Darkness Descending

Sergeant Panfilo had some onions. Even more to the point, he had a frying pan. The company had stolen a little iron stove from a house near the theater. Issued rations had often got erratic during the winter. When the soldiers came on food, they wanted to be able to cook it. Before long, a savory aroma rose from the pan.

One of the other troopers in Trasone’s squad, a skinny fellow named Clovisio, came over and stood by the stove, watching with spaniel eyes as the sausages sizzled. Trasone’s rumbling stomach made him less than polite. “You think you’re going to scrounge scraps off us, you can bloody well think again,” he growled.

Clovisio looked affronted as readily as he’d looked cuddly and endearing a moment before. “My dear fellow, I can pay my way,” he said. He took a flask from his belt and gently shook it. Its suggestive gurgle brought a smile to Trasone’s face--and to Sergeant Panfilo’s.

“Now you’re talking,” the sergeant said. He turned the sausages with his knife, eyed them, and lifted the pan off the stove. “I think we’re in business here.” The three of them ate sausage and onions and shared nips of the fiery Unkerlanter spirits in Clovisio’s flask.

“That’s not so bad,” Trasone said, chasing a couple of strings of fried onion around the pan with his own knife. He slapped his belly. “Blazes the stuffing out of meat hacked off the carcass of a behemoth that froze to death.”

“Or meat hacked off the carcass of a behemoth that didn’t freeze right away, but had time to start going bad first,” Clovisio said. Trasone grimaced and nodded; he knew the sickly sweet taste of spoiled meat as well as any other Algarvian soldier in Unkerlant.

Not to be outdone by his companions, Sergeant Panfilo added, “And it sure blazes the stuffing out of going empty.”

“Aye,” Trasone said. All three soldiers solemnly nodded. Like so many Algarvians in Unkerlant, they’d known emptiness, too. Trasone turned to Clovisio. “Anything left in that flask?”

Clovisio shook it again. It still gurgled. He passed it to Trasone. Trasone sipped, but didn’t empty it. Instead, he handed it to Panfilo. The sergeant took a sergeant’s privilege and tilted it up to get the last few drops.

For a moment, the three men squatted there, looking at the now empty frying pan. Trasone nodded, as if in agreement to something nobody had actually come out and said. “That’s not so bad,” he repeated. “A full belly, a little something to drink--”

“Nobody trying to kill us right this minute,” Clovisio put in.

“Aye, it could be worse,” Panfilo agreed. “We’ve all seen that.” Trasone and Clovisio nodded. They had indeed seen that.

“Even when it’s been as bad as it can be, we get to fight back,” Trasone said. “I’d rather be us than a pack of stinking Kaunians in what they call a special camp waiting to be turned into fuel for magecraft.”

“I’d rather be us than a pack of stinking Kaunians any which way,” Clovisio declared. “The more of ‘em we get rid of, the sooner we lick the Unkerlanters and the sooner we can go home.”

“Home.” Trasone spoke the word with dreamy longing. He shook himself like a man reluctantly awakening. “I don’t even remember what it’s like anymore, or only just barely. I’ve been doing this too long. I know it’s real. Everything else--” He shook his head. After a moment, so did Panfilo and Clovisio.

Leofsig didn’t like the way his father was looking at him. Hestan drew in a long breath and then slowly let it out: a patient exhalation that wasn’t quite a sigh. “But why, son?” he asked. “Our family and Felgilde’s have been talking about this match for quite a while now, as you know full well. Her father is a merchant who’s done well even in these sorry times. Joining Elfsig’s house to ours would benefit both.” He raised an eyebrow. “And Felgilde dotes on you. You must know that, too.”

“Oh, I do, Father,” Leofsig answered. That sat alone together in the dining room. Leofsig kept glancing at the doorways and the courtyard to make sure Sidroc and Uncle Hengist weren’t snooping. For that matter, he didn’t want his mother or sister listening, either. He didn’t want to be having this conversation at all.

His father, though, had put his foot down. Hestan seldom did that; when he did, he usually got what he wanted. He said, “And I thought you were fond of the girl, too.”

“Oh, I was, Father. I am,” Leofsig said. Fond was’t exactly the word he would have used, but it served about as well as the cruder equivalents that sprang into his mind.

“Well, then?” Hestan asked in what was for him a considerable show of annoyance. “Why won’t you wed the girl? Then you could--” He broke off, but Leofsig had a good notion of what he’d been about to say. Then you could do whatever you want with her.

“No,” Leofsig said, though he knew just what he wanted to do with Felgilde, and knew she wanted to do it, too.

“Why not?” His father raised his