“He knows this country better than we do,” Werferth said. “It’s his neck if the Unkerlanters catch him after he’s helped us.”
If he’s the straight goods, Sidroc thought. If he’s not… If the guide wasn’t the straight goods, they could indeed avenge themselves upon him. That wasn’t likely to do them much good, though.
Off in the distance, a wolf howled. Sidroc hoped it was a wolf, anyhow. So did the Algarvian lieutenant heading up the patrol. He said, “Do they really let those cursed things run loose in this part of the world?”
“Aye,” the guide answered.
Sidroc wasn’t altogether sure why anyone let the Algarvian lieutenant run loose in this part of the world. Sidroc hadn’t seen his twentieth birthday yet, but he felt ten years older than the redhead. Even so, the Algarvian gave the orders, as if to proclaim that his folk were the conquerors, with the men of Plegmund’s Brigade only along for the ride.
If they ‘re the conquerors, how come they‘ve spent most of the past year retreating? Sidroc wondered. And what happens if they spend most of the next year retreating, too? He didn’t want to dwell on that. One of the reasons he’d signed up for Plegmund’s Brigade was that the Algarvians had looked like world-beaters back in Forthweg. If the world was theirs, what better way to grab a chunk of it than fighting at their side?
He still couldn’t imagine the world belonging to the Unkerlanters. They were too dowdy for that to seem possible.
Another wolf howled, this one in the direction where the guide said the Unkerlanters were based. “I don’t like that,” Sergeant Werferth muttered.
“Why not?” The Algarvian lieutenant sounded curious. A bright child might have sounded the same way. We don’t need a bright child leading our patrol, Sidroc thought. We need a nasty old veteran who knows what he’s doing and how to go about it. But the young Algarvian was what they had.
Patiently, Werferth said, “Because it sounds like signal and answer, sir. If it is signal and answer, we’re liable to be walking into something we’d be better off missing.”
“Ah,” the lieutenant said, as if that hadn’t occurred to him. He swept off his hat and bowed to Werferth, so maybe it hadn’t. Sidroc sighed. If the lieutenant lived, he’d learn in a hurry. Fighting against the Unkerlanters, you had to. But if he didn’t live, he was liable to drag the whole patrol down in ruin with him.
Very close by, a jay jeered. The guide froze. So did all the men from Plegmund’s Brigade. That raucous cry made an even better signal than a wolfs howl. The Algarvian lieutenant took another couple of steps before realizing something might be wrong. He looked around wildly, his stick at the ready.
But then Sidroc spotted the bird, pinkish brown with a black tail, fluttering from one pine to another. As it flew, it screeched again. He breathed easier. “It’s a real jay,” he said.
“Nice to know something’s real,” Werferth said. Nobody argued with him.
The Algarvian lieutenant laughed and said, “If any Unkerlanters heard it, they probably started shivering, thinking it was us.” Sidroc nodded. The lieutenant was likely to be right. Swemmel’s men alarmed Sidroc, but he’d seen that Mezentio’s men alarmed the Unkerlanters, too. That was fortunate, as far as he was concerned. Every so often, it kept the enemy from pressing an attack as hard as he might have.
“Forward,” the young lieutenant said. Sidroc had heard the word too many times-mostly shouted, and emphasized by shrilling whistles-for it to spur him on as it had when he’d first joined Plegmund’s Brigade. What was it but an invitation to get himself killed? Even the redhead seemed to realize as much, for he spoke quietly, as if to say the patrol needed to go on but shouldn’t make a fuss about it.
Even though that jay had been real, Unkerlanters lurked among the trees. Sidroc could feel their presence even if he couldn’t see or hear or smell them. The hair on his arms and at the back of his neck kept trying to prickle up. He was almost panting, as if he’d run a long way. But it wasn’t exhaustion that had done it to him: it was nerves. He felt taut as a viol string about to snap.
Beside him, Ceorl started cursing under his breath: harsh, monotonous, vicious cursing, all in a tiny voice no one farther away than Sidroc could have heard. “You know they’re there, too, eh?” Sidroc whispered. Ceorl looked astonished, as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing. Maybe he hadn’t. He nodded abruptly and went back to his oaths.
“Clearing,” the guide said, first in his own language, then in Algarvian. The Unkerlanter word sounded like one that meant market square in Forthwegian, so Sidroc supposed he understood the fellow twice.
“Well, go on across it,” the young lieutenant said. “We’ll follow.” That made good sense. Unkerlanter soldiers were far less likely to blaze a peasant than soldiers in the uniforms of their foes. Even so, the guide gave the redhead a look full of hate and fear as he started across the muddy open space. A couple of men at a time, the troopers from Plegmund’s Brigade followed.
The guide had got about halfway to the trees on the far side of the clearing when he trod on a cunningly buried egg. Afterwards, Sidroc realized that was what must have happened. At the time, all he knew was the sudden roar and flash of light as the sorcerous energies trapped in the egg suddenly released themselves, all channeled upward to be as deadly as possible. The luckless guide didn’t even have the chance to shriek. He simply ceased to be. One of his boots-probably not the one that had stepped on the egg-flew high into the air before thudding back to earth. That was the sole remaining sign he’d ever lived.
In automatic reflex, Sidroc started to throw himself flat. But he checked that reflex and stayed on his feet. He was liable to throw himself down on another egg, and to end as abruptly as the guide had done.
“Back!” the Algarvian lieutenant hissed, even more urgently than he’d ordered the advance not long before. He added, “Every Unkerlanter in the world is going to come see what happened here.”
That was bound to be true, and made a powerful incentive to retreat in a hurry. Again, though, Sidroc didn’t let himself be rushed. He tried to retrace his steps as exactly as he could. He hadn’t stepped on an egg as he went west into the clearing. If he was careful, he wouldn’t step on one going back east out of it.
He’d just slid behind a pale-barked birch when an Unkerlanter trooper in a rock-gray tunic stuck his head into the clearing. Sidroc whipped his stick up to his shoulder and blazed. The Unkerlanter toppled. Cries of alarm rang out from the woods on the other side of the open space.
“Nice blaze,” Sergeant Werferth said. “They won’t think we all ran for home with our tails between our legs.”
He was right: the Unkerlanters didn’t think that. Because they didn’t, their egg-tossers started lobbing eggs into the forest to try to keep the patrol from making its way back to the encampment. Sidroc had endured far heavier bombardments in the fight in the Durrwangen bulge. Realizing that also made him realize this peppering shouldn’t trouble him much-odds were, it would do him no harm.
Somehow, the comforting logic failed to comfort. Each bursting egg made him want to flee more than the one before. True, the fighting by Durrwangen had been far harsher. But Durrwangen had also been ten months before. Sidroc was ten months more battered, ten months more frazzled. He’d seen ten months’ more disasters. He’d had ten months more to realize how easily disaster might visit him.
An egg burst, not far away. Someone started screaming. One more down, he thought. One more who signed up in Forthweg for a lark, or maybe to stay out of gaol. He looked back in time, trying once more to recall his own reasons for joining Plegmund’s Brigade. With eggs bursting all around, with trees crashing down in front and behind, they didn’t seem good enough.
“We did our duty,” the young Algarvian officer said when they finally got back to the village from which they’d started. “We successfully developed the enemy’s position. Now that we know where he is, our counterattacks stand a better chance of driving him back.”
Sidroc didn’t want to think about counterattacks. He’d lived through another day. He was content-he was delighted-to savor that.
Captain Frigyes prowled along the muddy beach of Becsehely. “Be ready, men,” Istvan’s company commander urged. “You must always be ready. No telling when the Kuusamans are liable to descend on us.” He pointed to Ist-van. “You wish to say something, Sergeant?”
“Aye, sir.” Istvan nodded. “We’ve been hearing for months that the slanteyes would hit us, and they haven’t done it yet. Why should we figure this time is any different?”
“Because I say so would be reason enough,” Captain Frigyes answered, and Istvan winced. He’d meant no disrespect. But then Frigyes went on, “But there’s more to it than that. Our mages have stolen emanations from their crystals. They’re talking about Becsehely in ways they never have before. They’re serious this time, no doubt of it.”
“Ah.” Istvan nodded again. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome.” Frigyes pounded a fist into the palm of his other hand. “Are we going to lick those goat-eating whoresons when they try to take this island away from us?”
“Aye!” most of the men in the company roared. Istvan had to roar, too. So did Corporal Kun and Szonyi and a few other soldiers. Each of them bore an identical scar on his left hand: a remnant of the purification and penance Captain Tivadar, Frigyes’ predecessor, had inflicted on them for inadvertently eating goat from a captured Unkerlanter stewpot. Tivadar was dead. Only the men who’d committed the sin-deadly, by Gyongyosian standards-knew of it these days. But a cry like Frigyes’ still made Istvan sweat cold for fear he’d be discovered.
“We’ll smash them like crocks! We’ll beat them like drums!” That was Lajos. He hadn’t been in Istvan’s squad when they’d eaten from that accursed stewpot. He’d never fought the Kuusamans; they were just a name to him. He was young and brave and full of confidence. Life looked simple to him. Why not? He didn’t know any better.
“We can beat them,” Szonyi agreed. He’d been with Istvan a long time, ever since the fighting on Obuda, which lay a good deal farther west, in the Bothnian Ocean-and which, these days, belonged to Kuusamo once more. The difference between his can and Lajos’ will was subtle, but it was all too real.
Kun didn’t say anything. Behind the lenses of his gold-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were sober. Years of war had taught Szonyi some few reservations. Kun seemed to have been born with more than most Gyongyosians ever needed to acquire.
And what about me? Istvan wondered. Unlike Kun, he wasn’t a city man. His home village, Kunhegyes, shared a mountain valley with a couple of other similar hamlets. Had it not been for the army, he might never have left that valley his whole life long unless he went raiding into a nearby one. His horizons now were wider than he’d ever imagined they could be. Sometimes he thought that marvelous. Rather more often, he wished it had never happened.
Not much horizon here. Even when he climbed out of the trench, all he could see was the low, flat, muddy island and the surrounding sea, which looked bare of ships. He found another question for Frigyes: “Captain, are they bringing more dragons to Becsehely to keep the slanteyes from pounding us the way they’ve done before?”
“We’ll have plenty of dragons, Sergeant,” the company commander replied, and strode on down the line.
Istvan beamed in considerable relief… until Corporal Kun spoke in a low voice: “You do realize he didn’t answer your question, don’t you?”
“He said-” Istvan broke off and thought about what Captain Frigyes had said. He kicked at the muddy ground. “You’re right. He didn’t. He might have been a father telling a little boy not to worry.” The comparison angered him. He wasn’t a little boy. He was a man. If he weren’t a man, he wouldn’t have been here with a stick slung on his back.
But Kun ’s voice held only calm appraisal: “He’s a pretty good officer. He doesn’t want people fretting about what they can’t help.”
“I wouldn’t have, either, if you hadn’t opened your mouth.” Now Istvan was ready to be angry at Kun rather than Frigyes.
“One thing being a mage’s apprentice taught me,” Kun said: “what words mean and what they don’t. I’d sooner find out the truth, whatever it is. And whatever it turns out to be, I expect I can look it in the eye. You can’t say that about everyone.”
“I suppose not,” Istvan said. How would Kun take it if somebody pointed out the truth about his immodesty? Istvan didn’t intend to do any such thing. Kun went on enough as things were.