Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“Any hope of getting more any time soon?” Sabrino asked, fastening his harness so the dragon couldn’t pitch him off no matter how much it wanted to.

Tsaldaris tossed his head, as Yaninans did when they meant no. “Supply got unicorn’s prick up arse,” he said, which, Sabrino feared, summed things up altogether too well.

Sabrino waved to Major Scoufas. Scoufas waved back. Sabrino looked to his own men. They were ready. He’d known they would be. And so were the Yaninans. They made perfectly good dragonfliers. Their trouble was, they had not enough dragons and not enough men trained to fly them, especially when facing a foe who came in such great numbers as the Unker-lanters did.

At Sabrino’s nod, Tsaldaris loosed the chain that held his dragon to its stake. Screaming fury at the world, the dragon leaped into the air with a great thunder of wings. Algarvian dragons painted in varying patterns of green and white and red rose with it. So did their Yaninan counterparts, those beasts painted simply red and white. Some carried eggs slung beneath them; others would protect those dragons and do what damage they could with their flames. Sabrino cursed the dearth of cinnabar. “The land of the Ice People,” he muttered. “The Mamming Hills.” Plenty of cinnabar both places. The Algarvians would never get to use any of it, not any more.

Flying west, though, always made him feel better. When he was flying west, he was going on the attack. He’d had too much of the Unkerlanters’ coming to him. He was, he’d always been, a man who wanted to make things happen, not one who sat back and waited for them to happen to him.

He didn’t need long to spot the Unkerlanter bridgehead. Eggs were bursting all around the edges of it. Most of them looked to be Unkerlanter eggs-King Swemmel’s soldiers had far more tossers than did the Yaninans facing them, too. And… Sabrino started cursing again, this time in good earnest. The Unkerlanters had thrown a plank bridge across the Trusetal River-their artisans were clever at such things-and were sending behemoths across to the eastern bank.

Sabrino had two crystals with him-one to link him to his own squadron leaders; the other, with somewhat different emanations, to Major Scoufas. He spoke into both of them at the same time: “Those behemoths are our target. If we can slay them and wreck that bridge, the footsoldiers on the ground ought to be able to close out the rest of the Unkerlanters this side of the river.”

Had they been Algarvian soldiers, he would have been sure of it. With Yaninans, one could only hope. However good their dragonfliers were, their footsoldiers had singularly failed to cover themselves with glory. No, plurally, for the Yaninans had failed again and again. But Sabrino couldn’t say that, no matter how true it was, for fear of offending Major Scoufas, who was as touchy as any Yaninan.

The dragons carrying eggs dove on the bridge. The Unkerlanters had heavy sticks mounted nearby to protect it, of course. One dragon-an Algarvian beast-went straight into the Trusetal. Sabrino cursed yet again: one more comrade he would never see again. But eggs burst in large numbers, in the river and on both banks. Then one struck the bridge, square in the center. The burst of sorcerous energy pitched two behemoths into the water and set the bridge afire. Sabrino whooped.

Whooping still, he gave new orders: “Now we attack the behemoths on the east bank of the Trusetal.”

“Cover us, if you would be so kind,” Major Scoufas said. “My men and I will show you what your allies can do.”

Although Sabrino had been about to order his own dragonfliers to swoop down on the Unkerlanter behemoths, he was willing to salve Scoufas’ pride, and so he answered, “Let it be as you say.”

“My thanks,” the Yaninan told him, and gave his own orders in his own language. Sabrino understood not a word of them, but what they were was hardly in doubt. And, almost as if diving on targets in a practice field, the Yaninans carried out the attack. The behemoths below scattered, as targets would not and could not, but that mattered little, for what was a behemoth’s speed when measured against a dragon’s? If Scoufas and his men had to get a little closer to flame the behemoths than they would have needed to do with more cinnabar in them, what difference did that make?

But, just as Sabrino began to gloat in good earnest, Captain Orosio’s face appeared in the crystal that kept the wing commander in touch with his fellow Algarvians. “Enemy dragons!” the squadron leader shouted. “A whole great swarm of them, coming out of the west!”

They were painted rock-gray, of course, and Sabrino hadn’t seen them against the clouds. I’m getting old, he thought. If he wanted to get much older, he would have to fight hard now. “Melee!” he ordered. “If we break up their formation, we have the edge.” The Unkerlanters did fine as long as they acted in accordance with someone else’s plan. If they had to think for themselves, to decide quickly, they had trouble.

A wild melee it was, too, once the Algarvians got in amongst the Unkerlanters. Dragons spun crazily through the sky. Sabrino tried to flame one of Swemmel’s sparrowhawks-that was the name the Algarvians gave the Unkerlanters’ best dragonfliers-but couldn’t come close enough to do it.

When an Unkerlanter dragon got on his tail, he had to fly like a man possessed to keep from getting flamed himself. But he managed to blaze the enemy dragonflier with his stick-a lucky blaze, but he was glad to take it- and the rock-gray beast went wild, attacking every dragon around it. Since the Unkerlanters had far more dragons in the air than he did, that helped his side more than theirs.

It didn’t do enough to help the Yaninan dragonfliers down below, though. The Unkerlanters had enough dragons to assail the Algarvians and Yaninans at the same time. Major Scoufas’ image appeared in Sabrino’s crystal. “We have to pull out!” he shouted.

“We haven’t got rid of the bridgehead,” Sabrino said, blazing at another Unkerlanter dragonflier and missing.

“If we stay, we still will not be rid of the bridgehead-and the Unkerlanters will be rid of us,” Scoufas replied.

Sabrino cursed as he pondered. Had he not judged Scoufas right about the first part of that, he would have ignored the second; men and dragons fought to be used up at need. As things were… “Aye,” he said bitterly, and began the tricky business of getting his wing free. They’d hurt the Unkerlanters, but Swemmel still had men-and, worse, behemoths-on this bank of the Trusetal.

All things considered, Garivald was pleased with the crop he and Obilot had managed to plant. They’d started late, with the mule they’d hired from Dagulf. But, looking over the soft green of growing barley and rye, he thought they should end up with plenty to get them through the winter.

“Not so bad,” he told her after a long day of weeding.

“No, not so bad,” she agreed. “The farther we are from anybody else, the better, too.” She dipped a horn spoon into the porridge of barley and leeks they were eating for supper.

Garivald grunted. “That’s true enough, by the powers above. I didn’t think I’d end up a hermit, but you never know, do you?”

“No.” Obilot’s eyes went far away. Back to whatever she’d had before the Algarvians swarmed into the Duchy of Grelz? Maybe. Garivald had never had the nerve to ask such questions, and she’d never said what drove her into the irregulars. All she said now was, “You never know.”

Sooner or later, they would have to go back into Linnich. The farm had no salt lick; they could trade herbs and vegetables from the garden plot for salt, and for tools, and maybe for some chickens or ducks, too. When spring came again, they would need a draught animal for the plowing. Garivald was in no hurry. Not even the thought of seeing Dagulf cheered him. His friend reminded him of all he’d lost when Zossen vanished off the face of the earth.