“These are not flaws, they are major errors which would lead to disaster.”
“Well, then, do you have any suggestions of your own?”
Joaz fingered his chin. “If Coralyne recedes and we are still on Aerlith—rather than in the hold of the Basic ship-then let us plan to plunder the secrets of the sacerdotes. In the meantime I strongly recommend that you prepare Happy Valley against a new raid. You are over-extended, with your new brooders and barracks. Let them rest, while you dig yourself secure tunnels!”
Ervis Carcolo stared straight across Banbeck Vale. “I am not a man to defend. I attack!”
“You will attack heat beams and ion rays with your dragons?”
Ervis Carcolo turned his gaze back to Joaz Banbeck. “Can I consider us allies in the plan I have proposed?”
“In its broadest principles, certainly. However, I don’t care to co-operate in starving or otherwise coercing the sacerdotes. It might be dangerous, as well as futile.”
For an instant Carcolo could not control his detestation of Joaz Banbeck; his lip curled, his hands clenched. “Danger! Bah! What danger from a handful of naked pacifists?”
“We do not know that they are pacifists. We do know that they are men.”
Carcolo once more became brightly cordial. “Perhaps you are right. But—essentially at least—we are allies.”
“To a degree.”
“Good. I suggest that in the case of the attack you fear, we act together, with a common strategy.”
Joaz nodded distantly. “This might be effective.”
“Let us co-ordinate our plans. Let us assume that the Basics drop down into Banbeck Vale. I suggest that your folk take refuge in Happy Valley, while the Happy Valley army joins with yours to cover their retreat. And likewise, should they attack Happy Valley, my people will take refuge in Banbeck Vale.”
Joaz laughed in sheer amusement. “Ervis Carcolo, what sort of lunatic do you take me for? Return to your valley, put aside your foolish grandiosities, dig yourself protection. And fast! Coralyne is bright!”
Carcolo stood stiffly. “Do I understand that you reject my offer of alliance?”
“Not at all. But I cannot undertake to protect you and your people if you will not help yourselves. Meet my requirements, satisfy me that you are a fit ally—then we shall speak further.”
Ervis Carcolo whirled on his heel, signaled to Bast Givven and the two young fuglemen. With no further word or glance he mounted his splendid Spider, goaded him into a sudden leaping run across the Verge, and up the slope toward Star-break Fell. His men followed, less precipitously.
Joaz watched them go, shaking his head in sad wonder. Then mounting his own Spider he returned down the trail to the floor of Banbeck Vale.
Chapter 5
The long Aerlith day, equivalent to six of the old Diurnal Units, passed. In Happy Valley there was grim activity, a sense of purpose and impending decision. The dragons exercised in tighter formation, the fuglemen and cornets called orders with harsher voices. In the armory bullets were cast, powder mixed, swords ground and honed.
Ervis Carcolo drove himself with dramatic bravado, wearing out Spider after Spider as he sent his dragons through various evolutions. In the case of the Happy Valley forces, these were for the most part Termagants—small active dragons with rust-red scales, narrow darting heads, chisel-sharp fangs. Their brachs were strong and well developed: they used lance, cutlass or mace with equal skill. A man pitted against a Termagant stood no chance, for the scales warded off bullets as well as any blow the man might have strength enough to deal. On the other hand a single slash of fang, the rip of a scythe-like claw, meant death to the man.
The Termagants were fecund and hardy and throve even under the conditions which existed in the Happy Valley brooders; hence their predominance in Carcolo’s army. This was a situation not to the liking of Bast Givven, Chief Dragon Master, a spare wiry man with a flat crooked-nosed face, eyes black and blank as drops of ink on a plate. Habitually terse and tight-lipped, he waxed almost eloquent in opposition to the attack upon Banbeck Vale. “Look you, Ervis Carcolo, we are able to deploy a horde of Termagants, with sufficient Striding Murderers and Long-horned Murderers. But Blue Horrors, Fiends, and Juggers—no! We are lost if they trap us on the fells!”
“I do not plan to fight on the fells,” said Carcolo. “I will force battle upon Joaz Banbeck. His Juggers and Fiends are useless on the cliffs. And in the matter of Blue Horrors we are almost his equal.”
“You overlook a single difficulty,” said Bast Givven.
“And what is this?”
“The improbability that Joaz Banbeck plans to permit all this. I allow him greater intelligence.”
“Show me evidence!” charged Carcolo. “What I know of him suggests vacillation and stupidity! So we will strike-hard!” Carcolo smacked fist into palm. “Thus we will finish the haughty Banbecks!”
Bast Givven turned to go; Carcolo wrathfully called him back. “You show no enthusiasm for this campaign!”
“I know what our army can do and what it cannot do,” said Givven bluntly. “If Joaz Banbeck is the man you think he is, we might succeed. If he has even the sagacity of a pair of grooms I listened to ten minutes ago, we face disaster.”
In a voice thick with rage, Carcolo said, “Return to your Fiends and Juggers. I want them quick as Termagants.”
Bast Givven went his way. Carcolo jumped on a nearby Spider, kicked it with his heels. The creature sprang forward, halted sharply, twisted its long neck to look Carcolo in the face. Carcolo cried, “Hust, hust! Forward at speed, smartly now! Show these louts what snap and spirit means!” The Spider jumped ahead with such vehemence that Carcolo tumbled over backward, landing on his neck, where he lay groaning. Grooms came running, assisted him to a bench where he sat cursing in a steady low voice. A surgeon examined, pressed, prodded, recommended that Carcolo take to his couch, and administered a sedative potion.
Carcolo was carried to his apartments beneath the west wall of Happy Valley, placed under the care of his wives, and so slept for twenty hours. When he awoke the day was half gone. He wished to arise, but found himself too stiff to move, and groaning, lay back. Presently he called for Bast Givven, who appeared and listened without comment to Carcolo’s adjurations. Evening arrived; the dragons returned to the barracks; there was nothing to do now but wait for daybreak.
During the long night Carcolo underwent a variety of treatments: massages, hot baths, infusions, and poultices. He exercised with diligence, and as the night reached its end, he declared himself fit. Overhead the star Coralyne vibrated poisonous colors: red, green, white, by far the brightest star of the cluster. Carcolo refused to look up at the star, but its radiance struck through the corners of his eyes whenever he walked on the valley floor.
Dawn approached. Carcolo planned to march at the earliest moment the dragons were manageable. A flickering to the east told of the oncoming dawn storm, still invisible across the horizon. With great caution the dragons were mustered from their barracks, and ordered into a marching column. There were almost three hundred Termagants, eighty-five Striding Murderers, as many Long-horned Murderers, a hundred Blue Horrors, fifty-two squat, immensely powerful Fiends, their tails tipped with spiked steel balls, and eighteen Juggers. They growled and muttered evilly among themselves, watching an opportunity to kick each other or to snip a leg from an unwary groom. Darkness stimulated their latent hatred for humanity, though they had been taught nothing of their past, nor the circumstances by which they had become enslaved.
The dawn lightning blazed and crackled, outlining the vertical steeples, the astonishing peaks of the Malheur Mountains. Overhead passed the storm, with wailing gusts of wind and thrashing banks of rain, and moved on toward Banbeck Vale. The east glowed with a gray-green pallor, and Carcolo gave the signal to march. Still stiff and sore he hobbled to his Spider, mounted, ordered the creature into a special and dramatic curvet. Carcolo had miscalculated; malice of the night still gripped the mind of the dragon. It ended its curvet with a lash of the neck which once again dashed Carcolo to the ground, where he lay half-mad with pain and frustration.