“But I didn’t know it was silly,” Gilan protested.
“That makes it more silly, not less,” Leudast said. Had he been that naive when King Swemmel’s impressers pulled him into the army? If he had, how in blazes had his sergeants and officers put up with him? He thought of Sergeant Magnulf, who’d died in the first year of the war with Algarve. They’d shared a hole in some village they were trying to defend. Had he looked out of the hole when the egg burst in front of it, he would be dead now and Magnulf might still be alive. It had happened the other way round. He knew neither rhyme nor reason for it.
As if the mere thought of eggs were enough to conjure them up, they started bursting not far from the trench in which he and Kiun and Gilan stood. They weren’t quite close enough to make the soldiers throw themselves flat, but they weren’t much farther off than that. “Powers below eat the redheads,” Kiun said. “I thought they were supposed to be moving everything north to fight our push there.”
“Lots of odds and sods in the men they’re throwing at us,” Leudast said. “Those Forthwegian whoresons are almost as bad as Grelzers-you can’t tell they’re the enemy till too late. And now these blond Kaunian buggers.”
“They fight hard,” Kiun said.
“Aye.” Leudast nodded. “There were a few Kaunians not so far from my village. I grew up pretty close to the border with Forthweg, you know. They’re just… people who don’t look like us. What I don’t get is how come they’ll fight for the Algarvians when the redheads kill ‘em to make their magic.”
“These aren’t Kaunians from Forthweg,” Kiun said. “They’re from way the demon off in the east somewhere. I hardly even know the names of the kingdoms on the other side of the world.”
“They’re Valmierans,” Leudast said. Before Kiun could put in a jab, he held up his hand. “Only reason I know is because Captain Recared told me. He knows all that stuff. But still, they’re blonds, and so are the Kaunians from Forthweg. So why would they help Mezentio’s bastards?”
“Have to take some prisoners, squeeze it out of’em,” Kiun said.
“I suppose so,” Leudast allowed.
Unkerlanter egg-tossers started answering the Algarvians. They still didn’t respond as fast as the redheads, but they were there in numbers in the bridgehead. Nothing the Algarvians or the foreigners fighting for them had done had stopped Unkerlant from bringing egg-tossers and behemoths forward, which was not the least of the reasons they still held the foothold on this side of the Fluss.
Dragons flew by, dragons painted rock-gray. “They’ll drop their loads on the Algarvians’ heads, too,” Leudast said. “Serves the redheads right-this is what they used to do to us all the time.”
Before long, the Algarvian egg-tossers fell silent. “That’s more like it,” Kiun said. “Maybe they’ll learn not to try that anymore.”
“Here’s hoping,” Leudast said. “That’s one lesson I wish they’d learned already, as a matter of fact.” Kiun chuckled and nodded, for all the world as if Leudast were joking. They’d both been in the front lines a long time. If you didn’t joke, you’d go mad sooner or later-unless the redheads killed you, which was rather more likely.
Here, though, the Algarvians really did seem to learn a lesson. Things stayed very quiet for the next couple of days. They were so quiet, in fact, that Leudast almost lost the feeling of being stuck in a bridgehead.
He remarked on that the next time he saw Captain Recared, adding, “If we hit them hard enough to make them stay this quiet, maybe we can break out of this cramped little place and start pushing them back again.”
Recared shook his head. “Not yet, Lieutenant. I’d like to just as much as you would, but not yet. We’ll have to see how things go up in the north before we find out what we can do here. All the spares we have, and all the reserves, are going into that push. If it goes well, then we can try pushing here, too. Or that’s my guess, anyhow-askMarshalRathar if you want a better notion.”
“Oh, of course, sir.” Leudast laughed. Unlike most junior lieutenants, he’d met the marshal, and Rathar might, if reminded, remember who he was. None of that meant he could go asking questions of Rathar. None of it meant Rathar was anywhere within a thousand miles of the River Fluss at the moment, either.
Recared laughed, too, and said, “You’ve got attitude, Leudast.”
“Do I?” Leudast shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that. All I know is, I’m still here, and that makes me luckier than a lot of people.” Poor Magnulf crossed his mind again. He asked, “Howare things going up in the north, sir?”
“Better than we expected. As well as we hoped,” Recared answered. Leudast blinked; he hadn’t really looked for a reply quite so optimistic. The regimental commander went on, “That whole Algarvian army up there is getting smashed to pieces. With any luck at all, wewill be able to start moving here pretty soon-but not just yet.”
“I’m in no hurry, sir, not as long as the redheads and the whoresons who fight for them leave us alone, the way they have lately.” Leudast snapped his fingers. “That reminds me-Kiun and I were talking about the Kaunians who fight on Algarve’s side. Has anybody figured out why they’re daft enough to do it?”
“We’ve caught a few,” Recared said. “We haven’t found any answers that tell us a whole lot. Best guess so far is, they’re about like the buggers in Plegmund’s Brigade: ne’er-do-wells and men down on their luck and a few just looking for a fight and taking one anywhere they can find it.”
Leudast grunted. “Bunch of cursed fools, if anybody wants to know what I think. You’d have to be, wouldn’t you, to fight for somebody who was doing that to your own people?”
“Well, I think so,” Captain Recared said. Then he changed the subject, and then, sooner than Leudast had expected, he left. Leudast scratched his head for a while, wondering if he’d somehow offended the regimental commander. He ran the conversation over in his mind. He couldn’t see how.
And then, as he was drifting toward sleep that night, he did. After all, King Swemmel was killing powers above only knew how many Unkerlanters to fuel the sorcery that thwarted the Algarvians’ murderous magic and helped beat the redheads and their allies out of Unkerlant. Even though he was doing that, Leudast didn’t hesitate to fight for him. Neither did countless other Unkerlanters.
Maybe the Valmieran Kaunians felt the same way. If they do, they‘re wrong, Leudast thought, and dozed off.
After black bread and sausage the next morning, he led Kiun’s squad out on a patrol through the woods. He could have stayed back in camp and let the sergeant take charge of the patrol himself; a lot of officers would have. But he’d been on plenty of patrols himself. If he went on this one, he thought-he hoped-he gave everyone a little better chance of coming back in one piece.
A jay screamed. A woodpecker drummed on the trunk of a birch. A flock of waxwings flew from one wild plum tree to another. No one who’d ever heard them could mistake their soft, metalliczreel zreel for the call of any other bird. “All seems pretty quiet,” Kiun said. “No sign the redheads are trying to sneak in and make trouble.”
“You sound disappointed,” Leudast said.
“Not me.” Kiun shook his head. “Surprised, maybe, but not disappointed. I haven’t seen the Algarvians back on their heels like this for a long time.” He shook his head again. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Algarvians back on their heels like this. Doesn’t seem natural, you know what I mean?”
“I think so.” Leudast nodded. “They’re not doing anything themselves. They’re waiting for us to do something. They never used to do that. We used to wait for them, especially in the summertime. It’s not the same fight it was a couple of years ago.”A good thing, too, he thought. If the Algarvians were still kicking us around like that, we’d have long since lost the war.
Kiun started to answer, then silently toppled, his stick falling from hands that would no longer hold it. He didn’t even twitch; he was dead before he hit the ground. A patch of leaves
near his feet started smoldering.
“Sniper!” Leudast called, and dove for cover. “Sniper up a tree!” he added-the trajectory of the beam that had slain Kiun proved as much.
If the whoreson stayed quiet, how were they supposed to find him? He’d got Kiun through the head. Kiun had been aboutthere, and the patch of plants on the ground that had caught fire was aboutthere, so the enemy had to be over inthat direction. “There!” Leudast pointed northeast. “One of those trees there. Work carefully, boys-he’ll be looking for us.”
The Unkerlanters slid from tree to bush to rock, trying to show themselves as little as possible. And the sniper evidently knew what he was about, for he sat tight in whatever tree he’d chosen for himself. If the Unkerlanters didn’t spot him, he was free to get away, free to wait for the next unlucky soldier to come within range of his stick. But then a trooper shouted, “There he is!” and pointed to a big, leafy oak-a tree so big and leafy, the mere sight of it had made Leudast suspicious.
Once seen, the sniper didn’t last long. He wounded one more man-not badly-before tumbling, dead, out of the tree. He was a trouser-wearing Kaunian with an Algarvian banner sewn to the sleeve of his tunic. Leudast kicked the body. “One more down,” he said, and the patrol moved on.
Colonel Spinello stumbled south and east, trying to pick his way through a marsh east of Sommerda. He was weary and filthy and unshaven. He hoped he wouldn’t meet any Unkerlanter soldiers, for he wasn’t at all sure whether his stick held enough sorcerous energy to blaze. At that, he reckoned himself better off than most of the soldiers in the regiment he’d commanded. He remained alive and able to go on retreating. Most of them were either dead or captive.
He missed a step and went into muck up to his knees. Before he could sink any deeper, Jadwigai, who remained on firm ground, grabbed him and helped him get back to decent footing himself.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said, and gave her a kiss. She was every bit as worn and dirty as he, but still contrived to look good to him. It wasn’t just that she didn’t grow whiskers to add to a raffish appearance. She’d been so pretty starting out, grime and exhaustion only gave her beauty more sharply sculpted edges.
“You’re welcome.” She pointed toward a clump of man-high bushes a couple of hundred yards ahead. “If we can get there, we’ll have a pretty good hiding place for the night.”
“Aye, I think you’re right.” Spinello’s bones creaked when he started moving, but move he did. Unkerlanters were bound to be prowling in this swamp. If they caught up with him, he’d never make it out the other side to reconnect himself to the Algarvian army. He wondered if any Algarvian army remained in northern Unkerlant to be reconnected to. He couldn’t prove it, not at the moment, not by the way Mezentio’s forces had collapsed under the hammer blow the Unkerlanters dealt them.
He went into muddy water again before reaching the bushes. This time, he pulled himself out without help from Jadwigai. The water was also stagnant and smelly. The last time he’d risked a fire, he’d used a lighted twig to get a leech off his leg. Mosquitoes hovered in buzzing, thrumming clouds.
As he and Jadwigai had hoped, the bushes marked slightly higher ground. He stretched out, almost ready to fall asleep right there where he lay. Jadwigai sat down beside him. Maybe she was still full of luck-he was still breathing, after all. Or maybe he’d broken the regiment’s luck, and the whole northern army’s as well, when he first brought her to his bed.
“Or maybe that’s nonsense,” he muttered.
“What?” Jadwigai asked.
“Nothing,” he told her. “Or I think it’s nothing, anyway.” He rolled onto his side and leaned on one elbow, studying her. “Ask you something?”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“Why are you still here with me? You might do better to let the Unkerlanters catch up with you. Especially…” Spinello’s voice trailed away. Especially since we’re killing Kaunians, and they’re not didn’t strike him as the most politic thing to say, no matter how true it was. He sometimes wondered why she hadn’t cut his throat while he lay sleeping. Asking her that didn’t seem politic, either. Last thing I need is to put ideas in her head if she hasn‘t got ‘em already.
Jadwigai shook her head. “I’d just be a body to them, I think. They don’t care about Kaunians. We always made jokes about them in my village-it wasn’t that far from the border with Unkerlant.”
She might well have been right. Both sides here in the west fought the war without restraint. Algarvian soldiers did as they pleased with Unkerlanter women in villages they’d overrun. The Unkerlanters sometimes killed Algarvians they captured in lingering, painful ways and left their bodies where their comrades could find them.
“Besides,” Jadwigai went on, “I know you’ll keep me safe when we find the rest of the army.”
“I’ll do my best.” Spinello wondered how good that best would be. A colonel normally would have no trouble getting whatever he wanted for his mistress. But times weren’t normal, and most mistresses weren’t Kaunians. More urgent worries reared their head at the moment. “What have we got left to eat?”
“Bread. Hard and stale, but bread,” Jadwigai answered. “And spirits. If we mix the spirits with swamp water, we can drink the swamp water, too.” She was right again. Spinello shuddered all the same. The swamp water tasted as nasty as it smelled, and that remained true regardless of whether it would give him a flux of the bowels.
The bread wasn’t just hard; it could have done duty for a brick. Spinello and Jadwigai shared. “If I had bad teeth, I’d starve,” he said.
Before Jadwigai could answer, eggs burst off in the distance. “What’s happening to the army?” she asked. “Have you got any idea?”
“In detail? No,” Spinello said. “In general? Aye. They threw more at us than we could stand up against, and they broke us. I was afraid they were going to do that, but they’ve done more than I thought they could. They used columns of behemoths to smash through our lines, then turned in so they’d either surround us or make us fall back… and they did it over and over and over. I didn’t know they had that many behemoths-or dragons, either. I don’t think anybody in Algarve knew what all Swemmel had before this fight started.”
“You might have done better if you had known,” Jadwigai remarked.
“Aye, that’s so.” Spinello admitted what he could hardly deny. “But it’s too late to dwell on it now. Now we have to hope we can stay alive”-when he saidwe, he meant not only himself and Jadwigai, but every Algarvian in the north of Unkerlant-”and somehow stop the enemy.”
More eggs burst. “Do you think we can?” Jadwigai asked.
“Sooner or later, we have to,” Spinello replied. “They’ll run out of men and beasts and supplies. If we have anything at all left by then, we’ll stop them. But when? Where?” He shrugged an elaborate Algarvian shrug. The answer was important, but he couldn’t do much to influence it, not as a harried fugitive he couldn’t. He took off his hat and laid it under his head for a pillow.
Jadwigai lay down beside him in the bushes. They’d made love a few times during the grinding retreat, but they were both too weary now. Spinello reached out to pat her hand. Then he dove headlong into oblivion.
He woke a little before dawn. Jadwigai still slept. With care and worry gone from her face, she looked improbably young. Spinello shook his head. She was as tough as she was pretty. She’d done as well as she could for herself in a situation as near impossible as made no difference. She’d done far better than most of the rest of the Kaunians from Forthweg. And if she stayed with him now, that was bound to be hard self-interest.
He shook her awake, ready to clap a hand to her mouth if she made more noise than she should. She’d done that once or twice. Not now, though. Reason came into her eyes almost at once. “Let’s get going,” Spinello said quietly.
“Aye.” Jadwigai nodded. “Maybe you can blaze some of these marsh birds.”
“Maybe.” But Spinello remembered a co
ot he’d killed. It hadn’t been worth eating once dead. Of course, when you got hungry enough.. .
The sun was still low in the southeast when they came on a couple of squads’ worth of soldiers. For a moment, Spinello thought himself a dead man. Then he realized they were Algarvians, stragglers like himself. No, not stragglers: just defeated men in full retreat. They even had a crystallomancer with them. “We’re supposed to have a strongpoint in Volkach,” the fellow said. “If we can get there, maybe we’ll get back to the real war.” Under his breath, he added something like, “If there’s any real war left up here.” But he didn’t say it loud enough to make Spinello ask him to repeat it.
As they fought their way through the swamp, one of the troopers asked, “Where’d you pick up the twist, Colonel?” He sounded curious and a little jealous, as he might have had Spinello carried a knapsack full of smoked pheasant and fine wine.
Unlike a knapsack, Jadwigai could speak for herself. “I’m not a twist, you-” What she called him proved she’d learned soldierly Algarvian. “I was-Iam -the luck of the Alberese Regiment.”
“Oh!” To Spinello’s surprise, the soldier bowed to her as if to an Algarvian duchess. “I’ve heard about you. A lot of folks up here have heard about you.”
“Aye, that’s right.” Another soldier nodded. He turned to Spinello. “Anybody gives you a hard time about her, Colonel, you just yell. There’s plenty of people won’t let anything happen to her.”
“That’s good to hear,” Spinello said.
He sounded less happy when they came out of the swamp and up onto solid ground. The vast plains of northern Unkerlant were ideal ground for behemoths. Back in the early days of the war, that had all been to Algarve’s advantage. Now, when the Unkerlanters could put three, four, five beasts in the field for every Algarvian animal, moving across the plains made sweat trickle from his armpits and down the small of his back.
Swemmel’s men had been through here, on their way farther east. Bloated, stinking corpses, many of them still wearing kilts, lay here and there. But no Unkerlanters were in sight now. “Get your bearings on this Volkach place,” Spinello told the crystallomancer. “Is it still holding?”
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