They obeyed without argument. To the farmers, Skarnu deserved to be obeyed because he’d been an officer in JQng Gainibu’s army. They assumed he knew what he was doing. Raunu, who’d taught him everything he did know about fighting, understood how ignorant he remained. But he’d given the right order this time, and so the sergeant kept quiet.
The night was crisp, but not so cold as it had been earlier in the winter. It said spring would come, even if not quite yet. Skarnu was warm enough and to spare in the sheepskin jacket that had been Gedominu’s even if that jacket fit him worse than it might have.
As they drew near Negyu’s farm, Raunu halted them. “All I can do is take us straight up the road,” he said. “One of you fellows who’ve lived here forever will know of some little deer track that’ll lead us right to the whoreson’s back door without the Algarvians’ ever being the wiser about how we got there.”
That produced a low-voiced argument between two of the locals, each convinced he knew the best shortcut. Finally, resentfully, one of them yielded and let the other take Raunu’s place at the head of the little column. “Leave it to me,” the farmer said proudly. “Curse me if I don’t get you there all right.”
Maybe the powers above were listening harder than they were in the habit of doing. In the middle of another dark stretch of wood, a new challenge rang out--this one in Algarvian. Skarnu and his men froze, doing their best not even to breathe. Could he have done so in perfect silence, he would have throttled their know-it-all guide.
“Who going there?” This time, the challenge came in bad, willingly accented Valmieran. Again, Skarnu and his comrades stayed perfectly still. Maybe the Algarvians would decide they’d imagined whatever they’d heard, and would go on their way.
No such luck. After a muttered colloquy, the men from the redheads’ patrol began moving toward the Valmierans who’d come to hurt their pet collaborator. Closer and closer came the footsteps, though Skarnu wasn’t sure he could see the enemy soldiers.
“Who going there?” another redhead called. No one, Skarnu thought loudly. Go away. But the Algarvians kept coming. With a moan of fright, one of the farmers who’d joined Raunu and Merkela and him--the very fellow who’d wanted and won the privilege of leading them to Negyu’s farm--broke and ran. Naturally, the Algarvians started blazing at him. As naturally, the flash from their beams revealed to them that he wasn’t the only Valmieran out breaking the curfew.
Those beams also revealed where some of the Algarvians were. Merkela was the first to blaze at them. A redhead fell with a groan. “Take cover!” Skarnu shouted to his followers, and was proud that his yell came out a split second before Raunu’s.
Then Raunu yelled something else: “Reinforcements, come in from the left!” For a moment, that made no sense to Skarnu, who knew too well that he had no reinforcements. Then he realized the redheads didn’t know he had none.
Fighting by night was a terrifying, deadly dangerous business. Every time anyone blazed, he gave away his position. That meant blazing and then rolling away at once, before an enemy looking for your beam could send one of his own at you. Skarnu had done it at the front against Algarve, back in the days--how distant they seemed now!--when Valmiera could hold a front against Algarve.
He wished he knew about how many Algarvians he was facing now. Not a company, or anything of the sort, or they would have rolled over his little band of raiders without a second thought. His comrades and he had probably been unlucky enough to stumble across a patrol with about as many in it as they had. But the Algarvians, curse them, would be carrying a crystal. They’d have more men here all too soon.
“We’ve got to break away!” he shouted. But he couldn’t slide off into the woods by himself, not without Merkela and Raunu. Keeping low, keeping to what cover he could, he scuttled toward where he thought they were, softly calling, “King Gainibu!”
After a moment, Merkela answered, “Column of Victory.” Then, in no small anger, she added, “You idiot--I almost blazed you.”
“Well, it’s not if you’re the only one trying to,” he answered. “We’d better find Raunu and slide away. We won’t get to Negyu’s tonight, or any time soon.”
“No.” Merkela’s whisper held both ice and fire. “And how did they come upon us just when we were getting so close? Who let them know we were going to visit the traitor?”
That hadn’t occurred to Skarnu. On the battlefield, he’d worried about incompetence and cowardice, not betrayal. But Merkela was right. This was--or could be--a different sort of war.
“King Gainibu!” From the darkness came Raunu’s voice.
This time, Skarnu answered, “Column of Victory.” He went on, “We won’t have a victory this time, though. We’d better disappear--if the redheads let us.”
“No arguments from me,” Raunu said. Had he argued, Skarnu would have thought hard about staying and fighting. But Raunu only let out a glum sigh. “Cursed bad luck we ran into that patrol.”
“Bad luck--or treason?” Merkela asked, as she had with Skarnu. Raunu grunted, almost as if he’d been blazed. Like Skarnu, he’d thought of war as a business where the sides were easy to tell apart. Skarnu realized he’d have to do some new thinking.
After the dreadful weather and hard fighting he’d gone through in Unkerlant, Colonel Sabrino found the mild air and bright sunshine above Trapani a great relief. An even greater relief was knowing that Algarve’s enemies were all hundreds of miles away from the kingdom’s borders, pushed back by the might of King Mezentio’s soldiers--and by the might of his mages, though Sabrino did not like thinking about that so well.
He waved to the dragonfliers of his wing, who’d flown back to Trapani with him, then pointed down toward the dragon farm on the outskirts of the capital. In good weather, with no enemies close by, he didn’t bother using the crystal he carried. Hand signals were plenty good, as they had been back in his great-grandfather’s days when men first began to master the art of flying dragons.
Down spiraled the wing. One after another, the dragons settled to earth. Ground crewmen ran up to chain the fierce and stupid beasts to their mooring stakes. That would keep them from fighting one another for food (foolish, for they all got plenty) or for no reason at all (even more foolish, but then they were dragons).
Sabrino undid his harness and dismounted. His dragon was too busy screaming at the ground crewmen to pay him any attention. Ground felt good under his feet. Being home felt good, too, even if only for a little while. The sunlight, the color of the sky, the green of the new grass that was beginning to sprout--all seemed right to him at a level far below thought. So did the smell of the air, even if one part of the smell was the rank reek of dragonshit.
Captain Domiziano came up to Sabrino. Saluting, the squadron commander said, “Good to get away from the front for a little while, and I’d be the last to deny it. Still and all, I wish we were going back soon. Powers above know the footsoldiers need the help of every dragon they can get in the sky above ‘em.”
“We have different orders,” Sabrino said, and said no more about that: he liked those orders no better than Domiziano did. Instead, he went on, “Almost two and a half years since we flew our dragons out of here to fight the Forthwegians. I stood in the square below the palace balcony listening to the king declare war, then hurried down here fast as I could go. Some way, things have hardly changed since then. Others . . .”
“Aye.” Domiziano’s head bobbed up and down. Pride lit his handsome features. “Then we were the oppressed, the victims of the greed of the Kaunian kingdoms. Now we’re the masters of Derlavai.”
That wasn’t what Sabrino had meant, but it wasn’t wrong, either. He didn’t explain what he had meant; he didn’t feel like wasting time talking about it. “I’m going into the city,” he said. “I want to freshen up--I smell like a stinking dragon--and pay some calls. We don’t fly out of here till three days from now. Things shouldn’t fall apart without me around till then.”
“Oh, no,
sir,” said Domiziano, who, as senior surviving squadron leader, would command the wing till Sabrino returned.
“Good.” Sabrino slapped him on the back, then headed for the stables to commandeer a carriage to take him to a ley-line caravan stop: the dragon farm didn’t lie on a ley line. That could occasionally be a nuisance. Now, though, Sabrino enjoyed the chance to relax as he headed toward town.
He was tempted to go to his mistress’ flat and freshen up there. Fronesia would be glad to see him. Since he paid for the flat and gave her lavish presents besides, it was her duty to be glad to see him. But he had duties of his own. If he called on Fronesia before he saw his wife, Gismonda would be furious when she found out, and how could he blame her? She would know he’d go see Fronesia later, but that would be later. He didn’t want to hurt her pride, and so, with an inward sigh, decided to keep up appearances after all.
Trapani, set as it was on a broad, swampy plain in central Algarve, had never belonged to the Kaunian Empire. No one could have guessed that by the public buildings, though. Many of them were in the classical style, most with the marble painted, some left cool and white in the more modern mode. In days gone by, the Algarvians had envied and imitated their Kaunian neighbors. No more. The sharp verticals and extravagant ornamentation of native Algarvian architecture seemed far more natural to Sabrino than anything the blonds had ever built.
He hadn’t sent a message ahead to let his household know he was coming. He hadn’t known he was coming till he got the order to bring his wing east and had had as few stops as he could manage since then. He chuckled as he walked up to his own front door. If the household couldn’t stand a surprise every now and then, too bad. He grabbed the bellpull and yanked with all his might.
“My lord Count!” exclaimed the maidservant who let him in. “My lord Count!” exclaimed one of the kitchen wenches, who, fortunately, didn’t drop the tray she was carrying toward the stairs. “My lord Count!” exclaimed the butler, who, with Gismonda, ran the household when Sabrino was away. Over and over, Sabrino kept agreeing that he was who he was.
“My lord Count!” Gismonda said when he went upstairs with the kitchen wench. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Sabrino bowed and kissed her hand. “Good of you to say so, my dear,” he replied. His wife was a handsome, determined-looking woman not far from his own age. He respected her and liked her well enough. As Algarvian nobles went, they had a tranquil marriage, not least because neither pretended to be in love with the other.
“With things as they are in the west, I truly didn’t expect to have you back in Trapani any time soon,” Gismonda said. No, she was anything but a fool.
“I have new orders. They take me out of Unkerlant,” Sabrino said. His wife asked no more questions. That was only partly because she understood that, as a soldier, he couldn’t tell her everything. More had to do with the polite pretenses and silences noble husbands and wives used to keep their lives tolerable.
Gismonda turned to the kitchen wench. “Fetch us a bottle of sparkling wine and two crystal flutes.” After the girl had gone, Sabrino’s wife looked back at him. “And when did you come to Trapani?”
Have you already gone to your mistress to shame me? was what she meant. She knew how he thought. He’d been wise to come here first: indeed he had. “Not an hour and a half ago,” he replied. “If you sniff, you can smell the brimstone reek of dragon on me yet. I want to make myself presentable before going to the palace.”
Gismonda did sniff--and nodded, satisfied. “Will you take me to the palace?”
With another bow, Sabrino shook his head. “Would that I could, but I may not. I shall not wait on the king for pleasure, but in connection with these orders I have got.”
“Will he change them for you?” his wife asked.
“I doubt it,” Sabrino answered. “He trusts his generals--and he’d better, for if they aren’t to be trusted, powers above preserve the kingdom. But I hope he will let me see some of the sense behind them, if any there be.” Gismonda raised an eyebrow; that let her know what he thought of things.
Better for a hot soak, Sabrino changed into a fresh uniform, one that didn’t bear the effluvium of dragon. Then, after a last nod to his wife, he caught a ley-line caravan for Palace Square, the power point--in more ways than one--at the heart ofTrapani.
Walking into the palace, he felt a curious sense of diminution. Anywhere else in the kingdom and he, a count and a colonel, was a presence of considerable consequence. In the building that housed the king, though ... The servitors gave him precisely measured bows, less than they would have given were he a marquis, much less than they would have given were he a duke.
“His Majesty is not receiving at present,” a gorgeously dressed fellow informed Sabrino. “A reception is planned for later this evening, however. Is your name on the list of invited guests, your Excellency?”
“Not likely, since I was in combat in Unkerlant till day before yesterday, but I’ll be there anyway,” Sabrino answered.
Had the palace official argued with him, Sabrino would have drawn the sword that was for the most part only a ceremonial weapon. But the man nodded, saying, “His Majesty is always pleased to greet members of the nobility who have distinguished themselves in action. If you will please give me your name ...”
Sabrino did, wondering how pleased King Mezentio would be to greet him.
He’d roused the king’s ire by trying to talk him out of slaughtering Kaunian captives to power sorcery against the Unkerlanters. Mezentio had been sure that would win the war. It hadn’t. No king was fond of meeting subjects who could say, “I told you so.”
But there were other things Sabrino wanted to tell Mezentio. And so he nodded his thanks to the splendid flunky and then left the palace to sup and drink a couple of glasses of wine before returning. When he came back, he wondered if the servitor had just been getting rid of him. But no: now his name was on the list of Mezentio’s guests. A serving woman whose kilt barely covered her buttocks led him to the chamber where the king was receiving. He enjoyed following her more than he expected to enjoy talking with his sovereign.
Flutes and viols and a tinkling clavichord wove an intricate net of sound as background to the gathering. Sabrino nodded approval as he headed over to get a glass of wine. No strident thumpings here. However civilized the Kaunians claimed to be, he couldn’t stand their music.
Goblet in hand, he circulated through the building crowd, bowing to and being bowed to by the other men, bowing to and receiving curtsies from the women. He wouldn’t have minded receiving more than a curtsy from some of them, but that would have to wait on events: and besides, he hadn’t called on Fronesia yet.
King Mezentio seemed in good spirits. His smile didn’t falter as Sabrino bowed low before him. “I greet you, my lord Count,” he said with nothing but courtesy in his voice. But then, he was Sabrino’s age or older; he’d had plenty of time to learn to hide what he thought behind a mask of policy.
“I am very pleased to greet you, your Majesty, though only briefly and in passing, as it were,” Sabrino replied, bowing again.
“Briefly, eh?” Mezentio said. He planned Algarve’s grand strategy; he didn’t keep in mind where every colonel commanding a wing of dragons was going.
“Aye,” Sabrino said. “My men and I are ordered across the Narrow Sea to help the Yaninans in their fight with Lagoas. If your Majesty will pardon my frankness, I think we could do better fighting the Unkerlanters.”
“I have pardoned your frankness before,” Mezentio said, now with an edge to his voice--no, he hadn’t forgotten their disagreement in Unkerlant. “But I will also say that, unless we keep the cinnabar that comes from the land of the Ice People, your dragons will have a harder time fighting anyone.”
Stubbornly, Sabrino said, “There’s also cinnabar in the south of Unkerlant, across the Narrow Sea from the austral continent.”
“And I intend to go after it this summer, too,” the king answered. “
But I also intend to keep what I already have, and to do that I have to prop up the Yaninans on the other side of the sea.” He sighed. “Since I see none in attendance here this very evening, I can tell you the truth: being allied to them is like being shackled to a corpse.”
Any joke a king made was funny by virtue of his rank. This one actually amused Sabrino. Bowing once more, he said, “Very well, your Majesty. My men and I will do what we can to keep the corpse breathing a little longer.” That, in turn, made Mezentio laugh--and when the king laughed, everyone around him laughed, too.
Sixteen
Marshal Rathar gnawed on chewy barley bread and knocked back a slug of raw spirits that made his hair try to stand on end under his fur cap. The campfire by which he sat sent a plume of black smoke up into the air. The Unkerlanter soldiers with whom he ate had dug several holes close by in case that plume attracted a marauding Algarvian dragon.
He swigged again from the tin canteen of spirits. “Ah, by the powers above, that takes me back a few years,” he said to the men in rock-gray sitting around the fire. “Does me good to get back in the field, it truly does. I swilled this rotgut all through the Twinkings War. The breath it gives you, you think you’re a dragon yourself.”
None of the youngsters said anything, though a couple did risk smiles. They saw the big stars on his collar tabs and couldn’t imagine him as anything but a marshal. They had no idea what getting older meant, or how it could change a man--they hadn’t done that yet. He’d been young and remembered what it was like.
He emptied the canteen, then belched and thumped himself on the chest with a clenched fist. That made a couple of more soldiers grin. He could feel the spirits snarling inside his head. Getting back into the field felt so good! Getting away from Cottbus, getting away from the palace, getting away from Bang Swemmel, felt even better.
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