7

Kailas came to, slumped on one of the jail's iron cots. He sat up, tasting the cold iron of blood in his mouth. He checked his teeth with a probing tongue. The front ones were just a little wobbly, but would tighten up.

His nose… he was sort of glad there wasn't a glass in the cell because it felt like it'd been well and truly mashed. Oh well. Supposedly something like that made people think a man was more rugged.

He heard a laugh, looked up, saw the guard who'd smashed him into the wall.

"Damn Deraine!" the man snarled gleefully. "Ha'n't been for orders, we coulda done a lot worse."

Hal made no answer, just kept looking at him.

The man's grin twitched away; then he scurried off.

Hal dreamed of having five minutes alone with the bastard, knew it'd never happen, leaned back against the wall, began planning.

So he was caught again.

The next stage would be a transfer to a prison camp. Or, perhaps, execution, but Kailas thought that was unlikely.

The best time to make another escape would be when he was being transferred, since the warders at a camp would be more experienced at dealing with prisoners of war.

There was a basin of water on the table, and he washed the blood off his face, rinsed his mouth, and spat into the chamber pot.

From somewhere, something he'd read or been told came to him: a prisoner of war is just a soldier in different dress, and it's still his duty to fight back, in any way he could.

Another, rather forlorn thought came, and he counted days. It would be just about today, or maybe the day before, when Khiri would be getting his proposal of marriage.

And then, no doubt, they'd announce he was missing in action. Hal didn't think any of his squadron had seen him once he'd landed in the treetops, and would most likely think him slain.

Poor Khiri.

Now, he thought wryly, what would happen to his estates, since he had neither kith nor kin, his only survivors his parents, far north in the bleak mining village?

Not that that mattered much to him. As tramps, wanderers and soldiers say, "I came into this world without a coin, and expect to leave it the same."

And he'd had nothing before the king's benisons, so what did it matter, anyway?

Now all that he could do was wait, and be ready to seize any advantage.

For two days, no one spoke to him, and he lived on the thin soup the jail served its prisoners.

He was the only prisoner of war, being fairly far behind the lines.

The guards regularly beat the other prisoners who came in, but they left Kailas alone. The other, civilian prisoners were whipped jackals or, at best, snapping terriers. Kailas was a crouching panther, and he made the guards—and the other prisoners—nervous.

He forced himself to hide his impatience, never pacing back and forth as his restlessness wanted, not speaking to anyone, trying to get as much sleep as he could, knowing he'd need it when he was out in the wilds again.

He was slightly proud of himself for thinking "when," not "if."

On the third day, he had two visitors.

He knew both of them, but in vastly different ways.

The first was a haughty-looking knight, wearing several decorations, who announced himself as Sir Suiyan Tutuila, by the grace of Queen Norcia, Respecter of Prisoners. Hal avoided a snicker. It was clear, from his expression, that Sir Suiyan thought prisoners could best be protected in a sealed dungeon, or, a little better, at the end of a rope.

He was the archetypal jailer Kailas had encountered in his prewar wanderings.

He glared at Hal with pursed lips, said no more for the moment.

The other man Hal knew, first from a card game years before the war, when his gambling-besotted dragonmaster, Athelny of the Dragons, had been euchred out of his flying show, and then his life.

The second time he'd seen him was over the rooftops of Aude, when his black dragon had swooped low, trying to kill Hal. Hal had sent a crossbow bolt into the man's shoulder, cursed at his bad aim.

He was Ky Bayle Yasin, a superb flier, the first, as far as Hal knew, to fly the dreaded black dragons into battle, and, unless he'd been promoted recently, Commander of the First Guards Dragon Squadron.

He was slender, a bit older than Hal, and when, before, he'd had the fringe of a beard, now was clean-shaven. Hal noted he was starting to bald.

"Lord Kailas," he said. "It is pleasant finally meeting you."

He refrained from the obvious addition, "under these circumstances."

"And I feel the same," Hal said. "How is your wound?"

Yasin flickered slightly. "Quite healed, thank you."

"Pity," Hal said, in a way he'd heard the word used by a great lord.

"You will be silent," Sir Suiyan said. "It is not the place for a prisoner to jeer at his betters."

Hal didn't respond.

" Ky Yasin wishes to have a few words with you," Suiyan went on.

"Privately.

"And of course, I'm pleased to grant a great Ky's wish." He stood, his chair scraping on the stone floor, and went out.

"I wanted to see you for several reasons," Yasin said. "One is disbelief that you allowed yourself to be captured at all. Most of my fliers would prefer to die in battle instead of facing this humiliation."

Again, Hal held his tongue. If he hadn't learned some control at jibes after all this time in the army, he was a fool indeed.

"Another is to inform you that your secret weapon was captured as well, and is being duplicated by our craftsmen. I refer, of course, to that repeating crossbow.

"Still another is to warn you that you are potentially in desperate circumstances.

"There was a soldier killed the same day you made your escape from the hospital."

Hal pretended surprise.

"You were captured wearing civilian clothes. By any tribunal, a soldier so dressed is a spy, and qualifies for immediate execution. If he also has murdered a member of Her Royal Highness's Armed Forces… the penalty could be adjudged in quite a severe fashion.

"Sir Suiyan wanted to bring you up before a tribunal right now, but I convinced him you were far too valuable to die a villain's death. I hope you prove me right.

"Of course you don't know what I'm talking about."

"I truthfully don't," Hal said.

Yasin smiled for a brief instant.

"I came here to offer you the chance of safety and life after the war. If you provide certain information to us—nothing that would cause any of your men or women to come to harm—I can guarantee this murder will be forgotten, and you'll spend the rest of the war in safety, in a rather comfortable detention camp."

Hal started to respond, but Yasin cut him off.

"Of course, I don't expect you to agree at the moment, but I wanted to put the idea in your mind. You may take advantage of it at any time you wish."

"Thank you," Hal said. "But I don't think I'll be accepting."

"Of course not," Yasin agreed, standing. "But keep my offer in mind.

"Something else. I thought you might appreciate news of the war. It is not going well.

"For Deraine and Sagene. Your idiot generals are persisting in attacking in the salient they were lucky enough to create.

"But our positions are completely impregnable, and Deraine and Sagene soldiers are being wasted trying to climb the heights.

"They will, no doubt, continue with their niggling attacks through the winter, weakening themselves, and then, in the spring, we'll mount a great offensive, and recover not only the territory we've lost, including Aude and the Comtal River to the sea, but drive a stake into Sagene, and convince Deraine that she has no interest in Sagene's fate.

"I'm hardly confiding any military secrets by saying that."

He went to the door, opened it, and Sir Suiyan came back in.

"I assume Ky Yasin has told you of the danger you're in," Suiyan said. "I can promise you that if I can get any evidence of the crime you committed, I'll gladly see you face the ax… or other forms of punishment that are even uglier.

"For the moment, though, I can tell you that you will not continue to be lodged here."

"Just when I was starting to enjoy country life."

Tutuila's lip twitched.

"You might just be able to escape, and a man of your rank, holding information that Roche could well use, cannot be treated in such a casual fashion.

"Roche has several prison camps that are much harder to escape from.

"And one that is impossible."

Yasin broke in.

"It's far to the east and north, up an estuary. Its name is Castle Mulde.

There we've sent prisoners who've successfully escaped other camps, high-rankers such as yourself, and dragon fliers, whose value is incomparable."

Hal suddenly remembered the late traitor Nanpean Tregony, who'd claimed to be in such a camp before making his escape from the Roche, and thought perhaps that part of the man's lies might just have been truth. Or maybe Tregony had only heard of Castle Mulde.

"I could be melodramatic," he went on, "and say that you'll rot there.

But that's not the case. Nothing so exciting ever happens. There you can sit and wither, while life—and the war—goes on around you.

"I understand, from captured broadsheets, that you are the favorite of a certain noble popsy," Yasin went on. "I wonder how long it'll take her to find another bedmate.

"Or bedmates.

"I, frankly, have learned never to trust a woman alone for more than a few weeks."

Without bracing, without any giveaway, Hal kicked Yasin in the balls.

Yasin howled, clutched at himself.

Tutuila shouted for guards.

Hal was going after him, rounding the table, when three men burst in.

The one in front was the guard who'd broken Hal's nose.

Hal forgot about Sir Suiyan, and rolled across the table, on his back.

He kicked out, very hard, his feet together, and caught that guard in his chest. Kailas heard ribs crack, was off the table, and stamped on the man's face as he fell.

Then the guards were on him, beating him down.

He went into a ball, dropped to the floor.

Eventually they got tired of kicking him, and dragged him back to his cell.

It had definitely been worth it.