And then, as if thinking of Lagoans had conjured them up, a patrol boat came speeding along a ley line from out of the south. He could have escaped it. The ocean was wide, and the ship could not leave the line of energy from which it drew its power. But, if he was going to be interned, sooner struck him as being as good as later. This way, as opposed to his coming ashore on their soil, the Lagoans might heed his wishes about Eforiel. And so he waved and had the leviathan rear in the water and generally made himself as conspicuous as he could.
The Algarvian leviathan riders turned and headed back toward Sibiu.
Cornelu shook his fist at them again, then waited for the Lagoan warship to approach. "Who might you be?" an officer called from the deck in what might have been intended for either Sibian or Algarvian.
Cornelu gave his name, his rank, and his kingdom. To his surprise, the Lagoans burst into cheers. "Well met, friend!" several of them said.
"Friend?" he echoed in surprise.
"Friend, aye," the officer answered in his accented Sibian. "Lagoas wars with Algarve now. Had you no heard? When Mezentio your country invaded, King Vitor declares war. We all friends together now, aye?"
"Aye," Cornelu said wearily.
Skarmi stood up before his company and said the words that had to be said: "Men, the redheads have gone and invaded Sibiu. You'll have heard that already, I suppose." He waited for nods, and got them. "You ask me," he went on, "they were fools. Lagoas is a bigger danger to them than Sibiu ever could have been. But if the Algarvians weren't fools, they wouldn't be Algarvians, eh?"
He got more nods, and even a couple of smiles. He would have been gladder of those smiles had they come from the best soldiers in the company, not the happy-go-lucky handful who in the morning refused to worry about the afternoon, let alone tomorrow.
"We can't swim over to Sibiu to help the islanders," he said, "so we have to do the next best thing. King Mezentio must have pulled a lot of e his soldiers out of the line here when he invaded Sibiu. That means there t won't be enough men left in the redheads' works to hold us back when we hit them. We are going to break through, and we are going to go rampaging right into the Algarvian rear."
Some of the men who'd smiled before clapped their hands and cheered. So did a few others - youngsters, mostly. Most of the soldiers just stood silently. Skarmi had studied the Algarvian fortifications himself, studied them till he knew the ones in front of him like the lines on his palm. As long as they held any men at all, they would be hard to break out through. He knew it. Most of the men knew it, too. But he had his orders and about what to tell them.
He also had his pride. He said, "Remember, men, you won't be going in anywhere. I haven't gone myself, because I'll be out in front of you every ship step of the way. We'll do all we can for our king and kingdom." He raised k in his voice to a shout: "King Gainibu and victory!"
"King Gainibu!" the men echoed. "Victory!" They cheered enthusiastically. Why not? Cheering cost them nothing and exposed them to no danger.
Seeing that Skarmi had finished, Sergeant Raunu strode out in front of goas the company. He glanced at Skarmi for permission to speak. Skarmi nodded. The company would have got on fine without him, but he now, couldn't have run it without Raunu. The veteran underofficer affected not to know that. Skarmi understood perfectly well that the pose was an affectation. He wondered how many company officers really believed to be heard ou ask their sergeants thought them indispensable. Too many, odds were.
Raunu said, "Boys, we're lucky. You know it, and I know it. A lot of officcrs would send us forward but stay in a hole themselves. If we won, th y'd take the credit. If we lost, we'd get the blame - only we'd be dead and they'd try again with another company. The captain's not like that
We've all seen as much. Let's give him a cheer now, and let's fight like madmen for him tomorrow."
"Captain Skarmi!" the men shouted. Skarmi waved to them, feeling foolish. He was used to accepting the deference of commoners because of his blood. Like his sister Krasta, he'd taken it for granted. The defer ence he got here in the field was different. He'd earned it. It made him proud and embarrassed at the same time.
"Whatever we can do, sir, we'll do tomorrow," Raunu said.
"I'm sure of it," Skarmi said. That was a polite commonplace. He started to add something to it, then stopped. Sometimes Raunu, if given the chance to talk, came out with things he wouldn't have otherwise, things an officer would have had trouble learning any other way.
This proved to be one of those times. "Do you really think we'll break the Algarvian line tomorrow, sir?" the sergeant said.
"We've been ordered to do it," Skarmi said. "I hope we can do it."
He went no further than that.
"Mm." Raunu's wrinkles refolded themselves into an expression less forbidding than the one he usually wore. "Sir, I hope we can do it, too
But if there's not much chance… Sir, I saw a lot of officers with a lot of courage get themselves killed for nothing during the Six Years' War.
It'd be a shame if that happenedto you before you figured out what wa what. "
"I see." Skarmi nodded brightly. "After I figure out what's what, will be all right for me to get myself killed for nothing."
"No, sir." Raunu shook his head. "After you know what' s w you'll know better than to go rushing ahead and get yourself killed nothing. "
Skarmi quoted doctrine: "The only way to make an attack to go into it confident of success."
"Aye, sir." Raunu frowned again. "The only trouble is, sometimes that doesn't help, either."
Skarmi shrugged. Raunu looked at him, shook his head, and -W e off. Skarmi understood what the veteran was trying to tell him.
Understanding didn't matter. He had his orders. His company had break through the Algarvian line ahead or die trying.
All through the night, egg-tossers hurled destruction at the positions. Dragons flew overhead, dropping more eggs on the redheads.
Skarmi had mixed feelings about all that. On the one hand, slain enemy soldiers and wrecked enemy works would make the attack easier. On the other, the Valmierans couldn't have done a better job of announcing se where that attack would go in if they'd hung out a sign. r- The Algarvians made little reply to the eggs raining down. Maybe in they're all dead, Skarmi thought hopefully. He couldn't make himself believe it, try as he would.
He led his men to the ends of the approach trenches they'd dug over [..] be the previous couple of days. That new digging might also have warned the [.en.] Algarvians an attack was coming. But Skarmi and his men would not have [.ise.] to cross so much open ground to close with the enemy when the assault began, and so he reluctantly decided it was likely to be worthwhile. "This is how we did it in the Six Years' War," Raunu said as the soldiers huddled in the trenches, waiting for the whistles that would order them forward. "We licked the redheads then, so we know we can do it again, right?". Some of the youngsters under Skarmi's command grinned and nodded too. [..] at the veteran sergeant. They were too young to know about the [..grue..] a lot some casualties Valmiera had endured in that victory. Raunu deliberately [..] War. didn't mention those. The men hadn't suffered badly in this war, not yet, [.t.] was not least because their leaders did remember the slaughters of the Six Years' War and had avoided repeating them. Now the risk seemed at [.. it r ecd is ctimes walked him..] would Algarvian acceptable… to men who weren't facing it themselves.
Off in the west, behind Skarmi, the sky went from black to gray to pink. Peering over the dirt heaped up in front of the approach trenches, he saw the enemy's field fortifications had taken a fearful battering. He dared hope that no Algarvian position during the Six Years' War had been so thoroughly smashed up.
He said as much to Raunu, who also stuck his head up to examine the ground ahead. The sergeant answered, "Just where it looks like there couldn't be even one of the bastards left alive, that's where you'll find whole caravans full of'em, and they'll all be doing their best to blaze you down."
Raunu had been loud and enthusiastic while heartening the common soldiers in the company. He spoke quietly to his superior, not wanting to dilute the effect he'd had on the men.
More eggs and still more eggs fell on the Algarvian entrenchments an forts. And then, without warning, they stopped falling. Skarmi pulled brass whistle from his trouser pocket and blew a long, echoing blast, on of hundreds ringing out along several miles of battle line. "For Valmiera! he cried. "For King Gainibu!" He scrambled out of the approach trenc and trotted toward the Algarvians' works.
"Valmlera!" his men shouted, and followed him out into the open
"Gainibu!" He looked to either side. Thousands of Valmierans, thou sands upon thousands, stormed west. It was a sight to make any soldie proud of his countrymen.
Only after hundred more yards, Skarmi thought. Then we'll be in amo the redheads, and then they'll be ours. But already flashes ahead warned tha some Algarvians had survived the pounding the Valmierans had give them. More and more enemy soldiers began blazing at Skarmi and his comrades. Men started falling, some without a sound, others shrieking they were wounded.
The Algarvians had endured all the eggs the Valmierans tossed at them without responding - till this moment, when the men attacking them were most vulnerable. And now they rained eggs down on the Valmierans. Skarmi found himself on the ground without any clear memory of how he'd got there. One moment, he'd been upright. The next [..]
He scrambled to his feet. His trousers were torn. His tunic was out at the elbow. He wasn't bleeding, or didn't think he was. Lucky, he thou [..]
He waved to show his men he was all right, and looked back over his shoulder to see how they were doing. Even as he did so, a couple of them went down. They hadn't come very far - surely not halfway - but he'd lost a lot of them. If he kept losing them at that rate, he wouldn't have any me left by the time he got to the forward most Algarvian trenches. He probat wouldn't live to get to those trenches himself, an unpleasant afterthought to have.
The headlong charge was simply too expensive to be home. "It squads!" he shouted. "Blaze and move by squads!"
Half his men - half the men he had left - dove into such cover as th could find - mostly the holes burst eggs had dug in the ground. The re raced by them. Then they flattened out and blazed at the Algarvians whith the others rose and dashed past. Little by little, they worked their pen. thou oldier among d that given nd his king as out at thought [..] over his of them he'd lost any men probably erthought orne. "By [..vcr as they d The Test lans..] while their way toward the trenches from which the redheads were blazing at them.
Skarmi took shelter in a hole himself, waiting for his next chance to advance. He looked around, hoping the order he'd had to give hadn't slowed his company too badly. What he saw left him wide-eyed with [..dis may..] As many Valmierans were running back toward their own lines as were still going forward against the enemy. Of the ones still advancing, most paid no attention to tactics that might have cut their losses. They kept moving up tin they went down. When they could bear no more, they broke and fled.
"You see, sir?" Raunu shouted from a hole not far away. "This is how I feared it would be."
"What can we do?" Skarmi asked.