Dragon

"Lead to peace?"

"Peace is the goal of war. Didn't you know that?"

"Uh … "

"Come, Vlad. Until there is peace, you haven't won. That is, you haven't accomplished your goals. On the other hand, it is worth remembering that, until there is peace, you also haven't lost."

"I guess I hadn't looked at it that way."

"You have never had to."

"Yeah, I suppose."

"The other reason I've been successful, I think, is that I'm very aggressive. And of course, my reputation helps. They think of me as being a great general, which makes the enemy afraid to be aggressive, which makes me a great general." She laughed a little. "But my usual approach is to give the enemy every chance to make a mistake, and then I punish him when he does, and the biggest mistake may be not to be aggressive enough, which is one mistake I never make."

"Aggressive on defense?"

"Certainly, Vlad. After all, it's always the defender who starts the war."

"Excuse me? Then it was Fornia who started the war with Morrolan?"

"Yes, indeed. That made him the defender, and that was why so much of my effort was involved in bringing him over to the attack."

I shook my head. "I don't see how it is that the defender starts the war."

"It isn't that complicated. The attacker doesn't want war. The attacker wants to conquer. If the defender would simply allow him to do so there would be no war."

"Uh … Sethra, I think there's something wrong with your logic."

"No," she said. "There isn't. It's counterintuitive, but it isn't wrong."

I thought all that over, remembering the battles and the retreats and the marches, and I said, "Assassination is easier. Or so I've heard."

She smiled and made no answer.

But that, as I said, was months later. At the time I just sat in camp along with everyone else, stood picket duty, marched, and griped. I think of that period as "the long march," although it was made clear to me that it wasn't long by anyone's standards except mine. I don't know exactly where we marched—I keep meaning to find a map and trace the route—but we usually had the Eastern River on our left, and we always had the Eastern Mountains on our right, and we kept going north; and then one day we turned around for no apparent reason and headed back south, almost exactly retracing our steps. No one except me, it seemed, found that infuriating, but I was annoyed enough to make up for the rest of them. My comments on the subject met with shrugs and puzzled looks until I stopped talking about it.

The weather for the most part stayed dry and cold. The cold wasn't too bad, because marching kept me warm, but I learned that dry wasn't all that much better than raining, because we were now passing through an area that hadn't seen any rain in some time, and so whenever we were on a road, which was most of the time, the troops in front kicked up dust that we had to eat all day—even worse than before. Dust so thick you walked with your cap down and tried to keep your mouth closed, but you couldn't because your nose was plugged up. A few of my comrades had handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses; I tried that, but breathing became difficult so I stopped. Periodically someone would conjure up a cross breeze just to give us some relief, and even I took my turn at it, but we couldn't keep it going all day without a major weather-working, which was expressly forbidden by the Captain—something about interfering with "stated objectives of the Brigade."

Excitement, what there was of it, came in the form of raids from the enemy, usually directed at the supply trains that came along several miles behind us. We would hear about them because we'd suddenly be ordered to halt, we'd have to take battle positions, and then we'd wait, and then we'd be ordered back in line and we'd set off marching again.

Then, one day, we made a sharp turn, put our backs to the river, and headed toward the mountains. There began to be a feeling of urgency, or maybe purpose is a better word, but I'm not sure where it came from. It grew colder as we climbed still higher, and the Eastern Mountains loomed ever larger. One peak in particular seemed to be our destination; a very tall, reddish-looking mountain with, it appeared, nothing whatsoever growing on its side. One evening, before the light failed, we stopped a few miles away from it, and I saw just how steep it was; it seemed to rise straight up from the ground, its top lost in the overcast.

The funny thing was, I didn't recognize it until the next day, when, after only a two-hour march we reached its foot, and Loiosh dived into my cloak with a psychic squeal, and then I looked around and said, "I'll be damned."

"Then don't get killed," said Virt. "But what is it this time?"

"I know where we are."

"That's good. Where are we?"

"That piece of rock," I said, "is Baritt's Tomb."

She nodded and looked around the area: a few hills here and there, and off to the southwest a flat plain covered with rocks and low grass, then a tall hill beyond. I could suddenly imagine warriors on each of those hills, and others charging across the plain.

"Good ground for fighting," she said.

13—Soldier's Stew

Just a few short minutes before, the approaching battle had been terrifying. Now it was also loud. I felt this awful sense of urgency, that I should be doing something now, but I just stood there, and so did Fornia. It did accomplish one thing—which was to give myself time to think. What was Fornia accomplishing by doing nothing? Why was he letting me, an enemy, just stand there like that?

Was he delaying, too? If so, why? The only thing he could want was for the battle to close in on him, and what would that get him? I would have given whole worlds to know what he had in mind. I wished—

I did a quick check. Yes, indeed, there was a teleport block in place. But. Maybe.

Time. I needed time. I needed time to find out why Fornia needed time. Well, okay, so maybe he'd be willing to give it to me.

"What are you going to do when they get here?" I ventured.

"You'll see," he told me.

"Do you expect me to just wait here?"

"Do as you wish."

"Kragar!"

"What?"

"Kragar, I need Daymar. Now."

"Daymar?"

"Now."

"Uh … how do I?"

"I'll give you my location, you pass it on to Daymar, and warn him there's a teleport block up."

"How can he get past a teleport block?"

"Damned if I know But he said—"

"Yeah, he might at hat. I take it this is urgent."

"You might put it that way, yes."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Hurry."

Yeah, Daymar. He might be able to help me. I didn't terribly enjoy calling on him; I hadn't much enjoyed what he'd done last time we'd met. That had been … what? Two weeks ago? Less? Impossible. In that time I'd fought in three engagements, marched halfway around the world through rain, mud, and dust, and come to here, to this place: the Wall of Baritt's Tomb.

There had been nothing, at first, to indicate that stopping there was any different from any of our other temporary halts, except for the obvious one that we had halted early in the day. But there was no need to put up defenses, and no indications we'd been given a position we would be holding against an attack. I found out later that this was because the original plan had been for us to be pan of a major attack against one side of Fornia's army, but that this had changed when Sethra, at the last minute, had learned how Fornia had deployed his forces.