Out of the Darkness

And may I make one suggestion?” He didn’t wait for anyone’s approval before giving it: “Take as many of your household staff as care to go.”

Merkela laughed out loud at that. A little more reluctantly, so did Skarnu. He didn’t think his sister would be very happy. He also didn’t think King Gainibu cared.

For as long as he’d seen only their soldiers, Sidroc had been able to hold on to his admiration for the Algarvians. Their fighting men knew what they were doing. Even with the odds against them, as they certainly were now, footsoldiers and behemoth crews and the men who served egg-tossers and dragonfliers went about their jobs with a matter-of-fact competence he’d never seen from his own people, from the Unkerlanters, or from the Yaninans (not that that last was saying much).

Now, though, Plegmund’s Brigade was actually inside Algarve, fighting not to take the war to the Unkerlanters but to hold them out of Trapani. Sidroc and his comrades weren’t just dealing with Algarvian soldiers any more. They had to deal with Algarvian civilians, too. And Algarvian civilians, to put it mildly, left him unimpressed.

“Get your crap out of the road, lady!” he shouted to a woman who seemed intent on taking everything she owned with her as she fled east-this though she had only a tiny handcart in which to carry it all. “Get it out of the way or we’ll fornicating well kick it out of the way for you.”

The woman in question was one of the plump, middle-aged sort who make a life out of running their towns- and their neighbors’ affairs. Getting orders rather than giving them didn’t sit well with her. “I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she said, “when we have barbarians loose in the streets of our cities.”

“Futter you, lady,” Sidroc said cheerfully. “You don’t let us do what we’re supposed to be doing, King Swemmel’s boys’ll get in here. You think we’re barbarians? We’re on your side, you stupid twat. The Unkerlanters take this place, about twenty of ‘em’ll line up, and they’ll all futter you-if they don’t decide you’re too stinking ugly to waste cock on and bash in your stupid head instead.”

His squad-Forthwegians and a couple of blonds from the Phalanx of Valmiera, which had fallen on even harder times than Plegmund’s Brigade- laughed raucously. The Algarvian woman gaped as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “I shall find a civilized man,” she said, and flounced off.

She didn’t have to flounce far before finding Lieutenant Puliano. He cut her off as she started to spin her tale of woe. “Shut up,” he said. “I heard Corporal Sidroc, and I know bloody well he’s right.” He waved. “Go on through her stuff, boys. She doesn’t need it, and it’s just in the way.”

Sidroc kicked a brass-wired bird cage as if it were a football on a pitch. The door flew open as it rolled. A couple of finches from Siaulia-brilliant little birds, all scarlet and gold and green-flew out of it and away. He hoped they’d do all right so far from home. The war wasn’t their fault.

“Keep moving!” the lieutenant called. “You see more junk in the road, just go on through it.”

Ceorl did just that, and seemed to take considerable pleasure in trampling the possessions the Algarvians in the town had spent a lifetime gathering. “You ask me, these whoresons don’t deserve to win the war,” he said. “If they can’t figure out what in blazes is important and what they’d better leave behind, the powers below are welcome to ‘em.”

By all the signs, the powers below were going to get their hands on a lot of Algarvians regardless of whether they knew what to do with their goods. And they’ll probably get their hands on me, too, Sidroc thought. He shrugged. He’d stuck with the redheads this far. He couldn’t very well abandon them now.

He couldn’t even strip off his uniform, find civilian clothes, and do his best to pretend he’d never been in the army. He looked about as unlike an Algarvian as it was possible for anyone this side of a black Zuwayzi to look. He would have had a better chance pretending to be an Unkerlanter.

Some few Algarvian soldiers, at least, were doing their best to slide out of the war. Maybe some of them got away with it. Not all of them did. As the men of Plegmund’s Brigade tramped out of the town, they passed three redheaded corpses hanging from trees by the side of the road. The placards tied round their necks warned, this is what deserters get.

“They deserve it,” Lieutenant Puliano said. “Anybody who gives up on his kingdom when it needs him the most deserves everything that happens to him, and more besides.”

The Forthwegians in Algarvian service solemnly nodded. Unlike the redheads, they couldn’t even try to go home again. The handful of blonds from Valmiera also nodded. They really couldn’t go home again. They were far worse traitors in the eyes of their countrymen than the men of Plegmund’s Brigade were to theirs.

But Sidroc had some gloomy thoughts of his own as he marched by the hanged deserters. Even Mezentio’s men are starting to see there’s no hope left for them. If they can see it, I’d have to be a cursed fool to miss it myself. He knew he wasn’t the brightest fellow around. If he’d ever had any doubts on that score, spending years getting compared to his clever cousin Ealstan would have cured them.

He laughed, none too pleasantly. If Ealstan was so fornicating smart, why did he fall in love with a Kaunian girl? I wonder if he ever found out he was getting that redheaded officer’s sloppy seconds. He laughed again. I hope so.

“Watch your step here, boys,” Puliano called. “You don’t want to go off the road, or you’d end up arse-deep in mud. This is swampy country.”

“It doesn’t look too bad,” somebody said. And, indeed, it didn’t. In fact, it looked greener than most of the firmer ground farther west. On dry land, spring was just starting to make itself known. Here, though, the swamp plants, or most of them, had kept their color through the winter. The road might almost have been passing through a meadow.

Sudaku stepped up alongside Sidroc. In his Valmieran-flavored Algarvian, he said, “This swamp is a sign we grow near to Trapani. I passed through the capital and through this country on the way west to join the Phalanx of Valmiera.”

“Getting near Trapani, eh?” Sidroc said, and the blond’s head bobbed up and down. Sidroc grunted. “That doesn’t sound so good.”

“No,” the Kaunian said. “But, by now, what is left for us to do but die like heroes?”

Sidroc grunted again. “I didn’t sign up to be a hero.”

“But what else are we, fighting to the death for a cause surely lost?” Sudaku persisted.

“Who knows? Come to that, who cares?” Sidroc said. “Besides, if we lose- when we lose-who’s going to call us heroes? Winners are heroes. They get the girls, and they don’t get their uniforms mussed. In the stories, we’re just the fellows who blaze at them and miss.”

“Everyone is a hero in his own story,” the Kaunian said. “The only trouble is, our stories, I fear, will be ending soon.”

Before Sidroc could answer that-not that it needed much answering, for it seemed pretty obviously true- someone toward the rear of the weary, shambling column of men let out a frightened shout: “Dragons! Unkerlanter dragons!”

Looking back over his shoulder, Sidroc spied the great rock-gray shapes bearing down on his comrades-and on him. He wasn’t ready for his story to end quite yet. “Into the mud!” he yelled, and dove for the side of the road.

It was the only hope the soldiers had, and they made the most of it they could. Like Sidroc, they floundered into the swamp as far as they could go. Some of them blazed. Others just tried to cover themselves in ooze. The dragons roared fiercely as they belched out fire. None of the flames came too close to Sidroc, but he felt the heat from them all the same. What happened to the men who’d stayed on the road wasn’t pretty.

Survivors gathered themselves and trudged on. That was all they could do. Ceorl was as filthy as Sidroc. “You son of a whore, I thought they’d’ve got rid of you a long time ago,” he said. “You’re tougher than I gave you credit for.”

“Thanks, I suppose,” Sidroc said.

Up the road was a town called Laterza. It had taken as much damage as any other Algarvian town not far from Trapani. Standing in the middle of the main street, though, as if on a normal day, was a captain wearing a mage’s emblem. “Ah, good,” he said when he saw what sorts of soldiers Lieutenant Puliano led. “A band of mercenaries and auxiliaries.” Sidroc didn’t like his tone or the sneer on his face. I’ve been through too much for him to have any business looking at me like that, he thought. The mage went on, “You will