“Won’t have one if I’m dead, that’s certain.” Panfilo twisted his head this way and that. Trasone knew what he was doing: looking for Unkerlanter behemoths with snowshoes or Unkerlanter footsoldiers wearing them. In this cursed weather, Swemmel’s soldiers were more mobile than the Algarvians they pursued. Trasone kept his eyes open all the time, too.
He didn’t see any foes now, for which he thanked the powers above. When he trudged past the frozen corpse of an Algarvian soldier, he started to laugh.
“What’s funny about him?” Panfilo asked.
“Poor whoresons in the same pose as that unicorn we went by a little while ago,” Trasone answered.
“Heh,” Panfilo said, and then, “Heh, heh.” Trasone shrugged and kept on walking. That was about as much credit as the comment deserved.
From up ahead came the sharp crack of bursting eggs. A moment later, Trasone heard a dragon screaming high in the air. “Got to be an Unkerlanter beast,” he said wearily. “Where are our own dragons, curse the lazy buggers who fly ‘em?”
Panfilo tried to look on the bright side: “They come over now and again. But they’re stretched thin along so much front.”
“The Unkerlanters have dragons to drop eggs on us,” Trasone said resentfully. “The front’s no shorter for them.” He waved before Panfilo could speak. “I know, I know--somewhere along the line, we’re dropping eggs on them, too. But they’re doing it here, curse them, and one of those stinking eggs is liable to come down on my head.”
“They weren’t worrying about us--we’re small fry.” Panfilo pointed ahead, to a burning town. “Unless we’re even more lost than I think we are, that’s Aspang. A ley line runs through it. How are we going to get men and supplies forward if it’s going up in flames around us?”
For an Algarvian, Trasone was a stolid man. Still, his shrug would have been extravagant for someone from any other kingdom. He said, “Who knows? Odds are, we won’t. Powers below have been eating at our supply system ever since the snow started coming down.”
When the battered company got into Aspang, Trasone discovered he would have made a good prophet. Several of the eggs the Unkerlanter dragons dropped had landed squarely on the ley-line caravan depot. It was burning merrily. So was a caravan that had stopped there. And so were mountains of supplies that had just come off the caravan and hadn’t yet been loaded onto wagons for the trip to the front--not that wagons had an easy time moving through the snow, either.
His stomach didn’t care about troubles with wagons. But it growled like a starving wolf--an all too apt figure--to see food burning. The bursting eggs had knocked one car off the ley line and down to the ground on its side. It was, for the moment, safe from the flames. A crowd of Algarvian soldiers had gathered around it.
Trasone hurried toward the caravan car. “That’s got to be something to eat,” he called over his shoulder to his comrades. “I’m going to get some, and you’d better do the same.” He waited for Sergeant Panfilo to curse and bully him back into the line. Instead, without a word, the sergeant followed him. More than anything else Trasone had seen, that told of the troubles the Algarvian army had known since winter came to Unkerlant.
One of the soldiers already at the caravan car looked up with a laugh. “More starving rats, eh? Well, come on and get your share.”
“What’s to get?” Trasone asked.
By way of reply, the other soldier tossed him a square block of orange stuff that had to weigh a couple of pounds. Automatically, Trasone caught it. “Cheese!” said the fellow who’d thrown it. “If you’re going to be a rat, you may as well be a fat rat, eh?”
“Aye.” Trasone broke a corner off the block and stuffed the cheese into his mouth. With it still full, he went on, “Toss me a couple more of those, pal, will you? It’s not the greatest stuff in the world, but it’ll keep a man going for a while.”
“Help yourself--stuff your pack full,” the other Algarvian said. “If we don’t haul it away with us, it’s not going anywhere.” Trasone took him up on that. So did Sergeant Panfilo. They both ate as they loaded up, too. Trasone guessed a lot of the soldiers at the caravan car had been garrisoning Aspang. They didn’t have the abraded look of men who’d been fighting and marching and fighting again for much too long.
Eggs began bursting once more, this time west of Aspang. Trasone looked up, but saw no dragons. That meant the Unkerlanters had brought their egg-tossers almost far enough forward to start hitting the town. Trasone cursed under his breath. He’d hoped the rear guard would have done a better job of holding back King Swemmel’s men than that.
“To me!” shouted the officer who’d taken over the battalion, or what was left of it, after Sergeant Panfilo brought it out of Thalfang. “Come on--we have to hold this place. Can’t let the
