Out of the Darkness

bored-looking Kuusaman cooks served up. The food was better than he’d got in the captives’ camp, but not so good as the guards’ rations he’d eaten since being extracted from among the rest of the captured Gyongyosians. The cooks gave each man one mug of ale and as much tea as he wanted.

Most of the other captives aboard the ley-line cruiser were officers. Istvan saw one man in a brigadier’s uniform, a couple of colonels, and a lot of majors and captains. One of those captains turned to him and asked, “Well, Sergeant, why did they pick you for this charade?”

“I have no real idea, sir,” Istvan answered cautiously. “Maybe because I fought on Becsehely.”

With a laugh, the officer said, “Well, that makes some sense. I don’t know why they chose me, I’ll tell you that. My guess is, the slanteyes drew my name out of a hat or a pot or whatever they use for such things.”

Corporal Kun asked, “Sir, do you have any idea what they’re going to show us when we get there?”

“Not the slightest clue.” The captain shook his head. “I speak some Kuusaman, and I’ve asked, but the slanteyes won’t say. They haven’t talked out of turn where I could hear ‘em, either, worse luck. Stars above be dark for them forever, they’re keeping their mouths shut tight.”

The ley-line cruiser stopped at another island east of Obuda and picked up four men from a captives’ camp there. Istvan wondered just how many Gyongyosian captives the Kuusamans held. Too many was the first answer that occurred to him.

When the cruiser stopped a couple of miles off the beaches of Becsehely, the Kuusamans summoned all their Gyongyosian passengers to the deck. The island looked as flat and unlovely as Istvan remembered it. It also looked extraordinarily battered, as if it had been fought over only the other day, not some months before. A Kuusaman officer spoke in Istvan’s language: “Watch what we do here. When we give you back to your own people, tell the truth about it.”

Back on Obuda, Lammi had said almost exactly the same thing. By the looks on the faces of the men who hadn’t come from Obuda, they’d heard the speech before, too. Kun raised an eyebrow and murmured, “The same old song.”

But then the Kuusaman added a new verse: “Remember, this could be Gyorvar, or any other place we choose.”

As if his words were a cue, a lash of fire fell on Becsehely from a clear blue sky. It wasn’t lightning; it was flame, as if from a dragon a mile long. But there was no dragon, nothing at all in the sky over Becsehely but air. The lash fell again and again and again. Even across a broad stretch of sea, it was too brilliant to look at directly; Istvan had to squint and hold a hand up to his face to protect his eyes. Even across that stretch of sea, he could feel the heat, too. And, where the flame slid off the battered land and into the Bothnian Ocean, great clouds of steam rose up.

“Stars preserve us,” muttered the captain with whom he’d spoken at supper. “That could be Gyorvar.” Despite the heat coming from the tormented island, a chill seized Istvan and wouldn’t let him go.

As if for variety, the flames eased and bursts of sorcerous energy, as if from great eggs, pounded Becsehely. Istvan marveled that the island didn’t sink beneath the sea. At last, as abruptly as it had begun, the magecraft ended. Shimmering waves of heat still rose from Becsehely.

“We will set you free now,” the Gyongyosian-speaking officer said. “Tell your people the truth. Tell them what could happen to them if they go on with the war. Tell them it has gone on too long. It will end soon.”

The ley-line cruiser glided east, away from Becsehely and toward the few islands in the Bothnian Ocean Gyongyos still held. Down in the bowels of the ship, a crystallomancer would, Istvan supposed, try to arrange a truce to hand over the captives. I might go back to Kunhegyes, to my own valley, he thought. Then he looked down at the scar on his hand. As long as I bear this, do I want to go home at all?

Marshal Rathar had always liked to have his headquarters as far forward as he could. With his army battering its way into the very heart of Trapani, he’d set up shop in a large house in the northern suburbs of the city, just out of reach of the last few Algarvian egg-tossers. He and General Vatran pored over a map of the city looted from a book dealer’s, stabbing pins with rock-gray heads into one landmark after another.

“They can’t hold on much longer,” Vatran said.

“They’ve already held out longer than they had any business doing,” Rathar said. He knew how many of his brigades the redheads had bled white. If they had to do much more fighting after this, they would have a hard time of it. But this was-this had to be-the end.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than a crystallomancer rushed into the dining hall that was doing duty as a map room. “Marshal Rathar!” he shouted. “Marshal Rathar!”

“Aye, that is my name,” Rathar agreed mildly. Vatran snorted.

But the crystallomancer was too full of himself, too full of his news, to pay any attention to a feeble joke. “Marshal Rathar, sir, an Algarvian general’s come out from what the redheads hold of the palace, sir, and he wants to yield up the soldiers the redheads still have fighting!” He leaped in the air with glee.

“Oh, by the powers above,” General Vatran whispered.

Back in the village where he’d grown up, Rathar had thought no moment in his life could surpass lying down with a woman-actually, she’d been a girl, a couple of summers younger than he-for the first time. Now, all these years later, he discovered he’d been wrong. “It may be over,” he murmured, and that sounded sweeter than I love you had back then.

“Aye, sir,” the crystallomancer said, and then, “Shall I have the redhead brought here, sir? And he’s asking for a truce while you dicker. Shall I say we grant him that?”

Fussing over details spoiled some of the glory, but it needed doing. “Aye, have him brought here,” Rathar replied. “And aye, he can have a truce till he returns to his own lines.” The marshal’s right hand folded into a fist. “That shouldn’t take long. He hasn’t got much to bargain with. Send out the necessary orders.”

Saluting, the crystallomancer hurried away. General Vatran straightened up over the map table. He too saluted. “Congratulations, sir.”

“Thank you.” Rathar felt as if he’d gulped a bottle of spirits: half numb, half exalted. Over the next quarter of an hour, he listened to the egg-tossers falling silent, one battery at a time. Quiet seemed eerie, unnatural. He hadn’t heard much of it, not these past four years. Somewhere not far away, a cuckoo began to sing. Maybe it had been singing before, but he hadn’t been able to hear it then.

There was a small commotion outside his headquarters when the Algarvian general got there. Rathar’s sentries tried to remove the redhead’s sword before allowing him into the marshal’s presence. The officer proved to speak good Unkerknter, and hesitated not at all about making his view clear: “Are you uncivilized, uncultured? You do not take the weapon of a brave foe who is still negotiating his army’s surrender!”

“Let him keep the blade for now,” Rathar called. The sentries brought the Algarvian into the map room. The fellow wore a grimy, wrinkled uniform and looked as if he hadn’t slept for a couple of days. He came to attention and gave Rathar a salute. Returning it, Rathar named himself and introduced General Vatran.

“I am General Oldrade,” the Algarvian replied. “I have the honor to command my kingdom’s forces in and around Trapani. I must tell you, Marshal, that we can no longer offer resistance against your armies.” He looked about to burst into tears.

“Has King Mezentio sent you forth with this word?” Rathar asked. “You must understand, General, that my sovereign will require Mezentio’s personal surrender. King Swemmel has left me no discretion whatsoever in this matter.”

Oldrade shrugged. “I cannot give you what I do not have, sir. After defending the royal palace to his last breath, his Majesty perished yesterday. I have seen the king’s body with my own eyes, and know this to be true.”

“Lucky bastard,” Vatran muttered. Oldrade didn’t react, so perhaps Vatran had been quiet enough to keep him from hearing.

Rathar was inclined to agree with his general. Compared to what Swemmel had wanted to do to Mezentio, dying in battle was the quick, easy way out. “You understand, General, that we shall have to be fully satisfied on this point.” Swemmel wasn’t going to be fully satisfied no matter what. He’d wanted his sport with, his vengeance on, Mezentio.

“You may examine the king’s body,” Oldrade said.