Then somebody let out another shout, this one holding nothing but relief: “They’reour behemoths, powers above be praised!”
Sure enough, the behemoths that tramped into the clearing had Algarvians atop them. The redheads looked as nervous about encountering the men of Plegmund’s Brigade as the Forthwegians did at their unexpected appearance. “You boys look too much like Unkerlanters for your own good,” one of them called.
“Your behemoths look too much like Unkerlanter beasts foryour own good,” a trooper retorted.
Sidroc nodded, but then hesitated-that proved true only at first glance. It wasn’t only that Algarvian behemoth armor differed from what the Unkerlanters used. But the behemoths themselves seemed different. After a moment, he figured out how and why. “They’re young beasts,” he blurted.
An Algarvian on one of those behemoths heard him and nodded. “If the world were a perfect place, we’d leave ‘em on the farm for another year- maybe for another two years,” he said. “But the world’s not perfect. Ready or not, they’re got to go into the fight.”
Thinking back on all the behemoths Algarve had left dead on the field on both sides of the Durrwangen bulge, Sidroc nodded. True, the Unkerlanters had also lost a lot of behemoths there. But Unkerlant seemed to have plenty left. The same didn’t hold true for Algarve.
“Er-whereis the fight?” Sidroc’s company commander asked. He should have been left on the farm a while longer, too, but here he was.
“Didn’t they tell you?” asked a fellow on behemothback, and the young lieutenant shook his head. So did the behemoth crewman, who went on, “We’re supposed to make sure Swemmel’s buggers don’t cross over the river line. What do they call that river? The Fliss?”
“No, the Fluss,” the Algarvian lieutenant said. “But the Unkerlanters already have a bridgehead on this side.”
Now the men on the behemoths cursed. “Nobody bothered telling us that,” one of them said. “It’s a demon of a lot harder to dig them out of a bridgehead than it is to keep them from getting one in the first place.”
That was only too true. Sidroc wondered if the Algarvians would call off the attack on realizing they were walking into a saw blade. No such luck; Mezentio’s men didn’t seem to think that way. Sidroc’s company commander said, “We’ll do our duty, of course.”
“Let’s go do it, then, or try.” The behemoth crewman looked up to the heavens as if he were a Gyongyosian. “They don’t let us know the bridgehead’s already in place? Powers above, sometimes you’d think they really want us to get killed.”
“Forward!” said the lieutenant with Plegmund’s Brigade. He didn’t blow his whistle, which proved he had some measure of sense.
Forward Sidroc went. He’d probed Unkerlanter bridgeheads before. Going after one of them was like grabbing a porcupine. But then Ceorl said, “We’ll better drive ‘em back over the river if we can. If we don’t, they’ll flood men through and swarm all over us. They’ve done it before, the whoresons.”
Sidroc wished he could have disagreed. Unfortunately, the ruffian was right. Sidroc eyed a spot on the back ofSergeantWerferth ’s tunic. Right about there, he thought. Aye, right about there, especially if they drive us back. It’ll look like one of their beams.
The Unkerlanters were indeed on the eastern side of the Fluss, and there in greater numbers than even the men of Plegmund’s Brigade had thought. They had behemoths on this side of the Fluss, too, behemoths that promptly got into a brawl with their Algarvian counterparts and made the Algarvian beasts useless for spearheading any further advance.
“We have to do it ourselves,” Sidroc said bitterly. “Isn’t that how it always works? Whenever they find a tough job, who do they hand it to? Us, that’s who.”
“They’d sooner spend us than their own men,” Werferth said, as he had before. Sidroc came close to forgiving him for that-close, but not close enough.
Before long, the Unkerlanters proved to have enough behemoths on this side of the river not only to keep the Algarvian behemoths in play but also to mount attacks of their own. They lumbered forward to toss eggs at Sidroc and his comrades at a range from which the Forthwegians couldn’t reply. Sidroc went to earth, digging himself in behind a fallen tree. The other men of Plegmund’s Brigade were quick to do the same.
On came the Unkerlanter behemoths, footsoldiers trotting along behind. “Those men on foot should be up farther,”SergeantWerferth said from close by Sidroc, as if the Unkerlanters were his troops. “We’re going to make them pay.”
Sidroc intended to make them pay. He waited quietly in his hole till an incautious behemoth drew too close. Then he flung one of the little pottery-encased sorcerous eggs the Algarvians had been issuing lately. As he’d hoped, it landed right under the behemoth, rolling beneath the animal’s armored skirt before bursting. Mad with pain and fear, the behemoth rampaged back the way it had come, trampling a luckless footsoldier who stood in its path.
Other Unkerlanter footsoldiers started blazing at Sidroc when he stayed up too long to admire his handiwork. Werferth knocked him down. “Back in your hole, sonny boy,” the veteran said. “We’ll need you next time around.”
“Right,” Sidroc said. “Thanks, Sergeant.” Only after the words were out of his mouth did he remember how angry at Werferth he was supposed to be. He shrugged. He didn’thave to do anything about it now. If he decided he still wanted to later, he could take care of it. He’d have more chances. He was sure of that.
LieutenantLeudastsprang to one side, away from the wounded behemoth that now ran wild, far out of its crew’s control. Trailing blood, the behemoth thundered west, back toward the Fluss River. It would keep spreading chaos through the Unkerlanter bridgehead till its injuries made it fall over or till someone finally killed it.
“Steady, men!” Leudast called. “Keep up the advance. We can do it.”
In spite of his words, the Unkerlanter counterattack faltered. The Algarvians and their Forthwegian flunkies weren’t going to be able to smash in the bridgehead and drive his countrymen back over the river. That much seemed clear. The enemy lacked both men and behemoths for the job. But no breakthrough was coming here, either, not until more Unkerlanter men and beasts and egg-tossers made it over the Fluss.
Little by little, both sides realized they wouldn’t accomplish much, and the fighting tapered off. What point to risking your neck when getting killed wouldn’t get you victory? What point to risking your neck even when getting killed willget you victory? Leudast wondered. He shook his head. That was a subversive thought for a soldier to have.
SergeantKiunsaid, “I don’t like fighting those fornicating Forthwegians for beans. For one thing, they always fight hard.”
“They’re volunteers,” Leudast answered. “They aren’t conscripts, the way the redheads are.” He didn’t mention how impressers went through Unkerlanter villages herding young men into Swemmel’s army. He didn’t need to mention it. He’d joined the army that way. So, very likely, had Kiun, and so, very likely, had most of the men they led.
“Other thing is,” Kiun went on, “they look more like us and they dress more like us than the Algarvians do. That means you’re liable not to figure out who they are till too late.”
“That’s so,” Leudast said. “It’s not as bad as with the Grelzers, but it’s so.”
“Grelzers.” Kiun rolled his eyes. “May we see the last of the stinking traitors, and soon.”
Leudast nodded. He hadn’t had anything in particular against the folk of the Duchy of Grelz before entering it. All he’d known about them was that they had what was, in his ear, a funny accent. Capturing Raniero, the redhead who’d called himself their king, had won him wealth and rank, no matter what it had done to Raniero himself afterKingSwemmel paraded him through Herborn.
But fighting Grelzers… At the beginning of the war through the Duchy, some of the men who wore the dark green tunics of what called itself the Kingdom of Grelz had been halfhearted about fighting their Unkerlanter brethren. A good many had thrown down their sticks and surrendered the first chance they got.
That didn’t happen anymore. With most of Grelz inKingSwemmel ’s hands these days, the Grelzers who kept on fighting against him were the ones who’d joined the late, not much lamented Raniero because they hated the King of Unkerlant with a deep and abiding passion, not because they’d been looking for advantage from the Algarvians. Few of the ones who wore dark green these days bothered trying to surrender. Few of the ones who did yield went back to captives’ camps.
With a sly grin, Kiun said, “Bet you almost wouldn’t’ve minded getting chased back over the Fluss,
