The Dragons of Argonath (34 page)

"Not usually get beer when we are on march," commented Vlok with his usual insight.

"This is not march in the woods!"

"It isn't? How can this be? We are here, these are woods, we have marched."

"Correction, we have fought. This was a fight in the woods."

"By the fiery breath, it was a pretty pitiful fight."

"By our standards it wasn't much, but it was a fight. So there should be beer."

"Mmm, you seem to be right." Vlok sounded puzzled by this discovery.

"Fight not over, that's why they cannot give beer," said Alsebra with a sharp hiss.

"How do you know that?" The Purple Green swelled. She always seemed to know everything, it was almost as bad as talking to a dragonboy.

"Because I feel approaching vibrations in the ground. I expect these are made by horsemen."

Dragons looked at one another.

Just then there came a distant squall of cornets and some shouting. Then they all heard it, the rumble on the ground of hundreds of horses coming toward them.

"The Aubinans!" went up the shout.

The legionaries ran to form up in defensive positions along the edge of the forest on the left side of the road. The dragons hid in the center of the line, spaced out twenty feet apart, lurking in the dark shadows.

The wagons were whipped up and went trundling past to get them to safety up the road. With them rode a small party of Talion troopers.

Meanwhile the thunder of hooves grew much louder, and soon they could see a great mass of horsemen galloping up the road from Treeves. The Aubinans had swung around in a wide hook and were coming in on the rear of the legion force. If the Aubinan ambush had worked, they would have been able to pile in on the rear of a confused force and drive it into rout.

Urmin spurred his mount into the woods, and the legionaries prepared themselves. Orders went out quickly. They were to stay on the defensive and let the horsemen fill up the road, if they were that incautious. Then the dragons would attack, and the infantry would assist them. Men were to be careful when fighting in proximity to dragons. They were reminded that dragonsword was lethal to both foe and friend, and that dragons could not always control the backward sweep of those great blades.

The Aubinan horsemen came loping up with plenty of scouts out front. The men and dragons hidden in the woods kept perfectly still. The dragons were practically invisible so well were they dug into the ground, wedged into dense thickets, hidden behind thick oak trees. And yet ten pairs of huge eyes watched the oncoming horsemen, and calculated the chances of getting to grips with them.

The Aubinans had slowed a little. They had expected to catch the legionaries in the woods close to Treeves. Now it looked like the legionaries had chased off the Aubinan foot without much trouble and made more progress than expected. Worse, the legion commander was warned of the cavalry thrust into his rear.

The Aubinan commander was Caleb Neth, one of the famous Neths of Nellin. He was starting to feel that something was wrong here. There was nothing ahead on the road except a few riders and a bunch of wagons. Where were the legion troops?

They had to be hiding in the woods, in ambush.

He raised his arm to summon the front riders back. He would send out more scouts before advancing any farther.

Just as he did so, the legion cornets blasted from the woods on either side. The vegetation shook as ten great battledragons burst from hiding and scrambled toward the horsemen.

Horses milled, screaming, riders toppled, a horse or two went down in the confusion, and then the dragons reached them. Those huge swords whirred through men and mounts together, and after a few moments of dreadful violence, the Aubinans were in flight, leaving a dozen or more dead on the ground. The dragons withdrew into the woods, arrows flew from both sides, and Neth ordered his force back out of range.

He studied the position.

The legion force had taken the woods. The Aubinan foot was somewhere way up the road. Neth needed to make contact and work out a new strategy. He turned the Aubinan cavalry back and retreated toward Treeves. The fighting was over for the day.

The dragons sat quietly under the trees as the daylight waned. Dragonboys left them to gather around Relkin and Swane, who were standing near the road, watching the officers grouped around Commander Urmin about a hundred paces away.

"What's up?" said Rakama.

"Well, the light's starting to fail. Looks like we'll be spending the night here," replied Swane.

"Could be worse, we've got cover under the trees."

"Yeah, but the enemy is on both sides of us."

"You could also say we've split his army in two."

"Shut it, you two," said Endi. "What's Relkin think?"

"Oh, right," chortled Swane. "What does the Quoshite think?"

In fact, all the other boys were very interested in what Relkin thought, and they indicated so with a chorus of "sshhh!"

"Yeah, Swane quiet down."

"I'll get you, Endi."

"Hey, you owe me twelve silver pieces, remember?"

The muscular Swane had still not figured out that he was never going to get the better of Endi at cards.

"You shut it, Endi!" growled Rakama.

"By the Hand," groaned Endi. The two beefs had become so friendly that they defended one another like brothers.

"What's going on, Relkin?" said Curf speaking for the rest.

Relkin turned back from studying the knot of lieutenants and captains.

"Well, looks like they're all a bit excited down there.

That makes me think we're not just going to sit here on the defensive. Commander Urmin wants to take the initiative."

"Good thing to do when you're heavily outnumbered, right?" said Swane, forgetting all about sitting tight where they were.

"Well, of course," said Manuel, a little impatiently. Manuel was already worrying about the difficulties of maneuvering at night in the forest.

"Going to be hard to keep together if we hike off this road in the dark."

"Right," agreed Relkin.

"Going to make a mess of the equipment," said the new boy Howt.

"Cuzo won't like that," groused Rakama.

"Hey, did anyone see Cuzo in the fight?" said Endi.

"By the Hand, he was smiting them," said Jak.

"Well, it's good to know we've got a fighter for a dragon leader, just as long as he knows what not to do."

"Remember Wiliger at Koubha?" said Swane.

The veterans of the Eigo campaign groaned in unison.

"Cuzo's not like Wiliger," said Endi.

"By the breath, let's hope not!"

"Cuzo ain't like Wiliger, that's certain," said Relkin, confirming the unit's impression of its new leader.

Behind them, a hundred feet back under the trees, the huge bodies of several wyverns had clumped together in a tight group as they kept an eye on their dragonboys.

"I still think we should have waited a little longer before we attack," said Vlok.

"We have heard this before," responded the Purple Green.

"We didn't get enough of them," said Vlok, patiently.

"Doesn't matter now," said Alsebra. "We're between the two parts of the enemy army. They outnumber us. Something will happen tonight."

"What are boys doing?" said Chektor.

"They are talking and watching the officers."

"What are officers doing?"

"They are also talking. Commander Urmin is there."

Chektor subsided into silence. The big old veteran was not a talky dragon.

Bazil shifted his weight behind the tree.

"This dragon thinks we'll be marching tonight. Better get dragonboy to tie everything down tight, marching through woods in the dark can be tough on equipment."

The others sighed at the thought of a nighttime march through dense thickets while carrying full pack and armor. Wading through mires, forcing a path through alders and hemlocks, having the sword and shield get caught in these tangles, having to hack them free with a tail sword. It would be hard going.

"Makes this dragon wish he had the flame of the ancestors!" grumbled Bazil.

Meanwhile, at the center of all this remote attention, Commander Urmin looked at the map spread out on the little fold-up table and pondered the imponderable.

"The Aubinan horse are lead by Caleb Neth, an able commander," said Commander Task of the Bea Fifth regiment as he indicated the woods behind them on the map. "He'll try something before long."

Commander Fellows of the Pennar Third and Subadar Calex nodded together grimly.

"An able officer and a suspicious one," grumbled Urmin. He scratched at the three-day-old fuzz on his chin. Neth had pulled his men back before they could be seriously damaged by the dragons. They'd taken a rebuff, not a slaughter. It was a pity, but one couldn't expect every trap to work perfectly. The Aubinans had tried to set an ambush as well, but that boy in the dragon squadron with the peculiarly bright eyes had confirmed his own suspicions. Then the dragons had been too much for the Aubinans to face. After that experience they would take measures to be more effective against dragons. Dragons were vulnerable to well-thrown spears, for instance.

Urmin had already decided not to sit still on the defensive. The Aubinans had to be hit hard and often to keep them off balance. Urmin now chose from the options they had examined.

"Neth is a canny leader, but his force is new to war. He'll be inclined to caution. We will hook around their infantry's left flank. We go south to the Old Turnpike, which was the Posila Road before they built the Wheat Road that made Aubinas rich."

Fellows and Calex nodded vigorously. The wealth of Aubinas was resented in much of the rest of the Argonath.

"The old road passes close to Avery, but it's screened from the village by a rise in the ground and Avery heath."

Indeed the approach route would be well masked by that low ridgeline and its forest cover.

"Calex, I want you to cover our rear. Neth will have some men on the Old Turnpike. Make sure he doesn't get in on our rear while we're marching."

"Sir!" Calex saluted.

Urmin looked to Fellows.

"I want everybody up and moving as soon as possible. We've got a long way to go if we're going to be in position by tomorrow morning."

Three miles of it would be through woodlots. They would have to march like magicians to get through the thickets in the dark. If they were quick enough, thought Urmin, they might catch the Aubinan foot napping.

Officers were thundering away into the dusk. Orders were bellowed into the trees. Immediately there was a jingle of equipment and the sounds of men, horses, and dragons coming to life.

"Move out!" came the order. Within minutes the small army of Marneri was on the move, heading south into the woodlots.

Torches were used to guide them through the worst parts, but Urmin had ordered that lights be kept to a minimum. He had left a few souls to build big fires near the road in their old position to fool the enemy into thinking he was standing pat on the defensive.

Standard military procedure would have advised that he do exactly that. With his force so much smaller than the combined Aubinan forces, he had little margin for any failures. However, Urmin was worried about the quality of the Aubinan cavalry. It had already shown itself able and deadly. The destruction of General Cerius's army was the result of the Aubinan cavalry striking home at the perfect moment. Urmin hoped to drive the Aubinan foot soldiers even farther away from the cavalry, and in the process hurt their formations. If Urmin could keep them apart, he could continue to inflict damage on the foot army and stop the invasion. Soon, in a week or two, there would be reinforcements, and after that the Aubinans would be doomed as far as mounting an effective invasion of Marneri.

Progress was slow at first, but then the Marneri riders brought in a local man who said he could lead them to a logging trail that would take them right through the wood-lots to the southern road.

Fresh orders went out. Within a short time the men and dragons were moving down a reasonably straight, if hardly well cleared, logging trail. They wound through the worst bogs and avoided the dense, unmanageable thickets. There were still some tricky places, and the trail was never much wider than four feet, which wasn't exactly enough for a dragon. Equipment got caught in branches and had to be cut free again and again.

Still, their progress was much swifter than they had expected, and within a couple of hours they were all out upon the Old Turnpike. Urmin breathed a big sigh of relief. Now they turned west and set their faces toward Posila. They soon picked up the pace while the last few stray branches and bits of vine fell off the dragons' gear. The road stretched ahead, visible only dimly under the faint starlight. The trees thinned out and were left behind. The handful of wagons they'd managed to drag down the logging trail rumbled on the paved highway, which remained in good repair.

The rumbling was the only thing that could betray their passage, swift and dangerous, heading for the edge of their enemy's flank.

Avery Woods rustled with the quiet progress of men, dragons, and horses. Urmin's luck had held. The Aubinans' inexperience had betrayed them. They had set out only a few sentries in a line at the edge of the woods. By neutralizing half a dozen of these men, the door was opened to the Aubinans' camp. The legion force crept through the woods, and where the trees thinned, they found scattered Aubinan men, relieving themselves as dawn intensified in the east. These men were slain quietly, and now the legion troops and the dragons of the 109th were standing right at the edge of the Aubinans' temporary camp, a hodgepodge of tents, shelters, and stacks of equipment with men sleeping in, under, and around them.

Urmin put half of his legionaries in line with the dragons in the center. The wyverns were set to attack on a three-hundred-foot front. The other half of the men were held back as a reserve and as archers. Meanwhile the Talion horsemen were working to slow any advance of the Aubinan cavalry down the Old Turnpike. The enemy were probing, but coming on very slowly. It was beginning to look as if Caleb Neth had been surprised by Urmin's nighttime maneuver. Indeed, the Aubinans were still scouting for the legion troops in the area along the Wheat Road and had yet to wake up to the fact that they had absconded and were now miles away to the south and west.