Out of the Darkness

Aye, Tassi looked very naked indeed. He didn’t think she let her legs fall open by accident just then, giving him a glimpse of the sweet slit between them. She used her naked flesh as a tool, a weapon, in ways that never would have occurred to a Zuwayzi woman who took nudity for granted.

Age gave Hajjaj a certain advantage, or at least a certain perspective, on such things. “You didn’t answer what I asked,” he remarked.

Tassi’s lower lip pooched like an indignant child’s, though that pouting lip was the only childlike part of her. Her lisping, throaty accent made even ordinary things she said sound provocative. When she asked, “Shall I show you I am pleased?”. . Hajjaj didn’t answer. Tassi got up and shut the door to the library.

Some time later, she said, “There. Are you pleased? Am I pleased?”

Hajjaj could scarcely deny he was pleased. He wanted to roll over and go to sleep. He wasn’t so sure about Tassi, not in that same sense. “I hope you are,” he said.

“Oh, aye.” She dipped her head, as she often did instead of nodding. Her eyes sparkled. “And do you see? I do not ask for precious stones. They would be nice, but I do not ask for them. All I ask for is to stay here. You can do that for me. It is easy for you, in fact.”

With a laugh, Hajjaj patted her round, smooth backside. On the surface, she spoke nothing but the truth. Below the surface. . He’d never before heard anyone ask for jewels by not asking for them. She might even get some. And if she didn’t, how could she complain?

Seven

Colonel Lurcanio was not happy to find himself back in Algarve. But for a few brief leaves, he’d been away from his home kingdom for almost five years. Had the war gone better, he would have remained in Priekule, too. Nothing would have pleased him more. Here he was, though, in southeastern Algarve, doing his best to hold back the Kuusamans and Lagoans who’d swarmed through the Marquisate of Rivaroli and were pushing farther west every day.

His own brigade left a good deal to be desired. It had lost far too many men and behemoths and egg-tossers in the failed counterattack against the islanders in western Valmiera. Lurcanio screamed to his superiors for replacements. Those superiors, when they didn’t scream back, laughed in his face.

“Replacements?” a harried lieutenant general said. “We couldn’t afford to give you what we gave you the last time. How do you think we’re going to be able to make losses good now?”

“How do you think I can stop the enemy with what I’ve got left?” Lurcanio retorted. “I can’t remember the last time I saw an Algarvian dragon overhead.”

“Believe me, Colonel, you’re not the only one with troubles,” the lieutenant general replied. “Make do the best you can.” His image in the crystal in front of Lurcanio looked down at some papers on his desk. “There are several regiments of Popular Assault soldiers not far from your position. Feel free to commandeer them and add them to your force.”

“Thank you for nothing. . sir,” Lurcanio said. “I’ve already seen Popular Assault regiments. The men who aren’t older than I am are too young to have hair on their balls-some of them haven’t even been circumcised yet. They can’t stand up to real soldiers. They couldn’t even if they had anything more than hunting sticks to blaze with.”

He waited for the lieutenant general to call him insubordinate or to say the soldiers in question were better than he claimed. Back in Trapani, a lot of men still clung to illusions that had died at the front line. But the officer only sighed and said, “Do the best you can, Colonel. I don’t know what else to tell you, except you’re not the only one with troubles.”

“I understand that, sir, but-” The crystal flared and then went blank before he could get his protest well begun. He said something sulfurous under his breath. He surely wasn’t the only one with troubles. As best he could tell, the whole Kingdom of Algarve was falling to pieces before his eyes.

Things hadn’t been this bleak even at the end of the Six Years’ War. Then Algarve had asked for armistice while her armies still mostly stood on enemy soil. Now. . He imagined asking Swemmel of Unkerlant for an armistice. Swemmel didn’t want one. Swemmel wanted every Algarvian in the world dead. The way things were going, he was liable to get his wish, too. And the Lagoans and Kuusamans showed no sign of being in a dickering mood, either.

Of course they don’t want to dicker with us, Lurcanio thought. We came too close to beating them all this time. They don’t want us getting another chance any time soon. They want to smash us flat instead. Had he been a Kuusaman, he supposed he would have felt the same way. Had he been an Unkerlanter. . Lurcanio shook his head. Some things were altogether too depressing to contemplate.

He strode out of the barn where his crystallomancer had set up shop. It was raining outside, a cold, driving rain on the edge of turning into sleet. Lurcanio pulled his hat down low to keep the rain out of his face. Eggs were bursting in the neighborhood, but not too many of them. The rain slowed down the enemy, too.

A sergeant came up to him, a plump little man in civilian tunic and kilt at the underofficer’s heels. “Sir, allow me to present Baron Oberto, who has the honor to be the mayor of the town of Carsoli,” the sergeant said.

Carsoli was the town just west of the brigade’s present position, the one Lurcanio was currently trying to hold. He bowed to Oberto. “Good day, your Excellency,” he said. “And what can I do for you this afternoon?”

By the expression on Oberto’s face, it wasn’t a good day and was unlikely to become one. “Colonel,” he said, surprising Lurcanio by correctly reading his rank badges, “I hope you will not find it necessary to fight inside my fair city. When the time comes, as we both know it must, I beseech you to pull back through Carsoli, so that the islanders can occupy it without doing it too much harm.”

Lurcanio gave him a long, measuring stare. Oberto nervously looked back. “So you think the war is lost, do you?” Lurcanio said at last.

Oberto’s head bobbed up and down, as if on a spring. “Of course I do,” he said. “Any fool can see as much.”

Any fool could have seen as much two years earlier, when the Unkerlanters drove the Algarvians back from Sulingen. Lurcanio bowed again, then backhanded Oberto across the face. The mayor of Carsoli cried out and staggered. “Be thankful I don’t order you blazed on the spot. Get out of my sight. I have a war to fight, whether you’ve noticed it or not.”

“You’re a madman,” Oberto said, bringing a hand up to his cheek.

“I’m a soldier,” Lurcanio answered. In his own mind, he wasn’t so sure the two were different, but he would never have admitted that to the luckless, cowardly mayor of Carsoli. Admitting it to Oberto might have meant admitting it to himself.

Hand still pressed to his face, Oberto staggered away. I wonder if I ought to draft an order of the day reminding the men they are still obliged to do their duty, Lurcanio thought. If they give up, what hope have we? A moment later, he grimaced and kicked at the muddy ground. Even if they don’t give up, what hope have we?

He had been thinking about pulling back through Carsoli if enemy pressure grew too great. Now he resolved to fight in the place till not one brick remained atop another. That’s what you get, Oberto, curse you. You would have done better to keep your mouth shut, but what Algarvian could ever manage that?

In a perfectly foul temper, he stormed off toward the farmhouse where he made what passed for his headquarters. Before he got there, though, another soldier called, “Colonel Lurcanio!”

“What is it?” he snarled.

“Er-” As the sergeant had done, this fellow had a civilian in his wake: no, not one civilian, but half a dozen or so. “These. . people need to speak with you, sir.”

“Oh, they do, do they?” Lurcanio snapped. “What in blazes do they want? And why do I need to say one fornicating word to them?” But then he got a good look at who came behind the soldier, and his fiery temper cooled. “Oh,” he said, and, “Oh,” again. He nodded. “Them. Aye, I’ll talk to them.”

The four men and two women who came up to Lurcanio wore tunics and kilts in the Algarvian style, but they