name down on the list when he said he did? You'd better not think that.' He started to get angry, too: angry at Kun, because he didn't want to be angry at the man who led them into battle.
'I don't think that, not for a minute,' Kun said. 'Don't you see, though? It doesn't matter.'
'You keep saying it doesn't matter. I see that,' Istvan answered. 'The more you say it, the more I want to give you a clout in the eye. I see that, too. So either start talking sense or else shut up.'
'All right, by the stars, I'll make sense.' Now Kun sounded angry, too, and spoke with savage irony: 'There's one captain for every hundred common soldiers, more or less. It's harder to be a captain than a common soldier. You have to do and know everything a common soldier does and knows, and a lot more besides. So when the time comes for the mages to start cutting throats, if it ever does, are they going to start cutting common soldiers' throats, or captains'? Which can they replace easier if they have to use them up?'
'Oh.' Istvan walked on for a few paces. He felt foolish. He felt worse than foolish- he felt stupid. He glanced over at Szonyi. Szonyi wasn't saying anything, just tramping along with his head down and a half glum, half furious expression on his face. With a sigh, Istvan nodded to Kun. 'Well, you're right.'
That made Szonyi speak up: 'I still want to give you a set of lumps. Maybe now more than ever.'
'Why? For being right?' Kun asked. 'Where's the justice there?'
'For being right in the wrong tone of voice,' Istvan said. 'You do that a lot.'
'No, that's not it, not this time.' Szonyi shook his big head. Water flew from the brim of his cap. 'For making me see Captain Frigyes was talking sly himself. I don't want anybody saying one thing when he means something else, or when he doesn't mean anything at all.'
'Clouds hide the truth,' Kun said. 'The stars shine down on it. They send out their light for us to see by.'
Like everything Kun said, that sounded wise. Szonyi grunted and finally, reluctantly, nodded. Istvan wasn't so sure. Even as a sergeant, he'd seen that the tricks by which men led other men weren't so simple. Casting light on those tricks made leading harder. Considering the way the war was going, maybe Kun should have kept his mouth shut.
Garivald had never seen so many Unkerlanter soldiers in all his born days. They swarmed through the forest west of Herborn and clogged the roads north and south of the woods. With every passing day, the band of irregulars he led looked less and less important. In fact, it hardly seemed his band at all any more. Tantris gave more orders than he did, and seemed happier doing it.
No matter how happy Tantris seemed, people started slipping away from the band under cover of night. A couple of years before, they'd slipped into the woods the same way to join the irregulars. The first couple of inspectors- or were they impressers? -joined Tantris not long after Herborn fell to King Swemmel's soldiers. Garivald didn't like the way they huddled with the regular. He didn't like the way they looked at him, either.
After darkness fell that night, he spoke to Obilot in a low whisper: 'I'm going to get away while I still have the chance.'
She nodded. 'You think they mean to shove a uniform tunic on you.' It wasn't a question.
'I think they mean to shove a uniform tunic on me and send me wherever it's hottest and get me killed,' Garivald answered. 'After all, I've led fighters who weren't taking orders straight from King Swemmel's men.'
'You're going to slide off?' Obilot said.
'I already said so,' he answered. 'I'm not going to waste a minute, either- I don't intend to be here when the sun comes up tomorrow.' He took her hand. 'This isn't the way I wanted to say goodbye, but…'
'I'll come with you, if you want,' she said.
Garivald stared. 'But-' he said again.
'But I'm a woman?' Obilot asked. 'But they won't shove a uniform tunic on me? So what? I wish they would. It'd let me go on killing Algarvians. But you're right; they won't. And so I'll come with you. If you want.'
'You know where I'll be going,' Garivald said slowly.
'Back to Zossen,' Obilot answered. 'Back to your wife and your children. Aye, I know. That's why I said what I said the way I said it.'
'What will you do once I get there?' he asked.
Obilot shrugged. 'I don't know. That'll be partly up to you, anyhow. But maybe you could use somebody to watch your back on the way- and we'll have another few days together, anyhow. Past that…' She shrugged again. 'I never have worried much about what happens next. When it happens, I'll worry about it.'
'All right.' Garivald kissed her. Part of him was ashamed of himself: he might lie with her a couple of more times on the way back to Annore, his wife. But another part of him eagerly looked forward to that. And yet another part warned he might well need a companion, and maybe a fellow fighter, before he got to Zossen. 'Let's wait till midnight or so, and then we'll see if we can sneak off.'
Getting out of camp, going from leader of the band of irregulars to fugitive, proved easier than he'd expected. No one challenged him as he slipped away. Tantris and the inspectors snored drunkenly by a fire. So much for efficiency, Garivald thought. Obilot joined him a few minutes after he left his hut. 'If they really want to, they'll be able to follow our tracks in the snow,' she said.
'I know.' Garivald grimaced. 'The Algarvians and the Grelzers could do the same thing in wintertime.' Now he was worried about pursuit from his own side, from the side he still preferred to the expelled enemy and their puppets. He started away from the encampment. 'Let's get to a road. Then our tracks won't be the only ones.'
'How far is Zossen?' Obilot asked as they slipped through the trees.
'I don't know. Forty, fifty, sixty miles- something like that,' Garivald answered with a shrug. 'I was never more than a day's walk away from it till the redheads grabbed and and took me off to Herborn. They were going to boil me the way King Swemmel boiled Raniero, but Munderic waylaid 'em when they cut through the woods instead of going around. So I've seen Zossen and I've seen the forest and what's around it, but I haven't hardly seen whatever's in between, if you know what I mean.'
Obilot nodded. 'I hadn't been far from my village before the Algarvians came, either. Just to the market town. I don't think anything's left of either one of them. Our army fought there, but we didn't win.'
'They were going to make a stand in Zossen, too,' Garivald said. 'But before they could, they heard the redheads had outflanked them, and so they fell back.'
An icy breeze blew out of the west. Garivald steered by it. It was all he had, with clouds covering the stars. Somewhere not far away, an owl hooted. 'I'd rather hear that than wolves,' Obilot remarked.
'Aye.' Garivald was carrying his stick, but his head went up and down anyway. A few paces later, he added, 'Some of the wolves in these woods go on two legs, not four.' Obilot laughed, not that he'd been joking. She had her stick, too.
They were both yawning when they emerged from the forest a couple of hours later. But they kept going till they struck the road. Even in the middle of the night, it had plenty of traffic: wagons and unicorns and behemoths and columns of marching men, all heading east. Garivald had to spring off to the side of the road again and again to keep from being trampled.
At sunrise, they came to a tent city that hadn't been there a few days before and probably wouldn't be there in another few days. 'Can you spare us any bread?' Obilot called to the soldiers.
Had Garivald asked, the troopers likely would have cursed him or worse. But a woman's voice worked wonders. They got black bread and ham and butter and pickled onions. 'Go on back to your farm, if there's anything left of it,' one of the soldiers said in a northern accent. 'Here's hoping you find some pieces worth picking up.'
'Thanks,' Garivald said. 'Powers above keep you safe.'
'Same to you,' the soldier answered. 'I may see you again one of these days. Wherever your farm's at, the inspectors and impressers'll be paying you a call sooner or later. They want everybody to join the fun- that's how things work.'
'That's how things work,' Garivald repeated bitterly as he and Obilot walked west against the flow of military traffic. 'The worst of it is, he's right. Some locusts have two legs, too. Don't they know they have to leave some people on the land to keep everybody from starving?'
'Nobody from Cottbus knows anything.' Now that Obilot was back under King Swemmel's rule, she mocked
