“No,” the Kaunian said. “But, by now, what is left for us to do but die like heroes?”
Sidroc grunted again. “I didn’t sign up to be a hero.”
“But what else are we, fighting to the death for a cause surely lost?” Sudaku persisted.
“Who knows? Come to that, who cares?” Sidroc said. “Besides, if we lose-- when we lose--who’s going to call us heroes? Winners are heroes. They get the girls, and they don’t get their uniforms mussed. In the stories, we’re just the fellows who blaze at them and miss.”
“Everyone is a hero in his own story,” the Kaunian said. “The only trouble is, our stories, I fear, will be ending soon.”
Before Sidroc could answer that--not that it needed much answering, for it seemed pretty obviously true--someone toward the rear of the weary, shambling column of men let out a frightened shout: “Dragons! Unkerlanter dragons!”
Looking back over his shoulder, Sidroc spied the great rock-gray shapes bearing down on his comrades--and on him. He wasn’t ready for his story to end quite yet. “Into the mud!” he yelled, and dove for the side of the road.
It was the only hope the soldiers had, and they made the most of it they could. Like Sidroc, they floundered into the swamp as far as they could go. Some of them blazed. Others just tried to cover themselves in ooze. The dragons roared fiercely as they belched out fire. None of the flames came too close to Sidroc, but he felt the heat from them all the same. What happened to the men who’d stayed on the road wasn’t pretty.
Survivors gathered themselves and trudged on. That was all they could do. Ceorl was as filthy as Sidroc. “You son of a whore, I thought they’d’ve got rid of you a long time ago,” he said. “You’re tougher than I gave you credit for.”
“Thanks, I suppose,” Sidroc said.
Up the road was a town called Laterza. It had taken as much damage as any other Algarvian town not far from Trapani. Standing in the middle of the main street, though, as if on a normal day, was a captain wearing a mage’s emblem. “Ah, good,” he said when he saw what sorts of soldiers Lieutenant Puliano led. “A band of mercenaries and auxiliaries.” Sidroc didn’t like his tone or the sneer on his face. I’ve been through too much for him to have any business looking at me like that, he thought. The mage went on, “You will furnish me all your Kaunians at once.”
Sidroc didn’t like the sound of that at all. Neither, evidently, did Puliano, who said, “Oh, I will, will I? And why is that?”
“Because it will aid the war, and because I, your superior, order it,” the captain replied. So I can kill them, Sidroc translated in his own mind.
He wasn’t the only one who made the same translation. Sudaku pushed his way forward. The man from the Phalanx of Valmiera stuck his stick in the mage’s face. “Do you want anything to do with me or my countrymen?” he asked coldly.
“Arrest this man!” the mage gabbled.
“What for?” Lieutenant Puliano said with a smile. “Seems like a pretty good question to me. Maybe you’d better answer it.”
“Do you want anything to do with me or mine?” Sudaku repeated.
The mage had nerve. Whatever Algarvians lacked, that was rarely it. He thought for a long time before finally shaking his head. And even after he did, he shook a fist at Lieutenant Puliano. “It’s because of people like you that our kingdom’s in the state it’s in,” he said bitterly.
“Because of people like me?” Puliano returned. “Have you looked in a mirror any time lately?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the mage demanded. He really didn’t know. Sidroc could see as much. That was as alarming as anything else that had happened to him lately--a pretty frightening thought, when you got down to it.
Sudaku said, “I think you had better disappear. I think that if you do not disappear, something bad will happen to you.”
Again, even with a stick in his face, the Algarvian wizard seemed on the point of saying no. If he had, the blond from the Phalanx of Valmiera would have blazed his brains out. Sidroc was sure of that. The mage evidently came to the same conclusion. He turned on his heel and stalked away. His stiff back radiated outrage.
“Poor fellow,” the Kaunian said. “He is angry at me because I do not propose to let him kill me. Well, too bad.” He turned to Lieutenant Puliano. “Thank you, sir, for thinking I am worth more to Algarve alive.”
“Mages are a pack of cursed fools,” the redhead said. “If they were half as smart as they think they are, they’d be twice as smart as they really are. I know what a good soldier’s worth. I haven’t got any idea what that bastard’s worth, and why should I waste time finding out?” He looked around at his ragtag followers. “Come on, boys. Let’s get going. Wizards or no wizards, we’ve still got a war to fight.”
How much longer can we keep fighting? Sidroc wondered. He had no idea. But the stick in his hand still held charges. The Unkerlanters hadn’t nailed him yet. They won’t have an easy time doing it, either, he told himself, and marched deeper into Algarve, on toward Trapani.
Marshal Rathar muttered something vile under his breath. His army had just tried to throw another bridgehead across the Scamandro, and the Algarvians had just crushed it. “Can’t be helped,” General Vatran said philosophically. “We still haven’t built up enough men or supplies to do a proper job yet.”
Logically, Rathar knew that was true. But logic had only so much to do with it. He glanced over at the portrait of King Swemmel on the wall. His imagination had to be running away with him, but he thought the king was glaring at him in particular. “It could have worked,” he said. “It was worth a try.”
“Oh, aye.” Vatran nodded. “That’s why we gave it a blaze. But it wasn’t a sure thing, and it didn’t pan out. Won’t be long now before we can do it right.”
“I know.” But Rathar, still eyeing Swemmel’s portrait, had a bad feeling there would be some unpleasant conversations with the king before that happened. He wondered if he could get away with telling the crystallomancers to tell Swemmel he was indisposed. Probably not, worse luck.
Vatran shuffled through leaves of paper. He pulled one out and handed it to Rathar. “Here, lord Marshal. You said you wanted to see these.”
“I need to see them, if that’s what I think it is. That’s not the same thing as wanting to.” Rathar took the paper and glanced through it. Sure enough, it was what he thought it was. He handed it back to Vatran. “Stinking werewolves.”
Vatran made a sour face. “Trust the Algarvians to come up with a name like that.”
“I don’t care what you call them,” Rathar said. “They’re a pack of cursed nuisances, and no mistake.”
He recognized the irony in his words. While Mezentio’s men occupied great stretches of Unkerlant, his own countrymen had made their lives miserable, raiding their garrisons, sabotaging ley lines, and doing anything else they could to hurt the foe. Now, with Unkerlanter forces inside Algarve, the boot was on the other foot. The redheads behind his lines were doing their best to disrupt his operations. Werewolves was a fancier, more grandiose name than irregulars, but they did the same job.
With a shrug, Vatran said, “When we catch ‘em, we hang ‘em or we blaze ‘em or we boil ‘em. That way, they don’t turn into anything worse than a nuisance.”
A couple of years before, Algarvian generals had to have been saying the same thing about Unkerlanter irregulars. Rathar had the same response they must have had: “Once we win the war, the trouble will go away.” Mezentio’s men hadn’t won the war. If he didn’t win it now, he would deserve whatever Swemmel chose to do to him.
Vatran shuffled more papers. “There’s still trouble with bandits back in the Duchy of Grelz, too.”
Bandits, of course, was another name for irregulars and werewolves. Some of the Grelzers who’d aligned themselves with Mezentio and against Swemmel had been in grim earnest, and kept up their fight against Unkerlant even after the Algarvians were driven east and out of their duchy. But that problem h
ad the same answer as the other one: “If we win here, the bandits will quiet down--and if they don’t, we’ll root ‘em out one at a time if we have to.”
“Aye--makes sense,” Vatran agreed.
“Now, the next question, and the one where losing the bridgehead really hurts,” Rathar said. “How far west have the islanders come, and how close to Trapani have they got?”
One of Vatran’s white eyebrows twitched. “They’re within about eighty miles, sir,” he answered unhappily. “Still moving forward pretty fast, too, curse them.”
“They’re our allies,” Rathar said. “We’re not supposed to curse them. We’re supposed to congratulate them.” He looked east. “Congratulations--curse you.”
Vatran laughed, though it really wasn’t funny. “Of course, one reason they’re moving so fast is that the redheads have all their best soldiers--all the best of whatever they’ve got left--pointed at us.”
“That old, old song,” Rathar said. “We’re beating them anyhow, the bastards. And we’re beating them in spite of all the funny magic they’re throwing at us.”
“Every time they try something new, our mages have fresh hysterics,” Vatran said.
“They’ve been doing that ever since the redheads started killing Kaunians,” Rathar replied. “Sometimes they find an answer, sometimes things just go wrong for the redheads, and sometimes we have so many men and behemoths, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Vatran let out a long, heartfelt sigh. “I’ll be glad when it’s finally over, and that’s the truth.” He ran a hand through his curly white hair. “I’m too cursed old to go through what the Algarvians have put us through.”
“Not obvious it’ll be over even after we lick Mezentio,” Rathar said. “King Swemmel hasn’t said what he’ll do about Gyongyos then. Maybe we’ll all pack up and head west--a long way west.”
“Maybe,” Vatran agreed. “But do you know what, lord Marshal? Even if we do, I won’t be nervous about it, the way I have been ever since we started fighting the redheads. Even if the Gongs should somehow lick us--and I don’t think they can do it--it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If the Algarvians had beaten us, our kingdom was dead. They’d’ve ruled us like we were some barbarian principality up in Siaulia, and they’d never have let us back up on our feet again.”
Since Rathar thought the older general was right, he didn’t argue with him. The war with Algarve was a war to the knife, no doubt about it. Mezentio’s men might not have treated Unkerlant and its people quite so harshly as they had the Kaunians in Forthweg, but they wouldn’t have made easy masters. They hadn’t made easy masters in the parts of Unkerlant they’d held.
They’re arrogant whoresons, and it cost them, Rathar thought. If they’d pretended to come as liberators from Swemmel’s hard rule, half the kingdom would have gone over to them. But they didn’t think they needed to worry about what we thought. They gave Grelz an Algarvian for a king. They showed everybody they were even worse than Swemmel--and they paid for it. And now we’ll be the masters in big chunks of Algarve, and we won’t be sweet to the redheads, either.
Someone hurried into the headquarters--an Unkerlanter major. “Marshal Rather!” he called. “I’ve got important news.”
Rathar looked up from the map table. “I’m here,” he said. “What’s gone wrong now?” By the man’s tone, something had. Vatran looked up, too, sharply. He picked up his mug of tea and started to sip from it.
“Here, lord Marshal,” the newcomer said. “I’ll have to show you.” He took a couple of steps toward the map table--and then stopped and yanked his short officer’s stick from his belt and swung it toward Rathar.
The Marshal of Unkerlant had half a heartbeat to know what a fool he’d been. This is how General Gurmun died, flashed through his mind. If the Algarvians could sorcerously disguise one of their own to look like an Unkerlanter up in Forthweg, why not on their own soil, too?
But the beam never bit into his flesh. Vatran flung his heavy earthenware mug at the false major’s face. It caught him right in the teeth. He howled and clutched at himself, and his blaze went wild. Before his finger could find its way into the blazing hole again, Vatran and Rathar were both grappling with him. Rathar wrenched the stick out of his hands. The shouts and groans from the map chamber brought more soldiers rushing in. They seized the major and, after some fumbling, tied him up.
“He’s gone mad, sir,” a captain--a veritable Unkerlanter captain--exclaimed.
“No, I don’t think so,” Rathar answered. “I think if we leave him alone for a few hours, he’ll start looking like one of Mezentio’s majors, not like one of ours.” He switched to Algarvian and addressed the would-be assassin: “Isn’t that right, Major--or whatever your real rank happens to be?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the fellow replied in Unkerlanter holding no trace of any accent save that of Cottbus--certainly no Algarvian trill. His mouth bled where the mug had caught him--and where the two Unkerlanter officers had hit him in the fight that followed.
“Aye, tell us King Mezentio didn’t send you after the marshal,” General Vatran jeered.
“He didn’t,” the man replied with a bloody grin. “King Swemmel did.”
If he aimed to produce consternation in the headquarters, he succeeded. Horrified silence fell. Rathar himself broke it, saying, “You lie. If his Majesty wants me dead, he has no need to sneak in a murderer. He could simply arrest me, and his will would be done.”
“You’d be too likely to rise against him, and the men are too likely to follow you,” the fellow said.
All that had a certain ring of truth, regardless of whether the failed assassin was what he claimed to be. All the more reason, then, for Marshal Rather to speak in ringing tones: “You lie. I am loyal, and his Majesty knows it.” He turned to his men. “Take this lying wretch away. Do nothing to him for one day except keeping him under close guard. When his looks change and show him for the Algarvian he is, let me know.”
They dragged the false major out of the headquarters. Rathar hoped with all his heart the man would show himself to be an Algarvian. If he didn’t. . . The marshal didn’t want to think about that. Being possessed of a disciplined mind, he didn’t. Instead, he told Vatran, “Thank you,” and asked, “How were you so ready there?”
Vatran shrugged. “Something about the way he looked, something about the way he sounded--it didn’t feel quite right.”
“He just seemed eager to me,” Rathar said.
“Maybe that was it,” Vatran said.
Rathar wondered if he was joking. After a moment, the marshal decided Vatran wasn’t. After almost four grinding years of war against Algarve, how many Unkerlanter officers had any eagerness left? Algarvians, now .. . Algarvians went into everything with panache. This fellow hadn’t looked or sounded like one, but he’d seemed enough like one to make Vatran at least wonder--and that, in turn, had ended up saving Rathar’s neck.
“Thank you,” the marshal said again.
“You’re welcome,” Vatran replied. He lowered his voice: “Now we just have to hope the lousy bugger really is a redhead.”
“Indeed,” Rathar said, and said no more. Could Swemmel have been so daft as to choose this moment to try to be rid of him? It didn’t seem likely, but the same held true for a lot of things Swemmel did.
The crystallomancer’s call came long after midnight. “He’s an Algarvian,” reported the officer charged with guarding important captives.
“Powers above be praised,” Rathar said, and slept sound the rest of the night.
Nine
Every now and then, Talsu began seeing men in Jelgavan uniform in Skrunda. He didn’t see many of them, not compared to the swarms of Kuusaman soldiers who kept going through his home town. The ones he did see roused mixed feelings in him. He was glad his kingdom showed signs of being able to defend itself again, at least with the help of its allies (he tried not to think of them as rescuers). For the Jelgavan soldiers, he fel
t nothing but pity. He’d been one himself. He knew what it was like.
For a while, he hoped things might have changed since the disaster that led to Jelgava’s collapse four and a half years before. After all, King Donalitu had spent most of that time in exile in Lagoas. The Lagoans had a pretty good notion of what was what. Maybe Donalitu had learned something in Setubal--though the edicts he’d issued since his return argued against it.
But the first Jelgavan officer Talsu saw strutting through the streets of Skrunda smashed his hopes. The major was young and slim and handsome, not fat and homely like Colonel Dzirnavu, Talsu’s old regimental commander. But the noble’s badge on his chest and the way he shouted and screamed at the luckless men who had to follow him made memories Talsu would sooner have forgotten come flooding back.
He didn’t say anything about the fellow to his father. Never having gone into the army, Traku didn’t know what it was like. He idealized it in his mind, too. Even after the way Jelgava collapsed proved its army anything but ideal, Talsu’s father didn’t want to hear criticism and complaints.
In whispers--the only sort of talk that gave even a hope of privacy in the crowded flat--Talsu spilled out his worries to Gailisa when they both should have been asleep. “Nothing has changed,” he said, despair in his voice. “Nothing. The same arrogant idiots still have charge of us. And if we ever have to do any fighting again--”
“Powers above keep it from happening,” his wife broke in, also whispering.
“Aye, powers above keep it from happening indeed,” Talsu agreed. “If we ever have to do any fighting again, whoever we go up against will roll over us, same as the Algarvians did. Our men will want their officers dead, and how can you fight like that?”
Instead of answering what was, Talsu was sure, an unanswerable argument, Gailisa twisted in the narrow bed they shared to kiss him. If she hoped to distract him, she succeeded. His arms went around her. Her breasts pressed against him through the thin fabric of their pyjama tunics. A moment later, she laughed very quietly. He was pressing against her somewhere, too.
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