Darkness Descending

Off to the east, the Unkerlanters started shouting, nerving themselves for an attack: “Urra! Urra! Urra!” Istvan’s shiver had nothing to do with the snow on which he lay. From the sound of those shouts, he hadn’t stumbled over a regiment: That had to be at least a brigade. He wished Kun had given him an imaginary brigade of his own. He would have enjoyed being a brigadier, even an imaginary one, for the few brief moments till the Unkerlanters overran him.

Amid the calls and the shouts, Kun spoke in his own voice: “What next, Sergeant? This can’t last--they’re bound to test it, all the men they have over there.”

He was right, curse him. Balogh must have got lost, or else Captain Tivadar would have brought up real reinforcements. But Istvan, having begun the game, did not want to give it up. He got to his feet, advanced on the Unkerlanter position, and shouted a couple of the Unkerlanter phrases he knew: “You surrender! Hands high!”

King Swemmel’s men didn’t blaze him down out of hand. The shouts of “Urra! Urra!” died away. Only the wind spoke, the wind and Kun’s conjured-up officers and sergeants. And then, dejectedly, an Unkerlanter shouted back: “We surrender!”

Istvan gaped. He’d known how colossal a bluff he was running and was astonished past words that the Unkerlanters had fallen for it. If he showed that, though, everything was ruined. “Hands high!” he yelled again, not caring if he rasped his throat raw so long as he made his voice pierce the gale.

He aimed his stick eastward. He could do no more than that; the snow was blowing too hard to let him find a sure target. Out of that swirling snow came Unkerlanters in long, thick wool tunics with leggings beneath and long, hooded cloaks over them. They carried no weapons; their hands were above their heads. Catching sight of Istvan, the first one in the line repeated, “We surrender.”

Gesturing with his stick, Istvan sent them back toward his comrades. As they glumly tramped past him, he counted them. Only twenty men were marching into captivity. Had more stayed behind or . .. ? Sudden suspicion flowered in him. “Kun!” he shouted. “You’ve got to have more of their language than I do.”

“Maybe, Sergeant, though I haven’t got much,” the mage’s apprentice answered, sounding more respectful than he usually did.

“Tell ‘em you’re a first-rank mage who’ll know if they lie, then ask ‘em if all those cursed ‘ Urrafs were magic to scare us off,” Istvan said.

“I’ll try.” Kun sounded doubtful, but he spoke to the Unkerlanters. Istvan listened to gutturals going back and forth and watched gestures till Kun returned to Gyongyosian: “That’s what they were doing, all right. They knew the jig was up when they heard our regiment forming for the attack.”

Istvan laughed till tears came. The tears promptly started freezing his eyelashes together. He swiped at his face with his mittens. Then he heard shouts from the west: Captain Tivadar at last, bringing reinforcements against the Unkerlanter host. . . the Unkerlanter host Istvan had just captured. He made his way over to Tivadar. Saluting, he said, “Sir, the enemy position is ours,” and laughed again at the flabbergasted expression on his company commander’s face.

No one came back from the west. That, to Vanai, was the central fact to life in Oyngestun these days. No one came back. No one sent money from the wages the Algarvians had promised to pay. No one sent so much as a scrawled note. That continuing, echoing silence made the worst rumors easier and easier to believe as day followed day.

One chilly afternoon, Vanai went to the apothecary’s to get a decoction of willow bark for her grandfather, who’d come down with the grippe. As Tamulis handed her the small jar of green glass, he remarked, not quite out of the blue, “If you hear the Algarvian constables are on their way here again, you’d be smart to take to the woods before they start yelling, ‘Kaunians, come forth!’ “

“Do you think so?” Vanai asked, and Tamulis nodded vigorously. Then she asked another question: “Is that what you intend to do?”

“Aye, I expect I will,” the apothecary answered. “I’m no woodsman--anyone who know me knows that. I don’t know whether I’d starve before I froze or the other way round. But whatever happens, it has to be better than getting into one of those caravan cars bound for Unkerlant.”

Vanai bit her lip. “You may be right. And thank you for telling me that. You’ve been as kind as... as anyone in Oyngestun.” It wasn’t enormous praise, but she could give it without feeling like a hypocrite.

“Life’s hard,” Tamulis said gruffly. “Life’s hard for everybody, and especially for everybody with yellow hair. Go on, get out of here. I hope your grandfather feels better, the old fool. If he gets well, maybe you won’t have to come in here so often and listen to me complain.”

“It’s not as if there’s nothing to complain about.” Vanai bobbed her head and then turned and went out the door.