still alive,” the other mage called.
“Aye, I think so,” Fernao said. “And you as well--congratulations.”
Affonso bowed. “Thanks. I wish I could take credit for it, but it had more to do with luck or the powers above--your choice--than with me.” He slapped at the back of his leg, just above the top of his wool stocking. “Stinking bugs.”
“When I was here before, they’d already passed their peak,” Fernao said. “Now it’s a miracle they don’t suck the blood out of everything.”
“If they don’t, the Algarvians are liable to,” Affonso said gloomily.
To that, Fernao could only nod. Algarve had a much easier time sending men and supplies across the Narrow Sea to the austral continent than did Lagoas. The same held true for Yanina, but King Mezentio’s men, unlike KingTsavellas’, took war seriously. Fernao said, “If they ship over footsoldiers and behemoths, we’re liable to be in a bad way.”
“Aye,” Affonso agreed, more gloomily still. “The dragons are bad enough. Even when they aren’t dropping eggs on our heads, they’re looking down to see just where we’re going. Even Yaninan footsoldiers can put up a fight when they have an edge like that. Algarvians ... I don’t want to think about the bloody Algarvians.”
“We have to have dragons of our own--that’s all there is to it,” Fernao said. He turned away.
“Where are you going?” Affonso asked.
“To tell Lieutenant General Junqueiro what I just told you,” Fernao answered. “Maybe he hasn’t figured it out for himself yet. The more I see of soldiers, the worse I think they are at trying to deal with things they’ve never met before.”
He found Junqueiro in the middle of a heated argument with the hostages the chieftain of the Ice People named Elishamma had left with the Lagoan army. Since the general and the hostages had no language in common, the exchange of ideas was necessarily limited, but both sides seemed most sincere.
One of the hostages, a fuzzy fellow named Abinadab, spoke some Yaninan, even if he hadn’t admitted it when Elishamma handed him over to the Lagoans. Seeing Fernao, he rounded on him. “You tell your big man to let us go,” he cried. “Our chief not know mangy Yaninans have strong mangy friends when he give us.”
“Too bad,” Fernao said. “We are not without power ourselves. We have marched a long way. Now we are almost in sight of Heshbon. Soon we will take it. Then the Algarvians will have a harder time fighting us.”
“You dream,” Abinadab said, and scornfully turned his back.
“What is he havering about?” Junqueiro demanded. “What are they all havering about? Powers above, they’re ugly--and smelly, too.” Fernao translated for him. The Lagoan general clapped a hand to his forehead. “Tell them that, if they don’t like being hostages, they can be victims. I doubt their worthless lives have much energy, but they might keep a few sticks charged.”
No matter what Fernao thought of Junqueiro, that was exactly the right line to take with the Ice People. If the mage enjoyed putting it into Yaninan so Abinadab could translate it for the rest of the nomads, no one but he had to know that. The men of the Ice People cried out in furious indignation, but when Fernao and Junqueiro both ignored them, they went off shaking their heads and muttering.
“Teach them the fear of the powers above,” Junqueiro muttered, glaring at their backs.
“They don’t believe in the powers above--only their foolish gods,” Fernao said, the last word necessarily being in the language of the Ice People. “But they do know strength, and they know weakness, too. If we don’t get some dragons here, strength will not lie on our side.”
He waited for Junqueiro to burst like an egg. No dragon could fly all the way from Lagoas even to the eastern edge of the land of the Ice People, let alone all the way to the neighborhood of Heshbon. But, to his surprise, the commanding general only nodded and said, “It’s being taken care of.”
“It is?” Fernao blinked. “How?”
Junqueiro chuckled. “Ah, so you mages don’t know everything there is to know, eh?” Fernao gave him a dirty look: while talking with Affonso, he’d accused the general of being none too bright and didn’t enjoy having the charge flung back in his face. Junqueiro went on, “While you weren’t looking, sorcerous sir, the Kuusaman navy built ley-line transports to haul dragons out to where they needed them. They used them against the Gongs out in the Bothnian Ocean. Now we have some, too, and a couple of them are on their way to the Narrow Sea, to give us a hand against Mezentio’s dragons.”
“We have? They are?” Not for the first
