Rulers of the Darkness

Six

Come on!" Sergeant Werferth shouted. "Keep moving. That's what we've got to do, keep moving. We're calling the tune now, not those Unkerlanter barbarians. Shake a leg, boys, or you'll be sorry."

"Slave driver," Sidroc muttered to Ceorl as they tramped south and west over a field in southern Unkerlant. "All he needs is a whip."

"Shut up, boy," the ruffian answered. "Don't give him ideas." But he didn't sound so sour as usual. Plegmund's Brigade was moving forward for the first time in weeks, and that made up for a multitude of failings.

"There." Werferth pointed to a couple of troops of Algarvian behemoths up ahead. "We'll form up with them."

"If they don't try and blaze us or toss eggs at us first, we will," Ceorl said, and spat in the snow. "Half the time, these fornicating idiots think we're Unkerlanters our own selves." He spat again, as offended as any Forthwegian would be to get mistaken for his cousins to the west.

Sidroc made such excuses for the Algarvians as he could: "Some of these fellows we're seeing here at the front don't look like they ever set eyes on an Unkerlanter before, let alone a Forthwegian. They've been doing occupation duty somewhere off in the east."

"Powers below eat 'em for it, too," Ceorl said. "They've been eating and drinking and screwing themselves silly, and we've been doing their fighting and dying for them. About time they started earning their cursed keep."

"Aye, that's so," Sidroc admitted. "It won't do us much good if they do decide we're Unkerlanters, though."

For a moment, it looked as if the behemoth crews would think the men shouting and waving and advancing on them belonged to the enemy. Only when the Algarvian officers leading the Forthwegians came out in front of them did the redheads on the behemoths relax… a little.

"Plegmund's Brigade?" one of them said as Sidroc and his comrades approached. "What in the futtering blazes is Plegmund's Brigade? Sounds like a futtering disease, that's what." A couple of the other troopers on the behemoth laughed and nodded.

Not bothering to keep his voice down, Sidroc asked Werferth, "Sergeant, can we whale the stuffing out of these redheaded fools before we go on and deal with the Unkerlanters?"

With what looked like real regret, Werferth shook his head. Since Sidroc had spoken in Forthwegian, the Algarvians aboard the behemoth didn't know what he'd said. But one of the redheaded officers with the Brigade said what amounted to the same thing- "We'll show you what we are, by the powers above!" -and said it in unmistakable Algarvian.

Sidroc stood very straight, his chest swelling with pride. But Ceorl only grunted. "That means they'll spend us the way a rich whore spends coppers. They'll throw us away to prove we're brave."

"Bite your tongue, curse it!" Werferth exclaimed. Sidroc was scowling, too; Ceorl's words had a horrid feel of probability to them.

The soldiers of Plegmund's Brigade had to march hard to keep up with the advancing behemoths. "Bastards would slow down a little for their own kind," Sidroc grumbled.

"Maybe," Werferth said. "But maybe not, too. Getting there fast counts in this business."

War had already swept its red-hot rake over the countryside, swept it coming and going. All the villages had been fought over, most of them twice, some, by their look, more often than that. The Unkerlanter soldiers based in the ruined villages seemed astonished to find King Mezentio's men moving forward once more.

Astonished or not, the Unkerlanters fought hard. From everything Sidroc had seen, they always did. But footsoldiers without behemoths were at a great disadvantage facing footsoldiers with them. Sidroc had already had his nose rubbed in that lesson. Before long, and at small cost, they cleared several villages, one after the other.

"Forward!" shouted the Algarvian officers attached to Plegmund's Brigade. "Forward!" shouted the officers who led the behemoths. Across the snowy fields, Sidroc saw Algarvian footsoldiers moving forward, too.

"We've doubled back around the Unkerlanters," he said in considerable excitement. "If we can cut them off, we'll give 'em a good kick in the arse."

"Thanks, Marshal Sidroc," Ceorl said. "I'm sure you'll be telling King Mezentio where to go and what to do one fine day."

"I'll tell you where to go and what to do when the powers below drag you down there," Sidroc retorted.

And that was plenty to set Ceorl off. "Don't you talk to me like that, you son of a whore," he snarled. "You talk to me like that, I'll cut your fornicating heart out and eat it with onions."

Back in the Brigade's training camp, Ceorl had frightened the whey out of Sidroc. He was a robber, likely a murderer, and Sidroc had led a quiet, prosperous life till the war turned everything on its head. But a lot had changed since the Brigade came to Unkerlant. Sidroc had seen and done things every bit as dreadful as anything Ceorl had done. He looked at the ruffian and said, "Come ahead. I'll give you all you want."

Ceorl snarled again and grabbed for his knife. "Stop that, you stupid buggers, or you'll answer to the redheads," Sergeant Werferth growled. "After we win the war, you two can do whatever you want to each other, and I won't care a fart's worth. Till then, you're stuck with each other."

Sidroc kept his hand on his own knife hilt till he saw Ceorl lower his. As the Forthwegians marched on, he kept watching his countryman. In spite of Werferth's order, he didn't trust Ceorl. Ceorl was watching him, too. The way he watched reassured Sidroc- it wasn't contemptuous, but a look that said Ceorl had something to worry about, and knew it.

Werferth was watching both of them. "Powers above, you lackwits, show some sense," he said after about half a mile. "What's the point in going after each other when the Unkerlanters are liable to do worse to you than either one of you could dream of?"

That held an unpleasant amount of sense. Sidroc saw as much at once. For a wonder, Ceorl saw it, too. The frozen, twisted corpses lying in the snow they passed made it easier for Werferth to get his point across.

Someone up ahead shouted and pointed. There were more Unkerlanters, tramping south across the plains. They had a few behemoths with them, but only a few. Officers' whistles squealed in Plegmund's Brigade and among the Algarvians. The same order rang out among them all: "Forward!"

Swemmel's men, intent on their retreat, didn't notice the attack developing against their flank till too late. Sidroc soon discovered why: they were falling back under pursuit from the north. Eggs burst among them, kicking up puffs of snow and knocking over footsoldiers and a couple of behemoths. One of the behemoths, to his disappointment, scrambled back to its feet, though without most of its crew.

His comrades and he flopped down in the snow and started blazing at the Unkerlanters. The Algarvian behemoths plastered them with more eggs. Beams from heavy sticks seared three Algarvian behemoths in quick succession. They also sent up great gouts of steam when they bit into the snow.

"Forward!" the officers cried, and the men of Plegmund's Brigade, along with their Algarvian allies, got up again and rushed toward the enemy.

We're going to get killed, Sidroc thought, even as he slogged through the snow. He'd seen Unkerlanter troops fierce in attack and stubborn in defense. Now, for once, he saw them taken by surprise and panic-stricken. A few of the men in rock-gray tunics stood their ground and blazed at the Algarvians and Forthwegians, but more simply fled. Quite a few threw their hands in the air and surrendered.

"You're a Grelzer?" one of those asked Sidroc as Sidroc stole his weapon and money and food. Unkerlanter and Forthwegian were cousins; Sidroc had no great trouble understanding the question.

"No. Plegmund's Brigade," he answered. That didn't seem to mean anything to the captive. Well, we'll make it mean something to these whoresons, Sidroc thought. He gestured with his stick. The Unkerlanter, hands still high, headed north, away from the fighting. Sooner or later, someone would take charge of him. He was far from the only captive who needed to be gathered in.

King Swemmel's soldiers kept running. A few tried to make a stand in a little village in the path of Plegmund's Brigade, but the Forthwegians were so close behind them, they got in among the houses at almost the same time as the Unkerlanters did.

Shrieks from a couple of peasant huts brought howls of delight from the men of the Brigade. "Women!" somebody yelled, as if those screams needed to be identified. Either the local peasants had never left this place or they'd returned, thinking men who fought for Mezentio would never come so far again. If that was what they'd thought, they'd miscalculated.

They'd also given the Forthwegians one more reason to finish off the enemy soldiers in the village as fast as they could. The Unkerlanters wouldn't have lasted long anyhow, not when they were badly outnumbered and unable to form a defensive line. As things were, they vanished as if they had never been.

And then the other hunt was on. By twos and threes, the men of Plegmund's Brigade hammered down the door to every hut in the village.

Only an ancient woman and an even more ancient man stared in horror as Sidroc and Ceorl and another trooper burst into the hut where they'd lived for most if not all of their lives. Ceorl stared in disgust. "You're no cursed good!" he exclaimed, and blazed them both.

But screams and excited shouts from next door sent the men from Plegmund's Brigade rushing over there. Two of their comrades were holding a woman down while a third pumped between her legs. One of the men holding her looked up and said, "Wait your turn, boys. Won't be long- we've all gone without for a long time."

Sidroc took his turn when it came. Back in Gromheort, there were laws against such things. No law here, only winners and losers. The Unkerlanter peasant woman had stopped screaming. Sidroc knelt and thrust and grunted as pleasure shot through him. Then he got to his feet, fixed his drawers, and picked up his stick, which he'd set down for a little while.

Ceorl took his place. He was glad he'd gone before the ruffian; it made him less likely to need a physician's services later on.

Outside, whistles were screeching. Algarvian officers were yelling: "Forward! Come on, you filthy cockhounds!"

Regretfully, Sidroc left the hut. The chilly wind smote him. Sergeant Werferth waved him south and west. "Did you get any?" Sidroc asked.

Werferth nodded. "Wouldn't let it go to waste."

With a nod of his own, Sidroc fell in behind the squad leader. The army was advancing. He'd enjoyed the fruits of victory. War didn't look so bad.

"Another big Algarvian victory near Durrwangen!" a news-sheet vendor shouted to Vanai. "Unkerlanters falling back in disorder!" He waved the sheet, doing his best to tempt her.

"No," she said, and hurried past him toward her block of flats. She had to hurry. She'd been out longer than she'd planned to be. Somehow, time had got away from her. She didn't know how long she would go on looking like a Forthwegian.

Worse, she wouldn't know when she stopped looking like a Forthwegian. She couldn't see the spell that kept her safe. It was for others, not for herself.

She was almost running now. She kept waiting for the cry of, "Kaunian!" to ring out behind her. Oh, her hair was dyed black, but that wouldn't save her once her features shifted.

Only a few more blocks to go- a few more crowded blocks, a few more blocks full of Forthwegians, full of people all too many of whom hated Kaunians. If the Forthwegians hadn't hated Kaunians, how could the Algarvians have done what they'd done to Vanai's people? They couldn't. She knew it only too well.

She imagined she felt the enchantment slipping away. Of course it was imagination; she couldn't feel the enchantment at all, any more than she could see it. But she could feel the fright welling up inside her. If she couldn't renew the spell- if she couldn't renew it now- she thought she would go mad. Wait till she got to the flat? It might be too late. Powers above, it might be too late!

And then she let out what was almost a sob of relief. Not the block of flats- not even her street, not yet- but the next best thing: the Forthwegian apothecary's shop whose proprietor had given her medicine for Ealstan even though, in those days, she'd not only been a Kaunian but looked like one, and who'd passed her spell on to the other Kaunians in Eoforwic.

She had a length of yellow yarn and a length of dark brown in her handbag. She always kept them there against emergencies- but she hadn't thought today would turn out to be an emergency, not when she went outside she hadn't. If the apothecary would let her use a back room for a few minutes, she'd be safe again for hours on end.

When she walked in, he was molding pills in a little metal press. "Good day," he said from behind the high counter. "And how may I help you?"

"Could I please go into some quiet little room?" she asked. "When I come out again, I'll feel much better, much… safer." She was pretty sure he already knew she was a Kaunian- who else but a Kaunian would have given him such a spell? Even so, fear made her stop short of coming out and saying it.

But he only smiled and nodded and said, "Of course. Come around behind here and right on into my storeroom. Take as much time as you need. I'm sure you'll look the same when you come out as you do now."

The spell hadn't slipped yet, then. "Powers above bless you!" Vanai exclaimed, and hurried into the room. The apothecary shut the door behind her and, she supposed, went back to grinding pills.

Only a small, dim lamp lit the room. It was full of jars and vials and pots that crowded shelves and one little table set into a back corner. Vanai breathed in a heady mixture of poppy juice and mint and licorice and laurel and camphor and at least half a dozen other odors she couldn't name right away. She took a couple of long, deep breaths and smiled. If she had anything wrong with her lungs, she wouldn't when she came out.

She fished through her handbag- far less convenient than a belt pouch, but Forthwegian women didn't belt their tunics, using them to conceal their figures- till she found the lengths of yarn. She set them on the table, twisting them together, and began her chant.

Because it was in classical Kaunian, a forbidden language in Forthweg these days, she kept her voice very low: she didn't want to endanger the apothecary who'd done so much for her and for Kaunians all over the kingdom. She would have been amazed if he were able to hear her through the door.

Just as she was finishing the cantrip, she distinctly heard him say, "Good day. And how may I help you gentlemen?" Maybe he spoke a little louder than usual to warn her someone else had come into the shop; maybe the wood of the door just wasn't very thick. Either way, she was glad she'd incanted quietly. She waited in the little storeroom, sure the apothecary would let her know when it was safe to come out.

And then one of the newcomers said, "You are someone who knows of the filthy magics the Kaunian scum make to disguise themselves." He spoke fluent Forthwegian, but with a trilling Algarvian accent.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the apothecary answered calmly. "Can I interest you in a horehound-and-honey cough elixir? You sound stuffy, and I've just mixed up a new batch."

In the little storeroom, Vanai shivered with terror. She hadn't wanted to bring the man danger by casting her spell too loudly, but she'd brought him worse danger, deadly danger, by asking him to pass it on to her fellow Kaunians. And now the redheads were here, and one jump away from her.

She wanted to jump out from the storeroom and attack them, as if she were the heroine of one of the trashy Forthwegian romances of which she'd read so many while cooped up in the flat. Common sense told her that would only ruin her along with the apothecary. She stayed where she was, hating herself for it.

"You are a whorehound, and a son of a whorehound besides," the Algarvian said. He and his comrade both laughed loudly at his wit. "You are also a lying son of a whorehound, and you are going to pay for it. Come with us right now, and we shall have the truth from you."

"I have given you the truth," the apothecary said.

"You have given us dung, and told us it is perfume," the Algarvian retorted. "Now you come with us, or we blaze you where you stand. Here! Hold! What are you doing?"

"Taking a pill," the apothecary said, his voice easy and relaxed. "I've been getting over the grippe. Let me swallow it down, and I am yours."

"You are ours, all right. Now we have you in our grip." Mezentio's man, along with his other depravities, fancied himself a punster.

"I go with you under protest, for you are seizing an innocent man," the apothecary said.

That sent both Algarvians into gales of laughter. Vanai leaned forward and ever so cautiously pressed her ear to the door. Receding footsteps told her of the redheads' departure with their captive. She didn't hear the front door slam behind them. The Algarvians wouldn't care who plundered the shop, while the apothecary, bless him, was giving her a way to slip off without drawing notice to herself.

She waited. Then she opened the door the tiniest crack and peered out. Not seeing anyone, she darted out from behind the counter and into the front part of the shop, as if she were an ordinary customer. Then, as casually as she could, she left the place and strode out onto the street.

Nobody asked her what she was doing coming out of the shop bare minutes after a couple of Algarvians had hauled away the proprietor. Nobody paid her any heed at all, in fact. A good-sized crowd had gathered down at the end of the block.

Confident now that she would keep on looking Forthwegian, Vanai hurried over to find out what was going on. She saw two redheads in the middle of the crowd: they overtopped the Forthwegians around them by several inches. One of them said, "We did not touch him, by the powers above! He just fell over."

She'd heard that voice in the apothecary's shop. The Algarvian wasn't punning now. His partner bent down, disappearing from Vanai's view. A moment later, he spoke in his own language: "He's dead."

The day was cool and gloomy, but sunshine burst in Vanai. She didn't know, but she would have bet her life what the apothecary had taken had nothing to do with the grippe. The Algarvians reached the same conclusion a heartbeat later. They both started cursing in their own language. "He cheated us, the stinking bugger!" cried the one who'd done all the talking in Forthwegian.

"If he weren't already dead, I'd kill him for that," the other one answered.

The one who did the talking in Forthwegian started waving his arms. That got him attention, not least because he held a short, deadly looking stick in his right hand. "Go away!" he shouted. "This criminal, this dog who hid Kaunians, has escaped our justice, but the fight against the menace of the blonds goes on."

Vanai wondered how many in the crowd were sorcerously disguised Kaunians like herself. Because the Forthwegian majority left without a word of protest, she couldn't stay. She had to act as it she were a person who despised her own kind. It left her sick inside, even as she realized she had no choice.

She had to walk past the apothecary's shop on the way back to her block of flats. People were already going in and starting to clean the place out. Vanai wanted to scream at them, but would good would that do? Again, none at all. It would only draw the Algarvians' notice, the one thing she couldn't afford, the thing the apothecary had kept from happening.

"He's dead because of what I did," she said to Ealstan when he came home that evening. "How do I live with that?"

"He'd want you to," Ealstan answered. "He killed himself so Mezentio's men couldn't pry anything about you out of him- and so they couldn't torment him, of course."

"But they wouldn't have had anything to torment him about if it weren't for me," Vanai said.

"And if it weren't for you and it weren't for him, how many Kaunians who are still alive would be dead now?" her husband returned.

It was a good question. It had no good answer. No matter how obvious its truth, Vanai still felt terrible. And she had an argument of her own: "He shouldn't have died for what he did. He should be a hero. He is a hero."

"Not to the Algarvians," Ealstan said.

"A pestilence take the Algarvians!" Vanai glared at him, starting to get really angry. "They're evil, nothing else."

"They would say the same about Kaunians. A lot of Forthwegians would say the same about Kaunians," Ealstan replied. "They really believe it. I used to think they knew they were doing wrong. I'm not so sure anymore."

"That doesn't make it any better," Vanai snapped. "If anything, that makes it worse. If they can't tell the difference between right and wrong…"

"It makes it more complicated," Ealstan said. "The more I look at things, the more complicated they get." His mouth twisted. "I wonder if your magic would work on Ethelhelm."

"If it did, maybe he wouldn't have to sell himself to the Algarvians any more." Vanai drummed her fingers on the table. "I suppose you're going to tell me that's complicated, too."

"I sometimes have some sympathy for him," Ealstan answered. "He tried to make a little bargain with the redheads, and-"

Vanai pounced. "And he found out you can't make a little bargain with evil."

Ealstan thought about that. Slowly, he nodded. "Maybe you're right. Ethelhelm would say you were."

"I should hope so," Vanai said. "When you're a mouse, there's nothing complicated about a hawk." She stared a challenge at Ealstan. He didn't argue with her, which was one of the wiser things he'd done, or hadn't done, since they were married.

Cornelu thought no one could possibly hate the Algarvians more than he did. They'd invaded and occupied his kingdom. Powers above, they'd invaded and occupied his wife. But the two men who met him at the leviathan pen in Setubal harbor gave him pause.

They stared at him out of chilly, gray-blue eyes. "You look too much like one of Mezentio's men," one of them said in Lagoan spoken with a rather mushy Valmieran accent.

He drew himself up with all the dignity he had. "I am of Sibiu," he replied. "This for Mezentio's men." He spat on the timbers of the pier.

"Some Sibians fight side by side with Algarve," the other Valmieran said. "Some Sibians…" He spoke too rapidly for Cornelu to follow.

Whatever it was, the tone made him bristle. Switching to classical Kaunian, he said, "Perhaps you will explain yourself, sir, in a language with which I am more familiar than that of this kingdom. Or perhaps you will apologize for what certainly sounded as if it might be a slur against my own homeland."

"I apologize for nothing," the second Valmieran said in the language of his imperial ancestors. "I spoke nothing but the truth: some of your countrymen, in Algarvian service, go forward because some of my fellow Kaunians were murdered to make magic against the Unkerlanters."

Cornelu started to let his temper slip. But then he checked himself. Sibiu was occupied, aye. The kingdom was sad and hungry and grim. He'd seen it for himself after his leviathan was killed off his home island of Tirgoviste, seen it till he could escape again. He had no doubt that a good many Sibians known to be unfriendly to King Mezentio no longer remained among the living. But the Valmieran was right: Mezentio's minions hadn't started massacring Sibians, as they had Kaunians from Forthweg.

He bowed and spoke one word: "Algarve." Then he spat again.

The Valmierans looked at each other. Grudgingly, the one who'd accused Cornelu of looking too much like one of Mezentio's men said, "It could be that even men with red hair can hate Algarve."

Lagoas was a land of mostly redhaired folk. Somehow, the Valmieran exiles seemed not to have noticed that. Still speaking classical Kaunian- his Lagoan remained bad, and Sibian, being so close to Algarvian, would have set their teeth on edge if they understood it- Cornelu said, "I shall take you across the Strait of Valmiera. Help your countrymen resist."

That last was a barb of its own. A lot of Valmierans, nobles and commoners alike, weren't resisting but acquiescing in Algarvian rule. By the way the two exiles flinched, they knew it too well. Jelgava was the same way; Cornelu had brought home a sorcerously disguised Kuusaman who was stirring up trouble there.

"Let us be off," the first Valmieran said. "Enough talk back and forth."

"That is well said," Cornelu answered. It was, as far as he was concerned, the first thing these supercilious blonds had said well. One could see why the Algarvians… He shook his head. He didn't want his thoughts gliding down that ley line, even in annoyance.

He slapped the surface of the water in the leviathan pen. That let the beast know who he was and that he was allowed, even required, to be here. Had he got into the water without the slaps, the leviathan might have recognized him; they'd been working together for a while now. Had the arrogant Valmierans got into the water without the recognition signal, their end would have been swift and unpleasant.

Up to the surface came the leviathan. It pointed its long, toothy snout at Cornelu and let out a surprisingly shrill squeak. He patted the slick, smooth skin, then reached into a bucket on the pier and tossed it a couple of fish. They disappeared as if they had never been, fast enough to make anyone watching glad the leviathan was tame and well trained.

Smiling an unpleasant smile, Cornelu threw the beast another mackerel. As its great teeth closed on the tidbit, he turned that smile on the Valmierans he was to ferry across the strait and back to their own kingdom. "Shall we go, gentlemen?" he asked as he slid down into the water.

They looked at each other before answering. At last, one of them said, "Aye," and they both got in.

They weren't leviathan-riders; if Cornelu had to guess, he would have said they'd never done this before, not even once. He had to show them how to secure themselves in harness, and how to lie still along the leviathan's back and not give the beast even inadvertent signals. "It would be unfortunate if you did that," he remarked.

"How unfortunate?" one of the Valmierans asked.

"That depends," Cornelu replied. "You might live. On the other hand…" He was exaggerating, but he didn't want his passengers annoying or confusing the leviathan.

When he was sure everything was ready, he waved to the Lagoans who handled the nets that formed the pen. They waved back and let down one side; the leviathan swam out of the pen and into the harbor channel that led to the sea.

Cornelu wasn't quite so happy as usual to be leaving Setubal. The reason for that was simple: he wasn't alone with his thoughts, as he so often was on leviathanback, and as he craved to be. He had company, and not the best of company, either.

They weren't seamen, despite the rubber suits and spells that kept them from freezing or drowning in the chilly waters of the Strait of Valmiera. And they were Valmieran nobles, which meant that to them even a minor noble of Algarvic blood like Cornelu wasn't far removed from a savage hunting wild boar in the forest. They kept talking about him in Valmieran. He didn't speak it, but enough words were recognizably similar to their classical Kaunian ancestors for him to have no trouble figuring out they weren't paying him compliments.

By the powers above, Valmiera deserved to have the Algarvians run over it, Cornelu thought. If Mezentio's men were only a little smarter, they might have slaughtered all the nobles there- and even more so in Jelgava- and won the commoners to them forever. But they hadn't. They'd worked through the nobles who would work with them and replaced others with men more cooperative but no less nasty. And so both kingdoms still had rebellions simmering against the occupiers.

Maybe these fellows would help bring the rebellion in Valmiera from simmer to boil. That would be good; it would distract the Algarvians from their even bigger troubles elsewhere. But Cornelu wouldn't have bet much above a copper on it. He didn't want anything to do with them. Why would anyone with a dram of sense in their own kingdom think any different?

He knew nothing but relief when he saw the coast of the Derlavaian mainland crawl up over the horizon. It had been an easy trip across the Strait: no enemy ley-line ships, no leviathans, only a couple of dragons off in the distance- and neither of their dragonfliers had spotted the leviathan.

"Is this the place where you are to land us?" one of the Valmierans demanded. "Are you sure this is the place where you are to land us?" He sounded as if he didn't think Cornelu could find his way across the street, let alone across a hundred miles of ocean.

"By the landmarks, by the configuration of the ley lines, this is the place where I am to land you," the leviathan-rider answered with such patience as he could muster. "Swim to shore and twist the Algarvians' tails for them."

The two blonds struck out awkwardly toward the land a couple of hundred yards away. Cornelu would go no closer, for fear of beaching his leviathan. The Valmierans couldn't drown, no matter how hard they tried, not with the spells laid on them. If they had to, they would walk across the seabottom to the shore, breathing as if they were fish. Cornelu felt a little guilty about not wishing them good luck, but only a little.

They didn't bring him any luck, not on the way back to Setubal. An Algarvian dragonflier spotted his leviathan and dropped a couple of eggs close enough to it to panic the beast- and very nearly close enough to hurt or kill it. The leviathan swam at random, deep underwater, till at last it had to surface once more.

That might have been the best thing it could have done. When it did spout, the dragon was far away; the Algarvian aboard it must have assumed that Cornelu would run straight south for Setubal. And so he might have, but he hadn't anything to do with it. The leviathan had swum almost due west- in the direction of Algarve itself. Cornelu would have loved to attack Mezentio's land, but he had no weapons with which to do it, not this time.

He regained control over the leviathan during its next dive, and did manage to lead it away from the Algarvian dragon. The search spirals the dragon flew worked against it this time, carrying it farther and farther from Cornelu. At last, when he was sure the dragonflier couldn't possibly see him, he waved a courteous good-bye. It was a relieved good-bye, too. He hesitated to admit that, even to himself.

About halfway across the Strait, he spied a great many dragons ahead. That meant only one thing: the Lagoans and Algarvians were fighting at sea. On a leviathan not carrying eggs, Cornelu should have stayed away. He knew that. He could do nothing. But the spectacle of the fight would be riveting in itself. He steered the leviathan toward it.

A Lagoan ley-line cruiser was engaging two lighter, swifter Algarvian vessels. They tossed eggs at one another and blazed away with sticks that drew their sorcerous energy from the world's grid over which the ships traveled: sticks far larger and heavier and more powerful than any that could have been made mobile on land.

More eggs fell from the dragons overhead. But they couldn't swoop to drop them with deadly accuracy, as they might have against footsoldiers. Those potent sticks would have blazed them out of the sky had they dared. And so the dragons wheeled and fought among themselves high above the bigger fray on the surface of the sea. The eggs their dragonfliers dropped churned the Strait, but few struck home.

Someone aboard the Lagoan cruiser spotted Cornelu atop his leviathan. A stick swung his way with terrifying speed. "No, you fools, I'm a friend!" he shouted, which of course did no good at all.

The beam missed, but not by much. A patch of ocean perhaps fifty yards from the leviathan turned all at once to steam, with a noise as of a red-hot iron behemoth suddenly falling into the sea. The leviathan didn't know that was dangerous. Cornelu did. He urged the beast into a dive and took it away from the fight he shouldn't have approached.

When he got back to Setubal, he learned the cruiser had sunk, as had one of its Algarvian foes. The other, badly damaged, was limping toward home with more Lagoan ships in pursuit. No one really owned the Strait. Cornelu doubted anyone would, not till the Derlavaian War was as good as won. Till then, both sides would keep struggling over it.

A new man in Istvan's squad, a fellow named Hevesi, came up to the front from regimental headquarters with orders to be alert because of a possible Unkerlanter attack and with gossip that had his hazel eyes bugging out of his head. "You'll never guess, Sergeant," he said to Istvan after relaying the order. "By the stars, you couldn't guess if you tried for the next five years."

"Well, you'd better tell me, then," Istvan said reasonably.

"Aye, speak up," Szonyi agreed. Safe behind a timber rampart, he stood up to show that he towered over Hevesi, as he did over most people. "Speak up before somebody decides to tear the words out of you."

"Anything new would be welcome in this dreary wilderness," Corporal Kun added. The rest of the soldiers crowded toward Hevesi so they could hear, too.

He grinned, pleased at the effect he'd created. "No need to get pushy," he said. "I'll talk. I'm glad to talk, to spit it out." He spoke with the accent of the northeastern mountain provinces of Gyongyos, an accent so much like Istvan's that he might have come from only a few valleys away.

When he still didn't start talking right away, Szonyi loomed over him and rumbled, "Out with it, little man."

Hevesi wasn't so little as all that. But he was a good-natured fellow, and didn't get angry, as many Gyongyosians might have. "All right." For dramatic effect, he lowered his voice to not much more than a whisper: "I hear that, up a couple of regiments north of us, they burned three men for- goat-eating."

Everyone who heard him exclaimed in horror. But Hevesi didn't know his comrades were expressing two different kinds of horror. Istvan hoped he never found out, either. Eating goat's flesh was the worst abomination Gyongyos recognized. Istvan and several of his comrades knew the sin from the inside out. If anyone but Captain Tivadar ever discovered that they knew, they were doomed. Some of their horror was disgust at themselves, some a fear others might learn what they'd done.

"How did they come to do that?" asked Lajos, who'd already shown more interest in goats and goat's flesh than Istvan was comfortable with.

"They overran one of those little forest villages you stumble across every once in a while," Hevesi answered. Istvan nodded. He and his squad had overrun such a village himself, and doubted if any mountain valley in all of Gyongyos were so isolated. Hevesi went on, "The accursed Unkerlanters keep goats, of course. And these three just slaughtered one and roasted it and ate of the flesh." He shuddered.

"Of their own free will?" Kun asked. "Knowingly?"

"By the stars, they did," Hevesi said.

Kun bared his teeth in what was anything but a smile. In the tones of a man passing sentence, he said, "I expect they deserved it, then."

"Aye." Istvan could speak with conviction, too. "If they did it and they knew what they were doing, that sets them beyond the pale. There might be some excuse for letting them live if they didn't." He wouldn't look at the scar on his hand, but he could feel the blood pulsing through it.

"I don't know that it really much matters, Sergeant. If they ate goat…" Hevesi drew his thumb across his throat.

"By the stars, that's right," Lajos said. "No excuse for that sort of filthy business. None." He spoke with great certainty.

"Well, there are those who would tell you you're right, and plenty of 'em," Istvan said, wishing with all his heart that Hevesi had come back to his squad with any other gossip but that. The way things looked, he would never be able to escape from goat-eating and stories about goat-eating as long as he lived.

"What was that?" Szonyi suddenly pointed east. "Did you hear something from the Unkerlanters?"

The question made soldiers separate as fast as Hevesi's gossip had brought them together. Men snatched up their sticks and scrambled off to loopholes and good blazing positions. Istvan wouldn't have thought that standing on the defensive came naturally to the warrior race the Gyongyosians prided themselves on being. But they'd seemed willing enough to give the Unkerlanters the initiative; by all the signs, they'd never quite known what to do with it themselves.

After an anxious pause here, they relaxed. "Looks like you were wrong," Istvan told Szonyi.

"Aye. Looks like I was. Doesn't break my heart." Szonyi's broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug.

Kun said, "Better to be alert about something that isn't there than to miss something that is."

"That's right," Istvan said gravely. The three veterans, and a couple of other men in the squad, nodded with more solemnity than the remark might have deserved. Istvan suspected Szonyi hadn't heard anything whatsoever out of the ordinary. He had managed to get Hevesi and the rest of the squad to stop talking about- more important, to stop thinking about- the abomination of goat-eating, though, and that, as far as Istvan was concerned, was all to the good.

Kun might have been thinking along with him. Behind the lenses of his spectacles, his eyes slid toward Szonyi. "Sometimes you're not as foolish as you look," he remarked, and then spoiled it by adding, "Sometimes, of course, you bloody well are."

"Thanks," Szonyi said. "Thanks ever so much. I'll remember you in my nightmares."

"Enough," Istvan said. "I've had enough of saying, 'Enough,' to the two of you."

And then he made a sharp chopping motion with his right hand, urging Szonyi and Kun and the rest of the squad to silence. Somewhere in the woods out in front of them, a twig had snapped- not an imaginary one like Szonyi's, but unquestionably real. There was plenty of snow and ice out there; its weight sometimes broke great boughs. Those sharp reports could panic a regiment. This one might have been something like that, but smaller. Or it might have been an Unkerlanter making a mistake.

"What do you think, Sergeant?" Kun's voice was a thin thread of whisper.

Istvan's shrug barely moved one shoulder. "I think we'd better find out." He made a little gesture that could be seen from the side but not from ahead. "Szonyi, with me."

"Aye, Sergeant," Szonyi said. Istvan could hear the answer. He didn't think any of Swemmel's men would be able to, even if they were just on the other side of the redoubt.

Kun looked offended. Istvan didn't care. Kun was a good soldier. Szonyi was a better one, especially moving forward. But then, instead of getting angry, Kun said something sensible: "Let me use my little sorcery. That will tell you if anyone's out there before you go."

After a couple of heartbeats' thought, Istvan nodded. "Aye. Go ahead. Do it."

The charm was very simple. If it hadn't been very simple, the former mage's apprentice wouldn't have been able to use it. When he was done, he said one word: "Somebody."

"There would be." Istvan gestured to Szonyi. "Let's go find out. The idea is to come back, understand, not just to disappear out there."

"I'm not stupid," Szonyi answered. Istvan wasn't altogether sure that was true, but he didn't argue.

They left the redoubt to the rear, shielded from the enemy's sight- and from his sticks- by the snow-covered logs piled up in front. Istvan gestured to the left. Szonyi nodded. Both the gesture and the nod were small, all but unnoticeable. In their white smocks, Istvan and Szonyi might have been a couple of moving drifts of snow. Istvan felt cold as a snowdrift.

But, even as he muttered inaudibly to himself about that, he also felt like a proper warrior again. He wondered about that. It perplexed him. Saying it alarmed him wouldn't have been far shy of the mark, either. He'd seen enough fighting to last him a lifetime, probably two. Why go looking for more?

Because that's what I've been trained to do, he thought, but that wasn't the whole answer, or even any great part of it. Because if I don't go looking for it, it'll come looking for me. At that, he nodded again, though he was careful to keep the hood of his smock low and expose none of his face to an enemy's beam.

He knew what he was doing in the snow. He'd had enough practice in it, after all; his home valley was worse in winter than these woods ever dreamt of being. He got within five or six feet of an ermine before it realized he was there. He'd spotted it by the triangle of black dots that marked its eyes and nose and the black spot at the very tip of its tail that never went white in winter. It drew back in sudden horror when it spied or scented him, baring a pink mouth full of needle teeth. Then it scurried behind a tree trunk and vanished.

Istvan followed it, not in any real pursuit but because that beech also gave him cover from the east. The ermine, by then, was gone, only tiny tracks in the snow showing where it had run.

Szonyi had found cover behind a pine not far away. He glanced toward Istvan, who paused for a moment, taking his bearings. Then Istvan pointed in the direction from which he thought the suspicious noise had come. Szonyi considered, then nodded. They both crawled forward again.

Now they advanced separately, each one taking his own path to the target. If something happens to me, Szonyi will get back with the word, Istvan thought. He hoped the converse was in Szonyi's mind. He hoped even more that the two of them were right.

Have to be close now, went through his mind a few minutes later. He looked around for Szonyi, but didn't see him. He refused to let that worry him. Despite the stories told, silently killing a man wasn't that easy. Had something gone wrong, he would have heard the struggle. So he told himself, at any rate.

He started to come out from behind a birch, then froze in the sense of not moving as opposed to the sense of being cold. In the snow in front of the tree were tracks- not the little marks of an ermine, but those of a man on snowshoes. The Unkerlanters were very fond of snowshoes, and Istvan didn't think any of his own folk had come this way lately.

A scout, he thought. Doesn't look like more than one man. Just a scout, snooping around to see what we're up to. That wasn't so bad. He vastly preferred it to coming across the forerunners of a brigade about to sweep down on him. Maybe the rumor of attack Hevesi had brought was nothing but a rumor. The Unkerlanters have as much trouble putting enough men into this fight as we do. Different reasons, but as much trouble.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the Unkerlanter soldier came out from behind a tree a couple of hundred yards away. Istvan got only a glimpse- other trees blocked his view and gave him hardly any chance for a good blaze.

He wasn't too inclined to take one anyhow; he had more sympathy for Swemmel's men than he'd had when the war was new. But, a moment later, the Unkerlanter crumpled with a yowl of pain- Szonyi, evidently, had a better spot and less sympathy. "Back now!" Istvan called, and headed off toward the redoubt. If Swemmel's men had hoped to catch the Gyongyosians hereabouts napping, they'd just been disappointed.

Captured by the Algarvians the summer before, retaken by Unkerlant only a couple of months earlier, the starting point from which Marshal Rathar had sent out his attacking columns to ravage the redheads further, Durrwangen was under Algarvian attack again.

Now that it was too late to do him any good, Rathar understood the lesson Mezentio's men had taught him. "We just pushed them back here and there," he said to General Vatran. "We didn't pinch in behind them and destroy them, the way they did to us so many times."

"You wanted to make them fight in front of rivers and such," Vatran said. "We thought they were panicked, or else turning coward, when they wouldn't stand and fight, but fell back instead."

"Never trust an Algarvian retreat," Rathar said solemnly- mournfully, when you got down to it. "They saved their men, they concentrated them- and then they went and hit us with them."

"Disgraceful, deceitful thing to go and do," Vatran said, as if the Algarvians had pulled off some underhanded trick instead of one of the more brilliant counterattacks Rathar had ever seen. He would have appreciated it even more had it not been aimed at him.

"We were almost up to Hagenow," he said, pointing to the map. His voice grew more mournful still. "We'd driven east all the way up to the border of Grelz. And then, curse them, the redheads bit back." He kicked at the floor of the battered bank that housed his headquarters. "I knew they'd try. I didn't think they could bite so hard, or with such sharp teeth."

As if to underscore that, more eggs burst in Durrwangen, some of them close to the headquarters. He didn't have to worry about splinters of glass flying through the air like shining knives to pierce him; by now, he doubted whether any building in Durrwangen kept glazed windows. He knew perfectly well that the headquarters didn't.

"Shall we go down to the vault?" Vatran asked.

"Oh, very well." Rathar's voice was testy. He seldom suggested such a thing himself; he was too proud for that. But he wasn't too proud to acknowledge common sense when he heard it.

Down in the vault, everyone- commanders, subordinate officers, runners, crystallomancers, secretaries, cooks, what have you- was crowded together as tightly as sardines in a tin. People didn't even have oil to lubricate the spaces between them. They elbowed one another, trod on one another's toes, breathed in one another's faces, and, without intending to at all, generally made themselves as unpleasant for one another as they could.

Above them, around them, the ground shuddered as if in torment. And that was only from the sorcerous energy the Algarvian eggs released when they burst. If Mezentio's mages decided to start killing Kaunians… Turning to Vatran, Rathar asked, "Are our special sorcerous countermeasures in place?"

Special sorcerous countermeasures was a euphemism for the peasants and condemned criminals Unkerlanters had available and ready to slay to blunt Algarvian magics and to power spells against the redheads. Rathar was no more comfortable than anyone else- always excluding King Swemmel, whose many vices did not include hypocrisy- about calling murder by its right name.

Vatran nodded. "Aye, lord Marshal. If they try and bring the roof down around our ears with magecraft, we can try to hold it up the same way."

"Good," Rathar said, though he was anything but sure it was. He wished the Algarvians hadn't turned loose the demon of slaughter. It might have won them the war if Swemmel hadn't been so quick to adopt it for his own, but Swemmel, as he'd proved in the Twinkings War, would do anything survival called for. Now both sides slaughtered, and neither gained much by it.

More eggs fell, these closer still. Ysolt the cook, who'd been steady as a rock in the cave by the Wolter River even when the fighting for Sulingen was at its worst, let out a shriek that tore at Rathar's eardrums. "We'll all be killed," she blubbered. "Every last one of us killed." Rathar wished he were convinced she was wrong.

And then Vatran asked him a truly unwelcome question: "If they try to throw us out of Durrwangen, can we stop 'em?"

"If they come straight at us out of the north, aye, we can," Rathar replied. But that wasn't exactly what the general had asked. "If they try to flank us out… I just don't know."

Vatran replied with what the whole Derlavaian War had proved: "They're cursed good at flanking maneuvers."

Before Rathar could say anything to that, Ysolt started screaming again. "Be silent!" he roared in a parade-ground voice, and the cook, for a wonder, was silent. He wished once more, this time that he could control the Algarvians so easily. Since he couldn't, he answered Vatran, "Up until a few days ago, I was hoping for a late thaw this spring, so we could grab all we could before everything slowed to a crawl. Now I'm hoping for an early one, to do half- powers above, more than half- our fighting for us."

Vatran's chuckle was wheezy. "Oh, aye, Marshal Mud's an even stronger master than Marshal Winter."

"Curse the Algarvians," Rathar ground out. "We had them on the run. I never dreamt I was fighting circus acrobats who could turn a somersault and then come forward as fast as they'd gone back."

"Life is full of surprises," Vatran said dryly. An egg burst close enough to the headquarters to add a deafening emphasis to that. Chunks of plaster slid between the boards that shored up the ceiling and came down on people's heads. Ysolt started screaming again, and she wasn't the only one. Some of the cries were contralto, others bass.

And, at that most inauspicious moment, a crystallomancer shouted, "Lord Marshal, sir! His Majesty would speak to you from Cottbus!"

Rathar had a long list of people to whom he would sooner have spoken than Swemmel just then. Having such a list did him no good whatever, of course. "I'm coming," he said, and then had to elbow his way through the insanely crowded vault to get to the crystal.

When he did, the crystallomancer murmured into it, presumably to his colleague back in Cottbus. A moment later, Swemmel's long, pale face appeared in the crystal. He glared out at Rathar. Without preamble, he said, "Lord Marshal, we are not pleased. We are, in fact, far from pleased."

"Your Majesty, I am far from pleased, too," Rathar said. Another handful of eggs burst on Durrwangen, surely close enough to the headquarters for Swemmel to hear them through the crystal. In case he didn't recognize them for what they were, Rathar added, "I'm under attack here."

"Aye. That is why we are not pleased," Swemmel answered. Rather's safety meant nothing to him. The disruption of his plans counted for far more. "We ordered you to attack, not to be attacked."

"You ordered me to attack in every direction at once, your Majesty," Rathar said. "I obeyed you. Now do you see that an attack in every direction is in fact an attack in no direction at all?"

Swemmel's eyebrows rose in surprise, then came down in anger. "Do you presume to tell us how to conduct our war?"

"Isn't that why you pay me, your Majesty?" Rathar returned. "If you want a cake, you hire the best cook you can."

"And what sort of sour, burnt thing do you set on the table before us?" Swemmel demanded.

"The kind you ordered," Rathar said, and waited. Swemmel was more likely to make the roof cave in on him than were Algarvian eggs.

"You blame us for the debacle of Unkerlant's arms?" the king said. "How dare you? We did not send the armies out to defeat. You did."

"Aye, so I did," Rathar agreed. "I sent them out according to your plan, at your order, and against my better judgment- the Algarvians were not so weak as you supposed, and they have proved it. If you put sour milk, rancid butter, and moldy flour into a cake, it will not be fit to eat. If you joggle an officer's elbow when he tries to fight an army, the fighting it gives you will not be what you had in mind, either."

Swemmel's eyes opened very wide. He wasn't used to frank speech from those who served him, not least because of the horrible things that often happened after someone was rash enough to speak his mind. In most of the things that went on at court, whether Swemmel heard the truth or a pleasing lie mattered little in the grand scheme of things. But in matters military, that wasn't so. Bad advice and bad decisions in the war against Algarve could- and nearly had- cost him his kingdom.

For years, then, Rathar had used frankness as a weapon and a shield. He knew the weapon might burst in his hand one day, and wondered if this would be that day. Vatran would handle things reasonably well if he got the sack. There were some other promising officers. He hoped Swemmel would grant him the quick mercy of the axe and not be so angry as to boil him alive.

It had got very quiet inside the vault. Everyone was staring at the small image of the king. Rathar realized, more slowly than he should have, that King Swemmel might not be satisfied with his head alone. He might destroy everyone at the headquarters. Who was there to tell him he could not, he should not? No one at all.

Next to Swemmel's wrath, the eggs bursting all around were indeed small tubers. Swemmel could, if he chose, wreck his realm in a moment of fury. The Algarvians couldn't come close to that, no matter how hard they tried.

Rathar couldn't help feeling fear. He stolidly refused to show it: in that, too, he differed from most of the king's courtiers. After a long, long pause, Swemmel said, "We suppose you will tell us now that, if we give you your head, you will reverse all this at the snap of a finger and swear by the powers above to preserve Durrwangen against the building Algarvian attack?"

"No, your Majesty," Rathar said at once. "I'll fight for this town. I'll fight hard. But we stretched ourselves too thin, and Mezentio's men are the ones on the move right now. They can't just break into Durrwangen, but they may be able to flank us out of it."

"Curse them," Swemmel snarled. "Curse them all. We live for the day we can hurl their sovereign into the soup pot."

At least he wasn't talking about hurling Rathar into the soup pot. The marshal said, "They may retake Durrwangen. Or, as I told you, we may yet hold them out of it till spring comes, and the spring thaw with it. But even if they do take it, your Majesty, they can't possibly hope to do anything more till summer."

"So you say." But the king didn't call Rathar a liar. Swemmel had called Rathar a great many things, but never that. Maybe a reputation for frankness was worth something after all. After muttering something about traitors Rathar was probably lucky not to hear, King Swemmel went on, "Hold Durrwangen if you can. We shall give you the wherewithal to do it, so far as that may be in our power."

"What I can do, I will," Rather promised. Swemmel's image winked out. The crystal flared, then went dark. Rather sighed. He'd survived again.

"Sir?" Leudast came up to Lieutenant Recared as his company commander sat hunched in front of a little fire, toasting a gobbet of unicorn meat over the flames.

"Eh?" Recared turned. His face and voice were still very young, but he moved like an old man these days. Leudast could hardly blame his superior; he felt like an old man himself these days. The lieutenant let out a weary sigh. "What is it, Sergeant?"

"Sir, I was just wondering," Leudast answered. "Have you got any notion of where in blazes we are? We've done so much marching and countermarching, hopping onto this ley-line caravan car and off of that one- I wouldn't be sure I'd brought my arsehole along if it weren't attached, if you know what I mean."

That got him a wan smile from Lieutenant Recared, who said, "I wouldn't put it quite that way, but I do know what you mean, aye. And I can even tell you where we are- more or less. We're somewhere south and a little west of Durrwangen. Does it make you happy to know that?"

"Happy? No, sir." Leudast shook his head. One of the earflaps on his far cap flipped up for a moment; he grabbed it and shoved it back into place. The spring thaw was coming. It hadn't got here yet, and nights remained bitterly cold. "We came through this part of the country a while ago. I didn't ever want to see it again. It was ugly to start with, and it hasn't got better since."

Recared smiled again, and added a couple of syllables' worth of chuckle. "There are other reasons for not wanting to see it again, too," he said, "as in, if we had the bit between our teeth instead of the Algarvians, they wouldn't have forced us into defensive positions to try to save Durrwangen again." He cut a piece from the chunk of unicorn meat with his knife and popped it into his mouth. "Powers above, that's good! I don't remember the last time I had anything to eat."

He didn't offer to share, but Leudast wasn't particularly offended- Recared was an officer, after all. And Leudast wasn't particularly hungry, either; he made a better forager than Recared would be if he lived to be a hundred. The very idea of living to a hundred made Leudast snort. He didn't expect to live through the war, and was amazed he'd been wounded only once.

A few eggs burst, several hundred yards off to the west. "Those are ours, I think," Leudast said. "Anything we can do to make the redheads keep their heads down is fine by me."

"They have to be almost at the end of their tether," Recared said. "Who would have thought they could counterattack at all, the way we drove them north and east through the winter?" His face set in unhappy lines. "They're a formidable people."

He spoke with regret and with genuine if grudging respect. There might have been Unkerlanters who didn't respect Algarvian soldiers after seeing them in action. Leudast hadn't met any, though. He suspected that most of his countrymen who couldn't see what was in front of their noses didn't live long enough to spread their opinions very far.

Felt boots crunched on crusted snow. Leudast whirled, snatching his stick off his back and swinging it in the direction of the sound. "Don't blaze, Sergeant!" an unmistakable Unkerlanter voice called. A trooper- a man of Recared's regiment- came into the small circle of firelight. "I'm looking for the lieutenant."

Recared raised his head. "I'm here, Sindold. What do you need from me?"

"Sir, I've got Captain Gundioc with me here," Sindold answered. "He's commanding a regiment that's just come up out of the west through Sulingen. They'll be going into the line alongside of us, and he wants to know what they'll be up against."

"That's about the size of it," Captain Gundioc agreed, coming forward into the light with Sindold. "I'm new to this business, and so are the soldiers I'm commanding. You've been through the fire; I'll be grateful for anything you can tell me."

He looked like a man who hadn't yet seen combat. His face- strong and serious, with a jutting chin- was well shaven. He wore a thick, clean cloak over his equally clean uniform tunic. Even his boots had only a couple of mud stains on them, and those looked new. He might have been running a foundry or teaching school only a few days before.

"I'll be glad to tell you what I know, sir," Recared answered. "And this is Sergeant Leudast, who has a lot more experience than I do. If you don't mind his sitting in, you can learn from him. I have."

Leudast hid a grin. He knew he'd taught Recared a thing or two; he hadn't been so sure the lieutenant also knew it. Gundioc nodded, saying, "Aye, I'll gladly hear the sergeant. If he's fought and he's alive, he knows things worth knowing."

He may be raw, but he's no fool, Leudast thought. After coughing a couple of times, he said, "The thing to remember about the redheads, sir, is, they think lefthanded a lot of the time. They'll do things we'd never imagine, and they'll make them work. They love to feint and to make flank attacks. They'll look like they're going to hit you one place and then drive it home somewhere else- up your arse, usually."

"All that's true," Recared agreed. "Every word of it. It's also wise not to go right at them. A charge straight for their lines will slaughter the men who make it. Use the ground as best you can. Use feints, too. If it's obvious, they'll wreck it. If it's not, you have a better chance."

"I understand," Gundioc said. "This all strikes me as good advice. But if I'm ordered to go forward and I have inspectors with sticks standing behind my line to make sure I obey, what am I to do?"

Blaze those buggers, Leudast thought. But he couldn't say that aloud, not unless he wanted an inspector blazing him. He glanced over to Recared. If the officer had the privileges of his rank, he also had the obligations, which included answering nasty questions like that. Answer he did, saying, "If you are ordered, you must obey. But men who give such orders often don't live very long in the field. The Algarvians seem to kill them quickly."

Or we can blame it on the Algarvians, anyhow, Leudast thought. He didn't know exactly how many Unkerlanter officers had met with unfortunate accidents from the men they were supposed to be leading. Not enough, probably. One reason the Unkerlanters had suffered such gruesome casualties was that their officers weren't trained so well as their counterparts in Mezentio's service. Another was that, with plenty of men to spend, the Unkerlanters put out fires by throwing bodies on them till they smothered.

Did Gundioc understand what Recared had just told him? If he didn't, maybe he was the sort of officer who'd meet with an accident one fine day. But he did. His eyes narrowed. The lines running down from his nose to his mouth deepened and darkened and filled with shadow. "I… see," he said slowly. "That sounds… unofficial."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, sir," Recared answered.

"Which is probably just as well." Gundioc got to his feet. "Thank you for your time. You've given me a thing or two to think about." He trudged across the snow toward his own regiment.

Leudast went up to his company, not far behind the fighting front. His nose guided him to a pot sizzling above a little fire. A cook ladled bits of turnip and parsnip and chunks of meat into his mess tin. He didn't ask what the meat was. Had he found out, he might have decided he didn't want to eat it, and he was too hungry to take the chance.

"What are the redheads doing?" he asked- the first question anyone with any sense asked on getting near the Algarvians.

"Nothing much, Sergeant, doesn't look like," one of his troopers answered. "Real quiet-like over there."

Suspicion flowered in Leudast. "That's not good," he said. "They're up to something. But what? Will it land on our heads, or will it come down on somebody else?"

"Here's hoping it's somebody else," the soldier said.

"Oh, aye, here's hoping." Leudast's voice was dry. "But hope doesn't milk the cow. We'll send extra pickets forward. If the redheads have got something nasty under their kilts, they'll have to work hard to bring it off."

Even with extra men out in front of the main line, he had trouble going to sleep. He didn't like having raw troops to his left. Their commander seemed smart enough, but how good were his men? What would they do if the Algarvians tested them? He dozed off dreaming about it.

When he woke, he thought he was still in the dream: a soldier shook him awake, shouting, "Sergeant, everything's gone south on the left!"

"What do you mean?" Leudast demanded. Somebody had been saying much the same thing to him in his nightmare.

"The redheads hit that new regiment and broke through, Sergeant," the soldier answered, alarm in his voice. "Now they're trying to swing over and attack us from the flank."

"Aye, that sounds like them." After two sentences, Leudast was fully awake. He started shouting orders: "First squad, third squad, fall back and form a front to the left. Runner! I need a runner!" For a wonder, he got one. "Go back to brigade headquarters and tell them we're under attack from the left."

"Aye, Sergeant!" The runner dashed off.

A couple of squads of Leudast's company weren't the only Unkerlanters trying to stem the Algarvian breakthrough. Recared's other company commanders also used some of their men as a firewall against the redheads. Like him, they were all sergeants who'd seen a lot of fighting; they knew what having Mezentio's men on their flank meant, and how much danger it put them in.

The trouble was, telling who was who in the dark wasn't easy. Some of the men running toward the line Leudast and his comrades desperately tried to form were Unkerlanters from Gundioc's shattered regiment, fleeing the Algarvian onslaught. Others were authentic redheads. They didn't yell "Mezentio!" as they came forward, not now- silence helped them sow confusion.

"If it moves, blaze it!" Leudast shouted to his men. "We'll sort it out later, but we can't let the Algarvians get in among us." That was all the more true- and urgent- because the men he'd pulled out to face left didn't have enough holes in which to hide, and the ones they did have weren't deep enough. If it meant some of his countrymen got blazed, it did, that was all. And how are you different from the officers you warned Gundioc about? Leudast wondered. He had no answer, except that he wanted to stay alive.

Someone blazed at him out of the night. The beam hissed as it boiled snow into steam a few feet to his right. He blazed back, and was rewarded with a cry of pain: more to the point, a cry of pain whose words he didn't understand but whose language was undeniably Algarvian. He didn't have to feel personally guilty, not yet.

His runner, or another one from the regiment, must have got through. Eggs started falling where the Algarvians had broken the line. A fresh regiment of Unkerlanter soldiers- all of them shouting, "Urra!" and "Swemmel!" -rushed up to push the redheads back. A couple of troops of behemoths came forward with the reinforcements. Sullenly, the Algarvians withdrew.

After the sun came up, Leudast saw Captain Gundioc's body. He sprawled in the snow with some of his own men and some redheads. Leudast sighed. Gundioc might well have made a good officer with some seasoning. He'd never get it now.