Dragon

"I'm trying to imagine it, too. And I'm trying not to laugh."

"Thank you so much."

He shrugged. "Well, so he got you mad, and you want to get him back. You're stuck. If you can come up with something better, let me know."

"I can still kill him."

"Yeah, there's that."

I said, "If you come up with a way to turn a profit on this, let me know."

"Oh, that's easy. Morrolan will probably pay you for it."

"Do you think so?"

"Well, that's something."

He shook his head. "Hasn't anyone ever told you that revenge is wrong?"

"No, Kragar," I said. "That got left out of my education."

"Too late now," he said.

5—Mourning in the Afternoon

The next thing I remember doing is dodging around, trying to stay alert and not get killed. The first clash was over, and there were a lot of dead and wounded around, but things had broken up a bit. I didn't see Virt or Aelburr anymore, but I caught a glimpse of Napper about twenty yards to my left, flailing about in fine style; I was sure he, at any rate, was enjoying himself. Our colors were still waving, but I didn't recognize the woman holding them; Dunn was either dead or wounded. I hoped he was happy; he'd gotten what he wanted.

There was nothing like a line of battle, but there were clumps of fighting here and there, and many of us, on both sides, who were either looking for someone to fight or hoping not to find someone. This is, I suppose, where spirit of battle really matters: If we'd had more of it, I'd have been trying harder to kill someone. If they'd had more of it, I wouldn't have been able to hang around the fringes of the fighting. At some point in there, I noticed fresh blood on my sword, and I wondered how it got there.

The trouble was: My comrades were fighting for each other. In part, to keep each other alive, and in part because they knew each other, had trained together, and none wanted to be the only one to bug out. I'd been through enough with them to know that that was the thing that kept them going; but I hadn't trained with them, and I didn't know them, and even by then I wasn't quite sure why I hadn't bugged out. I still didn't know what had kept me there the first time the enemy had come at us over hastily thrown-up earthworks.

There was a short breathing space, and I relished it—hell, I gloried in it. Strange, huh? I was in as much danger, perhaps, as I'd ever been in, and I remember how delighted I was that there were spaces of time when no one was trying to kill me. Long spaces of time—seconds on end.

Then Loiosh said, "Remember why we're here, Boss?"

"Damn you anyway."

"Boss—"

"No, no. You're right. I have a job to do."

"But how—"

"Oh, I know how." There was a little hillock, really just a rise in the ground, before me—just down the hill and up another. "I just have to get over that hill and spot their command post, which will be protected by the best warriors I've ever met and more sorcerous ability than you can find outside of Dzur Mountain. Then I have to finish up what I came here for. No problem."

"I know that. I meant how. Too bad we don't know any invisibility spells that will stand up."

"Too bad I'm not Kragar."

Someone stumbled in front of me. An enemy. He looked at me, and I looked at him. He had lost his shield somewhere, but held most of a spear. I don't think he'd been coming after me, the force of battle had just placed him there. He probably would just as soon have run away, and I'd just as soon he did, but, of course, neither of us could trust the other to be sensible. He whipped the remains of his spear toward me. I moved in, knocked his weapon aside with the strong of my blade, and cut him in the neck. He went down and I moved on. I don't know if I killed him. I hope I didn't.

I looked around, and I was as alone as I could be, under the circumstances.

I started down the hill at a trot.

"Quick march now, Boss."

"Oh, shut up."

I thought about how comfortable my office was. I thought about how pleasant it would be to be sitting there. I remember—now, I didn't think about it then—how Kragar left me alone in the office to think over the idea of working with Morrolan's army as some sort of spy or saboteur; I couldn't quite wrap my head around the idea, but at the time, I was angry enough not to care. I needed to sort all that out so I yelled out that I didn't want to be bothered for a while.

"Okay, Boss!" yelled Melestav. "Anyone wants to come in and kill you, I tell them to wait, right?"

"Yeah," I yelled back. "Unless they're Dragons. Any Dragons who want to kill me can come right in."

He didn't say anything. I had gotten in the last word on Melestav; that had to be a good sign.

I closed my eyes and thought about Morrolan. I pictured him, tall, thin, rather dark, a very slight hook in the nose, eyes deep and rather close together, a bit of slant to his forehead, and I imagined his voice, a smooth baritone, mellow, and forming words with an assumed elegance—

"Who is it?"

"Vlad."

"Yes?"

"Am I reaching you at a bad time?"

"Not as bad as ten minutes later would have been. Which reminds me: Do you prefer the blood of a reptile or a mammal when you want to set up a room so you know if it's been violated?"

"Your own blood is best for anything of that type, because you want it to come back to you. But you only need a drop; it's symbolic."

"Thank you. What is it you wish of me?"

"I want to know if I can be useful to you."

"You just were."

"Other than that."

"Exactly what do you meanl"

"Against Fornia. Could your army use someone able to sneak in and out of the enemy camp, cause annoyance, disruption—"

"You're taking this rather personally, aren't you, Vlad?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain you want to do this?"

"Well, no. Not entirely. I'm just considering it."

"I see. We should talk"

"I suppose so."

"Are you busy later this afternoon? Say, in a few hours?"

"I could get free."

"Then meet me … no offense, Vlad, but are you able to receive a teleport position!"

"Yeah, just barely, if you give me a lot of time to fix it."

"Then I'll give you one. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Here."

Okay, I knew how to do this; I'd even done it once or twice before. I made an effort to drop those little controls we always keep on our thoughts. I mentally framed a picture—in my head, I always have big elegant gold frames—then thought of the space within as black. I held onto it and moved it around until it was mentally facing out, facing the imaginary direction of my psychic link with Morrolan. It gradually acquired color that I hadn't put into it, and details formed, until, in only a minute or two, I was seeing a place: the bottom of what appeared to be a cliff, a small stream before it, a few evergreens nearby. I couldn't tell how high the cliff was from what Morrolan was showing me, but it seemed to be large, and I certainly would have no desire to attempt to scale it: It seemed perfectly sheer, and grey, and, if you'll permit me, ominous. The ground was rocky and brown, with a few sparse bits of grass sticking up here and there; the stream, as far as I could tell, was little more than a trickle of water.

I concentrated; as I'd told Morrolan, I wasn't all that good at fixing locations for a teleport, but at last I felt reasonably certain I wasn't likely to send myself off to the middle of the ocean or forty feet under the ground. I said, "Got it."

"The seventh hour."

"Why there?"

"There will be an event taking place that you may wish to witness."

I thought about interrogating him some more, but decided it was pointless. "I'll be there," I told him.

"What do you suppose that was about, Boss?"