Out of the Darkness

Five

When people spoke of walking on eggs, they commonly meant the kind hens or ducks or geese laid. These days, Fernao felt as if he were walking on the sort egg-tossers flung and dragons dropped. Anything he said, anything he did, might lead to spectacular disaster with the woman he loved.

And even if I don’t do anything, I can be in trouble, he thought. If he left Pekka alone, she was liable to decide he was cold and standoffish. If he pursued her, she might decide he didn’t care about anything but getting between her legs. When word first came back that Leino had died, he’d wondered if he really ought to be sorry. After all, her husband, his own rival, was gone now. Didn’t that leave Pekka all to him?

Maybe it did. On the other hand, maybe it didn’t. He hadn’t realized how guilty she would feel because she’d been in his chamber, because they’d just finished making love, when she got summoned to learn of Leino’s death. If she’d been somewhere else, if she’d never touched him at all, that wouldn’t have changed a thing up in Jelgava. Rationally, logically, anyone could see as much. But how much had logic ever had to do with what went on in people’s hearts? Not much, and Fernao knew it.

In the cramped hostel, he couldn’t have avoided Pekka even had he wanted to. Everyone gathered in the refectory. He felt eyes on him whenever he went in there. Powers above be praised that Ilmarinen’s in Jelgava, went through his mind once-actually, rather more than once. If anybody could be relied upon to start bursting the eggs under one’s metaphorical feet, Umarinen was the man.

Pekka didn’t automatically come sit by him, as she had before the Algarvians killed Leino. But she didn’t go out of her way to avoid him, either, which was some solace, if not much. One evening about a month after the news got back to the Naantali district, she did sit down next to him.

“Hello,” he said carefully. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” Pekka answered, to which he could only nod. When a serving girl came up and asked her what she wanted, she ordered a reindeer cutlet, parsnips in a reindeer-milk cheese sauce, and a lingonberry tart. The girl nodded and briskly walked away toward the kitchen as if the request were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Fernao couldn’t take it in stride. To a Lagoan, especially to a Lagoan from sophisticated Setubal, it seemed a cliche come to life. He didn’t smile the way he wanted to, but he did say, “How. . very Kuusaman.”

“So it is,” Pekka answered. “So I am.” The implication was, What are you going to do about it?

“I know,” Fernao said gently. “I like what you are. I have for quite a while now, you know.”

Pekka tossed her head like a unicorn bedeviled by gnats. “This isn’t the best time, you know,” she said.

“I’m not going to push myself on you,” he said, and paused while his serving girl set his supper before him: mutton and peas and carrots, a meal he could easily have eaten back in Lagoas. He sipped from the mug of ale that went with it, then added, “I think we do need to talk, though.”

“Do you?” Pekka said bleakly.

Fernao nodded. His ponytail brushed the back of his neck. “We ought to think about where we’re going.”

“Or if we’re going anywhere,” Pekka said.

“Or if we’re going anywhere,” Fernao agreed, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “We probably won’t decide anything, not so it stays decided, but we should talk. Come back to my room with me after supper. Please.”

The glance she turned on him was half alarm, half rueful amusement. “Every time you ask me to go to your room with you, something dreadful happens.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Fernao said. The first time he’d asked her to his chamber, it had been to put rumors to rest. He hadn’t intended to make love with her, or, he was sure, she with him. They’d surprised each other; Pekka had dismayed herself, and spent months afterwards doing her best to pretend it hadn’t happened or, at most, to make it into a one-time accident.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she said now. “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right.”

“It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong, either,” Fernao answered. “Please.” He didn’t want to sound as if he were begging. That didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t, though.

Before Pekka said anything, her supper arrived. Then she sent the serving girl back for a mug of ale like his. Only after she’d drunk from it did she nod. “All right, Fernao. You’re right, I suppose: we should talk. But I don’t know how much there is for us to say to each other.”

“We’d better find out, then,” he said, hoping neither his voice nor his face gave away the raw fear he felt. Pekka nodded as if she saw nothing wrong, so perhaps they didn’t.

Fernao wanted to shovel food into his mouth, to be able to leave the refectory as soon as he could. Pekka took her time. She seemed to Fernao to be deliberately dawdling, but he doubted she was. He was nervous enough to feel as if time were crawling on hands and knees-and that quite without sorcerous intervention. But at last Pekka set down her empty mug and got up. “Let’s go,” she said, as if they were heading into battle. Fernao hoped it wouldn’t be anything so grim, but had to admit to himself that he wasn’t sure.

He opened the door to his room, stood aside to let her go in ahead of him, then shut the door again and barred it. Pekka raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. She sat on the chamber’s one chair. Fernao limped over to the bed and eased himself down onto it. He leaned his cane against the mattress.

His face must have shown the pain he always felt going from standing to sitting or the other way round, for Pekka asked, “How’s your leg?”

“About the same as usual,” he answered. “The healers are a little surprised it’s done as well as it has, but they don’t expect it to get any better than this. I can use it, and it hurts.” He shrugged. Better than getting killed, he almost said, but thought better of that before the words passed his lips.

“I’m glad it’s no worse,” Pekka said. “You did look like it was bothering you.” She fidgeted, something he’d rarely seen her do. This isn’t easy for her, either, Fernao reminded himself. She took a deep breath. “Go on, then. Say your say.”

“Thank you.” Fernao found he needed a deep breath, too. “I don’t know what you would have done-what we would have done-if your husband had lived.”

Pekka nodded shakily. “I don’t, either,” she said. “But things are different now. You must see that.”

“I do,” Fernao agreed. “But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, and you need to know it. I still love you, and I’ll still do anything I can for you, and I still want us to stay together for as long as you can put up with me.” And Leino is dead, and that might make things easier. Before he died, I never thought it might make things harder.

“I do know that,” Pekka said, and then, “I’m not sure you understand everything that goes with it. You want us to stay together, aye. How do you feel about raising up another man’s son?”

In truth, Fernao hadn’t thought much about Uto. Up till now a confirmed bachelor, he had a way of thinking about children in the abstract when he thought about them at all-which wasn’t that often. But Uto was no abstraction, not to Pekka. He was flesh of her flesh, probably the most important thing in the world to her right now. More important than I am? Fernao asked himself. The answer formed in his mind almost as fast as the question. He’s much more important than you are, and you‘d better remember it.

“I don’t know that much about children,” Fernao said slowly, “but I’d do my best. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

She studied him, then nodded again, this time in measured approval. “One of the things you might have told me was that you didn’t want to have anything to do with my son. That’s what a lot of men tell women with children.”

Fernao shrugged, more than a little uncomfortably. He understood that point of view. He would have taken it himself with a lot of women. With Pekka … If he wanted to stay with her, he had to take everything that was part of her. And … In musing tones, he said, “If we had a baby, I wonder what it would look like.”

Pekka blinked. Her voice very low, she answered, “I’ve wondered the same thing a few times. I didn’t know you had. Sometimes a woman thinks a man only cares about getting her into bed, not about what might happen afterwards.”

“Sometimes that is all a man cares about.” Remembering some of the things that had happened in his own past, Fernao didn’t see how he could deny it. But he went on, “Sometimes, but not always.”

“I see that,” Pekka said. “Thank you. It’s… a compliment, I suppose. It gives me more to think about.”

“I love you. You’d better think about that, too,” Fernao said.

“I know. I do think about it,” Pekka answered. “I have to think about all the things it means. I have to think about all the things it might not mean, too. You’ve helped clear up some of that.”

“Good,” Fernao said. You don’t say you love me, he thought. I can see why you don’t, but oh, I wish you would.

What Pekka did say was, “You’re a brave man-powers above know that’s true. And you’re a solid mage. Better than a solid mage, in fact; I’ve seen that working with you. There are times I think I never should have gone to bed with you in the first place, but you always made me happy when I did.”

“We aim to please,” Fernao said with a crooked smile.

“You aim well,” Pekka said. “Does all that add up to love? It might. I thought it did before. . before Leino died, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. But that’s turned everything upside down.”

“I know.” Fernao kept the smile on his face. It wasn’t easy.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Pekka smiled, too, ruefully. “Usually, the busier I am, the happier I am. When I’m doing things, I haven’t got time to think. And I don’t much want to think right now.”

“That makes sense,” Fernao agreed. He heaved himself to his feet without using the cane. That hurt, but he managed. He managed the couple of steps he needed to get over to the chair, too. Getting down beside it hurt more than standing up had, but he ignored the pain with the practice of a man who’d known much worse. “But there’s happy and then there’s happy, if you know what I mean.” To make sure she knew what he meant, he kissed her.

It was, he knew, a gamble. If Pekka wasn’t ready, or if she thought he cared about nothing but bedding her, he wouldn’t do himself any good. At first, she just let the kiss happen, without really responding to it. But then, with what sounded like a small surprised noise down deep in her throat, she kissed him, too.

When their lips separated-Fernao didn’t push the kiss as far as he might have, as far as he wanted to-Pekka said, “You don’t make things easy, do you?”

“I try not to,” Fernao answered.

“You’ve succeeded. And I’d better go.” Pekka rose, then stooped to help Fernao up and gave him his cane. He wasn’t embarrassed for the aid; he needed it. Even as Pekka unbarred the door and left, Fernao nodded to himself with more hope than he’d known for some little while.

“What sort of delegation?” Hajjaj asked, thinking he’d misheard. His ears weren’t all they’d once been, and he was unhappily aware of it.

But Qutuz repeated himself: “A delegation from the Kaunian refugees from Forthweg who have settled around Najran, your Excellency. Three of them are out in the corridor. Will you receive them, or shall I send them away?”

“I’ll talk with them,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister said. “I have no idea how much I’ll be able to do for them-I can’t do much for Zuwayzin these days-but I’ll talk with them.”

“Very well, your Excellency.” Qutuz made an excellent secretary. He gave no sign of his own approval or disapproval. He got his master’s instructions and acted on them-in this case by going out into the corridor and bringing the Kaunians back into the office with him.

“Good day, gentlemen,” Hajjaj said in classical Kaunian when they came in. He read the language of scholarship and sorcery as readily as Zuwayzi, but was less fluent speaking it.

“Good day, your Excellency,” the blonds chorused, bowing low. They all wore tunics and trousers; for men with their pale, easily sunburned skins, nudity was not an option in Zuwayza, even during her relatively mild winter.

“Two of you I have met before,” Hajjaj said. “Nemunas, Vitols.” He nodded to each of them in turn. Nemunas was older than Vitols, and had a scarred left hand. Before Forthweg fell to the Algarvians, they’d both been sergeants in King Penda’s army-unusually high rank for Kaunians-which made them leaders among the blonds who’d fled across the Bay of Ajlun to keep from ending up in one of King Mezentio’s special camps.

The third blond, the one Hajjaj didn’t know, bowed again and said, “I am called Kaudavas, your Excellency.”

“I am glad to meet you,” Hajjaj said. As long as he stuck to stock phrases, he was fine.

Both Nemunas and Vitols stared at him. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, your Excellency,” the older blond said. “Thanks very much for recalling our names.”

“You are welcome,” Hajjaj replied-another stock phrase. A good memory for names and faces came in handy for a diplomat. When he went beyond stock phrases, he had to think about what he said and speak slowly: “And you and your countrymen are welcome in my kingdom, and all three of you are welcome here. Would you care for tea and wine and cakes?”

All three Kaunians from Forthweg chuckled. “We’d sooner just get down to business, sir, if you don’t mind,” Nemunas said.

Hajjaj allowed himself a small smile. The blonds had learned how some Zuwayzi customs worked, sure enough. “As you wish,” he said, and waved to the pillows piled here and there on the carpeted floor. “Sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. And then, please, tell me what I can do for you.”

His guests had got used to making do with pillows instead of chairs and couches, too. They all made nests for themselves. Nemunas, who seemed to be their spokesman, said, “Sir, you know we’ve been sailing east out of Najran back to Forthweg, to hit the cursed redheads a lick or two.”

“Officially, I do not know this,” Hajjaj replied. “Had I known it officially”- he wondered if he’d correctly used the subjunctive there-”Zuwayza’s former allies, the Algarvians you mentioned, would not have been pleased with me.”

Kaudavas said, “We never did understand how anyone could ally with Mezentio’s whoresons, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He was stamped from the same mold as his comrades; if anything, he was bigger and burlier than either of them, burly enough to make Hajjaj wonder if he had a little Forthwegian blood.

“Considering what the Algarvians did to you, I know why you say that,” Hajjaj replied. “Still, we had our reasons.”

“Now we’ve had something to do with the Unkerlanter navy men at Najran,” Vitols said. “Maybe we can figure out what some of those reasons are.”

“Ah?” Hajjaj leaned forward. “Dealing with Unkerlanters is often less than enjoyable. Does this have to do with your reasons for coming to Bishah to see me?”

“Aye,” the Kaunians said as one, loudly and angrily enough to make Qutuz look in to see that the foreign minister was all right. Hajjaj waved him back. Nemunas went on, “The thing of it is, we want to keep right on sailing back to Forthweg. Swemmel’s men haven’t driven the redheads out of all of it yet. We can do some good there.”

“And besides, we want revenge,” Kaudavas added.

“Indeed,” Hajjaj said. “Rest assured, I do understand this.” Among the Zuwayzin, vengeance was a dish to be savored. No other Derlavaian folk thought of it in such artistic terms, though the Algarvians came close.

Vitols said, “But the Unkerlanter navy men won’t let us go out. They say they’ll sink us if we try, and they mean it, curse ‘em.”

“Can you do something about that, sir?” Nemunas asked. “That’s why we came here, to find out if you could.”

“I … see. I do not know.” Hajjaj made a sour face. Najran was a Zuwayzi port, not one that belonged to King Swemmel. For the Zuwayzin not to be in full control of what happened there was galling. But Zuwayza, these days, kept only such sovereignty as Unkerlant chose to yield to her. Hajjaj drummed his fingers on his knee. “Let me ask a question. Are you loyal to this new king, this King Beornwulf, the Unkerlanters have named?” Forthweg, these days, kept even less sovereignty than Zuwayza did.

In almost perfect unison, the Kaunians from Forthweg shrugged. “Don’t care about him one way or the other,” Nemunas answered.

“He’s just a Forthwegian,” Vitols agreed.

This time, Hajjaj hid his smile. The blonds might be a persecuted minority, but they kept a haughty pride of their own. He said, “Let me ask it a different way: would you swear loyalty to King Beornwulf if that let you be loosed against the Algarvians still in Forthweg?”

Nemunas, Vitols, and Kaudavas looked at one another. They all shrugged again, more raggedly than before. “Why not?” Nemunas said at last. “When the war’s finally over, we’ll be living under him if we go back to Forthweg.”

“He can’t be much worse than that vain fool of a Penda,” Kaudavas added.

His opinion of the former King of Forthweg closely matched Hajjaj’s. The foreign minister also noted that some Kaunian refugees looked to be thinking about staying in Zuwayza. After the Six Years’ War, the kingdom had taken in some Algarvian refugees. The blonds might also fit in.

None of that, though, had anything to do with the business at hand. “I shall speak to Minister Ansovald for you,” Hajjaj promised. “I do not know what he will say, but I shall speak to him.” The blonds were effusive in their thanks. They bowed themselves almost double as they left Hajjaj’s office. No matter how much gratitude they showed, though, they had no idea of the size of the favor Hajjaj was doing for them.

Qutuz did. “I’m sorry, your Excellency,” he said.

“So am I,” Hajjaj answered bleakly. “Some things can’t be helped, though.” But he couldn’t stay that calm, however much he tried. “Every time I talk to the Unkerlanter barbarian, I want to go take a bath right afterwards. And he has the whip hand now, powers below eat him.”

Ansovald didn’t deign to grant him an audience for three days. The Unkerlanter minister no doubt thought he was humiliating and angering Hajjaj. Hajjaj, however, was just as well pleased with delay here. At last, though, he had to don an Unkerlanter-style tunic and travel over to the ministry. He alighted from his carriage with a sigh. The Unkerlanter sentries looked through him as if he didn’t exist.

By all the signs, Ansovald would also have loved to pretend Hajjaj didn’t exist. He and the Zuwayzi foreign minister had never got on well. These days, Ansovald-a tough, beefy man with a permanent sour expression-not only had the whip hand, he enjoyed using it. “Well, what now?” he demanded in Algarvian when Hajjaj came before him.

“I have a petition to present to you,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister replied, also in Algarvian. It was the only language they shared. Using it with the Unkerlanter had an ironic tang that usually appealed to Hajjaj. Today, though, he wondered at the omen.

“Go ahead,” Ansovald rumbled, and fiddled with a fingernail as if more interested in that than in anything Hajjaj was likely to say. No doubt he is, Hajjaj thought unhappily. Nevertheless, he went on with the request the Kaunians from Forthweg had made. Ansovald did start to listen to him; he gave the Unkerlanter minister to Zuwayza that much. And, when he finished, Ansovald wasted no time coming to a decision. He looked Hajjaj straight in the eye and said, “No.”

Hajjaj hadn’t really expected anything else. Ansovald was here not least to thwart Zuwayza. But he asked, “Why not, your Excellency? Surely you cannot believe these Kaunians would prefer King Mezentio to King Swemmel? Why not loose them against the enemy you both hate?”

“I don’t have to tell you a cursed thing,” Ansovald answered. Hajjaj just inclined his head and waited. Ansovald glared at him. At last, patience won what anger-or anger openly revealed, at least-wouldn’t have. “All right. All right,” the Unkerlanter minister said. “I’ll tell you why, curse it.”

“Thank you,” Hajjaj said, and wondered whether he was more pained to say those words or Ansovald to hear them.

Ansovald might have bitten into a lemon as he went on, “Because these Kaunians are a pack of cursed troublemakers, that’s why.”

“Don’t you want Mezentio’s men to have trouble?” Hajjaj asked.

“They’ve got trouble. We’re giving it to them.” Ansovald’s glare settled on the Zuwayzi foreign minister. “If we weren’t, I wouldn’t be here yattering with you, would I?” Hajjaj spread his hands, yielding the point. Ansovald bulled ahead: “But that isn’t the kind of troublemakers I meant. Aye, they’d give the redheads a hard time, as long as there are any redheads left in Forthweg. There won’t be, though, not for very much longer. And after that-troublemakers make trouble, you know what I mean? Pretty soon, they’d start giving us trouble, just on account of we were there. Why let ‘em? You’ve got yourself some blonds, and you’re welcome to them. My orders on this one come from Cottbus, and Cottbus knows what it’s talking about.”

Hajjaj considered. Ansovald’s words did have a certain ruthless logic behind them-the sort King Swemmel came up with on one of his good days. Troublemakers were fond of making trouble, and against whom didn’t always matter. Hajjaj had told the blonds he would try, and he’d tried. “Let it be as you say,” he murmured.

“Of course it’ll be as I say,” Ansovald answered smugly. He thrust a thick finger out at Hajjaj. “Now, as long as you’re here-when are you going to give this Tassi bitch back to Iskakis?”

“Good day, your Excellency,” Hajjaj said with dignity, and rose to leave. “You may have a good deal to say about what goes on in my kingdom, but not, powers above be praised, in my household.” But as he walked away, he hoped that wasn’t more wishful thinking.

With nothing to do but lie on his back and eat and drink, Bembo should have been a happy man. The constable had often aspired to such laziness as an ideal, though a friendly woman or two had also played a part in his daydreams. A broken leg most emphatically had not.

It got me back to Tricarico, he thought. Oraste was right-if I’d stayed in Eoforwic, if I’d stayed anywhere in fornicating Forthweg, I’d probably be dead now. None of the news coming out of the west was good, even if the local news sheets did try to make it as palatable as they could.

What Oraste hadn’t thought about was that, even back in his own home town in northeastern Algarve, Bembo still might get killed. Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons flew over the Bradano Mountains every night-and sometimes during the day-to drop their eggs on Tricarico. Bembo wondered how long it would be before enemy soldiers started coming over the mountains, too.

“However long it is, I can’t do anything about it,” he muttered. His leg remained splinted. It still hurt. It also itched maddeningly under the boards and bandages where he couldn’t scratch.

A nurse came down the neat row of cots in the ward. The sanatorium was crowded, not just with men wounded in combat but with all the civilians hurt by falling eggs. Bembo had hoped to be something of a hero when he got back to Tricarico. Hardly anyone seemed to care, or even to notice.

“How are we today?” the nurse asked when she got to his cot.

“I’m fine.” Bembo whipped his head around, as if to see if he were sharing the bed with other men he didn’t know about. “Don’t see anyone else, though.”

He got a dutiful smile from the nurse. She looked tired. Everyone in Tricarico, or at least in the sanatorium, looked beat these days. She set a hand on his forehead. “No fever,” she said, and scribbled something on the leaf of paper in her clipboard. “That’s a good sign.”

“How are you, sweetheart?” Bembo asked. He felt good enough to notice she was a woman, and not the homeliest one he’d ever seen.

She was pretty, in fact, when she smiled, which she did now-this one had nothing of duty in it. But her brightening had nothing to do with Bembo’s charms, if any. “I got a letter from my husband last night,” she answered. “He’s in the west, but he’s still all right, powers above be praised.”

“Good,” Bembo said, more or less sincerely. “Glad to hear it.”

“Do you need to use the bedpan?” she asked.

“Well. . aye,” he said, and she tended to it, holding up the blanket on the cot as a minimal shield for his modesty. She handled him with efficiency King Swemmel might have envied, as if his piece of meat were nothing but a piece of meat. He sighed. You heard stories about nurses. … If he’d learned one thing as a constable, it was that you heard all sorts of stories that weren’t true.

“Anything else?” she asked. Bembo shook his head. She went on to the fellow in the next cot.

One of the stories you heard was how bad sanatorium food was. That one, unfortunately, had turned out to be true. If anything, it had turned out to be an understatement. What Bembo got for supper was barley porridge and olives that had seen better days and wine well on the way to turning into vinegar. He didn’t get much, either: certainly not enough wine to make him happy.

The fellow in the cot next to his was a civilian who’d got his leg broken here in Tricarico at about the same time as Bembo had over in Eoforwic. His name was Tibiano. By the way he talked, Bembo suspected he’d seen the inside of a constabulary station or two in his time. “I’ll lay you three to two the fornicating islanders send dragons over again tonight,” he said now.

“I wouldn’t mind getting laid, but not by you, thanks,” Bembo answered. Tibiano chuckled. Bembo went on, “I won’t touch the bet, either. Those whoresons come over just about every night.”

“Isn’t that the sad and sorry truth?” Tibiano agreed. “Who would’ve thunk it? We started this war to kick everybody else’s arse, not to get ours kicked. Those other bastards deserve it. What did we ever do to anybody?”

Having been in Forthweg, Bembo knew just what-or some of just what- his kingdom had done. He hadn’t talked much about that since returning to Tricarico. For one thing, he hadn’t thought anybody would believe him. For another, he would just as soon have forgotten. But he couldn’t leave that unanswered. “There are some Kaunians who’d say we’ve done a thing or two to them.” And there would be a lot more, if they were still alive.

“Blonds? Futter blonds,” Tibiano said. “They’ve always tried to keep us Algarvians from being everything we ought to be. They’re jealous, that’s what they are. Like I say, they deserve it.”

He spoke loudly and passionately, as people do when sure they’re right. Several other men in the ward lifted their heads and agreed with him. So did the young woman who was taking away their supper tins. No one had a good word to say about any Kaunians. Bembo didn’t argue. He didn’t love the blonds, either. And the last thing he wanted was for anyone to say he did. Calling an Algarvian a Kaunian-lover had always been good for starting a fight. These days, though, calling him a Kaunian-lover was about the same as calling him a traitor.

Night came early, though not so early as it did farther south. Trapani endured hours more darkness each winter night than Tricarico did, and suffered because of it. But what Tricarico went through wasn’t easy, either.

Bembo had just dropped into a fitful, uncomfortable sleep-he would have killed to be able to roll over onto his belly-when alarm bells started clanging. “Come on!” he shouted. “We’re all supposed to run down to the cellar.”

Curses and jeers answered him. Hardly any of the men in this ward could get out of their cots, let alone run. If an egg burst on the sanatorium, then it did, and that was all there was to it. Bembo cursed the bells. He’d heard them too often in Eoforwic. And the last time you heard them there, you didn’t get to a shelter, or even a hole in the ground, fast enough.

In the dark ward, somebody asked, “Where are all the fancy spells the news sheets keep promising?”

“Up King Mezentio’s arse,” somebody else answered. Bembo probably wasn’t the only one trying to figure out who’d said that. But the dark could cover all sorts of treason. At least for now, the disgruntled Algarvian had got away with speaking his mind.

Eggs didn’t start falling right away. Algarvian dowsers were good at what they did. They’d probably picked up the enemy dragons’ motion as soon as the beasts came over the Bradano Mountains. But how much good would that do without enough Algarvian dragons to go up there and knock the Kuusamans and Lagoans out of the sky? Not much, Bembo thought dismally.

As soon as eggs did begin to drop, beams from heavy sticks started probing up into the sky. But the air pirates had plenty of tricks. Along with eggs, they dropped fluttering strips of paper that drove dowsers mad: how to detect the motion of dragons when all that other motion distracted them? Because they couldn’t tell the men at the heavy sticks exactly where the enemy dragons were, the beams from those sticks struck home only by luck.

And if an egg lands right on top of this stinking sanatorium, that’ll be luck, too, Bembo thought-bloody bad luck. No one was supposed to try to drop eggs on buildings where healers worked, but accidents, mistakes, misfortunes happened.

When an egg burst close enough to rattle the shutters over the windows, someone in a ward down the hall started screaming. His shrill cries went on and on, then stopped very abruptly. Bembo didn’t care to think about what had probably just gone on in that other ward.

Eggs kept falling through most of the night. Bembo got a little fitful sleep, but not much. The same, no doubt, would be true for everybody in Tricarico. Even people who weren’t hurt wouldn’t be worth much in the morning. Could metalworkers make proper shells for eggs when they had to pry their eyelids open? Could mages cast the proper spells to contain the sorcerous energy in those eggs? You didn’t have to be Swemmel of Unkerlant to see how efficiency would go down.

“One more night,” Tibiano said when the sun crawled up over the mountains to the east.

“Aye, one more night,” Bembo agreed in tones as hollow as his wardmate’s. He yawned till his jaw creaked. A serving woman brought a cart full of trays into the room. The yawn turned into a groan. “Now we have to live through one more breakfast.”

After breakfast, a healer who looked even more exhausted than Bembo felt came thought the ward. He poked at Bembo’s leg, muttered a quick charm or two, and nodded. “You’ll do,” he said, before racing on to Tibiano’s cot. How many men’s recoveries was he overseeing? Could he do any of them justice?

Bembo was dozing-if he couldn’t sleep at night, he’d do it in the daytime- when a nurse said, “You’ve got a visitor.”

He opened his eyes. He hadn’t had many visitors since getting hurt, and this one.. “Saffa!” he exclaimed.

“Hello, Bembo,” the sketch artist said. “I thought I’d come by and see how you were.” She didn’t look good herself-not the way Bembo remembered her. She was pale and sallow and seemed weary unto death.

“I heard you had a baby,” Bembo said. Only after he’d spoken did he stop and think that might be part of why she looked so tired.

“Aye, a little boy,” she answered. “My sister is taking care of him right now.”

“Wouldn’t give me a tumble,” he complained. Self-pity and self-aggrandizement were never far from the surface with him. “Who is the papa, anyway?”

“He was fighting down in the Duchy of Grelz last I heard from him,” Saffa said. “A couple of months ago, letters stopped coming.”

“That doesn’t sound so good,” Bembo said, and then, belatedly remembering himself, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I. He was sweet.” For a moment, Saffa managed the nasty grin that had always provoked Bembo-one way or another. She added, “Unlike some people I could name.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I love you, too,” Bembo said. “If I could get up, I’d give you a swat on that round fanny of yours. Did you come see me just so you could try and drive me crazy?”

She shook her head. Coppery curls flew back and forth. “I came to see you because this stinking war has taken a bite out of both of us.”

If the baby’s father were still around, I wouldn‘t want anything to do with you. Bembo translated that without effort. But it didn’t mean she was wrong. “This stinking war has taken a bite out of the whole stinking world.” He hesitated. “When I’m back on my feet, I’ll call on you, all right?”

“All right,” Saffa said. “I’ll tell you right now, though, I still may decide I’d sooner slap your face. Just so we understand each other.”

Bembo snorted. “Some understanding.” But he was nodding. Saffa without vinegar wasn’t Saffa. “Take care of yourself. Stay safe.”

“You, too,” she said, and then she was gone, leaving Bembo half wondering if he’d dreamt her whole visit.

An egg flew in from the east and hit a house in the village Garivald’s company had just taken away from the Algarvians. Chunks of the house flew out in all directions. A spinning board knocked down an Unkerlanter soldier standing only a couple of feet from Garivald. He started to get up, then clapped a hand to the small of his back and let out a yip of pain. The house fell in on itself and started to burn.

A Forthwegian couple in the middle of the street started howling. Garivald presumed it was their house. He couldn’t make out much of what they were saying. To a Grelzer like him, this east-Forthwegian dialect made even less sense than the variety of the language people around Eoforwic spoke. Not only were the sounds a little different, a lot of the words sounded nothing at all like their Unkerlanter equivalents. He wondered if they were borrowed from Algarvian.

Another egg flew in. This one burst farther away. The crash that followed said somebody’s home would never be the same. Shrieks rose immediately thereafter. Somebody’s life would never be the same.

My life will never be the same, either, Garivald thought. Powers below eat the Algarvians. It’s their fault, curse them. I’d sooner be back in Zossen, drinking my way through the winter and waiting for spring. Neither Zossen nor the family he’d had there existed any more. He turned to Lieutenant Andelot. “Sir, we ought to get rid of that miserable egg-tosser.”

“I know, Sergeant Fariulf,” Andelot answered. “But we’ve come so far so fast, we can’t sweep up everything as neatly as we want to. On the scale of the war as a whole, that tosser doesn’t mean much.”

“No, sir,” Garivald agreed. “But it’s liable to take some nasty bites out of us.” He thought for a moment. “I could probably sneak my squad through the redheads’ lines and take it out. Things are all topsy-turvy-they won’t have had the time to get proper trenches dug or anything like that.”

What am I saying? he wondered. Go after an egg-tosser behind the enemy’s line? Have I lost all of my mind, or do I really want to kill myself?

Andelot also studied him with a certain curiosity. “We don’t see volunteers as often as we’d like,” he remarked. “Aye, go on, Sergeant. Choose the men you’d like to have with you. I think you can do it, too.” He pointed southeastward. “Most of the redheads in these parts are falling back on that town called Gromheort. They’ll stand siege there, unless I miss my guess, and getting them out won’t come easy or cheap.” With a shrug, he went on, “Nothing but Algarve beyond, though. As I say, pick your men, Sergeant. Let’s get on with it.”

The men Garivald did pick looked imperfectly enamored of him. He understood that; he was giving them the chance to get killed. But he had an argument they couldn’t top: “I’m going along with you. If I can do it, you can cursed well do it with me.”

Behind his back, somebody said, “You’re too ugly for me to want to do it with you, Sergeant.” Garivald laughed along with the rest of the soldiers who heard. He couldn’t help himself. But he didn’t stop picking men.

Before they set out from the village, though, a couple of squadrons of dragons painted rock-gray flew over the place out of the west. “Hold up, Fariulf,” Andelot said. “Maybe they’ll do our job for us.”

“They should have done it already,” Garivald said. Even so, he wasn’t sorry to raise his hand. None of the men he’d chosen tried to talk him out of waiting. He would have been astonished if anyone had.

That one Algarvian tosser hadn’t had many eggs to fling. The distant thunder of the eggs the Unkerlanter dragons dropped brought smiles to all the men in rock-gray who heard it. “Don’t know whether they’ll flatten that egg-tosser or not,” a soldier said. “Any which way, though, the redheads are catching it.”

Only silence followed the edge of the thunder. No more eggs came down on the Forthwegian village. Andelot beamed. “That’s pretty efficient,” he said. “Maybe we’ll be able to get a decent night’s sleep here.”

Not everybody would get a decent night’s sleep. Andelot made sure he had plenty of sentries facing east. Had Garivald been the Algarvian commander, he wouldn’t have tried a night attack. But the redheads were still dedicated counter-punchers. He’d seen that. Given even the slightest opening, they would hit back, and hit back hard.

Crickets were chirping not far from the campfire by which Garivald sat when Andelot came up to him and asked, “Got a moment, Fariulf?”

“Aye, sir,” Garivald answered. You couldn’t tell a superior no. He hadn’t needed more than one scorching from a furious sergeant to learn that lesson forever. And, in truth, he hadn’t been doing anything more than marveling at hearing crickets in wintertime. There wouldn’t have been any singing down around Zossen. He scrambled to his feet. “What do you need, sir?”

“Walk with me,” Andelot said, and headed away from the fires and out into the darkness. Garivald grabbed his stick before following. Everything seemed quiet, but you never could tell. Andelot only nodded. If he’d discovered who Garivald was, he wouldn’t have wanted him armed. So Garivald reasoned, at any rate. His company commander nodded again once they were out of earshot of the rest of the Unkerlanters. “Sergeant, you showed outstanding initiative there when you volunteered to go after the Algarvian egg-tosser. I’m very pleased.”

“Oh, that.” Garivald had already forgotten about it. “Thank you, sir.”

“It’s something we need more of,” Andelot said. “It’s something the whole kingdom needs more of. It would make us more efficient. Too many of us are happy doing nothing till someone gives them an order. That’s not so good.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it, sir,” Garivald said truthfully. If you didn’t have to do something for yourself, and if nobody was making you do it for anyone else, why do it?

“Mezentio’s men, curse them, have initiative,” Andelot said. “They get themselves going without officers, without sergeants, without anything. They just see what needs doing and do it. That’s one of the things that makes them so much trouble. We should be able to match them.”

“We’re beating them anyhow,” Garivald said.

“But we should do better,” Andelot insisted. “The price we’re paying will cripple us for years. And it’s something we should do for our own pride’s sake. How does the song go?” He sang in a soft tenor:

“ ‘Do anything to beat them back.

Don’t hold off, don’t go slack.’

Something like that, anyhow.”

“Something like that,” Garivald echoed raggedly. He was glad the darkness hid his expression from Andelot. He was sure his jaw had dropped when the officer started to sing. How not, considering that Andelot was singing one of his songs?

The company commander slapped him on the back. “So, as I say, Sergeant, that’s why I’m so pleased. Anything you can do to encourage the men to show more initiative would also be very good.”

“Why don’t you just order them to …?” Garivald’s voice trailed away. He felt foolish. “Oh. Can’t very well do that, can you?”

“No.” Andelot chuckled. “Initiative imposed from above isn’t exactly the genuine article, I’m afraid.” He headed back toward the fires. So did Garivald. One of the nice things about being a sergeant was not having to go out and stand sentry in the middle of the night.

He woke the next morning before dawn, with Unkerlanter egg-tossers thunderously pounding the Algarvians farther east. Andelot’s whistle shrilled. “Forward!” he shouted. Forward the Unkerlanters went, footsoldiers, behemoths, and dragons overhead all working together most efficiently. Garivald didn’t worry, or even stop to think, that the Algarvians had devised the scheme his countrymen were using. It worked, and worked well. Nothing else mattered to him.

Artificers had laid bridges over the river that ran near Gromheort-nobody had bothered telling Garivald its name. Andelot clapped his hands when he thudded across one of those bridges. “Nothing between us and Algarve now but a few miles of flat land!” he shouted.

Garivald whooped. That there might be some large number of redheads with sticks between him and their kingdom was true, but hardly seemed to matter. If King Swemmel’s men had surged forward from the Twegen and Eoforwic to here in a few short weeks, another surge would surely take them onto Algarvian soil.

Garivald whooped again when he saw Unkerlanter behemoths on this side of the rivet. Footsoldiers were a lot safer when they had plenty of the big beasts along for company.

But then one of those behemoths crumpled as if it had charged headlong into a boulder. A couple of the crewmen riding it were thrown clear; its fall crushed the rest. “Heavy stick!” someone close to the beast yelled. “Blazed right through its armor!”

Maybe that was just an enemy emplacement nearby. Or maybe. . An alarmed shout rose: “Enemy behemoths!”

Even before the first egg from the Algarvian beasts’ tossers burst, Garivald was digging himself a hole in the muddy ground. A footsoldier without a hole was like a turtle without a shell: naked, vulnerable, and ever so likely to be crushed.

Another Unkerlanter behemoth went down, this one from a well-aimed egg. The Algarvians knew what they were doing. They generally did, worse luck. Had there been more of them. . Garivald didn’t care to think about that. Beams from ordinary, hand-held sticks announced that Algarvian footsoldiers were in the neighborhood, too.

“Crystallomancer!” Andelot bellowed. “Powers below eat you, where’s a crystallomancer?” No one answered. He cursed, loudly and foully. “The fornicating Algarvians would have a crystallomancer handy.”

Before he could embroider on that theme, Unkerlanter dragons dove on the enemy behemoths. Crystallomancer or not, someone back on the other side of the river knew what was going on. Under the cover of their aerial umbrella, the men in rock-gray moved forward again. Garivald ran past a couple of corpses in kilts, and past a redhead down and moaning. He blazed the Algarvian to make sure the fellow wouldn’t get up again, then ran on.

But Mezentio’s men hadn’t given up. A crash from behind Garivald made him whirl. There was the bridge on which he’d crossed, smashed by an egg. A moment later, another one went up. A tall column of water rose into the air. “They’re using those stinking sorcerously guided eggs again,” somebody exclaimed.

“They did this to us back by the Twegen, too, and we managed fine then,” Garivald said. But that bridgehead had been well established. This one was brand new. Could it stand against enemy counterattack? He’d find out.

Vanai hadn’t known peace, hadn’t known the absence of fear, since Algarvian footsoldiers and behemoths swept into, swept past, Oyngestun. Now Eoforwic was calm and quiet under the rule of King Beornwulf and the more obvious and emphatic rule of the Unkerlanters who propped him on his throne. She could go out without sorcerous disguise if she wanted to. Some Kaunians did. She hadn’t had the nerve to try it herself, not after having had her nose rubbed in how little so many Forthwegians loved the blonds who lived among them.

But lack of love was one thing. The desire to kill her on sight was something else again. For the first time in more than four years, she didn’t have to worry about that. Life could have been idyllic … if the Unkerlanters hadn’t hijacked Ealstan into their army.

Fear for her husband swirled around her and choked her like nasty smoke. “It’s not fair,” she told Saxburh. The baby looked up at her out of big round eyes-eyes that, by now, were almost as dark as Ealstan’s. Saxburh smiled enormously, showing a new front tooth. Now that it had come in, she was happy. She had no other worries. Vanai wished she could say the same herself.

“Not fair,” she whispered fiercely. Saxburh laughed. Vanai didn’t.

In a way-in a couple of ways, actually-this was worse than worrying about her grandfather when Major Spinello set out to work him to death. She’d agonized over Brivibas more from a sense of family duty than out of real affection. And she’d been able to do something to keep her grandfather safe, even if letting Spinello into her bed had been a nightmare of its own.

But all the love she had in the world that she didn’t give to Saxburh was aimed at Ealstan. She knew he was going into dreadful danger; the Unkerlanters had beaten back Mezentio’s men more by throwing bodies at them than through clever strategy. And one of the bodies was his-the only body she’d ever cared about in that particular way.

If bedding an Unkerlanter officer could have brought Ealstan back to Eoforwic, she would have done it in a heartbeat, and worried about everything else afterwards. But she knew better. The Unkerlanters didn’t care what happened to one conscripted Forthwegian. And, for all their talk about efficiency, she wouldn’t have bet they could even find him once he went into the enormous man-hungry monster that was their army.

So she had to live her life from day to day as best she could. Fortunately, Ealstan had managed to save up a good deal of silver. She didn’t have to rush about looking for work-and who here, who anywhere, would take care of Saxburh even if she found it? One more worry, though a smaller one, to keep her awake at night. The silver, as she knew too well, wouldn’t last forever, and what would she do when it ran out?

What she did after yet another night where she got less sleep than she wished she would have was take Saxburh, plop her into the little harness she’d made so she could carry the baby and keep both hands free, and go down to the market square to get enough barley and onions and olive oil and cheese and cheap wine to keep eating a while longer.

The market square was a more cheerful place than it had been for a long time. People went about their business without constantly looking around to see where they would hide if eggs started falling or if dragons suddenly appeared overhead. The Algarvians had struck at Eoforwic from the air a few times after losing the city, but not lately-and their closest dragon farms had to be far away by now.

New broadsheets sprouted like mushrooms on fences and walls. One showed a big, clean-shaven man labeled unkerlant and a smaller, bearded fellow called forthweg advancing side by side against a mangy-looking dog with the face of King Mezentio. They both carried upraised clubs. The legend under the drawing said, NO MORE BITES.

Another had a drawing of King Beornwulf with the Forthwegian crown on his head but wearing a uniform tunic of a cut somewhere between those of Forthweg and Unkerlant. He had a stern expression on his face and a stick in his right hand, A KING WHO FIGHTS FOR HIS PEOPLE, this legend read.

Vanai wondered what sort of king he would end up making and how much freedom from the Unkerlanters he’d be able to get. She suspected-indeed, she was all but certain-she and Forthweg as a whole would find out. If King Penda didn’t live out his life in exile, if he tried coming back to his native land, he wasn’t likely to live long.

More food was in the market square and prices were lower than they had been for a couple of years. Vanai praised the powers above for that, especially since everything had been so dear during the doomed Forthwegian uprising against the redheads. She even bought a bit of sausage for a treat, and didn’t ask what went into it. Saxburh fell asleep.

Over in one corner of the square, a band thumped away. They had a bowl in front of them, and every now and then some passerby would toss in a couple of coppers or even a small silver coin. Forthwegian-style music didn’t appeal to Vanai; the Kaunians in Forthweg had their own tunes, much more rhythmically complex and, to her ear, much more interesting.

But the novelty of hearing any music in the market square drew her to listen for a while. Out here, in her sorcerous disguise, she wasn’t just Vanai: she was also Thelberge. She thought of the Forthwegian appearance she wore almost as if it were another person. And Thelberge, she thought, would have liked these musicians. The drummer, who also sang, was particularly good.

He was so good, in fact, that she gave him a sharp look. Ethelhelm, the prominent musician for whom Ealstan had cast accounts for a while, had also been a drummer and singer. But she’d seen Ethelhelm play. He had Kaunian blood in him. Half? A quarter? She wasn’t sure, but enough to make him tall and rangy and give him a long face. Enough to get him in trouble with the Algarvians, too. This fellow looked like any other Forthwegian in his late twenties or early thirties.

She couldn’t applaud when the song ended, not with her hands full. Several people did, though. Coins clinked in the bowl. “Thank you kindly, folks,” the drummer said; it was plainly his band. “Remember, the more you give us, the better we play.” His grin showed a broken front tooth. He got a laugh, and a few more coppers to go with it. The band swung into a new tune.

And he was looking at her, too. She’d got used to men looking at her, both when she looked like herself and in her Forthwegian disguise. It was, more often than not, an annoyance rather than a compliment. She’d felt that way even before Spinello did so much to sour her on the male half of the human race.

But the drummer wasn’t looking at her as if imagining how she was made under her tunic. He wore a slightly puzzled expression, one that might have said, Haven’t I seen you somewhere? Vanai didn’t think she’d ever seen him before.

The song ended. People clapped again. Vanai still couldn’t, but she did set down some groceries and drop a coin in the bowl. One of the horn players lifted his instrument to his lips to start the next song, but the drummer said, “Wait a bit.” The trumpeter shrugged, but lowered the horn once more. The drummer nodded to Vanai. “Your name’s Thelberge, isn’t it?”

“Aye,” she said, and then wished she’d denied it. Too late for that, though. She countered as best she could: “I may know your name, too.”

He had to be Ethelhelm, in the same sort of sorcerous disguise she wore. His voice was familiar, even if that false face wasn’t. She had seen the disguise once before, but hadn’t noticed it till it suddenly wore off and he turned into Ethelhelm on the street. Now he grinned again, showing that tooth. “Everybody knows Guthfrith,” he said. “People have heard of me as far and wide as … the west bank of the Twegen River.”

That got him another laugh from his little audience. Vanai smiled, too; the west bank of the Twegen couldn’t have been more than three miles away. She said, “You play so well, you could be famous all over Forthweg.”

“Thank you kindly,” he said, “but that sounds to me like more trouble than it’s worth.” As Ethelhelm, he’d been famous all over Forthweg. Before he disappeared, the Algarvians had squeezed him till his eyes popped-that was what his Kaunian blood had got him. No doubt he spoke from bitter experience. He went on, “I’m doing just fine the way I am.”

With the redheads driven out of Eoforwic, he could have stopped being Guthfrith and gone back to his true name. Or could he? Vanai wondered. Mezentio’s men hadn’t just blackmailed him. They’d started putting words in his mouth, too. When it was either obey or go to a special camp, saying no wasn’t easy. Still, some people might reckon him a collaborator.

He pointed to Saxburh, asleep in the harness. “That’ll be Ealstan’s baby, won’t it?”

“That’s right,” Vanai answered.

“How’s he doing?” asked Ethelhelm who was now Guthfrith-just as, in some ways, Vanai was, or could become, Thelberge.

She’d told the truth once without intending to. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Ethelhelm didn’t need to know Ealstan was far away, dragged off into the Unkerlanter army. “He’s fine,” Vanai said firmly. “He’s just fine.” Powers above make it so. Powers above keep it so.

“Glad to hear it,” Ethelhelm said, and sounded as if he meant it. But he and Ealstan hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Ealstan was one who thought he’d gone too far down the ley line the Algarvians had given him. I can’t trust this fellow, Vanai thought. I don’t dare.

A man said, “You going to gab all day, buddy, or can you play, too?”

“Right.” Ethelhelm’s Guthfrith-smile was meant to be engaging but looked a little tight. He nodded to the other musicians. They swung into a quickstep that had been popular since the reign of King Plegmund-not the one, though, that was known as “King Plegmund’s Quickstep.” What with the Algarvian-created Plegmund’s Brigade, “King Plegmund’s Quickstep” seemed likely to go into eclipse for a while.

Vanai thought it a good time for her to go into eclipse, too. She made her way out of the market square. As she went, she imagined she felt Ethelhelm’s eyes on her back, though she didn’t turn around to see if he was really watching her. One other thing she didn’t do: she didn’t leave the square by the way out leading most directly to her block of flats. That meant her arms were very tired by the time she got home, but it also meant Ethelhelm didn’t find out in which direction she lived.

She wasn’t sure that mattered. She hoped it didn’t. But she didn’t want to take chances, either. She ruffled Saxburh’s fine, dark hair as she took her out of the harness. “No, I don’t want to take chances,” she said. “I’ve got more than just me to worry about.”

Saxburh whimpered. She’d emerged from her nap crabby. Sure enough, she was wet. Changing her didn’t take long. Changing her any one time didn’t take long. Doing it half a dozen times a day and more. .

“But everything’s going to be all right. Everything will be just fine,” Vanai said. If she said it often enough, it might come true.

“So this is Algarve,” Ceorl said as the men of Plegmund’s Brigade trudged into a farming village. He spat. The city wind that blew at his back, out of the west, carried the spittle a long way. “I thought Algarve was supposed to be rich. This doesn’t look so fornicating fancy to me.”

It didn’t look so fancy to Sidroc, either. But he answered, “Algarve’s just a place. Gromheort’s right on our side of the border from it. You can see it from there. It doesn’t look any different than Forthweg.”

“You’re a corporal now. You must know everything,” Ceorl said.

“I know I’m a corporal, by the powers above,” Sidroc said. Ceorl made a face at him. He ignored it. “I know this is a cursed miserable place, too. The part of Algarve you can see from Gromheort is a lot better country.”

Down here in the south, the land was flat and damp, sometimes marshy. But some of the marshes froze in the winter. Unkerlanter behemoths had broken through a couple of places where the redheads hadn’t thought they could go. And the men of Plegmund’s Brigade had other things to worry about, too.

“If those whoresons in this village start blazing at us on account of they think we’re Swemmel’s buggers, I say we treat ‘em just like we did the Yaninans who blazed Sergeant Werferth,” Ceorl growled.

They’d already drawn a couple of blazes from panicky redheads. The Algarvians saw swarthy men in tunics and didn’t stop to find out which swarthy men they were or whose side they were on. So far, the troopers of Plegmund’s Brigade hadn’t answered with massacre. “Looks like they’re just running here,” Sidroc said.

Sure enough, Algarvians-mostly women and children, with a few old men- fled the village on foot, on horseback, and in whatever carriages and wagons they could lay their hands on. Some of the redheads on foot carried bundles heavier than a soldier’s pack. Others pulled light carts as if they were beasts of burden themselves. Still others took nothing at all with them, abandoning homes without a backward glance and relying on luck to keep them fed so long as they could escape the Unkerlanters.

“We’re going to stand here,” Lieutenant Puliano said, commanding the Forthwegians with as much aplomb as if he were a marshal. “I’ll need two or three groups forward-that house there, that stand of trees, and that tumbledown barn. You know the drill. Let Swemmel’s buggers come past you, then hit ‘em from the sides and from behind. Questions? All right, then. .”

One of the joys of being a corporal was that Sidroc got told off to lead one of Puliano’s forward groups: the one in the stand of trees. “Dig in,” he told the squad he headed. “This would have been a lot better cover if we were here in the summertime.”

“What was that?” Sudaku asked in Algarvian. The blond from the Phalanx of Valmiera was picking up Forthwegian fast, but still had only so much. Sidroc translated his words into Algarvian. Sudaku nodded agreement.

With his short-handled shovel, Ceorl dug like a mole. He threw another shovelful of dirt on the mound in front of his deepening hole, then said, “Ain’t a futtering one of us going to be here in the summertime.” His Algarvian was as rough and laced with obscenities as his Forthwegian.

“No. We will have retreated by then,” Sudaku said.

“That ain’t what I meant, you stupid fornicating Kaunian,” Ceorl said.

“If your dick were bigger-much, much bigger-you could bugger yourself,” Sudaku replied. They both spoke without heat. Sudaku went on digging. So did Ceorl, who paused only to slice a thumb across his throat to show what he had meant.

A few eggs burst, perhaps a quarter of a mile in front of the grove where Sidroc and his double handful of men waited. “Feeling for us,” Sidroc muttered, more than half to himself. Sure enough, the bursts crept closer, kicking up fountains of snow and dirt.

Only a couple of eggs burst among the trees. The rest marched into the village. Houses and shops crumbled into wreckage. Not all the Algarvian civilians were likely to have got clear. They’d be running around and screaming and getting in the way of the soldiers. As far as Sidroc was concerned, that was about all civilians were good for. But knocking a lot of buildings in the village to pieces wouldn’t hurt the defense. If anything, it might help. Everybody in Plegmund’s Brigade had had plenty of practice fighting in rubble.

“Heads up!” hissed somebody among the trees. “Here they come.”

Sidroc’s heart thuttered. His mouth went dry. He’d been through too many battles, skirmishes, clashes, fights. It never got easier. If anything, it got harder every time. At first, he hadn’t believed he could die. He believed it now. He’d seen far too much to have any possible doubt.

Some of the oncoming Unkerlanters wore snow smocks over their rock-gray tunics. Some didn’t bother. The men in white and those in Unkerlanter rock-gray were about equally hard to see. Winter hereabouts wasn’t quite so harsh, quite so snowy, as it was farther west.

“Remember, let ‘em by, like Lieutenant Puliano said,” Sidroc reminded his men. “Then we give it to ‘em up the arse.”

He studied the way Swemmel’s soldiers loped forward, then gave a soft grunt of satisfaction. Ceorl put that grunt into words: “They don’t move like veteran troops. They ought to be easy meat.”

“Aye-depending on how many of ‘em there are,” Sidroc answered.

“I see no behemoths,” Sudaku remarked.

“Don’t miss those fornicators,” Sidroc said. He saw none of the great armored beasts, either. That was another sign the Unkerlanters moving on the village weren’t first-rate men. Enemy doctrine assigned help first to the soldiers most likely to succeed.

“Ahh, the fools,” Ceorl said as the enemy drew near. “The dick-sucking virgins. They aren’t even sending anybody in here to see if we’ve got any little surprises waiting.” His chuckle was pure evil. “They’ll find out.”

On toward the village trotted the Unkerlanters. “Wait,” Sidroc said, over and over. “Just wait.”

The men in and around the outlying house started blazing at Swemmel’s soldiers first. Sidroc could hear the Unkerlanters’ howls and curses, and even make sense of a few of those oaths. His men sat quietly in their holes, waiting and watching. They all expected the same thing. And they got it: the Unkerlanters wheeled toward the house, intent on flushing out their tormentors.

That that might expose their backs to another set of tormentors never seemed to cross their minds. “Now!” Sidroc shouted, and started blazing. One enemy soldier after another went down. For a couple of minutes, Swemmel’s men couldn’t even figure out where the beams wreaking such havoc among them were coming from. Sidroc laughed. “Easy!”

But then more Unkerlanters came forward, and they had some idea that danger lurked among the trees. Danger also lurked, though, by the tumbledown barn, and that hadn’t occurred to them. The men from Plegmund’s Brigade posted there worked the same kind of slaughter as Sidroc’s squad had a few minutes earlier.

With that, the entire Unkerlanter advance came unglued. Swemmel’s men had been hit from unexpected directions three times in a row. When they could follow orders exactly as they got them, they made fine soldiers. Having spent more than two years in the field against them, Sidroc knew exactly how good they could be. But when they got surprised, they sometimes panicked.

They did here. They streamed back toward the west, dragging some wounded men with them and leaving others, along with the dead, lying on the muddy snow. Sidroc let out a long sigh of relief. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” he said. “I don’t think we got even a scratch here.”

“Only one trouble,” Sudaku said. “They will come back.”

“Which means we’d better move,” Sidroc said. “They know where we are, so they’ll be sure to give this place a good pounding.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a messenger came up from Lieutenant Puliano, ordering the squad to shift to a new position in and around another outlying house. Sidroc preened. “Do I know what’s what?”

“Let me kiss your boots,” Ceorl said, “and you can kiss my-” The suggestion was not one a common soldier usually made to a corporal.

“If we’re both still alive tonight, you’re in trouble,” Sidroc said. Ceorl gave him an obscene gesture, too. Sidroc laughed and shook his head. “You’re not worth punishing, you son of a whore. That would just take you away from the front and make you safer than I am. I won’t let you get away with it. Come on, let’s move.”

They’d just started digging new holes when a storm of eggs fell on the grove they’d abandoned. The house and barn where other squads had taken shelter also vanished in bursts of sorcerous energy. Sudaku spoke in his Valmieran-flavored Algarvian: “Now they think it will be easy.”

“It would be easy-if they were fighting more Unkerlanters,” Sidroc said. “But the redheads are smarter than they are.” If the redheads are so cursed smart, what are they doing with their backs to the wall here in their own kingdom? And if you’re so fornicating smart, what are you doing here with them?

But, in the short run, on the small scale, what he’d said turned out to be the exact truth. On came the Unkerlanters once more, plainly confident they’d put paid to the men who’d tormented them. On they came-and again got caught from the flank and rear and ignominiously fled before setting so much as a foot in the village they were supposed to take.

“This is fun,” Ceorl said. “They can keep the whoresons coming. We’ll kill ‘em till everything turns blue.”

A long pause followed. We’d better move again, before they start pounding this place, too, Sidroc thought. Before he could give the order, though, another runner from the village came up. “Lieutenant Puliano says to pull back,” the man said.

“What? Why?” Sidroc asked irately. “Doesn’t he think the blockheads in rock-gray will fall for it again? I sure do.”

“But he gives the orders, and you sure don’t,” the messenger replied.

Since that was true, Sidroc had no choice but to obey. When he and his men-who still hadn’t lost anybody, despite the slaughter they’d worked on the Unkerlanters-got back into the Algarvian village, he burst out, “Why are you bringing us back here? We can hold ‘em a long time.”

“Aye, we could hold ‘em a long time here.” Puliano didn’t sound or look like a happy man. “But they’ve broken through farther north, and if we don’t pull back a little ways they’ll nip in behind us and cut us off.”

“Oh,” Sidroc said, and then, “Oh, shit.” That was an unanswerable argument. But it also had its drawbacks: “If the army does keep pulling back, what is there left to fight for?” Puliano just scowled by way of reply, from which Sidroc concluded that that had no real answer, either. He wished it did.