Darkness Descending

“Aye, dragons down here burn hot and flame far,” his Yaninan counterpart agreed. “Not for nothing do we need what the Ice People trade us.”

Before Sabrino could answer, an insect bit him on the back of the neck. It wasn’t a mere mosquito; it felt as if it had driven a red-hot nail an inch into his flesh. He yelled and leaped in the air and slapped at himself, all at the same time. Something squashed under the palm of his hand. When he looked, he saw blood and bug guts. He scrubbed his palm on the new green grass shooting up now that the snow had melted. Like the bugs, like everything on the austral continent, the grass was speeding through its life as if it knew it had not a moment to waste.

Another camel approached from out of the east. This one was a riding beast, with a man of the Ice People perched atop the curious padded bench that served it for a saddle. Seeing Broumidis, the fellow steered the camel toward him. As soon as he came into earshot, he began shouting in his own throaty language, pointing back over his shoulder as he did so.

“You understand what he’s saying?” Sabrino asked. His neck still throbbed.

“Aye,” Broumidis replied, “or I do when I don’t have to try to understand you, too.” Sabrino shut up. The Yaninan spoke in the language of the Ice People, listened, and spoke again. After he got another set of answers, he turned back to Sabrino. “The Lagoans are coming. Pathrusim here spied them fording the Jabbok River, about forty miles east of here. They’ll be across it now, of course, but not so far across it--they’re mostly footsoldiers, and couriers camels ride like the wind. We can strike them. We can smite them.”

He sounded quiveringly eager. Had all the Yaninans been so eager to go into action against King Vitor’s men, Sabrino could have stayed in Unkerlant, in a fight he was convinced mattered more to his kingdom than this sideshow. The best way to escape the sideshow, though, was to smash the Lagoans. If they were beaten off the austral continent, he could go back to Derlavai.

He shouted for his bugler. The fellow came running up, horn in hand. “Blow the call to combat,” Sabrino told him. “We fly against the Lagoans!”

Familiar martial music rang out. His dragonfliers burst from their tents and ran for their beasts, which screamed in fury at having their meals interrupted. They were going off to a fight, which they liked as well as eating, but they hadn’t the brains to figure that out.

A couple of minutes later, a Yaninan trumpeter also started blaring away. Broumidis’ men moved more slowly than the Algarvians despite their commandant s shouts and curses. Poor bugger, Sabrino thought--a good officer trapped in a bad service. Sabrinos whole wing was in the air and speeding east before the first Yaninan dragons left the ground. Sabrino sighed: This was why King Mezentio s men had had to come give them a hand. With Yaninans for allies, Algarve hardly needed enemies.

Peering down from his perch at the base of his dragon’s neck. Sabrino spied a couple of Lagoan behemoths lumbering ahead of the enemy’s army. The Lagoans spotted his wing, too, and started blazing at the dragons with the heavy stick mounted on one behemoth. The wing, fortunately, was flying high, and even that powerful beam couldn’t knock any dragons out of the sky. It did keep Sabrino from ordering his dragons to swoop down on the Lagoan behemoths, though. They would pay a high price if they tried that.

A few of the Algarvian dragonfliers did drop eggs on the behemoths. Down here on the austral continent, the wing had to carry eggs as well as fighting with flame and the fliers’ sticks. Sabrino didn’t see whether they knocked the Lagoan beasts down. He was looking ahead, trying to spot the Lagoans’ main force.

He was also worrying. He’d flown against Lagoan dragons over the Strait of Valmiera; their fliers knew what they were doing. And the Lagoans, unlike the Unkerlanters, used crystals as freely as did his own kingdom. Those behemoths would let the rest of the Lagoan army know the dragons were coming.

And they did. The Lagoans might not have brought along many dragons, but they had lots of behemoths. Some of those beasts carried egg-tossers, but the ones with heavy sticks all started blazing at the wing of Algarvian dragons.

Captain Domiziano’s face appeared in Sabrino’s crystal. “Sir, shall we dive on them?” the squadron commander asked. By his tone, he would have liked nothing better.

But Sabrino shook his head. “No--it would hurt us too much. We can’t afford to throw ourselves away--no telling if any more dragons will be able to come here if we do, and dragons can’t stop a whole army on the march by themselves anyhow.”

“The Yaninans won’t be able to stop them, either,” Domiziano predicted. “Are we going to have to send soldiers here, too?”