Hell's Gate

Gadrial's amusement of only moments before had vanished.

"Skyfang is a pure transport type. As Daris says, he probably goes clear back to the first egg. Which means he's bigger, stronger, and less maneuverable than a battle dragon, but that he has more endurance and basic lift capability. And, aside from his teeth and claws, he has no natural weapons."

"You mean battle dragons do have other weapons?" Shaylar's eyes widened.

Mother Marthea! she thought shakenly. Surely the things' fangs, claws, and horns are vicious enough! How could even Mythalans want to add still more weapons to their nightmare?

"They certainly do." Gadrial's voice was as grim as if she'd actually Heard Shaylar's thought … and shared it. "The weapons Jasak's men used against your people are called 'infantry-dragons' because they replicate the 'natural' weapons the Mythalans built into their real dragons, Shaylar. Some battle dragons breathe fire?or, rather, spit fireballs. Others throw lightning bolts. And still others, despite periodic efforts to ban the breeds in question entirely, project poisonous gases and vapors."

Shaylar gazed at her in horror, and the magister shrugged. She was obviously sympathetic to Shaylar's reaction, but there was something more than simple sympathy behind that shrug, and she returned Shaylar's gaze levelly.

"I can understand that you find the thought frightening and u

Shaylar started to open her mouth in a quick response, then paused and closed it once more. Gadrial was right, she realized. When it came to the organized slaughter of combat, there were countless horrific ways to die. No one had a monopoly on ghastliness.

"I'm not saying you don't have every right to regard what happened to your survey crew as an act of barbarism," Gadrial said more gently. "If nothing else, your people were civilians, and all you were doing was defending yourselves. But when you think about all the horrors Arcanan weapons could unleash against your people, you need to remember that our people are worrying about horrors just as great coming from your people. Both sides are terrified, and both sides think the people on the other side are barbarians. I pray to God every night that we're both wrong, that Master Skirvon and Master Dastiri are going to sit down with your people and somehow negotiate an end to all of this without one more single person being killed.

"But if Skirvon and Dastiri don't pull that off, then Jasak's father is one of the men who are going to decide what happens next, how Arcana goes to war against Sharona. You already know what Jasak's going to tell him, but it's going to be almost as much up to us?to you, Jathmar, and me?to convince the Duke that prosecuting the war with every weapon at our disposal is the wrong thing to do. And if you're going to help convince him of that, you've got to be able to be brutally honest about just how much barbarism there really is on both sides."

She stopped speaking, and there was no sound except the noise of wind and water for several seconds. Then Shaylar gave a tiny nod.

"You're right," she said. "Or partly right, at least. I'm sure being caught in the explosion of an artillery shell is just as terrible as being killed by one of your lightning bolts. And, yes, my people have used flaming oil and set their enemies' ships on fire with what we call 'Ternathian Fire.' I suppose the only real difference is how we go about inflicting our mutual atrocities, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," Gadrial agreed sadly.

"Maybe it's only the fact that I am a civilian," Shaylar continued. "I'd never seen anyone actually killed in front of me before, never even thought about how horrible and terrifying and ugly that would be. And," she managed something that was almost a smile, "something about being on the receiving end of something like that does tend to give you a somewhat biased opinion of just how … humanitarian it is.

"But I'll try to think about what you've said. Especially the bit about helping to convince Jasak's father Sharona isn't simply a pit of horrors waiting to consume Arcana."

"From what I've heard of the Duke, he's not likely to think that, anyway," Gadrial said. "But there are going to be others, as well, and some of them very well may."

"I understand." Shaylar nodded. Then she inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders.

"But you were saying about the dragons?" she said.

"I was saying that they call the infantry support weapons 'dragons' because of the way they replicate dragons' natural weapons," Gadrial said. "But they aren't anywhere near as deadly as an actual battle dragon. The artillery's field-dragons are many times more powerful than the infantry-dragons Jasak's men had with them that day, and much longer ranged. But even the heaviest field-dragon is much less powerful than the weapons built into battle dragons. All of the infantry and artillery weapons rely on charged spell accumulators, but battle dragons are spell accumulators. They charge themselves from the magic field after every shot."

"I'm trying very hard to remember what we were just saying," Shaylar told her a bit wanly. "It's a bit difficult, though, when you tell me about something like that."

"I never said it would be easy. Just that we've got to do it, anyway."

"I know, I know." Shaylar shook her head. "But are you saying that you think it's something about the … magic the Mythalans used to graft those horrible capabilities into their battle dragons that causes them to hate me where transports like Skyfang don't?"

Shaylar asked, deliberately trying to step back from the horrendous vision of dragons flying over Sharona belching death and devastation.

"Probably," Gadrial said, leaning back in her deck chair as if she, too, was grateful to back away from the same vision. "Although, actually, I think it probably has less to do with the weapons themselves than with the changes in the dragons' … personalities, for want of a better word, that went with it. The original Ransaran dragon breeding lines had deliberately emphasized docility. The breeders didn't want something that size which would suddenly decide it ought to be eating its handlers. The Mythalans, typically, decided to 'improve' upon that when they set out to create dragons for combat. So they spliced in several of the characteristics of a Mythal River crocodile." She grimaced once more. "You might say that their personalities are just a little more aggressive than those of a pure transport, like Skyfang."

"I see," Shaylar said slowly, and, in fact, she rather thought she did. She'd sensed a similarity between Skyfang and the huge whales who sought out her mother when they needed an interface with humanity. The dragon wasn't as intelligent as the great whales?or, at least, she certainly didn't think he was?yet there was that undeniably familiar "feel" to his personality. But if Skyfang was somehow similar to whales, then the battle dragons were more akin to the great sharks … or, perhaps, to barracudas.