Out of the Darkness

“You’re making that up,” Korosi said. In a different tone, it could have been an insult, even a challenge. But Istvan had heard men cry, “No!” when they knew they were wounded but didn’t want to believe it. Korosi’s protest was of that sort.

“By the stars, Korosi, it’s true,” Istvan said. “Let me in. The whole village needs to know.”

“Aye.” Korosi still sounded shaken to the core. He descended from the palisade and unbarred the gate. It creaked open. Istvan walked through. Korosi shut it behind him. He looked around. I probably won’t go far from this place for the rest of my life. Part of him rejoiced at the realization. The rest saw how small and cramped Kunhegyes seemed, as if crouching behind its palisade. True, the houses and shops stood well apart from one another-a precaution against ambushes-but they themselves were nothing beside those of Gyorvar. Istvan shook his head. No, beside what once was in Gyorvar. Only rocks and houses alike melted to slag there now.

Korosi’s booted feet thumped on the wooden stairs as he went up to the walkway once more. People came out into Kunhegyes’ narrow main street. Istvan found himself the center of a circle of staring eyes, some green, some blue, some brown. “Did I hear you right?” somebody asked. “Did you tell Korosi it’s over? We lost?”

“That’s right, Maleter,” Istvan said to the middle-aged man. “It is over. We did lose.” He repeated what had happened to Gyorvar, and to Ekrekek Arpad and his kin.

Quietly, women began to weep. Tears didn’t suit the men of a warrior race, but several of them turned away so no one would have to see them shed any. The sounds of mourning drew more folk into the street. One of them was the younger of Istvan’s two sisters. She shrieked his name and threw herself into his arms. “Are you all right?” she demanded.

He stroked her curly, tawny hair. “I’m fine, Ilona,” he said. “That’s not what people are upset about. I told them the war was lost.”

“Is that all?” she said. “What difference does that make, as long as you’re safe?”

Istvan’s first thought was that that was no attitude for a woman from a warrior race to have. His second thought was that maybe she owned better sense than a lot of other people in Gyongyos. Remembering what had happened to Gyorvar, he decided there was no maybe to it. “What’s happened here?” he asked. “That’s what’s really important, isn’t it?” It is if I stay here the rest of my days, that’s certain sure.

“Of course it is.” Ilona had no doubts; she’d never been out of the valley. “Well, for one thing, Saria”-Istvan’s other sister-”is betrothed to Gul, the baker’s son.”

“That weedy little worm?” Istvan exclaimed. But he checked himself; Gul might have been weedy when he went off to war, but probably wasn’t any more. And his father had, or had had, more money than Istvan’s own. “What else?” he asked.

“Great-uncle Batthyany died last spring,” his sister told him.

“Stars shine bright on his spirit,” Istvan said. Ilona nodded. Istvan went on, “He was full of years. Did he pass on peacefully?”

“Aye,” Ilona said. “He went to sleep one night, and he wouldn’t wake the next morning.”

“Can’t ask for better than that,” Istvan agreed, trying not to think of all the worse deaths he’d seen.

His sister took him by the hand and started dragging him toward the family house-my house again, at least for a while, he thought. She said, “But what happened to you? By the stars, Istvan, we all feared you were dead. You never wrote very often, but when your letters just plain stopped coming….”

“I couldn’t write,” he said. “I got sent from the woods of Unkerlant out to this island in the Bothnian Ocean-”

“We know that,” Ilona said. “That was when your letters stopped.”

“They stopped because I got captured,” Istvan said. “I was in a Kuusaman captives’ camp on Obuda for a long time, but then the slanteyes sent me to Gyorvar.”

“Why did they send you there?”

“Because of something I’d seen. I wasn’t the only one. They wanted us to warn the ekrekek they’d do the same to Gyorvar if he didn’t yield to them. He didn’t, and so they did. I wish he would have. We’d all be better off if he would have-him included.”

By that time, they’d come to his front door. Alpri, his father, was nailing the heel of a boot to the sole. The cobbler looked up from his work. “May I help-?” he began, as he would have when anyone walked into the shop that was also a house. Then he recognized Istvan. He let out a roar like a tiger’s, rushed around the cobbler’s bench, and squeezed the breath from his son. “I knew the stars would bring you home!” he shouted, planting a kiss on each of Istvan’s cheeks. “I knew it!” He let out another roar, this one with words in it: “Gizella! Saria! Istvan’s home!”

Istvan’s mother and his other sister came running up from the back of the house. They smothered him in kisses and exclamations. Someone-he never did see who-pressed a beaker of mead into his hand.

“You’re home!” his mother said, over and over again.

“Aye, I’m home,” Istvan agreed. “I don’t think I’m ever going to leave this valley again.”

“Stars grant it be so,” Gizella said. Istvan’s father and his sisters all nodded vigorously. Somehow, they held beakers of mead, too.

Had Istvan got out of the army not long after going in, he would have had no qualms about staying close to Kunhegyes the rest of his days, either. But he’d seen so much of the wider world the past six years, the valley still felt too small to suit him as well as it might have. Fillet used to it again, he thought. I have to get used to it again.

A pull at the sweet, strong mead went a long way toward reconciling him to being home. “With the war lost, with the ekrekek dead, where would I go?” he said, as much to himself as to his family. Alpri and Gizella and Saria all exclaimed again, this time in shocked dismay, so he had to tell his news once more.

“What will we do?” his father asked. “What can we do? Have the stars abandoned us forever?”

Istvan thought about that. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m not even sure it matters. We have to go on living our lives as best we can any which way, don’t you think?” Was that heresy or simply common sense? He had the feeling Kun would have approved. The scar on his left hand didn’t throb, as it often did when he found himself in doubt or dismay. And, that evening, the stars shone down brilliantly on the celebrating village of Kunhegyes. Maybe that meant they approved of what he’d said. Maybe it didn’t matter either way. How can I know? Istvan wondered. He didn’t suppose he could, which didn’t stop him from celebrating, too.

For once, the great square in front of the royal palace in Cottbus was packed with people. The Unkerlanters remained in holiday mood, too. And why not? Marshal Rathar thought. We didn‘t just beat Algarve. We beat Gyongyos, too. He looked back at the assembled might in the victory parade he was to lead. We could lick the Kuusamans and the Lagoans, too. We could, if’. .

If. The word ate at him. He hadn’t gone into Gyorvar himself, but he’d had reports from men who had. The sorcery that had destroyed the capital of Gyongyos could fall on Cottbus, too. He knew that. He never forgot it. He had to hope King Swemmel also remembered it.

High and thin and spidery, a single note from a trumpet rang out: the signal for the parade to begin. It should have been an officer’s whistle, ordering the advance, Rathar thought. But it was what it was. He thrust out his chest, thrust back his head, and marched forward as proudly and precisely as if he were on parade at the officer’s collegium he’d never attended.

When he came into sight, the people who packed the square-all but the parade route through it-shouted his name again and again: “Rathar! Rathar! Rathar!”

Rathar had rather thought they would do that. He’d rather feared they would do that, in fact. He held up his hand. Silence fell. He pointed toward the reviewing stand, on which, surrounded by bodyguards, his sovereign stood. “King Swemmel!” he shouted. “Huzzah for King Swemmel!”

To his vast relief, most of the people started shouting Swemmel’s name. He suspected they did so for the same reason he’d pointed to the king: simple fear. If a vast throng of folk started crying Rathar’s name, Swemmel was too likely to think his marshal planned to try to steal his throne-and to make sure Rathar had no chance to do so. As for the folk who’d started yelling for Rathar, all of them had to know one of the men and women standing