better,” Trasone agreed. He pointed ahead toward a tangled wood of oaks and elms. “I can think of things I like better than heading through that, too. Powers above only know what the Unkerlanters have got lurking in there.”
Several unpleasant possibilities crossed Tealdo’s mind. Evidently, they crossed Galafrone’s mind, too, for the captain ordered a halt. Now he looked unhappy. “They could have a whole regiment in among those trees,” he said. “I don’t care to bypass them, not even a little I don’t.” His face grew longer still. “Maybe that cursed lieutenant wasn’t as stupid as I thought.”
Now Tealdo did see him have trouble making up his mind. Before he could give any orders, a man emerged from the woods. Tealdo threw himself flat and had his stick aimed, ready to send a beam at the fellow, before noticing he wore tunic and kilt of light brown--Algarvian uniform--not an Unkerlanter’s rock-gray long tunic.
“It’s all right,” the soldier called in Algarvian with a northwestern accent much like Tealdo’s. “They threw us out of here day before yesterday, but not for long. A few of the whoresons may still be running around loose off the paths, but you shouldn’t have any trouble getting through.”
“That sounds good enough,” Galafrone said. He waved his company forward. “Let’s go! The sooner we’re through, the sooner we can hit the Unkerlanters another lick.”
Tealdo rapidly discovered the Algarvian soldier who’d told him the woods were mostly clear of Unkerlanters was a born optimist. Some paths through the woods were clear. The Algarvians already in among the trees kept those paths clear by posting guards along them. One of the guards called, “You go off the road to squat in the bushes, you’re liable to get blazed or get your throat cut or have something worse happen to you.”
“Who does hold these stinking woods, then?” Tealdo called back.
“Wherever we are, we hold,” the guard answered. “Eventually, they’ll run out of food and they’ll run out of charges for their sticks. Then they’ll either surrender or try and pretend they were peasants all along. In the meantime, they’re a cursed nuisance.”
Galafrone swore. “Aye, maybe that lieutenant did have a point.” A moment later, though, he snorted and added, “Besides the one on top of his head, I mean. Thought he was a noble, so his shit didn’t stink.” He turned back to his men. “Hurry along, you chuckleheads, hurry along. Got to keep moving.”
“Got to keep moving is right,” Trasone grumbled. “Sounds like we’re nothing but targets if we don’t.”
They turned out to be targets even when they did keep moving. A beam slammed into the trunk of an oak in front of Tealdo. Steam hissed out of the hole charred in the living wood. It would have hissed out of a hole charred in his living flesh the same way.
He threw himself off the track and behind a log. Somewhere behind him, a comrade was screaming. Off to the other side of the path, the Unkerlanters were shouting: hoarse cries of “Urra! Urra!” and King Swemmel’s name repeated again and again. More beams hissed through the air above Tealdo’s head, giving it the smell it had just after lightning struck.
From behind a nearby bush, Trasone called, “I’m sure glad we cleared the whoresons out of these woods. They must have been standing on each other’s shoulders in here before we came through and did it.”
“Oh, aye.” Tealdo hunkered down lower behind his log as the shouting on the other side of the path got louder. “And now they’re going to try and throw us out again.”
Still shouting “Urra!” Unkerlanters swarmed across the path. Tealdo blazed one down, but then had to scramble back frantically to keep from being cut off and surrounded. All at once, he understood how the Forthwegians and Sibians and Valmierans and Jelgavans--aye, and the Unkerlanters, too--must have felt when King Mezentio’s armies struck them. He would sooner have done without the lesson.
Mezentio and the Algarvian generals had outplanned their foes as well as beaten them on the battlefield. The Unkerlanters here in this stretch of wood showed no such inspired generalship. All they had were numbers and ferocity. Tealdo tripped over a root and fell headlong. Those were liable to be enough.
“Rally by squads!” Captain Galafrone shouted, somewhere not too far away.
“To me! To me!” That was Sergeant Panfilo. Never had his raucous voice seemed so welcome to Tealdo.
As Tealdo made his way toward Panfilo, Galafrone shouted again, this time for his crystallomancer. Tealdo’s lips skinned back from his teeth. One way or another, the Unkerlanters were going to catch it.
He only hoped he didn’t catch it first. Along with Trasone, he found Sergeant Panfilo. They all had to keep falling back, though, ever deeper among the trees. Tealdo began to wonder if they would run into still more Unkerlanters there. He would hear cries of “Urra!” and “Swemmel!” in his nightmares as long as he lived. He hoped he lived long enough to have
