Darkness Descending

ground, he’d never been able to fault their courage. Here they came, as if they outnumbered his dragonfliers ten to one instead of the other way round. They couldn’t have hoped to win, or even to escape. They intended to sell themselves as dearly as possible.

For his part, he wanted to dispose of them as fast as he could. He sent several of his dragons after each of theirs, to give them no chance for heroism. Somebody blazed one of their fliers almost at once. That dragon, suddenly on its own, flew off. Another one plunged to the ground when an Algarvian got in back of it without its flier’s knowing and flamed it from behind.

Inside a couple of minutes, all the Unkerlanter dragons were out of the fight. Sabrino himself blazed the dragonfliers his group of Algarvians attacked. But one of King Swemmel’s men got a measure of revenge. A couple of Algarvian dragons had flamed the one he flew. It was horribly burned, and so, no doubt, was he. Still, he made it obey one last command: he flew it straight against an Algarvian dragon. They smashed together and both tumbled out of the sky.

“That was a brave man,” Sabrino said softly. A moment later, as an afterthought, he added, “Curse him.” Save for the Algarvians, the heavens were empty. Sabrino waved the wing back toward the dragon farm where they and the handlers would tend to their beasts. But now they had one more slot that wanted filling.

Ealstan looked up from the page of bookkeeping questions his father had set him to find his cousin, Sidroc, grinning a most unpleasant grin. “I’m done with my work for the night,” Sidroc said. “But then, I only have what the school dishes out. I told you you’d end up stuck with more.”

“Aye, and you’ve been telling me, too--telling me and telling me,” Ealstan said. “Why don’t you shut up and let me finish?” He wished Leofsig, his older brother, were around. But Leofsig had gone to hear music with Felgilde, whom he’d been seeing even before he went into King Penda’s levy.

Sidroc went off. He did his best to look insulted, but he was chuckling, too. Ealstan felt like chucking the inkwell after his cousin. Instead, with a sour frown, he buckled down and finished the rest of the problems. After rising, he stretched till his back creaked; he’d been sitting there a long time. It certainly seemed a long time.

He took the problems into the parlor, where his father and Uncle Hengist were sharing a news sheet. His father turned away from the sheet. “All right, son,” he said, “let’s see what you’ve done with this lot.”

“Let’s see what this lot’s done to me,” Ealstan returned. Uncle Hengist--Sidroc’s father--laughed. Ealstan’s father smiled for a moment and started checking the work.

Sidroc must have got his habit of interrupting from Hengist, who set the news sheet on his lap and said, “Looks like the Unkerlanters are finished, eh, Hestan? Algarve’s going to be top dog for a long time to come.”

“What was that?” Hestan asked; his mind had been on the questions. Sidroc’s father repeated himself. Hestan shrugged. “The only news the Algarvians let into Gromheort--into any of Forthweg--is what makes them look good. If anything goes wrong, we’ll never hear about it.”

“Nobody’s said the Unkerlanters are calling the redheads liars, and the Unkerlanters call people liars even when they’re telling the truth,” Hengist replied.

Hestan only shrugged again. He tapped Ealstan’s paper with a fingernail. “Son, you reckoned simple interest here. You should have compounded it. A client would not be happy to find that sort of error in his books.”

“Which one, Father?” Ealstan looked down to see what he’d done wrong. He thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I’ll fix it,” he said, “and I’ll remember next time, too.” He hated making mistakes, in which he was very much his fathers son. The only real difference between them was that his dark beard was still thin and wispy, while gray had started to streak Hestan’s. Otherwise, they could have come from the same mold: broad-shouldered, swarthy, hook-nosed, like most Forthwegians and their Unkerlanter cousins.

“Let me explain again when you use simple interest and when you must compound,” Hestan began.

Before he could explain, Hengist interrupted once more: “Looks like the Algarvians and the Zuwayzin are both heading toward Glogau. That’s the biggest port the Unkerlanters have up on the warm side of Derlavai. Cursed near the only port up there, too, except for a couple way out to the west. What do you think of that?” He waved the news sheet at Hestan.

“I think it would matter more if Unkerlant didn’t have such an enormous hinterland,” Ealstan’s father answered. “The Unkerlanters need things from the rest of the world less than other kingdoms do.”

“They need sense, is what they need, though you can’t haul that on ships.” Hengist pointed toward his brother. “And you need some sense yourself. You just hate the idea of Algarve winning, that’s all.”