Darkness Descending

by Harry Turtledove

  The Algarvians came back twice more that day, keeping the Lagoans from advancing against Heshbon. The scouts Junqueiro did send forward showed that the Yaninans, despite their unwillingness to attack, were strengthening positions that covered the approaches to their coastal base. The commanding general cursed when he got the news, though he could hardly have expected anything different.

  And then, that evening, Lagoan dragons did come flying into the army’s unhappy camp--eleven of them, no more, and all in the last stages of exhaustion. The men who flew them were hardly in better shape. “Leviathan,” one of them said, gulping at the flask of spirits a soldier pressed into his hand. “Cursed leviathan, or more likely a pod of them. We never knew we were in any trouble, either dragon transport, till the eggs they planted against our sides burst. By then they were long gone underwater. And not long after that, both our ships went under the water, too. Most of the dragons, most of the fliers, never made it out.” He swigged again, tilting the flask so he could drain it dry.

  “What will we do without enough dragons to fight the Algarvians?” someone asked. The question hadn’t been aimed at Fernao, but he saw only one thing the Lagoans could do: they would have to retreat.

  “We are not satisfied,” King Swemmel told Marshal Rathar. “By the powers above, how can we be satisfied, with the cursed redheads still infesting so much of the richest part of our kingdom?”

  Rathar bowed his head. Had he been in Swemmel’s audience chamber, he would have gone down on his belly, but the king had come to his office, and so that indignity was spared him. He said, “Your Majesty, we may not have done so much as you’d hoped, but we have done a great deal. Even after the mud fully dries, the Algarvians will be hard pressed to mount another assault on Cottbus. The last one cost them dear, and we have new fortifications protecting the way west toward thie capital.”

  He’d hoped his words would please the king, but Swemmel’s eyes blazed angrily. “We care little for what the Algarvians may seek to do to us,” he growled. “We care far more for what we can do to the Algarvians.”

  Within limits, that was a good attitude for a soldier to have. King Swemmel had never recognized limits, not for himself, not for those he commanded. Rathar said, “We will hit back at Mezentio’s men in the south. But we must also make sure the capital is safe. When the ground lets the redheads move, they won’t stand idle, waiting to be attacked.”

  The marshal of Unkerlant wondered how big an understatement that was. The previous summer and fall’s campaign had proved the Algarvians had taken too big a bite to swallow at once. It hadn’t proved they couldn’t swallow it in several gulps rather than one. And Rathar remained uneasily aware that, man for man, Mezentio’s soldiers were better than Swemmel’s. He thanked the powers above that Unkerlant had more men.

  Swemmel said, “We had better not rest idle, either. As soon as the ground dries, we want us to move first, before the Algarvians can.” He walked over to the map on the wall by Rathars desk. “You are always talking about flanking attacks. If we can flank them out of Aspang here, their whole position in Grelz crumbles.”

  Rathar nodded. The king had been furious for some time because the Unkerlanters hadn’t driven King Mezentio’s men out of Aspang. Having the redheads there didn’t thrill Rathar, either. He’d managed to talk Swemmel out of a headlong assault on the city; Unkerlant had already tried that and bloodily failed. The marshal had no compunction about spending lives but wanted to buy something with what he spent.

  And if he’d managed to get the king thinking about flanking maneuvers, he’d accomplished something as important as winning a major battle. “I believe you’re right, your Majesty. I would like to go south and prepare that attack myself. . ..”

  But King Swemmel shook his head. “From your own mouth came the words: the Algarvians will not stand idle when the ground dries. What will they do, Marshal? What would you do, did you wear Mezentio’s kilt?”

  Swemmel was having a good day. He couldn’t have found a more pertinent question to ask. Rathar did his best to think his way into King Mezentio s mind. One answer emerged: “I would strike again for Cottbus, here in the center. It’s still as important as it ever was. No matter how well we’ve fortified the ground in front of it, the Algarvians will still want it.”

  “We agree,” Swemmel said. “And, because we agree, we are going to keep you here in front of the capital, to defend it against the redheads.”

  “I obey, your Majesty,” Rathar said glumly. He wished he could fault Swemmel’s logic. But if he was the best general Unkerlant had and Cottbus the vital place likeliest to be endangered, where better to station him than here?

  “Of course you obey us,” Swemmel said. “Did you not, we should have got ourselves a new marshal some time ago. Now--ready this assault against the Algarvians around Aspang, pick a general who will run it well, and set it in motion as soon as may be.” The king swept out of the office.

  Major Merovec looked inside. When Rathar nodded, his adjutant came in. “What now?” Merovec asked cautiously.

  Rathar told him what now. The marshal did not try to hide his frustration. Even if Merovec reported him to the king, Swemmel would have a hard time blaming him for wanting to go out and fight. That wasn’t to say Swemmel couldn’t blame him, but the king would have to work at it.

  “Whom will you choose to command in the south, since you may not go yourself?” Merovec asked.

  “General Vatran has fought as well as anyone could reasonably expect down there,” Rathar answered, which was true: not even King Swemmel had complained of Vatran. “I’ll leave him there till he proves he can’t do the job--or till a more important one comes along and I promote him into it.”

  Merovec thought that over, then nodded. “He seems capable enough. Not like the early days of the fight with the redheads, when generals got the sack about once a week.”

  “They got what they deserved,” Rathar said. “One thing war does in a hurry that peace can’t do at all: it sorts out the officers who know how to fight from the ones who don’t. And now, since I can’t go south to lead the attack there, I am going to go to the lines in front of Cottbus, to see what we can do to help Vatran when the attack goes in.”

  The lines were a good deal in front of Cottbus these days. A finger’s breadth between two pinholes on the map translated into three hours’ travel in a ley-line caravan car through some of the most ravaged countryside Rathar had ever seen. Neither the Unkerlanters nor their Algarvian foes had asked for or given quarter. Every town and village had been fought over twice, first when the Algarvians

  Darkness Descending

  advanced towards Cottbus and then when they fell back from it. A wall that hadn’t been knocked down was unusual, a building unburnt and intact a prodigy.

  About two-thirds of the way to the front, the caravan halted. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get out now, Marshal,” an apologetic mage said. “We haven’t cleared all the Algarvian sabotage from the ley line east of here. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  “You’d better have a horse waiting for me, then,” Rathar growled.

  “Oh, aye, sir, we do,” the mage said. Sure enough, a groom held a peppy-looking stallion not far from where the caravan car had halted. Rather, no splendid equestrian, would have preferred a gelding, but expected he could manage a more headstrong beast. He was a pretty headstrong beast himself.

  The stallion must have been at the front for a while. It shied neither at the sharp stink of wood smoke as it trotted past one more burned-out village nor at the reek of dead meat, which seemed to be everywhere, sometimes faint, sometimes sickeningly strong.

  One reason the horse was able to trot, as opposed to sinking hock-deep in mud, was that it stuck to a roughly corduroyed path leading east. Rather rode past a gang of Algarvian captives laying boards in the roadway under the sticks of a squad of Unkerlanter guards. He wished every one of the soldiers who served King Swemmel could have looked at these filthy, scrawny, t
horoughly cowed Algarvians. The redheads sometimes seemed to go forward for no better reason than that both they and the Unkerlanters they fought were convinced they could. This gang of Algarvians would never raise that particular awe in their enemies again.

  At last, as the sun set behind him and evening twilight began to gather, the marshal heard the rumble of bursting eggs ahead. When he entered the next village, a couple of Unkerlanter sentries popped out of the ruins and barked, “Halt! Who goes there?”

  “I am Marshal Rathar,” Rathar said mildly. “Before you blaze me for not knowing the password, take me to your commander. He will vouch for me.” He wondered just which colonel or brigadier was in charge in these parts. If it was a man whose career he’d blighted, the fellow might deny any knowledge of him and have him blazed for a spy. It wasn’t likely, but stranger things had happened in Unkerlanter history.

  In the event, Rathar wasted some perfectly good worries. The officer to whom the wide-eyed sentries led him, Colonel Euric, saluted so crisply, Rathar thought his arm would fall off. He gave Rathar his own battered chair, fed him a big bowl of boiled buckwheat groats, onions, and what was probably horsemeat, and poured him a heroic nip of spirits.

  “I may live,” Rather said when he’d got outside of the meal and the drink. “All of me but my backside hopes I will, anyhow.”

  “They don’t pay you to be a cavalryman, lord Marshal,” Euric answered with a grin. “They pay you to tell cavalrymen what to do.”

  “I can’t very well do that if I don’t know what’s going on myself,” Rathar said. “That’s why I like to come up to the front when I get the chance.” He pointed at Euric, much as King Swemmel was in the habit of pointing at him. “What is going on up here, Colonel?”

  “Not a whole lot, to tell you the truth, not right this minute,” Euric answered. “We’re waiting for things to dry out, and so are the stinking redheads. Meanwhile, we toss some eggs at them, they toss some at us, a few soldiers on both sides get killed, and it won’t change the way the war turns out one lousy bit.” He stuck out his chin, as if defying Rathar to come down on him for his frankness.

  Rathar instead got up, walked over to him, and folded him into a bear hug. “I always praise the powers above when I run into a man who speaks his mind,” he said. “It doesn’t happen all that often, believe you me.”

  Euric laughed. He was young to be a colonel--not far past thirty. Rathar wondered how many men above him had been killed or disgraced to let him get where he was. Outspoken captains were common enough. Most of them never advanced past captain. Euric was likely to be good at what he did and had surely been in the right place at the right time.

  The colonel said, “I tell you this, too: we’ll lick the buggers unless we do something stupid. And we’re liable to.” He raised an eyebrow and grinned at Rathar. “Nothing personal, of course.”

  “Of course.” Rathar grinned back. He slapped Euric’s shoulder. “You’ll go far. No telling who’ll chase you while you’re going, but you’ll go far.”

  Both men laughed. They shared a bond, the same bond that joined so many Unkerlanter officers: So far, they’d survived the worst both King Swemmel and the Algarvians could do to their kingdom. Rather felt he was ready for anything now. By Euric’s jaunty expression, they had that in common, too.

  Algarvian dragons started dropping eggs on the village. Both Euric and Rather jumped down into a hole in the ground behind the battered hut where Euric made his headquarters. “What will they diink of you in Cottbus when you come back all covered with mud?” Euric asked.

  “They’ll think I’m earning my keep,” Rathar replied. “Either that or they’ll think I’m a cursed fool for taking chances I don’t have to.”

  “As opposed to the rest of us poor sods, who do have to take chances,” Euric said. Rathar shrugged. That had no answer, nor had it since the beginning of time. But Euric laughed and added, “You took your share before--I know that for a fact.” An egg burst close by, showering Rathar with mud that stank of corpses. Even so, he felt. . .forgiven was the word he finally found.

  “You do good work,” Ethelhelm said to Ealstan as they sat in the band leader’s flat sipping wine. “If I’d had you casting accounts for me since the days before the war, I’d’ve had a lot more money for the Algarvians to take away from me.”

  “Heh,” Ealstan said. Ethelhelm’s wit always had a bite to it. Rubbing his chin, Ealstan went on in musing tones: “Before the war ... It was only two and a half years ago, but it seems like forever.”

  “Oh, longer than that.” Ethelhelm cocked his head to one side, waiting to see

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  how Ealstan took his reply. Ealstan laughed. A lot of people, he supposed--his cousin Sidroc assuredly among them--would have stared in blank incomprehension. Ethelhelm nodded, as if he’d passed an obscure test. “You’re hardly old enough to piss without wetting yourself, but you’ve got an old head on your shoulders, don’t you?”

  “People say so,” Ealstan answered. “I’m cursed if I know. I take after my father is what I think it is.”

  “I took after my father, too, once upon a time,” Ethelhelm said. “Took after him with a carving knife, as a matter of fact. Didn’t catch him, though.”

  Ealstan couldn’t imagine going after his father with a knife. Uncle Hengist? That was a different story. Ealstan wondered how Sidroc was doing, if he was hale, whether he’d gone off to fight for the Algarvians yet. He rather hoped Sidroc had. That would be the easiest on everyone--except perhaps Sidroc.

  “I’d better get back,” Ealstan said, rising to his feet. He couldn’t suppress a pang of disappointment at leaving Ethelhelm’s large, airy, elegantly decorated flat and having to go back to his own, which was none of those things. Ethelhelm was a wealthy young man; Ealstan knew to the copper just how wealthy the musician was. He’d made a fortune before the war broke out and had managed to hold onto most of it despite Eoforwic’s occupation first by the Unkerlanters and then by the Algarvians.

  What with the business Ealstan had, not only from Ethelhelm but also from his other clients, he could have afforded better than the nasty little flat in which he and Vanai were living. He could have afforded better, but he didn’t dare move. If he went to a better neighborhood, Vanai would draw more notice. That was the last thing he wanted, especially now that the redheads had herded all the Kaunians into one cramped bit of Eoforwic.

  Ethelhelm came with him to the door and set a hand on his arm. “You’re a good fellow, Ealstan. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you--or meeting your lady, either.”

  “Thank you,” Ealstan said, and meant it. Not all his father’s clients--probably not even half his father’s clients--dealt with Hestan socially, as opposed to on business matters. And for Ethelhelm to say that about Vanai. . . Ealstan bowed. “We’d like that, too. But with things the way they are, I don’t know how we’d manage it.”

  Ethelhelm had never seen Vanai in person, and Ealstan made a point of not referring to her by name. But the musician had shown, as much by what he didn’t say and didn’t ask as by what he did, that he had a good notion she was a Kaunian. “With things the way they are,” he echoed. “Well, here’s hoping they don’t stay that way forever, my friend. You be careful, do you hear me?”

  Ealstan laughed; it might have been his father’s laugh coming out of his mouth. “You’re talking to a bookkeeper, remember? If I weren’t careful, what would I be?”

  “Who knows what you’d be?” Ethelhelm answered. He hesitated; maybe he was wondering how much he ought to say or whether to say anything. At last, he decided to: “You aren’t careful all the time, or you’d be somebody with a different lady, or with no lady at all.”

  “I suppose so,” Ealstan said. “But I’m careful now, by the powers above. I have to be.” He didn’t wait for Ealstan to reply but stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Then he hurried downstairs. These stairs were carpeted, not bare, battered boards. They didn�
��t smell of cabbage and beans and occasionally of urine. Ealstan sighed. He liked comfort. He’d grown up in comfort. He’d thrown it aside for love--and if that wasn’t the hoariest cliché in bad romances, he didn’t know what was. Vanai made him happy--made him joyful--in ways he’d never imagined before, but that didn’t mean he was immune to missing his comforts.

  Out on the streets, Eoforwic had the pallid, threadbare look of every other Forthwegian town in the third year of a war long lost. But Eoforwics was a more genteel, more splendid shabbiness than, say, Gromheorts. The white-bearded man who strode past Ealstan wore a herringbone wool tunic shiny with age at the elbows and seat and with a frayed collar, but a garment that would have cost a lot new.

  All the capital was like that. Buildings ruined in one round of fighting or another still showed fine bones. Buildings that hadn’t been ruined also hadn’t been kept up. Brickwork was filthy; weeds pushed their way into the sunlight between paving slabs. But the memory of what had been persisted. If Ealstan let his eyes drift a little out of focus, he could imagine Eoforwic with King Penda ruling it, not an Algarvian governor general.

  When he got back to his own neighborhood, he didn’t need to let his eyes go unfocused. This part of town had been grimy and unkempt during King Penda’s reign. Of that he had no doubt whatever. Even the stray dogs on the narrow, winding streets moved warily, as if afraid of having their belt pouches slit.

  Sure enough, the stairwell in his block of flats stank of piss. He wondered which neighbor had got drunk and been unable to hold it in. It was curiosity of the most abstract sort; he didn’t really want to find out.

  He knocked on the door to the flat he shared with Vanai in the rhythm of a Forthwegian children’s verse. She unbarred the door, which she wouldn’t have done had he knocked in an ordinary way. An ordinary knock meant a stranger, and strangers, these days, were deadly dangerous to Kaunians.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Ealstan said, and quickly slipped inside. He barred the door again before Vanai could. The bar was reinforced with iron. The brackets on which it rested and the screws that secured those brackets to the wall were the strongest Ealstan could find, far stronger than the ones the landlord had used in the flat. Anyone who wanted to come in after Vanai wouldn’t have an easy time of it.