come.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Obilot hissed to Garivald as Sadoc returned to cover.
“Probably means he doesn’t know which way they’re coming from,” Garivald answered, and the woman irregular nodded.
But the bearded Forthwegians did come into the clearing from the direction-the likely direction-Sadoc had predicted. They marched along in loose order, chatting among themselves, not looking as if they expected trouble. Garivald had expected them to look like animals, or more likely demons. They didn’t. They just looked like men doing a job. He didn’t know whether that made things better or worse. Probably worse, he decided.
But their job was fighting and killing and dying. They started dying as soon as enough of them were in the clearing to make it worthwhile for the irregulars to begin to blaze. One of Garivald’s beams knocked a man over. Exulting, he swung his captured Algarvian stick toward another Algarvian puppet.
Like the redheads he’d helped ambush between Lohr and Pirmasens, the men of Plegmund’s Brigade fought back hard-better than he thought the irregulars could have done. The Forthwegians blazed into the woods. Those who could drew back toward the mouth of the clearing. Their comrades who hadn’t yet come into the clearing went off the path and into the forest, moving forward to fight the Unkerlanters.
Sadoc shouted, “The north! The north!” That was the second direction to which he’d pointed. Garivald had plenty of other things to worry about; he paid the hapless mage little attention.
He slipped around past Obilot, looking for another good place from which to blaze at the retreating men of Plegmund’s Brigade. Then she scuttled past him, no doubt after the same thing. He smiled, and so did she; it might almost have been a figure dance in a village square.
A beam slamming into a tree trunk not far from his head reminded him this was no amusement, but a game either side might lose. And if he lost, he’d never have the chance to play the game again.
Crashing noises and yells from out of the north made Garivald’s head whip around. He couldn’t understand most of the yells-they weren’t in Unkerlanter. But one word came through with perfect clarity: “Plegmund!”
“Powers above!” Garivald blurted. “They’ve got us in a trap, not the other way round.” He looked through the trees for an avenue of escape.
Obilot clapped a hand to her forehead. “That great clodpoll of a Sadoc was right,” she said, sounding disgusted with the world, with Sadoc, and with herself. “He’s wrong so often, we didn’t believe him this time, but he was right.”
“Break clear!” Munderic shouted, his voice cutting through the Forthwegians’ unintelligible cries. “Break clear! You know where to gather. The whoresons outfoxed us this time, but our turn’ll come round again, see if it doesn’t.”
Garivald hadn’t traveled through the woods enough to be sure of finding his way back to the irregulars’ encampment. Perhaps sensing as much, Obilot said, “Stick close to me. I’ll get you back. Now let’s step lively, before these buggers get a clear blaze at us. I don’t know about the redheads, but they’re sure nastier customers than Grelzer soldiers. That’s clear.”
“Aye.” Garivald nodded. “Seems they really mean it when they come after us, all right. Well, now we know.” Obilot started off toward the west. He followed, moving as fast and as quietly as he could.
He had to blaze only once, and he dropped his Forthwegian before the bearded man could shout. Then the sounds of fighting and the foreign shouts from Plegmund’s Brigade faded behind him. “I think we got away,” he said. “Thanks.”
“We really have to do better.” Obilot didn’t sound happy. “Now we have to see how many of us got away, and how much we’ll be able to do for a while. Curse the Algarvians, anyhow.” Garivald nodded again. How many Unkerlanters were thinking the same thing right now?
Eleven
Curse the Unkerlanters,” Brigadier Zerbino growled, slamming his fist down on the folding table inside his tent. “Curse the Lagoans and Kuusamans, too, for giving us such a hard time down here on the austral continent. And curse the Kaunians for doing everything they can to lay Algarve low.”
A chorus of, “Aye,” rumbled through the officers he’d assembled for this council of war. Colonel Sabrino didn’t join it. Instead, he leaned over to Captain Domiziano and murmured, “He doesn’t leave many people out, does he?” “He hasn’t cursed the Yaninans yet,” Domiziano whispered back. Just then, Zerbino did: “And curse our alleged allies, whose hands are cold in war and whose feet are swift in retreat.” The Algarvian brigadier had not invited any Yaninans to the council.
“Aye,” the officers chorused again. This time, Sabrino just sat silent. Sooner or later, Zerbino would come to the point. He probably wouldn’t take too long, either. He was by nature a hearty fellow, and usually said what he had to say without ornamenting it too much.
So it proved now. “We are surrounded,” Zerbino declared. “All our enemies aim to attack us at once, hoping we haven’t got enough men and behemoths and dragons to stand against the lot of them.”
For the first time, Sabrino found himself nodding. He’d been saying things like that all along, but nobody wanted to listen to him. Maybe Mezentio had decided not to pour a whole great army down into the land of the Ice People after all.
Sure enough, Zerbino said, “We shall not get all the men or beasts we’ve asked for. Our kingdom needs them more to fight in Unkerlant and to guard the southeastern coast of Derlavai against more raids like the one at Dukstas.” That massive, heavy-knuckled fist pounded the tabletop again. “But we will have the victory here. By the powers above, we will.”
Now Sabrino stuck up a hand. He couldn’t help himself. “How will we manage that, sir?” he asked. “Are you going to go out and wrestle General Junqueiro, best two falls out of three, for the austral continent?”
Zerbino grinned. “Myself, I’d be glad to,” he answered, and Sabrino believed him, “but I don’t think the Lagoan has the stones for it. No, that’s not what I meant, Colonel, however much I wish it were. We aren’t getting the big reinforcements people had been talking about-I already said that. I wish we were, but we aren’t. Instead, what we are getting is two squads of mages and a good-sized shipment of… special personnel, that’s what they’re calling them back in Trapani.”
For a moment, Sabrino hadn’t the faintest notion of what he meant. No doubt the people who’d come up with the bloodless phrase had that in mind. But it didn’t shield him from the truth for long. When he realized what had to lie behind it, he felt colder than the frozen ground on the far side of the Barrier Mountains. He spoke a single horrified word: “Kaunians.”
“Aye, Kaunians,” Zerbino agreed. “A whole great whacking lot of them just got shipped across the Narrow Sea to Heshbon. They’re on their way up here now, along with our mages. Once they get here, we’ll make a magic to squash the Lagoans like so many bugs. Then we mop up, and then most of us can go back to Derlavai and give the Unkerlanters what they deserve.”
Most of the assembled officers were nodding their heads. Several of them said, “Aye,” once more. Sabrino remembered King Mezentio coming out of the rain and into his tent the autumn before in Unkerlant to say like things in like words.
Had everything turned out fine, Algarve wouldn’t need to send men back to Unkerlant now. Sabrino asked the question that had to be asked: “What do we do if something goes wrong, sir?”
Zerbino tossed his head, as if trying to scare off an annoying gnat. “Nothing will go wrong,” he said. “Nothing can go wrong. Or are you saying our mages don’t know their business, Colonel?” His tone implied Sabrino had better not be saying that.
“Sir, this is the land of the Ice People,” Sabrino answered. “Don’t they say it’s easy for mages from the mainland of Derlavai to have their spells go wrong here?”
“I assure you, Colonel,” Zerbino said coldly, “that the men in charge of this necessary operation know everything that is required of them. Your task, and that of your dragonfliers, will be to keep the Lagoans and Kuusamans from flying over the encampment of the special personnel before they are committed to the necessary operation.” More bloodless words. “That is your sole task. Do you understand?”
