Chapter 2
The Tender Heart
Elba-Ilyria Border
Typically, only the junior officers and enlisted men in the Air Dragoon Corps would personally tend to the grooming of their mounts, but Colonel Cray was different. Her mount Vidor had been with her since the day she was inducted into the Corps and she didn't like anyone else touching him, at least not without her supervision. For his part, Vidor wasn't particularly fond of anyone other her touching him either. Only a handful of the groomers had succeeded in earning both Cray and Vidor's trust enough to assist in the work.
Cray took on the most dangerous tasks herself, such as flossing Vidor's teeth. Few people had the courage to put their hands in a Dragon's mouth and even fewer Dragons would allow it without making a snack of the proffered hands. Regular flossing was as good for the oral hygiene of Dragons as it was for humans. Something as simple as an abscessed fang could leave a mount so foul-tempered that it would be unrideable. Cray wasn't going to risk that with Vidor.
With a length of sturdy twine wrapped around her hands, she carefully worked her way between each fang, being sure to get up under the gums. It was less of a problem during normal feedings because Dragons would simply tear off chunks of meat and swallow them whole, but they had been in combat and so there were bits of bone, cloth and metal that needed to get out.
Vidor patiently held his mouth open as she went from one end to the other. She was finishing up on his upper jaw when Captain Gernot, one of her flight leaders, approached her. Because they were technically still in the field, he did not salute her.
"Colonel Cray."
"What is it?" she asked.
"The prisoners are ready for you to interrogate them."
"I'll be right over once I finish up here," Colonel Cray replied. "I still have forty more teeth to go."
Once she was done flossing Vidor's teeth, she quickly cleaned up and got dressed in full uniform before heading to the tent where the prisoners were being held. Only three out of a combined force of some one hundred men were taken alive. The surviving civilians were rounded up and taken over the border to be shipped to Trant as laborers. It was a concession Cray narrowly won from the regimental colonel. The other squadron leaders would have simply had them all summarily executed and tossed into a ditch.
Inside the tent, the three prisoners were tied to stakes in the ground. Their personal effects were spread out on a table. She pointed to the oldest of the three and the guards untied him and sat him down in a chair in the center. She nodded to the scribe before she began the interrogation.
"Name and rank."
"Gaius Blossius, Lieutenant Colonel," the prisoner replied.
"Unit?"
"Eighth Hussars."
Cray walked over to the table in and picked up a small, ornate dagger.
"You claim to be a hussar," she said, "but this dagger is issued to the Life Guards. My question is this: Why would Life Guards disguised as hussars be out on the border like this?"
The prisoner's jaw tensed. His answer would be the very words that condemned him.
"Colonel Blossius, now isn't the time to be getting lockjaw," she told him. "People say that I'm too tender-hearted, being a woman and all. Perhaps that's so. Captain Gernot, would you say that I'm tender-hearted?"
"Tenderer than I'd be in your place, ma'am," Captain Gernot replied.
Cray grinned.
"You see? Cheek like that would get a man branded for insubordination by most any other commander, but I'm tender-hearted as they say. My colonel isn't so tender-hearted, though, and he demands results." She then asked Captain Gernot, "What do you think would happen to Colonel Blossius here if I can't deliver a decent report to Colonel Ellner?"
"He might have Major Wyckoff squeeze him, ma'am."
Cray leaned in closer to Colonel Blossius and explained, "Major Wyckoff is from Second Squadron, you see. He used to be a lieutenant colonel like you, like me, like all the other squadron leaders, but he had a little incident that cost him a stripe. Put him in a real foul disposition. But he's hungry. He wants his stripe back and I don't want to think about what he'll do to get it."
Though her intimidation tactics were doing their work, Colonel Blossius still tried to put up a brave front.
"You are intruding in territory that falls under the protection of the Aurean Empire. You have attacked and killed soldiers of the Imperial Army and razed this town. Are you trying to start a war!?"
Cray straightened herself back up and started to pace in front of the prisoner as she said, "There is a corrupt border guard who will be shot at dawn for accepting a bribe to allow a small party to pass through the checkpoint unchallenged. It only took the loss of three fingernails to get him to admit as much. This party passed from Ilyria into Elba to meet with your unit. When people go from a tributary of Zadok to enemy territory, Zadok has reason for concern. I want you to tell me exactly who you were meeting and for what purpose." She unsheathed the Colonel's dagger and added, "Or do I need to start taking fingernails?"
She nodded to the guards, who held down Colonel Blossius in his chair. Before she could even get the knife under the first fingernail, Colonel Blossius panickedly cried, "Wait! Wait! I'll tell you! It is as you say. I belong to the Third Troop of Horse Guards, Third Life Guards Regiment. We were disguised as hussars to hide the fact that we were escorting Prince Aurelius for a secret meeting with an envoy from one of Zadok's tributaries."
"Which tributary?"
"Only General Visellius and of course the Prince knew."
Cray frowned.
"Then you're of no more use to us, are you?"
She drew her pistol and promptly put a bullet through Colonel Blossius' skull.
"Colonel!" several of the men exclaimed.
Captain Gernot was a little more reserved as he said, "Colonel Cray, Colonel Ellner may have wanted to interrogate this man himself."
"I'm not going to waste the Colonel's time with trash like this," Cray replied, holstering her pistol.
"A lieutenant colonel in the Life Guards could have fetched a fine ransom."
"We can't very well admit to having crossed the border, now can we? We don't leave any witnesses."
She gave the signal to the guards and they bayoneted the two remaining prisoners.
"You didn't want to question them?" Captain Gernot asked.
"They were just low-rankers," Cray replied. "They wouldn't have known anything useful anyway."
"Or were you just sparing them an interrogation by Major Wyckoff?"
"That would be very tender-hearted of me," Cray said. "I can't have people thinking that, now can I?"
"No, ma'am," Captain Gernot said wryly.
Cray brushed back a shock of hair that had come loose and said, "We'll do one more sweep of the area and then head back to report to Colonel Ellner." She told the guards, "Bury those bodies. Pack up their effects."
She looked at Colonel Blossius' Life Guards dagger and tucked it away in her jacket, saying, "I'll hold on to this."