Steven Brust - Dragon

"Good ground for fighting," she said.

13—Soldier's Stew

Just a few short minutes before, the approaching battle had been terrifying. Now it was also loud. I felt this awful sense of urgency, that I should be doing something now, but I just stood there, and so did Fornia. It did accomplish one thing—which was to give myself time to think. What was Fornia accomplishing by doing nothing? Why was he letting me, an enemy, just stand there like that?

Was he delaying, too? If so, why? The only thing he could want was for the battle to close in on him, and what would that get him? I would have given whole worlds to know what he had in mind. I wished—

I did a quick check. Yes, indeed, there was a teleport block in place. But. Maybe.

Time. I needed time. I needed time to find out why Fornia needed time. Well, okay, so maybe he'd be willing to give it to me.

"What are you going to do when they get here?" I ventured.

"You'll see," he told me.

"Do you expect me to just wait here?"

"Do as you wish."

"Kragar!"

"What?"

"Kragar, I need Daymar. Now."

"Daymar?"

"Now."

"Uh … how do I?"

"I'll give you my location, you pass it on to Daymar, and warn him there's a teleport block up."

"How can he get past a teleport block?"

"Damned if I know But he said—"

"Yeah, he might at hat. I take it this is urgent."

"You might put it that way, yes."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Hurry."

Yeah, Daymar. He might be able to help me. I didn't terribly enjoy calling on him; I hadn't much enjoyed what he'd done last time we'd met. That had been … what? Two weeks ago? Less? Impossible. In that time I'd fought in three engagements, marched halfway around the world through rain, mud, and dust, and come to here, to this place: the Wall of Baritt's Tomb.

There had been nothing, at first, to indicate that stopping there was any different from any of our other temporary halts, except for the obvious one that we had halted early in the day. But there was no need to put up defenses, and no indications we'd been given a position we would be holding against an attack. I found out later that this was because the original plan had been for us to be pan of a major attack against one side of Fornia's army, but that this had changed when Sethra, at the last minute, had learned how Fornia had deployed his forces.

"Deployed." That's a military word. I learned it from Sethra. I'll have to make sure to use it on Kragar sometime, just to see his reaction.

Virt and Aelburr scraped out a fire-pit while Napper and I pitched the tent. "No wood around here," said Aelburr.

"So we freeze?" I said.

They ignored me. Virt said, "The wagons should be across in a couple of hours."

I looked at Napper. "Coal," he explained.

I felt stupid and didn't say anything.

We went through the rituals of setting up camp, but I kept looking up at that mountain, the flat slab extending up until it became lost in the overcast. Occasionally the giant Jhereg would swoop down and Loiosh would dive into my cloak. The Wall had been dedicated to Baritt's memory, and as long as it stood it would bring him to mind whenever it was seen or even mentioned. I thought back to meeting him. Would someone by now have mentioned the Wall? Would he care? It seemed a shame, not to mention ironic, for him not to know that there was a monument to his memory.

On the other hand, I hadn't much liked him.

Three hours later we had a fire going and water heating. Aelburr made something called Soldier's Stew, which involved crumbling a lot of biscuits into boiling water along with the rest of our rations, and molasses, and it should have been disgusting, but he added some basil, mushrooms, toeroot, and nutmeg that he'd picked up somewhere, and the thing was all right; we sang his praises the rest of the day.

We did picket duty early in the evening, and so were able to get a good night's sleep, and the picket assignments indicated no enemy nearby. The next day some of the company drew out a squareball field, wrapped a bunch of rope around a rock to use as the ball, and played a good rousing game while the rest of us stood around and yelled encouragement and obscenities. The injuries weren't nearly as bad as a full-scale battle would have been but were bad enough to get us yelled at by Crown and cursed by the company physicker. I did, however, resolve never to get into a fair fight with Dortmond. That was okay, I had no intention of ever having a fair fight with anyone. There was more S'yang Stones that night, and someone pulled out a reed-pipe and a bunch of them sang bad songs off key, and Aelburr made more Soldier's Stew.

At one point, I found Rascha, Virt, Dunn, and Aelburr standing looking out over the flat field nestled between the hills.

"That's where they'll be," Rascha was saying. "They'll spread out between those hills, Dorian's and Smoker's command, both of them, and try to hold us off from there."

"If we fight here," said Aelburr.

"Well, yes," said Rascha. "But the sergeant hasn't given any indication that we're going anywhere."

"I think it'll be here," said Virt. "What I don't understand is why we haven't taken positions on those hills ourselves."

"You're the expert," said Rascha. "What do you think?"

"I think the only thing that could keep the Captain's grubby paws off those hills is orders from above."

"Good thinking," said Rascha.

"You've heard that?" put in Dunn. "We've had specific orders about them?"

"Only a rumor, but that's what I've heard."

"But why?"

Rascha looked at Virt and gave a bow. Virt said, "To entice an attack. Same reason we haven't built up any defenses. Sethra wants them to attack us, and she's making it as attractive as possible."

I said, "Will they fall for it?"

"It isn't a matter of falling for it," said Virt. "They'll know how we're laid out. If we're offering battle on favorable terms, they'll take it."

"But then they wouldn't be favorable terms for us."

"It isn't that simple," said Virt.

"Then don't try to explain it to me," I said. I wandered away. It was too pleasant a day to think about fighting. There was a breeze whipping south along the mountain that brought cool air, but it wasn't yet cold, and it was dry, and not even terribly dusty. I came upon Dortmond, who was sitting back in his chair, feet stretched out, smoking a pipe. He opened one eye and said, "Well, it's the Easterner who fights like a Dragon. Wine?"

"Sure."

He pulled a beautifully carved wooden goblet from a canvas bag at his feet, filled it from a bottle next to his hand, and passed it to me. I tasted it. It wasn't wine, it was brandy; even better as far as I was concerned.

"To the soldier's life," he said.

I didn't care to drink to that, but I did care to drink, so I raised my glass and swallowed.

"How did you get this stuff?"

"The victualer is a friend of mine, and a few of the provisioners owe me some favors, and there's always a little spare room in some of the supply wagons."

I drank the brandy. Loiosh, who had been flying about collecting scraps of food, found me and landed on my shoulder. Dortmond eyed him. I said, "Do you believe he's good luck, too?"

"Sure. Why not? We've had good luck during the whole campaign, haven't we?"

"Have we?"

"Well, are you alive?"

"Haven't checked lately."

He refrained from the obvious wisecracks and poured me more brandy, still calling it "wine." He said, "I think the campaign has been pretty lucky, all in all." He reached into the canvas bag once more, removed a loaf of bread and a large chunk of cheese. He broke off some of each and passed them over to me. It was a smokey meiren cheese, very sharp and good. The bread was stale but not moldy, and much, much better than biscuit. He broke off some more cheese, held it up, and Loiosh flew over and took it from him in one claw, holding it almost delicately while feeding himself. I watched him eat: nibble, chew, swallow, wipe mouth on wing. He was rather more civilized than I.