headstrong beast himself.
The stallion must have been at the front for a while. It shied neither at the sharp stink of wood smoke as it trotted past one more burned-out village nor at the reek of dead meat, which seemed to be everywhere, sometimes faint, sometimes sickeningly strong.
One reason the horse was able to trot, as opposed to sinking hock-deep in mud, was that it stuck to a roughly corduroyed path leading east. Rather rode past a gang of Algarvian captives laying boards in the roadway under the sticks of a squad of Unkerlanter guards. He wished every one of the soldiers who served King Swemmel could have looked at these filthy, scrawny, thoroughly cowed Algarvians. The redheads sometimes seemed to go forward for no better reason than that both they and the Unkerlanters they fought were convinced they could. This gang of Algarvians would never raise that particular awe in their enemies again.
At last, as the sun set behind him and evening twilight began to gather, the marshal heard the rumble of bursting eggs ahead. When he entered the next village, a couple of Unkerlanter sentries popped out of the ruins and barked, “Halt! Who goes there?”
“I am Marshal Rathar,” Rathar said mildly. “Before you blaze me for not knowing the password, take me to your commander. He will vouch for me.” He wondered just which colonel or brigadier was in charge in these parts. If it was a man whose career he’d blighted, the fellow might deny any knowledge of him and have him blazed for a spy. It wasn’t likely, but stranger things had happened in Unkerlanter history.
In the event, Rathar wasted some perfectly good worries. The officer to whom the wide-eyed sentries led him, Colonel Euric, saluted so crisply, Rathar thought his arm would fall off. He gave Rathar his own battered chair, fed him a big bowl of boiled buckwheat groats, onions, and what was probably horsemeat, and poured him a heroic nip of spirits.
“I may live,” Rather said when he’d got outside of the meal and the drink. “All of me but my backside hopes I will, anyhow.”
“They don’t pay you to be a cavalryman, lord Marshal,” Euric answered with a grin. “They pay you to tell cavalrymen what to do.”
“I can’t very well do that if I don’t know what’s going on myself,” Rathar said. “That’s why I like to come up to the front when I get the chance.” He pointed at Euric, much as King Swemmel was in the habit of pointing at him. “What
“Not a whole lot, to tell you the truth, not right this minute,” Euric answered. “We’re waiting for things to dry out, and so are the stinking redheads. Meanwhile, we toss some eggs at them, they toss some at us, a few soldiers on both sides get killed, and it won’t change the way the war turns out one lousy bit.” He stuck out his chin, as if defying Rathar to come down on him for his frankness.
Rathar instead got up, walked over to him, and folded him into a bear hug. “I always praise the powers above when I run into a man who speaks his mind,” he said. “It doesn’t happen all that often, believe you me.”
Euric laughed. He was young to be a colonel--not far past thirty. Rathar wondered how many men above him had been killed or disgraced to let him get where he was. Outspoken captains were common enough. Most of them never advanced past captain. Euric was likely to be good at what he did and had surely been in the right place at the right time.
The colonel said, “I tell you this, too: we’ll lick the buggers unless we do something stupid. And we’re liable to.” He raised an eyebrow and grinned at Rathar. “Nothing personal, of course.”
“Of course.” Rathar grinned back. He slapped Euric’s shoulder. “You’ll go far. No telling who’ll chase you while you’re going, but you’ll go far.”
Both men laughed. They shared a bond, the same bond that joined so many Unkerlanter officers: So far, they’d survived the worst both King Swemmel and the Algarvians could do to their kingdom. Rather felt he was ready for anything now. By Euric’s jaunty expression, they had that in common, too.
Algarvian dragons started dropping eggs on the village. Both Euric and Rather jumped down into a hole in the ground behind the battered hut where Euric made his headquarters. “What will they diink of you in Cottbus when you come back all covered with mud?” Euric asked.
“They’ll think I’m earning my keep,” Rathar replied. “Either that or they’ll think I’m a cursed fool for taking chances I don’t have to.”
“As opposed to the rest of us poor sods, who do have to take chances,” Euric said. Rathar shrugged. That had no answer, nor had it since the beginning of time. But Euric laughed and added, “You took your share before--I know that for a fact.” An egg burst close by, showering Rathar with mud that stank of corpses. Even so, he felt. .
“You do good work,” Ethelhelm said to Ealstan as they sat in the band leader’s flat sipping wine. “If I’d had you casting accounts for me since the days before the war, I’d’ve had a lot more money for the Algarvians to take away from me.”
