Rulers of the Darkness

All at once, as if drawn by a lodestone, his head swung to the left, toward the south. He stroked the leviathan, commanding it to stay up on its tail longer so he could get a better look. At first, his hand went to the rubber pouch he wore on his belt- he intended to get out his crystal and scream a warning to the fleet. Of all things the ships didn't need, a great, drifting iceberg in their midst was among the worst.

After a moment, though, he realized the iceberg wasn't drifting. Instead, it glided east along the ley line under at least as much control as a cruiser. Its upper surface wasn't sharp and jagged, as it would have been in nature, but low and smooth and flat. Even as Cornelu watched, a dragon landed on the ice and two more, both painted in Lagoan scarlet and gold, took off. A chunk of ice that size could carry a lot of dragons- aye, and their handlers, too.

For a couple of heartbeats, Cornelu simply gaped at that. Then he remembered a name he'd heard on his journey down to the mages' base at the eastern edge of the land of the Ice People. "Habakkuk!" he exclaimed. He didn't know that that name went with the iceberg-turned-dragon-hauler, but it struck him as a good bet. What else but ice would those mages have been working on, down there on the austral continent?

He still had no idea why they'd had him bring egg casings full of sawdust to their base. If I ever see one of them again, I'll have to ask, he thought.

Right now, he had more urgent things to worry about. He let his leviathan slide back down into the sea, which it did with an indignant wriggle that told him it thought he'd made it stand on its tail far too long. "I am sorry," he told it. "You don't understand how strange that iceberg is."

The leviathan wriggled again, as if to say, An iceberg is an iceberg. What else can it be? Up till he'd seen this one, Cornelu would have thought the same thing. Now he saw that the question had a different answer, but it wasn't one he could explain to his mount.

With a snap of its toothy jaws, the leviathan gulped down a squid as long as his arm. Then it swam on. Did it think Cornelu had arranged the treat? He didn't know- it couldn't tell him- but it didn't complain when, a few minutes later, he ordered it to lift its head, and him, high out of the water again.

Sigisoara island was closer now, close enough to let him see flashes of light and puffs of smoke as eggs burst near its south- and east-facing beaches. Boatloads of Kuusaman and Lagoan soldiers were leaving the transports and making for those beaches. Cornelu yelled himself hoarse as the leviathan sank back into the sea.

Tears stung his eyes, tears that felt more astringent than the endless miles of salt water all around. "At last," he murmured. "By the powers above, at last." He wished the Sibians could have freed themselves. That failing, having others- even having Lagoans- restore their freedom struck him as good enough. He shook a fist to the northwest, in the direction of Trapani. Take that, Mezentio, he thought. Aye, take that and more besides.

Here and there, eggs burst among the oncoming boats. Some of the Algarvians still on Sibiu were trying to give rather than take. An Algarvian dragon swooped down on a landing boat, flamed all the Lagoans in it, and left it burning on the water. A couple of Kuusaman dragons drove the enemy beast away, but too late, too late.

Still, Mezentio's men weren't putting up much of a fight. More than a year and a half before, Cornelu had been part of the force that raided Sibiu to distract the Algarvians while another fleet carried a Lagoan army to the land of the Ice People. Then the enemy had hit back hard. Had that raid been an invasion, it would have failed miserably.

Now… Now the Algarvians didn't seem to have so much with which to strike the invaders. Cornelu had seen as much on his last trip to Sibiu on leviathanback. His laugh was hard and cold. "That's what you get for taking on Unkerlant," he said, and laughed again.

Algarve had been recruiting Sibians to help fight its battles when he was there. He supposed they would mostly have gone to Unkerlant, too, the fools. How many of them crouched low in holes in the ground along with their Algarvian overlords, looking at vengeance here out on the ocean? However many traitors there were, Cornelu wished he could kill them all himself. Since he couldn't, he hoped the dragons overhead, the eggs tossed from the warships ashore, and the soldiers landing on the beaches would do the job for him.

He'd had his hopes dashed too many times in this war: his hopes for how the war would go, his hopes for his kingdom, his hopes for his marriage and his happiness. He was afraid to have hopes any more, for fear something would go wrong and ruin them anew.