After the Downfall

first, then because the German was trying to order him around.

“Take me to where the Bucovinans cross the river. Track them back to there for me,” Hasso said.

“If they did cross it,” the Lenello said. “If they didn’t just show up, like. I don’t suppose Grenye can do magic, but you never can tell, now can you?” He seemed a lot less convinced than King Bottero. What that meant… Well, who the hell knew what that meant? Hasso had more urgent things to worry about.

“Track them back,” he said. “Then we see. Till we try to find out, we can’t really know.” That was true in his world. Here …It had better be true here, he thought.

“You don’t need us for this,” another tracker said as they all set out. “A blind man could follow these hoofprints.”

“A blind man, nothing,” still another Lenello put in. “A dead man could.”

“Fine. Pretend I am blind. Pretend I am dead,” Hasso said. “But remember one thing, please. If you make a mistake, I haunt you.” That got some grins from the men Orosei had picked, and one or two nervous chuckles. Back in Germany, he would have been joking. Here, as the first Lenello tracker said, you never could tell.

Back through the bushes and saplings the train led, back to the Aryesh. The trackers were right; Hasso could have done this himself. He shrugged. He hadn’t known ahead of time. But now he had witnesses if his hunch turned out to be right. And if it turned out to be wrong, they would see him looking like a jerk.

He shrugged again. If you’re going to try things, sometimes you damn well will look like a jerk, that’s all.

The Aryesh was muddy and foamy. It looked almost like Viennese coffee. Hasso sighed. Along with tobacco, that was something he would never enjoy again. Nothing he could do about it. No, there was one thing: he could do without.

He unsheathed his belt knife and trimmed a sapling into a pole about a meter and a half long. “Nice blade,” one of the trackers said. “Where’d you get it?”

“I have it with me when I come from my world,” Hasso answered.

“How about that?” the Lenello said, and then, in a low voice to one of his pals,

“Never seen one like it before. Almost makes you believe that cock-and-bull story, doesn’t it?” Hasso didn’t think he was supposed to overhear that, but he did.

“What’s he going to do now?” the other tracker said, his voce also not quite sotto enough. “Dowse with that stick? We already know where the cursed river is.”

Hasso hadn’t even thought of dowsing. In Germany, that was an old wives’ tale. It probably wasn’t here. If any kind of magic was practical, finding water fit the bill. But, as the tracker said, he already knew where the water was here. He was after something else.

He thrust the pole into the Aryesh. He wasn’t enormously surprised when only the first twenty-five or thirty centimeters went in. After that, it hit an obstruction. His grin was two parts satisfaction and one part relief.

Orosei was only confused. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Instead of answering with words, Hasso probed with the pole again. Then he stepped out into – or onto – the river. Walking on the water, he felt like Jesus. The Aryesh didn’t come up to the tops of his boots. He strode forward, probing as he went.

“What the – ?” one of the trackers exclaimed.

“They don’t put their bridge where we can see it,” Hasso said, turning back toward the Lenelli. “They build it underwater, build it sneaky, so they can use it and we don’t know.”

“Well, fuck me,” the tracker said. If that wasn’t his version of coming to attention and saluting, Hasso didn’t know what would be.

“I don’t know, not till I see,” Hasso answered. “But I think maybe. In my world, the enemies of my land use this trick.” The Russians used every trick in the book, and then wrote a new book for all the tricks that weren’t in the old one. The Wehrmacht used this one, too. A bridge that was hard to spot was a bridge artillery wouldn’t knock out in a hurry.

Artillery couldn’t knock this one out – no artillery here. Hasso looked across the Aryesh. He didn’t see anybody, which was all to the good.

“What we need to do is, we need to pull up ten or fifteen cubits of this tonight,” he said. He almost said five or six meters, but that wouldn’t have meant anything to the blonds with him. They used fingers and palms and cubits, and weights that were even more cumbersome. What could you do? Since he couldn’t do anything, he went on, “Then the Bucovinans ride across, go splash.”

Orosei grinned at him. “If that doesn’t make those bastards turn up their toes, I don’t know what would!”

“That’s the idea, isn’t it?” Hasso said.

Even the trackers, who had been dubious about him, laughed and nudged one another. “He’s not so dumb after all, is he?” one of them said.

“Not so dumb,” another agreed, which struck Hasso as praising with faint damn. But he would take what he could get.

He made the trackers love him even more when he said, “You stay here and keep an eye on things. Orosei and I, we go back to the king and let him know what needs doing.”

“What if the savages come across the river at us now?” a tracker demanded.

“Not likely, not in the daytime. They want to keep this a secret, right?” Hasso said. Before the trackers could answer or complain, he added, “But if they do, then you bug out.” They couldn’t very well bitch about that, and they didn’t.

“An underwater bridge?” King Bottero said when Hasso brought him the news. “How the demon did they do that?”

When Hasso hesitated, Orosei took over. The German’s Lenello wasn’t up to technical discussions of pilings and planking. Bottero’s master-at-arms finished, “I never would have thought of it. I didn’t know what to think when I saw him walking on the water.” (Yes, that was funny, though only Hasso in all this world knew why.) “But he says they use this trick in war where he comes from, so he was ready for it.”

Nice to know Orosei doesn’t try to hog credit, Hasso thought, or not when the guy who deserves it is around to hear him, anyway.

“What do we do about it?” the king asked. Hasso told him what he had in mind. Bottero stroked his beard. A slow smile stole over his heavy-featured face. “I like that, fry me if I don’t. We’ll do it tonight, and we’ll watch the Grenye go sploot.” Hasso didn’t think sploot was a word in Lenello, but he had no trouble figuring out what it meant.

“Send a good-sized band of men, your Majesty,” Orosei suggested. “If the barbarians decide to bring more raiders across tonight, they might swamp a little party of artisans.”

Hasso hadn’t thought of that. Plainly, neither had King Bottero. He nodded. “You’re right. I’ll do it.” He turned and shouted orders to the officers who would take charge of that. Then he nodded again. “There. I’ve dealt with something, anyhow.” A frown spread across his face like rain clouds. “Or have I? Have the Bucovinans built more of these underwater bridges, ones we don’t know about yet?”

“A wizard could – ” Hasso broke off, feeling stupid. All the wizards were scattered along the army’s long supply line. Now that the main force needed one, it didn’t have any.

Then he noticed that Bottero was eyeing him. “Didn’t Aderno say you had some of the talent?” the king rumbled.

“He says it, but I don’t know if I believe it.” Hasso’s voice broke as if he were one of the fifteen-year-olds to whom the Volkssturm gave a rifle and a “Good luck!” as they sent them off to try to slow down the Red Army. “And even if it’s true, I don’t know how to use it.”

“About time you find out, then, isn’t it?” Bottero said. “If you can do it, you’ll give us a big hand.”

“But – But – ” Hasso spluttered.

“His Majesty’s right,” Orosei said. “Magic isn’t a common gift. If you’ve got it, you shouldn’t let it lie idle. The goddess wouldn’t like that.”

Did he mean Velona or the deity who sometimes inhabited her? Hasso didn’t know, and wondered whether the Lenello did. “But – But – ” he said again. He hated sounding like a broken record, but he didn’t know what else to say.