Rathar undid the stopper, sniffed, and then coughed. "That's strong, all right." He poured some into the tea and handed the flask back to General Vatran. With caution exaggerated enough to make Vatran laugh, he raised the mug to his lips. "Ahh!" he said. "Well, you're right. That's the straight goods."
"You bet it is. It'll put hair on your chest." Vatran pulled open the neck of his tunic and peered down at himself. "Works for me, anyway." Rathar knew Vatran had a thick thatch of white hair there. Most Unkerlanter men were pretty hairy. Of course, most Unkerlanter men drank a good deal, too. Maybe the one had something to do with the other.
Vatran said, "All right, now that we're inside Grelz, what does the king want us to do next?"
"Purify the land," he said," Rathar answered, and took another sip of tea. He coughed again. "Pouring these spirits over it ought to do the trick there." While Vatran laughed once more, the marshal went on, "Past that, he didn't give any detailed orders."
"Good," Vatran murmured-but only after glancing around to make sure Ysolt was out of earshot. Rathar nodded. He hated nothing worse than Swemmel's trying to direct the campaign from Cottbus. The king often couldn't resist sticking his
oar in, but he usually made things worse, not better. In more normal tones, Vatran asked, "What have you got in mind, then?"
"I want to strike for Herborn," Rathar said.
That made Vatran's bushy white eyebrows fly up toward his hairline. Rathar had been sure it would, which was one of the reasons he hadn't mentioned it till now. "During the fall mud-time, lord Marshal?" Vatran said. "Do you really think we've got a chance of bringing it off?"
"I do, by the powers above," Rathar answered, "and one of the reasons I do is that the Algarvians won't think we'd dare try. We're better in the mud, the same as we're better in the snow. We have to be. We deal with them every year. If we can crack the crust and get a couple of columns moving fast, we can cut off a lot of redheads."
"That's the game they like to play against us," Vatran said.
"It's a good game," Rathar said. "And I'll tell you something else, too: it's a lot more fun when you're on the giving end than when you've got to take it."
"That's the truth!" Vatran boomed. "Getting our own back feels pretty c ursed good; bugger me if it doesn't. But speaking of buggers, what about the Grelzers? They're flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. They know what to do in mud and snow, even if Mezentio's men don't."
Rathar cursed. "You're right," he said reluctantly. "But I still think we can do it. From everything we've seen, the Grelzers are just footsoldiers. They're light on horses and unicorns, they haven't got any behemoths the scouts have seen, and they haven't got much in the way of egg-tossers. The redheads have been using 'em to hold down the countryside, not to do any real fighting. Send General Gurmun through 'em with a column of behemoths and they'll shatter like glass."
"Here's hoping." Vatran rubbed his chin, considering. "It could be, I suppose. You're really going to try it?"
"Aye, I'm really going to try it. Even if it doesn't go the way we hope it will, the Algarvians can't knock us back very far." Rathar cocked his head to one side in some astonishment, listening to what he'd just said.
Vatran's face bore a bemused look, too. "You know, I think you may be right," he said. "That's what the cursed redheads were saying about us a couple of years ago."
"I know," Rathar said. "They turned out to be wrong. We have to keep hammering them. That's the best hope we've got of turning out to be right." He nodded to himself. "Sure enough: I'm going for Herborn."
"Command me, then, lord Marshal," Vatran said. "If you've got the stomach for pushing forward even through mud, I'll help you ram the knife home."
"Good," Rathar told him. "I'll need all the help I can-" He broke off and turned toward the front door, through which a panting young lieutenant of crystallomancers had just come. "Hello! What's this about?"
"Lord Marshal." The young officer saluted. "We're getting reports from the front that the Algarvians have started pulling some of their units out of the line and taking them back to the east."
"What?" Rathar exclaimed. "Why in blazes are they doing that? Have they forgotten they're still fighting us?"
"I don't know why, sir," the crystallomancer said. "I just know what's reported to me."
"Well, whatever the reason-" Rathar smacked his fist into the palm of his other hand. "Whatever the reason, we'll make 'em pay for it."
Seventeen
“Come on, my beauty." Cornelu urged his leviathan forward as if he were urging a lover into his bedchamber. "Come on, my sweet." He stroked, he caressed, he cajoled, trying to get every bit of speed he could out of the beast.
And the leviathan gave him everything he asked, which was more than he could say about Janira back in Setubal. On it swam, toward Sibiu, toward-if the powers above proved kind-a return from exile after close to three and a half bitter years.
"This time," he murmured, "this time I won't swim up onto Tirgoviste because I had my mount killed out from under me. This time, this time" -he caressed the words, too-"if the powers above be kind, I'm coming home to a free kingdom. A freed kingdom, anyhow."
He ordered the leviathan up into a tailstand so he could see farther. There straight ahead lay Sigisoara, the easternmost of Sibiu's five main islands. He wished he'd been ordered to Tirgoviste, but his wishes counted for nothing in the eyes of the Lagoan Admiralty. And there, coming along every ley line that bore on the islands of Sibiu from east, southeast, and south, glided perhaps the largest fleet the world had ever seen: Sibian and Kuusaman warships of every size shepherding transports full of soldiers. Cornelu's was but one of a pod of leviathans helping to protect both the transports and the warships.
And there overhead, also warding the grand fleet from Algarvian attack, flew the greatest swarm of dragons Cornelu had ever seen. He didn't know how it measured in the historical scheme of things. He did know he'd never seen so many dragons accompanying a naval expedition. He couldn't imagine how the Lagoans and Kuusamans had got so many of the huge, fractious beasts aboard ship.
All at once, as if drawn by a lodestone, his head swung to the left, toward the south. He stroked the leviathan, commanding it to stay up on its tail longer so he could get a better look. At first, his hand went to the rubber pouch he wore on his belt-he intended to get out his crystal and scream a warning to the fleet. Of all things the ships didn't need, a great, drifting iceberg in their midst was among the worst.
After a moment, though, he realized the iceberg wasn't drifting. Instead, it glided east along the ley line under at least as much control as a cruiser. Its upper surface wasn't sharp and jagged, as it would have been in nature, but low and smooth and flat. Even as Cornelu watched, a dragon landed on the ice and two more, both painted in Lagoan scarlet and gold, took off. A chunk of ice that size could carry a lot of dragons-aye, and their handlers, too.
For a couple of heartbeats, Cornelu simply gaped at that. Then he remembered a name he'd heard on his journey down to the mages' base at the eastern edge of the land of the Ice People. "Habakkuk!" he exclaimed. He didn't know that that name went with the iceberg-turned-dragon-hauler, but it struck him as a good bet. What else but ice would those mages have been working on, down there on the austral continent?
He still had no idea why they'd had him bring egg casings full of sawdust to their base. If I ever see one of them again, I'll have to ask, he thought.
Right now, he had more urgent things to worry about. He let his leviathan slide back down into the sea, which it did with an indignant wriggle that told him it thought he'd made it stand on its tail far too long. "I am sorry," he told it. "You don't understand how strange that iceberg is."
The leviathan wriggled again, as if to say, An iceberg is an iceberg. What else can it be? Up till he'd seen this one, Cornelu would have thought the same thing. Now he saw that the question had a different answer, but it wasn't one he could explain to his mount.
With a sna
p of its toothy jaws, the leviathan gulped down a squid as long as his arm. Then it swam on. Did it think Cornelu had arranged the treat? He didn't know-it couldn't tell him-but it didn't complain when, a few minutes later, he ordered it to lift its head, and him, high out of the water again.
Sigisoara island was closer now, close enough to let him see flashes of light and puffs of smoke as eggs burst near its south-and east-facing beaches. Boatloads of Kuusaman and Lagoan soldiers were leaving the transports and making for those beaches. Cornelu yelled himself hoarse as the leviathan sank back into the sea.
Tears stung his eyes, tears that felt more astringent than the endless miles of salt water all around. "At last," he murmured. "By the powers above, at last." He wished the Sibians could have freed themselves. That failing, having others- even having Lagoans-restore their freedom struck him as good enough. He shook a fist to the northwest, in the direction of Trapani. Take that, Mezentio, he thought. Aye, take that and more besides.
Here and there, eggs burst among the oncoming boats. Some of the Algarvians still on Sibiu were trying to give rather than take. An Algarvian dragon swooped down on a landing boat, flamed all the Lagoans in it, and left it burning on the water. A couple of Kuusaman dragons drove the enemy beast away, but too late, too late.
Still, Mezentio's men weren't putting up much of a fight. More than a year and a half before, Cornelu had been part of the force that raided Sibiu to distract the Algarvians while another fleet carried a Lagoan army to the land of the Ice People. Then the enemy had hit back hard. Had that raid been an invasion, it would have failed miserably.
Now... Now the Algarvians didn't seem to have so much with which to strike the invaders. Cornelu had seen as much on his last trip to Sibiu on leviathanback. His laugh was hard and cold. "That's what you get for taking on Unkerlant," he said, and laughed again.
Algarve had been recruiting Sibians to help fight its battles when he was there. He supposed they would mostly have gone to Unkerlant, too, the fools. How many of them crouched low in holes in the ground along with their Algarvian overlords, looking at vengeance here out on the ocean? However many traitors there were, Cornelu wished he could kill them all himself. Since he couldn't, he hoped the dragons overhead, the eggs tossed from the warships ashore, and the soldiers landing on the beaches would do the job for him.
He'd had his hopes dashed too many times in this war: his hopes for how the war would go, his hopes for his kingdom, his hopes for his marriage and his happiness. He was afraid to have hopes any more, for fear something would go wrong and ruin them anew.
Did King Burebistu have hopes? Like Gainibu of Valmiera, he'd been an Algarvian captive the past three years and more. Like Gainibu, he probably counted himself lucky that Mezentio hadn't booted him off the throne and replaced him with some Algarvian royal relative he wanted to get out of his hair. What was the King of Sibiu doing now? Something useful? Rallying the people in the palace against the Algarvian occupiers? Maybe. If Sibiu was lucky, just maybe.
But then Cornelu stopped worrying about Burebistu or anything farther away than the Algarvian ley-line frigate sliding down from the north toward the landing boats. Its egg-tossers and heavy sticks tore at the invaders; no Lagoan or Kuusaman warships were close enough to deal with it right away.
"I am," Cornelu said, and then, to his leviathan, "We are." He urged his mount forward. The frigate was faster than the leviathan, but if he could get to the ley line ahead of the sh ip's path and wait... If he could do that, he might give a good many of Mezentio's men a very thin time of it indeed.
He slid under the leviathan's belly, ready to loosen the egg slung there and fasten it to the frigate's hull. But he reached the ley line just too late; the frigate had already glided past. He couldn't even curse, not underwater, but red rage filled his thoughts.
As much from rage as for any other reason, he ordered the leviathan after the ley-line frigate. As long as the frigate kept going, it would leave the leviathan behind; it was, after all, steel and sorcery, not mere flesh and blood. But the frigate slowed when it got in among the landing boats. With so many targets all around, its captain wanted to make sure he missed none. Eggs started bursting near the frigate from ships that had seen the danger to the soldiers, but none struck home.
If one of those eggs burst too close to the leviathan, it could do as much harm as if the Algarvians tossed it. That was Cornelu's first thought. His second was, If one of those eggs bursts too close to me... But he had his duty, and a fine warm hatred of Mezentio's men to boot. He urged the leviathan forward.
"Now," he muttered, and tapped out the intricate signal that ordered the animal to dive deep and come up under the frigate's hull. When it did, he was waiting. He freed the egg from its sling and attached it to the Algarvian warship. Sorcery and lodestones held it to the ship. He sent the leviathan away as fast as it would go.
More eggs burst close by, which frightened it into swimming faster. He was glad it did. That meant it had got plenty far away when the egg he'd affixed to the frigate burst. It was a larger egg than the ones being tossed; Cornelu had no doubt which one it was. He urged the leviathan to the surface and looked back. When he saw the ley-line frigate sinking with a broken back, he pumped a fist in the air and shouted, "Take that, you son of a whore!"
A moment later, a puff of steam roiled the seawater by him, and then another and another. Soldiers in the surviving landing boats were blazing at him, not sure whose side he was on and not inclined to take chances finding out. He ordered the leviathan to submerge once more. He didn't suppose he could blame the Kuusamans and Lagoans bobbing on the sea. Blame them or not, though, he didn't want them killing him.
They blazed at him again when the leviathan surfaced once more, but by then he was too far away for their beams to be dangerous. And by then, he was cheering again, for boats were beaching themselves on Sigisoara and soldiers scrambling out of them. He approved of the soldiers, as long as they were going after the Algarvians and not him.
More Algarvian patrol boats came forth, these from the harbor at Lehliu, the port on the southeast coast of Sigisoara. None got close enough to do the landing boats any harm, though their crews pressed the attack with typical Algarvian dash and courage. Kuusaman dragons sank a couple, while well- positioned warships wrecked the rest.
As the day drew to a close, Cornelu used his crystal to call the Lagoan officer in charge of leviathan patrols: the very man, as it happened, who'd introduced the plan for the attack on Sibiu to him and his fellow exiles in the Admiralty offices in Setubal. "How do we fare, sir?" Cornelu asked. "I am not going to approach a ley-line cruiser to try to find out. The sailors would slay me before they bothered asking questions."
"You think so, eh?" the Lagoan said-in Algarvian, which probably gave his security mages nightmares. "Well, you're probably right. We fare very well, as a matter of face. Mezentio's men weren't expecting us-weren't expecting us at all, by every sign we can gather. Sigisoara and Tirgoviste are ours already, or near enough as makes no difference. We'll hold all five islands by this time tomorrow, and we'll be able to hold them against anything Algarve is likely to throw at us. As far as I can see, Commander, your kingdom's on the way to being free."
Would Sibiu truly be free, with Lagoan and Kuusaman soldiers holding the Algarvians at bay? It was bound to be freer. For now, that would do. "Powers above be praised," Cornelu said. "I can go home again." He could, aye. He needed a moment to remember that he might not want to.
***
An early fall rain-early for Bishah, at any rate-had turned the road between Hajjaj's estate in the hills and the capital of Zuwayza to mud. The foreign minister was almost perfectly content to stay where he was. His contentment would have been complete had the roof not developed a couple of what seemed like inevitable leaks.
"There ought to be an ordinance against roofers, as against any other frauds and cheats," he fumed. "And, of course, they can't come out to fix the damage till the rain stops, at which poi
nt no one needs them anymore." He was content to be isolated from Bishah, aye. He didn't care so much to have Bishah isolated from him.
His majordomo didn't point that out. Instead, Tewfik said, "Well, young fellow, it's not so bad as it could be. When you get as old as I am, you'll realize that." Hajjaj was no youngster himself-was anything but a youngster, in fact. But he was likely to be dead by the time he got as old as Tewfik. The family servitor looked ready to go on forever.
A younger, sprier servant came up to them and told Hajjaj, "Your Excellency, your secretary would speak to you by crystal."
"I'm coming," Hajjaj said. "Run on ahead and tell him I'll be right there." The servant, perhaps a third of Hajjaj's age, hurried away. The Zuwayzi foreign minister followed at a more stately pace. Stately, he thought. That's a pretty- sounding word old men use when they mean slow.
Hajjaj's back twinged when he sat down on the carpet in front of the crystal. "Hello, your Excellency," Qutuz said from out of the globe of glass. "How are you today?"
Turtledove, Harry - Darkness 04 - Rulers Of The Darkness Page 62
