of hundred yards short.
And then he whooped like a schoolboy unexpectedly dismissed early. 'Here they come!' he shouted. 'Gurmun's on time after all.'
Now that their crewmen had seen the Algarvian enemy, the behemoths from Gurmun's reserve- several hundred of them, a whole army's worth- broke into a furious gallop, to get into the fight quick as they could. They cut in behind the leading Algarvian behemoths, moving so fast that the redheads didn't have time to deploy against them.
'Look at that!' Hardly aware he was doing it, Rathar pounded Vatran on the back. 'Will you look at that? There hasn't been a charge like that this whole bloody war. Some of them are even using their horns to fight with.'
If the field had seemed too small with only the Algarvian behemoths moving forward on it, it suddenly got more than twice as crowded. Rathar knew a moment's pity for the footsoldiers on that field. Neither side's behemoths were likely to. Their crews tossed eggs and blazed at one another from ridiculously short ranges. As Rathar had said, some gored others right through their armor, as if they were unicorns back in the days before mages learned how to make sticks.
Grass fires sprang up in a dozen places at once, making it harder for Rathar to tell what was going on even with his spyglass. But he could see that the Algarvians, as was their way, didn't stay surprised long. They fought back furiously against Gurmun's behemoths. Wedges of Algarvian beasts would pop out from behind orchards and copses, toss eggs and blaze at the foe, and then take cover again. Gurmun didn't need long to adopt the same tactics.
Overhead, both sides' dragons battled to something close to a draw. The Algarvians sacrificed Kaunians. Addanz and the other Unkerlanter mages sacrificed their own luckless people to answer. The sorcerous duel, the duel of horrors, was also as near even as made no difference.
That left it up to the behemoths. They surged back and forth over the plain as the sun crawled across the sky. If the redheads had enough beasts left after shattering Gurmun's reserve, their own attack might go on. But Rathar knew that part of their force of behemoths remained some miles to the southwest. It wouldn't get here while today's fight lasted. Gurmun had the advantage of numbers, the Algarvians, in spite of everything, the advantage of skill. With two heavy weights flung into the pans of the scale, they jounced up and down, now one higher, now the other.
An Unkerlanter behemoth crew blazed down an Algarvian beast. The other Algarvian behemoths in that part of the field attacked the Unkerlanters, badly wounding their behemoth. The driver, the only crewman left on it, charged the Algarvians. He blazed down one and gored another in the flank before his own behemoth finally toppled.
By then, the sun had sunk low in the southwest. Seen through thick smoke, it was red as blood. Rathar wondered where the day had gone. He turned to Vatran. 'We haven't broken them, but we've held them,' he said. 'They aren't going to come pouring through in a great tide, the way we feared they would.'
Wearily, Vatran nodded. 'No doubt you're right, lord Marshal. They can't hit us another blow like this one- they've left too many men and beasts dead on the field.'
'Aye.' Marshal Rathar preferred not to dwell on how many Unkerlanter men and beasts lay dead on the fields of the Durrwangen bulge. Whatever the cost, though, he and the soldiers of his kingdom had stopped the Algarvians here. Which meant… He called for the crystallomancer. When the man came up to him, he said, 'Connect me to the general commanding our army east and south of the Algarvian forces on the eastern flank of the salient.' And when that officer's image appeared in the crystal, Rathar spoke four words: 'Let the counterattack begin.'
Like the rest of the Algarvian constables in Gromheort, Bembo avidly followed news of the big battles down in the south of Unkerlant. News sheets from across the nearby border with Algarve were brought into town daily, so the constables didn't have to go to the trouble of learning to read Forthwegian.
For the first several days of the fight near Durrwangen, everything seemed to go well. The news sheets reported victories on the ground and in the air, and their maps showed King Mezentio's armies advancing. The news sheets in Forthwegian must have said the same thing, for the locals, who didn't love their Algarvian occupiers, strode through Gromheort with long faces.
And then, little by little, the news sheets stopped talking about the battle. They didn't proclaim the great, crushing triumph all the Algarvians had looked for. 'I want to know what's going on,' Constable Almonio complained one morning while he and his comrades were queued up for breakfast.
Bembo stood right behind him. Sergeant Pesaro stood behind Bembo. Turning to Pesaro, Bembo said, 'Touching to see such innocence in this age of the world, isn't it?'
'It is indeed,' Pesaro said, as if Almonio weren't there. 'But then, he's the tender-headed one, remember? Almonio wouldn't hurt a fly, or even a Kaunian.'
That made Bembo laugh. It made Almonio furious. 'I keep trying to behave like a human being, in spite of what the war is doing to all of us,' he snapped.
'Like a drunken human being, a lot of the time,' Bembo said. Almonio really didn't have the stomach for rounding up Kaunians. He poured down the spirits whenever he had to do it, to keep from dwelling on what he'd done.
But he was sober now, sober and angry. 'I still don't know what the two of you are talking about,' he said, that edge still in his voice.
'Like a stupid human being,' Pesaro said, which only made Almonio angrier. Pesaro, though, was a sergeant, so Almonio couldn't show that anger so readily, not if he had the slightest notion of what was good for him. With a sigh both sad and sarcastic, Pesaro went on, 'He really doesn't get it.'
Almonio threw his hands in the air. He just missed knocking another constable's mess tin out of his hands, which would have given the other fellow reason to be angry at him. 'What is there to get?' he demanded. 'All I want to know is how the battle turned out, and the miserable news sheets won't tell me.'
'A natural-born innocent,' Bembo said again, to Pesaro. Then he gave his attention back to Almonio. 'My dear fellow, if you really need it spelled out for you, I'll do the job: if the news sheets don't give us any news, it's because there's no good news to give. There. Is that simple enough, or shall I draw pictures?'
'Oh,' Almonio said, in a very small voice. 'But if the Unkerlanters have beaten us down at Durrwangen, if they've beaten us in the summertime…' His voice trailed away altogether.
'We're constables,' Sergeant Pesaro said, perhaps as much to reassure himself as to make Almonio (and, incidentally, Bembo) feel better. 'We've got a job to do here, and an important job it is, too. Whatever happens hundreds of miles away doesn't matter a bit to us. Not a bit, do you hear me?'
Almonio nodded. So did Bembo. He wasn't so sure his sergeant was right, but he wanted to think so. Anything else was too depressing to contemplate. The wine the refectory served with breakfast was nasty, sour stuff, but he had an extra mug anyhow. Almonio had an extra two or three; Bembo wasn't keeping close track.
When he went out on patrol with Oraste, he found his partner in a dour mood. Oraste was often dour, but more so than usual today. At last, Bembo asked him, 'What's gnawing at you?'
Oraste walked on for several paces without answering. Bembo thought he wouldn't answer, but after a bit he did: 'How in blazes are we supposed to win the war now?'
'What do you think I am?' Bembo demanded, so fiercely that even rugged Oraste gave back a pace. 'A general? King Mezentio? I don't know anything about that business. All I know is, the bigwigs in Trapani will come up with something. They always have. What's one more time?'
'They'd better,' Oraste growled, as if he'd hold Bembo responsible if they didn't. 'That was what should have happened in this big battle. It didn't. How many more chances do we get?'
'As long as they're fighting way inside Unkerlant, I'm not going to worry about it,' Bembo said. 'If you've got any sense, you won't worry about it, either. You're the one who was always saying that if I didn't like it here, I could get a stick and go fight the Unkerlanters. Now I'll tell you the same cursed thing.'
'Powers below eat you, Bembo,' Oraste said, surprisingly little rancor in his voice. 'You were supposed to say something funny and stupid, so I could stop brooding about the way things are going. But you don't like it any more than I do, do you?'
