Commander of Five Hundred Cerlohs Myr, CO of the First Provisional Talon, Arcanan Expeditionary Force, settled himself even more deeply into the cockpit hollowed out of Razorwing's neck scales. He felt the deep, subterranean rumble vibrating through the accelerating battle dragon, felt the prodigious power of Razorwing's sweeping pinions, and a matching flood of eagerness poured through him, for t here was nothing—nothing in all the universes mankind had ever explored—which could equal the sheer thrill of piloting a battle dragon into combat.

Not that anyone's had all that much combat experience over the last couple of centuries.

The thought flickered through the back corners of his brain as the air stream began to scream just above his head. Battle dragon pilots didn't use the saddles transport pilots favored. They rode their mounts in a prone position, strapped into their cockpits—the depressions which centuries of careful breeding had formed in the backs of their dragons' huge, scaly necks. Carefully sculpted scutes in front of that depression acted as baffles, protecting it and fairing the airflow. At a battle dragon's maximum speed, that airflow could severely injure any limb which strayed into it, but the curved scales bent it up and around, leaving the pilot in a pocket of absolutely calm air, like the eye of a hurricane.

Of course, Myr could count the number of times he'd taken Razorwing to the dragon's true maximum speed on his fingers. That kind of flying was frowned upon during peacetime, even in the combat strikes, because of the potential for injuries. And not just injuries to pilots. In fact, replacing a dead or crippled pilot was the easy part; a fully seasoned and trained battle dragon like Razorwing took literally decades to hatch, raise, and train.

That was part of the reason the Air Force never had enough of them. They were expensive, they were irritable, they were dangerous, and—in peacetime—they were far less useful than the bigger, slower, more placid transports. There were those who'd argued for years that the combat strikes should be reduced even further. Aside from providing occasional support against unusually large and wellorganized groups of brigands, they didn't really have a peacetime function which couldn't be filled just as well by the transports. After all, a properly trained transport dragon could fly aerial reconnaissance missions just as well as a battle dragon, and battle dragons were poorly suited to transport and SAR

operations. Their function wasn't to carry or rescue things ... it was to kill things.

The Air Force had fought off the pressure to completely dispense with battle dragons, but it hadn't been easy, especially after so many years in which no external threat to the Union of Arcana had ever been encountered. The decisive argument, in many ways, had been the time and incredible expense which would be required to reconstitute an aerial combat capability from scratch if the breeding and training programs were allowed to lapse. The fact that certain members of the Union Parliament had been determined to protect their constituencies' lucrative Air Force contracts hadn't hurt, either, of course.

But if the Air Force had managed to keep the breeding programs going, it had still been forced to accept severe reductions in total numbers. The slow, steady build-down of the combat forces had been going on for better than ninety years now, and the Air Force's ability to project fighting power and provide ground support was at an all-time low.

Which, of course, explains why Ekros dropped a godsdamned war into our laps now, Myr thought sourly. Or, at least, as sourly as it was possible for a man to feel as the incredible power of the dragon under him carried him through the endless heavens at better than two hundred miles per hour.

The lumbering transports were already out of sight, left far behind as the battle dragons sped ahead at two-thirds again their maximum speed. Not even a battle dragon could sustain that sort of sprint speed for long, but Two Thousand Harshu had stressed the vital necessity of hitting the enemy as quickly as possible.

Myr would have preferred to spearhead the attack in person, and his Razorwing could have flown the mission. Razorwing was a "black," after all—a lightning-breather. But a commander of five hundred had no business getting entangled in the opening stages of an attack like this one. Myr's job was to coordinate everyone else, and no one had commanded an attack on this scale since the unification wars.

He'd selected Commander of Fifty Delthyr Fahrlo for the most ticklish aspect of the operation. Fahrlo's Deathclaw was a "black" like Razorwing, and he was also well over eighty years old. Still in his prime, for a battle dragon, but with decades of experience behind him. It might be experience acquired in training missions, rather than on actual combat operations, but Deathclaw was still the most qualified beast for the mission, and Fahrlo had amassed an enviable record in his strike's exercises over the three years he'd piloted Deathclaw.

Now it remained to be seen just how good Myr's choice would turn out to be. As he gazed ahead, the five hundred saw the swamp portal looming up, growing rapidly closer and bigger, and wished his mouth didn't suddenly feel quite so dry.

Petty-Armsman Harth Loumas checked his watch.

It was just about time for another sweep, and he yawned and stretched deliberately, locking his fingers above his head and twisting his back to encourage the kinks to depart. Then he settled back on his haunches, closed his eyes, and once more reached out across the miles of water and mud with his Talent.

Loumas had always taken his duties and responsibilities seriously. Given the ... energy with which Company-Captain chan Tesh had stressed Platoon-Captain chan Baskay's concerns over the Arcanan diplomats' attitude, he was more attentive even than usual today. And he also regretted the fact that they didn't have a decent Distance Viewer even more than usual.

But they didn't, and they couldn't get one, which meant Loumas' Plotting Talent was the best they could come up with, and he frowned in concentration as he "felt" for the presence of living creatures. As always, he was bombarded with thousands upon thousands of flickers of life essence—birds, mammals, lizards, crocodiles, jaguars ... The list went on and on, but all of those essences, all of those glittering points of light in his Talent's field of view, were scattered randomly. They lacked the organization, the formation, which would have indicated a human presence.

Still no sign of the bastards, I guess, he reflected. Good. I know some of the other guys are awfully full of themselves. Well, they can be as eager for another round with these people as they want to be. I'd just as soon not see a sign of them until our reinforcements get here.

He opened his eyes and straightened, and Junior-Armsman Tairsal chan Synarch cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Nothing, huh?" the Flicker asked.

"Don't sound so disappointed," Loumas said dryly.

"Oh, I'm not, believe me!" Chan Synarch shook his head, hard.

"Good, because in that case, I don't have to throttle you for being an idiot."

Chan Synarch chuckled. He and Loumas had been teamed for lookout duty ever since Company-Captain chan Tesh had taken the swamp portal away from the Arcanans, and they got along quite well, despite very different backgrounds. Loumas was a New Farnalian who'd joined the PAAF almost fifteen years before, whereas chan Synarch was a Ternathian who'd been born less than fifteen miles outside Estafel, the imperial capital. He was an Imperial Marine on temporary assignment to the PAAF, and there was a lively tradition of rivalry between the Marines, who considered themselves a corps d'elite, and the Portal Authority Armed Forces' long-service regulars.

Upon occasion, that rivalry had spilled over into even more lively brawls, but not this time. Chan Tesh had pinched Loumas from Hulmok Arthag because he desperately needed a Plotter. Well, actually he'd needed a Distance Viewer, but he'd had to settle for the best he could get. Although chan Synarch was senior to Loumas, he'd confessed at the outset that he'd never worked with a Plotter before. He'd been refreshingly ready to ask questions in order to figure out how their Talents could mesh most effectively, and the two of them had quickly established a lively mutual respect.

"I wish we were on the other side of the portal," chan Synarch said now, swatting vainly at the insects whining about his head and ears.

"Well, if you can figure out away to make a Talent work through a portal, I'm sure we can get the Company-Captain to sign off on it. For that matter, you'll end up filthy rich, I imagine."

"Instead of just filthy, you mean?" chan Synarch said, grimacing at one muddy boot, and it was Loumas'

turn to chuckle.

Commander of Fifty Fahrlo felt himself trying to curl even more tightly against Deathclaw's comforting solidity. He'd never before dared to take the dragon to his maximum speed, given the bloodcurdling penalties awaiting any Air Force officer foolish enough to lame or cripple one of the expensive, almost impossible to replace battle dragons in a mere training exercise.

I hope to all the gods that Neshok knows what he's talking about this time, Fahrlo thought. If he doesn't, if these people are maintaining any sort of a decent sky watch instead of concentrating solely on ground threats, things could be about to get pretty damned messy.

Fahrlo would have been more confident of the Intelligence officer's assessment if he hadn't decided that Neshok was one of the half-dozen biggest pricks he'd ever had the misfortune to meet.

You don't have to like him, as long as he manages to do his job, the Air Force officer reminded himself.

Of course, if he were half as bright as he thinks he is, he'd probably be a Two Thousand himself by now, wouldn't he?

Fahrlo gave his head a mental shake. He had other things to be concentrating on at this particular moment, he reminded himself, and pressed the tips of his gloved left fingers into the control groove along the side of Deathclaw's mighty neck.

Transport pilots used reins and dragon prods to control their beasts, but the men who piloted battle dragons flew by the tips of their fingers—literally. Just as the dragon breeders had created the cockpit in which Fahrlo rode, they had formed two grooves, each just a shade over two feet long and conveniently placed for the pilot's hands. Those grooves were deep enough that Fahrlo's fingers touched Deathclaw's actual hide, not just the thick, protective scales which armored the mighty beast. That hide was acutely sensitive, and Deathclaw had been trained to respond to even the lightest touch. Fahrlo, like most battle dragon pilots, had long since developed the manual dexterity of a concert pianist, and after so long together, he and Deathclaw literally thought as one. The dragon knew exactly what each touch through one of the control grooves meant, and now he lowered his left wingtip, arcing into a steeply inclined bank, and lowered his head.