Rulers of the Darkness d-4

by Harry Turtledove

  But it wouldn't be easy, not here it wouldn't. The Unkerlanters had known they were coming- had probably known for a long time. They'd fortified this ground as best they could. It didn't look like much, but obstacles- tree trunks, ditches, mud- made the going slower than it would have been otherwise. Those obstacles also channeled the advancing men and behemoths in certain directions- right into more waiting Unkerlanters.

  As soon as the Algarvians and the men of Plegmund's Brigade got in among the first belt of Unkerlanter defenders, others farther back began blazing at them from long range. More obstacles slowed their efforts to get at the Unkerlanters who now revealed themselves. Men on both sides fell as if winnowed. Algarvian behemoths went down, too, here and there, though few Unkerlanter behemoths were yet in the fight.

  At last, around noon, Mezentio's men cleared that first stubborn belt of defenders. Ercole was almost beside himself. "We aren't keeping up with the plan!" he cried. "We're falling behind!"

  "Sir, we've done everything we could," Sergeant Werferth said. "We're still here. We're still moving."

  "Not fast enough." Ercole stuck his whistle in his mouth and blew a long, piercing blast. "Onward!"

  For a furlong or so, the going was easy. Sidroc's spirits began to rise. Then he heard the sharp, flat roar of an egg bursting under another Algarvian soldier. He realized why no Unkerlanters infested this stretch of ground- they'd sown it with more eggs to slow up his advancing comrades.

  What had been woods ahead had taken a demon of a beating, but still offered some shelter: enough that the Unkerlanter behemoths emerging from it were an unwelcome surprise. "Powers above!" Sidroc exclaimed in dismay. "Look at how many of the whoresons there are!"

  The behemoths started tossing eggs at Plegmund's Brigade and at the Algarvian footsoldiers to either side of the Forthwegians. Sidroc jumped into a hole in the ground. He had plenty from which to choose. So did Ceorl, but he jumped down in with Sidroc anyhow. Sidroc wondered whether he wouldn't be safer facing the Unkerlanter behemoths.

  "Hard work today," Ceorl remarked, as if he'd been hauling sacks of grain or chopping wood.

  "Aye," Sidroc agreed. An egg burst close by, shaking the ground and showering them with clods of dirt.

  "But we'll do it," Ceorl went on. "We go east, the redheads on the other side come west, and we meet in the middle. Be a whole great fornicating kettle full of dead Unkerlanters by the time we're through, too." He sounded as if he enjoyed the idea.

  "A lot of us dead, too," Sidroc said. "A lot of us dead already."

  Ceorl shrugged. "Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." He brought out the clichй as if he were the first one ever to use it. Maybe he thought he was.

  An officer's whistle squealed. "Onward!" That was Lieutenant Ercole, who'd had the sense to jump in a hole. Now, sooner than he might have been, he was out again. The Algarvians hadn't given Plegmund's Brigade any officers who weren't recklessly brave- that Sidroc had to admit. "Come on!" Ercole shouted again. "We won't win anything if we stay here all day!"

  Sidroc surged up out of the hole. The Algarvian behemoths had taken care of a lot of their Unkerlanter counterparts, but they'd had holes torn in their ranks, too. A dragon fell from the sky and thrashed out its death throes a couple of hundred yards from Sidroc. It was painted rock-gray. A moment later, an Algarvian dragon smashed down even closer.

  By the time night came, they'd almost cleared that second belt of defenders.

  ***

  "We've got to be efficient." Lieutenant Recared sounded serious and earnest. "The Algarvians will throw everything they've got at us. We've got to make every blaze count, and to use the positions we've spent so long building up." He turned to Leudast. "Anything you want to add to that, Sergeant?"

  Leudast looked at the men in his company. They knew the Algarvians would be coming any day, maybe any minute. They were serious, even somber, but, if they were afraid, they didn't let it show. Leudast knew he was afraid, and did his best not to let that show.

  He thought Recared wanted him to say something, so he did: "Just don't do anything stupid, boys. This'll be a hard enough fight even if we're smart."

  "That's right." Recared nodded vigorously. "Being smart is being efficient. The sergeant said the same thing I did, only with different words."

  I guess I did, Leudast thought, a little surprised. That hadn't occurred to him. He peered east, toward the rising sun. If the Algarvians attacked now, they'd be silhouetted against the bright sky every time they came over a rise. He judged they would wait till the sun was well up before moving. He was in no great hurry to risk getting killed or maimed. They could wait forever, for all of him.

  Light built, grew. Leudast studied the landscape. He couldn't see most of the defensive positions the Unkerlanters had built. If he couldn't see them, that meant Mezentio's men wouldn't be able to, either. He hoped that was what it meant, anyhow.

  The sun climbed in the sky. The day grew warm, even hot. Leudast slapped at bugs. There weren't so many as there had been right after the snow melted, when the endless swampy puddles in the mud bred hordes of mosquitoes and gnats. But they hadn't all gone away. They wouldn't have wanted to, not with so many latrines and animals to keep them happy.

  Leudast was pissing in a slit trench when the Algarvians started flinging eggs. He almost jumped right into that latrine trench; combat had taught him how important taking cover was, and diving into the closest available hole was almost as automatic as breathing. But he hadn't wanted to breathe by the noisome, nearly full trench, and he didn't jump into it, either. Not quite. He ran back toward the hole in the ground from which he'd come.

  Such sensibilities almost cost him his neck. An egg burst not far behind him just as he started sliding into his hole. It flung him in instead, flung him hard enough to make him wonder if he'd cracked his ribs. Only when he'd sucked in a couple of breaths without having knives stab did he decide he hadn't.

  He'd been through a lot fighting the Algarvians. He'd helped hold them out of Cottbus. He'd been wounded down in Sulingen. He'd thought he knew everything the redheads could do. Now he discovered he'd been wrong. In all that time, with everything he'd seen, he'd never had to endure such a concentrated rain of eggs as they threw at him, threw at all the Unkerlanters.

  The first thing he did was dig himself deeper. He wondered if he were digging his own grave, but the shallow scrape he'd had before didn't seem nearly enough. He flung dirt out with his short-handled spade, wishing all the while that he had broad, clawed hands like a mole's so he wouldn't need a tool. Sometimes he thought bursts all around him threw as much dirt back into the hole as he was throwing out.

  After the hole was deep enough, he lay down at full length in it, his face pressed into the rich, dark loam. He needed a while to realize he was screaming; the din of those bursting eggs was so continuous, he could hardly even hear himself. Realizing what he was doing didn't make him stop. He'd known fear. He'd known terror. This went past those and out the other side. It was so immense, so irresistible, it carried him along as a wave might carry a small boat.

  And, after a little while, it washed him ashore. If he was beyond fear, beyond terror, what else was there to do but go on? He got up onto his knees- he wasn't ready to expose his body to blasts of sorcerous energy and to flying metal shards of egg casing- and looked at the sky instead of the dirt.

  He had plenty to watch up there. Dragons wheeled and dueled and flamed, some painted in Unkerlant's concealing rock-gray, others wearing Algarve's gaudy colors. It was a dance in the air, as intricate and lovely as a springtime figure dance in the square of the peasant village where he'd grown up.

  But this dance was deadly, too. An Algarvian dragon flamed one from his kingdom, flamed its wing and flank. Across who could say how much air, he heard the great furious bellow of agony the Unkerlanter dragon let out. Surely the dragonflier screamed, too, but his voice was lost, lost. The dragon frantically beat the air with its one good wing. That only made it t
wist in the other direction. And then it twisted no more, but fell, writhing. It smashed to the unyielding ground not far in front of Leudast.

  As abruptly as they'd started, the Algarvians stopped tossing eggs. Leudast knew what that meant. He snatched up his stick and did peer out from his hole. "They're coming!" he shouted. His own voice sounded strange in his ears because of the pounding they'd taken.

  Dimly, as if from far away, he heard others shouting the same thing. Footsoldiers loped ahead of Algarvian behemoths. The men in kilts looked tiny. Even the behemoths looked small. The redheads would have to fight their way through a couple of defensive lines before they reached the position Lieutenant Recared's regiment held. By the way they came on, Mezentio's men thought they could fight their way through anything. After what they'd done two summers in a row in Unkerlant, who could say they were wrong?

  Then the first redhead stepped on a buried egg and abruptly ceased to be. "Good riddance, you son of a whore!" Leudast shouted. Soldiers had spent weeks burying eggs. Soldiers and conscripted peasants had spent those same weeks fortifying the ground between the belts. Some of those peasants might have gone back to their farms. Others, Leudast was sure, remained in the salient. He wondered how many of them would come out once more.

  Now that the Algarvians were out in the open, Unkerlanter egg-tossers began flinging death their way. Unkerlanter dragons swooped low on Mezentio's men. Some of them dropped eggs, too. Others flamed footsoldiers and behemoths, too. Leudast cheered again.

  More Algarvian behemoths than usual seemed to be carrying heavy sticks. Those were less useful than egg-tossers against targets on the ground, but ever so much more useful against dragons. Their thick, strong beams seared the air. Several dragons fell. One, though, smashed into two behemoths as it struck the ground, killing them in its own destruction.

  Leudast stopped cheering. He was too awed to see how many of his countrymen had survived the ferocious Algarvian bombardment. But the Algarvians showed no awe. They went about their business with the air of men who'd done it many times before. A charge of behemoths tore an opening in the first defensive line. Footsoldiers swarmed through the gap. Then some of them wheeled and attacked the line from the rear. Others pushed on toward Leudast.

  "They did that too fast, curse them," Lieutenant Recared said from a hole not far from Leudast's. "They should have been hung up there longer."

  "They're good at what they do, sir," Leudast answered. "They wouldn't be here in our kingdom if they weren't."

  "Powers below eat them," Recared said, and then, "Ha! They've just found the second belt of eggs." He shouted toward the redheads: "Enjoy it, you whoresons!"

  But the Algarvians kept coming. In two years of war against them, Leudast had rarely known them to be less than game. They were game here, sure enough. After a few minutes, he started to curse. "Will you look at what those buggers have done? They're using that dry wash to get up toward our second line."

  "That's not good," Recared said. "They weren't supposed to go that way. They were supposed to be drawn toward the places where we have more men."

  "I wish it would rain," Leudast said savagely. "They'd drown then."

  "I wish our dragons would come and flame them to ruins and drop eggs on the ones left alive," Recared said.

  "Aye." Leudast nodded. "The redheads' dragons would do that to us, down in Sulingen."

  Recared sounded worried. "I don't think our men up there in the second line can see what the Algarvians are doing." He shouted, "Crystallomancer!" When no one answered, he shouted again, louder.

  This time, he did get a reply. "He's dead, sir, and his crystal smashed," a trooper said.

  "Sergeant." Recared turned to Leudast. "Go down there and let them know. With everything else that's going on, I really don't think they have any idea what Mezentio's men are up to. If a regiment of redheads erupts into the middle of that line, it won't hold. Get moving."

  "Aye, sir." Leudast scrambled out of his hole, got to his feet, and started trotting toward the line ahead. If he hadn't, Recared would have blazed him on the spot. As things were, all he had to do was run across perhaps half a mile of field and grassland full of buried eggs. If he went up like a torch in a blaze of sorcerous energy, the second line wouldn't know its danger till too late.

  He looked back over his shoulder. Three or four more Unkerlanter soldiers came trotting after him. He nodded to himself. Recared was minimizing the risk. The pup made a pretty fair officer.

  Leudast trotted on. One foot in front of the other. Don't think about what happens if a foot comes down in the wrong place. Odds are, it won't happen. Don't think about it. Odds are, it won't. And the insistent, rising scream in his mind- Oh, but what if it does?

  It didn't. He still had trouble finding the Unkerlanter field fortifications. Then a nervous soldier in a rock-gray tunic popped up and almost blazed him. Panting, he stammered out his message. The soldier lowered his stick. "Come on, pal," he said. "You'd better tell my captain."

  Tell him Leudast did. The captain's crystallomancer was still alive. He got the word to soldiers nearer the dry wash. An attack went in. It didn't stop the Algarvians, but it slowed them, rocked them back on their heels.

  "Your lieutenant did well to send you," the captain told Leudast. He handed him a flask. "Here. Have a taste of this. You've earned it."

  "Thanks, sir." Leudast swigged. Spirits ran hot down his throat. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Are we winning?"

  The captain answered with a broad-shouldered shrug. "We're just getting started."

  Twelve

  Major Spinello had thought the fighting in Sulingen the worst warfare possible. Now, as his regiment fought its way east toward other, far-off, Algarvian forces fighting their way west, he saw Sulingen re-created across miles of rolling plains. The Unkerlanters had been waiting for this assault. There didn't seem to be an inch of their salient where they hadn't either built a redoubt or buried an egg. By now, most of the dowsers who'd picked out paths through those buried eggs were dead or wounded, either from their own mistakes or from Unkerlanter beams or eggs.

  Five days into the fighting, the Algarvians on the western edge of the bulge around Durrwangen had advanced perhaps half a dozen miles. They were far behind where they should have been. Spinello knew as much. Every Algarvian officer- and probably every Algarvian common soldier, too- knew as much. Spinello counted it a minor miracle that his countrymen were still moving forward at all.

  He lay behind a dead Unkerlanter behemoth that was starting to stink under the hot summer sun. Captain Turpino lay at the other end of the dead beast. Turpino turned a filthy, haggard, smoke-blackened face to Spinello and asked, "What now… sir?"

  "We're supposed to take that hill up ahead." Spinello's hand shook as he pointed. He was every bit as filthy and haggard as his senior company commander. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept.

  Cautious, Turpino peered up over the carcass. "What, the regiment by itself?" he demanded. "That hill's got Unkerlanter behemoths- live ones- the way a dog has fleas."

  "No, not the regiment by itself. Our army. However much of it we can aim at the high ground." Spinello yawned. Powers above, he was tired. It was like being drunk; he didn't care what came out of his mouth. "I don't think our regiment's in any shape to take a gumdrop away from a three-year-old."

  Turpino stared at him, then laughed as cautiously as he'd looked at the hill ahead. Spinello's answering grimace might have been a smile. Along with the rest of the great force the Algarvians had mustered, the regiment had hammered its way through five successive Unkerlanter lines- and, in the hammering, had burned away like wood in the fire.

  He wondered if he still had half the men who'd gone forward when he first blew the whistle. He doubted it. The three companies plucked from occupation duty in Jelgava had suffered particularly hard. It wasn't that they weren't brave. They were, to a fault. They went forward when they should have hesitated, and had got themselves and their comrades in
to a couple of desperate pickles simply because they'd lacked the experience to see traps they should have. Well, they had that experience now- the survivors, anyhow.

  Turpino turned his head. "More of our behemoths coming up, and-" He stiffened. "Who're those buggers in the wrong-colored tunics? Are the Unkerlanters trying to pull another fast one?"

  After looking back toward the footsoldiers, Spinello shook his head. "That's Plegmund's Brigade. They're on our side- Forthwegians in Algarvian service."

  "Forthwegians." Turpino's lip curled. "We are throwing everything we've got left into this fight, aren't we?"

  "Actually, they're supposed to be brave," Spinello said. Turpino looked anything but convinced.

  On came the behemoths. They started tossing eggs at the Unkerlanter beasts on the hill the Algarvians needed to take. The Unkerlanters answered, but they still didn't handle their beasts or their gear as well as Mezentio's men. Spinello cheered when an Algarvian behemoth crew used the heavy stick mounted on their beast to burst the eggs an Unkerlanter behemoth carried, and then, a moment later, repeated the feat and took out another behemoth and crew.

  But the Unkerlanters' eggs and beams knocked down Algarvian behemoths, too. And more beasts with Unkerlanters aboard trotted over the crest of the hill. Captain Turpino cursed. "How many fornicating behemoths do Swemmel's fornicators have?" he demanded, or words to that effect.

  "Too many," Spinello answered, looking from the beasts on the hill to the Algarvian behemoths moving against them. He sighed. "Well, we'll just have to get them off of there, won't we?" He blew his whistle as he got to his feet. "Forward!" he shouted, waving his arm to urge on his troops- what was left of them.

  Turpino stayed beside him as they advanced. Turpino still wanted the regiment if Spinello fell, and he also wanted to show he was at least as brave as the man who held it now. Spinello grinned as he ran past craters and corpses and dead beasts. He'd expected nothing less. Algarvians were like that.