By his own standards, this was ambitious; nearly 100,000 troops, enough civilian personnel to handle the mundane parts of keeping an army on the move, a more twisted logistics scheme than a box full of unorganized yarn, and more squabbling between lower officers than any general wanted to see, all in an effort to finally break the spine of the Holy Jahlnarth Empire. Ambition, however, was what had made him who he was.
For a decade now, General Elgin “Thunder Stripe” Monteiro had been at war. Leadership had not been his original goal. He was a soldier, trained to swing anything with an edge to it, and he was good at that. By some auspicious occurrence, he was also what scholars called “Thunder Born”. Magic ran hot in his blood, allowing him to push spells through his weapons. Every instructor he had trained under had noted this unusual connection to the flow of magic. He had been pushed as a novice to see what he could do. What he could do was similar to the druids of the Nomad Forest, though his proclivity for channeling lightning was abnormal, even by the standards of the druids.
At first, the glow that lingered in then-Cadet Monteiro’s stripes was counted as a sign of divine favor, even among other Thunder Born. Surely, his instructors thought, he was meant to forever change the tide of the increasingly tedious war with the Holy Jahlnarth Empire. After all, the Thunder Born were slated to be tested in open combat soon enough. Perhaps their wild, sometimes uncontrollable, powers could push back the legendary Jahlnarth infantry once and for all.
At the time, then-Lieutenant Monteiro could at least claim he had done what was expected of him as a Thunder Born. Leaning on the forces of innovation, he had terrorized the Jahlnarth infantry lines, cutting through them with pike and musket and cannon fire in a fashion that was still a struggle for the Jahlnese generals to cope with. Forcing more and more of the Pretannai troops to adopt these tactics was what had finally elevated him to his current rank, supplanting generals that King Silverhorn deemed “outdated” and “unadaptable” in the face of new tools of war.
But Monteiro’s magic proved to have its own strange limitations.
Studying the blaze of light that accompanied his use of magic kept at least one or two scholars busy at any given time. Almost too late one of those scholars realized what the glow in General Monteiro’s stripes meant. Unlike others who could wrangle the strange force of magic, who had to strain for every ounce of power they used, General Monteiro had absolutely no control over how much energy he used in a spell. That lack of control over how much energy he poured into a spell had caused his body to begin deteriorating. The glowing stripes were not a sign of blessing. They were a warning; a distress signal from his flesh that he was shedding the bonds that held him together at an alchemical level.
When he collapsed on the field at the Battle of Vilkanu, his troops assumed he had been hit by rogue projectile or a misguided spell. An examination from the healers and physicians assigned solely to the then-Colonel Monteiro revealed that it was indeed magic that had felled him, but it was not from the enemy. His heart had stopped mid-battle as he cast a spell.
After weeks of testing with Cahla, his new consultant on magic, it was determined that his inability to regulate his output was degrading his body’s alchemical processes. Continued use of magic, which was something he was noted for up to that point, was prohibited. Not even an appeal to King Silverhorn could overturn this decision by the Pretannai War Council. The rising star of Colonel Monteiro was too bright to let it burn itself out alongside the other Thunder Born before it could become the beacon that led Pretannai troops to their ultimate victory.
Confined to the use of his mind over his magic, Colonel Monteiro continued to climb the ranks until, one blustery winter morning at the recently completed palace of King Silverhorn, Elgin “Thunder Stripe” became General “Thunder Stripe” Monteiro.
Four winters and a spring later, General Monteiro was certain that he was about to deliver the victory promised to the King on that cold day.
War, it turned out, was infinitely more boring from a leadership position. For every time he was told that his perspective was invaluable, since he had served on the front lines a decade ago, he would point out that he would rather still be on said lines rather than a half-mile away sifting through reports, watching his troops move through field glasses, and keeping track of pennant signals from heralds down on the fields.
Today was no different.
Formations of bristling pikes surrounded blocks of armored soldiers hefting their muskets along, some taking occasional shots at enemies that got too close to the pikes, others reloading, still more waiting patiently for the order to volley. Allowing for loose guns was something General Monteiro was sometimes criticized for. Such leniency meant that a few dozen musketeers in each formation would be out of ammunition and powder before the first actual volley was loosed on the enemy. Fear, General Monteiro had found, was an effective tool in controlling the enemy. The Jahlnarth infantry were afraid of the unmanageable shooters that existed within every single one of his musketeer groups. Such fear was crucial in predicting enemy movements on the field.
The glint of comm rods could be seen amid every formation of Pretannai soldiers. Magic could be used for communication between leaders and soldiers, but it was spotty. To increases clarity and range, some soldiers in ever company had been issued with comm rods, which was short of “communication rods”. These devices allowed the one or two soldiers in every company that had been taught how to send and receive a message via magic to relay information to leadership and to receive orders in return. It was a new, tedious process, but it allowed for more complicated orders than the pennant system and it was safer than using runners.
Across the field, partially covering the opposing gentle rise in the plains, were the marshaled troops of the Holy Jahlnarth Empire. Few of their weapons could be seen in their ranks at any distance, but that didn’t matter. With their unnatural, yet inherent, ability to graft metal directly to their massive reptilian bodies thanks to how quickly their bodies healed, the Jahlnarth were living weapons. Their infantry units were the bane of every military leader’s existence. Each soldier of the Jahlnarth Infantry bristled with spikes, wore armor that could not be pried off and barely allowed for blunt weapons to cause any damage. They struck with weapons bolted directly into their knuckles, forearms, and legs in addition to the colossal weapons they carried.
It was this overreliance on their titanic strength that General Monteiro had learned to exploit. More so than even the sourest officers in his own army, the Jahlnarth leaders refused to adapt. No matter how many soldiers they lost to musket and cannon fire, they were barely willing to let a few platoons carry experimental guns. Their artillery were archaic machines relying on torsion and leverage; tools meant for sieging fortified positions, not countering advancing infantry. With each passing season more and more mercenaries from the Porcervine tribes far to the south were seen on the battlefield as the number of actual Jahlnese Infantry dwindled.
General Monteiro was determined, and confident, that today would be the last day that the main army of the Holy Jahlnarth Empire was capable of meeting him on the battlefield.
Since dawn, General Monteiro had been in the process of positioning troops and coordinating his five artillery batteries. To their credit, the Jahlnarth were at least trying today. Instead of committing their full force to a brutal frontal assault as they usually did, they were skirmishing. Fear kept them well clear of most of the areas the artillery batteries covered. Small waves of heavily armored Jahlnarth would probe the Pretannai lines, looking for points where they could break through and directly confront the musketeers.
Perhaps, General Monteiro thought to himself as he watched one such wave collapse under a hail of musket fire, if they had greater numbers of actual soldiers and fewer mercenaries this strategy could work. Despite the savage reputation of mercenaries from the isles of the Boar King, the mercenaries were more interested in collecting their pay and returning home than any “glory” the Jahlnarth might prattle on about.
As things stood, said the Jahlnarth strategy was bound for failure. Even when Jahlnarth Infantry did manage to press past the pikes and bullets, they were met with blades being wielded by those eager to stay alive. Nothing motivated a soldier to such remarkable courage as being trapped in a formation with a 400 lbs. armored lizard ripping limbs from other gunners and beating them to death with them. 30 or 40 at a time, the number of Jahlnese Infantry on the field was declining. Soon there would be nothing left for the Jahlnarth generals to make use of except their inexperienced, recently drafted, troops from the central provinces and the mercenaries who were likely to cut and run if the danger outweighed the coin.
Hours of careful maneuvering, of establishing control, of bombarding the enemy with cannons and a spell or two, all of it drug along as midday loomed ever nearer. When he had first joined the Pretannai forces, General Monteiro had learned to tell time by position of the sun. Now, he had some ruddy-faced human cadet that carried a complex timepiece to do that for him.
“11th hour, 43rd minute,” the cadet reported dutifully in response to a report that the 5th Company, designated Rook Company, had sustained minimal casualties in dispatching another small wave of Jahlnarth.
“Looks like they’re moving their main line forward,” Lieutenant General Roq reported, his one good eye pressed to the lens of a field glass on an elegant tripod.
“Finally,” General Monteiro huffed, getting to his feet to relieve the one-eyed hawk Yorn from his post at the field glass. “Let’s see what Colonel Vasadon can come up with.”
“It doesn’t look all that original,” Lieutenant General Roq noted, drawing a chuckle from the assembled staff.
“Skirmishing isn’t his style,” General Monteiro reminded everyone as he watched the bulk of the Jahlnese Infantry begin to advance down the slope towards his four central companies. “So, we’ll assume the last high-ranking officer of the Holy Jahlnarth Empire’s Core Infantry has finally learned to adapt. Sound an all-stop and square-up. Volleys on command only. I want forward pikes four ranks deep, flanks and rear two ranks deep. Nothing gets past them and the muskets need to start tracking ammunition until this is over.”
“11th hour, 50th minute,” the time-keeping cadet announced.
The orders were being recited to a tired looking boar Yorn who spoke the same words into a small, heavily enchanted box that was tethered to a comm rod. From there, the message spread out to the comm rods on the battlefield. Officers bent close to their spell-casters to hear the message as it was repeated to them. Companies came to a halt. Pikes rushed to form the requested square formation, creating a living fortress around the musketeers now at their core. The musketeers snapped into a nearly identical formation under the sharp commands of their officers. Muskets were held ready, loaded and directed at the oncoming enemy. Pikes bristled like thickets as soldiers prepared to meet an enemy that had proven durable, but who they knew they could beat.
“12th hour, midday,” the time-keeping cadet announced as the confirmation that orders had been received and complied with poured in off the comm rod.
General Monteiro was on the verge of checking the field glass again when it happened. Magic more robust than anything he had ever felt was radiating from the ground under his feet, as if the whole surface of the earth was on the verge of erupting with unprecedented force. The feeling grew, surpassing what was even theorized magic was capable of, entering what Monteiro felt was the solitary domain of gods.
Beneath his boots the ground began to deform, but General Monteiro could not see what was happening because the world had become blinding. Elemental spells could shake the ground, even reshape it a little, but fear had taken hold of the General. This was not the kind of spell anyone he knew of in all the world could cast. General Monteiro could feel surges of wild, unbridled magic washing over him. The blazing power was comprised of light and darkness, of raging passion and cold calculation, of blood and rot and death and unstoppable growth in equal measure. There seemed to be no form to the magic pouring from this soup-like spell as it pressed down on all sides of General Monteiro.
Concussive force the likes of which he had only felt when standing next to cannons firing pressed into General Monteiro. He struggled for breath as, with as little warning as had heralded its arrival, the magic vanished. Blinking furiously to clear the remnants of the blinding light from his eyes, General Monteiro found himself confronted by the mossy trunk of an ancient tree that most certainly had not been blocking his view moments before.
Muffled cries came from all around, dampened by a forest that had suddenly grown in their midst. No one General Monteiro could see appeared grievously injured. His staff was clearly shaken by what had just transpired, perhaps a little bruised by the trees that had shoved their way up through the ground, but otherwise they were intact.
“Sir! Sir!” The panicked voice belonged to the time-keeping cadet, who was rushing towards General Monteiro, his pockmarked face pale with terror. “What was that sir? Where are we?”
“Right where we were a moment ago,” Cahla, a skilled wolf Yorn who was General Monteiro’s advisor in regard to magic as well as the one who had managed to identify and stabilize his condition years ago, replied as she probed the ground with the tip of her steel-capped staff. “Or, at least, in regard to the rest of the world we are. Nothing around us was here moments ago…it came from somewhere else.”
“Can’t see through these damned trees,” Lieutenant General Roq reported, glaring up into the limbs of a tree at his prized field glass, which now dangled from a limb almost 30 feet from the ground. “Sounds like chaos out there though.”
“We’ll have to assume this has happened across the entire battlefield then,” General Monteiro concluded as his staff gathered once more. “The comm rods and pennants will be useless without clear line of sight though. We need to get communication reestablished with the companies and—”
His orders were cut off by a sound that no one standing in the sudden forest had ever heard. Shaking souls and ears alike, a guttural, primal thunder blasted through the trees, the promise of destruction riding the wave of sound like a gleeful reaper as wind rushed down through the canopy, jostling everyone, whipping documents, equipment, and clothes around those who stood around General Monteiro.
“What in sweet Lilora’s sacred name was that?” Cahla hissed, hackles on end as she peered up at the canopy.
“Sounded like a beast of some kind,” Lieutenant General Roq said. “New monster of some kind? Maybe one of those weird shadow beasties we got reports about last week?”
“Whatever it is, it can wait,” General Monteiro said sternly. “There’s enough of us here to get order on the field again. I want everyone to spit into squads of four. Each squad will contact one of our companies. If you run into one of the artillery batteries, relay the same orders to them as well. Orders will be the same to all companies: retreat. All companies are to move west until they reach familiar territory. If possible, they are to return to Desalaine and regroup with the supply trains there, assuming the city is still there. If Desalaine is gone, all troops are to make their way to Lannai however they can. Cahla, Roq, Cadet Benz, you’re with me. We will establish contact with Crimson Company. Be sure to communicate to the other squads where you’re going. We can’t waste time with multiple squads trying to establish contact with the same company. Move out.”
Without waiting, confident that his staff could handle the assignment they had just been given, General Monteiro shrugged off the elegant silk cape he wore as part of his livery, picked up the polehammer he had not been allowed to use in close combat for years now, and began to stalk through the forest that had so suddenly grown around him.
“For the record, this is a terrible plan,” Lieutenant General Roq said as he drew even with General Monteiro. “Putting yourself at risk like this isn’t advisable.”
“Can we use magic to reestablish communications?” General Monteiro asked over his shoulder, directing the question at Cahla.
“No,” she replied. “Whatever caused this broke our line of sight and seems to have burned the runes off of the comm rod we had. It’s safe to assume whatever equipment we had has been destroyed.”
The tremendous sound that had shaken the forest once already crushed against their ears again. Freezing, all four of the sudden-soldiers looked up, anticipating the shift of the air around them, the wild whipping of the canopy. This time, a shadow blinked overhead, momentarily obscuring what little of the sky could be seen through the overhead foliage. Words failed to accurately account for the size of whatever this thing was, but if Monteiro had to venture a guess he would have said it was twice the size of the mechanical airships he had seen in use by the bombardier groups of the Corvian Lords from the Volkrusan Mountains.
“Is that some kind of monster?” Cadet Benz croaked, his voice cracking terribly as he clung to the longsword he had drawn.
“Probably a dragon,” Monteiro replied almost jokingly, reaching out and gently lowering the point of Cadet Benz’s sword. “I doubt that though, given that they’re just a legend. Either way, we can’t determine if it’s worth fighting until we get a better look at it. Let’s move quickly. Whatever that thing up there is it doesn’t sound happy. I have a hunch my soldiers are going to take the brunt of that displeasure.”
Crimson Company was the most recent company given to General Monteiro’s command. While packed with fresh troops, the company was led by a dozen officers that had been on the fields as long as Monteiro. He trusted them to handle any sudden changes, but also knew that they were at the heart of his formation. If the Jahlnarth were clever enough to take advantage of this strange shift then experienced officers would be lost. Ensuring his troops lasted long enough to gain experience was one of the few things General Monteiro would ever admit he did out of fear. After all, without wise leaders and battle-hardened soldiers, an army was just a collection of idiots with weapons, and that didn’t do anyone any good.
This time there was no apocalyptic roar to announce the passage of whatever beast was wheeling above the forest. Fire has a very specific rumble to it once it reaches a certain size and temperature. Heat and light rolled through the trees ahead as the grumbling of a conflagration reached the little squad.
Eyes locked on the forest ahead, General Monteiro seized the back of Cadet Benz’s gambeson, dragging the young human back as he tried to press forward. Rushing in to aid those caught in any sort of attack was a direct path to death, especially in the face of an unknown enemy. Right now, they would need to proceed with caution.
Musket fire echoed among the dense foliage, but it was uncoordinated and entirely unaccompanied by any other sound beyond the crackle of burning foliage. General Monteiro glared as he began stalking forward, polehammer at the ready. The others were close on his heels as the light from the fire died down ahead of them.
A hundred yards of unobstructed land lay before the squad as they reached the dense edge of the forest. At a glance, one would assume this was a slightly marshy floodplain, and they would be right. The mere presence of the immense river the squad could now see constantly saturated the ground, creating a marshy area. Such a burden of moisture was the only thing that had kept the fire from spreading to the forest.
Smoke curled away from bent corpses. Muskets discharged in the heat of the fire; their wielders either slouched in the mud or sprawled nearby. Charred pikes stuck up at odd angles in all directions, with many more laid out flat in the mud and vegetation. Crimson Company’s comm rod was still upright but it was blackened. What was not on fire was burnt. What was not burnt was badly scorched.
“What happened?” Cadet Benz choked.
“Fire bomb of some kind,” Roq replied as he glared at the remains of Crimson Company with his one good eye. “Any alchemist worth their salt can make one…but not one that can cook a company.”
“We have to check for survivors,” Cadet Benz said, moving to step out of the cover of the trees.
It was Roq’s turn to yank the cadet back. “Use your brains boy! They got hit because they were in the open…probably couldn’t figure out what was happening fast enough to get to cover.”
“That mud didn’t help them much either,” General Monteiro growled, gloves creaking as he clenched the haft of his polehammer.
From among the decimated company, there came a cry. An arm shot up from among the collapsed ranks of pikes. Both the arm and the gambeson that adorned it were still smoking, but determined to pry the body they were attached to free from the corpses atop it.
General Monteiro rushed forward, throwing his weapon aside as he did so, stumbling in the mud as he dashed across the field. Ignoring the reek of burned flesh that filled his nostrils, he grabbed anything that didn’t immediately turn to ash in his fingers and pulled it away from the damaged arm. An armor-plated shoulder emerged, then a neck and torso. A head came free, then the hips and legs as General Monteiro extracted a mildly cooked pikeman from under his fallen comrades.
“What happened?” the General demanded of the soldier as he sat with him in the tall, muddy grass.
The soldier sat there, tears sweeping clean lines through the soot caked into the fur of his cheeks as he shook. Yellow eyes scanned the air above them as the rattled coyote Yorn trembled under General Monteiro’s touch.
“See if anyone else is alive,” the General ordered the others as they crept from the tree line.
“It’s a full company, sir. We can’t be checking every body for a pulse,” Roq said sternly, his one good eye flitting from the terrified pikeman to the sky overhead and back again. “What the devil is he looking for up there?”
“Dragons or demons or whatever. It doesn’t matter,” General Monteiro snapped as he stood, taking the soldier up in his arms and beginning to slog back towards the trees. “Drag or carry those that can’t walk back to the trees. Those that can walk, have them come back to the trees.”
In total, 15 of the 100 soldiers of Crimson Company were found alive. Of those survivors, two could not walk, with one of them already teetering on the edges of death. The rest were gently singed—shaken, but otherwise intact.
Orders were given to those that could move to carry those that could not. The survivors were told to march west, up the slope of what had to now be assumed to be a valley, given the river running through it. Shuffling like marionets, the remnants of Crimson Company began trudging through the forest.
Straightening as he retrieved his polehammer, General Monteiro looked over the meadow to the river. The flow was perhaps a hundred yards wide and it was strong, the water dark and deep. This was not a river that anyone on foot could ford. That same river, he realized, had split the battlefield. There would likely be no Jahlnarth on his side of the river.
Across the river, a glint of metal appeared on the bank. Monteiro watched, tense, as a figure emerged. He couldn’t be sure exactly who this Jahlnarth was, but the plating on their broad reptilian face marked them as a captain of some sort. They were stumbling to the water, burns across their arms and shoulders still smoldering as the massive reptilian humanoid collapsed to its knees and submerged its snout in the river.
Despite the distance between them, Monteiro knew the moment he locked eyes with this unknown enemy. The Jahlnarth froze, snout still in the river, the wounds on his shoulders scabbing over as the uncanny ability of a Jahlnarth to heal rapidly was put to the test. Each watched the other as the Jahlnarth stood. General Monteiro felt sure his enemy was looking at the remains of Crimson Company as much as he was keeping an eye on the General. Judging by this captain’s wounds, and the fact that he seemed to be alone, it stood to reason that whatever force he had been leading had suffered the same fate as Crimson Company.
His full attention on Monteiro once more, the Jahlnarth captain lifted up his hands, the backs facing towards the General. Over the hushed flow of the river, one could hear the click as the captain unlocked the blades anchored into mechanical sockets set deep into his knuckles. Still fixated on General Monteiro, the captain threw his blades into the river, bowed to the General, and then turned away, retreating into the shadows of the forest once more.
“I’d surrender too…if I knew the War Council would let me,” General Monteiro chuckled, lowering his polehammer and returning to the trees where the rest of the squad was waiting.
Badger Company—a name General Monteiro had always thought amusing given that he was a badger—had sustained no casualties when the squad found them north of Crimson Company’s position. This company was shaken, but they had been caught up in a thicket of mangroves and riverbank flora that had, thus far, obscured them from the creatures flying overhead.
It was, however, the major of Badger Company that managed to finally confirm that there were indeed multiple creatures.
“Massive things,” he said as his company formed up to begin quickly marching west. “Wings that stretched out more than we could see. Scally buggers, big heads, long necks, sort of whippy tails.”
“Flying Jahlnarth?” Cahla asked jokingly.
“No sirs,” the major replied. “If’n I had to make a guess, they look more like what we was told dragons’d look like if they were real. I saw with my own eyes one of ‘em come swooping down on the Jahlnarth over the river there, gave ‘em a blanket made of hellfire. Then it came in, started fanning the flames our way with its monstrous wings, but they couldn’t get over the river. It was almost like the thing was tryin’ to keep the fire from gettin’ up into the trees.”
“Keep all that in your mind, major,” General Monteiro said as the troops began to move. “We’ll need all the information we can get once we manage to regroup. Move your soldiers west to Desalaine and if that’s gone too, move on to Lannai.”
“At once sir,” the major barked, saluting sharply before dashing off to catch up with his troops.
“Dragons huh?” Roq chuckled. “If I hadn’t seen an entire company spit-roasted and heard the roaring and seen the flying shadows myself I’d say he’d gone mad.”
“Dragons are stories for children,” General Monteiro snapped back. “Come on, we need to get to Green Company.”
“Ten companies in total on the field,” Roq mused as the squad began moving once more, cutting back to the south. “We’ve confirmed the state of two of them, even though you said each staff squad was only supposed to reach one company. Lucky us, I did see some of your staff on the fringes of Badger Company, so we haven’t entirely ruined your plan. The rest of the general staff will have broken into enough squads that we shouldn’t have had to contact more than Crimson Company. Respectfully, dragons or not, the time for us to leave this place has come and gone, sir.”
Monteiro froze; eyes locked on the forest floor. Roq was making perfect sense. There were over 50 members of staff with him at any given time. He had even caught sight of the same ones Roq had seen coming through the trees towards Badger Company when he had first spotted the soldiers. There was no need to further risk himself. Advisors and plotters though they were, his staff were still soldiers of Pretannai. A general was obligated to trust those under his command as much as they trusted him, no matter the situation.
With little more than a nod to Roq, General Monteiro turned west. For now, there was nothing more he could do. Retreating to Desalaine was the only course of action left that made any sense.
Around halfway back to the relative position they had started from, the squad encountered the 2nd Light Artillery Battery. Two of their cannons were fully engulfed in the trunks of seemingly ancient trees that had not existed earlier that day. Next to one of the guns, a long smear led to a strange stump sticking from the trunk. A gunner was lying among the roots of that same tree, snarling as he was held down long enough for the bleeding stump where his arm had been to be bandaged.
“He was the lucky one,” General Monteiro overhead the battery captain explaining to Roq. “All we can find of Gunner Mettz is his tail. Sticking out of the tree over there if you wanna confirm for yourself.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Roq grunted, doing his best to hide his discomfort. “Limber the remaining guns. We’re retreating to Desalaine, assuming it’s still there that is.”
“Is it true?” a wild-eyed gunner asked, remaining frozen in place as his comrades responded to the barked order to limber the remaining six guns. “Those things up there, in the sky? They’re dragons?”
“It doesn’t matter what they are,” General Monteiro said sternly, clasping the soldier’s shoulder firmly. “Stick to your guns, trust your comrades. We’ll live to fight another day, I promise.”
Shivering, but nodding as he saluted, the soldier rushed to assist with hitching a cannon to its caisson.
The 2nd Light Artillery Battery continued their work as General Monteiro slouched against a tree, sliding down it until he was seated on the loam of the forest floor. Even this far from the river, the ground was damp. Taking up some of the dark soil in his hands, Monteiro rolled it over against the pads of his palm, pondering its color, its smell, the soft grains that tumbled down from between his fingers. Moisture pervaded the dirt, as though it had come from somewhere where rain fell constantly and clouds obscured the sun.
Somehow being on the front lines had made more sense than the alien soil that now fell from Monteiro’s hand. The enemy stood before you, you were armed, and you had to kill them before they killed you. Mistakes were fatal, but they were honest. You couldn’t blame anyone else for the scars you earned. As much as he tried to think that whatever had happened to bring old tales to life and place foreign soil beneath his boots was not his fault, he could not repress the image of Crimson Company’s immolated corpses. They had been there on his orders. Perhaps, had he positioned them better, or been quicker to issue orders to retreat, those soldiers would still be alive.
Cahla sat next to him, rubbing her eyes and yawning massively. Consulting any general on magic and its use in combat was a posh role that many fought to obtain. Cahla had lamented the assignment when the War Council had issued it. Medicine was her main fascination, even though magic was still an unreliable source of healing. Better for her, the War Council reasoned, to be by a general’s side so she could offer perspective on the use of magic on the battlefield rather than wasting her time studying the relation between emerging magical principles and the body.
It was that “useless” study, however, that had given her the knowledge to make sense of Monteiro’s condition.
The weight of her head settling on General Monterio’s shoulder disrupted his otherwise steady thoughts. Her eyes were closed, nose twitching a little as she let out a long sigh.
“Something on your mind?” General Monteiro asked casually.
“They attacked whatever they could see,” she said. “I doubt this forest is endless. What happens when we find its west edge?”
It was General Monteiro’s turn to sigh. That particular thought had not occurred to him yet, but as the weight of it settled on him, there was only one answer that made sense.
“If it comes to it, I’ll fight them.”
“You’ll kill yourself trying to cast a spell with enough power to take down something that size!” Cahla hissed, sitting up and glaring at him.
“I just have to entertain the thing for a few minutes while all of you get clear,” General Monteiro replied placatingly. “It’ll be fine. Trust me.”
Cahla opened her mouth, but slowly closed it again. She was glaring at him; picking him apart with her eyes like a seamstress tearing out unwanted stitches. He held her gaze, matching her intensity, holding himself as tall as he could to hide the weariness that was leaking into his muscles.
“Fine,” Cahla finally conceded as she stood. “If you die though, I’ll kill you…sir.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” General Monteiro chuckled.
The 2nd was ready to move in a matter of minutes. The now armless gunner was propped up on one of the two spare caissons as it rattled along between the trees. Suggestions had been made to light the trees with cannons trapped in them on fire to destroy the guns, but General Monteiro had discouraged that. Whatever had destroyed the Jahlnarth across the river from Badger Company had intentionally protected the forest from the flames. Lighting the forest on fire sounded like something that would draw unwanted attention.
Artillery is a slow-moving thing to begin with. Winding among trees and constantly having to employ additional muscle to heave the wheels of the hefty equipment over protruding roots and stones made the process even more miserable. Employing this kind of heavy equipment had been General Monterio’s idea, as it gave his troops cover that the torsion powered weapons of the Jahlnarth couldn’t match. Issues with logistics had been a problem from the start. Keeping enough powder and shot on hand, training gunners, and finding reliable sources for things like barrels for broken down guns was difficult. Those were problems for people who worked under Monteiro, but he was starting to question his own judgement as he helped shove a caisson across the forest floor.
By the time anyone was able to catch a glimpse of the sun, it had moved well past its midday position. Cadet Benz informed General Monteiro that it was in fact the 2nd hour of the afternoon when he was asked.
While the roaring of the airborne creatures had become much less frequent their presence was still prominent. The 2nd would pause occasionally as a rush of wind pressed through the trees, soldiers making themselves small as a shadow that blotted out the sun would pass, then disappear once more. This constant patrolling by the suspected dragons was not helping the speed of the artillery as it attempted to escape.
Eventually, Cahla fell into step beside General Monteiro.
“Can you feel that?” she muttered to him as if delivering a state secret.
“What? The looming sense of dread? Yes, I feel it.”
“Not that,” Cahla grumbled even though she was smiling. “Your magic. Does it feel any different?”
General Monteiro frowned. Ever since his fainting moment he had barely used his magic, leaving his Thunder Stripe moniker to collect dust. At most, he had found he could use minor jolts of energy to reheat food that had gone cold in the time it took for someone to bring it from the cooking fires to his tent. Even that made his chest ache and caused Cahla to scold him like he was a disobedient cub.
Glancing at his free hand, he began to mutter. War spells always created a spectacle of lights and sound, both things he was eager to currently avoid. Instead, he tried to do something he had not been able to do in the past: create a luminous sphere.
Truth be told, Monteiro had made many luminous spheres. Such a spell was one of the first taught to those who showed any promise at being able to wrangle the fickle forces of magic. His first sphere had temporarily blinded two other students and burned the fur off his instructor’s tail. While this spell served as a utility, even to other Tunder Born, Monteiro had actually deployed it in battle to stun the enemy. Unregulated power output made it impossible for him to do anything less, even with such a novice piece of spellwork.
Realizing what he was up to, Cahla closed a hand over his, shutting his fingers and earning her a stern glare. She shook her head, silently begging him not to finish the incantation. If lighting a tree on fire would draw attention, the creation of a light source that could momentarily make soldiers forget that the sun even existed would certainly bring the dragons down on them.
But Monteiro didn’t share his consultant’s fears. He knew what magic felt like as it flowed through his bones. What was rolling down his arm now was a trickle from a cracked jar compared to the tidal wave he was used to. Tension in his muscles, the tightness of the grip his mind had on the spell, his breath, the force and tone he used to utter the incantation, all of these were things that were supposed to regulate output, but never had for him. Now, suddenly, he was in complete control of the power racing through his veins.
Effortlessly he pulled his hand free, finished the incantation, and released an incandescent sphere the size of a strawberry into the air. The little node of energy shone with warm yellow light for a few moments before it faded away. Only Monteiro, Cahla, and a profusely sweating gunner even noticed the sphere come and go.
“My magic isn’t trying to kill me anymore,” Monteiro said, grinning down at his own hand.
“That’s a bold assumption,” Cahla hissed, but softened as she continued. “Though…you could be right. Something’s changed. We don’t have time to sit down and do a full examination on you, but even just that little light coming off you felt very different from your other spells I’ve observed. I have no idea if whatever caused this whole mess did something, but the flow of magic feels…cleaner? Magic hasn’t been the most reliable thing since it started appearing.”
“Hence the guns,” Monteiro noted.
Cahla chuckled. “Yes, Elgin, hence your precious guns. What little we know indicates magic is energy passing through out world on its way elsewhere, like a river, except the water is cosmic power.”
“The Basic Flux Theory of Magic, proposed by Scholar Kells some four years ago. I get all the same reports on magical research that you do, Cahla. What are you getting at?”
“The river has always been muddy, and doesn’t always run on above ground level,” she explained as they walked. “As a result, there isn’t much we can do with it. Muddy water makes for poor fishing and clogs irrigation trenches. Muddy magic refuses to cooperate with casters and, for Tunder Born, clogs their veins and causes them to explode eventually.”
“Glad I avoided that fate,” Monteiro grimaced. Most of the Thunder Born he had trained alongside had suffered that exact death. Their sacrifice was, naturally, heralded as a patriotic action. The explosion of the bodies always tore massive holes in the Jahlnarth forces, but always at the same cost. Cahla had been the one to realize what was happening to Elgin, and by extension the other Thunder Born. She had lobbied the War Council to move him to a leadership position once she understood that if he kept using his magic it would kill him.
“I’m glad too,” Cahla said, clearing her throat embarrassedly before continuing. “So, I felt a weird little shift just before that bright light started. It was like something somewhere broke a dam open and we were all downriver from the resulting flood. Now it’s as if the dam was never there. The river is flowing unrestricted, wide, deep, strong and clean.”
“Wouldn’t that make my condition more dangerous?”
“That should be the case based on what we know…but I’ve never seen you manage to throttle your output. I have to wonder if your body is a better conduit for magic than most. Given the contaminated and limited nature of magic up to this point, it makes sense your body wanted to expel it all at once. If the pollution is gone though? You might be like a canal; capable of creating a strong, direct flow of magic that others can’t.”
Monteiro laughed. “Never thought I’d be compared to a piece of agricultural infrastructure!”
“Hush,” Cahla smirked, rolling her eyes. “This is serious. It’s my job to make sure you don’t pop your heart mid-spell. If, and I mean if, you’re now able to push energy without damaging your body, there’s a good chance you and the other Tunder Born will be able to cast spells that make the rest of us feel very small.”
“I think a waterwheel would be a better metaphor,” Monteiro noted. “If the river is too small to turn the wheel you have, you build a sluice to make the flow more focused. That concentrated flow is powerful, so it can tear a wheel right off the axel. You have to use a gate to regulate how much water comes down the sluice. With a big river, you can plop a wheel in a good spot of flow and it will turn rather consistently. My point is, up till now, I haven’t had a gate, so my wheel gets damaged any time I use it. You’re saying there’s a chance I have a gate now and can actually use my wheel properly?”
“I guess? Since when do you know about the engineering behind water-driven machinery?” Cahla wondered.
“Grew up in a flour mill,” Monteiro replied, pulling Cahla close as he pressed his back to a tree, the air around them roiling as the shadow of yet another dragon passed overhead. “You learn some really dumb, but useful, life lessons from listening to your crabby uncle bitch about how much trouble maintaining certain systems are.”
He glanced down at Cahla when she didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much of a height difference between them, so looking down put them nose-to-nose. They froze there, each staring into the other’s eyes before Cahla averted her gaze; her hands pressed against Elgin’s chest like she had no idea where else to put them.
“Sorry,” he said, quickly releasing her. “There was a dragon and…um….”
“It’s fine,” she mumbled, quickly walking away, tail wagging madly.
“You know she’s been sweet on you since she examined you the first time, right?” Roq noted, drawing a startled yelp from Monteiro.
“How do you just appear like that?” Monteiro demanded of his officer, who had seemingly materialized out of thin air next to him.
“The gods gave me the gift of quiet feet,” Roq grinned at his general. “A seemingly stupid gift, given that I’m a son of the skies, but I digress. The spotters for the guns have been acting as recon and one of them just came back. We’re close to the edge of the forest.”
“We’ll stop at the tree line and take stock of the situation,” General Monteiro said, his voice carrying enough that at least two of the officers of the 2nd could hear him. There were hushed calls spread through the rest of the 2nd, all confirming that they understood they were about to come upon the most dangerous stretch of the journey.
The edge of the forest was unnatural, seeming to serve as the marker of whatever boundary had been used to create the valley. Trees that had been cut cleanly in half from tip to root teetered in the afternoon breeze. Stones sporting perfectly smooth faces that lined up exactly with the sheared-off trees littered the ground. Branches were clipped short or missing entirely from some of the trees. A few yards along, an inert form lay on the ground. Further inspection revealed that the lump was the back half of an elk. The beast had been bisected so cleanly that most of its internal components were still in place.
Choosing to focus on what needed to be done next, Monteiro called the officers of the 2nd to him along with Roq, Cahla, and Cadet Benz. Together, they scrutinized the expanse of grassy hillside that led to a crest over which they could theoretically vanish. The distance wasn’t anything too drastic, maybe 200 yards, but it was far enough that they would be exposed for several minutes as the guns were lugged along by the somewhat winded horses hitched to the caissons.
While the officers and Roq debated lighting the caissons on fire and rolling them back into the forest to create a distraction while everyone rode out on the horses or ran, General Monteiro found himself pensively tapping the head of his polehammer on the forest floor. Thunder Born were rare, but they could make a critical difference to an embattled company. His inability to throttle his power output had meant that his role on the field had been less dramatic for years. Now it felt as though he had a chance to not simply push himself to detonation in service of his nation. The ability to regulate his power, to make use of a clean flow of magic, those things could give him the ability to do more than any Thunder Born had managed to do before.
Taking a deep breath, he turned to his officers as they pondered dumping their shot and powder supplies to perhaps make the caissons more manageable for their weary beasts of burden.
“I will go out first,” General Monteiro announced. “If any dragons spot me, I’ll keep them busy while the rest of you make a break for the ridge. I want the caissons spaced out 40 feet from each other at all times, in case one of them gets lit up. If it looks like things are going poorly, cut the horses loose, light some fuses in the powder kegs, and run. We can make more guns. I can’t replace any of you as easily.”
Other than a gust of wind, there was no response to this declaration. Roq sighed, running his hands down his beak, fully and silently aware that nothing in the world could make Monteiro change his mind now. Cahla kept opening her mouth as if she was going to say something, but then it would snap shut again. The officers of the 2nd glanced among themselves, then back towards their exhausted soldiers, and then back at their general.
“Relay the orders,” Roq said wearily, adjusting the ornate leather patch he wore over his destroyed eye. “By now the main companies should either be clear of the forest or they’re dead. Either way, us here and the 1st Light Artillery Battery further south are likely the last ones out. Get to it then!”
Heads low, the officer scuttled back into the trees, whispering the plan to their troops. Monteiro could feel the stares, hear the incredulous whispers, but he pushed them aside as he squared up with the open ground before him.
Cahla had never once in her entire deployment shown any measure of notable physical strength. General Monteiro was very startled when she seized him by the shoulder and forced him to face her.
“You can’t do this!” she snarled.
“I can and I will. You’ve felt it too, the shift in the magic. I can actually manage my power now. I’ve got a shot at finally doing what I was trained for.”
“So what?” Cahla growled. “It doesn’t change the fact that if you cast anything too big it’ll stop your heart!”
Monteiro sighed. “That was true. You said so yourself that we don’t know if that’s the case anymore. For all we know, whatever happened today healed me…or something. I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter either way. My job is to lead these soldiers. Right now, I’m the only one that can cover their escape. That’s part of leading, so I’ll do it.”
Cahla snarled, baring her teeth for a moment, fur on end, before she took a deep breath. Pulling at the front of her uniform to unruffle it a little, she turned sharply and stomped back to where the 2nd Light Artillery Battery were making their preparations to dash to the ridge.
An artillery battery couldn’t shake the ground the way an infantry company could when they moved in unison, but General Monteiro could still feel his soldiers moving. The ground under his boots trembled. His ears flicked against the steady rumble of heavily equipped troops and much heavier equipment surging to new positions all around him. As soon as that sound settled, he would step out of the trees, and behind him, the 2nd would gamble their lives on his ability to keep them safe.
The tremors stopped for only a breath before Monteiro began moving. He realized that he had been unclear as to when the artillery battery was supposed to follow him, but that was easily remedied. When he gone about 50 yards, he turned back, polehammer held high overhead and let out a shrill bark. Aware that this was the only signal they were going to get, the soldiers of the 2nd Light Artillery Battery of Pretannai burst from the trees. There was no cry, no clarion call to arms, just the jangle of tack, the clatter of the caissons, the thump of boots against the distinctly different soil of the slope now that they had broken from the trees as the 80 soldiers, 16 horses, the six remaining guns, Lieutenant General Roq, Consultant Cahla, and Cadet Benz rushed towards the ridge.
General Monteiro remained where he was. A few at a time, soldiers and equipment flew past him. Their fatigue had given way to adrenaline in the face of possible salvation. Such fuel gave them light feet and the courage to push their horses. Even Cadet Benz, who had been panting when the 2nd had reached the tree line, burst past. Sweat poured down the young human’s face, but his eyes were ablaze with the fervor of a soldier that knows death is breathing down the back of his neck.
That same courage kept everyone moving as a roar that rattled General Monteiro’s teeth issued from over the trees. Clutching his polehammer a little tighter, he kept his eyes on the sky above the forest, aware of something colossal rushing up from the depths of the valley towards them. At such a distance the shape was vague, but the creature was bulky enough that it would never fit in a small house. Rushing along above the treetops, its wings would flare, their span taking up a space that General Monteiro had no real frame of reference for. Everything, from its size to the glint of its scales in the afternoon sun and the faint whisps of smoke that would issue from the head as it flew confirmed what had been speculated.
“Never thought I’d die fighting a legend,” General Monteiro said to himself. The 2nd was already another 50 yards past him, most of them well over halfway to the ridge. Now it was time for their general to perform one last service to them.
Exhaling slowly, he began to chant. Emphasis was one of the many pieces to making an incantation function properly. While spells could be muttered, or even cast silently in some cases, enunciation created more defined structures, stronger flows of energy, and more potent attacks. Often, in the midst of combat, there was no time for such production with a spell. But when the enemy was almost a mile away, airborne, and closing with murderous intent? That seemed like the perfect kind of moment to expend the breath to cast with complete intent.
The polehammer had been a gift from King Silverhorn when General Monteiro had received his commission as a general. Elegant and functional, the weapon had been a labor of love, and some hate, for the royal armory to produce. Casting implements were still a developing science, but this one was among the best that had yet to be produced. Using it to sling spells was something General Monteiro had been prohibited from attempting after his heart stopped. Now, as he mentally abandoned the mantle of leadership to once more become Thunder Stripe, he pushed the spell into the weapon until it weapon buzzed in his hands.
Hefting his weapon to a high guard, Thunder Stripe called out the last of the incantation. The spell, if he was being honest, was not really designed for what he intended to do with it. This circumstance, however, was abnormal, so abnormal uses of otherwise standard combat spells seemed warranted.
With the oncoming danger only a few hundred yards away, Thunder Stripe released the spell through a vicious sweep of the polehammer. The intent of the weapon, its sole purpose in creation being that of death, and the potentially overcharged spell created almost exactly what Thunder Stripe had hoped for: a sheet of lightning that lanced through the air like a knife.
Eyes fixed on the oncoming dragon, Thunder Stripe shuddered as he began to briskly stride backwards. He could feel the familiar tingle running down his spine, across his face and between his rounded ears. His teeth quivered as his fur stood on end. Anyone within a mile could see him now as his stripes burned with an ethereal blue light that fluttered like flame and cast sparks from him as if he were celestial iron being struck by a blacksmith. Such a spectacle was one that had not been seen on a battlefield in several years, and it was a spectacle that surviving Jahlnarth would report on with the same fear they presented their reports on the dragons with.
The dragon seemed unphased by what it saw. Lightning skated off its scales as it barreled through the spell, unscathed save for some streamers of smoke as superficial scales burned away.
Gritting his teeth, Thunder Stripe crouched, pushing magic down through his feet into the ground below him. If the thing didn’t want to acknowledge a spell, then he would have to strike it directly.
Causing the ground under one’s feet to explode was, by all military definitions, situationally stupid. Such spells were meant to be used as traps on battlefield; unleashed when enemy forces trod on them. Now, as the ground under Monteiro’s feet burst, he wondered exactly what he was doing. No one had taught him a spell that would let him fly so this, he imagined, was his best option to meet a foe in the sky.
Moving at speeds that made his eyes water, trailing tendrils of lightning from his now blazing stripes, Thunder Stripe found himself in the air, almost eye to eye with the airborne reptile. Both creatures were just as startled by the other, but one of them recovered faster.
Aware that he had grossly miscalculated, Monteiro lashed out with his weapon, digging the spike opposite the blunt head into a gap between the numerous horns on this dragon’s head. Yelping in fright, and a little pain, as he was pulled suddenly downward, Thunder Stripe crashed into the back of the beast’s head. Being affixed to the dragon made its guttural roar all the louder. Thunder Stripe could feel the sound in the fibers of his muscles as he remained pressed to the back of the beast’s head.
Rolling like a wave, the dragon dipped its head and then rushed upward. Wind threatened to rip Thunder Stripe free from his position as the beast surged into the heavens, wings thrashing almost as wildly as its head. Smoke billowed from the dragon’s maw, tangling with the lightning still coming off of Thunder Stripe in ragged bolts, creating a swirling cape that trailed behind the dragon as it surged upwards. Struggling for a moment, Monteiro pulled his dagger free from his belt. The weapon was mostly ceremonial, something officers of the Pretannai forces carried as a badge of their rank. In a pinch it would still stab something though.
Jamming the knife into the beast’s thick hide proved problematic. As the monster continued upward, head thrashing about, Monteiro clutching his polehammer’s haft with all the force he could put in one hand, he tried to jam the little blade between the dragon’s dense scales. The scales themselves rejected his efforts entirely. The narrow spaces between the natural plates were only slightly more accommodating, barely allowing the tip of the dagger to slide past. More material would need to be in contact with the creature’s flesh if pushing a spell was going to do anything.
With no warning the dragon began to fall. Tumbling through the air like a discarded doll, the thing gyrated end over end, spiraling all the while, leaving Thunder Stripe disoriented until he felt his polehammer slip from its perch among the dragon’s horns. He barely had time to suck in a startled breath before the spike lost its grip on the rough horns of the dragon’s head.
As soon as it was relieved of the burden on the back of its head, the beast realigned itself. Cursing loudly, Thunder Stripe fell right past the dragon as it arrested its fall and hovered momentarily. He felt sure the creature was looking right at him as he dropped past it, but the look had changed. The colossal reptile’s face was somewhat inscrutable, as all animal’s face are, but Thunder Stripe felt sure he saw a glimmer of curiosity in the thing’s bright yellow eyes as it pondered his fall. What was worse, he could have sworn that the dragon smirked at him, the delicate red and green scales of its face winking in the sunlight as it did so.
Curiosity or not, the dragon began to dive as well, quickly passing Thunder Stripe as its bulk hurtled towards the ground once more. Rolling in the air, Monteiro was able to catch a glimpse of the 2nd. They were nearly to the ridge. At this height, they appeared as little more than insects; the soldiers mere ants, their caissons frightened beetles fleeing the hen that had overturned the rotting log they hid beneath. Above the 2nd, and now below Thunder Stripe, the dragon descended, roaring once more to announce to those below that it was coming down on their heads.
Squinting against the frigid air clawing at his eyes helped a little as Thunder Stripe tried to mimic his foe, orienting himself so his head was down, his feet directed at the heavens, causing him to drop with greater speed. Even falling at a greater rate, he was not closing with the dragon. A snarl was lost to the wind. Thunder Stripe’s teeth ground together as he tried desperately to come up with some way of reaching the dragon before it could get to his troops.
Pushing magic down his legs again, he pooled the power in the most durable things he had: the hobnails that held the soles to his boots. Pain raced up his muscles in response to the suddenly burning metal that ate through the leather and touched the pads of his feet. Yowling, eyes clamped shut, polehammer and dagger held close, Thunder Stripe released the spell. The hobnails of his boots exploded, their crude steel deteriorating into dust in the face of the furious release of energy they had supplied.
Peeking with one eye allowed Thunder Stripe to see that he was quickly approaching the middle of the dragon’s back. Screaming out the shortest incantation he knew, he drove the spike of his polehammer down. For most, the incantation simply increased the physical power of a strike, turning magical energy into direct physical energy. Instead of trying to choke his power, Thunder Stripe abandoned all notion of control. His stipes blazed white-hot as more energy than he had ever felt run through him at once suddenly concentrated on the face of his polehammer.
Riding a very real bolt of lightning that he had accidentally summoned into being, Thunder Stripe drove the polehammer down onto the dragon.
A roar of pain turned out be very different from the sounds the dragon had made previously. It drowned out the clap of thunder that accompanied Thunder Stripe’s attack. Bellowing, the dragon listed violently to its right, the joint of its right wing popping loudly as it was driven out of place. The dragon fell, and Thunder Stripe followed it down, striking at the creature’s huge body repeatedly, determined to drive this creature straight into the ground with the sheer force of the energy now slashing out in all directions from his iridescent stripes.
Breath was pressed from Thunder Stripe like juice from grapes as he suddenly came to a stop. Below, the dragon continued to fall, roaring, spiraling as its still viable wing flailed in an attempt to keep the creature aloft. No troops could be seen on the field below, but Thunder Stripe could see Cahla on the ridge, arms outstretched, staff clenched as she poured her focus onto him.
Even in the air he could feel the impact as the dragon hit the ground. Dust billowed up towards him for a moment before he was pulled forward and down, directly towards where Cahla stood. By her side, the muzzle of a gun nosed over the ridge. The gunners were shouting, hastily cramming first powder, then shot down the barrel. Thunder Stripe’s feet had just touched the ground once more when the gun was ready and trained on the dragon that was slowly trying to get itself onto its legs.
“That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do!” Cahla barked at Thunder Stripe as he strode towards her.
His reply to that was to throw down his weapon, pull Cahla close, and press his lips to hers. More than any time before, he could not resist the thoughts of how she cared for him, how she had saved him from his own magic and now a deadly fall. Whether it was proper for a general to marry his staff or not made no difference to him now as he kissed her. He was determined to find a proper priest when they reached Desalaine and marry Cahla on the spot.
“Touching,” Roq laughed over the boom of the cannon. “Take it on the road, sir. That dragon still has some fight in it.”
Picking up his polehammer, Monteiro turned and crossed over the ridge. His gunners hadn’t bothered to unhitch the gun from the caisson. Firing the cannon had surely damaged the caisson in some way, but all of it was still able to move as they fled. Everyone ran down the other side of the ridge as the dragon let out one last tremendous roar.
Partially out of curiosity, Montiero stopped and turned. Cahla tugged on his sleeve, but he pulled his arm free. The caisson rattled past, cannon still smoking, kegs of powder and cannonballs tumbling off as it went, but the dragon did not appear over the ridge.
Teeth clenched, Monteiro crept back up the ridge. He could hear Cahla screaming at him, but more than curiosity was driving him now. Falling from near the clouds should have killed the dragon. Ensuring that it did not pursue them was something General Monteiro would need to confirm before disengaging with this particular foe.
From the crest of the ridge, he was able to see the dragon. The beast had managed to right itself, but it was in poor condition, with no immediate indication it intended to chase the 2nd. A ragged hole was oozing blood in the membrane of its left wing, presumably from the cannonball that had been fired at it. Blood cascaded down from abrasions all over the dragon’s body as it heaved itself to its feet. While the left wing was able to fold neatly against the body, the right wing stuck out at a bizarre angle, unable to collapse as it should have been able to.
Lifting its head, the dragon spotted Monteiro, and both of them froze. Thunder Stripe’s stripes were still alight, issuing sparks and small flickers of lightning as the weary Yorn and the battered dragon glared at each other. They remained locked at the eyes, both of them aware that the other had exerted themselves perhaps a bit too much in their fight. Even though Thunder Stripe’s heart was thundering along in his chest, it felt stable; as reliable as it had been during his younger days. For its part, the dragon seemed to be pondering whether further action would be rewarded with meaningful gains or further pain.
An attack never came from either side. Lowering his weapon slightly, Thunder Stripe pondered the beast before him. There was no way to determine who or what this dragon was to this valley. Regardless of role or rank, the creature had attacked both sides. This valley belonged to this and however many other dragons were there. Monteiro, his army, the Jahlnarth, all were trespassers, and General Monteiro had no intent to further aggravate a creature that was powerful enough to erase a full company.
Bowing slightly, General Monteiro began to back away slowly. Cocking its head a little, the dragon watched him. The same little smirk the creature had given him in the air returned. Slowly, as the light died from General Monteiro’s stripes, the dragon dipped its head towards him. Snarling and rumbling, the dragon retreated into the trees as General Monteiro disappeared over the ridge.
“You beautiful idiot!” Cahla screamed at him as General Monteiro turned to find her, Roq, and Cadet Benz waiting for him a few paces down the slope.
“That’s beautiful idiot, sir,” General Monteiro grinned as he rushed to meet them.
“You seem in a good mood,” Roq noted as they all began to race down the slope together. “You look good too. The lightning stripes were a sorely missed sight.”
“Wasn’t sure it’d work,” General Monteiro confessed. “But it did and that dragon seemed to know it was beat. Let’s get out of here while we can.”
“How’s your heart feel?” Cahla asked.
“Fine, actually,” Monteiro replied. “You can examine me once we get to Desalaine.”
“Oh, I’ll examine you thoroughly,” Cahla muttered just loud enough for Monteiro to her as she smiled at him.
“How’d you beat the dragon?” Cadet Benz panted as they caught up with the slower but still rapidly retreating 2nd.
“I didn’t really,” Monteiro grumbled, loping alongside a caisson as it clattered over the uneven terrain that was native to the area. “It let us go. Injured or not, I think that dragon could have still taken us, but it chose to let us leave.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Monteiro admitted. “Pride maybe? Or perhaps it was just as baffled by today’s events as we are and just wanted to push us out of that valley. We live to fight another day either way. Come on! The rest of the army will be regrouping at Desalaine, and I don’t intend to keep them waiting!”
