'Huh!' Rathar said. 'If that's not the truth, curse me if I know what is.'
'You hush, lord Marshal. I wasn't done.' Vatran overacted reproach. 'For a third, all the signs show that they're going to try to bite off the salient and trap us here, and all the captives we take say the same thing.'
'I can't argue with any of that,' Rathar said. 'It's your second reason that worries me a little, though. Doing it fancy might mean setting us up for an enormous surprise.' But he shook his head. 'They're Algarvians, and that means they think they're smarter than everybody else.' He sighed. 'Sometimes they're right, too- but not always. I don't think they're right here.'
'They'd better not be,' Vatran said. 'If they are, it'll mean we've wasted a cursed lot of work in the salient.'
'We've done what we can,' Rather said. 'Anybody who tries to break through there will have a rough time of it.' He sighed again. 'Of course, the Algarvians have done things I would've sworn were flat-out impossible. How they got into Sulingen last summer…'
'They got in, but they didn't get out again.' Vatran sounded cheerful, as he usually did. Rathar had a good soldier's confidence, even a good soldier's arrogance, but he was not by nature a cheerful man. Nobody who'd served so long directly under King Swemmel had an easy time being cheerful.
'We beat them in the wintertime, the same as we held them out of Cottbus the winter before,' Rathar said. 'It's summer now. Whenever they attack in the summer, they drive us before them.'
'Nobody's driving us out of this salient,' Vatran said. 'Nobody. And just because you're talking about what they have done, what's that got to do with what they're going to do? Not a fornicating thing, says I.'
Rathar slapped him on the shoulder, not so much for being right as for trying to raise both their spirits. But if the Algarvians had gone forward by great leaps in the two earlier summers of their war against Unkerlant, what was to keep them from going forward by great leaps in this third summer of the war?
Unkerlanter soldiers, that's what, he thought. Unkerlanter behemoths, Unkerlanter dragons, Unkerlanter cavalry. We've learned a lot from these redheaded whoresons the past two years. Now we'll find out if we've got our lessons right.
If they hadn't learned, they would have gone under. He knew no stronger incentive than that. They might still go under, if King Mezentio's men did break through what Unkerlant had built here to hold them back. But the Algarvians would know they'd been in a fight. They already knew they'd been in a fight, a harder fight than they'd had anywhere in the east of Derlavai.
Vatran had been thinking with him. 'Invade our kingdom, will they? We'll teach them what we think of people who do things like that, powers below eat me if we don't.'
'If we don't, the powers below will eat both of us,' Rathar said, and Vatran nodded. They trudged through rubble-strewn streets- or perhaps across what had been yards from which most of the rubble had been blown- back toward the battered bank building where Rather had made his headquarters. A lot of eggs had fallen on Durrwangen since, but the building still stood. Banks had to be strong places; that was one of the reasons Rathar had chosen this one.
No sentries stood outside to snap to attention and salute as he and General Vatran came up. King Swemmel would have had sentries out there; Swemmel insisted on show. Maybe because his sovereign did, Rathar didn't. Also, of course, sentries outside the building would have been likely to get killed when the Algarvians tossed in some more of their endless eggs. Rathar had sent uncounted tens of thousands of soldiers to their deaths, but he wasn't deliberately wasteful. He hoped the war never made him so hard or simply so indifferent as that.
A horned lark hopped out of his way, then leaped into the air to catch a fly. The golden-bellied lark was svelte, even plump. It probably had a great brood of svelte, even plump, nestlings somewhere amid the ruins. With so much dead but unburied flesh in Durrwangen, there were a great many flies to catch.
Inside the headquarters building, a sentry did salute the marshal and his general. Rathar nodded to the youngster. Then he spoke to Vatran: 'Let's go look at the map.' He wondered how many times he'd said that. Whenever he was worried, undoubtedly. He'd been worried a lot.
Vatran walked over to the map table with him. Algarvian-held bulges overlapped Durrwangen to either side. 'They're good, curse them,' Vatran said. 'Who would've thought they had that counterattack in 'em?'
'We didn't, that's certain.' Rathar ruefully shook his head. 'And we've paid for it. And we're liable to pay more.' He pointed to the map. 'Are these the best sites we could have picked for the centers?'
'Archmage Addanz thinks so.' Vatran scowled. 'Are you ready to argue with him? He'd likely turn you into a frog.' He chuckled, but the laughter sounded strained. 'War would be easier without magecraft.'
'Maybe it would.' Rathar shrugged. 'But I'll argue with Addanz if I have to. I've asked him to come up to Durrwangen; he should be here soon. I'll argue with anyone and do anything I have to to win this war.'
'I don't like arguing with mages,' Vatran said. 'Too many things they can do to you if you rub 'em the wrong way.'
'A soldier can generally slay a mage faster than a mage can get rid of a soldier,' Rathar said serenely. 'And magecraft, even the simple stuff, isn't easy. If it were, we'd have mages running the world. And we don't.'
'And a good thing, too, says I,' Vatran exclaimed.
'Excuse me, lord Marshal.' The sentry came back to the map table. 'Sorry to bother you, but the archmage is here.'
'Good,' Rathar said. Vatran looked as if he thought it was anything but. The marshal continued, 'Send him right on back here. We've got things to talk about, he and I.' The sentry saluted and hurried up to the entrance. He didn't just send the archmage back: he brought him. Rathar nodded approval. He rarely found fault with a man who exceeded his orders.
Addanz was a well-groomed man of middle years, perhaps a little younger than Rathar. Few old men served King Swemmel; Vatran was an exception. A lot of leaders of the generation ahead of Rathar's had chosen the wrong side in the Twinkings War. Most of the others had managed to displease the king in the intervening years- or he'd killed them anyway, to make others thoughtful or simply on a whim. Swemmel did as he chose. That was what being King of Unkerlant meant, as long as a king lived. Swemmel had lived a surprisingly long time.
'I greet you, lord Marshal.' Addanz's voice was rich and smooth, like strong tea with milk. Rathar was a long way from sure he was the best mage in Unkerlant. What he was, without a doubt, was the prominent mage with the fewest enemies.
'Hello, Archmage.' Set beside Addanz, Rathar felt himself to be all harsh stone and rough edges. The archmage was a courtier; Rathar wasn't, or was as little as he could get away with. But regardless of what he wasn't, he cursed well was a soldier, and he'd summoned Addanz on soldiers' business. His index finger stabbed down at the map. 'This center here, the western one- are you sure it's where you want it? If they break through past this line of low hills, they may overrun it.'
'The closer, the stronger- so we have shown,' Addanz answered. 'With soldiers and magecraft to defend it, it should serve well enough. Besides, given how soon Mezentio's minions may strike at us, have we got the time to move it and set it up again farther from the front?'
Rathar gnawed his lower lip. 'Mm- you're likely right. If I thought we had more time, I'd still have you move it a bit. You're liable to take a pounding from dragons, too, you know.'
'That would be so even if we did move it,' Addanz answered. Rathar gnawed his lip some more. The archmage went on, 'And we have masked it as best we can, both with magecraft and with such tricks as soldiers use.' He didn't sound patronizing; he seemed to make a point of not sounding patronizing. That only made Rathar feel twice as patronized.
He shook his head. Addanz had won this round. 'All right. I'll never complain about anyone who wants to get close to the enemy. I just don't want the enemy getting too close to you too fast.'
'I rely on your valiant men and officers to keep such a calamity from happening,' Addanz said. I'll blame them to Swemmel if it does. He didn't say that, but he might have.
'Your mages know exactly what they have to do?' Rathar persisted.
'Aye.' Addanz nodded. A year and a half before, the notion had so rocked him, he couldn't even think of it for himself. How Swemmel had laughed! Nothing rocked Swemmel, not if it meant holding on to his throne. And now Addanz took it for granted, too. The war against Algarve had coarsened him, as it had everybody else. That was what war did.
Distant thunder rumbled, off to the south. But there should have been no thunder, not on a fine, warm early summer day. Eggs. Thousands of eggs, bursting at once. Rathar looked to Vatran. Vatran was already looking to
