Darkness Descending

“Aye, you’d better keep moving, you buggers, or you’ll get what for,” Sergeant Pesaro said, also in Algarvian. Pesaro was a good deal plumper than Bembo. Evodio translated the sergeant’s warning into classical Kaunian for the blonds who couldn’t follow Algarvian.

The Kaunians and their guards tramped past a young Forthwegian man in a long tunic coming the other way. Like most Forthwegians, the fellow was blocky and dark, with a big tuber of a nose right in the middle of his face. He would have looked just like his Unkerlanter cousins farther west had he not let his beard grow out. He shouted something in his own language at the Kaunians. Bembo didn’t understand a word of it, but the way the Forthwegian drew a thumb across his throat could mean only one thing. So could his coarse laughter.

Oraste laughed, too. “The Forthwegians are happy as clams that we’re cleaning the Kaunians out of their kingdom for them,” he said, and spat on the cobblestones. “It’s good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Powers above know I don’t especially love Kaunians, but...” Bembo’s voice trailed away. He watched a pretty young mother--if he was going to watch Kaunians, he preferred to watch their women--keeping a boy of about six walking along. The child seemed happy enough. The mother’s face was set tight against a scream. Bembo ground his teeth. No, parts of this duty weren’t what he would have wanted.

Oraste had no doubts, for which Bembo envied him. Oraste seldom had doubts about anything. Like a hound, like a hawk, the veteran constable brought in whatever his superiors aimed him at. He said, “Weren’t for the cursed Kaunians here and in Valmiera and Jelgava, we wouldn’t have a war now. Far as I’m concerned, the whoresons deserve whatever happens to ‘em. Sneaks and sluts, the lot or em.

“Aye,” Bembo said abstractedly, but he was still watching that nice-looking blond and her little boy.

Another Forthwegian passerby jeered at the Kaunians on the way to the caravan station. Maybe nine out often people in the shattered Kingdom of Forthweg were actually of Forthwegian blood, the tenth being the blonds who’d dwelt in this part of the world since the long-vanished days of the Kaunian Empire. As Oraste had said, most of the Forthwegians had scant use for their trousered neighbors.

“Keep moving,” Sergeant Pesaro called again. “You’d better keep moving, if you know what’s good for you. This isn’t stinking Eoforwic, you know. Not a single bloody soul in these parts believes your lies.” Again, Evodio translated his words into classical Kaunian: the Empire’s language had changed very little here.

Like almost all Algarvians, like almost everyone in the west of Derlavai, Bembo had studied classical Kaunian in school. Like most people, he’d forgotten just about all of it as soon as he didn’t need it any more. Evodio was an exception. He didn’t look scholarly, he looked almost as much like a bruiser as Oraste did.

One of the Kaunians spoke in his own tongue. Evodio translated what he said for Pesaro: “He asks why you say they’re lies. Everyone knows they’re true. You must know it, too, he says.”

“I don’t care what he says,” Pesaro growled. “Anybody who riots on account of a pack of lies is fair game, and that, by the powers above, goes for Kaunians and Forthwegians both.”

Only rumors about the riots in Eoforwic had drifted east to Gromheort. Some Kaunians seemed to have escaped--or to have been released by Unkerlanter raiders; the rumors weren’t clear on that--from the labor camps the Algarvians had set up for them near the western front. They claimed their folk were being used not for labor but for their life energy, with the Algarvians slaying them so mages could use that energy to power great sorceries against King Swemmel’s soldiers.

Bembo was pretty sure those claims were true, but most of the time did his resolute best not to think about it. “Even Forthwegians went up in smoke when they heard what we were up to out in the west,” he said--very quietly--to Oraste.

“Always a few hotheads,” Oraste answered with a fine, indifferent Algarvian shrug. “We’re back in the saddle in Eoforwic, and that’s what counts.” No, he didn’t waste time on doubts. Instead, he pointed ahead. “Almost there.”

Gromheort’s ley-line caravan depot, a massive pile of gray stone not far from the count’s palace, had taken considerable damage when the Algarvians seized the city. Nobody’d bothered repairing it since; so long as the ley lines themselves were clear of rubble, everything else could wait till victory finally came. Pesaro said, “Step it up.” Evodio translated for the Kaunians’ benefit--though that wasn’t really the right word.