Jack Whyte - Uther

Uther merely shook his head, and Picus nodded. "Good. So be it. But next year, when your troopers return to Camulod, they will be dispersed among the regular troops as they should have been this year. And at that time, you yourself will enter a program of intense officer training under my best teachers. Cay will join you. Is that clear? I hope it is, because I must tell you that, in breaking with tradition in this way, I fear I may be loosing a deal of resentment on your people that you yourself might not have thought of. They will be perceived, rightfully but for the wrong reasons, as receiving preferential treatment. I can post clear orders defining at least some of my reasons for this action, and those should take care of the surface difficulties, but I doubt very much if it will stifle the resentment of our ordinary troopers. Your Cambrians might be in for a difficult time in the months ahead, but you have your wish and your opportunity to make what you can of it. And now it's almost curfew. Sleep well, and don't try to thank me, please, because I am not at all sure that I have done you any service."

Picus's assessment proved to be correct. The reaction of the veteran troopers in the other squadrons was less than friendly. The "dragon guards" found themselves treated as pariahs again, but a new spirit had been born in them with the knowledge that they were not to be split up, and they decided spontaneously, with the perverse obstinacy that frequently governs such developments, to adopt the name that had been so insultingly bestowed on them in the beginning, loudly proclaiming it as their own and taking a defiant pride in referring to themselves as the "Dragon Guards."

Then some time after that, as all things change and settle, the name was eventually accepted and shortened by everyone to become simply the "Dragons," and the new Cambrian troopers demonstrated that they were as good and as proficient at their tasks as any other troop in Camulod. It took long hours and killing work to establish that beyond dispute, but they thrived on it and grew stronger every day. By the time they eventually set out again, beneath the red and green Pendragon standard, to return to their home in Tir Manha, no one even remembered that they had initially been scorned.

It quickly became evident, however, that there was little useful purpose to be gained in taking the newly formed Dragons back to Cambria during the summer months. Summer was when the Camulodian cavalry worked hardest, not only in training and manoeuvres, but in the practical realities of patrolling their territories and defending the Colony's borders. Uther's Dragons, stuck in the far-off mountains of Cambria, thought often and enviously of the Camulodian troopers with whom they had trained all winter long and knew what they were missing.

They also felt, correctly, that their strength as a fighting force was being ignored in Cambria and therefore wasted. Uther agreed with his troopers for the most part, but he did his very best, assisted by the Camulodian training officers who had accompanied the Dragons home, to keep them busy and occupied with drills and patrols of their own territories.

Their morale suffered badly when the only two raids of that entire summer took place along the mountainous coastline, far beyond the terminus of the Roman coastal road at the legionary fort of Moridunum. The local tribes had taken over the old fort when the Romans abandoned it and called it by its ancient name, Carmarthen. It was now home base to Chief Cativelaunus, head of the powerful Griffyd clan and one of the seven Chiefs of the Pen- dragon Federation. Passage beyond the end of the Roman roads at Carmarthen was difficult at best for Uther's cavalry, since their heavy, lowland-bred horses could not make the transit of the harsh and dangerous mountain terrain quickly enough to enable the Dragons to take any part in the fighting that was taking place farther along the rugged coastline. Their compatriots, on the other hand, riding their sturdy but ludicrously small-looking mountain garrons, traversed the high mountain passes directly on their surefooted little beasts, making twice the speed of the vaunted cavalry from Camulod. By the time the Dragons reached the scene of the battle that had stopped the raiders, everything was over, and most of the Pendragon warriors had already left again to return home.

' That such a thing should happen was infuriating; that it should happen twice was unbearable. Although Garreth Whistler said nothing in criticism, Uther nevertheless learned a valuable lesson in fieldcraft from the repetition of failure. Never again would he lead his cavalry into a situation that was unsuitable for their tactical skills. Fighting on their own terms, in their own element, his Dragons were invincible, but fighting on terrain unsuited to their strength, versatility and purpose, their usefulness as a cohesive force would always be severely limited and the outcome potentially disastrous. Twice his Dragons had ridden out and achieved nothing. Twice they had arrived too late and been constrained to turn around and retrace their steps without striking a single blow at any enemy. Twice they had endured the scornful laughter of those warriors who had used their shaggy, short-legged little ponies to reach the scene first and had then employed their huge bows and merciless long arrows individually to slaughter the invaders. Twice they had known the humiliation of having to grit their teeth and swallow the sneers of their clansmen, who laughed at their fanciful name and dismissed them, along with their eye-catching uniforms and their disciplined formations, as the pampered, useless residue of the corrupt and vanished Romans. After much thought, however, Uther was convinced that he was the only person in his whole command who could add a more positive element to that humiliating litany: twice they had ridden out at his insistence and despite the cautionary urgings of his officers, and twice they had come home without a man or a horse lost through accident or circumstance or catastrophic ambush, and that was truly fortunate, for he had blundered into both situations without sufficient forethought, in blind ignorance of the odds stacked high against him. He would not soon expose his forces to such dangers again.

As soon as he had thought the matter through, Uther sought out his father, in company with Garreth Whistler, and laid the entire structure of his thoughts and findings before the King with characteristic bluntness and uncompromising honesty. He and his troopers were wasted in Tir Manha, he told Uric. They had no role to play in the kind of hit-and-run warfare waged against incoming raiders along the shores of the mountainous coastline in the summer months. Raiders landed one boatload at a time, usually in places that were inaccessible to heavy cavalry, and then they might scatter to burn and pillage, returning only at some prearranged time to sail away again and strike elsewhere. In that kind of situation, Uther swore, his Dragons were worse than useless. Better, he said, that he and his troopers should spend useful time in Camulod the following summer, learning to sharpen and tighten their fighting skills, than lie around in Tir Manha being laughed at by their own clansmen.

In time, he insisted to his father, his Dragons would be strong enough and confident enough to take their proper place among their own people, and should there ever come a day when the Pen- dragon Federation entered into an invasive war, then each of his troopers would be worth ten of the horseless, unarmoured and undisciplined warriors. Under those circumstances, he pointed out to the King, with entire armies of hostile troops flowing through the mountain valleys and lowlands, his Dragons would be a maul with which the enemy, whoever he might be, could be utterly smashed each time he ventured into open spaces. Using the network of fine Roman roads throughout their lands, his Dragons could and would dictate, determine and dominate all troop movements and supply routes in the eastern two-thirds of the low-lying areas in the country's interior. In the higher lands, into which the enemy would then be forced to withdraw, the Pendragon bowmen and their fearsome, unequalled long-range weapons could be relied upon to deal with any resistance that remained.