Out of the Darkness

By the time things in the compartment sorted themselves out, he had a good line on who was strong and who was weak. The weak, the friendless, and the stupid were jammed into the space on the floor between the seats. Some of them were nothing more than footrests for the stronger captives.

Yells from the compartment down the corridor said the Unkerlanters were filling it the same way. Once the car was full, a door slammed. The ley-line caravan still didn’t move. Plenty of other cars remained to be filled.

Up in his aerie, Ceorl was comfortable enough. He didn’t want to think about what the poor whoresons folded in on themselves down below were going through. He didn’t want to, and so he didn’t. They hadn’t had the brains or the ballocks to take care of themselves. Nobody else would do it for them.

After what seemed like forever, the ley-line caravan glided out of the depot. From where he was, Ceorl couldn’t see a great deal, but he did know they were heading west. He shrugged. He’d already got the upper hand on things, and expected he’d be able to keep it no matter where he ended up.

Rations were hard bread and salted fish that set up a raging thirst in whoever ate them. He got a good-sized chunk of bread and one of the biggest fish. He also got first pull at the cup from the water bucket the Unkerlanters grudgingly allowed their captives.

When he and his comrades were herded into the compartment, he hadn’t expected to stay there for three days. One man died on the trip. No one noticed till he wouldn’t take his piece of bread. Even after the captives shoved his corpse out into the corridor, the compartment seemed just as crowded as it had before.

On the morning of the third day, the ley-line caravan finally stopped. “Out!” the guards shouted in Unkerlanter and Algarvian. “Out!”

A lot of the captives had trouble moving. Not Ceorl, whose fettle was about as fine as it could be. He sprang down from the caravan car and looked around. Not far away stood ramshackle wooden barracks. Low, rolling hills dotted the countryside. The air smelled of wood smoke and something else, something with a harsh, mineral tang to it.

“Where in blazes are we?” he said.

“These are the Mamming Hills.” A guard pointed to a black hole. “Cinnabar mine. We’ll work you till you die, you whoreson.” He threw back his head and laughed. “It won’t take long.”

Count Sabrino lay on his cot. He’d been on his feet-no, on his foot-a few times by now, but moving around while upright still left him not only exhausted but in more pain than he’d known when dragonfire set his leg alight. The healers talked about fitting him with a jointed artificial leg one day, but he didn’t take that seriously-not yet. The only thing he took seriously these days was the decoction of poppy juice that pushed aside the worst of the pain.

He knew he’d started craving the drug for its own sake as well as for the relief it brought. One of these days, I’ll worry about that, too, he thought. If the pain ever goes away, I expect I’ll find a way to wean myself from the decoction.

What he hadn’t expected was that the missing leg still hurt, even though it wasn’t there anymore. The healers told him such things were normal, that most people who lost limbs kept a sort of phantom memory and perception of what they’d once had. He didn’t argue with them: he was hardly in a position to do so. But that phantom presence struck him as the strangest thing about being mutilated.

Or so it did till the afternoon when a healer came up to him and said, “You have a visitor, Count Sabrino.”

“A visitor?” Sabrino said in surprise. No one had come to see him since he was injured. He could think of only a couple of people who might. “Is it Captain Orosio? Or my wife, perhaps?” He didn’t know if either of them was alive. If they aren‘t, they won’t come, he thought, and laughed under his breath.

“Uh, no, your Excellency,” the healer replied. “No and no, respectively.” The fellow coughed a couple of times, as if to say Sabrino was very wrong indeed.

“Well, who in blazes is it, then?” the colonel of dragonfliers demanded. As he got more used to the decoction of poppy juice, more of his own temper pierced the haze it gave his wits.

Instead of answering straight out, the healer said, “I’ll bring in the gentleman. Excuse me, your Excellency.” He hurried away. When he came back, he had with him a white-haired Unkerlanter officer with a chestful of medals. “Your Excellency, I have the honor to present to you General Vatran. General, Count Sabrino.”

“You speak Unkerlanter?” Vatran asked in Algarvian.

Sabrino shook his head. “Sorry, but no.” He started at the Unkerlanter. “What are you doing here? You’re Marshal Rathar’s right-hand man.”

“That is why I am here,” Vatran went on in Algarvian. He wasn’t fluent, but he could make himself understood. Catching the healer’s eye, he jerked a thumb at the door. “You. Get lost.” That got through, sure enough. The healer fled.

“What… do you want with me?” Sabrino asked. He still had trouble believing he wasn’t imagining this.

Vatran walked over and shut the door the healer had just used. That bit of melodrama done, he came back to Sabrino’s bedside and said, “How you like to be King of Algarve?”

“I’m sorry.” Sabrino burst out laughing. “You know I’m hurt. You know I’m taking a pretty strong decoction for the pain.” Vatran nodded curtly. Sabrino went on, “It does some strange things sometimes. I thought you just asked me if I wanted to be King of Algarve.”

“I do say that,” General Vatran replied. “You want to be King of Algarve, you be King of Algarve. So say King Swemmel.”

“But Algarve already has a king,” Sabrino said. “King Mainardo.” He’d almost said Mezentio, but remembered hearing Mezentio was dead.

In his own guttural language, Vatran said something pungent about Mainardo. Sabrino followed part of it. He didn’t speak Unkerlanter, not really, but years in the west had taught him something about swearing in that language. Vatran was plainly a master of the art. In Algarvian, the general continued, “Powers below eat Mainardo. He is trouble. King Swemmel want a man he can trust for king.

We ask one redhead already, but he play games with us. No games here.” He drew a thumb across his throat to show exactly what he meant.

He meant the invitation. Sabrino wasn’t so drugged that he didn’t understand that. Slowly, with as much caution as the poppy juice left in him, he asked, “Why does King Swemmel think I am the right man for this job?”

“You are Algarvian. You are noble.” General Vatran ticked off points on his fingertips, as if he were trying to sell Sabrino a jug of olive oil. “You are brave fighter, so men respect you. And we know you quarrel with King Mezentio.”

“Ah,” Sabrino said. Now things grew clearer. “And so you think I would make a proper traitor?” With the drug in him, he couldn’t be very cautious.

Vatran shook his head. “Not a traitor. How can Algarve hurt us now, no matter who is king? Other bastard, he not see that.” He made the throat-cutting gesture again.

And he had a point, or a sort of a point. Sabrino wagged a forefinger at him. “If you didn’t care who was king, why would you mind having Mainardo keep the crown?”

“Mainardo is Mezentio’s brother.” Vatran went back to counting on his fingers. “And he is puppet of Lagoas and Kuusamo. This not good, not for Unkerlant.”

He had a certain brutal honesty to him, even when he played the game of intrigue. Algarvians were suaver, smoother…. And much good that did us, Sabrino thought. “You would want me to be a puppet of Unkerlant’s, eh?”

“Why, of course,” General Vatran answered. “I tell you about this other bastard-he stupid. You think we let your kingdom get big and strong so you kick us in the balls again, you crazy.”

Brutal honesty, indeed, went through Sabrino’s mind. He shook his head. “To my way of thinking, I would have to be a traitor to do the job as you want it done.”

The Unkerlanter shook his head again. “No, no, no. You can ward your subjects, can shield them. This much, I think King Swemmel let you have.”

Can shield them from Unkerlanter soldiers, was what he had to mean. Even so, Sabrino said, “I thank you, sir-and I mean that, for you offer me an honor I never dreamt would come my way. Even so, I must decline.”

“Why?” When General Vatran frowned, his bushy white eyebrows came down and together, so that they