its flier would go into the sea. Fliers hoping for rescue could live for a while in the water.

Ley-line ships weren’t much good for rescuing them. If a flier came down on a ley line, they could scoop him up, aye. But the greater part of the ocean was closed to them. Old-fashioned sailboats and leviathans, both of which could travel anywhere, did far better in such missions.

And so Cornelu traveled with two crystals on this patrol. One was attuned to Lagoan dragonflight headquarters back in Setubal. The messages he got from it would direct him to Lagoan fliers who went into the Strait of Valmiera.

The other crystal had been captured from an Algarvian, and was attuned to the emanations the enemy used. Any Algarvian dragonflier Cornelu captured and brought back to Lagoas was one who wouldn’t fly again for King Mezentio.

Somewhere out in the Strait, no doubt, were Algarvian leviathan-riders with captured Lagoan crystals. There were stories about clashes when men from both sides raced to rescue a downed dragonflier. Cornelu hadn’t been in any of those. In fact, the next dragonflier he brought back would be his first. He understood how war could be that kind of business.

He also understood that the Algarvians would have been happier if their ships and leviathans dominated the Strait of Valmiera and their dragons dominated the sky above it. That meant watching the sky not just for flights of dragons heading south but also for hunters looking for him and others like him.