Rulers of the Darkness

Eleven

No one could have come near the fighting line through the great woods of western Unkerlant without knowing two armies grappled there. The ignorant traveler's nose would have told him if nothing else did. Istvan was no ignorant traveler, but he smelled the reek of unwashed bodies, the fouler stench of imperfectly covered latrines, and the sharp tang of woodsmoke, too.

And yet, at this season of the year, those stinks were almost afterthoughts in the air. Everything was green and growing. Broad-leafed trees, bare through the winter, had cloaked themselves anew. So had the bushes and ferns that grew under them. Pines and firs and balsams stayed in leaf the year around, but the sap rising in them put out spicy notes Istvan's nostrils appreciated.

He also appreciated the lull in the fighting. "We're on the defensive," he told Captain Frigyes when the new company commander came forward to inspect the redoubt, "and they're on the defensive, too. Put it all together and it means there's not a whole lot of action."

"Sometimes the stars shine on us," Frigyes said. He was a big man, burly even by Gyongyosian standards, with a scar on his right cheek. "We have troubles out in the islands, the Unkerlanters have troubles off in the east. Put it all together and they don't want to be fighting here and neither do we."

Captain Tivadar might have said the same thing. Istvan missed his long-time superior, but Frigyes looked to be a solid officer- and he knew nothing of why Istvan and several of his squadmates bore scars on their left hands. Istvan looked around. All of his troopers were busy with other things. He could bring out a question perhaps improper for a man of a warrior race: "Why don't we go ahead and make peace, then?"

"Because we would betray our Algarvian allies if we did, and they've struck some heavy blows at the accursed Kuusamans," Frigyes answered. "Also, because King Swemmel hasn't shown any interest in making peace, may the stars withhold their light from him."

Anyone would reckon Swemmel the warrior, Istvan thought uncomfortably. But he's just a madman. Everybody knows that. Even his own soldiers know it. But why do they fight so hard for a madman?

"Enjoy this while it lasts," Frigyes told him. "It won't last forever. Sooner or later, the Algarvians will strike their blow, as they do every spring. Then, odds are, they'll drive the Unkerlanters back again, and then the Unkerlanters will hit us again here."

"I'm sorry, sir." Istvan frowned. "I don't follow that."

"How likely is Swemmel to get summer victories against Algarve?" Frigyes asked. "Not very, not if you look at what's happened the past two years. So if the Unkerlanters want wins to keep their own people happy, they'll try to get them against us."

"Oh." That made an unpleasant amount of sense. It was also an insult of sorts. "We're easier than the Algarvians, are we? We shouldn't be easier than anyone."

"We're easier than the Algarvians, aye." Frigyes didn't seem insulted. "They can bring their whole apparatus of war with them. We can't. All we've got here in these woods are some of the best footsoldiers in the world." He slapped Istvan on the back, climbed out of the redoubt, and went on his way."

Istvan turned to his squad. "The captain says Gyongyos has some of the best footsoldiers in the world. He hasn't seen you lazy buggers in action yet, that's what I think."

"There hasn't been any action for a while," Szonyi said, which was also true.

"Do you really want much?" Kun asked. Even if he did wear spectacles, he could ask a question like that: he'd seen as much desperate fighting as any man in the woods, Istvan possibly excepted.

Had one of the newer men put the question, Szonyi would have felt compelled to puff out his chest and act manly. As things were, he shrugged and answered, "It'll probably come whether I want it or not, so what's the point of worrying?"

A red squirrel was rash enough to show its head around the trunk of a birch. Istvan's stick, ready for Unkerlanters, was ready for a squirrel, too. It fell into the bushes under the trees. "Nice blazing, Sergeant," Lajos said. "Something good for the pot."

Kun sighed. "By the time you skin it and gut it, there's hardly enough meat on a squirrel to be worth bothering about."

"That's not why you're complaining," Istvan said as he left the redoubt to collect the squirrel. "I know why you're complaining. You're a born city man, and you never had to worry about eating things like squirrels before they sucked you into the army." In the bushes, the squirrel was still feebly thrashing. Istvan found a rock and smashed its head a couple of times. Then he carried it back by the tail, pausing once or twice to brush away fleas. He hoped he got them all. If he didn't, he'd do some extra scratching.

"Doesn't seem natural, eating something like that," Kun said as Istvan's knife slit the squirrel's belly.

"What's not natural is going hungry when there's good food around," Istvan said. His squadmates spoke up in loud agreement. They came off farms or out of little villages. Gyongyos was a kingdom of smallholdings. Towns were market centers, administrative points. They weren't the heart of the land, as he'd heard they were elsewhere on Derlavai. And stewed squirrel, no matter what Kun thought of it, was tasty.

Kun didn't complain when it was ladled out to him. By then, it had got mixed up with everything else in the pot, mixed to where you couldn't point at any one chunk of meat and say, This is squirrel. Off to the south, somebody started lobbing eggs at somebody else. Istvan had no idea whether it was the Unkerlanters or his own countrymen. Whoever it was, he hoped they'd stop it.

Captain Frigyes came back the next day with a mage in tow. That made Kun perk up; it always did. "Men," the new company commander said, "this is Major Borsos. He's going to be-"

"Well, by the stars, so it is!" Istvan exclaimed. "No offense, sir, but I figured you'd be dead by now." He saw blank expressions all around him, including the one on Borsos' face. He explained: "Sir, I fetched and carried for you on Obuda, when you were dousing out where the Kuusaman ships were."

"Oh." Major Borsos' face cleared. He was a major by courtesy, so ordinary troopers would fetch and carry for him. He'd been a captain by courtesy out on the island in the Bothnian Ocean, so he'd come up a bit in the world. Istvan had been a common soldier then, so he had, too. "Good to see you again," Borsos said, a beat slower than he might have.

Istvan suspected the mage didn't really remember him. He shrugged. Borsos had seen a lot since then, as he had himself. And Kun looked as green with envy as the tarnished bronze dowsing rods Borsos had used on Obuda. Istvan smiled. That was worth something.

Frigyes said, "I didn't expect it to be old home week here. But Major Borsos is going to do what he can to spy out the Unkerlanters."

"Ah," Istvan said. "How will your dowsing sort through all the moving beasts and especially the moving leaves to find the moving Unkerlanters, eh, Major?"

Borsos beamed. "Aye, by the stars, you did assist me, Sergeant, or some dowser, anyhow, and he listened when he ran on at the mouth." Kun was standing behind his back, and behind Frigyes', and looked to be on the point of retching. Istvan wanted to make a face back at him, but couldn't. Borsos went on, "The answer is, just as I have a dowsing rod attuned to the sea, so I've also got one attuned to soldiers. It hardly cares about leaves, and it isn't much interested in beasts, either, though mountain apes might confuse it. Here, I'll show you." He set down the leather satchel he was carrying. It clanked. He opened it and went through the rods, finally grunting when he found the one he wanted. "Doesn't look like much, does it?"

"No, sir," Istvan answered. The dowsing rod wasn't of fresh, shiny bronze, or of the green, patinaed sort, either. It looked like a thin length of rusty iron- if those stains on it were rust. Kun was about to speak. Again, Istvan beat him to the punch, pointing and asking, "Unkerlanter blood?"

Borsos beamed again. Frigyes said, "My, what a clever chap you turn out to be." Kun looked about ready to burst like an egg from rage and jealousy. That made Istvan happier than either officer's reaction. He had to live with Kun all the time.

"Even so, Sergeant. Even so," Borsos answered, beaming still. "By the law of similarity, when I dowse with this rod, I'll sense motion from Unkerlanters, and very little from any other source." He waved the rod as if it were a sword, then thwacked it into the palm of his hand. "It's not perfect- dowsing isn't- but it's pretty good."

"Go ahead, Major," Captain Frigyes said. He wouldn't have talked like that to a real soldier of rank higher than his own. "Let's see what's going on out there."

Major Borsos didn't take offense. He'd probably had officers- real officers, men of noble blood- treat him a good deal worse. He said, "Aye, Captain, just as you please." Holding the handle of the dowsing rod in both hands, he swung it to the east, murmuring as he did so. He hadn't gone far before it dipped sharply. "Something in that direction- not far away, unless I miss my guess."

"Oh, that's where their scouts always hide, sir," Szonyi said. "Nothing much to worry about unless you feel a whole lot of the buggers."

"No," Borsos said, looking down at his hands as if asking them to speak more clearly. After some thought, he nodded. "No, it doesn't feel like a lot of men. One, not far away- that could well be so."

Kun worked his little magic and said, "He's not moving toward us."

"No?" Borsos said. "What charm were you using there, soldier?" He shrugged. "Whatever it is, it won't matter to me. I never have been able to do much in the way of magecraft save for dowsing. The art is in the blood, or else it's not. With me, it's not, unless I have a dowsing rod in my hand."

"It's very easy, sir," Kun said, and ran through it.

Borsos tried the charm, then shrugged again. "I can't tell if anyone is moving or not. You have your gift; I have mine. And now, I had better finish doing what I can do." He started working the dowsing rod again.

Kun looked proud that he could do something the dowser couldn't. He didn't bother remembering that Borsos could do something he couldn't- something a great deal larger. People, Istvan had noticed, were often like that.

After sweeping through the entire half-circle, Borsos turned to Frigyes and said, "I see no vast hordes of Unkerlanters set to sweep down on this redoubt. Of course, if they're more than a mile or so away, I probably won't see them. That's the range I can get out of this rod." With a shrug, he put it back into his valise.

"Thanks, Major," Captain Frigyes said. "I didn't really expect an attack, but it's nice to know we haven't got one building… here." He corrected himself before Borsos could do it for him.

"Sir, you could sense Kuusaman ships out beyond the horizon," Istvan said. "Why can't you see that far with your Unkerlanter rod?"

"Mainly because a big moving warship creates a lot more disturbance than even a whole lot of moving men," the dowser answered. "Men aren't all moving in just the same direction. Some of them might even move away on purpose to confuse people like me. This is a funny business I'm in, no two ways about it."

Istvan started to say that he'd trade in a flash, but checked himself. Borsos' job brought him up to the front lines, too, and he was no great shakes at fighting back. Each sheep has its own pasture, Istvan thought. He looked up and laughed a little. His pasture came with altogether too many trees.

When Hajjaj walked into General Ikhshid's office, the portly officer started to get to his feet so he could bow. "Don't bother, General, I pray you- don't bother," Hajjaj said. "I am willing- indeed, I am eager- to take the thought for the act."

"You're kind, your Excellency, very kind," Ikhshid wheezed. "Since you say I may, I'm more than content to stay down here on my arse, believe me I am."

"Are you well, General?" the Zuwayzi foreign minister asked in some anxiety- if Ikhshid went down, he didn't know who could replace him. As a soldier, Ikhshid was better than competent, but no more than that. But he had the respect of every clanfather in Zuwayza. Hajjaj couldn't think of any other officer who did.

With another wheeze, the general answered, "I'll last as long as I can- and a little longer than that, with any luck at all. But I didn't ask you to drag your own set of old bones over here for that. I wanted you to take a look at the map and tell me what you see." He gestured toward the map of Derlavai that took up most of one office wall.

"No tea and wine and cakes?" Hajjaj asked mildly.

"If you want to waste time on frivolities, I'll send for 'em," Ikhshid answered. "Otherwise, I'd sooner talk about what's what."

"From your charm, anyone could guess you'd served in the Unkerlanter army," Hajjaj murmured. That squeezed a breathy snort out of Ikhshid. Hajjaj said, "I suppose we can dispense with ritual." He studied the map. "I am pleased to note the advances our bold Zuwayzi forces have made here in the north."

Ikhshid snorted again, this time in derision. "Cut to the chase, your Excellency. By the powers above, cut to the chase. You see that big ugly bulge down around Durrwangen the same as I do. There can't be a soldier on Derlavai- or on the island, either- who looks at the map and doesn't see that bulge."

"Not just soldiers," Hajjaj said. "Some weeks ago, Marquis Balastro assured me the Algarvians would cut it off as soon as the ground dried." He shook his head. "What a strange notion- ground getting too wet for armies to move across it, I mean."

"I've seen it myself, matter of fact," Ikhshid said. "It'd be like trying to fight in a tin of cake batter. That's what the muddy season's all about down there. But never mind that. The ground's been dry enough to hold armies for a while now, and the Algarvians still haven't moved. How come?"

"You would do better to ask Marquis Balastro or his military attachй," Hajjaj replied. "I fear I cannot tell you."

"I suppose not. But I can tell you, and I'm not an Algarvian," Ikhshid said. "The thing of it is, you think Marshal Rathar doesn't know what's coming next? They might have come close to a surprise if they'd moved as soon as ever they could, but now?" He shook his head. "Now it's a slugging match."

"Ah." Hajjaj studied the map. "If they strike there, they won't have much of an advantage of maneuver, will they?"

Ikhshid beamed so widely, his face showed a net of wrinkles that didn't usually appear. "Your Excellency, when I fall over dead, they can paint stars on your arm and you can take over for me."

"May you live to a hundred and twenty years, then," Hajjaj exclaimed. "The only thing I want to do less than command a few soldiers in the field is command a lot of soldiers in the field. And that is nothing but the truth."

"As may be," Ikhshid said. "But you can see it, too. If Rather can't, he's dumber than I know he is."

"Why are Mezentio's men waiting, then?" Hajjaj asked.

"Only reason I can think of is to get everyone and everything into the fight," Ikhshid answered. "Moving soldiers from every other part of the line, pulling animals off the breeding farms young and half trained… They've hit Unkerlant as hard as they could two summers in a row, and King Swemmel wouldn't fall over. If they hit him again, they'll try to hold a rock in their fist."

"But finding the rock takes time," Hajjaj said.

Ikhshid nodded. "We'll know more about how things look once they finally get around to fighting the battle."

"When Marquis Balastro speaks of this, he'll guarantee Algarvian victory," Hajjaj predicted.

"Of course he will. That's his job," Hajjaj said. "Your job, though, your job is to keep King Shazli from listening to a pack of lies."

Hajjaj bowed where he sat. "I have seldom met a Zuwayzi with such a delicate understanding of what I do and what I'm supposed to do."

"Delicate, my arse," Ikhshid said. "If my men tell me they've seen thus and so in the Unkerlanter lines and it turns out not to be thus and so at all, I look like a fool and some good men end up dead. If you tell King Shazli what isn't so, you can kill more Zuwayzin than I'd ever dream of doing."

"That, unfortunately, is true." Hajjaj got to his feet. He knees and back and ankles creaked. "Seriously, Ikhshid, I hope you stay well. The kingdom needs you- and I would enjoy harassing a new commander, a serious commander, much less than I like bothering you."

"Well, you're a wizened old thornbush, but Zuwayza's got used to having you around," Ikhshid said. Once more, he didn't get up. He sat on his hams, his eyes turned to the map.

"Your Excellency," Qutuz said when Hajjaj returned to his own office, "the Algarvian minister would confer with you."

"Why am I not surprised?" Hajjaj murmured, and then, "I will see him."

"He says he will be here in half an hour," Qutuz said.

"Time enough for me to get dressed." Hajjaj let out a heartfelt sigh. "With the weather warmer than it was, I'm starting to feel that I'm martyring myself for the sake of diplomacy again."

"What if he comes naked?" Qutuz asked. "What if he comes showing off his circumcision?" He sounded as queasy talking about that as a prim and proper Sibian would have sounded while taking about going naked.

"I don't expect it," the Zuwayzi foreign minister replied. "He's only done it a couple of times, and then as much to startle us, I think, as to conform to our customs. If he does… if he does, I'll get out of my own clothes again, and I'll spend the time he's in my office not looking between his legs." The idea of mutilating oneself, and especially of mutilating oneself there, left him queasy, too. He went on, "Make sure you fetch in the tray of tea and wine and cakes. With Balastro, I may want to spin things out as long as I can."

His secretary bowed. "Everything shall be just as you say, your Excellency."

"I doubt it," Hajjaj answered bleakly. "Not even a first-rank mage can make that claim. But we do what we can, so we do."

He'd started quietly baking in his Algarvian-style clothes when Marquis Balastro came strutting into his office. The Algarvian minister, to Hajjaj's relief, was himself clothed. After the handshake and bows and protestations of esteem- some of which approached sincerity- Hajjaj said, "You look extraordinarily dapper today, your Excellency."

Balastro chortled. "How in blazes would you know?"

Hajjaj shrugged. "So much for diplomacy. Take a seat, if you'd be so kind. Qutuz will be here with tea and wine and cakes in a moment."

"Will he?" The Algarvian minister sent him a sour look. "Which means there are things about which you don't care to talk to me. Why am I not surprised?" But even as Balastro grumbled, he made a nest for himself in the pillows that took the place of chairs in Hajjaj's office. "Tell me, my friend, since you can't very well say a bare-naked man is looking dapper, what do you say for polite chitchat along those lines? 'Hello, old fellow. Your wen's no bigger than it was the last time I saw you'?"

"If it's not," Hajjaj answered, which made Balastro laugh. "Or you can talk about sandals or jewelry or hats. Hats do well."

"Aye, I suppose they would, with so little competition." Balastro nodded to Qutuz, who fetched in the traditional Zuwayzi refreshments. "Good to see you. Nice hat you're not wearing."

Qutuz stooped to set the tray on Hajjaj's low desk. Then he bowed to Balastro. "I thank you very kindly, your Excellency," he replied in good Algarvian. "I hope you like it just as much the next time you don't see it." He bowed again and departed.

Balastro stared after him, then chortled again. "That one's dangerous, Hajjaj. He'll succeed you one of these days."

"It could be." Hajjaj poured wine. It was, he saw, date wine, which meant Qutuz hadn't been so diplomatic as all that; Zuwayzin were the only folk with a real taste for the stuff. "Most people, however, prefer not to think of their successors, and in this I must confess to following the vulgar majority."

At last, as the tea and wine and cakes failed, so did the small talk. Leaning forward a little, Hajjaj asked, "And how may I serve you today, your Excellency?"

"It appears likely that Kaunian marauders have made their way back to Forthweg from the refuge places Zuwayza had unfortunately granted them," Balastro said. "I will have you know that King Mezentio formally protests this outrage."

"His protest is noted," Hajjaj replied. "Be it also noted that Zuwayza has done everything possible to prevent such unfortunate incidents. Our navy has sunk several boats sailing east toward Forthweg for unknown but suspicious purposes." How many more had slipped past Zuwayza's small, not very energetic navy, he couldn't begin to guess.

Balastro's snort said he couldn't begin to guess, either, but assumed the number was large. Hajjaj didn't worry overmuch about that snort. If the Forthwegian Kaunians were all that Balastro had on his mind, the Zuwayzi foreign minister would be well content.

But, snort aside, Balastro still had reasons to confer with Hajjaj. Hajjaj had been mournfully certain he would, and even on which topic. Sure enough, Balastro said, "You are doubtless wondering why we have not struck at the Unkerlanters."

"I?" Hajjaj contrived to look innocent. "Even if such a thought were in my mind-"

Balastro cut him off with a sharp gesture, more the sort an Unkerlanter might have used than anything he would have expected from an Algarvian. "We're getting ready, that's all. We're not leaving anything to chance this time. When we hit them, we're going to hit them with everything we've got. And we're going to smash them flat."

"May it be so." On the whole, Hajjaj meant it. Algarve was a nasty cobelligerent. Unkerlant was a nasty neighbor, which was worse. King Swemmel rampant in triumph… His mind shied away, like a horse from a snake.

"Believe it!" Balastro said fervently. "Only believe it, and it becomes that much likelier to be true. He whose will fails first fails altogether."

"It's rather harder than that, I fear," Hajjaj said. "If it weren't, you would not have needed to pause to gather all your forces in the south." Balastro stared at him, as if astonished to be called on the inconsistency. Hajjaj didn't care, not about that; part of the diplomatist's art was knowing when not to be diplomatic.

As Cornelu urged the leviathan west, islands rose up out of the sea. He couldn't see all of them, even if the leviathan stood on its tail, but he knew how many lay ahead of him: five good-sized ones, one for each crown on the breast of the rubber suit he wore.

"Sibiu," he whispered. "My Sibiu."

The last time he'd gone back to his Sibiu, the Algarvian occupiers had killed his leviathan out from under him. But the Algarvians had done worse than that; they'd killed his family out from under him, even though Costache and Brindza remained alive.

He was glad this scouting mission didn't take him to Tirgoviste town, didn't take him to Tirgoviste island. How alert were Mezentio's men around Facaceni island, the westernmost of the main five? If they were too alert, of course, he wouldn't bring the leviathan back to Setubal, but that would tell the Lagoan naval officers something worth knowing, too.

He kept an eye peeled for dragons, another for ley-line warships. So far, no sign of either. The Algarvians, these days, had a lot of coast to watch: Sibiu's, of course, but also their own and Valmiera's and Jelgava's and Forthweg's and, Cornelu supposed, Zuwayza's and Yanina's as well. The Algarvian navy hadn't been enormous before the war began. It also had to hold off Unkerlant's, to try to keep an eye on the land of the Ice People, and to help colonial forces keep the sputtering war going in tropical Siaulia. Looked at that way, was it any wonder Cornelu saw no warships?

Maybe the Lagoans and Kuusamans could send a fleet into Sibiu and snatch it out from under the Algarvians' noses. Maybe. That was one of the reasons Cornelu and his leviathan were here. If they didn't spot any patrollers, maybe Mezentio's minions were sending everything west for the big fight, the fight that couldn't be ignored, the fight against Unkerlant.

What sort of garrison stayed in Facaceni town? Real soldiers? Or beardless boys and gray-haired veterans of the Six Years' War? Cornelu couldn't tell that, not from the sea, but Lagoas and Kuusamo were bound to have spies in the town, too. What were they telling the spymasters in Setubal and Yliharma? And how much of what they were telling those spymasters could be believed?

On swam the leviathan, pausing or turning aside now and again to snap up a fish. Somewhere along the coastline, the Algarvians would have men with spyglasses or perhaps mages watching for the approach of foes from the west. Cornelu and his leviathan would not draw the mages' notice, for he pulled no energy from the ley lines that powered fleets. And to a man with a spyglass, one spouting leviathan looked much like another. For that matter, from farther than a few hundred yards, a spouting leviathan looked much like a spouting whale.

As he rounded the headland and neared Facaceni town, Cornelu saw several sailboats bobbing in the water. They wouldn't draw the notice of any mages, either. Cornelu grimaced. The Algarvians had conquered Sibiu through a daring reversion to the days before ley lines were known: with a fleet of sailing ships that reached Cornelu's kingdom unseen and undetected in dead of night. In a world of ever-growing complexity, the simple approach had proved overwhelmingly successful.

He thought about going up to one of the boats and asking the fishermen for local news. Most Sibians despised their Algarvian overlords. Most… but not all. Mezentio's men recruited Sibians to fight in Unkerlant. Sibian constables helped the Algarvians rule their countrymen. A few folk genuinely believed in the notion of a union of Algarvic peoples, not pausing to think that such a union meant the Algarvians would stay on top forever.

One of the fishermen saw Cornelu atop his leviathan when the great beast surfaced. He sent an obscene gesture Cornelu's way. That probably meant- Cornelu hoped it meant- he thought Cornelu an Algarvian. But Cornelu didn't find out by experiment.

When he got to Facaceni town, he spied a couple of dragons on patrol above it, wheeling in the clear blue sky. He noted them with grease pencil on a slate. What he could not note was how many more dragons might rise into the sky on a moment's notice if dragonfliers or mages spied something amiss.

Facaceni town, of course, faced the Derlavaian mainland- faced toward Algarve, in fact. All the major Sibian towns did; only the lesser ones turned toward Lagoas and Kuusamo. Part of that was because Sibiu lay closer to the mainland than to the big island. The rest was due to the way the ley lines ran. In olden days, before ley lines mattered so much, Sibiu had long contended with Lagoas for control of the sea between them. She'd lost- Lagoas outweighed her- but she'd fought hard.

As an officer of the Sibian navy, Cornelu knew the ley lines around his kingdom the way he knew the pattern of red-gold hairs on the back of his right arm. If anything, he knew the ley lines better; they mattered more to him. He knew just when he could peer into the harbor of Facaceni to see ley-line warships, if any were there to be seen.

And some were. He cursed softly under his breath to spot the unmistakable bulk of a ley-line cruiser and three or four smaller craft. They were Algarvian vessels, too, with lines slightly different from those of the warships the Sibian navy had used. A civilian spy might not have noticed the differences. To Cornelu, once more, they were obvious.

He saw no Sibian vessels. He didn't know where they'd gone; he couldn't very well urge his leviathan into the harbor and ask. He made more grease-pencil notes. He had a crystal with him. If he'd spotted something urgent, he could have let the Admiralty back in Setubal know. As things were, he scribbled. No Algarvian mage, no matter how formidable, could possibly detect the emanations from a grease pencil.

Some Lagoan was probably peering into the harbor of Tirgoviste town. Cornelu cursed softly again. He didn't even know why he was cursing. Did he really want to lacerate himself by seeing his home town again? Did he really want to stare up the hills of Tirgoviste town to see if he could catch a glimpse of his old home? Did he really want to wonder if the Algarvians had put a cuckoo's egg in his nest?

The trouble was, part of him did: the part that liked to pick scabs off scrapes and watch them bleed again. Most of the time, he could keep that part in check. Every so often, it welled up and got loose.

You're going back to Janira, he reminded himself. That didn't stop him from wanting to see what Costache was up to at this very moment, but it helped him fight the craving down to the bottom of his mind again.

"Come on," he told the leviathan. "We've done what we've come to do. Now let's go… back to Setubal." He'd almost said, Let's go home. But Setubal wasn't home, and never would be. Tirgoviste town was home. He'd just come up with all the good reasons he didn't want to go there. Even so, he knew the place would draw him like a lodestone till the day he died.

Absently, he wondered why a lodestone drew little bits of iron to it. No mage had ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for that. He shrugged. In a way, it was nice to know the world still held mysteries.

His leviathan, of course, made nothing of human speech. He wondered what it thought he was doing. Playing some elaborate game, he supposed, more elaborate than it could have devised on its own. He tapped its smooth skin. That got it moving where words could not have. It turned away from Facaceni town and swam back in the direction from which it had come.

Cornelu kept it underwater as much as he could. He didn't want to draw the notice of those dragons over Facaceni town, and of whatever friends they had down on the ground. Again, the leviathan didn't mind. All sorts of interesting fish and squid swam just below the surface.

He took his bearing whenever it had to surface to blow. That was enough to let him know when he rounded Facaceni island's eastern headland. Someone there spotted him and flashed a mirror at him in an intricate pattern. Since he had no idea whether it was an Algarvian signal or one from local rebels, he kept his leviathan on the course it was swimming and didn't try to answer. Whoever was using it, the mirror was a clever idea. It involved no magic and, if well aimed, could be seen only near its target.

He found out in short order to whom the mirror belonged. An egg flew through the air and burst in the sea about half a mile short of his leviathan. Another one followed a minute later. It threw up a plume of water a little closer than the first had, but not much.

"Nyah!" Cornelu thumbed his nose at the Algarvians on the headland. "Can't hit me! You couldn't hit your mother if you swung right at her face! Nyah!"

That was bravado, and he knew it. Facaceni lay farthest west of Sibiu's main islands. He expected to run a gauntlet before he could escape into the open ocean. The Algarvians would be after him like hounds after a rabbit. He'd had to run from them enough times before. No, not like hounds alone- like hounds and hawks. They'd surely put dragons in the air, too.

And so they did- a couple. They flew search spirals, but didn't happen to spot him. And Mezentio's men sent out a couple of swift little ley-line patrol boats after him, but again, only a couple. He had no trouble making good his escape. It was, in fact, so easy it worried him. He kept anxiously looking around, wondering what he'd missed, wondering what was about to drop on his head.

But nothing did. After a while, the pursuit, never more than halfhearted, simply gave up. He had an easy time returning to the harbor at Setubal.

He almost got killed before he could enter it, though. Lagoan patrol boats were thick as fleas on a dog. They could go almost anywhere in those waters; more ley lines converged on Setubal than on any other city of the world. He got challenged three different times in the course of an hour, and peremptorily ordered off his leviathan when the third captain decided he sounded like an Algarvian. To his surprise, the fellow had a rider on his ship, a man who examined the leviathan, made sure it was carrying no eggs, and took it into the port himself.

"What happened?" Cornelu asked, over and over, but no one on the patrol boat would tell him. Only after Admiralty officials vouched for him was he allowed to learn: the Algarvians on Sibiu had been quiet, but the ones in Valmiera hadn't. They'd sneaked a couple of leviathan-riders across the Strait, and the men had planted eggs on half a dozen warships, including two ley-line cruisers.

"Most embarrassing," a sour-faced Lagoan captain said in what he imagined was Sibian but was in fact only Algarvian slightly mispronounced. Most of the time, that playing fast and loose with his language offended Cornelu. Not today- he wanted facts. Instead, the captain gave him an opinion: "Worst thing that's happened to our navy since you Sibs beat it right outside of Setubal here two hundred and fifty years ago."

It was, at least, an opinion calculated to put a smile on Cornelu's long, dour face. He asked, "What will you do now?"

"Build more ships, train more men, give back better than we got," the captain replied without hesitation. "We did that against Sibiu, too."

He was, unfortunately, correct. Here, at least, he and Cornelu had the same enemy. "Where do I make my report?" the Sibian exile asked.

"Third door on your left," the sour-faced captain answered. "We'll get our own back- you wait and see." Cornelu didn't want to wait. He hurried to the third door on his left.

"In the summertime," Marshal Rathar said, "Durrwangen can get quite respectably warm."

"Oh, aye, I think so, too," General Vatran agreed. "Of course, the naked black Zuwayzin would laugh themselves to death to hear us go on like this."

"I won't say you're wrong." Rathar shuddered. "I was up in the north for the end of our war against them, you know." He waited for Vatran to nod, then went on, "Ghastly place. Sand and rocks and dry riverbeds and thorn-bushes and camels and poisoned wells and the sun blazing down- and the Zuwayzin fought like demons, too, till we broke 'em by weight of numbers."

"And drove 'em straight into King Mezentio's arms," Vatran said mournfully.

"And drove 'em straight into King Mezentio's arms," Rathar agreed. He stared north across the battered ruins of Durrwangen toward the Algarvian lines not far outside of town. Then he turned to Vatran. "You know, if the redheads wanted to come straight at us, they could push us out of here."

Vatran's nod was stolid. "Oh, aye, they could. But they won't."

"And how do you know that?" Rathar asked with a smile.

"How do I know?" Vatran's shaggy white eyebrows rose. "I'll tell you how, by the powers above. Three different ways." As he spoke, he ticked off points on his gnarled fingers. "For one thing, they learned at Sulingen that coming straight at us doesn't pay, and they haven't had the chance to forget it yet. For another, they're Algarvians- they never like doing anything simple if they can do it fancy and tie a big bow and red ribbons around it besides."

"Huh!" Rathar said. "If that's not the truth, curse me if I know what is."

"You hush, lord Marshal. I wasn't done." Vatran overacted reproach. "For a third, all the signs show that they're going to try to bite off the salient and trap us here, and all the captives we take say the same thing."

"I can't argue with any of that," Rathar said. "It's your second reason that worries me a little, though. Doing it fancy might mean setting us up for an enormous surprise." But he shook his head. "They're Algarvians, and that means they think they're smarter than everybody else." He sighed. "Sometimes they're right, too- but not always. I don't think they're right here."

"They'd better not be," Vatran said. "If they are, it'll mean we've wasted a cursed lot of work in the salient."

"We've done what we can," Rather said. "Anybody who tries to break through there will have a rough time of it." He sighed again. "Of course, the Algarvians have done things I would've sworn were flat-out impossible. How they got into Sulingen last summer…"

"They got in, but they didn't get out again." Vatran sounded cheerful, as he usually did. Rathar had a good soldier's confidence, even a good soldier's arrogance, but he was not by nature a cheerful man. Nobody who'd served so long directly under King Swemmel had an easy time being cheerful.

"We beat them in the wintertime, the same as we held them out of Cottbus the winter before," Rathar said. "It's summer now. Whenever they attack in the summer, they drive us before them."

"Nobody's driving us out of this salient," Vatran said. "Nobody. And just because you're talking about what they have done, what's that got to do with what they're going to do? Not a fornicating thing, says I."

Rathar slapped him on the shoulder, not so much for being right as for trying to raise both their spirits. But if the Algarvians had gone forward by great leaps in the two earlier summers of their war against Unkerlant, what was to keep them from going forward by great leaps in this third summer of the war?

Unkerlanter soldiers, that's what, he thought. Unkerlanter behemoths, Unkerlanter dragons, Unkerlanter cavalry. We've learned a lot from these redheaded whoresons the past two years. Now we'll find out if we've got our lessons right.

If they hadn't learned, they would have gone under. He knew no stronger incentive than that. They might still go under, if King Mezentio's men did break through what Unkerlant had built here to hold them back. But the Algarvians would know they'd been in a fight. They already knew they'd been in a fight, a harder fight than they'd had anywhere in the east of Derlavai.

Vatran had been thinking with him. "Invade our kingdom, will they? We'll teach them what we think of people who do things like that, powers below eat me if we don't."

"If we don't, the powers below will eat both of us," Rathar said, and Vatran nodded. They trudged through rubble-strewn streets- or perhaps across what had been yards from which most of the rubble had been blown- back toward the battered bank building where Rather had made his headquarters. A lot of eggs had fallen on Durrwangen since, but the building still stood. Banks had to be strong places; that was one of the reasons Rathar had chosen this one.

No sentries stood outside to snap to attention and salute as he and General Vatran came up. King Swemmel would have had sentries out there; Swemmel insisted on show. Maybe because his sovereign did, Rathar didn't. Also, of course, sentries outside the building would have been likely to get killed when the Algarvians tossed in some more of their endless eggs. Rathar had sent uncounted tens of thousands of soldiers to their deaths, but he wasn't deliberately wasteful. He hoped the war never made him so hard or simply so indifferent as that.

A horned lark hopped out of his way, then leaped into the air to catch a fly. The golden-bellied lark was svelte, even plump. It probably had a great brood of svelte, even plump, nestlings somewhere amid the ruins. With so much dead but unburied flesh in Durrwangen, there were a great many flies to catch.

Inside the headquarters building, a sentry did salute the marshal and his general. Rathar nodded to the youngster. Then he spoke to Vatran: "Let's go look at the map." He wondered how many times he'd said that. Whenever he was worried, undoubtedly. He'd been worried a lot.

Vatran walked over to the map table with him. Algarvian-held bulges overlapped Durrwangen to either side. "They're good, curse them," Vatran said. "Who would've thought they had that counterattack in 'em?"

"We didn't, that's certain." Rathar ruefully shook his head. "And we've paid for it. And we're liable to pay more." He pointed to the map. "Are these the best sites we could have picked for the centers?"

"Archmage Addanz thinks so." Vatran scowled. "Are you ready to argue with him? He'd likely turn you into a frog." He chuckled, but the laughter sounded strained. "War would be easier without magecraft."

"Maybe it would." Rathar shrugged. "But I'll argue with Addanz if I have to. I've asked him to come up to Durrwangen; he should be here soon. I'll argue with anyone and do anything I have to to win this war."

"I don't like arguing with mages," Vatran said. "Too many things they can do to you if you rub 'em the wrong way."

"A soldier can generally slay a mage faster than a mage can get rid of a soldier," Rathar said serenely. "And magecraft, even the simple stuff, isn't easy. If it were, we'd have mages running the world. And we don't."

"And a good thing, too, says I," Vatran exclaimed.

"Excuse me, lord Marshal." The sentry came back to the map table. "Sorry to bother you, but the archmage is here."

"Good," Rathar said. Vatran looked as if he thought it was anything but. The marshal continued, "Send him right on back here. We've got things to talk about, he and I." The sentry saluted and hurried up to the entrance. He didn't just send the archmage back: he brought him. Rathar nodded approval. He rarely found fault with a man who exceeded his orders.

Addanz was a well-groomed man of middle years, perhaps a little younger than Rathar. Few old men served King Swemmel; Vatran was an exception. A lot of leaders of the generation ahead of Rathar's had chosen the wrong side in the Twinkings War. Most of the others had managed to displease the king in the intervening years- or he'd killed them anyway, to make others thoughtful or simply on a whim. Swemmel did as he chose. That was what being King of Unkerlant meant, as long as a king lived. Swemmel had lived a surprisingly long time.

"I greet you, lord Marshal." Addanz's voice was rich and smooth, like strong tea with milk. Rathar was a long way from sure he was the best mage in Unkerlant. What he was, without a doubt, was the prominent mage with the fewest enemies.

"Hello, Archmage." Set beside Addanz, Rathar felt himself to be all harsh stone and rough edges. The archmage was a courtier; Rathar wasn't, or was as little as he could get away with. But regardless of what he wasn't, he cursed well was a soldier, and he'd summoned Addanz on soldiers' business. His index finger stabbed down at the map. "This center here, the western one- are you sure it's where you want it? If they break through past this line of low hills, they may overrun it."

"The closer, the stronger- so we have shown," Addanz answered. "With soldiers and magecraft to defend it, it should serve well enough. Besides, given how soon Mezentio's minions may strike at us, have we got the time to move it and set it up again farther from the front?"

Rathar gnawed his lower lip. "Mm- you're likely right. If I thought we had more time, I'd still have you move it a bit. You're liable to take a pounding from dragons, too, you know."

"That would be so even if we did move it," Addanz answered. Rathar gnawed his lip some more. The archmage went on, "And we have masked it as best we can, both with magecraft and with such tricks as soldiers use." He didn't sound patronizing; he seemed to make a point of not sounding patronizing. That only made Rathar feel twice as patronized.

He shook his head. Addanz had won this round. "All right. I'll never complain about anyone who wants to get close to the enemy. I just don't want the enemy getting too close to you too fast."

"I rely on your valiant men and officers to keep such a calamity from happening," Addanz said. I'll blame them to Swemmel if it does. He didn't say that, but he might have.

"Your mages know exactly what they have to do?" Rathar persisted.

"Aye." Addanz nodded. A year and a half before, the notion had so rocked him, he couldn't even think of it for himself. How Swemmel had laughed! Nothing rocked Swemmel, not if it meant holding on to his throne. And now Addanz took it for granted, too. The war against Algarve had coarsened him, as it had everybody else. That was what war did.

Distant thunder rumbled, off to the south. But there should have been no thunder, not on a fine, warm early summer day. Eggs. Thousands of eggs, bursting at once. Rathar looked to Vatran. Vatran was already looking to him. "It's begun," the marshal said. Vatran nodded. Rathar went on, "Now we'll know. One way or the other, we'll know."

"What?" Addanz needed a moment to recognize the sound. When the archmage did, he blanched a little. "How shall I go back to the center now?"

"Carefully," Rathar answered, and threw back his head and laughed. Addanz looked most offended. Rathar hardly cared. At last, after longer than he'd expected, the waiting was over.

Even Sergeant Werferth, who had been a soldier for a long time, first in Forthweg's army and then in Plegmund's Brigade, was impressed. "Look at 'em, boys, he said. "Just look at 'em. You ever see so fornicating many behemoths in one place in all your born days?"

Sirdoc wrinkled his nose. "Smell 'em, boys," he said, doing his best to imitate his sergeant. "Just smell 'em. You ever smell so fornicating many behemoths in one place in all your born days?"

Everybody in the squad laughed- even Ceorl, who was about as eager to fight Sidroc as the Unkerlanters; even Werferth, who seldom took kindly to being lampooned. They all had to laugh. Sidroc's joke held altogether too much truth. Algarve had indeed assembled a great host of behemoths to hurl against the western flank of the Unkerlanter salient around Durrwangen. And those behemoths did indeed stink. They'd been moving up toward the front for days now, and the air was thick with the rotten-grass reek of their droppings.

It was also thick with flies, which buzzed around the behemoths and their droppings, and which weren't too proud to visit the waiting men and their latrines as well. Like the other soldiers in Plegmund's Brigade, like the Algarvians with them, Sidroc slapped all the time.

Like everybody else, he also did his best to be careful where he put his feet. He knew all about stepping in horse turds. Who didn't, by smelly experience? But a horse turd dirtied the bottom of a shoe, and maybe a bit of the upper. Behemoths were a lot bigger than horses. Their droppings were in proportion. Those who didn't notice them in the weeds and rank grassland and unattended fields had enormous reason to regret it.

An Algarvian senior lieutenant named Ercole had replaced the late Captain Zerbino as company commander. Sidroc wondered how Ercole had got to be senior to anybody; he doubted the redhead had as many years as his own eighteen. Ercole's mustache, far from the splendid waxed spikes his countrymen adored, was hardly more than copper fuzz. But he sounded calm and confident as he said, "Once the eggs stop falling, we go in alongside the behemoths. We protect them, they protect us. We all go forward together. The cry is, 'Mezentio and victory!' "

He waited expectantly. "Mezentio and victory!" shouted the Forthwegians of Plegmund's Brigade. The Brigade might have been named after their own great king, but it served Algarve's.

Were any Unkerlanters close enough to hear? Sidroc didn't suppose it mattered. They'd soon hear a lot of that cry. With the help of the powers above, it would be the last cry a lot of them heard.

Algarvian egg-tossers began to fling then. Sidroc whooped at the great roar of bursts to the east of him. And it went on and on, seemingly without end. "There won't be anything left alive by the time they're through!" He had to shout even to hear himself through the din.

"Oh, yes, there will." Sergeant Werferth was shouting, too. His shout held grim certainty: "There always is, curse it."

As if to prove him right on the spot, Unkerlanter egg-tossers began hurling sorcerous energy back at the Algarvians. There didn't seem to be so many of them, and they flung fewer eggs, but they hadn't gone away, either. Sidroc wished they would have. He crouched in a hole scraped in the ground and hoped for the best. Not a lot of Unkerlanter eggs were falling close by. He approved of that, and hoped it would go on.

Algarvian dragons flew by overhead at what would have been treetop height had any trees grown close by. They had eggs slung under their bellies to add to those the tossers were flinging. Not long after they struck Swemmel's men, fewer eggs flew back toward the Algarvian army of which Plegmund's Brigade was a part.

The pounding from the Algarvian side kept on. "They've put everything they've got into this, haven't they?" Sidroc shouted.

This time, Ceorl answered him: "Aye, they have. Including us."

Sidroc grunted. He wished Ceorl wouldn't have put it quite like that. He also wished he could have found some way to disagree with the ruffian.

At last, after what seemed like forever but was probably a couple of hours, the Algarvian egg-tossers stopped as abruptly as they'd begun. All up and down the line, officers' whistles shrilled. They didn't seem so much of a much, not to Sidroc's battered ears. But they were enough to send men and behemoths trotting forward against the foe.

Lieutenant Ercole blew his whistle as lustily as anyone else. "Forward!" he shouted. "Mezentio and victory!"

"Mezentio and victory!" Sidroc shouted as he scrambled out of his hole. He kept shouting it as he went forward, too. So did the rest of the Forthwegians in Plegmund's Brigade. They wore tunics. They had dark hair and proud hooked noses. Even though they wore beards, they didn't want excitable Algarvians- and what other kind were there? -taking them for Unkerlanters and blazing them by mistake.

If anything or anyone had stayed alive in the tormented landscape ahead, Sidroc had trouble understanding how. After a good part of a year in action, he reckoned himself a connoisseur of ruined terrain, and this churned, smoking, cratered ground was as bad as any he'd ever seen.

And then, off to his right, a new crater opened. A flash of sorcerous energy and a brief shriek marked the passage of an Algarvian soldier. Someone shouted an altogether unnecessary warning: "They've buried eggs in the ground!"

All at once, Sidroc wanted to tippytoe forward. Then, a little farther away, an egg burst under a behemoth. That one blast of sorcerous energy touched off all the eggs the behemoth was carrying. Its crew had no chance. Sidroc wondered if any pieces would come down, or if the men were altogether destroyed.

And he couldn't tippytoe despite the buried eggs, another of which blew up a soldier not too far from him. However many eggs the tossers had rained down on the ground ahead, they hadn't got rid of all the Unkerlanters. Sidroc hadn't really expected they would, but he had hoped. No such luck. Swemmel's men popped up out of holes and started blazing at the soldiers struggling through the belt of buried eggs. Going fast meant you might miss whatever signs there were on the ground to warn you an egg lay concealed beneath it. Going slow meant the Unkerlanters had a better chance to blaze you.

Shouting, "Mezentio and victory!" at the top of his lungs, Sidroc dashed ahead. He might get through to unblighted ground. If he stayed where he was, he would get blazed. Lieutenant Ercole was shouting and waving all his men on, so Sidroc supposed he'd done the right thing.

When the crews of the Algarvian behemoths saw targets, they lobbed eggs at them or blazed at them with heavy sticks. Fewer beams tore at the advancing soldiers. Men ahead of Sidroc were battling Unkerlanters in their holes. He saw a man in a rock-gray tunic show his head and shoulders as he looked for a target. That was enough- too much, in fact. Sidroc blazed the Unkerlanter down.

"Keep moving!" Ercole screamed. "You've got to keep moving. This is how we beat them- with speed and movement!" By all the news sheets Sidroc had read back in Gromheort before joining Plegmund's Brigade, by all the training he'd had, by all the fighting he'd seen, the company commander was right.

But it wouldn't be easy, not here it wouldn't. The Unkerlanters had known they were coming- had probably known for a long time. They'd fortified this ground as best they could. It didn't look like much, but obstacles- tree trunks, ditches, mud- made the going slower than it would have been otherwise. Those obstacles also channeled the advancing men and behemoths in certain directions- right into more waiting Unkerlanters.

As soon as the Algarvians and the men of Plegmund's Brigade got in among the first belt of Unkerlanter defenders, others farther back began blazing at them from long range. More obstacles slowed their efforts to get at the Unkerlanters who now revealed themselves. Men on both sides fell as if winnowed. Algarvian behemoths went down, too, here and there, though few Unkerlanter behemoths were yet in the fight.

At last, around noon, Mezentio's men cleared that first stubborn belt of defenders. Ercole was almost beside himself. "We aren't keeping up with the plan!" he cried. "We're falling behind!"

"Sir, we've done everything we could," Sergeant Werferth said. "We're still here. We're still moving."

"Not fast enough." Ercole stuck his whistle in his mouth and blew a long, piercing blast. "Onward!"

For a furlong or so, the going was easy. Sidroc's spirits began to rise. Then he heard the sharp, flat roar of an egg bursting under another Algarvian soldier. He realized why no Unkerlanters infested this stretch of ground- they'd sown it with more eggs to slow up his advancing comrades.

What had been woods ahead had taken a demon of a beating, but still offered some shelter: enough that the Unkerlanter behemoths emerging from it were an unwelcome surprise. "Powers above!" Sidroc exclaimed in dismay. "Look at how many of the whoresons there are!"

The behemoths started tossing eggs at Plegmund's Brigade and at the Algarvian footsoldiers to either side of the Forthwegians. Sidroc jumped into a hole in the ground. He had plenty from which to choose. So did Ceorl, but he jumped down in with Sidroc anyhow. Sidroc wondered whether he wouldn't be safer facing the Unkerlanter behemoths.

"Hard work today," Ceorl remarked, as if he'd been hauling sacks of grain or chopping wood.

"Aye," Sidroc agreed. An egg burst close by, shaking the ground and showering them with clods of dirt.

"But we'll do it," Ceorl went on. "We go east, the redheads on the other side come west, and we meet in the middle. Be a whole great fornicating kettle full of dead Unkerlanters by the time we're through, too." He sounded as if he enjoyed the idea.

"A lot of us dead, too," Sidroc said. "A lot of us dead already."

Ceorl shrugged. "Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." He brought out the clichй as if he were the first one ever to use it. Maybe he thought he was.

An officer's whistle squealed. "Onward!" That was Lieutenant Ercole, who'd had the sense to jump in a hole. Now, sooner than he might have been, he was out again. The Algarvians hadn't given Plegmund's Brigade any officers who weren't recklessly brave- that Sidroc had to admit. "Come on!" Ercole shouted again. "We won't win anything if we stay here all day!"

Sidroc surged up out of the hole. The Algarvian behemoths had taken care of a lot of their Unkerlanter counterparts, but they'd had holes torn in their ranks, too. A dragon fell from the sky and thrashed out its death throes a couple of hundred yards from Sidroc. It was painted rock-gray. A moment later, an Algarvian dragon smashed down even closer.

By the time night came, they'd almost cleared that second belt of defenders.

"We've got to be efficient." Lieutenant Recared sounded serious and earnest. "The Algarvians will throw everything they've got at us. We've got to make every blaze count, and to use the positions we've spent so long building up." He turned to Leudast. "Anything you want to add to that, Sergeant?"

Leudast looked at the men in his company. They knew the Algarvians would be coming any day, maybe any minute. They were serious, even somber, but, if they were afraid, they didn't let it show. Leudast knew he was afraid, and did his best not to let that show.

He thought Recared wanted him to say something, so he did: "Just don't do anything stupid, boys. This'll be a hard enough fight even if we're smart."

"That's right." Recared nodded vigorously. "Being smart is being efficient. The sergeant said the same thing I did, only with different words."

I guess I did, Leudast thought, a little surprised. That hadn't occurred to him. He peered east, toward the rising sun. If the Algarvians attacked now, they'd be silhouetted against the bright sky every time they came over a rise. He judged they would wait till the sun was well up before moving. He was in no great hurry to risk getting killed or maimed. They could wait forever, for all of him.

Light built, grew. Leudast studied the landscape. He couldn't see most of the defensive positions the Unkerlanters had built. If he couldn't see them, that meant Mezentio's men wouldn't be able to, either. He hoped that was what it meant, anyhow.

The sun climbed in the sky. The day grew warm, even hot. Leudast slapped at bugs. There weren't so many as there had been right after the snow melted, when the endless swampy puddles in the mud bred hordes of mosquitoes and gnats. But they hadn't all gone away. They wouldn't have wanted to, not with so many latrines and animals to keep them happy.

Leudast was pissing in a slit trench when the Algarvians started flinging eggs. He almost jumped right into that latrine trench; combat had taught him how important taking cover was, and diving into the closest available hole was almost as automatic as breathing. But he hadn't wanted to breathe by the noisome, nearly full trench, and he didn't jump into it, either. Not quite. He ran back toward the hole in the ground from which he'd come.

Such sensibilities almost cost him his neck. An egg burst not far behind him just as he started sliding into his hole. It flung him in instead, flung him hard enough to make him wonder if he'd cracked his ribs. Only when he'd sucked in a couple of breaths without having knives stab did he decide he hadn't.

He'd been through a lot fighting the Algarvians. He'd helped hold them out of Cottbus. He'd been wounded down in Sulingen. He'd thought he knew everything the redheads could do. Now he discovered he'd been wrong. In all that time, with everything he'd seen, he'd never had to endure such a concentrated rain of eggs as they threw at him, threw at all the Unkerlanters.

The first thing he did was dig himself deeper. He wondered if he were digging his own grave, but the shallow scrape he'd had before didn't seem nearly enough. He flung dirt out with his short-handled spade, wishing all the while that he had broad, clawed hands like a mole's so he wouldn't need a tool. Sometimes he thought bursts all around him threw as much dirt back into the hole as he was throwing out.

After the hole was deep enough, he lay down at full length in it, his face pressed into the rich, dark loam. He needed a while to realize he was screaming; the din of those bursting eggs was so continuous, he could hardly even hear himself. Realizing what he was doing didn't make him stop. He'd known fear. He'd known terror. This went past those and out the other side. It was so immense, so irresistible, it carried him along as a wave might carry a small boat.

And, after a little while, it washed him ashore. If he was beyond fear, beyond terror, what else was there to do but go on? He got up onto his knees- he wasn't ready to expose his body to blasts of sorcerous energy and to flying metal shards of egg casing- and looked at the sky instead of the dirt.

He had plenty to watch up there. Dragons wheeled and dueled and flamed, some painted in Unkerlant's concealing rock-gray, others wearing Algarve's gaudy colors. It was a dance in the air, as intricate and lovely as a springtime figure dance in the square of the peasant village where he'd grown up.

But this dance was deadly, too. An Algarvian dragon flamed one from his kingdom, flamed its wing and flank. Across who could say how much air, he heard the great furious bellow of agony the Unkerlanter dragon let out. Surely the dragonflier screamed, too, but his voice was lost, lost. The dragon frantically beat the air with its one good wing. That only made it twist in the other direction. And then it twisted no more, but fell, writhing. It smashed to the unyielding ground not far in front of Leudast.

As abruptly as they'd started, the Algarvians stopped tossing eggs. Leudast knew what that meant. He snatched up his stick and did peer out from his hole. "They're coming!" he shouted. His own voice sounded strange in his ears because of the pounding they'd taken.

Dimly, as if from far away, he heard others shouting the same thing. Footsoldiers loped ahead of Algarvian behemoths. The men in kilts looked tiny. Even the behemoths looked small. The redheads would have to fight their way through a couple of defensive lines before they reached the position Lieutenant Recared's regiment held. By the way they came on, Mezentio's men thought they could fight their way through anything. After what they'd done two summers in a row in Unkerlant, who could say they were wrong?

Then the first redhead stepped on a buried egg and abruptly ceased to be. "Good riddance, you son of a whore!" Leudast shouted. Soldiers had spent weeks burying eggs. Soldiers and conscripted peasants had spent those same weeks fortifying the ground between the belts. Some of those peasants might have gone back to their farms. Others, Leudast was sure, remained in the salient. He wondered how many of them would come out once more.

Now that the Algarvians were out in the open, Unkerlanter egg-tossers began flinging death their way. Unkerlanter dragons swooped low on Mezentio's men. Some of them dropped eggs, too. Others flamed footsoldiers and behemoths, too. Leudast cheered again.

More Algarvian behemoths than usual seemed to be carrying heavy sticks. Those were less useful than egg-tossers against targets on the ground, but ever so much more useful against dragons. Their thick, strong beams seared the air. Several dragons fell. One, though, smashed into two behemoths as it struck the ground, killing them in its own destruction.

Leudast stopped cheering. He was too awed to see how many of his countrymen had survived the ferocious Algarvian bombardment. But the Algarvians showed no awe. They went about their business with the air of men who'd done it many times before. A charge of behemoths tore an opening in the first defensive line. Footsoldiers swarmed through the gap. Then some of them wheeled and attacked the line from the rear. Others pushed on toward Leudast.

"They did that too fast, curse them," Lieutenant Recared said from a hole not far from Leudast's. "They should have been hung up there longer."

"They're good at what they do, sir," Leudast answered. "They wouldn't be here in our kingdom if they weren't."

"Powers below eat them," Recared said, and then, "Ha! They've just found the second belt of eggs." He shouted toward the redheads: "Enjoy it, you whoresons!"

But the Algarvians kept coming. In two years of war against them, Leudast had rarely known them to be less than game. They were game here, sure enough. After a few minutes, he started to curse. "Will you look at what those buggers have done? They're using that dry wash to get up toward our second line."

"That's not good," Recared said. "They weren't supposed to go that way. They were supposed to be drawn toward the places where we have more men."

"I wish it would rain," Leudast said savagely. "They'd drown then."

"I wish our dragons would come and flame them to ruins and drop eggs on the ones left alive," Recared said.

"Aye." Leudast nodded. "The redheads' dragons would do that to us, down in Sulingen."

Recared sounded worried. "I don't think our men up there in the second line can see what the Algarvians are doing." He shouted, "Crystallomancer!" When no one answered, he shouted again, louder.

This time, he did get a reply. "He's dead, sir, and his crystal smashed," a trooper said.

"Sergeant." Recared turned to Leudast. "Go down there and let them know. With everything else that's going on, I really don't think they have any idea what Mezentio's men are up to. If a regiment of redheads erupts into the middle of that line, it won't hold. Get moving."

"Aye, sir." Leudast scrambled out of his hole, got to his feet, and started trotting toward the line ahead. If he hadn't, Recared would have blazed him on the spot. As things were, all he had to do was run across perhaps half a mile of field and grassland full of buried eggs. If he went up like a torch in a blaze of sorcerous energy, the second line wouldn't know its danger till too late.

He looked back over his shoulder. Three or four more Unkerlanter soldiers came trotting after him. He nodded to himself. Recared was minimizing the risk. The pup made a pretty fair officer.

Leudast trotted on. One foot in front of the other. Don't think about what happens if a foot comes down in the wrong place. Odds are, it won't happen. Don't think about it. Odds are, it won't. And the insistent, rising scream in his mind- Oh, but what if it does?

It didn't. He still had trouble finding the Unkerlanter field fortifications. Then a nervous soldier in a rock-gray tunic popped up and almost blazed him. Panting, he stammered out his message. The soldier lowered his stick. "Come on, pal," he said. "You'd better tell my captain."

Tell him Leudast did. The captain's crystallomancer was still alive. He got the word to soldiers nearer the dry wash. An attack went in. It didn't stop the Algarvians, but it slowed them, rocked them back on their heels.

"Your lieutenant did well to send you," the captain told Leudast. He handed him a flask. "Here. Have a taste of this. You've earned it."

"Thanks, sir." Leudast swigged. Spirits ran hot down his throat. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Are we winning?"

The captain answered with a broad-shouldered shrug. "We're just getting started."