“True enough.” Rathar looked around, too. Herborn was one of the oldest towns in Unkerlant. An Algarvian merchant prince—or, some said, an Algarvian bandit chief—had set himself up here as king in the land more than eight hundred years before. Ever since, the city had had an Algarvian look to it, though a native dynasty soon supplanted the foreigners. Extravagantly ornamented, skyward-leaping towers always put visitors in mind of places farther east.
In the battles for Herborn, though—when the Algarvians took it from Unkerlant in the first months of the war, and now when King Swemmel’s soldiers took it back—a lot of those skyward-leaping towers had been groundward-falling. Others yet stood but looked as if they’d had chunks bitten out of them. Still others were only fire-ravaged skeletons of what they had been.
The stink of stale smoke lingered in the air. So did the stink of death. That would have been worse had the weather been warmer.
It was still too warm to suit Rathar. “I wish we’d have a blizzard,” he grumbled. “That’d make his Majesty put things off.” He cast a hopeful eye westward, the direction from which bad weather was likeliest to come. But none looked like coming today.
Vatran shook his head. “For one thing, his Majesty doesn’t give a fart if all the Algarvian captives he’s got—well, all but one—freeze to death while he’s parading’ern.”
“I know that,” Rathar said impatiently. “But he wouldn’t care to go up on a reviewing stand and watch’em in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“Mm, maybe not,” Vatran allowed. “Still and all, though, if he put things off, it’d give the redheads longer to find out what we’re about.”
That made Rathar nod, however little he wanted to. “Aye, you’re right,” he said. “If we have to do it, we’d best get it over with as soon as may be. If the king will—”
Vatran gave him a shot in the ribs with an elbow. The general had known him a long time, but that didn’t excuse such uncouth familiarity. Rathar started to say so, in no certain terms. Then he too saw King Swemmel coming up, surrounded by a squad of hard-faced bodyguards. He bowed very low. “Your Majesty,” he murmured. Beside him, Vatran did the same.
“Marshal. General,” Swemmel said. He wore a tunic and cloak of military cut but royal splendor. even in the wan winter sunlight, their threadwork of cloth-of-gold, their encrusting pearls and rubies and polished, faceted chunks of jet glittered dazzlingly. So did the heavy crown on his head. He waved. “We are pleased with the aspect of this, our city of Herborn.”
“Your Majesty?” This time, Rathar exclaimed in astonishment. Swemmel’s guards caught the tone. Their faces went harder yet. Several of them growled, down deep in their throats, like any wolves. They knew lese majesty when they heard it.
But the king, for once, felt expansive enough to overlook it. He waved again. “Aye, we are pleased,” he repeated. “Most of all are we pleased with that.” He pointed to the tallest surviving tower of the duke’s palace, the palace that had been Raniero’s till not long before. Unkerlant’s banner—white, black, and crimson—fluttered above it.
“Ah.” Rathar nodded, as he had to Vatran. Now he understood what Swemmel meant. Hoping to take advantage of his sovereign’s good humor, he asked, “Your Majesty, may I say a word?”
Swemmel’s bodyguards growled again. Whatever Rathar was about to say, they could tell it would be something their master didn’t care to hear. King Swemmel could tell as much, too. “Say on,” he replied, icy warning in his voice.
Most of the king’s courtiers would have found something harmless to ask him after that response. Doing anything else took more nerve than facing the Algarvians in battle. But Rathar would speak his mind every now and then, and did so now: “Your Majesty, what you have planned for the end of the parade—”
“Shall go forward,” King Swemmel broke in. “It is our will. Our will shall assuredly be done.”
“It will make the war harder to fight from now on,” Rathar said. “We’ll see no quarter, not anymore.” He glanced over to Vatran. Vatran plainly wished he hadn’t. But the white-haired general nodded agreement.
Swemmel snapped his fingers. “There is no quarter between us and Algarve now,” he said. “There has been none since Mezentio treacherously hurled his armies across our border.”
That held some truth. But Rathar wondered if Swemmel remembered he’d also been planning to attack the redheads, back three summers before. Much of Mezentio’s treachery lay in striking first. With peasant stubbornness, Rathar tried once more: “Your Majesty …”
Slowly and deliberately, his contempt as vast as it was regal, King Swemmel turned his back. His guards didn’t just growl. They snarled. Without looking at Rathar again, the king said what he’d said before: “Our will shall assuredly be done.” He strode off, not giving his marshal any chance to reply. Some of the guards looked as if they wanted to blaze Rathar for his presumption.
Once they were out of earshot, General Vatran said, “Well, you tried.”
“I know.” Rathar kicked at the ground. It was icy; he almost fell when his booted foot slid more than he’d expected. “I wish he would have listened. Sometimes he does.”
“But not today,” Vatran said.
“No, not today.” Rathar kicked again, more carefully this time. “But we’re the ones who’ll have to pay the price because he didn’t.”
“Hard to imagine how we could pay a price much bigger than we’re paying now,” Vatran said, which also held its share of truth and more.
Broadsheets summoned the people of Herborn to the parade route. Unkerlanter soldiers with megaphones also ordered them out of their homes—those who still had homes standing, at any rate. Watching the men and women coming up to line the street, Rathar wondered how many, not so long before, had waved gold-and-green flags and cheered then-King Raniero. More than a few: of that he was certain. The smart ones would already have burnt those, and whatever else gold and green they owned. If Swemmel’s inspectors found such things, it would go hard on whoever had them.
Rathar’s own place was on the reviewing stand, at his sovereign’s side. It stood not far from the ducal palace, on the edge of Herborn’s central square. That square was smaller than Cottbus’, but large enough and to spare. Grelzers lined the square, too, though guards kept them well away from the reviewing stand.
King Swemmel imperiously raised his arm. “Let us begin!” he cried.
A band began the triumphal parade. Horns and drums blared out the Unkerlanter national hymn. Rathar wondered if the musicians would follow that with the hymn of the Duchy of Grelz, but they didn’t. Maybe Swemmel didn’t want the folk of Herborn thinking about being Grelzers at all, whether inhabitants of a separate duchy or of a separate kingdom. Maybe he just wanted them to think of themselves as belonging to the kingdom of Unkerlant—and maybe he was shrewd to want them to think of themselves so.
Instead of the hymn for the Duchy of Grelz, the band played a medley of patriotic songs that had grown popular in these parts since the Algarvians overran the region. Somebody, Rathar remembered, had said they were written by a local peasant or irregular or something of the sort. He wondered if that was true. It struck him as being too pat for plausibility, and so likelier a tale that came from Cottbus. Swemmel was shrewd enough to come up with something like that, and paid plenty of writers to come up with such things for him.
After the musicians came a regiment of behemoths, their armor clattering upon them, their heavy strides shaking the ground—the timbers of the reviewing stand vibrated beneath Rathar’s feet. Nothing could have been better calculated to overawe folk who still had doubts about whom they wanted to rule over them. What the locals wanted didn’t count for much, of course. King Swemmel had returned, and did not intend to be dislodged again.
And after the behemoths came a great shambling mob of Algarvian captives, herded along by spruced-up Unkerlanter soldiers. A herald bellowed scornfully: “Behold the conquering heroes!” Scrawny, unshaven, filthy, some of t
hem bandaged, all of them in shabby, tattered tunics and kilts, they looked like what they were: men who’d fought a war as hard and as long as they could, fought it and lost it.
In high good humor, Swemmel turned to Rathar and said, “Our mines and quarries shall have labor to spare for years to come.”
“Aye, your Majesty,” the marshal said abstractedly. He was watching the dragons overhead more than the luckless captives. Several of them broke off their spirals and flew east. No Algarvian dragons appeared above Herborn. If any tried to come over the town, the dragons painted rock-gray drove them back.
No Grelzer captives appeared on the streets of Herborn. If Grelzers hadn’t been able to sneak out of the fight and find civilian clothes, they’d seldom left it alive.
An elegant troop of unicorn cavalry followed the mass of Algarvian captives. They were beautiful to look upon, even if not much use in the field. And after them strode the high-ranking Algarvian officers Swemmel’s soldiers had captured in the Herborn pocket: colonels and brigadiers and generals. They were better dressed and better fed than their countrymen of lower estate, but if anything seemed even glummer.
Last of all, separated from them by more tough-looking Unkerlanter footsoldiers, Raniero—briefly King of Grelz—marched all alone. The band, the behemoths, the ordinary captives, the unicorn cavalry, the high Algarvian officers … all left the square in front of the ducal palace. Raniero and his guards remained. Silence fell.
In the midst of that silence, certain servitors of Swemmel’s wheeled a large brass kettle, nearly full of water, into the center of the square. Other servitors piled coal, a great deal of coal, beneath the kettle and lit it. Still others set up a sort of a stand by the kettle; one broad plank projected out over the polished brass vessel. The guards took Raniero up onto the platform, but not yet onto the final plank. Like everyone else, they waited for the water in the kettle to boil.
Raniero had courage. Across the square, he waved to King Swemmel. Rathar murmured, “Your Majesty, I beg you—do not do this thing.”
“Be silent,” Swemmel said furiously. “Be silent, or join him there.” Biting his lip, Rathar was silent.
At length, one of the Unkerlanter soldiers on the platform with Raniero held up his hand. King Swemmel nodded. “Let the usurper perish!” he shouted in a great voice. “Let all who rise against us perish!” He had spoken the identical words when putting his brother Kyot to death at the end of the Twinklings War.
Raniero had courage indeed. Instead of making the guards hurl him into the kettle—as even Kyot had done—he marched out over it, waved to Swemmel again, and with a cry of “Farewell!” leaped into the seething, steaming water.
Courage failed him then, of course. His shrieks ripped through the square, but not for long. Swemmel let out a breathy grunt, as he might have after a woman. “That was fine,” he murmured, his eyes shining. “Aye, very fine indeed.”
Rathar was glad the breeze blew from him toward the kettle, not the other way round. Even so, he did not think he would eat boiled beef or pork again any time soon.
Sidroc stumbled as he came up to the campfire, so that he kicked a little snow onto Sergeant Werferth. Werferth shook a fist at him. “All right, you son of a whore, now you’ve done it!” he shouted. “Just for that, I order you boiled alive!”
“Oh, come off it, Sergeant,” Sidroc said. “I have to be an Algarvian, and a prince to boot, to rate anything so fancy. Why don’t you just blaze me and get it over with?”
“Nah, that’s what the Unkerlanters do to Grelzers they catch,” Werferth said. “You ought to get something juicier.”
Ceorl was cooking some horsemeat and buckwheat groats in his mess tin, using a branch as a handle. He said. “The Unkerlanters are liable to do that to us if they catch us, too. We look too much like them.”
Sidroc plucked at his beard. Unkerlanters shaved. Forthwegians didn’t. When he’d lived in Gromheort, that had seemed plenty to distinguish between his own people and the bumpkins and semisavages of Unkerlant. But when he was in the midst of fighting a war against those bumpkins and semisavages, and when they seldom got a chance to shave because they spent so much time in the field, having a beard didn’t seem enough differentiation.
Not that the Unkerlanters wouldn’t kill him for being a Forthwegian, too. But they sometimes showed mercy to men from Plegmund’s Brigade. To Grelzers who’d fought for King Raniero—dead Raniero now—hardly ever.
Squatting down by the fire, Sidroc said, “Word going around is that we’re getting a counterattack ready.”
“Aye, well, we’d bloody well better do something,” Ceorl said. “If we don’t, they’ll throw us out of Grelz altogether. Maybe we weren’t so cursed smart, joining the Brigade. Looks like Algarve’s losing the war.”
“Shut your trap,” Werferth said flatly. “You’re only lucky it was a couple of your squadmates heard that, not somebody who’d report you.” He eyed Sidroc. Reluctantly, Sidroc nodded to show he wouldn’t. He didn’t like Ceorl, not even a little, but the ruffian was a good man to have along in a brawl.
“Ahh, bugger it.” Ceorl spat into the fire. “What difference does it make? Not a one of us is ever going to get home to Forthweg anyway. Who cares if our side kills us, or the other bastards do?”
Sidroc waited for Werferth to pitch a fit. But the veteran sergeant only sighed. “Odds are you’re right. Powers below eat you for saying so out loud, though.”
“Why?” Ceorl sounded genuinely curious.
“Why? I’ll tell you why,” Werferth answered. “Because we’ve got to go on fighting like we’re on the edge of winning this war, that’s why. Because we’ll get ourselves killed quicker if we don’t, that’s why. Because we still might beat the odds, too, that’s why.”
Ceorl dug into the meat and groats he’d cooked up. His mouth full, he said, “Fat chance.”
“No, I think the sergeant’s right,” Sidroc said.
Ceorl sneered. “Of course you do. He’s arguing with me. If he said the sky was green, you’d figure he was right.”
“Oh, futter yourself,” Sidroc said. “I think he’s right on account of I think he’s right, and on account of the Algarvians. They’re sneakier than the Unkerlanters, and they’re smarter, too. The war’s not over yet, not by a long blaze. If they kill enough stinking Kaunians …”
“It won’t make a counterfeit copper’s worth of difference,” Ceorl said. “Swemmel’s boys will just kill as many of their own people as they need to, to even things out. Haven’t we already seen that?”
“Maybe they’ll come up with some other kind of magecraft, then. I don’t know,” Sidroc said. “What I do know is, one Algarvian is worth two or three Unkerlanters. We’ve seen that plenty of times. Powers above, one of us is worth two or three of Swemmel’s men, too.”
“Of course we are,” Ceorl said—had he said anything else, he would have had Werferth arguing with him again, too. “Trouble is, one of us is worth two or three Unkerlanters, and then that fourth or fifth Unkerlanter ups and kicks us in the balls. We’ve seen that plenty of times, too—tell me we haven’t.”
Sidroc grunted. He couldn’t tell Ceorl any such thing, and he knew it. He gave the best comeback he could: “They’ve got to run out of soldiers sooner or later.”
“Sooner would be better,” Sergeant Werferth said.
Neither Ceorl nor Sidroc wanted to quarrel with that. Not far away, a sentry called out a challenge in Algarvian. All three men by the fire grabbed for their sticks, not that those had been very far away. The answer came back in Algarvian, too. Neither Sidroc, Werferth, nor Ceorl relaxed. For one thing, the Unkerlanters sometimes found soldiers who could speak the language of their enemies. For another, Algarvians who didn’t know the men of Plegmund’s Brigade went right on taking them for Unkerlanters.
Not this time, though, not even when the sentry let out a happy yelp in Forthwegian—“Behemoths!”—that the redheads could easily have taken for Unkerlanter. Sidroc and his
comrades exclaimed in delight. Behemoths with Algarvians aboard them had been too rare since so many died trying to smash their way through the Durrwangen bulge.
“I wonder who’s going short so the beasts can come here,” Werferth said.
“I don’t, Sergeant,” Sidroc answered. “I don’t even care. All I know is, for once we’re not going to go short.”
“That’s right, by the powers above,” Ceorl said. Not for the first time, having Ceorl agree with him made Sidroc wonder if he was wrong.
On snowshoes, the behemoths’ strides were surprisingly quiet. The white surcoats the beasts wore—the equivalent of the soldiers’ snow smocks—helped muffle the clank and clatter of their chainmail. But they drew the men of Plegmund’s Brigade and their Algarvian officers just the same.
And the Algarvians who crewed the behemoths retained the cheerful arrogance of earlier days. They waved to the Forthwegians as if to younger brothers. “You boys come along with us,” one of them called, “and we’ll do a proper job of smashing up the Unkerlanters.”
“That’s right,” said a redhead on a different behemoth. “They haven’t got a chance of standing up against us once we get rolling. You know that.”
Sidroc knew nothing of the sort. What he knew was that, had the war been going just the way the Algarvians wanted, Plegmund’s Brigade would never have come to the front line at all. It would have stayed in Grelz hunting irregulars, as it had started out doing. Well, now it was back in Grelz after a year and more of some of the most desperate fighting in the war, and it was facing the full weight of King Swemmel’s army.
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