Rulers of the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  Another irregular hurried into the clearing with word of the advancing Grelzers. That seemed to decide the men and the handful of women there against arguing with Munderic. They left the clearing by ones and twos, slipping deeper into the woods. Munderic gestured to Garivald, who nodded. They hurried out together.

  “We’ve played these games before,” Munderic said. “Remember the fun we had when the Algarvians tried to chase us out of here?”

  “Oh, aye,” Garivald answered. “I’m not likely to forget—I was part of it, after all.”

  But befooling the Algarvians in summer, when trees in full leaf gave extra cover and when dirt didn’t hold tracks so well, was a business different from confusing Grelzer soldiers here in winter, where the trees were bare and when snow on the ground told trackers too much. Maybe Munderic didn’t want to think about that. Maybe he just didn’t believe the irregulars could make a standup fight. And maybe he was right not to believe that, too.

  If he was, though, what did that say about how much good the irregulars were doing in their fight against Algarve and her puppets? Maybe Garivald didn’t want to think about that.

  Munderic pointed to a snow-covered boulder. “Shall we flop down behind that and pot ourselves a couple of those Grelzer traitors if they try and come after us?”

  “Aye. Why not?” Garivald said. “I wondered if you intended to do any fighting.”

  “Oh, I’ll fight … now and again,” Munderic answered, not much put out. “I’ll fight when I can hurt the enemy and he can’t do much to hurt me. Or I’ll fight when I haven’t got any other choice. Otherwise, I’ll run like a rabbit. I’m not doing this for the glory of it.”

  There he sounded very much like an Unkerlanter peasant—or perhaps like a soldier who’d been in enough fights to realize he didn’t want to be in a whole lot more. Garivald stretched out behind the boulder. Munderic had certainly been in enough fights to know good cover when he saw it. Garivald barely had to lift his head to have a perfect view of the route by which the pursuers would likely come—and they would have a demon of a time spotting him.

  By the happy grunt Munderic let out from the other side of the boulder, his position was just as good. “We’ll sting them here, so we will,” he said.

  “You could have Sadoc make a great magic and sweep the Grelzers to destruction,” Garivald said, unable to resist the gibe.

  “Oh, shut up,” the leader of the irregulars muttered. He turned his head to glare at Garivald. “All right, curse you, I’ll admit it: he’s a menace when he tries to do magecraft. There. Are you happy?”

  “Happier, anyhow.” But Garivald didn’t have long to celebrate his tiny triumph—he spied motion through the dancing snow and flattened himself behind the rock. “They’re coming.”

  “Aye.” Munderic must have seen it, too: his voice dropped to a thin thread of whisper. “We’ll make them pay.”

  The Grelzers advanced as confidently as if they’d taken lessons in arrogance from their Algarvian overlords. Garivald thought Munderic would tell him to wait, not to hurry, to let the enemy come close before he started blazing. But Munderic kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t because the Grelzers were already so close, he’d give himself away; they weren’t. It was, Garivald realized after a long moment’s silence, because he himself had turned into a veteran, and could be trusted to do the right thing without being told.

  He waited. Then he waited some more. We’ll know what kind of soldiers they are as soon as the blazing starts, he thought. That made him want to wait even longer. Not knowing, he could imagine that the men who followed the Algarvian-imposed King of Grelz were a pack of cowards who’d run right away. The last thing he cared to do was discover he was wrong.

  At last, he couldn’t wait anymore. A couple of soldiers with white smocks over the dark green of Grelz were within ten or twelve paces of the boulder. They were looking off into the trees farther west; if they hadn’t been, they surely would have spotted Munderic or him.

  Garivald slipped his finger out through the hole in his mitten and into the blazing hole on his stick. The beam leaped forth. It caught a Grelzer square in the chest. He stopped as abruptly as if he’d walked into a stone wall, then crumpled. Munderic blazed his companion, not so neatly—the second Grelzer started howling like a dog a wagon had run over and tried to drag himself away. Munderic blazed him again. He shuddered and lay still.

  “Urra!” the irregulars in the rear guard shouted as they started blazing down the men who’d invaded their forest. “King Swemmel! Urra!” If they made as much noise as they could, the Grelzers might think they had more men than they really did.

  They were blazing from ambush, every one of them, and took their foes by surprise. A good many Grelzers went down. But the others dashed for cover with a speed that warned they had a good notion of what they were doing. They raised shouts of their own: “Raniero of Grelz!” “Death to Swemmel the tyrant!” “Grelz and freedom!”

  “Grelz and the Algarvians’ cock up your arse!” Garivald yelled back—not a splendid song lyric, but a fine insult. A Grelzer, shouting with fury, hopped up from behind the bush where he crouched. Garivald blazed him. He’d never been trained in the proper response to literary criticism, but had considerable natural talent.

  A beam sizzled snow not far from Garivald’s head: one of the critic’s comrades, protesting his sudden abridgement. Garivald blazed back, making the Grelzer keep his head down. Then he glanced over at Munderic. “Most of the band will have slid off to some other hidey-holes. Don’t you think it’s about time we did the same?”

  “Aye, we’d better,” Munderic agreed. “Otherwise they’ll flank us out and rip us to pieces. The redheads would, and these whoresons have been taking lessons.”

  Garivald scrambled back toward a pine. More beams sent up gouts of steam as the Grelzers tried to make sure he’d sing no more songs. But he made it to the tree, scuttled behind it, and started blazing at Raniero’s men again.

  Munderic had waited till Garivald could cover him before retreating himself. The leader of the irregulars dashed off toward a bush thickly covered with snow. He never made it. A beam caught him in the flank as he ran. He let out a horrible scream and fell in the snow. He crawled on for another few feet, leaving a long trail of scarlet behind him. Then, as if very tired, he let his hands slip out from under him and sprawled at full length. He might have been lying down to sleep, but from this sleep he would not awaken.

  Cursing, Garivald blundered west through the forest, blazing now and then but also doing his best to shake off the Grelzers. He finally did; they weren’t cowards, but the irregulars knew the routes they’d made through these woods better than they did. Munderic’s men had made false trails, too, and punished the Grelzers from ambush when they came charging down them.

  Every time he came on some of his fellows, Garivald had to tell them Munderic was dead. It tore at him; he hadn’t had such a hard time speaking of a death since his own father’s. At least, near sundown, the irregulars—those who survived—gathered in a clearing well to the west of the one they’d called their own. Garivald started to say something. Then he saw all of them looking straight at him. “Not me!” he exclaimed, but his comrades nodded as one man. He never would have joined a band of irregulars on his own, but now he led one.

  Six

  Come on!” Sergeant Werferth shouted.”Keep moving. That’s what we’ve got to do, keep moving. We’re calling the tune now, not those Unkerlanter barbarians. Shake a leg, boys, or you’ll be sorry.”

  “Slave driver,” Sidroc muttered to Ceorl as they tramped south and west over a field in southern Unkerlant. “All he needs is a whip.”

  “Shut up, boy,” the ruffian answered. “Don’t give him ideas.” But he didn’t sound so sour as usual. Plegmund’s Brigade was moving forward for the first time in weeks, and that made up for a multitude of failings.

  “There.” Werferth pointed to a couple of troops of Algarvian behemoths up ahead. “We’ll form u
p with them.”

  “If they don’t try and blaze us or toss eggs at us first, we will,” Ceorl said, and spat in the snow. “Half the time, these fornicating idiots think we’re Unkerlanters our own selves.” He spat again, as offended as any Forthwegian would be to get mistaken for his cousins to the west.

  Sidroc made such excuses for the Algarvians as he could: “Some of these fellows we’re seeing here at the front don’t look like they ever set eyes on an Unkerlanter before, let alone a Forthwegian. They’ve been doing occupation duty somewhere off in the east.”

  “Powers below eat’em for it, too,” Ceorl said. “They’ve been eating and drinking and screwing themselves silly, and we’ve been doing their fighting and dying for them. About time they started earning their cursed keep.”

  “Aye, that’s so,” Sidroc admitted. “It won’t do us much good if they do decide we’re Unkerlanters, though.”

  For a moment, it looked as if the behemoth crews would think the men shouting and waving and advancing on them belonged to the enemy. Only when the Algarvian officers leading the Forthwegians came out in front of them did the redheads on the behemoths relax … a little.

  “Plegmund’s Brigade?” one of them said as Sidroc and his comrades approached. “What in the futtering blazes is Plegmund’s Brigade? Sounds like a futtering disease, that’s what.” A couple of the other troopers on the behemoth laughed and nodded.

  Not bothering to keep his voice down, Sidroc asked Werferth, “Sergeant, can we whale the stuffing out of these redheaded fools before we go on and deal with the Unkerlanters?”

  With what looked like real regret, Werferth shook his head. Since Sidroc had spoken in Forthwegian, the Algarvians aboard the behemoth didn’t know what he’d said. But one of the redheaded officers with the Brigade said what amounted to the same thing—“We’ll show you what we are, by the powers above!”—and said it in unmistakable Algarvian.

  Sidroc stood very straight, his chest swelling with pride. But Ceorl only grunted. “That means they’ll spend us the way a rich whore spends coppers. They’ll throw us away to prove we’re brave.”

  “Bite your tongue, curse it!” Werferth exclaimed. Sidroc was scowling, too; Ceorl’s words had a horrid feel of probability to them.

  The soldiers of Plegmund’s Brigade had to march hard to keep up with the advancing behemoths. “Bastards would slow down a little for their own kind,” Sidroc grumbled.

  “Maybe,” Werferth said. “But maybe not, too. Getting there fast counts in this business.”

  War had already swept its red-hot rake over the countryside, swept it coming and going. All the villages had been fought over, most of them twice, some, by their look, more often than that. The Unkerlanter soldiers based in the ruined villages seemed astonished to find King Mezentio’s men moving forward once more.

  Astonished or not, the Unkerlanters fought hard. From everything Sidroc had seen, they always did. But footsoldiers without behemoths were at a great disadvantage facing footsoldiers with them. Sidroc had already had his nose rubbed in that lesson. Before long, and at small cost, they cleared several villages, one after the other.

  “Forward!” shouted the Algarvian officers attached to Plegmund’s Brigade. “Forward!” shouted the officers who led the behemoths. Across the snowy fields, Sidroc saw Algarvian footsoldiers moving forward, too.

  “We’ve doubled back around the Unkerlanters,” he said in considerable excitement. “If we can cut them off, we’ll give’em a good kick in the arse.”

  “Thanks, Marshal Sidroc,” Ceorl said. “I’m sure you’ll be telling King Mezentio where to go and what to do one fine day.”

  “I’ll tell you where to go and what to do when the powers below drag you down there,” Sidroc retorted.

  And that was plenty to set Ceorl off. “Don’t you talk to me like that, you son of a whore,” he snarled. “You talk to me like that, I’ll cut your fornicating heart out and eat it with onions.”

  Back in the Brigade’s training camp, Ceorl had frightened the whey out of Sidroc. He was a robber, likely a murderer, and Sidroc had led a quiet, prosperous life till the war turned everything on its head. But a lot had changed since the Brigade came to Unkerlant. Sidroc had seen and done things every bit as dreadful as anything Ceorl had done. He looked at the ruffian and said, “Come ahead. I’ll give you all you want.”

  Ceorl snarled again and grabbed for his knife. “Stop that, you stupid buggers, or you’ll answer to the redheads,” Sergeant Werferth growled. “After we win the war, you two can do whatever you want to each other, and I won’t care a fart’s worth. Till then, you’re stuck with each other.”

  Sidroc kept his hand on his own knife hilt till he saw Ceorl lower his. As the Forthwegians marched on, he kept watching his countryman. In spite of Werferth’s order, he didn’t trust Ceorl. Ceorl was watching him, too. The way he watched reassured Sidroc—it wasn’t contemptuous, but a look that said Ceorl had something to worry about, and knew it.

  Werferth was watching both of them. “Powers above, you lackwits, show some sense,” he said after about half a mile. “What’s the point in going after each other when the Unkerlanters are liable to do worse to you than either one of you could dream of?”

  That held an unpleasant amount of sense. Sidroc saw as much at once. For a wonder, Ceorl saw it, too. The frozen, twisted corpses lying in the snow they passed made it easier for Werferth to get his point across.

  Someone up ahead shouted and pointed. There were more Unkerlanters, tramping south across the plains. They had a few behemoths with them, but only a few. Officers’ whistles squealed in Plegmund’s Brigade and among the Algarvians. The same order rang out among them all: “Forward!”

  Swemmel’s men, intent on their retreat, didn’t notice the attack developing against their flank till too late. Sidroc soon discovered why: they were falling back under pursuit from the north. Eggs burst among them, kicking up puffs of snow and knocking over footsoldiers and a couple of behemoths. One of the behemoths, to his disappointment, scrambled back to its feet, though without most of its crew.

  His comrades and he flopped down in the snow and started blazing at the Unkerlanters. The Algarvian behemoths plastered them with more eggs. Beams from heavy sticks seared three Algarvian behemoths in quick succession. They also sent up great gouts of steam when they bit into the snow.

  “Forward!” the officers cried, and the men of Plegmund’s Brigade, along with their Algarvian allies, got up again and rushed toward the enemy.

  We’re going to get killed, Sidroc thought, even as he slogged through the snow. He’d seen Unkerlanter troops fierce in attack and stubborn in defense. Now, for once, he saw them taken by surprise and panic-stricken. A few of the men in rock-gray tunics stood their ground and blazed at the Algarvians and Forthwegians, but more simply fled. Quite a few threw their hands in the air and surrendered.

  “You’re a Grelzer?” one of those asked Sidroc as Sidroc stole his weapon and money and food. Unkerlanter and Forthwegian were cousins; Sidroc had no great trouble understanding the question.

  “No. Plegmund’s Brigade,” he answered. That didn’t seem to mean anything to the captive. Well, we’ll make it mean something to these whoresons, Sidroc thought. He gestured with his stick. The Unkerlanter, hands still high, headed north, away from the fighting. Sooner or later, someone would take charge of him. He was far from the only captive who needed to be gathered in.

  King Swemmel’s soldiers kept running. A few tried to make a stand in a little village in the path of Plegmund’s Brigade, but the Forthwegians were so close behind them, they got in among the houses at almost the same time as the Unkerlanters did.

  Shrieks from a couple of peasant huts brought howls of delight from the men of the Brigade. “Women!” somebody yelled, as if those screams needed to be identified. Either the local peasants had never left this place or they’d returned, thinking men who fought for Mezentio would never come so far again. If that was what they’d though
t, they’d miscalculated.

  They’d also given the Forthwegians one more reason to finish off the enemy soldiers in the village as fast as they could. The Unkerlanters wouldn’t have lasted long anyhow, not when they were badly outnumbered and unable to form a defensive line. As things were, they vanished as if they had never been.

  And then the other hunt was on. By twos and threes, the men of Plegmund’s Brigade hammered down the door to every hut in the village.

  Only an ancient woman and an even more ancient man stared in horror as Sidroc and Ceorl and another trooper burst into the hut where they’d lived for most if not all of their lives. Ceorl stared in disgust. “You’re no cursed good!” he exclaimed, and blazed them both.

  But screams and excited shouts from next door sent the men from Plegmund’s Brigade rushing over there. Two of their comrades were holding a woman down while a third pumped between her legs. One of the men holding her looked up and said, “Wait your turn, boys. Won’t be long—we’ve all gone without for a long time.”

  Sidroc took his turn when it came. Back in Gromheort, there were laws against such things. No law here, only winners and losers. The Unkerlanter peasant woman had stopped screaming. Sidroc knelt and thrust and grunted as pleasure shot through him. Then he got to his feet, fixed his drawers, and picked up his stick, which he’d set down for a little while.

  Ceorl took his place. He was glad he’d gone before the ruffian; it made him less likely to need a physician’s services later on.

  Outside, whistles were screeching. Algarvian officers were yelling: “Forward! Come on, you filthy cockhounds!”

  Regretfully, Sidroc left the hut. The chilly wind smote him. Sergeant Werferth waved him south and west. “Did you get any?” Sidroc asked.

  Werferth nodded. “Wouldn’t let it go to waste.”

  With a nod of his own, Sidroc fell in behind the squad leader. The army was advancing. He’d enjoyed the fruits of victory. War didn’t look so bad.