and it means there's not a whole lot of action.'
'Sometimes the stars shine on us,' Frigyes said. He was a big man, burly even by Gyongyosian standards, with a scar on his right cheek. 'We have troubles out in the islands, the Unkerlanters have troubles off in the east. Put it all together and they don't want to be fighting here and neither do we.'
Captain Tivadar might have said the same thing. Istvan missed his long-time superior, but Frigyes looked to be a solid officer- and he knew nothing of why Istvan and several of his squadmates bore scars on their left hands. Istvan looked around. All of his troopers were busy with other things. He could bring out a question perhaps improper for a man of a warrior race: 'Why don't we go ahead and make peace, then?'
'Because we would betray our Algarvian allies if we did, and they've struck some heavy blows at the accursed Kuusamans,' Frigyes answered. 'Also, because King Swemmel hasn't shown any interest in making peace, may the stars withhold their light from him.'
Anyone would reckon Swemmel the warrior, Istvan thought uncomfortably. But he's just a madman. Everybody knows that. Even his own soldiers know it. But why do they fight so hard for a madman?
'Enjoy this while it lasts,' Frigyes told him. 'It won't last forever. Sooner or later, the Algarvians will strike their blow, as they do every spring. Then, odds are, they'll drive the Unkerlanters back again, and then the Unkerlanters will hit us again here.'
'I'm sorry, sir.' Istvan frowned. 'I don't follow that.'
'How likely is Swemmel to get summer victories against Algarve?' Frigyes asked. 'Not very, not if you look at what's happened the past two years. So if the Unkerlanters want wins to keep their own people happy, they'll try to get them against us.'
'Oh.' That made an unpleasant amount of sense. It was also an insult of sorts. 'We're easier than the Algarvians, are we? We shouldn't be easier than anyone.'
'We're easier than the Algarvians, aye.' Frigyes didn't seem insulted. 'They can bring their whole apparatus of war with them. We can't. All we've got here in these woods are some of the best footsoldiers in the world.' He slapped Istvan on the back, climbed out of the redoubt, and went on his way.'
Istvan turned to his squad. 'The captain says Gyongyos has some of the best footsoldiers in the world. He hasn't seen you lazy buggers in action yet, that's what I think.'
'There hasn't been any action for a while,' Szonyi said, which was also true.
'Do you really want much?' Kun asked. Even if he did wear spectacles, he could ask a question like that: he'd seen as much desperate fighting as any man in the woods, Istvan possibly excepted.
Had one of the newer men put the question, Szonyi would have felt compelled to puff out his chest and act manly. As things were, he shrugged and answered, 'It'll probably come whether I want it or not, so what's the point of worrying?'
A red squirrel was rash enough to show its head around the trunk of a birch. Istvan's stick, ready for Unkerlanters, was ready for a squirrel, too. It fell into the bushes under the trees. 'Nice blazing, Sergeant,' Lajos said. 'Something good for the pot.'
Kun sighed. 'By the time you skin it and gut it, there's hardly enough meat on a squirrel to be worth bothering about.'
'That's not why you're complaining,' Istvan said as he left the redoubt to collect the squirrel. 'I know why you're complaining. You're a born city man, and you never had to worry about eating things like squirrels before they sucked you into the army.' In the bushes, the squirrel was still feebly thrashing. Istvan found a rock and smashed its head a couple of times. Then he carried it back by the tail, pausing once or twice to brush away fleas. He hoped he got them all. If he didn't, he'd do some extra scratching.
'Doesn't seem natural, eating something like that,' Kun said as Istvan's knife slit the squirrel's belly.
'What's not natural is going hungry when there's good food around,' Istvan said. His squadmates spoke up in loud agreement. They came off farms or out of little villages. Gyongyos was a kingdom of smallholdings. Towns were market centers, administrative points. They weren't the heart of the land, as he'd heard they were elsewhere on Derlavai. And stewed squirrel, no matter what Kun thought of it, was tasty.
Kun didn't complain when it was ladled out to him. By then, it had got mixed up with everything else in the pot, mixed to where you couldn't point at any one chunk of meat and say, This is squirrel. Off to the south, somebody started lobbing eggs at somebody else. Istvan had no idea whether it was the Unkerlanters or his own countrymen. Whoever it was, he hoped they'd stop it.
Captain Frigyes came back the next day with a mage in tow. That made Kun perk up; it always did. 'Men,' the new company commander said, 'this is Major Borsos. He's going to be-'
'Well, by the stars, so it is!' Istvan exclaimed. 'No offense, sir, but I figured you'd be dead by now.' He saw blank expressions all around him, including the one on Borsos' face. He explained: 'Sir, I fetched and carried for you on Obuda, when you were dousing out where the Kuusaman ships were.'
'Oh.' Major Borsos' face cleared. He was a major by courtesy, so ordinary troopers would fetch and carry for him. He'd been a captain by courtesy out on the island in the Bothnian Ocean, so he'd come up a bit in the world. Istvan had been a common soldier then, so he had, too. 'Good to see you again,' Borsos said, a beat slower than he might have.
Istvan suspected the mage didn't really remember him. He shrugged. Borsos had seen a lot since then, as he had himself. And Kun looked as green with envy as the tarnished bronze dowsing rods Borsos had used on Obuda. Istvan smiled. That was worth something.
Frigyes said, 'I didn't expect it to be old home week here. But Major Borsos is going to do what he can to spy out the Unkerlanters.'
'Ah,' Istvan said. 'How will your dowsing sort through all the moving beasts and especially the moving leaves to find the moving Unkerlanters, eh, Major?'
Borsos beamed. 'Aye, by the stars, you did assist me, Sergeant, or some dowser, anyhow, and he listened when he ran on at the mouth.' Kun was standing behind his back, and behind Frigyes', and looked to be on the point of retching. Istvan wanted to make a face back at him, but couldn't. Borsos went on, 'The answer is, just as I have a dowsing rod attuned to the sea, so I've also got one attuned to soldiers. It hardly cares about leaves, and it isn't much interested in beasts, either, though mountain apes might confuse it. Here, I'll show you.' He set down the leather satchel he was carrying. It clanked. He opened it and went through the rods, finally grunting when he found the one he wanted. 'Doesn't look like much, does it?'
'No, sir,' Istvan answered. The dowsing rod wasn't of fresh, shiny bronze, or of the green, patinaed sort, either. It looked like a thin length of rusty iron- if those stains on it were rust. Kun was about to speak. Again, Istvan beat him to the punch, pointing and asking, 'Unkerlanter blood?'
Borsos beamed again. Frigyes said, 'My, what a clever chap you turn out to be.' Kun looked about ready to burst like an egg from rage and jealousy. That made Istvan happier than either officer's reaction. He had to live with Kun all the time.
'Even so, Sergeant. Even so,' Borsos answered, beaming still. 'By the law of similarity, when I dowse with this rod, I'll sense motion from Unkerlanters, and very little from any other source.' He waved the rod as if it were a sword, then thwacked it into the palm of his hand. 'It's not perfect- dowsing isn't- but it's pretty good.'
'Go ahead, Major,' Captain Frigyes said. He wouldn't have talked like that to a real soldier of rank higher than his own. 'Let's see what's going on out there.'
Major Borsos didn't take offense. He'd probably had officers- real officers, men of noble blood- treat him a good deal worse. He said, 'Aye, Captain, just as you please.' Holding the handle of the dowsing rod in both hands, he swung it to the east, murmuring as he did so. He hadn't gone far before it dipped sharply. 'Something in that direction- not far away, unless I miss my guess.'
'Oh, that's where their scouts always hide, sir,' Szonyi said. 'Nothing much to worry about unless you feel a whole lot of the buggers.'
'No,' Borsos said, looking down at his hands as if asking them to speak more clearly. After some thought, he nodded. 'No, it doesn't feel like a lot of men. One, not far away- that could well be so.'
Kun worked his little magic and said, 'He's not moving toward us.'
'No?' Borsos said. 'What charm were you using there, soldier?' He shrugged. 'Whatever it is, it won't matter to me. I never have been able to do much in the way of magecraft save for dowsing. The art is in the blood, or else it's not. With me, it's not, unless I have a dowsing rod in my hand.'
'It's very easy, sir,' Kun said, and ran through it.
