He spoke into his crystaclass="underline" "Forward! If we take out their egg-tossers, our boys may be able to pin the Unkerlanters against the river and do a proper job of chewing them up."
Captain Orosio said, "Can't hurt to try. Sooner or later, we've got to stop these bastards. Might as well be now."
"That's right. We've got the edge here. We'd better take advantage of it." Sabrino said nothing of conquest. He said nothing of driving the enemy back to Durrwangen, let alone to Sulingen or Cottbus. His horizons had contracted. A local victory, an advance here instead of a retreat, would do well enough for now.
He spotted the egg-tossers in what had been a field of rye but was now overgrown and full of weeds. The dragonfliers of his wing behind him, he dove on them. For a few splendid minutes, everything went the way it had back in the first days of the war. One after another, the Algarvians released their eggs and then rose into the sky once more. Looking over his shoulder, Sabrino saw the bursts of sorcerous energy send the enemy egg-tossers and their crews flying in ruin.
"That's the way to do it," he said. The enemy would have a harder time hurting the Algarvian soldiers on the ground. He and his wing flew on toward the west, gaining height. There was the river, sure enough. He spoke into the crystal again: "We'll turn around and flame the crews we might have missed with our eggs. Then back to the dragon farm and we'll get ourselves some rest."
Rest. He laughed. He had trouble remembering what the word meant. He patted the scaly side of his dragon's neck. The vicious, stupid beast had trouble remembering, too. Of course, it had trouble remembering everything.
No sooner had that thought struck him than he spied the Unkerlanter dragons winging their way up out of the south, straight for his wing. They were very fast and flew in good formation- some of Swemmel's top dragon-fliers, mounted on prime beasts. It was an honor of sorts, though one Sabrino could have done without. He shouted into the crystal, warning his men.
The Unkerlanters had the advantage of numbers and the advantage of height, as well as the advantage of fresh dragons. All Sabrino and his men had left to them was the advantage of skill. Up till now, it had always sufficed to let them hurt the foe worse than he hurt them, to bring most of them back safe to whichever dragon farm they were using that day.
"One more time, by the powers above," Sabrino said, and swung his dragon toward the closest Unkerlanter. However weary it was, it still hated its own kind; its scream of rage proved as much.
Sabrino blazed one of King Swemmel's dragonfliers off the back of his mount. The dragon, without control, went wild and struck out at the beast closest to it, which was also painted Unkerlanter rock-gray. Sabrino whooped. He'd just made life harder for the foe.
And then his own dragon twisted and convulsed beneath him, bellowing in the agony he'd inflicted on so many of his enemies. While he'd been dealing with the foe in front of him, he'd let an Unkerlanter dragon get close enough to his rear to flame. In any sort of even fight, it would have been a rookie mistake. Outnumbered as his countrymen were, it had to happen every so often. So he told himself, at any rate. Excuses aside, though, it was liable to kill him.
His dragon, he saw at once, wouldn't be able to stay in the air. He looked back. Sure enough, its right wing was badly burned. The only consolation he could draw was that it didn't plummet to earth at once, which would have put an immediate end to his career, too.
He tried to urge it back toward the east, toward the Algarvian lines. But, lost in its private wilderness of pain, the dragon paid no attention to the increasingly frantic signals he gave it with the goad. It flew straight for the river. The water is cold, it must have thought. It will feel good on my hurt wing.
"No, you miserable, stupid, stinking thing!" Sabrino howled. "You'll drown, and you'll drown me, too." He pounded at it with the goad.
Maybe he did a little good. Instead of coming down in the water, the dragon landed on the riverbank. Sabrino unfastened his harness and leaped off its back as it waded into the stream. Only then did he realize it had come down on the western side of the river, putting that stream and several miles of enemy-held country between himself and his countrymen.
Fast as he could, he got out of the furs and leather he wore to ward himself against the chill of the upper air. Drawn by the dragon, Unkerlanter soldiers were trotting toward him. They would finish him off if they got the chance. He didn't want to give it to them. Clad only in his drawers and clutching his stick, he plunged into the river.
He struck out for the eastern bank, swimming as strongly as he could. Even in late summer, the water was bitterly cold. The Unkerlanters shouted and started blazing. Puffs of steam rose from the river not far from Sabrino; their beams were plenty to boil it here and there. But they didn't get close enough to the water's edge to blaze with any great accuracy. For a while, Sabrino simply accepted that. He wasn't about to look back to see what was going on.
But then he didn't have to. His wounded dragon's bellows of pain and rage told him everything he wanted to know. Swemmel's soldiers would have to stalk it and kill it before they could worry too much about him. And, although it couldn't fly, it remained deadly dangerous on the ground. Sabrino thought he could safely concentrate on his swimming.
He was worn when he splashed up onto the eastern bank. He lay there for a couple of minutes, gathering his strength. I'm getting too old for these games, he thought. But he wasn't so old that he felt like dying. Once he got his wind back, he climbed to his feet and started east. Somehow or other, he would have to get through the Unkerlanter line and back to his own.
First things first. He dove behind some bushes. A squad's worth of Unkerlanters were trotting toward the river. They were pointing at the dragon, and didn't see him. He supposed they were going to have some fun blazing at it. They couldn't do it much harm, not from this side of the stream. Of course, it couldn't flame them over here, either. Once they'd gone past him, Sabrino scurried east again.
He found the Unkerlanter in the bushes by almost stumbling over him. The fellow was squatting, his tunic hiked up, his stick beside him on the ground. He stared at Sabrino in the same horror and astonishment as Sabrino felt on coming across him. Then he grabbed for his stick. Sabrino blazed first. The Unkerlanter let out a moan and toppled.
Sabrino put on his rock-gray tunic and his boots, which were too big. He didn't look anything like an Unkerlanter, but he wouldn't stand out so much at long range wearing the tunic. The man he'd killed had some flat barley cakes in his belt pouch. Sabrino wolfed them down.
Should I lie low till nightfall? he wondered. In the end, he didn't dare. His dragon would draw more Unkerlanters, the same way amber drew feathers and bits of paper. The farther away from it he got, the better. And every step put him one step closer to his countrymen. One step closer to the Unkerlanters' main line, too, he thought. But he kept moving.
It almost cost him his life. A couple of Unkerlanters spotted him and started running after him. He blazed one of them, then ran like blazes himself. But the other soldier seemed to take two strides for every one of his. I'm much too old for this, Sabrino thought, heart thudding fit to burst.
The Unkerlanter kept blazing as he ran. He couldn't aim very well doing that; he charred lines in the grass and shrubs all around Sabrino. But then his beam caught the Algarvian dragonflier high in the back of the left shoulder. With a howl of pain, Sabrino fell forward on his face. With a howl of triumph, Swemmel's soldier dashed up to finish him off- and took a beam right in the chest. Wearing a look of absurd, indignant surprise, he crumpled.