Jaws of Darkness

Six

Spring came early to Bishah and the surrounding hills. Hajjaj cherished it while it lasted, not least because it wouldn’t last long. Zuwayza was the kingdom of summer. Soon, all too soon, the sun would bake everything yellow and brown. The foreign minister savored the brief, brave show of greenery and bright flowers as much for its impermanence as for its beauty.

“You Algarvians are spoiled,” he remarked to Marquis Balastro at a gathering at the Algarvian ministry one evening. “You get to enjoy your gardens and woods through most of the year.”

“Well, so we do, your Excellency,” Balastro agreed. “Tell me, did you think we were spoiled when you went through your first winter at the University of Trapani?” His smile showed sharp teeth.

“Spoiled? No, your Excellency.” Hajjaj shook his head. “How could you possibly spoil when you froze solid for a couple of months every year?”

Balastro threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “Oh, you are a funny fellow when you choose. I could wish you chose to be more often.”

“I could wish I had more things to laugh about,” Hajjaj replied, and Balastro’s own mirth cut off as abruptly as if sliced by a knife. The war news from Unkerlant wasn’t good, and not all of the Algarvian minister’s verbal gymnastics could make it good. It wasn’t dreadfully bad, not lately, not with the spring thaw miring Mezentio’s men and Swemmel’s alike, but it wasn’t good. What little movement there was had the Unkerlanters pushing forward and the Algarvians falling back.

Over in one corner of the reception hall, a couple of stocky, swarthy men in Unkerlanter tunics were busily drinking themselves blind. If you asked them, they would insist they weren’t Unkerlanters: they were Grelzers, from the free and independent (and Algarvian-backed) Kingdom of Grelz. Of course, withKingRaniero horribly dead, their insistence mattered very little. The quondam Kingdom of Grelz mattered very little, too. Hajjaj sighed. Typical of the Algarvians to bring them up to Zuwayza and try to make something of them after the collapse and not before.

Doing his best to recover from the awkward moment, Marquis Balastro said, “I am glad our dragons have helped keep the Unkerlanter air pirates from troubling Bishah.”

“They have done that, and I do thank you for it.” Hajjaj bowed. The waistband of his kilt dug into his flesh as he moved. Nudity was far more comfortable. He went on: “Our own dragons, flying south into Unkerlant, have noted what looks to be something of a buildup of Unkerlanter soldiers in the northern regions ofKingSwemmel ’s realm.”

“We have noted the same thing.” Balastro didn’t sound very concerned. “I assure you it is nothing we can’t handle.”

“I am glad to hear that,” Hajjaj said, and hoped the Algarvian minister was right.

“We do keep an eye on things,” Marquis Balastro said, as if Hajjaj had denied it. “We also do our best to keep enemy air pirates from ravaging Algarve itself.”

“Aye, of course,” Hajjaj said. If you hadn’t lost Sibiu, you’d have an easier time of it, too. He didn’t say that; it would have been most undiplomatic. But that didn’t make it untrue.

Balastro bowed again; Algarvians were a punctiliously polite folk, even if they didn’t spend so much time on it as Zuwayzin did. “KingMezentio has ordered me to express his thanks toKingShazli through you,” he said.

“I shall be happy to do so.” Hajjaj bowed in return. “Ahh… his thanks for what?”

“Why, for his help in keeping Kaunian bandits here and, more to the point, keeping them out of Forthweg, of course,” Balastro answered.

“Oh.” After a moment, Hajjaj nodded. “He is very welcome. I speak for myself at the moment, you understand. But I shall convey your sovereign’s words to mine, and I am certain I speak inKingShazli ’s name here.”

He also wished he weren’t sayingKingMezentio was welcome. As far as he was concerned, the Kaunians who’d managed to flee from Forthweg had every right in the world to try to hit back at the Algarvians. But when they hit back, they unquestionably hurt the Algarvians’ war against Unkerlant. That, in turn, hurt Zuwayza. As foreign minister, Hajjaj found himself forced to condemn what he personally condoned.

Marquis Balastro smiled. “Believe me, your Excellency, I do understand your difficulty.”

And he probably did. He was a civilized man, in the best traditions of civilization in eastern Derlavai. Had Hajjaj not admired those traditions, he never would have chosen to finish his education at the University of Trapani. That didn’t keep him from wondering how such an eminently civilized man as Balastro could approve of the way his kingdom slaughtered Kaunians. He did, though-Hajjaj had no doubt of it.

His certainty oppressed him. He bowed his way away from Balastro and went over to the bar, where an Algarvian servitor who was almost surely also an Algarvian spy gave him a goblet of date wine. He was almost the only one in the room drinking the sweet, thick stuff. Even the Zuwayzi officers the Algarvian military attache had invited to the reception preferred vintages pressed from grapes. Hajjaj enjoyed those, too, but the taste of date wine took him back to his youth. For a man with white hair, few things could work such magic.

Sipping the date wine, the Zuwayzi foreign minister looked around the hall. There stoodHorthy, the Gyongyosian minister to Zuwayza, in earnest conversation with Iskakis, his Yaninan counterpart. They were both speaking classical Kaunian, a language that had never been used in either of their kingdoms but the only one they had in common. Hajjaj took another pull at his goblet, savoring the irony of that.

After a moment, Iskakis, a short, bald man with a mustache that looked like a black-winged moth perched between his nose and upper lip, sidled away from the large, leonineHorthy and started chatting up an Algarvian captain, one of the men on the military attache’s staff. The captain, a stalwart, handsome young man, beamed at the Yaninan. Iskakis was partial to stalwart, handsome young men. He was even more partial to boys.

His wife, meanwhile, was talking to Marquis Balastro. She was about half Iskakis’ age, and extraordinarily beautiful. Such a waste, that marriage, Hajjaj thought, not for the first time. Balastro, now, Balastro had the sleek look of a cat who’d fallen into a pitcher of cream. What Hajjaj saw as a waste, he saw as an opportunity. However civilized Balastro was, no Algarvian born had ever reckoned philandering anything but a pleasant diversion-unless, of course, he found himself wearing horns rather than giving them.

Balastro wouldn’t have to worry about that here. He stroked Iskakis’ wife’s cheek, an affectionate gesture that said he’d likely done other, more intimate stroking in private. Hajjaj wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d watched the two of them at a reception at the Gyongyosian ministry the autumn before.

Here, though, Iskakis’ wife twisted away. At first, Hajjaj thought that was playacting, and clever playacting to boot. Iskakis might prefer boys, but Yaninans had a prickly sense of honor. If Iskakis saw Balastro making free with the woman he thought of as his own, he would certainly call out the Algarvian minister. That their kingdoms were allies wouldn’t matter a bit, either.

Then Hajjaj saw the fury distorting the Yaninan woman’s delicately sculpted features. That wasn’t playacting, not unless she belonged on the stage. He hurried over toward her and Balastro. Yanina and Algarve were both allied to Zuwayza, too. The things I do for my kingdom, he thought.

“Everything’s fine, your Excellency,” Balastro said with an easy smile.

“This man is a beast, your Excellency.” Iskakis’ wife spoke fair Algarvian, with a gurgling Yaninan accent that made Hajjaj pause to make sure he’d understood her correctly. But he had. Her glare left no room for doubt.

“She’s just a trifle overwrought,” Balastro said.

“He is a swine, a pig, a pork, a stinking, rutting boar,” Iskakis’ wife said without great precision but with great passion. Then she said a couple of things in Yaninan that Hajjaj didn’t understand but that sounded both heartfelt and uncomplimentary.

Hajjaj said, “I gather the two of you have quarreled.” Balastro nodded. Iskakis’ wife dipped her head, which meant the same thing among Yaninans. Hajjaj went on, “You would be wiser not to show it. You would be wiser still not to show each other any kind of affection in public.”

Balastro bowed. “As always, your Excellency, you are a font of wisdom.”

Iskakis’ wife snarled. “You do not need to worry aboutthat.” Could looks have killed, the Algarvian minister would have died. Iskakis’ wife stalked away, arched nostrils flared, back ever so straight, hips working with fury.

With a sigh, Balastro said, “Well, it was fun while it lasted. Never a dull moment in bed, I’ll tell you that.”

“I believe you,” Hajjaj said: Half the men in the room were eyeing that swiveling backside with one degree of longing or another. Iskakis, otherwise preoccupied, was not among them. A good thing, too, Hajjaj thought.

“Aye, in bed Tassi’s splendid. Out of bed…” Balastro rolled his eyes. “A bursting egg for a temper and a razor for a tongue. I’m not all that surprised Iskakis would sooner stick it somewhere else.” He glanced over toward the Yaninan minister and the officer with whom he was talking. He made a face. “Though notthere, by the powers above.”

“No accounting for taste,” Hajjaj said, a profoundly unoriginal truth. Before too long, he took the opportunity to make his excuses and go back to his home in the hills above Bishah. Getting out of the clothes he’d worn and into the usual Zuwayzi outfit-sandals and, for outdoors, a hat-was, as usual, a great relief.

He was about to go down into the capital the next morning when someone knocked on the one door in the fortresslike outer wall to the sprawling compound that was as much clan center as dwellingplace. Tewfik, the ancient majordomo who presided over the residence, made his slow way out to see who was disturbing his master. He sent a younger, sprier servant hotfooting it back to Hajjaj. “Your Excellency, you’ve got to come see this for yourself,” the servant said, and would say no more even when Hajjaj barked at him.

And so, grumbling under his breath, Hajjaj went out to the gateway. There he foundTewfik looking, for once, quite humanly astonished. And there he also found Tassi, the wife of Iskakis the Yaninan minister. Polite as a cat, she bowed to him. “Good day, your Excellency,” she said. “I come to you, sir, seeking asylum from my husband, and from Marquis Balastro, and from everything and everyone outside Zuwayza.”

“Do-do-do you?” Hajjaj knew he was stammering, but couldn’t help it. He felt at least as astonished asTewfik looked.

Tassi dipped her head, as she had at the reception: sure enough, a Yaninan nod. “I do. You see? I already begin to follow your customs.” By that, she meant she stood before him wearing only sandals and a straw hat. Marquis Balastro occasionally aped Zuwayzi nudity. With Balastro, the effect was more ludicrous than anything else. With Tassi …

All at once, Hajjaj understood that the Algarvian wordsnude andnaked were not perfect synonyms. His own people, who took their bare skin for granted, were nude. Tassi was naked, using her skin for her own purposes. Sensuality came off her in waves.

And she knew as much, too, and relished the confusion-among other things-she paused. “Take me in, your Excellency, protect me,” she purred, “and I will do anything you like, anything at all. Take me in. I beg you.” Gracefully, she dropped to both knees. It wasn’t exactly, or solely, a begging gesture. It also promised something else. She bowed her head and waited.

“What will you do?”Tewfik hissed in Zuwayzi.

“Powers below eat me if I know,” Hajjaj replied in the same tongue. He switched back to Algarvian: “Get up, milady. The least you can do is have breakfast here. Afterwards… Afterwards, we shall see.” He was an old man, aye. Was he too old for such amusements? And if he wasn’t, how much would domestic relations with Tassi hurt foreign relations with Yanina?

Fernao woke to the sound of dripping. He’d fallen asleep to the sound of dripping, too. He’d lived with it for the past several days. He would have to go right on living with it for a good many more days to come, no matter how much it made him want to go running to the jakes. All around the hostel in the Naantali district, the ice and snow were melting. They would take a while to finish the job, and the ground would stay soupy for a while afterwards: till the sun, which spent more and more time in the sky every day, finally dried up the accumulated moisture. As it did in Unkerlant and the land of the Ice People, spring announced itself in southeastern Kuusamo with a great thaw.

A malignant buzzing penetrated the drips. A mosquito landed on Fernao’s arm, which lay outside the covers. The buzzing ceased. He slapped. The buzzing resumed. He cursed. That meant he’d missed the miserable thing.

Mosquitoes and gnats bred in puddles, of course. During the spring thaw, the Naantali district was all over puddles. For some time thereafter, it was all over mosquitoes and gnats, too. No wonder birds coming back from the north chose this time to mate and lay their eggs. They had plenty of food for themselves and for their youngsters, too. The only trouble was, they didn’t, couldn’t, come close to catching all the bugs. Plenty were left to torment people.

With a sigh, Fernao got out of bed and splashed cold water on his face. That wasn’t torture, as it would have been during the winter. It still did help wake him up. He put on clean drawers and a fresh tunic, then pulled on his kilt, tucked in the tunic, and went downstairs to the refectory.

Ilmarinen already sat down there, eating smoked salmon and onions and drinking tea. “That looks good,” Fernao said, sitting beside him and waving to a serving girl.

“It is,” Ilmarinen agreed. “But it’s mine. You can bloody well get your own.”

“I did intend to,” Fernao said mildly. The serving girl came up. Fernao pointed to Ilmarinen’s plate. “I’ll have what he’s having.” Seeing a wicked glint in the other theoretical sorcerer’s eye, Fernao corrected himself: “Not his helping, but the same thing as he’s having.” Balked, Ilmarinen subsided.

The serving girl ignored the byplay. She just nodded and went off to the kitchen. Fernao patted himself on the back. He didn’t win skirmishes with Ilmarinen all that often. Neither did anyone else.

Pekka walked into the refectory at the same time as Fernao’s breakfast arrived. Seeing him, she smiled and waved and came on over. He spoke quietly to Ilmarinen: “Could you let the two of us be for once? Life’s hard enough as is.”

“I could,” Ilmarinen said, but Fernao’s relief was short-lived, for he added, “That doesn’t necessarily mean I will.”

Pekka sat down by Fernao. The serving girl-Fernao was just as glad it wasn’t Linna-walked over and raised a questioning eyebrow. Pointing to Fernao, Pekka said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Without so much as looking at Ilmarinen, Fernao shoved his plate and teacup over to Pekka. “Here,” he said, deadpan, and nodded to the serving girl. “You can bring me more of the same.”

“All right.” Off she went again. The vagaries of mages fazed her not in the least.

“Something is going on here, and I don’t know what,” Pekka said darkly. She cast Ilmarinen a suspicious glance.

“I’m just sitting here,” he told her. “Why are you picking on me? If something is going on and you don’t understand it, you shouldn’t complain, anyhow. You should experiment to find out what it is.” His eyes flicked from her to Fernao and back again. “All sorts of interesting experiments you might try.”

Fernao kicked him under the table. Pekka couldn’t reach him to kick him, but looked as if she wanted to. Fernao had imagined some of those experiments. He didn’t dare say so. He wished he hadn’t given her his breakfast. Now he had nothing with which to busy himself.

Ilmarinen laughed, which only irked Fernao further-he knew he shouldn’t have asked the Kuusaman mage to go easy. “Why are you getting upset?” Ilmarinen asked. “I can’t be saying anything the two of you haven’t thought of for yourselves.”

“There is a difference between what I think and what I do.” Fernao switched from Kuusaman to classical Kaunian for the sake of greater precision: “If there were not, I would be wringing your neck right now instead of quietly sitting here.”

He’d hoped that might alarm Ilmarinen. Instead, it amused the elderly theoretical sorcerer, who laughed raucously. Fernao made himself stay in his chair, so that Ilmarinen never found out how close he did come to getting strangled. Ilmarinen finished his breakfast just as the serving girl brought Fernao more food. Getting to his feet, the master mage nodded to Fernao and Pekka in turn. “Well, I’m off,” he said cheerily. “I’m sure the two of you have a lot to talk about, so you won’t want me around anyhow.” Away he went, whistling a tune that sounded bawdy.

At least Fernao did have something to do now, and he did it: he concentrated on his breakfast. He concentrated so fiercely, in fact, that when Pekka said something he didn’t notice what it was, and hardly noticed she’d spoken at all. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking up from his smoked salmon and blinking. “I’m afraid I missed that.”

“Isaid, what are we going to do about Ilmarinen?” Pekka’s voice was brittle. She was looking past Fernao’s shoulder rather than at him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The more I think about it, the better the idea of wringing his neck looks.”

“We do need him for the work,” Pekka said grudgingly. “Since it’s hard to go out to the blockhouse and experiment with everything all over mud, I was hoping to use the quiet time to start standardizing our spells so practical mages can use them. That will makePrinceJuhainen happy.”

“So it will.” Fernao sipped tea. He nodded, he hoped, judiciously. “It does need doing.”

“So many things need doing, and we have so little time to do them,” Pekka said. “Anything that distracts us from them is a nuisance. Anything at all.” Now she did look straight into Fernao’s eyes.

“Have I ever argued with that?” he asked. No matter what he’d been thinking, he’d always pulled his weight in the sorcerous research. He wasn’t so brilliant as Ilmarinen, and knew he wasn’t, but he didn’t go around making people want to throttle him, either.

“No.” Pekka shook her head. “You’ve always done everything I could have wanted, except… I mean…” Now she wouldn’t look at him anymore.

He finished his tea at a gulp, wishing it were something stronger. When he set down the mug, he said, “Come to my chamber with me.” Pekka’s eyebrows leaped upwards. As he had with Ilmarinen, he went back to classical Kaunian to explain exactly what he meant: “People have been gossiping about us for a long time now, even though we have given them nothing about which to gossip. If we make it seem as though something really has happened between us, perhaps they will take it for granted and leave us be so we can go on about our business.”

“Perhaps,” Pekka echoed, also in classical Kaunian. She sat beside him for half a minute or so, her face closed in thought. Then, abruptly, she nodded. “Worth a try.” She got to her feet. So did Fernao. She slipped her hand into his. “It should look convincing,” she murmured in a low, serious voice. He nodded and smiled and squeezed her hand a little. She squeezed back.

Mages and servers in the refectory eyed them as they walked toward the stairway hand in hand. Either we’ll stop the gossip about us, Fernao thought, or else we’ll start a lot more.

When they got to his chamber, he was glad he’d set the bed to rights and hadn’t left anything but sorcerous tomes strewn about on the table and the stool and the chest of drawers that were the spare little room’s only other furniture. “I don’t want to disturb your work,” Pekka said, and sat down on the bed while Fernao paused to bar the door.

“It wouldn’t have mattered much,” he answered as he sat beside her. “Now we just have to wait long enough so all the other people are sure they know what’s going on in here.”

“Aye.” Pekka nodded. They sat close together, not touching at all, not even looking at each other, for a couple of minutes. What happened next seemed likelier to have sprung from a three-hundred-year-old Valmieran comedy of manners than real life. Fernao slipped his arm around Pekka at exactly the same moment she leaned toward him. An instant after that, they weren’t sitting on the bed any more. They were lying on it, clinging to each other as if they were lodestone and iron.

When at last their lips separated, Fernao whispered, “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” He trailed kisses across her cheek and down the side of her neck.

She shivered a little and sighed when he nibbled the lobe of her ear. She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t looking at anything; her eyes were shut tight. In a tiny voice, she said, “Please tell me you didn’t have this in mind when you asked me to come up here with you.”

“By the powers above, I didn’t!” Fernao exclaimed, more truthfully than not. “It just-happened.”

“It just-happened,” Pekka echoed. Her eyes were still closed, but she nodded once more and reached for him. If anything, her kiss was even more desperate than his.

She shivered again when he unbuttoned her tunic, and once more when his mouth descended on her left breast. He teased her nipple with lips and tongue. She pressed his head to her. Then, panting and laughing, she reached under his kilt.

When all her clothes lay scattered on the floor, Fernao wondered how he could ever have thought her scrawny. She was what she was-a Kuusaman woman, made as Kuusamans were. And… Not much later, he stopped thinking at all, but leaned on one elbow above her for a moment while he guided himself in. She let out a low, breathy moan and clasped him with arms and legs. She still kept her eyes shut tight.

He had to fight not to explode in the first instant. Once he managed that, once he found a rhythm that suited them both, he thought for a while that he could go on forever. But Pekka’s mounting excitement spurred him toward the end, too. She called out a name and gave a short, sharp cry of joy. Her nails scored his back. He gasped and shuddered and spent himself. Only afterwards did he notice the name she’d called wasn’t his.

He stroked her cheek. With a little luck, she hadn’t realized she’d cried her husband’s name, there in the moment when all thought fled. But she had. She jerked away from his gentle hand and burst into tears. “Leave me alone!” she said. “What have I done?”

The answer to that was only too obvious. Fernao didn’t point it out to her. He dressed quickly and hurried out of the chamber. Even though it was his, he fled it like an adulterer diving out a bedroom window when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He was halfway down the hall before he wondered what sort of rumorsthat would start.

Patrol. Somebody had to do it. Sidroc understood as much. The Unkerlanters had written the book on infiltration, written it and revised it several times. If you didn’t go prowling forth and find out what they were up to and hold them at arm’s length, you’d wake up one fine morning with them bellowing, “Urra!” from front, rear, and both flanks all at the same time.

But if you did go prowling forth, they were liable to kill you for your trouble. Patrols didn’t always come back. Sometimes they just vanished as if they’d never been. Sidroc was painfully aware of that. He tried to tiptoe through the woods of the eastern Duchy of Grelz. Somebody had to go out on patrol, aye. He wished he weren’t one of the somebodies.

He also wished he and his comrades from Plegmund’s Brigade didn’t have to rely on the guide who walked through the woods with them. Some Grelzer peasants hatedKingSwemmel and his inspectors and impressers worse than the Algarvians did. Others pretended to hate Swemmel so as to lure the redheads-and the Forthwegians who fought alongside them-to destruction. Finding out you’d trusted the wrong sort of guide was too apt to be the last discovery you ever made.

SergeantWerferthspoke in Algarvian: “Where did you see these Unker-lanter soldiers?” Then he repeated the question in Forthwegian, which was at least related to the language spoken hereabouts.

“I see… by village,” the guide said in bad Algarvian, and pointed west and a little north. “Two companies, maybeso three.” He showed the numbers on his fingers to leave no room for error.

“Maybeso,” Ceorl jeered. “Maybeso you’re leading us into an ambush, eh?”

With a shrug, the guide answered, “You kill me then.”

“Let him alone, Ceorl,” Werferth said. “He’s supposed to be on our side, remember?”

“He’s supposed to be, aye,” Sidroc said. “Butis he?” Ceorl looked at him in surprise; they seldom agreed about anything. Sidroc went on, “I don’t want him leading us down the primrose path, either, you know.”

He’d spoken Forthwegian. Sure enough, the local could follow bits of the language, for he said, “No primroses.” Then he said several other things in his own dialect of Unkerlanter. Sidroc got only fragments of that, but none of it sounded complimentary toKingSwemmel . He kicked at the muddy pine needles underfoot. The guide would sound the same way no matter how he really felt about the King of Unkerlant.

“He knows this country better than we do,” Werferth said. “It’s his neck if the Unkerlanters catch him after he’s helped us.”

If he’s the straight goods, Sidroc thought. If he’s not… If the guide wasn’t the straight goods, they could indeed avenge themselves upon him. That wasn’t likely to do them much good, though.

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. Sidroc hoped it was a wolf, anyhow. So did the Algarvian lieutenant heading up the patrol. He said, “Do they really let those cursed things run loose in this part of the world?”

“Aye,” the guide answered.

Sidroc wasn’t altogether sure why anyone let the Algarvian lieutenant run loose in this part of the world. Sidroc hadn’t seen his twentieth birthday yet, but he felt ten years older than the redhead. Even so, the Algarvian gave the orders, as if to proclaim that his folk were the conquerors, with the men of Plegmund’s Brigade only along for the ride.

If they ‘re the conquerors, how come they‘ve spent most of the past year retreating? Sidroc wondered. And what happens if they spend most of the next year retreating, too? He didn’t want to dwell on that. One of the reasons he’d signed up for Plegmund’s Brigade was that the Algarvians had looked like world-beaters back in Forthweg. If the world was theirs, what better way to grab a chunk of it than fighting at their side?

He still couldn’t imagine the world belonging to the Unkerlanters. They were too dowdy for that to seem possible.

Another wolf howled, this one in the direction where the guide said the Unkerlanters were based. “I don’t like that,”SergeantWerferth muttered.

“Why not?” The Algarvian lieutenant sounded curious. A bright child might have sounded the same way. We don’t need a bright child leading our patrol, Sidroc thought. We need a nasty old veteran who knows what he’s doing and how to go about it. But the young Algarvian was what they had.

Patiently, Werferth said, “Because it sounds like signal and answer, sir. If it is signal and answer, we’re liable to be walking into something we’d be better off missing.”

“Ah,” the lieutenant said, as if that hadn’t occurred to him. He swept off his hat and bowed to Werferth, so maybe it hadn’t. Sidroc sighed. If the lieutenant lived, he’d learn in a hurry. Fighting against the Unkerlanters, you had to. But if he didn’t live, he was liable to drag the whole patrol down in ruin with him.

Very close by, a jay jeered. The guide froze. So did all the men from Plegmund’s Brigade. That raucous cry made an even better signal than a wolfs howl. The Algarvian lieutenant took another couple of steps before realizing something might be wrong. He looked around wildly, his stick at the ready.

But then Sidroc spotted the bird, pinkish brown with a black tail, fluttering from one pine to another. As it flew, it screeched again. He breathed easier. “It’s a real jay,” he said.

“Nice to know something’s real,” Werferth said. Nobody argued with him.

The Algarvian lieutenant laughed and said, “If any Unkerlanters heard it, they probably started shivering, thinking it was us.” Sidroc nodded. The lieutenant was likely to be right. Swemmel’s men alarmed Sidroc, but he’d seen that Mezentio’s men alarmed the Unkerlanters, too. That was fortunate, as far as he was concerned. Every so often, it kept the enemy from pressing an attack as hard as he might have.

“Forward,” the young lieutenant said. Sidroc had heard the word too many times-mostly shouted, and emphasized by shrilling whistles-for it to spur him on as it had when he’d first joined Plegmund’s Brigade. What was it but an invitation to get himself killed? Even the redhead seemed to realize as much, for he spoke quietly, as if to say the patrol needed to go on but shouldn’t make a fuss about it.

Even though that jay had been real, Unkerlanters lurked among the trees. Sidroc could feel their presence even if he couldn’t see or hear or smell them. The hair on his arms and at the back of his neck kept trying to prickle up. He was almost panting, as if he’d run a long way. But it wasn’t exhaustion that had done it to him: it was nerves. He felt taut as a viol string about to snap.

Beside him, Ceorl started cursing under his breath: harsh, monotonous, vicious cursing, all in a tiny voice no one farther away than Sidroc could have heard. “You know they’re there, too, eh?” Sidroc whispered. Ceorl looked astonished, as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing. Maybe he hadn’t. He nodded abruptly and went back to his oaths.

“Clearing,” the guide said, first in his own language, then in Algarvian. The Unkerlanter word sounded like one that meantmarket square in Forthwegian, so Sidroc supposed he understood the fellow twice.

“Well, go on across it,” the young lieutenant said. “We’ll follow.” That made good sense. Unkerlanter soldiers were far less likely to blaze a peasant than soldiers in the uniforms of their foes. Even so, the guide gave the redhead a look full of hate and fear as he started across the muddy open space. A couple of men at a time, the troopers from Plegmund’s Brigade followed.

The guide had got about halfway to the trees on the far side of the clearing when he trod on a cunningly buried egg. Afterwards, Sidroc realized that was what must have happened. At the time, all he knew was the sudden roar and flash of light as the sorcerous energies trapped in the egg suddenly released themselves, all channeled upward to be as deadly as possible. The luckless guide didn’t even have the chance to shriek. He simply ceased to be. One of his boots-probably not the one that had stepped on the egg-flew high into the air before thudding back to earth. That was the sole remaining sign he’d ever lived.

In automatic reflex, Sidroc started to throw himself flat. But he checked that reflex and stayed on his feet. He was liable to throw himself down on another egg, and to end as abruptly as the guide had done.

“Back!” the Algarvian lieutenant hissed, even more urgently than he’d ordered the advance not long before. He added, “Every Unkerlanter in the world is going to come see what happened here.”

That was bound to be true, and made a powerful incentive to retreat in a hurry. Again, though, Sidroc didn’t let himself be rushed. He tried to retrace his steps as exactly as he could. He hadn’t stepped on an egg as he went west into the clearing. If he was careful, he wouldn’t step on one going back east out of it.

He’d just slid behind a pale-barked birch when an Unkerlanter trooper in a rock-gray tunic stuck his head into the clearing. Sidroc whipped his stick up to his shoulder and blazed. The Unkerlanter toppled. Cries of alarm rang out from the woods on the other side of the open space.

“Nice blaze,”SergeantWerferth said. “They won’t think we all ran for home with our tails between our legs.”

He was right: the Unkerlanters didn’t think that. Because they didn’t, their egg-tossers started lobbing eggs into the forest to try to keep the patrol from making its way back to the encampment. Sidroc had endured far heavier bombardments in the fight in the Durrwangen bulge. Realizing that also made him realize this peppering shouldn’t trouble him much-odds were, it would do him no harm.

Somehow, the comforting logic failed to comfort. Each bursting egg made him want to flee more than the one before. True, the fighting by Durrwangen had been far harsher. But Durrwangen had also been ten months before. Sidroc was ten months more battered, ten months more frazzled. He’d seen ten months’ more disasters. He’d had ten months more to realize how easily disaster might visit him.

An egg burst, not far away. Someone started screaming. One more down, he thought. One more who signed up in Forthweg for a lark, or maybe to stay out of gaol. He looked back in time, trying once more to recall his own reasons for joining Plegmund’s Brigade. With eggs bursting all around, with trees crashing down in front and behind, they didn’t seem good enough.

“We did our duty,” the young Algarvian officer said when they finally got back to the village from which they’d started. “We successfully developed the enemy’s position. Now that we know where he is, our counterattacks stand a better chance of driving him back.”

Sidroc didn’t want to think about counterattacks. He’d lived through another day. He was content-he was delighted-to savor that.

CaptainFrigyesprowled along the muddy beach of Becsehely. “Be ready, men,” Istvan’s company commander urged. “You must always be ready. No telling when the Kuusamans are liable to descend on us.” He pointed to Ist-van. “You wish to say something, Sergeant?”

“Aye, sir.” Istvan nodded. “We’ve been hearing for months that the slanteyes would hit us, and they haven’t done it yet. Why should we figure this time is any different?”

“Because I say so would be reason enough,”CaptainFrigyes answered, and Istvan winced. He’d meant no disrespect. But then Frigyes went on, “But there’s more to it than that. Our mages have stolen emanations from their crystals. They’re talking about Becsehely in ways they never have before. They’re serious this time, no doubt of it.”

“Ah.” Istvan nodded again. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome.” Frigyes pounded a fist into the palm of his other hand. “Are we going to lick those goat-eating whoresons when they try to take this island away from us?”

“Aye!” most of the men in the company roared. Istvan had to roar, too. So didCorporalKun and Szonyi and a few other soldiers. Each of them bore an identical scar on his left hand: a remnant of the purification and penanceCaptainTivadar, Frigyes’ predecessor, had inflicted on them for inadvertently eating goat from a captured Unkerlanter stewpot. Tivadar was dead. Only the men who’d committed the sin-deadly, by Gyongyosian standards-knew of it these days. But a cry like Frigyes’ still made Istvan sweat cold for fear he’d be discovered.

“We’ll smash them like crocks! We’ll beat them like drums!” That was Lajos. He hadn’t been in Istvan’s squad when they’d eaten from that accursed stewpot. He’d never fought the Kuusamans; they were just a name to him. He was young and brave and full of confidence. Life looked simple to him. Why not? He didn’t know any better.

“We can beat them,” Szonyi agreed. He’d been with Istvan a long time, ever since the fighting on Obuda, which lay a good deal farther west, in the Bothnian Ocean-and which, these days, belonged to Kuusamo once more. The difference between hiscan and Lajos’will was subtle, but it was all too real.

Kundidn’t say anything. Behind the lenses of his gold-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were sober. Years of war had taught Szonyi some few reservations. Kun seemed to have been born with more than most Gyongyosians ever needed to acquire.

And what about me? Istvan wondered. UnlikeKun, he wasn’t a city man. His home village, Kunhegyes, shared a mountain valley with a couple of other similar hamlets. Had it not been for the army, he might never have left that valley his whole life long unless he went raiding into a nearby one. His horizons now were wider than he’d ever imagined they could be. Sometimes he thought that marvelous. Rather more often, he wished it had never happened.

Not much horizon here. Even when he climbed out of the trench, all he could see was the low, flat, muddy island and the surrounding sea, which looked bare of ships. He found another question for Frigyes: “Captain, are they bringing more dragons to Becsehely to keep the slanteyes from pounding us the way they’ve done before?”

“We’ll have plenty of dragons, Sergeant,” the company commander replied, and strode on down the line.

Istvan beamed in considerable relief… untilCorporalKun spoke in a low voice: “You do realize he didn’t answer your question, don’t you?”

“He said-” Istvan broke off and thought about whatCaptainFrigyeshad said. He kicked at the muddy ground. “You’re right. He didn’t. He might have been a father telling a little boy not to worry.” The comparison angered him. He wasn’t a little boy. He was a man. If he weren’t a man, he wouldn’t have been here with a stick slung on his back.

ButKun ’s voice held only calm appraisal: “He’s a pretty good officer. He doesn’t want people fretting about what they can’t help.”

“I wouldn’t have, either, if you hadn’t opened your mouth.” Now Istvan was ready to be angry atKun rather than Frigyes.

“One thing being a mage’s apprentice taught me,”Kun said: “what words mean and what they don’t. I’d sooner find out the truth, whatever it is. And whatever it turns out to be, I expect I can look it in the eye. You can’t say that about everyone.”

“I suppose not,” Istvan said. How wouldKun take it if somebody pointed out the truth about his immodesty? Istvan didn’t intend to do any such thing. Kun went on enough as things were.

And he had a gift for asking unpleasant questions. He found one now: “Suppose we look like we’re going to lose Becsehely. Do you think our mages will start sacrificing us to build the sorcery they need to drive back the Kuusamans?”

“That’s as the stars decide,” Istvan answered. “Nothing I can do about it one way or the other. And you did volunteer, the same as I did, the same as most of the men in the company did.”

“Oh, aye, I volunteered.”Kun ’s eyes blazed from behind the lenses of his spectacles. “How could I do anything else, with everybody looking at me?”

“Aren’t you the fellow who doesn’t care what anybody else thinks?” Istvan returned. He usually enjoyed turning the tables onKun, not least because he couldn’t very often. Today, though, the corporal didn’t rise to the bait. He just scowled at Istvan and strode off, silent and gruff as if he’d come from a mountain valley himself.

For the next couple of days, everything on Becsehely stayed quiet. Gulls wheeled overhead. So did other, bigger, seabirds, some of them with a wingspan twice as wide as a man’s outstretched arms. Those enormous birds spent most of their time in the air. Istvan had seen them on Obuda, too. When they did land, they often rolled and tumbled. Watching them crash to the ground-and watching them trying to get airborne again-was more entertaining than most of the things the Gyongyosian soldiers had to do on the island.

Alarm bells began clanging before dawn three days afterCaptainFrigyes delivered his warning. Troopers who weren’t sleeping in their trenches ran for them. “This is no drill!” the company commander shouted moments after the clanging started. “The dowsers see enemy ships out over the horizon.” He hesitated, then shouted one thing more: “Volunteers, remember your oath! You may be summoned.”

Istvan wished Frigyes hadn’t said that. How was he supposed to concentrate on staying alive against the Kuusamans if his own side was liable to kill him to drive back the invaders?

“Dragons!” That shout seemed to come from everywhere at once. Istvan hunkered down in his trench. Becsehely had been hit before. It had been hit hard, too. But Gyongyosian dragons flying off the little island had also struck back hard at the enemy. Not this time, or not for long. Kuusamo seemed to have gathered every dragon in the world and put all those beasts in the air above the island.

That was how it felt to Istvan, anyhow. The rain of eggs was the hardest he’d ever known. There were almost as many as if they’d been real raindrops, or so it seemed to him. The ground under him jerked and quivered, as if in torment. Dirt flew into the air and thudded down onto him and his squadmates-so much dirt, he feared being buried alive.

And the dragons swooped low, too, flaming whenever the men who flew them found targets they judged worthwhile. Shrieks rose from the trenches, punctuating the roar of bursting eggs and the alarm bell’s brazen clamor. Before long, Istvan smelled charred meat. He cursed. He knew what meat that was.

Then the bells redoubled their fury. “Boats offshore!” The cry reached Istvan as if from very far away. But he understood what it meant. It meant the Gyongyosian crystallomancers had had the right of it. This time, the Kuusamans were going to try to take Becsehely away from Gyongyos.

He stuck his head up out of the trench. He’d seen enemy boats approaching a Gyongyosian-held island before, back in the days when he was fighting on Obuda. It had meant trouble then. It meant trouble now, too. And he saw no Gyongyosian ships attacking the Kuusaman vessels from which those invasion boats came.

“It’s up to us,” he said. “If we don’t throw the enemy back, nobody will.”

“If we don’t throw the enemy back, the mages will cut our throats and hope they can do it,”Kun said. Istvan glared at him. ButKun hadn’t spoken loud enough to demoralize any of the other soldiers, so Istvan did no more than glare.

The sea was full of boats. All of them seemed to be coming straight toward Istvan. The Kuusaman naval vessels started throwing eggs at the beaches of Becsehely. Istvan ducked down into the trench again. But he couldn’t stay down there. If the Kuusamans got soldiers ashore, he was a dead man. That their eggs might easily kill him, too, was only a detail.

“Make them pay!”CaptainFrigyes shouted, though his voice sounded small and lost amidst the endless roars of the bursting eggs. “By the stars, it’ll cost them if they want to shift Gyongyosian warriors.”

As soon as the incoming boats got close enough, Istvan started blazing at them. The Kuusamans blazed back, though the bobbing waves made most of their beams go wild. “We’ll slaughter them,” Szonyi said happily.

“I hope so,” Istvan answered.

And the Gyongyosians did slaughter their foes, at least those who tried to come ashore in front of the trench where Istvan and his comrades crouched. A good many enemy soldiers never made it to the beach alive. None of the small, dark, slant-eyed men made it off the beach alive, not there.

But, even while Istvan’s company beat back the Kuusamans, shouts of alarm rose elsewhere on Becsehely: “They’ve landed!” The soldiers’ cheers turned to cries of alarm. If the Kuusamans had gained a foothold on the island, they would prove far harder to dislodge-by any ordinary means, that is.

No sooner had that thought crossed Istvan’s mind thanCaptainFrigyes called, “Back toward the mages, my brave men. We are warriors-we can give all that warriors have to give. For Gyongyos andEkrekekArpad!”

“For Gyongyos andEkrekekArpad!” Istvan echoed. He followed Frigyes from the trenches without hesitation. If Gyongyos needed his life from him, Gyongyos would have it. And if fear made his legs feel as if they were made of gelatin and not flesh and solid bone… he would pretend it didn’t.

“I told you this would happen,”Kun said furiously. Istvan only shrugged. He’d thought it might happen, too. It bothered him less than it did the former mage’s apprentice. Getting burnt to nothingness by a bursting egg before his life energy could serve his kingdom worried him more. Plainly, he would die on Becsehely one way or another. That being so, he wanted to choose the way.

But then even that choice was denied him, for a swarm of Kuusamans- a regiment’s worth, at least-came rushing up from the south. They must have swept all before them there. “To surrender!” one of them shouted in bad Gyongyosian.

Istvan looked toCaptainFrigyes. Had the company commander been ready to fight to the death, he would have fought, too. But Frigyes, though ready to die to aid Gyongyos, didn’t care to perish to no purpose. He let his stick fall and raised his hands. And Istvan discovered he was not a bit sorry to do the same. A crazy grin spread across his face. That he’d been ready to die made living all the sweeter.

Pekka breathed a sigh of relief as she put a pad inside her drawers. Aye, she’d done something she wished, looking back on it, she hadn’t. But she wouldn’t have to face the consequences nine months from now.

A frown made a small vertical line appear between her eyebrows. It had nothing to do with the dull ache in her lower back, or even with the cramps that would follow. Try as she would, she couldn’t make all of her wish she hadn’t gone to bed with Fernao. Despite the tears and regrets afterwards, it had felt too good while it was going on.

It would have been just as good with Leino. It would have been even better with Leino. She nodded to herself while she finished dressing. That was probably true. But her husband, however much she missed him and wanted him, was far away, and had been for much too long. If she wanted Fernao, she had only to walk to his chamber and knock on the door.

She hadn’t done it, not since that first time. And Fernao hadn’t come knocking on her door, either. More than anything else, that made her believe he hadn’t planned on seducing her when he invited her to his room. She shook her head as she walked to the door. It hadn’t been a seduction, curse it. She couldn’t claim it hadn’t also been her fault, not even to herself. She’d wanted the Lagoan mage as much as he’d wanted her.

And he still wanted her. She knew as much. What she wanted… “is nobody’s affair but my own,” she murmured, stepping out into the hallway. She hadn’t taken more than two steps toward the refectory before she stopped and kicked at the carpet. She wished she hadn’t used the wordaffair, even if she didn’t mean it likethat.

When she got down to the refectory, she saw Fernao sitting at a table with Raahe and Alkio, animatedly talking shop. The table had four chairs around it. Alkio saw her and waved her to the empty one, which was by Fernao’s. She didn’t see that she had any choice but to go sit there. She would have before the two of them made love: that was certain.

“Good morning,” Fernao said. Like her, he did his best to pretend in public that nothing too much out of the ordinary had happened.

“Good morning.” Pekka made a particular kind of sour face. “Fair morning, anyhow.” Fernao looked baffled. So did Alkio. Raahe softly chuckled into her cup of tea. She understood that-but then, she was a woman, too.

Linna came bustling up. “What can I get you?” she asked. Her eyes traveled speculatively from Pekka to Fernao and back again.

“Tea,” Pekka said, ignoring that glance. Going to Fernao’s room hadn’t stifled the gossip-no indeed. It just spawned more. “Oatmeal with berries and plenty of honey.” She didn’t feel like anything heavier. Linna nodded and went away.

Fernao returned to the conversation he’d been having with the husband-and-wife team of theoretical sorcerers: “I still say that instance we sensed yesterday felt… odd Is the only word I can find for it.”

Alkio shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s just that we’ve got too used to feeling those murderous sacrifices. They don’t jolt us the way they once did.”

Nodding, Pekka said, “I know for a fact that that’s true with me. And if it’s not a judgment on us all, and on this whole sorry world, powers below eat me if I know what would be.”

“A judgment? Aye, no doubt.” Fernao nodded, too, and so did Raahe and Alkio. But, stubbornly, the Lagoan mage went on, “It didn’t feel right, though, I tell you.”

“Of course not,” Alkio said. “If itwas wrong, how couldit feel right?”

Fernao exhaled through his nose in exasperation. “That is not what I meant,” he said, switching from Kuusaman to classical Kaunian so he could get across exactly what he did mean. “I meant it did not feel like Algarvian magecraft, and it did not feel like Unkerlanter sorcery.”

Alkio gestured dismissively. “Who else could it have been? No one but Mezentio’s mages and Swemmel’s uses those spells, and powers above be praised for that.”

Before Fernao could answer-and, for that matter, before he could get any angrier, for he was already irked-Piilis came into the refectory. As he paused in the doorway, Pekka waved to him. He waved back and walked toward the table where she was sitting. She hooked a chair from another table with her ankle and scooted over to give Piilis room to join her colleagues and her.

Only after she’d done it did she realize she’d scooted closer to Fernao. Was that wise? It’s what I would have done before… what happened, happened, she told herself. Whether that answered her question was a question in and of itself.

“Thank you, MistressPekka,” Piilis said. “I ran into one of the crystallomancers on my way over here, so I’ve got some news.”

“Well, tell us,” Pekka said. “If it weren’t for the crystallomancers, we wouldn’t know any of what was going on till it was already gone. It’s not as if they send us news sheets every day.”

“The miserable Gongs tried something new when we landed on that Bothnian island called Becsehely.” Piilis pronounced the foreign name with care. “They were going to trot out the murderous magic the Algarvians use, but we overran them so fast, they didn’t have the chance to kill many of their own soldiers, so the magic wasn’t so big or so strong as it might have been, and Becsehely’s ours.”

“Ha!” Fernao said, and then, “Ha!” again. Piilis looked confused. He looked even more confused when Fernao wagged a finger at Alkio and declared, “I told you so.”

“Well, so you did.” Alkio clicked his tongue between his teeth. “The Gyongyosians are using this sorcery, too? That is not good at all.”

“And killing their own soldiers to power it?” Pekka added. “That may be even worse than what the Algarvians and Unkerlanters do.”

“Not to hear the Gongs talk about it,” Piilis said. “By the reports we’re getting from the captives we’ve taken, they won’t slaughter anyone who didn’t volunteer ahead of time-and a lot of men did. They think it’s an honor to let themselves get killed for their kingdom. It makes the stars shine on them, or some such nonsense.”

With profound unoriginality, Pekka said, “Gyongyosians are very strange people.”

“They think the same of us,” Fernao said, using classical Kaunian again. “All the other strong kingdoms share-more or less, and sometimes at several removes-the culture that springs from the Kaunian Empire. But the Gyongyosians have their own. When we bumped up against them a hundred and fifty years ago, they borrowed-”

“Stole,” Alkio put in.

Fernao nodded, accepting the correction. “They stole some of our fancy magecraft, nailed it onto everything else they already had, and they went right on to make nuisances of themselves.”

“More than nuisances,” Alkio said, and all the other Kuusamans at the table spoke up to agree with him. He went on, “We’ve been squabbling with them over the islands in the Bothnian Ocean ever since. They want everything they can get their hands on, and a little more, besides.”

“And what do they say about Kuusamans?” Fernao asked innocently.

“Who cares what Gongs say?” Alkio answered, proving he’d missed the point.

Pekka hadn’t, but she had other things to worry about. “The next time we try to take an island the Gyongyosians hold, we may not be so lucky as we were at this Besce-whatever place,” she said. “PrinceJuhainenwas right-all the more reason for us to get our own spells to the point where practical mages can use them.”

All the more reason for us to get our own spells to the point when Leino can use them. Pekka wondered if her husband, wherever he was, was looking at other women, or even doing more than looking at them. Before she’d made love with Fernao, the idea would have horrified and infuriated her. It still horrified her, but in a way she almost hoped he was. Then, at least, they would both feel guilty when they finally got back together.

“Raahe and Alkio and I were talking about that before you got here,” Fernao said.

He didn’t sound as if he had any second thoughts about bedding her. Why should he? Pekka thought. It’s not as if he betrayed his wife

… At least, I don’t think it is. She suddenly realized just how much she didn’t know about the Lagoan mage’s past and background. What kind of fool was I, to go to bed with him? One corner of her mouth quirked upward. The answer to that was only too plain: a hot fool, a lickerish fool.

Again, she made herself think about what she had to do, not about what she’d already done. “What in particular were you talking about?” she asked.

“Ways to simplify the spell while keeping the energy level high,” Fernao replied. “Raahe has some good ideas, I think.”

Piilis said, “I’ve been doing some calculations of my own along those lines.” He took folded papers from his belt pouch and spread them out on the table-this just as Linna came out of the kitchen with his breakfast.

The serving girl gave him a severe look. “If you don’t eat, sorcerous sir, you won’t be strong enough to follow whatever it is you’ve written down there.”

“Sorry.” Piilis cleared some room in front of him. Linna set down his smoked salmon and eggs and went off. He promptly leaned over the plate of food so he could explain his line of thought. The other theoretical sorcerers leaned forward, too. The only heed Piilis gave the salmon and eggs was to keep from putting his elbow in the plate.

As Pekka and Fernao leaned toward his papers, their knees and thighs brushed under the table. Pekka was acutely aware of it. If Fernao was, he gave no sign. He didn’t press himself against her to remind her of what they’d done. She nodded to herself. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know.

“Let me have a look at those,” Raahe said, and turned Piilis’ calculations so that she could read them-which meant they were upside down for Pekka. But when Pekka sighed and started to ease back in her seat, she brushed up against Fernao again. That kept her leaning forward. Then Raahe turned the leaves of paper back around once more, remarking, “That’s not the approach I was taking, but you could be on to the same thing.”

“No.” Fernao sounded regretful, but very sure. He sounded so sure, in fact, that all four Kuusaman mages around the table bristled at him. But then he reached out and tapped a line about halfway down the second leaf of paper. “This whole expansion sequence is forbidden in this context. MistressRaahe ’s approach will work. This…” He shrugged. “Following it will be like following a will-o’-the-wisp: you will never end up anywhere worth going, but only in the middle of a swamp.”

Pekka took a longer look at the calculations. “You… may be right,” she said.

“So you’ll believe Fernao even when he leads you into a swamp, eh?” The voice from behind her made her start and whirl. There stood Ilmarinen, looking down on her with a sardonic grin. He shook his head. “How very strange. You wouldn’t have said that even a little while ago.”

Before you went to bed with him, was what he meant. Pekka glared. “See for yourself,” she snapped.

“I was trying to.” Ilmarinen didn’t bother with his spectacles, but read at long range. After perhaps half a minute, he let out a soft grunt. “Sorry, Piilis. I don’t think the Lagoan’s the least bit cute, but he’s right. You can’t expand it that way.”

For the life of her, Pekka didn’t know whether to thank him or to brain him with a teapot. By the look on Fernao’s face, he was even closer to swinging the teapot than she was.

“My, my,” Colonel Sabrino murmured as his wing came spiraling down to land at the new dragon farm in southern Unkerlant to which they’d been ordered. “Isn’t that fascinating?” He’d let the wind blow his words away, but now he activated his crystal and repeated himself forCaptainOrosio: “Isn’t that simply fascinating?”

“That’s one word, Colonel,” the squadron commander answered. “Maybe not the one I would’ve used, but one word. Who would’ve thought we’d end up flying alongside Yaninans again?”

They’d been together a long time. Sabrino nodded. “We haven’t for a while now,” he said. “Not since we were down in the land of the Ice People.”

“I almost forgot the Yaninans were still in the war.” Orosio’s lip curled scornfully, as any Algarvian’s might have done while he contemplated his kingdom’s allies. His chuckle held scant mirth. “And don’t you just bet all the cursed Yaninans wish they could forget they were still in the war, too?”

“Heh,” Sabrino said-one syllable’s worth of bitter laughter. He did his best to look on the bright side of things: “I’ve seen plenty of dragon farms I liked less.”

Sure enough, this one was bigger than most of those from which his wing had been flying. It looked to have been here a while, too. Heavy sticks ringed it, sticks potent enough to blaze marauding Unkerlanter dragons out of the sky. The Yaninan dragonfliers lived in huts, not tents. The only thing wrong with them is, they’re Yaninans, Sabrino thought. Had their dragons been painted green, red, and white instead of just white and red…

But Sabrino shook his head. Even that wasn’t fair. Down on the austral continent, ColonelBroumidis ’ dragonfliers had fought just about as well as the men Sabrino himself led. Yaninan footsoldiers.. . Sabrino shook his head again, this time for a different reason. He didn’t want to think about Yaninan footsoldiers. They’d proved less than Algarve would have wished in the land of the Ice People, and they’d proved even less than that here in Unkerlant. If they hadn’t given way at exactly the wrong time, the great disaster at Sulingen might not have happened.

If there were enough Algarvians to go around, Sulingen wouldn ‘t have happened, Sabrino thought. A lot of other things wouldn’t have happened, either; he was certain of that. He was every bit as certain that there weren’t enough Algarvians to go around, though. Had there been, his wing’s true strength wouldn’t have stood at less than half of the sixty-four dragons it carried on paper-and that after reinforcement.

His own mount beat it’s great, membranous wings a couple of times and settled to the ground. His teeth clicked together; he’d known gentler landings. But he’d also known worse ones-at least he hadn’t bitten his tongue this time.

A Yaninan dragon handler, a swarthy little bandy-legged fellow with a big black mustache and bushy side whiskers, came hurrying up to the dragon and chained it to a stake so it couldn’t fly off whenever the notion came into its tiny, savage mind. The Yaninan did the job as well as any Algarvian could have. Sabrino had trouble taking him seriously, even so. His tights and his tunic with big, puffy sleeves were bad enough. The shoes with bobbling pompom ornaments-Sabrino had to look away, lest he burst out laughing and offend the little man.

As Sabrino descended from the dragon, a Yaninan officer strode up to greet him. The Yaninan had a crown and star on each shoulder strap, which made him a major. He saluted Sabrino and spoke in pretty good Algarvian: “Hello, Colonel. Welcome to Plankenfels.” His wave encompassed the dragon farm. “And I have the honor to beMajorScoufas, at your service.”

Sabrino returned the bow and gave his own name. “Happy to be able to help my kingdom’s allies,” he said politely.

Something sparked in Scoufas’ dark, almost fathomless eyes. “You are gracious,” he remarked. “If all Algarvians were like you, we would be happier in our alliance. Believe me, we already know we are your poor relations. Some of you want to remind us of it whenever you find the chance.”

Sabrino had seen that for himself. He’d also seen that some Algarvians had good reason for treating Yaninans with something less than perfect courtesy and respect. He didn’t say that; Scoufas wouldn’t have appreciated it. What he did say was, “I am sorry about that, Major. Of course, your kingdom’s other choice is Unkerlant. I’m sureKingSwemmel ’s men would prove the picture of politeness.”

Scoufas winced. “Savages,” he muttered; Yanina feared Unkerlant, but did not love her. The dragonflier pulled himself together. “Your wing will be of great help in holding the river line there.” He pointed west to show where the front lay.

“That’s why we’re here,” Sabrino agreed. “And now that we are here, maybe you can give me a little more in the way of a briefing.”

With a shrug-not an elaborate Algarvian shrug, but one in the Yaninan style, one that said things weren’t all they might be, but nobody could do anything about it-Scoufas replied, “This is where the front was when the thaw pinned things in place. We are trying to keep it here. We have not enough men, not enough behemoths, not enough egg-tossers-but we are trying.”

“Not enough dragons, either, I suppose.” Sabrino fought to keep irony from his voice. Yaninans weren’t the greatest warriors in Derlavai, but who came close to them when it got down to complaining?

“No, not enough dragons, either,”MajorScoufas said gravely. He bowed to Sabrino. “Your coming will make a difference there, of course.”

How big a difference? Sabrino wondered, returning the bow. But thinking about dragons naturally led him to his next question: “How are you fixed for cinnabar?”

Scoufas shrugged again. “Not very well. Such is life, these days. The Unkerlanters have plenty. Their dragons can flame farther than ours, thanks to all the quicksilver they give them. We fly better than they do, though, which takes away some of their advantage.”

“All right.” It wasn’t all right-it wasn’t even close to all right-but Sabrino couldn’t do anything about it. “Let’s get my dragons seen to, let’s get my men settled, and then you’ll show me the map.”

“Everything shall be just as you say, of course,” Scoufas replied with another bow.

The Yaninan dragon handlers did seem capable enough. They fed the newly come Algarvian dragons chunks of meat rubbed in ground brimstone, and they gave them some meat rubbed in cinnabar-about as much, or rather as little, as their Algarvian opposite numbers would have had available. The Yaninans had huts waiting and ready for Sabrino’s dragonfliers. Sabrino could think of major generals who would be sleeping rougher than he was.

But when he got a look at the map, he forgot about everything else. “Powers above!” he burst out. “If they push hard-no, when they push hard-how in blazes do you propose to stop them?”

“I am not a major of footsoldiers,” Scoufas said, which wasn’t an answer. “We shall do everything in our power, I assure you,” he added, which wasn’t an answer, either. Then that rather nasty glint came back to his eyes. “Of course, you Algarvians have had a certain amount of trouble stopping the Unkerlanters, too.”

Sabrino would have resented that more if it hadn’t been true. From the freezing Narrow Sea in the south to the warm Garelian Ocean in the north, the Algarvians were stretched too thin against their bigger foe. This, though-what passed for the Yaninan line looked like a wool tunic after an army of moths had found it in a closet.

Scoufas added, “You Algarvians often say Yaninans can’t fight. Then you go to war with your great plenty of all the tools. The Unkerlanters-they too have a great plenty of all the tools. And what have we? Bodies. With bodies, Colonel, we do what we can.”

Sometimes what those bodies did was run away as fast as they could go, sometimes even throwing away their sticks to flee the faster. Sabrino knew that. Scoufas doubtless knew it, too, even if he didn’t feel like owning up to it. Like a lot of Yaninan officers, he had pride and to spare. And he needed it, for it was about the only thing of which he had plenty.

“My men and I will do what we can for you, Major,” Sabrino said.

The Yaninan shrugged another pessimistic shrug. “If your wing were not battered and used up, your superiors would never have sent it here,” he said. “We know we get your leavings.” He waited for Sabrino to argue. Sabrino didn’t. He couldn’t. That was also true. When he didn’t, Scoufas raised an elegantly arched eyebrow and asked, “Tell me, if you would be so kind, what you did to get yourself sent among Yaninans?”

“Do you want to know the truth?” Sabrino asked, and Scoufas dipped his head. Yaninans often did that instead of nodding; Sabrino had seen as much down in the land of the Ice People. He went on, “I toldKingMezentio he was wrong about something, and I happened to be right.”

“Ah,” Scoufas said. “If you had done such a thing withKingTsavellas, it might have proved a fatal error.”

Who says it isn‘t? Sabrino thought. But he would not say that to a Yaninan. Instead, he said, “I’ve been a colonel a long time. I’ll keep right on being a colonel for a long time to come.”Unless I get killed, of course. He shrugged. /have only my wife to provide for these days, now that Fronesia’s squeezing money out of that footsoldier instead.

“What did you, ah, say to your king to fall from his good graces?” Scoufas asked.

Sabrino didn’t intend to answer that, but decided it couldn’t make any difference. “I told him sacrificing Kaunians for the sake of strong sorcery would turn out to be a mistake, and it did.”

“Well.” Whatever Scoufas had expected, that plainly wasn’t it. “You surprise me, Colonel. I thought all Algarvians killed Kaunians with a smile on their faces, I have not seen any who did not, at any rate, not till now.”

“Life is full of surprises,” Sabrino said, at which Scoufas dipped his head again.

Two days later, when Sabrino’s wing flew their first mission alongside Scoufas’ Yaninan dragonfliers, he got another surprise. It wasn’t that the Yaninans performed well enough. He’d looked for that, remembering how wellColonelBroumidis ’ men had flown down on the austral continent. What really startled him was how weak the Unkerlanter forces opposite the Yaninans were. His wing came back from smashing up the enemy’s outposts not only without losing a man but also without the feeling of having been in real danger.

“Maybe I should have said even more rude things to his Majesty,” Sabrino toldCaptainOrosio once they got back to the dragon farm. “This isn’t war-it’s more like the rest cure they give consumptives.”

“Swemmel’s whoresons sure fight us a lot harder than they go after these buggers,” Orosio agreed. “Till we got here, I didn’t think the Unkerlantershad a second team. We’ve never seen it before, by the powers above.”

“Of course,” Sabrino said musingly, “itis all they need against the Yaninans.”

“Oh, aye-no doubt about that.” His squadron commander didn’t bother hiding his scorn. “Powers above, if Swemmel had a third team, he could get away with using that, too. Hit Tsavellas’ odds and sods with a real army and they’d break like a dropped pot.”

“Aye, they would, wouldn’t they?” Sabrino looked around, more than a little nervously. He wished Orosio hadn’t put it quite that way.