Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

"He must be more than a hundred leagues from here," Glandurg said weakly.

"We aren’t going to fly after him, are we?" Thorfin asked with a dangerous edge to his voice. The other dwarves muttered in agreement.

"No. There is no need for that. He will return soon enough. Meanwhile we will scout around us and wait."

Bal-Simba was waiting for them at the crest of the dune. Outlined against the sky with sea breezes whipping the edges of his leopard-skin loincloth the big wizard was a most impressive sight. Wiz, who was a little chilly in spite of his traveling cloak, wondered how he managed to keep warm.

He heard their breathless report gravely and without comment. "We will have the thing taken back to the Capital for study," he told them. "Unless you think it is unsafe?"

"No reason to think that, Lord," Wiz said. "Although since we don’t even know where it came from I can’t guarantee anything."

Bal-Simba pursed his lips. "I think we may have a clue as to that. I have been talking to Weinrich and the other villagers. They say there has been a change in the weather recently."

"The weather?" Wiz said blankly.

"Folk who live by the sea are always sensitive to the weather. This far south on the Freshened Sea the pattern of wind and weather is constant, year to year."

"Village folk are usually wise in the ways of the immediate surroundings," Moira agreed. "But you say a change?"

"A fog bank about a day’s sail to the east. A fog that does not lift and does not move. A place where a sailor can get lost because neither compass nor magic works properly."

"And they think this thing came out of the fog?" Wiz asked.

"It seems to have come from that direction."

"Lord, if I were you I’d search the hell out of that fog bank."

"That is already in train, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said.

Dragon Leader looked over his formation again and then turned his eyes back to the sea below. Two days ago his entire wing of almost fifty dragons had been brought together from their scattered patrol bases and sent hurrying south to Oak Island. Yesterday had been spent frantically setting up a makeshift base among the fisherfolk and putting out the first hasty patrols to try to define the edges of this strangeness.

Now Dragon Leader was taking his flight into the heart of this new thing. Every rider and dragon was at the peak of alertness. He could tell from the way they were flying that none of them liked it at all.

Even the formation reflected that. Instead of putting his dragons in line abreast or an echelon to cover the maximum territory, he had his first element above and behind his main formation for top cover. The rest of the patrol was pretty much line abreast, but they were closer together than normal so they could support each other quickly in case of trouble.

Every man and woman in the patrol understood the significance of that. This was a fighting formation, not a scouting one. Dragon Leader was going into this strange place loaded for bear.

Dragon Leader and his troopers were used to flying into the unknown. In a world where maps were components of spells rather than guides to terrain, he had often struck out over uncharted territory. He was used to magic as well. Save for the death spells on their iron arrows and a few odds and ends, dragon cavalry did not use magic. But they dealt with it constantly and most of them had faced it on more than one occasion.

Not that they had seen any magic here. So far he had seen nothing but sun-dappled sea and the occasional wheeling sea bird. Just what they should have seen, in other words.

But it wasn’t right. There was something odd about this stretch of ocean, something that made his eyes hurt to look at it and made him queasy the deeper the patrol penetrated. It was like trying to look at two things at once, he decided. Two pictures that were almost but not exactly alike.

His dragon sensed it too. Whatever there was about this place, his mount didn’t want anything to do with it. He signaled his patrol to extra alertness and pushed on. Then he reached for his communications crystal to report.

There-again there was strangeness. He managed to reach the Watcher on Oak Island, but the voice was weak and there were gaps, requiring several repeats to get the message through.

Interference? he thought as he replaced the crystal. But that didn’t seem right either. He knew the effects of jamming spells on communications crystals. He had felt them often enough during the years of war against the Dark League. But this was more as if someone had substituted a poorly ensorceled crystal for his own. It was as if the spell on the crystal had suddenly become much weaker, less competent.

He noticed that the rhythm of his mount had changed as well. The dragon’s wingbeats had increased, as if they were climbing instead of flying level. The beast wasn’t exactly laboring, but he was definitely working harder. He did a quick calculation and decided that if this continued, the extra effort would reduce his patrol’s flying time by one-third.

Down below the sea seemed the same, but this place was definitely different.

Off to his right one of the dragons flying top cover waggled its wings to attract attention. The riders on the right wing caught it as soon as Dragon Leader did and used hand signals to pass the information on to their commander.

Dragon Leader kneed his mount gently and his dragon banked gently left and right to acknowledge. Craning his neck he saw the rider rise in her saddle and raise both her arms above her head in the signal for land.

Dragon Leader hesitated for an instant and then signaled the entire patrol to turn toward the land.

The patrol was barely halfway into their turn when three gray shapes hurtled down on them out of the clouds.

"Break! Break!" Dragon Leader screamed into his communications crystal. The warning was unnecessary, already the squadron was scattering like a flock of frightened chickens as the screaming intruders dived on them. Riders fumbled for their war bows as they twisted and dove in every direction, trying desperately to get away from their attackers.

In the end it was biology rather than maneuvering that saved them. Dragons have poor radar returns and the targeting radars on the robot fighters were unable to get a lock. Craig hadn’t thought to equip his creations with cannon, so the planes were impotent against the dragons.

Of course the dragons were equally impotent against the planes. The aircraft were too fast and too unexpected. They swooped through the formation before a single rider could draw a bow or a single dragon could breathe fire. The planes made a tight curving climb back into the clouds and then they were gone.

The dragons didn’t hang around either. The entire squadron dove for the wavetops and ran for home as fast as their wings could carry them.

"That," said Wiz grimly, "is definitely a jet fighter."

The recording had been frozen at the moment that the plane was climbing away from the dragon squadron. The view was almost from directly above and the outline and details were unmistakable.

"Looks like it was drawn by a fourteen-year-old," Danny said contemptuously. "It’s a combination of a bunch of different planes."

"Notice that it’s unmanned," Jerry said, sticking his finger into the image to point at the place where the cockpit should be. "Either these guys are real cautious about risking their necks or there aren’t very many of them. Maybe only one or two."

"The main thing," Wiz said, getting up from the table, "is that we’ve got both dragons and jet fighters in the same air at the same time." He turned to Arianne, who had brought them the recording.