Sure enough, men were scrambling down nets and rope ladders from the ley-line transports to the smaller craft that would take them up onto the beaches of southeastern Jelgava. Because a good many ley lines ran toward those beaches, the smaller craft also had sorcerers aboard to take advantage of the world’s energy grid. In earlier invasions by sea, some Kuusamans had had to try to reach Gyongyosian-held islands from their transports in rowboats and little sailboats. Logistics here had improved.
“They are not going to be able to make behemoths, or even unicorns, climb down ladders,” Xavega said. “How do they propose to get them into the battle?”
“I do not know,” Leino answered with a shrug. “I have not tried to find out, either, I must admit. KeepingHabakkuk going has been plenty to occupy me for now. If I thought they did not have a way, I would worry. But I expect they do. If I transfer to the land campaign, I suppose I will have to worry about that kind of thing.”
He looked west again. Now he could see the mainland of Jelgava. He’d been here on holiday with Pekka, but that was at the resorts of the far north. Whatever this was, a holiday it was not. I hope it’s not a holiday for the Algarvians, either. It had better not be, or we’re all in trouble.
He didn’t just see the mainland. He saw smoke rising from whatever Algarvian fortresses or barracks or other installations the dragons could find. And he also saw fountains of water rising from the sea not far in front of the foremost ships of the invasion fleet. He cursed softly in Kuusaman: cursing in classical Kaunian never satisfied him. The dragons haven’t wrecked all their egg-tossers. Too bad.
An egg landed on one of the small craft taking soldiers toward the shore. After Leino blinked away the flash of light from the burst of sorcerous energy, he stared at the spot, hoping to spy survivors clinging to bits of wreckage. But he saw only empty sea there, empty sea and other landing boats hurrying toward the shore.
Xavega had chanced to be looking in the same direction. “Brave men,” she said quietly.
“Aye.” But Leino wondered. Then he shrugged. Whether they’d been brave or terrified, what difference did it make? The egg hadn’t cared. And what they were now, irretrievably, was sunk. A moment later, another egg struck a boat. That vessel too, vanished as if it had never been.
And, a moment later, alarm bells aboardHabakkuk clanged. A dowser shouted, “Enemy dragons!” and pointed toward the west.
For a long moment, Leino didn’t spot them: he was looking high in the sky, where the Lagoan and Kuusaman beasts had flown. When his gaze fell closer to the sea, he spied the dragons-two of them, a leader and his wingman-driving straight toward the fleet just above the wavetops. Each of them flamed a light craft full of soldiers. Then they pressed on toward the bigger ships of the fleet itself.
Every heavy stick aboard those bigger ships started blazing at the Algarvian dragonfliers. None struck home, though. The dragons flamed a few men on the deck of a ley-line cruiser not far fromHabakkuk. That done, they dodged their way back toward the Jelgavan mainland.
“I hope they get home safe,” Xavega said. “I do not care if they are the foe. They have great courage.”
Algarvic peoples-Lagoans as well as Algarvians-were prone to such chivalrous notions. Leino didn’t argue with Xavega, but he didn’t agree with her, either. As far as he was concerned, a particularly brave enemy was an enemy who particularly needed killing.
The Algarvian dragons did escape the massed blazing power of the whole allied fleet. But they were the only two enemy dragons Leino saw that whole day long. And, even as they escaped, the first small craft let their soldiers out on the beaches of Jelgava. Now the Algarvians had a new fight on their hands.
Talsu was discovering that life in a tent was less different from life in his home than he’d expected. He was warm enough. He had a roof over his head. True, it was a cloth roof, but with spring edging toward summer that mattered very little in Skrunda. If he was still under canvas when rain came with fall and winter, that would be a different story. He’d worry about it then, though-he couldn’t change it now. After the eggs from Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons burned him and his family out of their house, he was glad they were all alive and in one piece.
Worst about sharing the tent on the edge of town-one of many-with his father and mother and sister was that he and Gailisa had so little privacy. His parents were considerate enough to go out walking every now and then, and he and his wife did the same for them (both pairs taking Ausra along as needed), but still…
He also went out walking and into town for other reasons than privacy these days. For most of four years, ever since the Jelgavan army collapsed andKingDonalitu fled to Lagoas, he’d taken Algarvian occupation for granted. It wasn’t that he liked the redheads-he despised them. But he hadn’t seen anything that would get them out of his kingdom. In certain minimal ways- accepting coins withKingMainardo ’s beaky profile on them, in making clothes for Algarvian officers, in not using his every waking moment thinking up ways to dismay or kill them-he’d acquiesced in their presence in Skrunda.
Everything was different now. After days of uneasy silence, Skrunda’s news sheets had to catch up with rumor and admit what could no longer be denied: the islanders had landed on the Derlavaian mainland. They’d landed, in fact, not far from Balvi-the capital of Jelgava lay close to the beaches where they’d come ashore.
After fetching a news sheet back to the tent, Talsu waved it in his father’s face. “Just listen to this.”
“Well, I will, if you ever read it to me,” Traku answered.
“All right.” Talsu stopped waving the sheet and started reading from it: “ ‘King Mainardo, the rightful ruler of the Kingdom of Jelgava, expresses his complete confidence that his forces and those of his valiant Algarvian allies will succeed in repelling the vicious invasion by the air pirates whose raids have already caused the Jelgavan people so much hardship.’ “
“He’d be pissing in his pants if he wore pants instead of Algarvian kilts.” Traku had heard enough news-sheet stories to have little trouble extracting accurate meaning from deliberately inaccurate words. He screwed up his face and made as if to spit. “I’m sure Mainardo loses hours and hours of sleep worrying about the Jelgavan people. Aren’t you?” He spoke in a low voice; canvas walls were thinner than those of brick and wood.
“Aye, worrying about how to do more and worse to us than he has up till now,” Talsu said, also quietly. “But wait-there’s more. ‘Jelgavan forces and their bold Algarvian comrades have inflicted heavy losses on the enemy and are making gains in several areas. Fierce fighting continues all along the line. The invaders’ hopes for a speedy triumph are doomed to disappointment.’ You know what that’s really saying, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” His father looked irate. “Think I’m stupid or something? It means the redheads tried to boot ‘em back into the ocean and they cursed well couldn’t do it. Or d’you think I’m wrong?”
“Not me.” Talsu shook his head. “That’s what I think it means, too. And here’s the best part of all: ‘An impostor claiming to be the abdicated fugitiveKingDonalitu has been reported to be in the grasp of the invaders. This effort to incite the contented populace of Jelgava will surely meet the failure it deserves.’ “
“So the real king’s back, eh?” Traku said.
“Can’t very well mean anything else, can it?” Talsu returned.
“No.” Traku’s tough, rather battered features wore a thoughtful expression. “Those fellows who were scrawling street signs about the king coming back knew what they were talking about, didn’t they?”
“Seems that way, doesn’t it?” Talsu said. “I wish I knew who in blazes they were. I’d join ‘em in a minute, and you’d best believe that’s true.” There, his voice dropped to a whisper.
And, of course, whether the anti-Algarvian underground would want anything to do with him was a different question. He knew it. He’d gone into a dungeon, and then he’d come out again. The assumption had to
be that anybody who came out of a dungeon cooperated with the redheads. And so Talsu had, at least by giving them names. That the names were of people at least as likely to collaborate with them as to struggle against them might not matter. He knew as much, though it pained him. His hand went to the scar on his flank, the scar from an Algarvian soldier’s knife. That had pained him, too, and a great deal more.
Outside, some called in fair but Algarvian-accented Jelgavan: “Is this being where I am finding Traku the tailor?”
“Aye,” Traku and Talsu said together. Talsu didn’t know what was going through his father’s mind. As for him, he quickly had to send his thoughts down different ley lines. The redheads might be in trouble in Jelgava, but they hadn’t been heaved out of Skrunda-and Skrunda, unlike Balvi, lay a long way from the invasion. Here, the Algarvians still ruled the roost. As the redhead-a captain, by his rank badges-ducked into the tent, Talsu cautiously asked, “What can we do for you today, sir?”
“You are still getting cloth? I am needing a new kilt,” the officer answered. His eye fell on the news sheet, which Talsu had set on a blanket. He pointed to it. “You are reading this?” Talsu stood mute. So did his father. Admitting it might land them in trouble. Denying it might be too obvious a lie. The Algarvian’s laugh was bitter. “What are you saying when my back is turning?”
Talsu saw even less way to answer that than the other question, and so he didn’t. Traku must have been thinking along with him, for all he said was, “Aye, I can get cloth-the bank didn’t burn, so I’ve still got some money. What sort of kilt will you need, sir? Lightweight, or something heavier?”Are you staying here, or have they sent you to Unkerlant?
“Lightweight,” the redhead said. “I am to be staying and fighting in Jelgava. I am to be staying until they are capturing me or until they are killing me. The officers over me are so ordering, and I am obeying. And the powers below are eating everything here.”
“Lightweight,” Talsu echoed. He’d borrowed a tape measure from another tailor who remained in his own shop. “If you’ll let me take your measurements…”
The Algarvian laughed. It was not a happy laugh. Talsu had laughed that same kind of laugh sitting around a fire with other soldiers while he was in the army. It said, Here we are, and we may as well laugh, because nothing else is going to help, either. Having laughed, the captain said, “I am seeing your troubles. You are not knowing if I am trying to trap you.”
Again, Talsu stood mute. So did his father. The Algarvian was right, but admitting as much was dangerous. Talsu stepped forward with the tape measure.
“I am telling you this,” the Algarvian said. “You are not having to say anything. Algarve in Jelgava is…” He used a word in his own language. Talsu didn’t know what it meant, but the officer’s gestures were expressive enough for him to get the idea: ruined was the politest term he could think of. Idly, he wondered if Algarvians would be able to talk at all with their hands tied. “How are we fighting here?” the redhead asked. “All our good men, all our good behemoths and dragons-where are they being? Here? No, Unkerlant!” He used that word again, with vast scorn.
“If that’s what you think, why fight?” Talsu asked. “Why not just give up?”
“No, no, no, no.” The Algarvian wagged a forefinger under Talsu’s nose. “No doing that. I am being a soldier. Fighting is what I am doing. And who is knowing?” He shrugged an elaborate Algarvian shrug. “Maybe Kuusamo and Lagoas will be making mistakes. We can be doing that-so can they be doing it. If they are making mistakes, we may be winning yet. And so”- another shrug-”I am fighting still.”
He sounded like a soldier, sure enough. Talsu hadn’t gone into the fight against Algarve with any great hope or expectation of victory, but he’d kept at it till his superiors surrendered. On a personal level, he didn’t suppose he could blame the redhead for doing the same. On a level slightly different from the personal…
Talsu shook his head. If he started thinking that way, he’d stab the officer instead of measuring him for a kilt. Were the fighting right outside of Skrunda, he would have thought about that. As things were, nobody was going to kick the Algarvians out of this part of Jelgava any time soon. And so, with a small sigh, he advanced with the tape measure, not with a knife.
Traku drummed a fingernail on the three-legged stool that was the sole bit of real furniture in the tent. After Talsu finished measuring the Algarvian, his father said, “What with things being the way they are right now”-his wave encompassed the canvas walls and the blankets on bare ground-”I think maybe you’d better pay up front.” He named his price.
The Algarvian raised an eyebrow. Talsu expected him to raise a fuss-Mezentio’s men, to a Jelgavan, were some of the fussiest people ever born. But, instead of turning red and throwing a tantrum, or even haggling, the captain dug into his belt pouch and set silver on the stool. “Here,” he said, and started to walk out. As he reached for the tent flap, he looked back over his shoulder. “Two days’ time?”
“Three,” Talsu said.
“Three,” the redhead agreed. “I am seeing you in three days’ time, then.” He ducked out of the tent and strode away.
Once he was gone, Talsu and his father stared at each other. “Did you hear that?” Talsu breathed. “Did youhear that? By the powers above, there’s a redhead who doesn’t think Algarve can hang on in Jelgava!”
“KingDonalitu’s back,” Traku said. “We’re going to be free again.”
“Aye,” Talsu said, but then, quite suddenly, “No. We’re going to have our own king back again. It’s not exactly the same thing.” His father made a questioning noise. Talsu explained: “When the redheads arrested me and threw me in the dungeon, the fellow who interrogated me wasn’t an Algarvian. He was a Jelgavan, doing the same job for KingMainardo as he’d done forKingDonalitu. And ifKingDonalitu ’s giving orders in Balvi again, what do you want to bet that same son of a whore will go right on doing his job in the dungeon, except with different prisoners?”
Traku grunted. “Gaolers are all bastards, no matter who they work for.”
“Oh, aye.” Talsu nodded. “But you have to be aparticular kind of bastard to do your job without caring who you work for.” He hesitated, then added, “And you have to be a particular kind of bastard to want your dungeons full of people-if you happen to be a king, I mean.”
Traku looked around, as if fearing people were leaning up outside the tent with hands cupped to their ears. Even in the days before the war, such words incautiously spoken could cause a man to disappear for months, for years, sometimes forever. “If it’s a choice between our bastard and the Algarvians’ bastard, I’ll take ours,” he said at last.
“Oh, aye,” Talsu said again, and then sighed. “That’s the choice we’ve got, sure enough. I wish we had another one, but I don’t know what it would be. Most kings are whoresons, nothing else but.”
They got supper that evening from kettles full of slop not much better than he’d eaten in his army days. After they brought their bowls back to the tent, Gailisa said, “Somebody who came into the grocery shop today said that Mainardo was going to run away from Balvi and back to Algarve. That would be wonderful.”
“Even the redheads don’t think they can go on holding our kingdom down,” Traku said, and recounted the Algarvian captain’s words earlier in the day.
Talsu bent down to spit a bit of gristle onto the ground. Then he said, “The redheads may not think they can hold Jelgava, but they’ve got to keep trying.”
“Why?” his wife asked. “Why don’t they just go away and leave us alone?”
“I wish they would,” his sister added.
“So do I, Ausra,” Talsu said. “But if they go away, the Lagoans and Kuusamans-and I suppose our own army, if we have an army again-will follow them right on into Algarve. And so they’ve got to fight here, to hang on to their own kingdom.”
“We’ll just have to help throw them out, then,” Ausra said, not quite so quietly as Talsu would h
ave liked. He didn’t answer that. He’d tried to help throw out the redheads, and what had it got him? Time in the dungeon and an undeserved name as a collaborator. Of course, his timing had been bad.
If I saw the chance, would I fight the Algarvians again? he wondered. He gnawed on another piece of gristly meat. That helped hide the fierce smile on his face. Of course I would. If only I could kill them all.
Ilmarinen looked at Fernao as if he hated him. He probably did. “You miserable pup,” Ilmarinen said. “I was after experimental proof.”
Fernao shrugged. “You wouldn’t have got it. Even you’ve admitted you ignored that indeterminacy. All you would have done was take out a big piece of the landscape, and you have to admit that, too.”
“I don’t have to do any such thing, and I’m not about to, either,” Ilmarinen retorted. “It might have worked fine. We’ll never know now- thanks to you.”
Theycould find out. Ilmarinen could go off and repeat his experiment. Fernao kept his mouth shut. If he suggested any such thing, the Kuusaman mage was altogether too likely to take him up on it. He could think of nothing he wanted less. To keep Ilmarinen from coming up with the same notion, he changed the subject: “Our armies are pushing farther into Jelgava. So far, the Algarvians haven’t started killing people to try to stop them.”
“So far,” Ilmarinen echoed. He leaned across the refectory table. “But I have friends in interesting places. One of them said the redheads-the other redheads, I mean: not your lot-moved a lot of Kaunians from Forthweg down to the edge of the Strait of Valmiera, because they thought the blow would fall there. How long will it take to drag those poor whoresons to Jelgava, or else to start hauling Jelgavans off the street?”
“Not long,” Fernao said.
Ilmarinen grunted. “There-you see? You’re not as foolish as you look. And I was trying to go back and change all that-change everything that’s happened since this war started-and you and Pekka had the nerve to try to stop me? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.” His eyebrow rose. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for all kinds of reasons, but that’s the one I’ve got in mind right now.”
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