The Last Battle by Chris Bunch

Author:Chris Bunch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780451461100
Publisher: ROC
Published: 2004-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

19

The secret stop Hal ordered was off the fishing village of Brouwer, about as far west on Deraine as it was possible to be. He'd detached Cabet days earlier, and a detail of twenty men with wagon-loaded supplies.

The supplies were deliberately left in large piles on a dreary, rain-swept moor beyond the village.

Hal's ships were anchored off the port, and all hands brought ashore and marched to the moor.

The order was given to pitch camp, and stand by for further orders.

Everyone set to, after a few moments of surprise that the expedition wasn't well on its way to sea and foreign adventure.

Hal, Limingo, and Farren Mariah worked as hard as anyone. Harder, for their eyes and ears were pitched for whiners or malingerers.

There were a few.

They were taken aside, and told they were discharged, effective immediately, from the expedition.

Most of them were astonished.

Hal brought them together, and made a short speech:

"Adventure starts in the shitter, most often. If you women and men can't handle putting up a few tents when it's soggy out, and still manage a laugh, how in the hells do you think you'll stand real hardship?"

They were sent back aboard one of the dispatch boats, which also carried letters to an equal number of the almost-qualified, telling them there were new openings with the Dragonmaster.

Most of the slackers eliminated, Hal called the survivors into a group, and made another short speech:

"You're soldiers, each of you. Now we'll train you to work together. An army, or an expedition, isn't just a group of wild-haired adventurers, in spite of what the tale-tellers blather."

Each man and woman was required not only to hone old skills and talents, but to learn another trade.

Hal anticipated casualties, with no replacements thousands of leagues from home.

So scouts learned how to clerk, farriers learned how to soldier, and, most important, everyone learned about dragons.

The training was, of course, hasty, and probably wouldn't hold together beyond the first encounter with an unknown foe, if there was to be one.

They even played war games, small-sized battles.

These were remarkable because casualties were named in midproblem. Suddenly a private would become a section leader, frequently with no idea of what the battle was about.

Officers and warrants were chosen, tried, and, sometimes, reduced to the ranks. This was no particular disgrace—the only privileges those in charge had were working harder, longer hours than their underlings, and wearing dark strips of cloth around their right arms.

The dragons and their fliers were sweated as hard as anyone. Some of them, like the Sagene, didn't know the trumpet calls the Deraine warriors used, so they had to learn. Hal insisted on everyone knowing the signals for a few simple formations: line abreast, column, and a group of vees.

Each flier picked a wingmate, and trained with him or her, flying close company. If they didn't get along, or, more important, their dragons hated each other, they found another partner.

Garadice had done an excellent job of making sure the dragons were roughly trained and mostly

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