of them bandaged, all of them in shabby, tattered tunics and kilts, they looked like what they were: men who'd fought a war as hard and as long as they could, fought it and lost it.
In high good humor, Swemmel turned to Rathar and said, 'Our mines and quarries shall have labor to spare for years to come.'
'Aye, your Majesty,' the marshal said abstractedly. He was watching the dragons overhead more than the luckless captives. Several of them broke off their spirals and flew east. No Algarvian dragons appeared above Herborn. If any tried to come over the town, the dragons painted rock-gray drove them back.
No Grelzer captives appeared on the streets of Herborn. If Grelzers hadn't been able to sneak out of the fight and find civilian clothes, they'd seldom left it alive.
An elegant troop of unicorn cavalry followed the mass of Algarvian captives. They were beautiful to look upon, even if not much use in the field. And after them strode the high-ranking Algarvian officers Swemmel's soldiers had captured in the Herborn pocket: colonels and brigadiers and generals. They were better dressed and better fed than their countrymen of lower estate, but if anything seemed even glummer.
Last of all, separated from them by more tough-looking Unkerlanter footsoldiers, Raniero- briefly King of Grelz- marched all alone. The band, the behemoths, the ordinary captives, the unicorn cavalry, the high Algarvian officers… all left the square in front of the ducal palace. Raniero and his guards remained. Silence fell.
In the midst of that silence, certain servitors of Swemmel's wheeled a large brass kettle, nearly full of water, into the center of the square. Other servitors piled coal, a great deal of coal, beneath the kettle and lit it. Still others set up a sort of a stand by the kettle; one broad plank projected out over the polished brass vessel. The guards took Raniero up onto the platform, but not yet onto the final plank. Like everyone else, they waited for the water in the kettle to boil.
Raniero had courage. Across the square, he waved to King Swemmel. Rathar murmured, 'Your Majesty, I beg you- do not do this thing.'
'Be silent,' Swemmel said furiously. 'Be silent, or join him there.' Biting his lip, Rathar was silent.
At length, one of the Unkerlanter soldiers on the platform with Raniero held up his hand. King Swemmel nodded. 'Let the usurper perish!' he shouted in a great voice. 'Let all who rise against us perish!' He had spoken the identical words when putting his brother Kyot to death at the end of the Twinkings War.
Raniero had courage indeed. Instead of making the guards hurl him into the kettle- as even Kyot had done- he marched out over it, waved to Swemmel again, and with a cry of 'Farewell!' leaped into the seething, steaming water.
Courage failed him then, of course. His shrieks ripped through the square, but not for long. Swemmel let out a breathy grunt, as he might have after a woman. 'That was fine,' he murmured, his eyes shining. 'Aye, very fine indeed.'
Rathar was glad the breeze blew from him toward the kettle, not the other way round. Even so, he did not think he would eat boiled beef or pork again any time soon.
Sidroc stumbled as he came up to the campfire, so that he kicked a little snow onto Sergeant Werferth. Werferth shook a fist at him. 'All right, you son of a whore, now you've done it!' he shouted. 'Just for that, I order you boiled alive!'
'Oh, come off it, Sergeant,' Sidroc said. 'I have to be an Algarvian, and a prince to boot, to rate anything so fancy. Why don't you just blaze me and get it over with?'
'Nah, that's what the Unkerlanters do to Grelzers they catch,' Werferth said. 'You ought to get something juicier.'
Ceorl was cooking some horsemeat and buckwheat groats in his mess tin, using a branch as a handle. He said. 'The Unkerlanters are liable to do that to us if they catch us, too. We look too much like them.'
Sidroc plucked at his beard. Unkerlanters shaved. Forthwegians didn't. When he'd lived in Gromheort, that had seemed plenty to distinguish between his own people and the bumpkins and semisavages of Unkerlant. But when he was in the midst of fighting a war against those bumpkins and semisavages, and when they seldom got a chance to shave because they spent so much time in the field, having a beard didn't seem enough differentiation.
Not that the Unkerlanters wouldn't kill him for being a Forthwegian, too. But they sometimes showed mercy to men from Plegmund's Brigade. To Grelzers who'd fought for King Raniero- dead Raniero now- hardly ever.
Squatting down by the fire, Sidroc said, 'Word going around is that we're getting a counterattack ready.'
'Aye, well, we'd bloody well better do something,' Ceorl said. 'If we don't, they'll throw us out of Grelz altogether. Maybe we weren't so cursed smart, joining the Brigade. Looks like Algarve's losing the war.'
'Shut your trap,' Werferth said flatly. 'You're only lucky it was a couple of your squadmates heard that, not somebody who'd report you.' He eyed Sidroc. Reluctantly, Sidroc nodded to show he wouldn't. He didn't like Ceorl, not even a little, but the ruffian was a good man to have along in a brawl.
'Ahh, bugger it.' Ceorl spat into the fire. 'What difference does it make? Not a one of us is ever going to get home to Forthweg anyway. Who cares if our side kills us, or the other bastards do?'
Sidroc waited for Werferth to pitch a fit. But the veteran sergeant only sighed. 'Odds are you're right. Powers below eat you for saying so out loud, though.'
'Why?' Ceorl sounded genuinely curious.
'Why? I'll tell you why,' Werferth answered. 'Because we've got to go on fighting like we're on the edge of winning this war, that's why. Because we'll get ourselves killed quicker if we don't, that's why. Because we still might beat the odds, too, that's why.'
Ceorl dug into the meat and groats he'd cooked up. His mouth full, he said, 'Fat chance.'
'No, I think the sergeant's right,' Sidroc said.
Ceorl sneered. 'Of course you do. He's arguing with me. If he said the sky was green, you'd figure he was right.'
'Oh, futter yourself,' Sidroc said. 'I think he's right on account of I think he's right, and on account of the Algarvians. They're sneakier than the Unkerlanters, and they're smarter, too. The war's not over yet, not by a long blaze. If they kill enough stinking Kaunians…'
'It won't make a counterfeit copper's worth of difference,' Ceorl said. 'Swemmel's boys will just kill as many of their own people as they need to, to even things out. Haven't we already seen that?'
'Maybe they'll come up with some other kind of magecraft, then. I don't know,' Sidroc said. 'What I do know is, one Algarvian is worth two or three Unkerlanters. We've seen that plenty of times. Powers above, one of us is worth two or three of Swemmel's men, too.'
'Of course we are,' Ceorl said- had he said anything else, he would have had Werferth arguing with him again, too. 'Trouble is, one of us is worth two or three Unkerlanters, and then that fourth or fifth Unkerlanter ups and kicks us in the balls. We've seen that plenty of times, too- tell me we haven't.'
Sidroc grunted. He couldn't tell Ceorl any such thing, and he knew it. He gave the best comeback he could: 'They've got to run out of soldiers sooner or later.'
'Sooner would be better,' Sergeant Werferth said.
Neither Ceorl nor Sidroc wanted to quarrel with that. Not far away, a sentry called out a challenge in Algarvian. All three men by the fire grabbed for their sticks, not that those had been very far away. The answer came back in Algarvian, too. Neither Sidroc, Werferth, nor Ceorl relaxed. For one thing, the Unkerlanters sometimes found soldiers who could speak the language of their enemies. For another, Algarvians who didn't know the men of Plegmund's Brigade went right on taking them for Unkerlanters.
Not this time, though, not even when the sentry let out a happy yelp in Forthwegian- 'Behemoths!' -that the redheads could easily have taken for Unkerlanter. Sidroc and his comrades exclaimed in delight. Behemoths with Algarvians aboard them had been too rare since so many died trying to smash their way through the Durrwangen bulge.
'I wonder who's going short so the beasts can come here,' Werferth said.
'I don't, Sergeant,' Sidroc answered. 'I don't even care. All I know is, for once we're not going to go short.'
