After the Downfall

Germans had talked like that in Poland in 1939, and in Russia in 1941. Poles and Russians by the millions had died, too. The Germans had expected nothing less; those deaths were reckoned a prerequisite for clearing the Lebensraum Germans needed in the fertile croplands of the east.

What the Germans hadn’t expected was how many of their own number would die. The Slavs were uncommonly stubborn about refusing to be cleared, and now Hasso’s folk fled before them instead of driving them away.

Could that happen here? He had trouble believing it. The Bucovinans were brave, and there were lots of them, but they were outclassed in ways the Ivans hadn’t been. Still, that head and the warning by it spoke of more implacable purpose than Hasso had looked to see from the natives.

They spoke of such things to him, anyhow. King Bottero took another message from them. “Burn the head,” he commanded in a voice like iron. “His soul will ascend to the heavens.” He looked around. Had he spotted any Bucovinans, he probably would have ordered them sacrificed to serve the Lenello teamster in the world to come. His face had that kind of intense, purposeful stare, anyhow. But, since he didn’t, he pointed to the bark with the writing. “Dig a hole and throw that in. Don’t cover it over yet, though, by the goddess.”

His men sprang to obey him. That was partly their own anger working, and partly their fear. Anyone who tried standing against Bottero in that moment would have been a dead man in the next. The dirt by the side of the road was soft and easy to dig up. One of the Lenelli picked up the piece of bark with his fingertips, as if it were unclean. After he dropped it into the hole, he scrubbed his hands on the dead grass and then spat after it.

Spitting wasn’t enough to satisfy Bottero. He dismounted from his great war-horse, walked over to the hole, undid his trousers, and took the most furious and majestic leak Hasso had ever imagined, let alone seen.

Even that didn’t suffice, not for the king. He gestured to the leaders around him. Hasso didn’t care one way or the other about pissing on an offensive sign. If Bottero wanted him to, he would. The king did, and so he did. Other officers’ efforts made a pretty fair puddle in the hole in the ground.

Hasso was taken aback when Bottero waved Velona up to the hole. He could see why Bottero wanted to show the goddess’ utter contempt for the Bucovinan warning, but…. Velona didn’t seem embarrassed; she just squatted and pissed. If it didn’t bother her, Hasso told himself it shouldn’t bother him, either.

After that, the Lenelli shoveled in some dirt, too. The army rode on. Velona looked … maybe unhappy, maybe just distant. “You don’t like what you just did?” Hasso asked, guiding his horse up alongside hers.

“Oh,” she said in some surprise, as if recalled to herself. “No. It isn’t that. The natives deserve what we gave them. But … I wish he hadn’t buried it, that’s all. The earth here fights for Bucovin.”

She’d said that before, about her last visit to the Grenye land. What did it mean here? Did even she know? Hasso thought about asking, and then thought again.

XI

Bucovinan raiders hit harder at Bottero’s scouts and supply wagons once the Lenelli got over the Oltet. They didn’t stop the king’s army, but they harassed it and slowed it down – the last thing it needed as fall moved on toward winter. Falticeni, the capital of Bucovin, lay … somewhere up ahead, anyhow.

As winter snow came down, a few German units fought their way into the suburbs of Moscow and, in the distance, got a glimpse of the Kremlin. Then the Ivans threw them back, and they never came so close again. Hasso wished he hadn’t thought of that, even if the weather here was milder.

The king’s temper frayed. He gathered his generals and wizards together so he could shout at them all at the same time. “Why aren’t you keeping the outriders safe, curse you?” Bottero bellowed.

“We’re doing everything we know how to do, your Majesty.” An officer named Nuoro had charge of the supply train. “But there aren’t enough of us, and there are too stinking many Bucovinans. Things go wrong sometimes, that’s all.”

“That’s all, he says!” King Bottero rolled his eyes. “If things go on like this, we’ll be eating our belts and our boots before too long.”

He exaggerated – by how much, Hasso wasn’t sure. Nuoro gave him a stiff, almost wooden, salute. “What would you have me do, your Majesty?”

“Push the supplies through. Don’t let the teamsters get massacred. How hard is that?” Bottero demanded.

“In a land full of raiders and bushwhackers, sire, it’s not so easy. How many more soldiers will you give me to keep the wagons safe?” Nuoro asked.

“Well, maybe a few,” the king said. “I can’t give you too many more. We need them to beat the savages back. That’s what we’re here for, you know.”