Darkness: Through The Darkness Part 31

"By squads!" an Algarvian officer shouted. "Into the woods on either side. We won't let the b.u.g.g.e.rs get away with this."

Into the woods Sidroc went. He hoped somebody in his squad could find the way back to the path, because he soon lost track of it. He could hear himself and his comrades blundering along. He couldn't hear anyone else--but at least one Unkerlanter irregular had been there somewhere, and probably more. They knew the woods, the wh.o.r.esons. If he heard them at all, it would be because they were laughing their heads off.

"Back!" The command came in Algarvian. It also told Sidroc where the path lay. Back he went. He didn't care that he'd caught no irregulars. He just wanted to escape the woods alive.

He did. A little village lay beyond the forest. Farmers and their wives looked up curiously at the bearded men in strange uniforms. Without a word, the men of Plegmund's Brigade started blazing. They killed as many as they could catch, and left the village a smoking ruin behind them. Sidroc laughed. "Welcome to Grelz!" he said. "As long as we're here, we may as well make ourselves at home."

"Another pack of murdering goons to worry about," Munderic said, leaning against the trunk of a spruce. "That's all Algarve's brought to Grelz--foreign murdering goons."

"Aye," Garivald said: one voice in a general rumble of agreement from the irregulars.

Another fighter said, "These Forthwegian b.u.g.g.e.rs are even nastier than the redheads, powers below eat aem."

"That's bad, but it's not so bad," Garivald said. People turned to look at him, puzzlement on a good many faces. He tried to put it into words: "The more people who hate these b.u.g.g.e.rs, the more who'll come over to our side."

"Here's hoping, anyway," Munderic said. "But we've got to show folks we can stand up to the wh.o.r.esons, hurt aem bad when we find the chance. Otherwise they'll just be afraid, and do whatever the foreigners say."

"We blazed that one fellow just to give aem a h.e.l.lo, like," somebody said, "and then they wrecked a village to pay it back. What'll they do if we nail a proper lot of aem?"

"See? They've already put you in fear," Munderic said. "We'll find a time to give aem a good boot in the a.r.s.e, see what they do then. If we can prod aem into something everybody's bound to hate, all the better."

"They must look like a pack of wild beasts, with all that hair on their faces people talk about," Garivald said. He had a good deal of hair on his face, too; chances to sc.r.a.pe it off were few and far between. But he still thought of himself as clean-shaven, which the Forthwegians weren't.

"They act like a pack of wild beasts, that's certain," Munderic said. "Off what they've shown so far, they are worse than the Algarvians."

"A mean man will keep a meaner dog," Garivald said, and then, musingly, tasting the words, "Sometimes you have to whack it with a log." He made a face. That didn't work. Around him, irregulars nudged one another and grinned. They knew the signs of a man with a song coming on.

Munderic didn't give Garivald any time to work on it now. He said, "We're going to hit them. We're going to teach them this is our countryside, and they can't come along and tear things up whenever they get the urge."

Obilot stuck up a hand. When Munderic pointed to her, she added, "Besides, with these cursed Forthwegians beating on us here in Grelz, the redheads can send more of their own soldiers against our regular armies."

"That's so." Munderic grinned at her. "You make quite a little general there." Most of the irregulars--most of the male irregulars, anyhow-- grinned and chuckled, too. Obilot's jaw set, though she didn't say anything. Most of the men viewed the handful of women who'd joined them as something more than conveniences, but something a good deal less than full-fledged fighters.

In a way, Garivald understood that. The only reason he'd gone easier on his wife back in Zossen than most Unkerlanter peasants did was that he had a wife of unusually forceful character. But all the women here fit that bill--and most of them had been through worse than any of the men. He sent Obilot a sympathetic glance. She didn't seem to notice. He shrugged. She probably thought he was leering at her, the way the men often did.

Someone said, "Those Forthwegians are no cursed good in the woods."

"They don't seem to be," Munderic agreed. "They're even worse than the Algarvians, I think. The redheads act like they think woods ought to be parks or something, but the Forthwegians, I think half of'em never saw a tree before in all their born days." He smacked one fist into the palm of his other hand. "And we'll make aem pay for it, too, as soon as we get the chance."

Three days later, an Unkerlanter slipped into the irregulars' camp with word that the Forthwegians would make another sweep through the eastern part of the forest, the part closest to Herborn, before long. Garivald never saw the fellow, but such things happened all the time: people who had to work with the Algarvians--and, now, with their Forthwegian flunkies--were only too glad to let the irregulars know what was going on.

"I've got just the spot for an ambush," Munderic said with a broad smile that showed broken teeth. He walked over to Garivald and slapped him on the shoulder. "It's not far from where we nailed those redheads and picked you up, as a matter of fact."

"Sounds good by me," Garivald said. "Let's do it."

"We will," Munderic declared. "And maybe Sadoc can cast a glamour over the roadway, so we make extra sure n.o.body spots us."

"Aye, maybe," Garivald said, and said no more. Before the fighting started, King Swemmel had sent a drunken wreck of a mage to Zossen to conduct the sacrifices that powered the village's crystal. Next to Sadoc, who'd joined the irregulars a couple of weeks earlier, that fellow looked like Addanz, the arch-mage of Unkerlant. Garivald didn't know where, or even if, Sadoc had learned magecraft. He did know the fellow hadn't learned much, and hadn't learned it very well.

But Munderic liked Sadoc: the leader of the irregulars finally had someone who could work magic, no matter how feebly, and Sadoc was recklessly brave when he wasn't working--or more likely botching--magic. Garivald liked him, too--as an irregular. As a mage, he made a good peasant.

Munderic at their head, the irregulars moved out to await the soldiers of Plegmund's Brigade. Garivald had heard of Plegmund; some old songs called him the biggest thief in the world. By all the signs, Forthwegians hadn't changed much from his day till now.

Garivald couldn't have said whether Munderic's chosen spot was close to the place where he'd been rescued. He wasn't all that good in the woods himself, though he was getting better. And, back then, he'd been too busy fearing the death he was sure lay ahead of him to take much notice of his surroundings.

He couldn't help agreeing the spot was a good one, though. The woods track widened out into a little clearing, around whose edges the irregulars grouped themselves. They could punish the Forthwegians who tramped into the trap. Garivald looked forward to it.

He kept sneaking glances at Obilot, who crouched behind a thick, rough-barked pine a few feet away. She went right on paying no attention to him. He sighed. He missed Annore. He missed women, generally speaking--and he looked likely to keep on missing with Obilot.

Sadoc, a big, unkempt fellow, chanted a spell that would, with luck, make the concealed Unkerlanters harder for the men of Plegmund's Brigade to spot. Garivald couldn't tell whether it did anything. He had his doubts. From everything he'd seen, Sadoc would have had trouble enchanting a mouse away from a blind cat.

Munderic, though, Munderic surely did think the world of his more-or-less mage. "Use your powers to let us know when the Forthwegians draw near," he said.

"Aye, I'll do it." Sadoc was eager. No one could have denied that. If only he were bright, too, Garivald thought.

Time crawled slowly past. Garivald kept glancing toward Obilot. Once, she was looking back at him. That fl.u.s.tered him enough to make him keep his eyes to himself for quite a while.

Sadoc stood some way off, behind a birch with bark white as milk. Suddenly, he stepped out into the clearing for a moment. "They're coming!" he exclaimed, and pointed up the track the men of Plegmund's Brigade were likely to use. Then, for good measure, he pointed off into the woods, in a direction from which no one was likely to come.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Obilot hissed to Garivald as Sadoc returned to cover.

"Probably means he doesn't know which way they're coming from," Garivald answered, and the woman irregular nodded.

But the bearded Forthwegians did come into the clearing from the direction--the likely direction--Sadoc had predicted. They marched along in loose order, chatting among themselves, not looking as if they expected trouble. Garivald had expected them to look like animals, or more likely demons. They didn't. They just looked like men doing a job. He didn't know whether that made things better or worse. Probably worse, he decided.

But their job was fighting and killing and dying. They started dying as soon as enough of them were in the clearing to make it worthwhile for the irregulars to begin to blaze. One of Garivald's beams knocked a man over. Exulting, he swung his captured Algarvian stick toward another Algarvian puppet.

Like the redheads he'd helped ambush between Lohr and Pirmasens, the men of Plegmund's Brigade fought back hard--better than he thought the irregulars could have done. The Forthwegians blazed into the woods. Those who could drew back toward the mouth of the clearing. Their comrades who hadn't yet come into the clearing went off the path and into the forest, moving forward to fight the Unkerlanters.

Sadoc shouted, "The north! The north!" That was the second direction to which he'd pointed. Garivald had plenty of other things to worry about; he paid the hapless mage little attention.

He slipped around past Obilot, looking for another good place from which to blaze at the retreating men of Plegmund's Brigade. Then she scuttled past him, no doubt after the same thing. He smiled, and so did she; it might almost have been a figure dance in a village square.

A beam slamming into a tree trunk not far from his head reminded him this was no amus.e.m.e.nt, but a game either side might lose. And if he lost, he'd never have the chance to play the game again.

Cras.h.i.+ng noises and yells from out of the north made Garivald's head whip around. He couldn't understand most of the yells--they weren't in Unkerlanter. But one word came through with perfect clarity: "Plegmund!"

"Powers above!" Garivald blurted. "They've got us in a trap, not the other way round." He looked through the trees for an avenue of escape.

Obilot clapped a hand to her forehead. "That great clodpoll of a Sadoc was right," she said, sounding disgusted with the world, with Sadoc, and with herself. "He's wrong so often, we didn't believe him this time, but he was right."

"Break clear!" Munderic shouted, his voice cutting through the Forthwegians' unintelligible cries. "Break clear! You know where to gather. The wh.o.r.esons outfoxed us this time, but our turn'll come round again, see if it doesn't."

Garivald hadn't traveled through the woods enough to be sure of finding his way back to the irregulars' encampment. Perhaps sensing as much, Obilot said, "Stick close to me. I'll get you back. Now let's step lively, before these b.u.g.g.e.rs get a clear blaze at us. I don't know about the redheads, but they're sure nastier customers than Grelzer soldiers. That's clear."

"Aye." Garivald nodded. "Seems they really mean it when they come after us, all right. Well, now we know." Obilot started off toward the west. He followed, moving as fast and as quietly as he could.

He had to blaze only once, and he dropped his Forthwegian before the bearded man could shout. Then the sounds of fighting and the foreign shouts from Plegmund's Brigade faded behind him. "I think we got away," he said. "Thanks."

"We really have to do better." Obilot didn't sound happy. "Now we have to see how many of us got away, and how much we'll be able to do for a while. Curse the Algarvians, anyhow." Garivald nodded again. How many Unkerlanters were thinking the same thing right now?

Eleven.

Curse the Unkerlanters," Brigadier Zerbino growled, slamming his fist down on the folding table inside his tent. "Curse the Lagoans and Kuusamans, too, for giving us such a hard time down here on the austral continent. And curse the Kaunians for doing everything they can to lay Algarve low."

A chorus of, "Aye," rumbled through the officers he'd a.s.sembled for this council of war. Colonel Sabrino didn't join it. Instead, he leaned over to Captain Domiziano and murmured, "He doesn't leave many people out, does he?" "He hasn't cursed the Yaninans yet," Domiziano whispered back. Just then, Zerbino did: "And curse our alleged allies, whose hands are cold in war and whose feet are swift in retreat." The Algarvian brigadier had not invited any Yaninans to the council.

"Aye," the officers chorused again. This time, Sabrino just sat silent. Sooner or later, Zerbino would come to the point. He probably wouldn't take too long, either. He was by nature a hearty fellow, and usually said what he had to say without ornamenting it too much.

So it proved now. "We are surrounded," Zerbino declared. "All our enemies aim to attack us at once, hoping we haven't got enough men and behemoths and dragons to stand against the lot of them."

For the first time, Sabrino found himself nodding. He'd been saying things like that all along, but n.o.body wanted to listen to him. Maybe Mezentio had decided not to pour a whole great army down into the land of the Ice People after all.

Sure enough, Zerbino said, "We shall not get all the men or beasts we've asked for. Our kingdom needs them more to fight in Unkerlant and to guard the southeastern coast of Derlavai against more raids like the one at Dukstas." That ma.s.sive, heavy-knuckled fist pounded the tabletop again. "But we will have the victory here. By the powers above, we will."

Now Sabrino stuck up a hand. He couldn't help himself. "How will we manage that, sir?" he asked. "Are you going to go out and wrestle General Junqueiro, best two falls out of three, for the austral continent?"

Zerbino grinned. "Myself, I'd be glad to," he answered, and Sabrino believed him, "but I don't think the Lagoan has the stones for it. No, that's not what I meant, Colonel, however much I wish it were. We aren't getting the big reinforcements people had been talking about--I already said that. I wish we were, but we aren't. Instead, what we are getting is two squads of mages and a good-sized s.h.i.+pment of... special personnel, that's what they're calling them back in Trapani."

For a moment, Sabrino hadn't the faintest notion of what he meant. No doubt the people who'd come up with the bloodless phrase had that in mind. But it didn't s.h.i.+eld him from the truth for long. When he realized what had to lie behind it, he felt colder than the frozen ground on the far side of the Barrier Mountains. He spoke a single horrified word: "Kaunians."

"Aye, Kaunians," Zerbino agreed. "A whole great whacking lot of them just got s.h.i.+pped across the Narrow Sea to Heshbon. They're on their way up here now, along with our mages. Once they get here, we'll make a magic to squash the Lagoans like so many bugs. Then we mop up, and then most of us can go back to Derlavai and give the Unkerlanters what they deserve."

Most of the a.s.sembled officers were nodding their heads. Several of them said, "Aye," once more. Sabrino remembered King Mezentio coming out of the rain and into his tent the autumn before in Unkerlant to say like things in like words. We'll do it once and it will take care of the enemy for good. Everything will be fine after that.

Had everything turned out fine, Algarve wouldn't need to send men back to Unkerlant now. Sabrino asked the question that had to be asked: "What do we do if something goes wrong, sir?"

Zerbino tossed his head, as if trying to scare off an annoying gnat. "Nothing will go wrong," he said. "Nothing can go wrong. Or are you saying our mages don't know their business, Colonel?" His tone implied Sabrino had better not be saying that.

"Sir, this is the land of the Ice People," Sabrino answered. "Don't they say it's easy for mages from the mainland of Derlavai to have their spells go wrong here?"

"I a.s.sure you, Colonel," Zerbino said coldly, "that the men in charge of this necessary operation know everything that is required of them. Your task, and that of your dragonfliers, will be to keep the Lagoans and Kuusamans from flying over the encampment of the special personnel before they are committed to the necessary operation." More bloodless words. "That is your sole task. Do you understand?"

"Aye, sir." Sabrino got to his feet and left Zerbino's tent. Captain Domiziano loyally followed. "Go back if you care to," Sabrino told him. "You'll do better for yourself staying than leaving. Besides, I know you think I'm wrong."

"You are my commander, sir," Domiziano said. "We guard each other's backs, in the air and on the ground." Sabrino bowed, touched.

He was gladder to see the dragons than he had been to stay in Brigadier Zerbino's tent, a telling measure of his distress. The Algarvians and the handful of Yaninans still with them gave him curious looks as he stalked among the dragons. The beasts themselves glared and screeched at him in the same way they glared and screeched at one another: they weren't fussy in their mindless hostility.

He wasted no time in ordering extra patrols into the air. Zerbino was bound to be right about that: if the enemy discovered Kaunians were being brought up to the front, they would know what was coming and might be able to take precautions against it. Since the army was several days' march east of Heshbon, he had plenty of time to get the patrols as he wanted them before the Kaunians arrived.

On the day the blonds trudged wearily into camp, a clan of Ice People also came in, to sell camels to the Algarvians. The robed, hairy natives watched impa.s.sively as the Kaunians, covered by Algarvians with sticks, made a separate camp for themselves. The mages who'd come in with the Kaunians had ridden out from Heshbon instead of walking. They were fresh and smiling, unlike the men and women in trousers.

Sabrino didn't want to hang around the Kaunians. In Zerbino's eyes, he'd already given notice he was an obstructionist. Hanging around only made things worse. But he couldn't help himself.

Though Zerbino didn't say anything, Sabrino knew he'd drawn his notice. He also drew the notice of one of the Ice People. The old man-Sabrino a.s.sumed it was an old man, though it might have been an old woman--wore a robe covered with fringes and bits of dried plants and the skins of small animals and birds. That made him a shaman: what pa.s.sed for a mage among the Ice People. As far as Sabrino could tell, though, the savages of the austral continent knew as little of sorcery as they did of everything else.

By his voice, the shaman did prove to be a man. He spoke in his own guttural language. Sabrino spread his hands to show he didn't understand. The shaman tried again, this time in Yaninan. Sabrino shook his head. He turned away, not wanting to waste any more time on the barbarian. But the old man seized his arm in a grip of surprising strength, and surprised him again by speaking Lagoan: "You not want them to do this."

Sabrino wasn't fluent in Lagoan, but he could understand it and make himself understood. The shaman's dark eyes bored into his. He was suddenly sure exactly what the old man was talking about. How did the savage know? How could he know? In whatever way, he did know. Maybe there was more to the Ice People's sorcerous talents than most folk credited. Slowly, Sabrino answered, "No, I am not wanting that."

"Make them stop," the shaman said, squeezing his arm harder than ever. "They must not do this thing. The land will cry out against it. I tell you this-- I, Jeush, I who know this land and its G.o.ds." The last word was in his own tongue.

G.o.ds, as far as Sabrino was concerned, were more laughable nonsense. Somehow, though, he didn't feel like laughing at this Jeush. But he shook his head again. "I cannot be doing anything to be changing this. You must be talking to Brigadier Zerbino. He is commanding here, not I."

Sadly, Jeush shook his head. "He will no hear me." He spoke with great certainty.

"He is not hearing me, either," Sabrino said, which was all too true.

"If this thing is done ..." Jeush shuddered. The fringes on his robe swayed as they would have in a breeze. So did the defunct creatures and branches tied to them. In a horrid sort of way, it was fascinating to watch. Sabrino only shrugged. Had he thought Zerbino would listen to the shaman, he would have brought Jeush before the brigadier. But, as best he could guess, the old man was right: Zerbino would pay no attention to a barbarian who babbled of G.o.ds.

"What will happen?" Sabrino asked, wondering why he wanted the views of a babbling barbarian himself. Because you're afraid, that's why, he thought. And he was.

"Nothing good," Jeush answered. "Everything bad. This is not your land. These G.o.ds is not your G.o.ds. You not understanding the hereness of here." He waited to see if that would make Sabrino change his mind. When it didn't, the old man turned his back with sad deliberation and slowly walked away.

He spoke to the leader of the band of Ice People. Whatever he said didn't keep the nomads from selling camels to the Algarvians. Once the bargains were done, though, the Ice People rode south at once instead of hanging around the camp begging and stealing as they usually did. Sabrino seemed to be the only one who noticed or cared.

And he didn't care for long. Getting ready for the attack on the Lagoans that would follow up the sorcerous onslaught took most of his time. During the rest, he was in the air making sure the enemy's dragons didn't sniff out the new camp full of Kaunians. By the time the Algarvian mages announced that all was in readiness, he'd almost forgotten about Jeush and his maunderings.

Standing before his wing of dragonfliers, he said, "This sorcery is supposed to knock the Lagoans into a c.o.c.ked hat. But the mages are braggarts, remember, so we may have a little more work than they expect. Be smart. Be careful. Let's win."

With a great thunder of wings, the dragons leapt into the air one after another. The Algarvian army was already on the march. Only the mages and enough soldiers to guard and slaughter the Kaunians stayed behind. Every beat of his dragon's wings took Sabrino farther from the camp that held the blonds, and he was thoroughly glad of it.

Though no mage himself, he knew when the ma.s.sacre and the magecraft springing from it began. His dragon seemed to feel it, too, and staggered in the air for a moment before recovering. Maybe Jeush had known something of what he was talking about after all. "But the Lagoans are catching it worse," Sabrino muttered.

Then he looked down at the advancing Algarvian army, looked down and cried out in dismay. He knew what sort of sorcery the mages wrought, and now he saw it visited not upon the Lagoans against whom it was aimed but upon his own countrymen. Creva.s.ses yawned beneath them, holes closed upon them, flames seared soldiers and behemoths alike. In the blink of an eye, the Algarvians on the austral continent went from army to ruin.

Sabrino flew on for a little while, too numb for the time being to think of doing anything else. Somewhere down on that frozen waste, a hairy old shaman was saying, "I told you so."

Once upon a time, Sergeant Leudast thought, Sulingen wouldn't have been a bad town in which to live. Oh, it would get cold in the winter, he had no doubt of that; he came from the north of Unkerlant, which had a milder climate. But it would have been pleasant, sprawled as it was along the Wolter, with plenty of little patches of wood and parkland and with steeply sloping gullies to break up the blocks of homes and shops and manufactories.

But it wasn't pleasant any more. Algarvian dragons had been plastering it with eggs for weeks, and many of those blocks of homes were nothing but rubble. Leudast, as a matter of fact, didn't mind rubble as terrain in which to fight. It offered endless places to hide, and he knew how to take advantage of them. The soldiers who hadn't learned that lesson were mostly dead by now.

Captain Hawart pointed north, though he was careful not to let the motion expose his arm to a beam from the enemy who lurked too close. "Let's see the cursed Algarvians outflank us and run rings around us in this," he said.

"Let's see anybody do anything in this," Leudast answered, which made his company commander laugh and nod. Men could move freely enough. The company had spent some time digging trenches through the rubble, which made them much less likely to get blazed if they scrambled from one stretch of wreckage to another. But even behemoths had a hard time going where no paths had been cleared among piles of brick and stone and broken boards.

Hawart said, "The only thing they can do now is come straight at us and slug. They're quicker than we are. They're more supple than we are. By the powers above, they're more clever than we are, too. But how much good does any of that do them here?"

"Do you really think they're more clever than we are?" Leudast asked.